Chapter 15 Nes
Nes
“I aim to surprise,” Nes said.
Phineas grinned wider, his eyes sparkling with the type of greed that made her stomach queasy. “And delight,” he added with a wink.
Creep. She tried to smile politely at him, but she could feel the grimace for what it was. She couldn’t help it. Her former boss always made her nose wrinkle.
“You dyed your hair since we last spoke,” she said. She didn’t mention how he’d somehow managed to do the same to his eyes.
Phineas tossed his head, the long blond locks twirling with an unnatural flair. “It’s been a while since you last saw me.”
Nes stiffened. Since she last saw him. Not since he last saw her.
She’d walk out of this closet right now if she didn’t need the information he had. But she did. So she would act polite, even if she couldn’t look it. Even if all she wanted to do was pin him to the wall by his ears and demand he get her father out of prison.
She nodded to Phineas. “A week.”
“Indeed. Such a long time,” Phineas said, twisting a curl around his index finger. “I was due for a change.”
Phineas’s gaze shifted from her to Toran, greed glistening in his eyes. “It seems I’m not the only one making a change. A good step up too. The Crown.” He let out a low whistle. “Consider me impressed, hound.”
She bristled at the nickname. “It’s not a change,” she told him, ignoring how Toran tensed beside her. “Just a temporary agreement reliant on mutual satisfaction.”
Phineas barked out a laugh, flipping three gadots between his fingers.
“Is that what you tell all your lovers?” Nes didn’t need to count the coffers to know those three were part of the ten she’d used to make a losing bet in his name.
Phineas stopped flipping the coins, clamping down with his fist. But when he opened his palm, they’d vanished.
“Do tell, what has brought my little hound and Orlonea’s Crown to my house during business hours? ”
She didn’t miss the threat hovering over his last words. “During business hours,” also known as the only time of night when all his attack dogs were chomping at the bit. But she wasn’t afraid of his pets. Take away the magic Phineas gave them, and they were nothing more than desperate men.
From her pocket, Nes pulled a piece of paper. On it, she’d drawn the symbols from the Drowning Square and the Holy Triad. She placed the paper down on the desk in front of Phineas. “Have you ever seen these before?”
Phineas slid the paper toward her, barely glancing at the symbols on it. “That’s not why you’re here. Tell me what you’re really after.”
Nes pushed the paper back to him, the ends wrinkling from her force. “This is what we’re after. What are they? What do they mean?”
Phineas took the paper from the desk. He stared down at the symbols on the page just long enough to give her a smidgen of hope before he crumpled the page into a ball and tossed it to the floor behind him.
She wanted to claw his eyeballs out of his gleaming head. Feel the moisture pool under her fingernails. She threw a finger at the floor. “That is what we want,” she spat. “That is why we’re here. That is the only reason I—”
“We’re looking for someone,” Toran said. “A girl.”
Nes nearly hissed at him.
Phineas scratched his chin, the hair sprouting from it shifting under his immaculate fingernails. “A girl, huh?” He eyed both her and Toran. “Know a lot of girls. Know about a lot more.”
“She would have entered the city recently,” Toran said, his voice even and calm. “Within the last couple weeks.”
Because that was when the attacks began.
Phineas stared at Toran. “You need to rethink your definition of ‘recent.’ Do you have any idea how many people enter this city every day?”
“At least six hundred. Assume half are women—that’s 4,200 girls entering Gadore over fourteen days,” Nes rattled off. “Before they closed the gates, of course.”
Phineas smiled at her. “You remember,” he purred.
“That’s not all I remember,” she said, and that fake smile she’d held on her face morphed into something real.
Phineas tilted his head, studying her like he’d finally found something fascinating.
“The girl we’re looking for isn’t part of that 4,200.” She leaned down so she was nearly nose to nose with Phineas. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? Because you know exactly who we’re after.”
Phineas sat back in his chair, everything about his posture casual. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice falsely light. “So you aren’t the one who let the Witch into the city?”
Phineas’s eyes flashed, something dangerous and otherworldly lurking behind the movement. “Take care with your words,” he said slowly. “They can wound just as easily as your knives.”
