Epilogue
EPILOGUE
LUCA
“It’s never your enemies who betray you.” ~ La’Angi saying
T wo of the most powerful mages this side of the Aza Ranges walk into the back room of a middling inn. It was like the start of a joke.
But this poor son of a small fief wasn’t about to be the punchline.
I ran the ripples of the short, delicate chain over the side of my finger and sent my friendly smile at the mages. My gut was liquid. I hadn’t slept last night. In my palm, the weighted coins settled. They were warm from my pocket, their edges smooth and familiar.
There were five chairs in addition to mine, a platter of baked goods, and a jug with five cups.
“Hello there,” the shorter, rounder mage, Amais, said. His smile had shiny teeth and highlighted the flatness of his eyes. “How was your winter, boy?”
I reached out to take a cup, tilting it toward them in offer. My hands were shaking, but they weren’t paying me any mind. They shook their heads, Amais waving it away with his bejeweled fingers, Julius snorting and sending me a look laced with suspicion.
Get it together. You’ve got a job to do.
Arranging my face into what I hoped was the right balance of unbothered and politely interested, I poured a cup for myself and pretended I didn’t realize Amais had addressed me.
They caught onto the ploy quickly and, as a countermeasure, simply continued their own conversation about spirits flavored by berries in the west.
Three chairs left. I listened beyond the conversation in front of me for the muted noise of a conversation, made indistinct by the layers of walls, and focused on the task ahead of me. In my palm, the coins’ weight shifted comfortably. I ran one between my thumb and forefinger, waiting.
On cue, the door opened again. Unlike the two gray-haired men, this newcomer looked like he’d been shaving only a short time. His hair was perfectly styled, his belt intricately embossed. The embroidery around the throat of his silk shirt screamed old money.
Fennix wasn’t from old money, or even new money. Fennix was from blood money. He did a good job acting the part, though.
They greeted him as if they didn’t have spies in his home, and he greeted them in turn.
Before they could drag out the small talk anymore, I took the floor. “Now that we’re all here,” I began.
“We aren’t,” Julius told me. “In case you can’t count.”
“Amberrick and Desmond won’t be making it,” I told them, and the words came out like a simple statement. Exactly as if they’d merely been held up. And exactly as I’d practiced. Just do the job.
As planned, that made them fall silent, but I wasn’t counting on that lasting. But I paused for a moment anyway, because though they didn’t speak, there were quite a few pointed looks exchanged. I wondered if I could interrupt that sort of communication, and what impact it may have.
Unsure, I went with the spiel I’d practiced. “Thanking you all for coming today,” I told them, returning the coins to my pocket and folding my hands on the table. “I have a variety of news to share with you.”
Amais snorted, and Julius’ bushy brows rose. But they didn’t interrupt.
“First, due to the plague, the flow of information between Council members has slowed. This means some of the plans we’d had in motion have had their timelines shifted.”
“What does this mean for us?” Fennix asked, his voice as neutral as mine.
“That’s a complex question.” I smiled at them. “And it depends on how you feel about some things we must discuss.”
“Discuss, then, boy,” Amais said. “Your masters know our rates.”
My smile turned regretful. I gave them my best I’m sorry look. “About that.”
Fennix let out a bitter half-laugh, his mouth twisting to the side. His knee propped up on the table. His right hand dipped down below. I didn’t try to watch the movements.
Fennix hadn’t completed his mage training. He was unregistered, unrestrained, and utterly unrepentant. I’d wondered, for a fleeting time, if we could’ve been friends. I’d thought he was similar to me.
“One of the things we were to do today was settle outstanding debts.” I thought of everything I owed these men.
Thousands and thousands of deaths.
“The Duke is, as you may have noticed, still alive,” I pointed out.
“Someone ended the plague,” Julius shot back. “Probably him and his mages.”
Possibly. The coins weighed heavily in my pocket. Exactly who and how…well, we’d see, wouldn’t we? “The deal was, the Duke would die.”
“I told you he wouldn’t pay,” Fennix said to Julius. “You can tell your Council,” he sneered the word, which I didn’t take offense to. I had engaged them without the support of everyone, initially. “We work for coin. We did the work. The integrity of your ploys isn’t our responsibility.”
“I appreciate that this puts you in a difficult position,” I acknowledged. “You have received coin.”
“Where’s Desmond?” Julius demanded gruffly.
I considered the best way to approach the directness of that question. “I can take you to him, if you’d like?” I offered.
“Is he alive?” Julius asked.
I gave him the regretful smile again.
Amais scraped back his chair. “You?—”
Fennix shoved him back down. “I think it’s time you understood something, Inky, ” he said, sneering my childhood nickname. “I don’t take kindly to threats.”
“The simple way to resolve this,” I said, waving between us with one hand, “is to not require threatening, Fennix.” I shrugged. “The next role I have for the three of you?—”
“No.” Julius slapped his hand on the table. “No more jobs until you pay up, boy. You’ve access to purses deep enough.”
“I do,” I agreed. The people holding those purse strings hadn’t approved the last meeting, though they’d approved this one. And the outcomes I’d predicted. “You aren’t going to receive any further coin. You’ve caused untold damage. You unleashed the plague in the wrong area, refused to attempt to control it, and allowed thousands to die.”
“On your orders,” Amais snarled.
But I was watching Fennix as he rolled his head on his neck, a small, bitter smile on his mouth. “This isn’t how men of honor do business,” Julius said stiffly. “I know a few of your Council members, boy. I know they didn’t approve your actions last time. I know they’re upset with you.”
