Chapter 34
Water Seeks its own Level
My living quarters looked nearly identical to how I’d left them. Much like when Yeshar had pilfered my mirror, it didn’t appear at a glance like anything was missing or out of place. The typical low level of squalor we lived in was seemingly untouched.
There were no rips in the strewn about clothing, no stains or signs that he’d done any damage to my property at all.
And yet, from our conversation, he had definitely searched the room. Or had it searched by someone else.
Was anything missing? I made a quick mental inventory, checking off each item as I located it. There was a possibility I was forgetting a few unimportant items, but everything I valued was still here. So why would he…
Wait.
The box Henrik had given me was missing. The rope that he’d tied around it was broken on the floor, but the box and its contents were gone.
He wouldn’t.
I needed to pack, but more urgently I needed to find out what Henrik had hidden in that box.
Henrik opened the door to his room on my first knock, his affable expression from our earlier conversation slipping when he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
I slipped past him into his room, waiting until he’d closed the door behind me. His room also appeared unmolested.
“The box you gave me is gone.”
“What!?” His pupils shrank to pinpricks, all color draining from his face.
“Someone broke into my room, went through all of my possessions, and took it. It was the only thing they took.”
Henrik swore and began pacing.
He looked like a trapped animal. I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear him say it. I spoke in a careful tone. “What was in the box, Henrik?”
His face was grim. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does,” I gritted out. “Having someone snoop through my stuff is not a graduation surprise. I held onto it for you for months. Now tell me what the hell you had me holding.”
He continued to pace. I kept quiet even though I wanted to grab him and squeeze the truth out. More secrets spilled loose when you stayed silent.
Another minute of pacing went by. Finally he relented. “A list.”
Please let me be wrong.
“To what?”
“It was a contact list,” he admitted. “Of Yeshar’s dust suppliers and clients.”
Any hope I’d been clinging to sank down below the miasma.
“Why did you have Yeshar’s contact list?”
“I needed something to keep him off my back. Just shut up for a minute and let me think.”
The box had been heavy. “What else was in there?”
“Gold. A solid gold bar,” he chewed on his thumb nail. “And fabric to pad everything so it wouldn’t make noise.”
Gold was the second most valuable ore next to smelted Starshells.
A solid gold bar would be worth a small fortune.
There was no way Henrik had enough time outside the Reformatory before the Mistrun to legitimately earn his way to obtaining something so valuable.
Why would he have given me something so precious?
The logical conclusion had heft to it when it brained me. Him insisting on us gambling during Haburi, the gold bar, his fixation with the Starshells we’d seen during lessons, Yeshar’s contact list, his sloppy attempt to steal the horn. “How much debt are you in?”
“A lot. Okay?” He slammed a fist into his desk with a thud, shaking his hand out.
“To Yeshar?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, tipping his head back. “Yes.”
He hadn’t been trying to cover for me when Yeshar had brought up the missing Sentinel. It had been a happy accident. He’d been trying to convince Yeshar that he’d have more money coming in soon from recouped debts, like the potentially fictitious one he’d claimed Nikolach owed him.
Which was something only the incredibly stupid or desperate would do.
What a pair Henrik and I made.
Yeah, a pair of morons.
A hoard of emotions crowded together in me, each vying to take over. Disillusionment and betrayal at him for what he’d done. Frustration and anger at myself for trusting him. I jammed them all into a box inside myself and shut the lid to deal with later.
“Who knows about the contact list?” I asked.
“Just you, I swear.” He pounded the desk again, cursing. “I needed that gold as a show of good faith to Yeshar on the rest I owed.”
“Who did you steal the gold from?”
“Some rich Ascendancy asshole. He won’t miss it.”
I doubted that. “Why give the box to me?”
“I didn’t know who it was at first, but Yeshar has had someone watching me since I left the Reformatory.
I needed to put some distance between myself and the box because it was my last resort if he called in my debt.
Assurance that I’d repay the rest, and leverage against him if he wouldn’t accept that.
But if his enforcer found it, they’d take the gold for themselves, return the list to him, and I’d have nothing.
” He kicked at a leg of the desk, which shuddered from the impact. “Now I really do have nothing.”
