CHAPTER TEN
“You’re being too tense,” Alaric whispers to me, as we move through the city. “Relax, Lyra.”
It's hard to relax when I know there's a price on my head, but now at least I understand why Alaric takes so many precautions as he moves around. Today, he's dressed like a scholar, and his features have changed to those of an eager young man clutching a stack of scrolls.
I'm dressed as his assistant and scribe, my features hidden by a cowl, a slate held in front of me as I make notes, seemingly at Alaric's direction.
In fact, I'm counting the numbers and locations of gang members in the merchant district, using the eyes of the birds to count them from above.
I note which businesses they go into to extort money and which spots they stand in to control particular streets.
“That’s easy for you to say when your disguise relies on illusion,” I point out. “All it takes is one person to glimpse my face, and I’ll have to run.”
“No one would catch you,” Alaric assures me. He reaches out to touch my arm. “I’d make sure of it.”
The gesture is reassuring, and so is the determination in Alaric’s voice. I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep me safe. In a way, that’s more worrying, because any slip on my part could put him in danger.
“Would a young scholar touch the arm of his scribe like this?” I ask Alaric.
The gesture seems too familiar for the parts we’re playing.
I’m imagining an imperious young man, determined he’s uncovering the secrets of the world, while his long suffering scribe must write down every banal thought and musing.
“Perhaps our scholar is secretly in love with his scribe,” Alaric says, flashing a smile. “Perhaps the only reason he hired this one was to be close to her.”
Somehow, now, he always finds a way to insert that element of romance and longing into our cover stories.
Yesterday, we were a noblewoman and her paramour, the woman wearing a mask because she thought it would avoid the shame of being seen in public with him openly.
The day before, we were a pair of wandering players, composing increasingly outrageous love poems. Well, Alaric was composing them.
I was mostly watching the patterns of the guards.
“You’re very careful not to let me go out alone,” I point out to Alaric as I continue to watch the gang members’ movements.
“Perhaps I just want to spend time with you?” Alaric suggests.
“Or perhaps you’re worried my disguise will fall apart at any moment and we’ll have to fight for our lives,” I counter.
Alaric shakes his head. “Your disguise skills are coming along nicely. Thalia’s lessons are working well.”
Alaric can’t really teach me how to disguise myself, since he can do it so naturally with his magic. It means his lieutenant must show me how to pass unseen instead, using small changes to my appearance to avoid attention.
“Although you still need to relax more,” Alaric says. “Most people don’t go around thinking about every move they make in case it’s something people will spot. You’ll stand out too much.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I reply. “There’s plenty of tension around in the streets.”
People hurry from place to place, looking around as if worried that there might be violence at any moment. There are more demonstrations in the streets most nights, and attacks from the gangs are increasingly common.
“Making it more dangerous to be out here,” Alaric says. “Are you sure you can’t do all of this from a safehouse?”
I could find out plenty for the resistance sitting in one of the safehouses, using my powers to borrow the senses of animals throughout the city.
I could track the gang members I’m watching just as easily from some hidden spot as wandering around the city.
I could sit in a room somewhere and write reams of notes for them, spying without ever risking myself.
But then I would spend the rest of my life hiding.
“I don’t want to just spend my time hiding while the rest of you take risks,” I say.
“But it doesn’t make sense to put yourself in danger if you can do this safely,” Alaric says.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” I reply. “I could watch from the air, listen in to conversations from a distance, but I wouldn’t be able to feel what’s going on. I wouldn’t have any of the context, or any of the emotions.”
This new strand to my powers is almost as useful as being able to watch my foes through the eyes of beasts.
I can feel the tension and fear in parts of the city, feel who doesn’t fit in with the crowds moving through the merchant district, who has a layer of determination that doesn’t belong.
It means I can take my attention from the gang members for a moment or two, focusing instead on the woman slipping up to a house, a pouch of money clutched in her hands. She passes it to a servant.
“There,” I say, pointing. “She’s bringing some kind of bribe.”
“That’s the house of Fallo,” Alaric says. “He’s on a small merchants’ council that regulates one of the markets.”
It’s another hint of corruption, and one I wouldn’t have been able to uncover if I weren’t out here on the streets. I add it to the list I’m carefully scribing, before returning my attention to the gang members.
“They’re wearing flashes of purple and gold now,” I say.
“The colors of the old empire.” Alaric doesn’t sound happy.
“Selene’s colors now,” I point out, although my anger isn’t any less than Alaric’s.
