Chapter 2
“Itold you not to come here.” The man’s voice is an angry hiss, his body framed by the twin pillars on either side of his door.
Torver’s heart thumps uncomfortably against his ribs.
The purple banner fluttering above the entrance bears the Meddera’s favourite slogan: obedience keeps the Beast asleep.
The door is shielded from the sun, not by ferns like in the slums, but by proud bushes of dog-rose that scent the air.
A fat bee inspects Torver’s cloak and, displeased, zips away as if flung like a dart.
“I’m sorry, Wast,” Torver says hurriedly. “But it’s an emergency.”
Wast, grey hairs peppering his red beard, glances over Torver’s shoulder and down the neatly cobbled street.
The expression on the gaunt man’s face is like thunder before he opens the door wide and hurries the younger man into the house.
Away from the prying eyes of passersby and the thousand windows of the Citadel that rises above all things.
Relieved, Torver steps into Wast’s beautiful home.
Even now, the sight of its interior gives him pause as he lowers his hood. The house is small but full to the brim with decadences—fresh lilies, a golden orrery, enormous oil paintings in filigree frames.
If Bassen knew he was buying his papers from a corrupt Official, helping him to fund this opulence, she wouldn’t wait for them both to be caught and executed—Torver half-expects that she would do the job herself.
But, despite the risks, this is the only option he has.
“You’re going to get both of us killed just rocking up like this, Torver.” Wast leads him furiously through to a reception room lined with darkwood bookshelves, carpeted with overlapping wolf-hide rugs.
Torver perches on a velvet brocade settee while Wast settles on a burgundy chaise longue. The low table that separates them is patterned in end-grain oak.
“So.” Wast frowns as his beady eyes assess Torver’s bouncing foot. “Why are you bothering me at home?”
The man casually flicks his wrist so that his broad palm faces upwards. The air above his hand shimmers and a small teacup appears there, filled with what smells like a mint infusion, steaming in the air. Torver hungrily watches him take a sip.
Witnessing magic up close makes him burn with jealousy. He wants that conjured teacup in his hand, he wants to feel its warmth. Wants it to scorch his useless, unmagic skin.
He’d give anything to be like Wast.
The man is a conjuror; rare and useful and given the coveted Officials’ job scroll because of it. Afforded power and a house because he can make things in a moment that a craftsperson would take months to produce.
“I’m not here to call the deal off,” Torver’s lips set into a line, his thick eyebrows attempting to meet in the middle. “But…”
Wast sets his cup on the table with a thunk.
“I hope you don’t have cold feet.” He locks his fingers together, cracking the knuckles of his hands with crunching sounds that cut through the room. “Because I had plans for your yan.”
Torver’s hand finds the ring on his left index finger, the one made of rough, old string. He twists it, scratching his skin.
“Of course!” He says. “Of course… It’s just that the timeline we agreed has been a bit—” He swallows. “Disrupted.”
Wast settles back into the chaise longue and resentment flares in Torver’s chest. He wonders why Wast even needs the money.
He pushes the thought down; a thousand yan is the least he can do, if Wast is risking his life to give Torver a new one. If he’s caught using the knowledge that can only be learned on the inside of the Courts to counterfeit…
Wast interrupts the violence playing out behind Torver’s eyes.
“What happened to your yan, then? You said you were getting close.”
The side of Torver’s mouth quirks. “Let’s just say, there’s a burglar out there somewhere who can’t believe his luck.”
The memory stings and after a thoughtful pause, Wast tuts. His face and his voice soften.
“Terrible,” the man says. “What some people will do for a few yan.”
Torver agrees solemnly.
“You’ll wait for me while I start saving again?” he asks.
Wast concedes with an almost paternal incline of his head. “Probably better to take it slow, anyway. The Courts are on high alert.”
A shiver descends Torver’s spine.
“Nothing to do with us,” Wast assures him, with a waft of his veiny hand.
He leans forward, imparting the information like it’s gossip and not government business.
“My secretary’s wife is a bronze Enforcer and she told her that, apparently, a Rath has breached the northern border.