She pulled her dagger from her boot and pressed the point to the tip of her finger. “How’s this for careful?” She twirled the handle, the blade catching the room’s lone light. “In about ten minutes, more than three dozen guards are going to come bursting through your door.”
Phineas chuckled. “It could be a hundred guards and they still wouldn’t catch me.”
“Maybe not. But they won’t be here to arrest you.”
Phineas stilled, his eyes narrowing.
“They’ll be here to arrest all the magic users you so graciously pointed out are here tonight. Because, like you said, it’s business hours. And you have a full house.”
“You’re bluffing,” Phineas hissed.
She hummed, nodding. “I could be. But you can’t tell, can you?” She pulled the blade off her finger and slid the point over the edge of his desk. “You taught me a great many things, Phineas, but how to lie wasn’t one of them.”
“No,” Phineas said. “I imagine that was something you learned long before you met me.”
“A name, Phineas. Or when I walk out that door, I’ll vanish for good.”
Phineas rapped his knuckles on the desk. “You’d never leave your father.”
Toran shifted beside her. Funny how both men in the room were dependent on what she wouldn’t do. Neither of them had any idea what she could do.
“A name,” she repeated.
Phineas turned to Toran, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Tell me, Captain Roada, do you know our world thrives on two currencies?”
Toran blinked at Phineas but didn’t respond. Clearly he wasn’t expecting to be addressed.
Phineas leaned back in his chair, his long fingers trilling against one another like a pianist without keys.
“There is the hard currency. Coins are the most obvious example. But food and magic would also fall under that category. Anything physical you could barter or trade. And then there’s the soft currency. ”
Phineas grinned while his fingers continued their silent symphony. She didn’t trust that grin. Or anything about her former boss. It wasn’t like Phineas to be so forthcoming.
“Information and what we stand to gain from it. Now, this is all fairly basic. But bring names into it, and that’s when you get something truly interesting.
Our natural inclination is to call names a soft currency.
In many ways, they can be. Every name has meaning.
But names are so much more than that. They are the bridge between our hard and soft currencies.
Because when you think about it, what is a name except the living being attached to it? ”
Nes tilted her head, her neck cracking. “It’s not the names that hold the power,” she said, “but the people behind them.”
“Ah, but some names, chosen names and their meaning, can hold power, too. Wouldn’t you agree…
” Phineas turned his gaze on her at last, a gleam of knowledge sweeping over his eyes.
For the briefest second, she feared he would speak her true name.
But then he looked away, a corner of his lips caught on a hook, and finished, “Nes?”
“We’ll remember that,” she snapped. “The name of the Witch, if you’d be so kind.”
Phineas’s fingers finished their crescendo and halted. He stared at her like he saw through the shadows the brim of her hat cast over her eyes. Saw through those shadows to the darkness within.
“Damari,” he said. “Her name is Damari.”
Their eyes met. Phineas’s green eyes watched her with a certainty that made her insides squirm. She stared right back, refusing to let him see her discomfort, holding her outsides firm.
Phineas wasn’t known for being cooperative, and she couldn’t be so naive as to believe he respected her simply because she’d finally garnered the strength to walk out on him.
Still, something in her insisted he was telling the truth.
And if he was, he wasn’t doing so because he saw her as an equal, but because he wanted something from her.
But that was a concern for another night. Tonight, she was the one making the demands.
“Thank you,” she said in clipped tones. “Oh, and one last thing.”
She reached into her left pocket and plucked a small item from its home among the lint. She slammed it down in front of Phineas. “You’re also going to tell me what the hell this is.”
Phineas eyes grew wide for only a second before his expression darkened. He didn’t move to pick up the odd coin. His tongue slipped out between pursed lips before he said, “I’m not the one you should be asking that question.”
And then his gaze slid off her, landing on Toran. It was only then that she noticed how stiff Toran was—his arms clenched to his sides, his breaths too even.
She snatched back the coin, then wound her arm through Toran’s. “Phineas, while this has been as frustrating as usual,” she said, “I think it’s time we leave.”
Phineas rose from his seat, that smile still wide on his lips. “I look forward to the next time we speak, hound. I do hope you’ll remember to bring me a gift then.”
Nes wrinkled her nose. “Better dye your hair again,” she said as she tugged Toran toward the door. “Blond doesn’t suit you.”