Part 38 (2/2)

Alarm filled him. ”You know you aren't to go out alone. Not in this part of the city. It isn't-”

”I don't care what it is. You can't keep me shut up in here. The sound of hammering comes right through the floor. You don't hear it-the shop is closed by the time you come home-but I hear it all day, every day, for hours and hours. They pound on the shoes, pound, pound.” She lifted her hands to her temples. ”It's driving me mad.”

He moved to her. ”I'm sorry, dearest. I know it's hard to be here alone. But my free day is soon; I'll take you out. We can go for a walk along the Promenade. Or I'll take you to Gauldren's Heights. We'll go to one of the shops Uphill and buy you a new dress.”

”I don't need another dress,” she said, pawing at the pale blue frock she wore, which he had bought her with a full three days' wages. She looked very pretty in it despite her anguish. ”What need have I of dresses in here where no one can see me?”

He winced as she flung these words at him. It had distressed him at the Golden Loom when she refused to speak to him, but he was not certain her new manner was an improvement. For a time, after they moved here, she had been so grateful to leave the boardinghouse that she had been a meek, even docile thing, showering him with kisses each time he returned home. However, that appreciation had not lasted, and over the last months her tongue had grown increasingly sharp.

”I need to go out,” she cried, then her anger became pleading. ”Please, dear brother, please take me out. I'm so lonely here, I cannot bear it!”

Sobbing, she flung herself into his arms, and he could not say this did not please him. He held her close, petted her, and murmured little things to soothe her: how one day soon she would put on her prettiest dress, and he would take her out to the grandest street for all the world to see, and they would sit in the window of the most fas.h.i.+onable shop and have cakes and tea.

”Why can I not go out tomorrow?” she sobbed against his gray coat. He tried not to worry that her tears might ruin it, for he had only recently bought it.

”You know it is not proper for a young lady of worth to go out alone,” he said, gently chiding.

Yet it was more than that, for how could she be trusted? Sas.h.i.+e was a sweet and impressionable creature. Despite all of Eldyn's admonitions, what would happen if she were to encounter him on the street? A few pretty words from him, and all Eldyn's warnings might be forgotten in an instant.

”Soon,” he promised her again. ”I will take you out soon.”

She nodded but said nothing, and pushed away from him. He noted that her face was not at all wet with tears, and his coat was unspoiled. She returned again to her seat by the window, listless now that her outburst had subsided, and gazed out into the night.

Eldyn went to the nook behind a curtain that served for his bedchamber and carefully hung his new coat on a chair. He poured water into a bowl, splashed some on his face, then regarded himself in the sc.r.a.p of mirror. He had gotten very pale for lack of sun, and these days his shoulders, like his fingers, were habitually curled. He made an effort to force them back, then stepped around the curtain.

”Is there anything to eat?” he asked softly.

Her eyes still on the window, Sas.h.i.+e made a vague gesture toward the table. There, beneath a cloth, he found a cold pork pie and a plate of stewed apples. A woman came in regularly to do the cooking and cleaning, for Sas.h.i.+e could not be compelled to do anything. While Eldyn sometimes fretted at the cost, he did not regret it at that moment, for he was fiercely hungry. He sat, poured himself a cup of thin red wine, then ate until there was not a speck of food left. Belatedly, he wondered if Sas.h.i.+e had supped.

”You have already eaten, haven't you, dearest?”

”I have no appet.i.te,” she replied. ”I am going to bed.”

She rose, crossed to him, and brushed her cool lips across his cheek; then she went to the door of the little antechamber that served for her private room.

”Would you mind, then?” Eldyn said, swallowing. ”That is, if you are retiring, would you be disappointed if I went out?”

His sister shrugged, then went into her room. The sound of the latch being drawn was loud amid the silence.

Eldyn winced, but if she was going to shut herself in her room, what use was there in staying here? He retrieved his coat, made certain his hair was arranged, then left the apartment, locking the door behind him.

E LDYN HAD NOT meant to come here.