He’d used me as an unwitting accomplice to his own crimes to try to cover up his trail.
The gold bar was definitely stolen too. Zevrial was right about one thing, Henrik was an idiot.
His grand plan had been to just leave the evidence a few doors down with the only friend who’d come to the outpost with him.
He and Orin were fronds from the same palm. They’d both step on the backs of others to climb just a little higher themselves. And if those others weren’t already on the ground, they’d push, punch, or kick them until they were.
Like he’d done to me.
I had been right about one thing too, Henrik was an opportunist. A far more ruthless one than I’d realized.
He’d slipped up and made a mess by getting into debt, then followed that up by mucking things up even further by dealing with Yeshar to try to get out of it.
Even worse, he’d stolen from him to try to protect himself with collateral.
Henrik had seen a chance to use me as a life raft so he wouldn’t drown in the mire of his own making, and without hesitating pushed me face first down to drown.
Asking me to take the box had been the first thing he’d asked me to do when I rejected his offer to be roommates.
There was a persistent high pitched ringing between my ears, and I had the brief insane notion that it was the sound of our friendship screaming as it died.
Right now I needed more information, because he’d set up an incriminating trail of breadcrumbs to my doorstep, and left me looking like a fool. I needed to understand the situation he’d put me in, and clean up as much of the shit he’d covered me with as I could.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said you didn’t know who it was at first. Who was watching you?”
“Orin. That’s why I tried to get you to be my roommate, I knew he’d insist we bunk together otherwise.”
It made sense. Orin had joined us for our midnight gambling adventure, to see if Henrik would win more money to repay Yeshar with.
Orin and Henrik had been roommates. What better way to keep a close eye on someone you’re supposed to be watching?
And Yeshar wasn’t the type to get his own hands dirty.
It explained why Henrik couldn’t keep the box in his own room, too.
Even though I wasn’t the criminal mastermind of this particular theft, Yeshar hadn’t known that.
The gold was as good as gone. Henrik wouldn’t ever see it again now that someone else had it. It likely meant Henrik would end up dead or become one of Yeshar’s toadies. I found I couldn’t dredge up enough compassion to care either way.
“Well this has been insightful.” I turned to leave.
“Hold on!” Henrik called. I stopped, my back to him. “We have to find out who took it.”
The laugh that came out of me sounded brittle. I already knew who had taken it. “No.”
His tone turned pleading. “If Yeshar finds out I stole his contact list, he’ll kill me.”
“Did you think of that before or after you gave me the box?”
He hesitated.
Before, then.
So he’d known he was gambling with my life by giving me the box. Had he ever seen me as a friend, or just someone he could use? “So it was okay if he killed me instead, for a theft I didn’t commit. I should tell Yeshar you stole it. You deserve whatever you get.”
Henrik looked stricken. “If you do, I’m dead.”
“And if I don’t, I’m dead. Do you see the problem here?”
Henrik’s shoulders hunched in defeat. “Devourer damn it all! I didn’t mean for anyone to find it.”
The shriveled husk that remained of our once-friendship gave a dull painful thud. He was genuine. Stupid beyond belief, but genuine.
The impulse to sell Henrik out to Yeshar was immediate. Vindictive as it was, revenge would feel good. It wouldn’t help me though, even if I did. Yeshar already believed I was the thief. He would just assume I was lying to cover for myself.
“I won’t tell Yeshar you stole the list,” I said. “But don’t ever drag me into your mess again.” I paused. “You’re off the guest list for my wedding tomorrow, too.”
“Lisia, I–”
“I don’t care!” I shouted, glaring at him. Anger had burned the box I’d shoved it into down to cinders. “I don’t want to hear your excuses or listen to a belated apology now that you’ve been caught. Don’t ask me for help. What was the plan if I opened the box?”
“You wouldn’t have,” he shook his head. He looked chastened, but not nearly enough. “You’re too moral.”
Something dark and bubbling escaped out my mouth. After a few seconds I identified it as laughter. It sounded icy and vicious. “Moral? You have no idea how fucked up my morals are. You’re right though, I am trying to be a better person. But not to you. Not anymore. You used me. We’re done.”
I let the door slam shut behind me.