CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A ndreyen isn’t pleased with you, you know,” Ji-An said.
“Really?” Kel peered out at the harbor. “Did he tell you that?”
He had to admit that it was a good night for sailing to Tyndaris, despite his general pessimistic mood. The wind was still, and there was little chop to the harbor water. The moon flashed out only occasionally behind a thick scrim of clouds, allowing for a darkness that hid their movements as he, Merren, Jerrod, and Ji-An clustered at the edge of a narrow dock.
As Andreyen had promised, a small skiff waited for them there. (It seemed he maintained a fleet of shallow, quick-moving boats with which smuggled goods were ferried from ships moored far out at sea to the caves along the coastline where pirates like Laurent Aden lurked in wait.)
Ji-An shot Kel an irritable look before scrambling into the boat. Kel, Jerrod, and Merren followed suit.
The skiff was manned by two gruff oarsmen in worn oilcloth who looked as if they’d much rather be knocking back pints at one of the lighted taverns along the Key. But they were Andreyen’s men, polite enough as Kel and the others settled themselves in the boat and they pushed off from the shore.
They skimmed across the water, silent save for the rhythmic slap of the oars. The tide was at its lowest, and the drowned island of Tyndaris rose from the water near the harbor mouth, crowned by jagged temple ruins whose outlines stood out starkly against the cloudy sky.
Merren and Jerrod sat in the bow, their heads close together. Kel wondered what they were discussing, but not for long. Ji-An, frowning, plonked herself down on a seat facing him. “Didn’t you hear what I said on shore?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “The Ragpicker King—”
“Isn’t pleased with me, yes.” Kel sighed. “I heard you. I was actually hoping for a chance to talk to him tonight. I didn’t realize he wouldn’t be with us.”
Ji-An turned to look at the oarsmen, but neither seemed to be paying any attention to the conversation in the boat. Turning back to Kel, she said, “Well, what did you expect ? Turning up like that yesterday with the Kutani Princess, not warning either of us what she wanted, or even that you’d be with her—”
“I didn’t know. ” Kel stretched out his legs. He was wearing all black, like the rest of them, and had both his boot daggers, his wrist knives, and a blade strapped at his waist. “All she told me was that she had a meeting and required me to guide her around Castellane.”
“Hmph.” There was a faint green tinge to the moon tonight; it lent an eerie cast to Ji-An’s eyes. “And why does a Princess require contact with a criminal? She’s a tricky one, Anjelica Iruvai. I’m not sure how much you should trust her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kel said. He saw that Merren was blinking around in some wonder; they had reached deeper water, where the tallships were anchored. The great craft rose straight up from the water, dwarfing the tiny skiff. It was as if they were in a dark valley with mountains rising on either side.
Only, these mountains were inhabited. Lights glowed from the ships, and the sound of voices traveled across the waves. The oarsmen rowed close to the ships’ sides, doing their best to avoid being seen.
There was something about the vastness of it all that struck Kel with a peculiar loneliness. He had spent all his life in a city, a place where he was rarely more than a few steps from another human being. But the sea was immeasurable. Once you left the harbor, a vast empty plain of bitter water stretched all the way to Kutani, unfriendly as a scorching desert.
“Was Anjelica correct about the weapons cache? In the warehouse?” Kel asked.
“Yes,” Ji-An answered reluctantly. “She was. I suppose Andreyen will do as she asked and send word for Aden. He probably already has.”
“So she was right about Prosper Beck. He’s come back.”
Ji-An pressed her lips together tightly. “It seems so.”
She almost sounded weary, in a way that was very unlike her. Kel wanted to ask her more—what Andreyen thought of Prosper Beck’s return, what Beck might want—but at that moment, the skiff darted out from between the tallships and he saw Tyndaris, rising out of the water.
From the shore, the drowned island had always seemed to shine, a fragment of broken quartz jutting from the waves. Up close, Kel could see that the glow came from the Chapel of a Thousand Doors. The temple columns were the only part of Tyndaris that never sank below the water, and the white marble pillars gleamed like polished bone. Most of its spires had broken, but a few still reached toward the moon like fleshless fingers.
The rest of the island, the earth it sat atop, was a mass of wet dirt and crumbled ruins, now thickly overgrown with blackish-green seaweed. Barnacles clung to the island’s sides; what Kel had at a distance taken for trees were in fact branching towers of coral, from which hung damp clusters of sea-moss.
