25. Leah #2
It just hadn’t occurred to me until I met her—until I saw her almost killed on the shores of the Morphos and my heart contracted with a wholly special kind of pain—that there might be more than one way to interpret an ephilium prophecy.
“I have a question. Why is it called the Three Bridges when there’s only two?” I shift behind Leah’s eyes, staring out at the busy market tucked beneath the dilapidated river crossings.
“Damned if I know,” she says, stepping back so a gaggle of women carrying mysteriously lumpy sacks can move past. “There was probably another one at some point. I guess after your time.”
“Yes, back then we had sensible, accurate names for things,” I tease.
“But the river wasn’t called the Sideris then?” she asks, curious.
The question is simple enough. I’m the one who brought it up the last time we were here, but now that she knows Pax used to be my city, she understands some of the context of my questions. Some, but not all.
“No,” I say, in a tone I hope doesn’t invite more investigation. “It wasn’t.”
When she came to me saying she had a plan, I was naturally wary. I still don’t know where she went the last time we visited Strata, and I wondered if it was another ruse so she could run off again.
But she was insistent that her plan would benefit Malice.
“Forget questioning random criminals about the ephilium,” she said after she’d cornered me in the dining room yesterday evening. “Why don’t we talk to the criminals I actually know?”
“Do you have a lot of friends in low places?” I asked, wondering if that fact was supposed to help me trust her.
“I’m talking about scavengers and bootleggers. People who trade contraband goods,” she said. “They keep their ears to the ground, especially when it comes to stuff the wardens don’t know about. If the ephilium are recruiting humans, they might’ve heard something.”
It was preferable to putting her in arm’s reach of violent gang members, even with her new training—and after she refused to walk away from Infernum, I’m not so worried about her finding a way to lock me out of her mind permanently.
Now she sizes up the stalls, scanning the traders’ faces from the shadows of a collapsed bridge truss. “I’ll have a better chance of getting answers out of the folks who know me best. People can be cagey—”
“Polaris?” someone calls to her, and I feel a jolt of alarm run through her mind.
“It’s fine, I already knew your real last name,” I sigh.
“You what?” she asks as she whips around, her eyes falling on the person who called her: a tall, sandy-haired young man. “Never mind. Just…keep quiet.”
“Hodges!” she says as the young man approaches and pulls her into a brief hug. A wave of warmth radiates through her as they pull apart. It sets my teeth on edge. Who exactly is this person to her?
“You finally got that haircut,” she says.
Hodges—whatever kind of name that is—rolls his eyes, but there’s an affection in them I don’t like at all. “Definitely not because of your advice, Polaris.”
“If you ask me, it would take more than a haircut to make this boy look presentable,” I mutter.
“Good thing no one asked you,” Leah shoots back before grinning at the man. “How have you been?”
“Fine. Missing my partner,” he says, giving her a playful shove on the shoulder that makes my hackles rise.
“Partner? Partner in what?” I demand.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll shove—”
“I thought you couldn’t come scavenging anymore?” Hodges is saying with a confused tilt of his head. “Weren’t you supposed to get married?”
“I was. It…er…it didn’t work out,” Leah says. Her usual quick thinking when it comes to cover stories doesn’t seem to be working here. Perhaps she finds it harder to lie to her true friends.
But she finds it easy enough to lie to me. I try not to dwell on that.
Hodges’s eyes fall on the wedding ring she still wears on her finger, and a flicker of confusion crosses his face. It’s a decision of hers that irks me almost as much as it baffles me. At least the messy-haired boy-man seems to think the same.
“Look,” Leah says as she follows the direction of his gaze and clenches her hand into a fist. “I can’t get into it right now. And if anyone asks, you’d be doing me a big favor by saying you haven’t seen me.”
His expression grows serious, and he nods like a lieutenant who’s just been given his marching orders.
“All right,” he says, looking around for eavesdroppers. “Can I ask what you’re doing here, at least?”
“Not really. But maybe you could help me.” She licks her lips, and I’m only momentarily distracted by the sensation. “I need to know about people who might be working with the wingers. Maybe being paid by the ephilium?”
“What kind of work?” Hodges asks.
“Something involving black magic,” Leah says. “Like, summoning demons.”
The young man’s face pales, and he shakes his head. “Shit, Polaris. I’d ask what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I know you’re too stubborn to tell me.”
“You’d be right,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. You know I can handle myself.”
“Sure, you can handle yourself,” he says, still visibly annoyed. “But that doesn’t mean you’re good at looking after yourself. Survival isn’t the only goal, and you don’t have to suffer through stuff alone.”
“Trust me,” she says. “I’m definitely not alone.”
There’s such a genuine concern on the young man’s face that Leah’s spiky answer feels…sad. Instinctively, I reach out in her mind, laying a soft touch against her consciousness.
“And anyway, that’s why I’m asking for your help,” she says. “I’m trying to lie low, and I could do with these questions not leading back to me.”
“Okay,” he agrees, understanding what she’s asking of him. “Give me a minute, and let me go ask around.”
“And Hodges…” She digs into her pocket and pulls out some gold we brought specifically from Infernum for this purpose. “Use this to loosen their tongues if you have to.”
He stares at the gold. “Where did you—never mind. I don’t want to know.” The young man grabs it out of her hand and slips back into the market crowds.
“You just handed a scavenger a handful of gold and sent him on his way. Are you sure he’s coming back?” I ask, skeptically.
“Of course I am,” she snaps. “I’d trust Hodges with my life.”
A ripple of displeasure runs through me.
“He’s like my Viz,” she continues, which brightens my mood considerably, until there’s that prickle of alarm from her again. “I mean…not that he’s like…important to me or anything. An acquaintance more than a close friend.”
Ah. “Don’t worry, Leah Polaris. The scavenger is safe from me.”
It gives me a clue into what she might be hiding from me. Maybe there’s some other vulnerable human she fears will be put in harm’s way if the Lord of Malice knew about them. It’s a comforting theory in some ways, and unpleasant in others. Still—
Leah spins around at the sound of someone approaching from behind. A slim man with hunched shoulders and a pointed beard.
“Ingold,” Leah says with obvious dislike, taking a step backward, but her hand doesn’t go to her knife.
“Who is he? Is he a threat?”
“Another trader. Deals in dark stuff. Creepy,” she supplies the words fast as the man sizes her up.
“Forgive me,” he says, his voice oily. “But I couldn’t help overhearing you might be willing to trade gold for information.”
“Depends how good that information is,” she says. “Why? Have you heard something?”
“If it’s ephilium gossip you want, then yes,” he replies, eyeing Leah’s pockets.
“All right,” she says, pulling out three gold pieces. “Tell me, and these are yours.”
He tuts. “What I know is worth more than that.”