7
It was pleasant to know that some parts of the world were still in just as much of a mess as she’d left them.
Myria had strolled down the glimmering dark length of Carysium Street, watching the familiar ruckus reeling by from behind a mask of innocence.
With a good meal in her stomach and a small fortune in paper lyrin folded into her corset, her spirits danced like they hadn’t in three long years.
Watching her guard dog’s face had been an amusement in itself.
From the moment they’d stepped into the scarlet mile, he’d frozen into a well-mannered automaton.
She’d have thought him a complete innocent if it hadn’t been for his cocky little bluff with the mementori.
Still, he seemed a decent sort—decent enough that she felt at least a touch guilty for dragging him through half a dozen patches of Carysium Street roses.
The jaunt hadn’t been for entertainment, though. It was time to hunt down her old allies, and there was one whose movements she could reckon like clockwork. Leo.
He’d have arranged his business in disguise and under a false name, but some men’s manners were as distinctive as their habits were predictable.
She’d caught wind of him at the cheapest of the scarlet traders.
A few whispered hints had convinced the lady of the establishment that she was there for an assignation.
With a grateful Felix dismissed, she’d swept behind the veils to the inner sanctum.
“Thank you for your discretion, ma’am,” said Myria, slipping a five-lyrin note from her cuff. “If the prefecture gentleman returns before I do, would your ladies detain him?”
The woman gave a sly smile, and the note vanished into her bodice. She led Myria along a corridor of blackest stone, then unlocked the last door with a red arcanic glimmer.
“His lady friend’s late,” she said under her breath. “I’ll send her elsewhere when she comes.”
“Thank you, ma’am, and my apologies for the deception,” Myria whispered. The woman inclined her head and rustled off into the gloom. Fighting to restrain a smirk, Myria slipped into the chamber.
A wall of incense hit her. Smoke curled up from tapers simmering in shallow pools of oil. The lights were low; she’d be no more than a silhouette against the faint carmine glow. Still, she had no need of light to recognize that figure.
Leo lounged sideways in a velvet chair, legs crossed over the arm. A smile spread across her spirit. All these years, and the man still hadn’t learned to use a seat properly. She closed the door and flicked the lock, and his shadowed face turned toward her.
“Good evening, my dear,” he said. “Whatever happened to Caela?”
Myria’s nerves snapped taut. That wasn’t Leo’s honeyed purr. That voice was hard and rasping, as though he’d spent the morning shouting his lungs out.
Then she saw the edge of a roguish smile in the candlelight, and the doubt dissolved. Illusions might change a man’s features, but they didn’t alter the natural movements of his face. It was Leo, alright. She sidled forward in a gentle sway of skirts, turning a wire bracelet around her wrist.
“She’s been detained,” she murmured, “but I think you’ll be pleased with the alternative.”
She took the bedpost with one hand and beckoned him nearer.
He came lazily to his feet, taking stock of her figure.
That wasn’t the look she’d had long years’ cause to roll her eyes at, though.
His gaze lingered in the wrong places—her cuffs, the breadth of her shoulders and the folds of her gown.
Myria faltered, toying with the makeshift catch on her bracelet.
“I’d hate to think you disappointed, sir,” she said.
“Far from it,” said Leo, extending a glove to her. “The quality of the roses at this place has decidedly improved.”
“You’re too kind, sir,” said Myria, and took his hand. “For my part, I must say, the quality of the gentlemen . . .”
She flashed him a smile, then snapped the bracelet closed about his wrist.
“Hasn’t.”
She had to give him credit—he was off like a hare at the hunter’s tread—but the confining charm blazed to life before he’d gone three steps. It burned bright about his wrist and snapped him back to the bedpost.
Works on kyries, works on men.
Leo caught his balance like a cat, then snatched a dagger from midair. He slashed toward her, and she stepped back just in time. Viper quick, he spun the blade and caught it by the tip for a throw.
Damn. He was faster than she’d remembered. Faster and warier.
“None of that, if you please,” she said. She clicked her fingers, and the lamps hummed to life.
Leo paused, his arm drawn back and eyes fixed on his target.
He cocked his head. Myria linked her hands and smiled.
Her old friend’s features were hidden beneath what looked like an off-the-shelf illusion, too unremarkable to be quite real.
Still, he’d kept those dark brown eyes of melting innocence.
“Good afternoon, Leo,” she said cheerily. He blinked twice.