One of the oarsmen muttered; the other made the sign of Aigon’s Wheel, a circle over the center of his chest, meant to ward off bad luck. Kel could not blame them, even as they drew closer to the island. There was something forbidding about a place that spent most of its life sunk into an alien atmosphere, where sharks and crocodiles roamed around its ruins, and the sun did not reach.
The skiff came to a halt in a foot or so of brackish water. It seemed they could go no closer to the island without grounding the boat. The oarsmen indicated a set of stone stairs cut into the island’s side; that was, they explained, the only way up to the chapel.
“How long before the tide rises?” Kel asked, swinging himself out of the boat. He could feel the cold of the seawater even through the leather of his high boots.
“An hour, maybe,” said the elder oarsman, a man whose pale-gray hair stuck out like hay from beneath a flat cap. “It’ll take a while to cover the island, but you want to get away well before that. We’ll be waiting here for you as long as we can. But if we have to”—he shrugged—“we’ll leave you here.”
The four of them were all silent as they trudged through the shallow water to the foot of the mossy steps. Kel suspected they were all imagining the same thing: what it would be like to be trapped on Tyndaris as the tide rose until only the very tops of the temple pillars were visible above the water. Until you floated among the ruins, waiting for a green death—by drowning or crocodile—to claim you.
Ji-An reached the steps first. She hopped up, her bow in one hand; her quiver was slung over her back. Jerrod and Merren followed, and Kel came last. When he set his foot down upon the first step, tiny pinkish crabs scattered.
The stairs wound up through what had once likely been a forest and was now a stepped path lined by dead trees whipped to driftwood by years of sun and salt water. It was necessary to step carefully: Not only was the stone slippery, but cracks in the steps held small tide pools in which flashed starfish and hermit crabs.
The sea fell away below them as they ascended. Kel took comfort in the sight of the skiff, a bright lantern-lit dot out on the water. The sea seemed to sigh and breathe and wind about the island like a living thing. By the time they reached the peak of the island, their little boat had vanished below an overhang of rock.
The vegetation changed swiftly, between one step and another. Now there was seagrass and a few hardy bushes, starred here and there with flowers. The steps became a neat path that cut across the top of the island to the Chapel of a Thousand Doors.
“Funny,” Merren said as they approached. It was the first thing any of them had said since they’d set foot on the island. “It doesn’t actually have any doors.”
“Hard to have doors without walls,” Kel said.
“That’s a little unfair,” said Jerrod. “There’s one wall.”
Indeed, a rectangular marble floor, lined with marble pillars, was nearly all that was left of the place. The roof the pillars had once supported was long gone, and all but one wall had collapsed. The whole place had likely once been brightly painted. Here and there, faded flecks of color still clung. A well-preserved mosaic still decorated the single wall, showing Aigon in full glory, his blue-green hair and beard flowing. Before him knelt a man presenting him with a sword—the signal of surrender. The man was a Sorcerer-King; one could tell by the pattern of black tiles above his head. A stone glowed in the hilt of the sword, represented by a cluster of golden tesserae.
“ Look. ” Ji-An pointed, and Kel realized why he was able to see the mosaic so clearly. A small storm-lantern hung from a hook in the wall over the ruins of the altar. A flame burned steadily inside it, which meant...
“Someone’s already here,” Kel said in a low voice. He ducked behind a copse of leafless pine, and the others followed.
They had only been waiting for perhaps ten minutes when the sound of footsteps became audible, boots on stone, and then a low clamor of voices. A moment later, Lady Alleyne appeared, tramping through the scrub toward the temple where the lantern hung, a beacon indicating a meeting place.
Liorada was not alone. To Kel’s shock, at her side was a large man dressed in black, a gleaming pendant, like a gaudy lamp, glowing around his neck. Kel heard Jerrod’s breath hiss out in surprise.
“ Gremont, ” he whispered.
“This is absolutely ridiculous, ” Lady Alleyne was fuming. She was swathed in a deep-red velvet cloak, its hem black with dirt and seawater. Her pale hair was dressed high with ruby pins, and the look in her eyes could have melted glass. “Forcing us into a meeting here, in this ridiculous place...” She glared down at her shoes, black with mud.
“She must have her reasons,” said Gremont, in his gruff voice.
