Chapter 21 The Palace
With lunch cleaned up and the rainclouds moving on, the Arcanist prepared to depart the apothecary shop.
He swept his cloak around himself, stood in the doorway, and gave Evaine a small nod.
The two weren’t exactly close friends, but at least the apothecary didn’t look like she wanted to grind down Luc’s bones with her mortar and pestle anymore.
After his silent farewell to Evaine, Luc turned his gaze on Rolan.
The question in his eyes was clear.
Was Rolan going, or staying?
Evaine and Anaya must have sensed some unspoken conversation between master and apprentice, because they watched curiously but said nothing.
Rolan thought of his father, lurking in some alley nearby. What job had he wanted Rolan to do? He wrapped his hand around his arm, where he could still feel the burn of his father’s grip.
“Well, what are we standing around all dramatic for?” Rolan asked crossly. He yanked his own cloak from its peg by the door. “There are Cryptics in the woods that need dealing with, and they’re only gonna get bigger the longer we sit around staring at each other.”
Luc blinked. If he was surprised by Rolan’s decision, that was all the sign he’d give.
“See ya,” Rolan said to Anaya.
“Bye then,” she replied.
And that was that. They’d never seen the point of drawn-out farewells.
“Right,” said Luc, as Rolan shouldered past him and out the door. “Uh. Good evening to you, apothecary.”
“And you, Arcanist,” Evaine replied. “Don’t forget what we discussed.”
Her eyes flickered to Rolan for just a heartbeat, but it was enough for a bell to go off in his brain.
As he trotted behind Luc down the street, he asked casually, “So what was it you two discussed?”
“Nothing that concerns you,” Luc grunted.
Rolan frowned. He was quite sure it did concern him. It was bad enough when adults discussed him in front of his face. It was even worse when they did it behind his back. They must have had their discussion while he’d been outside, delivering the scraps to the chickens.
He rubbed his arm again, as if he could rub away the feeling of his pa’s grip. Nervously, he glanced around.
They were in a quiet part of the city, following back roads Rolan knew well.
He was acquainted with all the shadier parts of Crisanth, of course, and could have run them blindfolded.
He knew, for example, that the sewer drain four paces ahead was a back entrance to his pa’s underground hideout, and that often Rabb had a pair of eyes posted on the rooftops in this area.
Looking up, he thought he saw a flash of something—or someone—moving just out of view.
A pigeon? Likely not.
“You were talking about me,” he accused, forcing his gaze back to the Arcanist.
Luc didn’t reply. He marched stodgily on, like a boulder, if boulders could walk and wore dramatic capes and had eyes that could darken like thunderclouds when they were being stubborn.
“I don’t like being talked about,” Rolan added.
Still no reply from the Arcanist.
Rolan sighed. “I miss Apple. Wish we hadn’t had to leave him in that stable. Now he knows how to carry a conversation. I mean, sure, he mostly speaks in snorts and whinnies, but if you listen close enough, I swear you can hear him say—oof!”
He didn’t notice Luc had stopped until Rolan walked smack into him. He rebounded, slightly dazed, as if he’d walked into an oak tree.
“So you’ve made your choice?” Luc asked in a low voice.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“What about your father?”
Rolan froze. How did Luc know—
“You have a father, here in the city, don’t you?” Luc continued. “Rabb, was it? Hoff mentioned him.”
Rolan felt the fist of panic in his chest relax.
So Luc didn’t know about the encounter behind the apothecary.
“Was it your father who did that?” Luc asked, his calloused thumb brushing the scar on Rolan’s jaw.
Rolan jerked back, bristling. “I don’t ask rude questions about your scars, do I?”
Luc arched an eyebrow.
“All right, fine,” Rolan huffed. “Maybe I do. But that’s different.” He’d only asked because usually Luc’s scars had some fantastic story involving a daring battle against vicious Cryptics.
“Where are we going next?” Rolan asked, ready for a change in both subject and location. He was pretty sure now that they were being watched by someone on his pa’s crew, and his pa’s threat still echoed in his memory.
You’re mine, and I will get you back.
Well. If his pa wanted him back, he should’ve showed up when Rolan was shivering in a cell, waiting to be dragged off to the underground prison, with Cryptics scuttling over his head. Rabb had his chance. He’d wasted it.
To his relief, Luc turned and continued walking. “We have to pick up our supplies for the month. We’re going to see my brother.”
Rolan’s head whipped up. “Your what? You have family in Crisanth?”
His shock made him stumble, and he had to sprint to catch up.
Rolan thought of what Anaya had told him, about Luc’s wife and child, lost in a fire. A boy Rolan’s own age. Would he have been Luc’s apprentice, if he hadn’t died? Is that why he’d resisted taking on a new one?
He didn’t dare ask. He liked needling Luc with questions, but he knew the difference between poking a bear and stabbing it with a sword. Rolan was reckless, but he wasn’t stupid.
Still, it was terrifically hard to imagine Luc with a family. Falling in love, getting married. Holding a baby. Having a brother.
They passed a small group of people huddled by the wall of a Confessory, and at first Rolan thought they were waiting their turn to go in and spill their secrets to the masked Listeners inside.
But as they drew nearer, a few of them turned and seemed to recognize the Arcanist. Predictably, they backed away with frightened expressions, then began to scatter.
But one man, barrel chested with a thick red beard, scowled at Luc and spat on the ground.