He had thought to go to the old church of St. Adaris, to gaze at the statue of the martyr St. Andelthy, and then perhaps venture to the Sword and Leaf. If the sight of an angel did not lift his spirits, perhaps a cup of the devil's brew would. However, the route from Cowper's Lane to the corner of the Old City where St. Adaris stood took him across Durrow Street. The theaters were just opening for the night, and light and chiming music filled the air.

Eldyn meant to cross the street and continue on. Only then he pa.s.sed a young man in a powdered wig and a red coat standing on a corner. Tiny birds the color of jewels flitted about the other's head and alighted on his hands. Sometimes they vanished in a flash, then reappeared moments later, opening their throats to emit a sweet trilling music.

”Do you want to come in?” the young man said, his lips, as red as his coat, parting in a smile. One of the birds flew from his hand and into the open door of the theater. Eldyn realized he had been staring. ”It's only a quarter regal to enter.”

Eldyn shook his head. ”I don't have that much money with me.” He had brought ten pennies-just enough to buy a pot of punch. A quarter regal was half a day's wages! He started to move away.

”Are you certain you don't have enough?” the young man said. ”Why don't you check your pockets?”

Eldyn gaped, not understanding.

The other laughed. ”Would you like me to check them for you?”

Now Eldyn did understand, and he blushed. He reached into his coat pockets, thinking to turn them out so the young man would leave him alone.

His left hand came out with a silver coin.

Eldyn turned the coin over in his fingers. The two sides caught the s.h.i.+mmering light in alternation: first the sun, then the moon, then the sun again. He had forgotten about the coin; he must have put it in his pocket when he traded the old coat for this new and had not thought of it since. Now he recalled that night at the Sword and Leaf and how the pretty young woman had given it to him. Only she hadn't been a woman at all.

Eldyn looked up at the other, startled. The young illusionist smiled.

”You need no other token than that,” he said, taking the coin from Eldyn's hand. ”Why did you not show it to me sooner? You are an honored guest here at the Theater of the Doves! Come inside, come inside.”

And before Eldyn could think to resist, the young man led him through the doors of the theater, into the dimness beyond.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

I T WAS EARLY, and the gates were not yet open.

Ivy paced on the street, pausing every few moments to look through the iron bars to see if anyone was coming. The narrow yard was empty, the building beyond silent.

She had left Whitward Street in the dark, but the lumenal was to be brief, and the air had already gone gray by the time the hack cab dropped her off at the end of a shabby lane in Lowpark. Elsewhere in the city, the buildings crowded against one another, jostling and vying to occupy a sliver of the high ground above the river. However, here the various structures shrank away from the gray edifice at the end of the lane, leaving a void around its walls.

Again Ivy peered through the bars, but she saw no one. It had been five days since her return to the city, and waiting this long to see her father had been unbearable. However, she had been given no choice; these gates opened to visitors only once each quarter month. All the same, she would wait not a moment longer than she had to and so had come early, to be here as the gates were unlocked.

Not far beyond the city's edge, a rooster called out. A ray of sunlight sidled down the lane, and though it seemed to shun the colorless stones, it set ablaze a bronze plaque on the wall. In contrast to the rust-specked bars, the plaque was polished to a sheen. The words inscribed on it read: THE MADDERLYSTONEWORTH HOSTEL FOR THE DERANGED. Not that anyone in Invarel called the building by that name. If one ever had the misfortune to come to this place, it was said of them only, ”They're up at Madstone's now.”

A groan of metal startled Ivy. Dazzled by the sunlight off the plaque, she had not seen as a man approached the gate. Or perhaps she had not seen him because he wore a suit the same color (or, rather, similarly lacking in color) as the walls of the building. The man withdrew a large key from the lock, then pushed the gate partway open.

Ivy managed to draw a breath. ”I'm here to see my-”

”I can deduce who you're here to see.”

She shook her head, too puzzled to reply.

”Only the newest ones get visitors,” he said, fitting the large key back onto the ring at his belt. ”That's how I knew. Come this way, Miss...?”

”Mrs. Quent,” she said, and followed him through the gate.

Ivy did not discover the man's name, but as they entered the building she learned that he was the day warden at the hostel and that he had been in the position for twenty years. His face was neither cheerful nor sorrowful, weary nor curious; indeed, it bore little expression at all.

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