The sound of Gremont’s voice made Kel’s stomach twist into knots. He heard Merren, beside him, exhale, the breath hissing between his teeth. Kel couldn’t blame him; his own hands itched with his desire to strangle Gremont.
“ Reasons, ” Lady Alleyne echoed derisively. “She wants to shame me, that’s all this is.”
The two nobles had reached the temple, and Gremont stepped forward to help her up the cracked steps. Though spiny branches were sticking uncomfortably into Kel’s back, he had to admit they had a good view of the temple floor, spread before them like a lighted stage.
Lady Alleyne looked around the ruins of the chapel, her head held high, her lip curled.
“Where are you?” she demanded, her voice pitched to carry. “You commanded me to meet you here. Here I am. Show yourself!”
A shadow swept down from the broken top of the chapel’s single wall. Kel thought of a cat leaping, quiet and graceful. And familiar. Even before the shadow landed in the center of the marble floor, silent as if the soles of its shoes were padded, Kel knew exactly who this was.
The Dark Assassin. Who straightened swiftly, like a puppet snapped upright. The black fabric that covered them head-to-toe shone faintly under the moon’s light—a slippery-dark sheen, like the gleam of black powder. Faceless, motionless, the assassin faced Liorada Alleyne, who—for all her posturing to Gremont—took an involuntary, frightened step back.
“Well, fuck,” muttered Jerrod. Kel couldn’t tell if he was alarmed or impressed. Or perhaps a bit envious.
“That’s the assassin,” Kel muttered. “The one who killed Raimon. And the Sarthian Princess.”
Gremont hadn’t changed expression. He watched with his thick arms crossed over his chest as Lady Alleyne drew her dignity back around herself like her velvet cloak. “Good,” she said. “You’re here. What do you want?”
The assassin’s voice was the same gravelly hiss Kel remembered. “I may have called this meeting, Alleyne, but it was you who forced my hand. The message you sent me—”
“I stand by it.” Lady Alleyne’s voice rose an octave. “This has gone too far. We agreed on a prank, a joke on the Sarthians, not the disaster that was the Shining Gallery. You used that against us, and now you wish us to do even worse.”
Us. Kel’s whole body tightened. Who was us ?
“This alliance may have begun in a less-than-ideal manner, Liorada,” Gremont said, doing his best to sound soothing. “And I am sure Her Highness here regrets that.” He shot a glance at the figure in black— Her Highness. Female, then, and royalty. “But think of all you are being offered.”
“Offered?” Lady Alleyne’s lips twitched. “You have never offered anything to those of us who helped you enact the nightmare in the Shining Gallery—however much we would not have done so if we knew the extent of your plans. We are Charter holders, and you treat us as common criminals.” She sniffed. “My own House—though my daughter knows nothing of this—the Gremonts, the Cabrols, the others, all of us have helped you. All we have received in return is your threats to blackmail us by revealing our connections to what you have done.”
The Cabrols. The Gremonts. The Alleynes. Kel’s head whirled. And there were others, but who?
The dark figure raised her hands to her temples, as if Lady Alleyne were giving her a headache. With a swift movement, she drew away the dark fabric that covered her from her scalp to her neck. Ink-black hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and a pale, intent face was revealed.
It was not a beautiful face, but it was an arresting one. High-arched cheekbones, winged eyebrows, a thin but well-shaped mouth. Hooded eyes, dark as crow feathers. It was a face Kel knew from portraits, though none of them had captured the intensity burning in her dark eyes.
Elsabet Belmany, Crown Princess of Malgasi. The long-ago words of the Malgasi Ambassador echoed in Kel’s head. Perhaps, Prince Conor, instead of our Milek Elsabet journeying to Castellane, you could come to us? Elsabet could be your guide to the city.
He could not imagine the woman standing before him as some kind of placid tour guide. She seemed as if she would be far more at ease burning down towers and bridges than pointing them out as interesting bits of architecture in Favár.
Elsabet chuckled—a low, rich sound. “There is no blackmail in politics, Liorada. Only bargaining. And Artal is right to point out what is being offered to you. Too long have the Aurelians controlled the Charter Families with an eye to their own benefit. We propose a far more equitable division of power.”
“Once you have taken the Aurelians out of the game,” Liorada said. “That is your proposition?”