“Hey!” Rolan shouted.
Luc raised his hand to Rolan, quieting him, as the red-bearded man slunk away, the sour expression never leaving his face. In moments the street was empty again.
“That was rude,” Rolan said.
“Let it go,” Luc said. “Come, we’re almost…”
He paused, his grizzled head tilting as he studied something on the wall of the Confessory. There was a paper stuck there, and Rolan realized that’s what the people had been gathered around.
Luc ripped it down, his brows lowering.
“What is it?” asked Rolan.
The Arcanist’s lips pressed together as he scanned the paper. Then he balled it up and stuffed it into his pocket. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
“It’s not nothing! Whatever it is, it made you grumpy. Well, grumpi-er.”
But Luc would say no more. He strode off, quickening his pace and forcing Rolan to run to keep up.
Then Luc hooked a right, walking toward a large iron gate with guards stationed on either side, and the limits of Rolan’s imagination were stretched near to a breaking point.
“Your brother lives in the duke’s palace?” Rolan asked, watching wide eyed as the guards averted their gazes and made way for Luc to pass through. They didn’t ask for so much as his name. His scarred rock of a face was apparently identification enough.
Once through the gate, Rolan gazed upon Duke Benhald’s palace for the first time.
Even at his most daring, he’d never attempted to scale the walls and pluck a trinket or two from this place.
In the afternoon sun the grounds sparkled like velvet, the grass trimmed within an inch of its life, ponds and fountains in precise rectangles flickering with fish and swans.
A wide, graveled avenue led across this paradise to a massive building of gray stone. The ducal palace itself.
Rolan had spied its gabled rooftops before, barely visible over the high wall.
The walls were even more spectacular, with turrets spiking off every corner and gargoyles keeping watch from the eaves.
There had to be hundreds of rooms inside, judging by the number of windows.
Rolan didn’t need his newfound math skills to guess at that.
And of course, there were lamps. Lamps everywhere. Probably as many as in the whole of Crisanth. Even at midnight, the place had to shine as brightly as noon. They marched tall along the paths, hung over every window, clung to the walls, and dotted the doorways. And even in daylight, they were lit.
“Luc,” Rolan said slowly, his voice sticking to his throat, “is your brother… the duke?”
Luc gave him one, brief glance, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Rolan swallowed, digesting this new information and finding it didn’t quite agree with him, for some reason. His stomach curdled.
All his life, the duke had represented the one thing that every criminal—or criminal’s son—in Crisanth feared: justice.
Not real justice, of course. Real justice was a warm bed and a full belly and not a care in the world, because when it all came down to it, what was really so wrong about stealing a baguette that a baker was going to throw out anyway?
No, the duke represented the duke’s justice, and the duke’s justice said that boys born to criminal fathers were doomed to no good end—and were probably better off locked up. At least, that had always been Hoff’s interpretation.
Well. At least in all their tramping through the city today, they hadn’t had the misfortune of running into Hoff.
Sometimes, you had to cling to life’s smallest mercies.
“We won’t be here long,” Luc said, his tone slightly softened.
Perhaps he’d noticed Rolan’s unease. He even reined in his stride a bit, so Rolan could walk alongside him without having to jog.
“It’s easier to pick up our supplies from here rather than visit each individual shopkeeper.
They aren’t all as welcoming as our apothecary friend. ”
“Oh, she’s our friend now, is she?” Rolan asked, grinning.
Luc made a rumbling sound deep in his throat. “That’s not what I—forget it. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Actually, you sort of do have to explain yourself to me. That’s sort of the whole point of having an apprentice, isn’t it?”
Luc’s growl deepened, and he pushed Rolan through the doorway that rose ahead of them, and into the duke’s palace.
Rolan gaped openly. The interior was even more awe inspiring than the outside, with plush carpets that gave like moss beneath Rolan’s boots. Paintings hung on the wall, so realistic they might have been windows. Rolan ran a finger along a tapestry until Luc curled his lip at him in warning.
“Don’t touch anything. You’ll leave dirt for some poor servant to take the blame for.”
When Luc turned away again, Rolan eyed a silver candle snuffer and considered tucking it into his cloak’s inner pocket, just because he could and it was shiny—and besides, he resented being told his fingers were dirty. Even if it was probably true.
“So, you’re like royalty,” Rolan said, tearing his eyes away from the snuffer. “Should I call you Prince Luc?”
“That’s not how titles work. And no. I’m not royalty or anything else but an Arcanist.”
“Did you grow up in this palace?”
Luc grunted.
So that was a yes.
“Did you slide down that banister over there when you were a kid?” Rolan asked, pointing out a staircase so big it would have easily cleared Evaine’s apothecary.
The banister was carved like a wave of water—perfect for sliding down.
It even ended with a slight upward sweep, for a particularly spectacular dismount.
Luc scowled, which Rolan took for a no. He sighed, disappointed at the way good banisters were wasted on the unimaginative.
“I’ve heard lots of stories about the duke, you know,” Rolan went on. “Is it true, then, that when you lived here you did your business in a ruby-encrusted chamber pot and then wiped yourself with a—”
“We’re here,” Luc growled, gripping Rolan by the collar and dragging him through another doorway.
Where they were met by none other than Hoff, the captain of the city guard, who was on his hands and knees, scrubbing a stain out of the carpet.