“Who are you? Why are you after me?” he fired back—half hostility, half disbelief. Myria huffed. She’d put herself in spinsterish disguise, but the blighter had known her half her life.
“It’s me. Myria! Come off it, old boy, it hasn’t been that long.”
“Myria’s dead,” he said coldly. “If you think I don’t know a talentless illusionist when I see—”
“Oh! Yes, the execution. Don’t fret. It’s me, and I could tell you a great many embarrassing tales about yourself to prove it. The Amatrix Menagerie, for instance. One fine spring morning, a certain hippopotamus—”
“Yes, thank you, that’s quite en—” He broke off, and she saw the lyrin drop. His knife hand fell loose at his side. “Myria? How . . .”
“A slip in Carinth justice,” she said. “Dominius plea.”
“Well.” He frowned. “You look awful. Did they put you in the eternity cells?”
Myria flashed a sharp look at her old accomplice. Leo shrugged and gestured at her hollowed face.
“It’s just as well, or you might’ve been recognized.”
“Sweet of you to assume it isn’t artifice.”
“If you say so. But how’d you end up here?” Leo gave her an appraising look. “Hard times?”
“I don’t work here, you ass. Where I’ve been, they’ve rather more exacting standards about who they let in. Halcyon.”
“The jail?”
“No, the ladies’ clothier. Yes, the jail, you splitwit.”
“Oh, pish. No one who’s anyone goes there,” Leo said, sheathing his dagger. Then, at last, unfeigned delight broke past his frown. He spread his uncuffed arm. “Myria. By Mercias. Come here.”
Myria beamed and snatched her friend in an embrace. He laughed into her hair, clapping her on the back.
Thus distracted, he noticed too late as her fingers fastened on his dagger hilt. She stepped back, whipping the blade from its sheath.
“Myria, you—”
“You can curse me to your heart’s content in a moment, old boy,” she said, stepping out of range as he snatched for the weapon. “I’ve a few questions first. For instance, how come you’re alive and free when the rest of us went straight to the devil’s doorstep?”
“If you imagine I was in league with that turncoat, you can dashed well—”
“You’re at liberty, with enough money to be plucking the Carysium Street roses, so you can save the wounded saint impression for the theater. What happened?”
Leo stood tight lipped for a moment longer, eyes fixed on the stolen blade. Then, he seemed to swallow his affront. His face turned grim.
“I did as I was told,” he answered tensely. “Went back down to the vault with Cassia, told them he was on his way, then started back to find you. Hadria didn’t want you with him on your own.”
Myria locked her glass-cool mask in place. She’s not ready, her teacher murmured in her memory. Not ready to lead them . . . not ready to deal with Vixius . . .
“I’d just reached the stairs when he stepped out,” Leo went on.
“I turned around, and”—he clicked his fingers—“out like a torch. Not sure how long. Next I knew, it was like someone’d shoved a red-hot stiletto into my skull.
Vixius was there. He had something in his hands.
A box. He . . . took something from me.”
Myria nodded slowly. Cassia’s formless face blurred in her memory.
“Your silverwalking power.”
Leo frowned. “No. Not that.”
“Then—”
“None of your business.”
She itched to ask more, but she knew her friend too well. That was the tone of a man who wasn’t going to tell her on pain of enforced sobriety.
“He was gone in a blink, though,” Leo went on.
“It was chaos. I could hardly see, but I could hear people coming. I . . .” He paused and dropped his gaze.
“I rolled into the shadows, and they went charging on past. I think someone threw off a powerful curse. I felt it split the patrium spells, so . . . well, I cut an escape hatch and ran.”
Myria handled the knife thoughtfully. The story squared with what little she’d seen.
“And ever since?” she asked. “I’m to believe you’ve survived three years hiding from Vixius?”
“You’ve been out of the game for a long time,” Leo muttered, sinking down on the side of the bed.
“The night after, everything changed. He somehow locked the common gateways to the silver lining. None of the graysiders could leave without his say. That meant none of them could work without his approval. Within the fortnight, they were either under his thumb or under the grass.”
“Plenty of the crews must’ve had their own silverwalkers,” she said. “They could still pass—”
“Until Vixius offered them the choice of answering to him or taking a swim down the sewer in pieces. You can imagine how many said no.”
“And you weren’t one of them?”
“He’d have killed me on sight!” Leo shot back, jerking his wrist against the confining charm. “Besides, if you imagine I’d go crawling back to the man who sold us out—”
She raised an eyebrow, and his swell of indignation took a puncture. He set his jaw and lowered his voice again.