“One of your fellow Shining Gallery conspirators there on the Hill is very close to the Prince himself,” said Elsabet, her voice just touched by the guttural Malgasi accent. Kel felt himself tense. He knew the others were looking over at him; he could sense Merren’s worried gaze. He stayed motionless. “He knows much about the Aurelians. I assure you, theirs is a line that is rotting. They have ceased to be good stewards of this city. The King is mad, the son a wastrel. The Queen is foreign; she should return to her own lands.”
“But you intend for the boy to rule,” said Artal.
“The people of Castellane will be more willing to accept the new state of things with a familiar face on the throne,” said Elsabet. She had raised a hand to her neck, an unconscious gesture; it drew Kel’s eye to something that rested in the hollow of her throat. Something that seemed to shine—a necklace, a pendant? “We will soon enough be rid of the mad old man, and the handsome Prince will hold the Lion Scepter. But the real power will be wielded by you, the families. Look what we did for the Cabrols, Liorada. They were ground down, humiliated, and we raised them up in fire. We can do the same for you.”
“Those of us loyal to you,” said Liorada. “That is what you mean.”
Elsabet shrugged gracefully. “For too long, Malgasi and Castellane have been at daggers drawn,” she purred. “House Belmany has a chance now to make sure we and the government of Castellane are... aligned.”
Kel felt the words like cold fingers walking up his spine.
“And there is much we can do to help return tarnished Castellane to her former glory,” Elsabet added. “First, the city will be cleansed of the filthy Ashkar. You will see—”
“I think you discount the latest political wrinkle,” said Lady Alleyne. “The Prince allies himself with Anjelica Iruvai. Few would dare strike at Kutani.”
“I do not fear them.” Elsabet threw back her head proudly, and the stone at her neck flashed. It was not a pendant; Kel could see no chain. “When Malgasi controls the Aurelians, no mere army shall stand against us.”
“They have ten thousand warships—” Lady Alleyne began.
Elsabet flung out her arm. For a moment, Kel thought it a gesture of exasperation, but it was not that. She stood stock-still, her eyes half closed, her gloved fingers extended. Black-gloved hands, covered like the hands of the King are covered.
And at her throat, the stone began to glow. Like a fragment of a star, burning brighter as it fell, its light intensified until Kel could see that it was indeed not a pendant or a necklace. The stone had been inserted under Elsabet’s skin and glowed through it, like flame through a lampshade.
“There are other kinds of power, Alleyne, than those that can be bought with gold. Other weapons than blades and powder.”
Elsabet uncurled her fingers. A narrow column of fire blazed through the air, striking the temple floor at Lady Alleyne’s feet. The marble cracked and splintered.
Lady Alleyne cried out, stumbling back. Artal caught her by the arm as Elsabet brought her hand down in a quick, swooping gesture. Fire burst again from her palm, arrowing up into the sky, a plume of brilliance. The flames spread and scattered, and for a moment, Kel thought he saw them make the shape of a bird with outspread wings.
“Elsabet!” shouted Gremont. “Enough—”
His shout was choked off in a grunt. Kel whipped around to stare. It was easy to see Gremont in the sharp light of Elsabet’s fire; he was struggling, his hands flailing at his throat. There was a dark shadow behind him, a flash of something silver against Gremont’s neck.
Lady Alleyne screamed.
Gremont fell to his knees, his hands wrapped around his own throat. Blood pulsed between his fingers, and he sank to the ground with a choking gurgle. Behind him stood a figure in a black cloak, the edge of a silver mask glinting from beneath his hood, a scarlet-stained blade in his hand.
“ Jerrod, ” whispered Merren. He looked horror-struck.
Jerrod spun and vanished into the shadows as Gremont’s body sprawled bonelessly at Lady Alleyne’s feet. With a small shriek of horror, Liorada aimed a kick at Gremont’s prone body, causing him to roll onto his back. He’s supposed to be invulnerable, Kel thought, but Gremont was utterly limp, blood spreading around him in a dark pool.
Lady Alleyne screamed again. This time she picked up her skirts and ran, putting on a burst of speed as she passed within inches of Kel’s hiding place.
Elsabet cried out. Liorada was gone, crashing away through the brush, but Elsabet’s eyes were fixed on Kel, Ji-An, and Merren: the brilliance of the fire she had conjured had illuminated their hiding place, and now that Elsabet was staring directly at it, it was clear she could see them plainly.
“ Podrot! Siszokti! ” she shouted.
“ Go! ” cried Ji-An, shoving Merren—who had frozen in shock—ahead of her. “Run!”