Although, I don’t know how much you can trust reports from…
” His lip curls. “Farmers. Either way, the Enforcers are under a lot of pressure to track it down, and the Court of Punishments is antsy. Particularly with the recent spate of changelings left in the border villages. So be careful.”
Torver feels suddenly aware of himself, the window to his side with the curtains open. He should leave. They’re playing a dangerous game as it is, even if mutually assured destruction prevents one from turning the other in.
Torver makes his excuses and Wast doesn’t try to keep him. But despite it, Torver feels a rush of warmth for the man.
At the door, Wast stops him with a hand on his arm.
“When the time comes, don’t just show up here again. You hear me, Torver? Use the signals we agreed, and I’ll find you.”
Torver swallows the lump in his throat and grasps the older man’s wrist in a firm shake. His goodbye is lost beneath the sound of Wast’s closing door, the clinking and rattling of many locks and chains being secured on its other side.
Torver lets out a breath, twists the string two turns around his finger before pulling up his hood. He marches west, to Bassen’s house. His new home, he remembers.
His lies by omission make him feel bad—of course they do. Bassen thinks his counterfeiting contact is a nobody from the slums, not a genuine Official, corrupted long ago by the pull of yan and a fixation on the finer things in life.
But with the registration papers Wast can make for him, Torver could live free from the constant threat of execution for being unregistered.
He would no longer have to avert his gaze every time he passed an Enforcer, would no longer have to think twice about asking for their help or protection.
He could pass through checkpoints with impunity.
He’s never met anyone else with no magic, has never even heard rumours of another like him. While it seems like everyone around him fits in perfectly, able to navigate the laws that bind them, Torver is different. Worse.
Those papers would set him free.
And his mother will no longer be forced to shun him. She’ll welcome him back with open arms. She will.
She has to.
“Welcome home!”
Bassen opens the door to Torver’s knock, her arms laden with a plate of pastries. Her grin matches them; a wide half moon dusted with sugar.
“I couldn’t wait,” she says sheepishly, wiping her mouth. She steps back to let him into the house with a grand bow, as if he’s entering it for the first time and not the thousandth.
He thought it might feel different, crossing the modest, sandstone threshold not as a visitor, but as a resident.
But it doesn’t—the same old floorboards meet his feet, the wide hallways and towering stairs still greet him with disinterest. Through the window is the same view of the river that bisects the Wen and the red brick buildings that crowd beyond.
“You shouldn’t have bought pastries,” Torver says, removing his boots and shaking off the dust. “All that expense for me?”
He’s not as sorry when he picks one up and bites into the delicious flakes of it.
He follows Bassen through to the small reception hall, its rugs plush under his bootless feet.
Pastry in hand, he’s trying and failing not to leave a trail of dusting sugar in his wake.
He tugs Bassen’s cloak from around his shoulders with his free hand, finding a place on the row of bronze coat hooks.
“Don’t worry about the expense,” Bassen shrugs. “I swung by the bakery on the way home, but I didn’t have my cloak to hide my hair, did I? The poor lad nearly cried—I couldn’t get him to take my coin, he just threw the pastries in a bag and begged me not to kill him.”
Her eyes take on a mournful hue.
“Well, congratulations on your restraint,” he says and she lets out a sound between a huff and laugh.
“I hate that that’s all people know of me, all they assume I want to do…” She trails off, her eyes unfocusing. “Well,” she says suddenly. “I’m glad you’re here, at least.”
“As if you could ever get rid of me,” he winks, finishing the last of his pastry.
Bassen brings her satchel with her into the large room at the front of the house. From the ceiling, trailing philodendrons hang from baskets that brush Torver’s shoulders as he passes.
The decor isn’t as opulent as Wast’s, but the room is just as busy.
When she’d first moved in, Bassen had decorated it in the way that only a teenage girl can. And as she aged into her mid-twenties, she didn’t throw away a single pot or picture, hanging charm or dried flower. The romance novels at least had been moved upstairs.
Bassen dives onto the settee by the empty fireplace and Torver joins her.
“I really am glad you’re here, Torv!” Her eyes light up despite the dark crescents beneath them. “It’s going to be so nice having someone to live with! We should’ve done this sooner. Have you thought about what room you want to be yours?”