I shrugged again. I’d managed the situation. And while Amais drew breath, his face red and breaths short, I kept on watching Fennix as he lifted his hand from where it had been concealed by his hip to show a brooch with a clockwork raven on it. It wasn’t entirely uncommon. Sometimes, they were even just brooches.
But in Fennix’s hand, there was no doubt that it was spelled.
He turned it over in his fingers. Either side of him, the two older mages sat back, and fear coiled in my belly.
I wrapped a hand around the cup I’d poured.
“Luca,” he said slowly. “You and I, we’re new to this game. I don’t know who’s tutoring you, but I know the person who tutored me always advised I never threaten anyone with something I wasn’t willing to survive myself.”
Considering the things I’d heard Fennix threaten, I doubted anything he’d just said was true. I let him speak, though, because anything else would just drag this out.
“As you know,” he went on, “I lost my mother a few years ago.”
There it was. The I have someone in your home. I felt sick. I’d never wanted it to come to this.
Do the job, Luca.
“This brooch?” He flipped it between his fingers. “Simple make, really, isn’t it? If the beak opens…well, ravens eat meat, Inky.”
I wished, for a moment, that my parents had given me a less embarrassing pet name. “Fascinating,” I said. “Did you want to explain further, Fen?”
He looked at me like I was simple. “Do I need to?” he asked me softly.
I shrugged, digging back into my pocket. “I never understood threatening people’s loved ones. So you kill my mother. What about next time? You may as well just torture me. That’s a resource that’ll deplete much slower.” I pulled out the brooch’s pair, tossing it onto the table. “That was another point of conversation,” I acknowledged, nodding toward it and dipping back into my pocket and taking out the fistful of buckles, earrings, necklaces, and pins I’d taken from their spies, then gently spreading them across the table. “This is your man,” I mused, flicking a buckle to Julius. “And this was his partner. She was lovely.” The necklace went too. “Amias, your cook was excellent.” The pin I flicked over, I did with regret. “All of this I usually would have sent via merchant,” I acknowledged, divvying it all up. “But,” I laughed a little. “The plague, it had unforeseen impacts, did it not?”
“Some of us aren’t afraid of death,” Fennix said softly. “You couldn’t torture me if you tried, Luca.”
“I did consider that,” I agreed conversationally. From the bottom of my mind, images swam up of the dead I’d helped carry over the winter. My belly clutched, and for a moment, the shame impaled me.
I shifted and felt the weighted coins in my pocket. “Drink?” He ignored me, so I took my hand from the cup. “Julius, you don’t love anyone. Who could I possibly take to ensure your behavior?”
“How do you think we got out of the mage guild?” he demanded, the words icy. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“You’re right, I’m sure,” I agreed, injecting humility into my words, the student being incorrectly schooled by their senior. I untied a pouch I’d hoped not to use from my belt. “You don’t love anyone, Julius.” I set the pouch on the table. The tongue of a little silver bell gave a half-chime. I drew out a piece of parchment, blackened around the edges, and unfortunately crumpled, and slid it over to him. “But you do have such an admirable cheese collection. The experts you pay, and the recipe you use? It’s really quite fine. Perfected over years. You couldn’t replace that research. Not in this lifetime.” I didn’t wait for the blood to drain from Julius’ face. “And Amais, you don’t take pleasure in much.”
“I enjoy being paid,” he said between his teeth, but his eyes were on the pouch.
I tipped it up, sending the bell onto the table. A sweet little silver bell that made me want to vomit. Do the job. “And you enjoy your lovely cat,” I agreed. “Such a soft little baby, with her big, round eyes.”
He stood, thrusting back his chair. “What sort of monster?—”
“Shame if something happened to her,” I said softly. “That fuzzy coat of hers, it isn’t much protection, is it? She’s so delicate.” I deliberately didn’t look at Fennix. “With her dark, glossy hair. And her new little kitten, too, in the basement next door. Luxuriously outfitted, hidden from view.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Fennix’s jaw tighten, and I twisted the knife a little more. “She should be safe there, shouldn’t she?”
Fennix’s jaw tightened.
Amais laughed, relief in the sound. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
I clicked my tongue. My heart was beating too fast in my chest, and I couldn’t resist the urge to look toward Fennix any longer. His hand was dipping down again, out of view. “I must be thinking of someone else’s pussy?—”
His upper body twisted. A silver blur arced through the air toward me, and my heart lurched. The clockwork weapon was small, round, and landed between my hand and my chest with a click and the reek of burning hair.
A few sparks came out of it, and then it popped open, silver clockwork pieces, chunks of crystal, and oil falling over the table as if a handful of junk had been dumped from someone’s carefully cupped hands.
I picked up a piece and dropped it into the liquid in my cup, which hissed and spat.
They were silent.
“You told me you’d kill the Duke,” I reminded them all softly. “I’m not paying for shoddy work. Not in coin. But I am willing to pay you back for my disappointment, unless you improve my mood.” I looked at the three of them—Amais’ red face, Julius’ fixed expression, Fennix’s set jaw. I’d made enemies. But at least now they’d go after me for their retribution.
We couldn’t afford to lose them.
And I couldn’t afford to let them go after my loved ones before they went after me.
“I’m a better ally than I am an enemy,” I told them all, keeping the words regretful. “So let’s work on rebuilding our trust in one another.” I looked at Amais pointedly, and he grabbed his chair in a white-knuckled hand and dragged it back under his backside, sitting at the table.
“I have the perfect place to start,” I told them all, my smile changing to become welcoming as I drew out a map of Black Borough.
Take La’Angi, take the east. Take the Borough, take the west.
Take the kingdom.