They ran. As they cut past the temple, more dark figures spilled from the shadows. Elsabet’s guards. Kel was in the rear, his throwing dagger in his hand. As he twisted around to hurl it, something caught at his ankle and he nearly fell.
It was Gremont’s hand. Kel sank to one knee, staring. Gremont’s face was twisted and bloody; he was bone white, and more blood pumped from a wound in his throat as he choked on his last breaths.
“Kel Saren,” he gasped. Kel was surprised; it seemed like Gremont’s windpipe must not have been cut if he could still speak. He felt sick at the idea that Gremont knew who he really was. But of course he did—he had learned it from the Malgasi. “Help me—” A bubble of blood formed on his lips. “I’ll give you anything—money—more than the Prince could ever give you—”
Kel bent down, and for a moment he thought that he saw a spark of relief in Gremont’s eyes. He closed his hand around the amulet—which had done Gremont no good at all—and wrenched; it came free, and he held the bloodied jewel in his hand.
“Help me,” Gremont gasped again; his voice was weaker now, his eyes beginning to dart and film over. “Please...”
“You deserve worse than this,” Kel said, almost shocked at the cold remove in his own voice. “You thought you could treat Antonetta as you treat everyone else. You thought she had no one to protect her.” He stood up. “You were wrong.”
Gremont made a last, choked noise—perhaps a sound of protest, Kel would never know—and went rigid, his blank eyes turned up to the night.
Kel ran. He raced over the uneven ground at top speed, desperate to catch up to the others. He plunged down the ancient stairs as bright pinpoints of light exploded in the darkness all around him. Something whistled through the air, past Kel’s left ear; it hurtled into the trunk of a dwarf pine tree, where it blazed like a miniature star.
“ What’s going on? ” Merren yelled as Kel caught up to him; Jerrod and Ji-An were there as well, just ahead. Kel shoved the amulet into his pocket, almost tripping as his boot landed in a tide pool with a splash.
“ People are shooting flaming arrows at us! ” Kel shouted back. His boots were skidding on the wet stone. He twisted to the side, trying to right his center of gravity. Ji-An had an arrow in her hand and was struggling to notch it to her bow as she ran.
“I know that!” Merren yelled. “It was a rhetorical question!”
“Shut up, the both of you!” called Ji-An, and let an arrow fly. Kel heard a thump and a cry of pain and felt a vicious satisfaction that surprised him. He wished he’d learned archery himself; sword-fighting was all very well, but not much use at a distance.
Stumbling, racing, with Ji-An firing off arrows, they made it to the bottom of the stairs, where the tide was licking hungrily at the lower steps. Jerrod was there, his boots half in the water. He had tossed away his knife, but there was still blood smeared on his hands, the sleeve of his jacket. He looked desperately at Merren, who turned away.
“Jerrod, what the hell were you thinking?” Kel demanded. “Who told you to murder Gremont? And where in the name of the Gods is the boat ?”
“I’ve no idea,” Jerrod scrubbed at his face with his hand; it left a red smear. “They’re bloody gone—”
Kel pushed past him and leaped down into the knee-high water, looking around wildly. There was no sign of the skiff or the oarsmen. Above them, the Malgasi guards were getting closer; Kel could hear them, crashing down the steps like falling rocks. He could hear the quick swish-flick of their arrows. Several had pierced the twisted columns of driftwood along the path and were burning, beginning to sputter as the flame met damp wood.
“Over here!” called a familiar voice. Kel spun and saw a brightly painted pleasure craft—a narrow boat with high, flaring sides and a sharp stern—glide into view. Sails billowed in the low wind. At the bow of the boat, waving her arms wildly so that the pale-pink shawl around her shoulders fluttered like the wings of a distressed butterfly, was Antonetta Alleyne.
“Quick!” she shouted. “Kel! Kel Anjuman! Over here!”
Merren gaped. “What on earth?”
Jerrod and Ji-An were also staring at Kel, arrested mid-motion.
“She’s on our side,” Kel said, trying to sound confident and not at all as if he had no idea what on earth Antonetta was doing here, or why she seemed to have sailed one of her mother’s pleasure craft to Tyndaris with the express purpose of rescuing him and his friends. “I swear to you—”
A flaming arrow shot past him, burrowing into the shallow water, where it sparked and extinguished.