Selene’s gaining more and more control through the city, but if the gangs feel they can declare their support for her so openly, it reflects a sense that she feels she’s unstoppable now.
She’s acting openly, where before, she might have worked through the shadows.
Instead, Alaric and I are the ones reduced to sneaking through the streets.
“Come on,” Alaric says. “We’ve seen enough for one morning. Let’s head back to the inn.”
We don’t take the streets for this, but instead slip into a side street and then down through a hidden entrance to the tunnels below.
Alaric leads the way through them, lighting the way with a hint of illusory glow as we make our way back to the rooms beneath the safehouse.
We carefully sidestep a couple of traps and magical early warnings, moving in silence.
We make our way into the inn, shedding our disguises and settling in among the resistance members there in the taproom. There aren’t many there at the moment, because most of them are out in the city. A couple of them are toasting one another with goblets of wine.
“Did you hear?” one of them says. “Our people managed to sink Rok’s ship before it even got close to Aetheria. All his men had to scramble to shore.”
He laughs and Alaric looks pleased.
“No one was hurt?” I ask.
The resistance member looks at Alaric for a second, as if seeking confirmation that he should answer.
“You can tell Lyra anything you would tell me,” Alaric says, loud enough that everyone in the room can hear it. It’s obvious he wants to make it clear that I’m as much at the heart of the resistance as he is.
“None of our people were harmed,” the resistance member says. “Rok’s people all made it to the boats to escape. We thought about holing those, but we guessed you wouldn’t want it, Alaric.”
“We’re not here to murder sailors,” Alaric says. “We’re fighting for the ordinary people of the city, not killing them. We can save that for those who deserve it.”
I have no doubt he won’t hold back with those he’s decided do deserve to die. Alaric was always more ruthless than me in the arena, quicker to kill his foes.
“Let’s just make sure we aren’t hurting people we don’t need to,” I say.
I want to believe that we can win this without resorting to outright slaughter.
Even so, I wonder how many people are going to die in the violence I feel sure is coming, how many people we might lose in the fight against Selene.
Thalia comes in, wearing one of her favored disguises as a healer who sets up a stall near the colosseum. She looks excited.
“You’ve found something, out in the city?” Alaric guesses.
Thalia nods and comes to sit with us, snatching a goblet of wine from one of the resistance members on the way. He doesn’t complain, the way he might have with almost anyone else.
“I think I deserve this,” Thalia says. “To get this information, I had to go all the way into a noble’s house and heal the weeping sores on her husband’s back.”
She makes a disgusted face and downs the wine quickly. Alaric pours her more.
“Was it worth it?” he asks.
Thalia nods. “I think so. We know Selene’s holding meetings with different groups of nobles? Well, I think I know where one of them is going to take place.”
“Where?” I ask. The last time we infiltrated one of Selene’s meetings, I was able to confront her directly, and came close to defeating her.
“A noble villa outside the city,” Thalia says. “The grand estate of the Salis family.”
“I know them,” Alaric says. “They made their money as slavers and panderers under the empire, then tried to pass themselves off as the oldest and most noble of all of us. It’s no surprise they’re siding with Selene.”
“But I assume we’re infiltrating this meeting?” I say. If there’s a chance Selene will be there, I want to go.
Alaric looks worried. “You could stay behind. We could just send spies. A couple of people disguised as servants would be able to learn plenty.”
“And is that really what you’re planning to do?” I ask.
Alaric hesitates, and then shakes his head. “This is going to be a raid to disrupt it. And if Selene’s there… we’ll kill her if we can.”
He sounds uncomfortable as he says the last part, looking at me as if he expects me to reprimand him for it.
But I can’t. Selene is the biggest threat this city has faced since the fall of the empire. She’s manipulating and controlling people, twisting the whole Republic into something worse, something that might cost thousands of lives. I can’t allow that.
“Your odds will be better with me there,” I say. “With my skills, I can slip in unnoticed, and if Selene is there, you’ll need my powers to stop her.”
Alaric doesn’t look comfortable, but he nods. He knows how powerful Selene is, just as I do. Stopping her will take all of us.
Thalia hesitates. “There’s one other thing you need to know, Lyra.”
“What?”
She hesitates briefly, and I can feel the tension in her. “When I was getting this information, the noble was talking about how he was looking forward to meeting his old friend the senator again.” She pauses once more, before pressing on. “Marcus Larius is going to be there.”