Torver considers the question.
“The back room,” he says. “The one with all the books.”
Torver secretly loves those romance novels and he’s always liked that room—it faces north. He likes to see the distant mountains, knowing that somewhere, the Mere rests nestled between their peaks and the border.
He thinks of it as his room anyway; he stays in it more nights than not in recent years. But it’s nice that Bassen offered him the choice. She’s thoughtful when she isn’t hitting him.
“Do you want me to go back to your old place and get your stuff?” Bassen asks.
Torver shakes his head. Everything that mattered to him in that hut has already been stolen. All he needs is his string and his memories.
“So,” he says, changing the subject. “While I was getting arrested, what job scrolls did the Court of Works give you?”
Bassen’s eyes flash. “Let’s see…”
Settling into her seat, Bassen pulls three scrolls of yellowing parchment from her satchel, each bound with a purple strip of cloth and marked with the sigil of the People’s Kingdom—the Beast’s roaring head.
The Beast beneath the cairn; the threat that is the reason for the Meddera, the Enforcers, the Officials.
Their laws and their punishments. In Torver’s recurring dreams, the Beast is red like the skin under his string.
It kills him and he thanks it, wakes up unsettled.
“Quite the collection,” he raises an eyebrow, trailing his sore finger across the scrolls.
“I know,” she replies softly. “It looks like it will be a busy week. Hopefully it won’t be anything too bad.”
He puts a hand on her arm and she tucks a stray strand of white hair behind her ear. Despite himself, he has to inhale a steadying breath when she presents him with the scrolls, each the length of his hand. She holds them away from her body, like she’s scared of what they might contain.
“I can’t do it. You pick.”
Torver hesitates, his hand flexing at his side.
The scroll system dictates what jobs a person can do, the yan they’re permitted to earn; assigned either on suitability of the recipient’s magic or the urgency of the job.
Ad-hoc scrolls for other magics can be nice, he’s heard. Lighting bonfires for festivals, mancing water to irrigate a farmer’s field—but Bassen’s tasks usually involve her killing something.
He inwardly chastises himself. It’s selfish to dwell on that—it’s not like he has to do it.
He only has to watch and help clean up afterwards; his work in exchange for a portion of Bassen’s pay.
A saving grace since unscrolled payment is entirely illegal.
But to get his own job scrolls, he’d have to present his registration papers to the Court of Works.
And to obtain registration papers, he would have to present his magic to the Court of Registrations, where lying or exaggeration—real or perceived—is rewarded with death.
Torver closes his eyes and picks a scroll at random. He unknots the purple cord, unfurls the scroll, and reads its contents.
“Go to Official Amble’s manor and kill the mint that is choking his lavender. A yan and two tethera.”
Bassen dissolves in relief.
Torver’s muscles release too, though a part of the job does irk him. He audibly huffs.
“A yan and two tethera? Bloody cheapskate.” He declares it with a wrinkled nose. “Those Officials think they don’t have to pay fair yan for people’s labour, just because they run things. They all think they’re so important just because they get to elect the Meddera!”
Bassen shrugs off his grumbling.
“I’m glad it’s only plants,” she sighs, a small smile on her pale face.
Bassen has killed a great many things for the Officials of the People’s Kingdom. Diseased trees, rabid badgers, horses with broken legs.
Several times, the Meddera had tried to use her as their personal executioner, but she had returned those job scrolls to the Court of Works uncompleted.
For reasons unclear, the Meddera didn’t push the matter.
Perhaps the permanent fixture of the gallows in Citadel Square is a more effective reminder to obey.
But Torver remembers her first job that turned his stomach. Really turned it, so that he couldn’t sleep that night.
An Official had felt disrespected by his teenage daughter and Bassen had been made to kill her kitten. To remind the child that obedience keeps the Beast asleep.
Torver doesn’t wonder where the ceiling is, won’t let himself be horrified by the idea that there isn’t one. He’s just grateful that, despite her reputation, Bassen has never killed a person.
And that this job won’t be the one to break that streak.