“Right,” said Jerrod. “Let’s go.”
“Hurry!” Antonetta waved even more frantically. Kel started to wade out into the water. It was already knee-high, slowing his movements, but he did his best to cut a zigzag pattern as he went, avoiding the fiery arrows that continued to fly from the island behind them. They hissed as they struck the surface of the sea, like matches doused in water.
That was when he heard it. The whine of an arrow, flying past his ear. Not close enough to hit him, but too close to Merren. There was no time for him to shout a warning; he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye, and Merren spun around and fell.
Ji-An screamed.
Kel started toward Merren, who was splashing in the shallow water. A dark stain was spreading across the rippled surface, and Kel had an odd flash of a long-ago memory: Conor pouring absynthe into wine, watching the green-black liquor spread slowly through the clarity of the liquid.
“Merren,” he breathed, and started toward him, but Jerrod was faster. He barreled past Kel, seized Merren without slowing, and hauled him to his feet. The arrow had not gone into Merren, but it had torn a gash in his arm. What looked like a frightening quantity of blood soaked his sleeve, and drenched Jerrod’s hands.
Arms wrapped around Merren, Jerrod dragged him to the ship, heaving him up over the side. Antonetta shrieked as Merren, still bleeding, tumbled into the boat and Jerrod flung himself after. Kel was a second behind, grasping hold of the hull’s edge and clambering in. Ji-An followed him, landing lightly in the prow. She spun around, bow in hand.
“ Go, go, go! ” she shouted; the men hastened to adjust the lines. The boat shot across the water, Ji-An firing arrows back at the island even as they pulled away.
Whether she hit anyone or not, Kel could not tell. Half blind with fury and panic, he whirled and caught hold of Antonetta by the shoulders.
She had been looking around her, eyes wide—staring from Jerrod, who was kneeling over a bleeding Merren, to Ji-An. Now she gasped in surprise as Kel, his heart hammering, caught at her shoulders. He knew he was holding her hard, probably frighteningly so, but his heart could not stop hammering in terror. “How did you know ?” His voice jerked as he spoke, as if he couldn’t catch his breath. “And why —do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did was? Ana, you could have been killed—”
“Kel.” It was Jerrod. He had taken off his jacket and was pressing it against Merren’s bleeding arm. His fixed Kel with an icy look. “She saved our lives. Stop it.”
They had reached the tallships again. They cast their great shadows down over the Alleynes’ small boat as it sailed between them. Antonetta had not tried to pull away from Kel. She stood where she was, her face pale and set with what Kel assumed was shock.
“My mother,” she said, her voice eerily calm. “I was following my mother. I knew she had something planned tonight. I was afraid it was some mad thing. She gets—well, you know how she gets.” She looked up at Kel, her blue eyes wide. “I followed her to Tyndaris, and I saw she was with Artal. I didn’t know what to do then. If they had an assignation, then I didn’t want to know it. I thought I ought to just leave, and then I saw you, running. And they were after you with arrows, and there was that bright light— fire —” She sucked in a breath. “I—they would have murdered you. I had to try to help.”
“But you could have been killed,” Kel said. He wanted to shake her again. He wanted to pull her close and hold her hard against him so that he could feel that her heart was still beating.
“ We could have been killed if she hadn’t done it,” said Ji-An, standing rigid in the prow. She’d stopped firing off arrows, but she maintained her archer’s stance, poised and ready, her eyes scanning the horizon.
“My mother—” Antonetta began.
“I saw her flee,” Kel said. “But Gremont’s dead.”
Antonetta sucked in a gasp. “What? But how—”
“I killed him.” It was Jerrod, his metal mask gleaming harshly in the light from the tallships. “I drove a dagger into his neck, all right? Now, Kel, get over here and help me with Merren. I need something to bind up this wound. And he hit his head on a rock when he fell. He’s going to need a physician.” He sounded as rattled as Kel had ever heard him.
“Here.” Antonetta, all worried eyes, thrust her silk shawl at Kel. He scrambled over a velvet-padded bench to reach the spot where Merren rested, propped against the hull. Jerrod knelt beside him, on his knees in half an inch of brackish water; he was speaking to Merren in a low voice, though Kel could catch only Merren’s name.
Merren seemed disoriented, his eyes half lidded, his fair hair plastered damply to his forehead. There was a bad cut on the left side of his forehead, already beginning to darken and swell. The sleeve of his shirt was soaked with red, and more red mixed with the water in the bottom of the boat.
Jerrod hunched protectively over Merren, with the general air of a bear hovering over its cub.
“Kel,” Merren murmured as Kel knelt down beside him.
“Hush,” Kel said, handing Antonetta’s shawl to Jerrod. “You must rest.”
Jerrod began to tear the fragile silk shawl into strips, clearly intending to bind the furrowed wound in Merren’s arm. He didn’t look up at Kel.
“What the gray hell, Jerrod?” Kel hissed under his breath. “You killed Gremont— How? He had the amulet on.” He pulled the heavy jeweled pendant out of his pocket and held it up. “I took it off him as he died. It was supposed to protect him.”
Jerrod stared at the winking pendant, then shook his head. “The thing you’re holding is a fake,” he said. The efficiency with which he tied Merren’s arm tightly with the torn strips of shawl made Kel wonder how many times he’d done this sort of thing before. No doubt it was easy to get hurt being a Crawler.
“How the hell do you know that?” Kel snapped.
“I was told.”
“By who? The Ragpicker King? But how would he know—”
“Alys Asper,” Jerrod said shortly. “The false amulet was switched for the real one while Gremont was snoring at the Caravel.”
Merren stirred at the sound of his sister’s name. Jerrod bared his teeth at Kel, who decided retreat might be the better part of valor. At least before Jerrod bit him in the leg.
He rose to his feet, shoving the false amulet back into his pocket, and saw that they were drawing close to the lighted shore. The Alleynes had their own dock next to the Key. They drew up to it, and Ji-An leaped out to help Kel and Antonetta secure the boat.
Alys Asper. The amulet was switched at the Caravel. Kel’s head spun as he watched Jerrod maneuver Merren carefully out of the craft, Merren’s good arm slung around his shoulder. He hadn’t realized Jerrod even knew Alys beyond his light acquaintance with her as the owner of the Caravel. And, of course, as Merren’s sister. Had he gone to Alys about Gremont? Or even stranger, had she come to him?
“Take my carriage,” Antonetta said, indicating a pink-and-white barouche drawn up before a tavern whose swinging sign proclaimed it THE UNLUCKY ROSE . A driver wearing Alleyne livery was half asleep in the driver’s seat, his cap tipped forward to hide his face. “I’ll be in awful trouble with my mother regardless, and you must get your friend to Lin as soon as possible.”
“Are you sure?” Jerrod was looking at Antonetta in much the way he regarded all nobility—half sour, half contemptuous. “We’ll likely get blood on your nice white seats.”
Antonetta blinked. “I don’t care about that, ” she said. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
“Jerrod, be quiet,” Ji-An said hastily. “Demoselle Alleyne, thank you for the loan of your carriage. We will have it sent back to the Key as soon as we’ve finished with it.”
Jerrod nodded curtly. “Kel, help me with Merren.”
“I’ll do it,” said Ji-An before Kel could move, and a moment later she had Merren’s other arm slung around her shoulder. She glanced back once at Kel and Antonetta before she and Jerrod set off for the carriage. There was something knowing in her expression.
Kel turned to Antonetta. The taverns along the Key were brightly lit, but the Alleyne boat cast a slanted shadow over them. Still, they were anything but private.
“Ana,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I should have thanked you. You saved our lives.”
She took the front of his jacket in her small hands. The wind off the water bit at them coldly; Antonetta was shivering. Kel wanted more than anything to wrap her up in his cloak. “What happened, Kel?” she whispered. “Who were those people? Why were they chasing you? And the people you’re with—”
“Antonetta.” His throat ached, hard, as it had not in years—not since that first time she had turned away from him, at her debut ball, and he had forced himself to show nothing, to give no sign that it hurt. Antonetta, I can’t tell you. I want to, but I cannot.
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “If you demand an answer, I will lie to you. And I am a very good liar.”
“I know,” she whispered. She tightened her grip on his jacket; raised herself up on tiptoes. The wind whipped her hair around both of them in a soft cloud. Her lips brushed his—not a kiss, not quite. It was too light, too brief, but the heat of her mouth against his seemed to press into him, a weight on his heart.
She let go of his jacket, stepped away. Without her warmth against him, the wind was like a thousand tiny blades on his skin. “You had better go and join your friends,” she said, turning away from him. “They’ll be wondering what’s keeping you.”