Tulip Food #2
“I don’t care. You’re head of Sanitation.
Ply your art. Throw some ecdytoxin around.
Remind them who I am. And take out a few of my relatives while you’re at it.
I’m fairly sure a couple of my nephews are plotting a coup.
” Wrist stiff, he struggles to remove his snuffbox from his breast pocket.
“Just don’t be heavy-handed about it. I won’t have my reign associated with poor taste. ”
“How dare you get abducted without me?” Elspeth floats across the Palas balcony, beaded skirt glinting against the golden sky.
Far below, in the carnivorous gardens, a groundsman hoses blood from the tulips.
“I was stuck in a Crypsis safe room getting my hair butchered while you’re getting yourself ravished by a jailbird. ”
She is unhurt and a bit frantic, in her joyful, affectated way.
She twirls a silver hairpin in her hand, useless now that most of her hair is gone.
Tangled with insect parts and shredded lily-flesh, what could not be sanitized had to be cut away.
Somehow, she is even more radiant without her dark waves, face framed by a wild little bob.
“It’s just so…” Elspeth continues, biting back a grin. “God, it’s so Neoclassicist of you, to get kidnapped by a handsome squatter.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped,” Aster repeats. “And he’s not a squatter. He owns—well, ostensibly, he owns the—” She hesitates to call it a house. “Anyway, it wasn’t bad. Nothing compared to what you went through.”
“Oh, don’t flatter me. It was only a good excuse to cut my hair for the wedding.” She splays out on her seat and fans herself. “I’ll paint all about it later.”
Florian appears on the balcony, carrying a plate of drinks and some canapés. “We’re glad you’re safe, vralen,” he says.
“It would’ve been just another night,” Elspeth continues, “had the Tender Guard not gassed the whole scene, insisting it was an attack of some sort. Clearly it was just a wayward burglar moth. Or a perfuming accident. They spark sometimes, and that Laureate—that man is so far gone he has no idea what he’s doing.
His whole airway is just ecdytoxic tumor at this point.
No offense.” She takes a lager. “Thanks, Flo.”
“It’s Florian, vralen,” he says.
“Honestly, the worst part of the night was the small talk. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more annoying than being stuck in a box with a man who thinks he’s about to die—started talking nonstop about his portrait.
What we should name it. Patron of Patrons, he suggested.
The Last Poet-King. I just about died. I’m halfway to calling it Florian Crickshaw. ”
Aster has no doubt she would. Elspeth is attached to her ironic titles—unconventional but undeniable proof of her skill, since no matter how misleading the name, her subjects are effortlessly characterized.
Her last unfinished commission, a single brown brushstroke on a background of velvet green, is instantly recognizable as the Seamstress Laureate.
“Oh, this is warm, Flo,” Elspeth says, taking a sip of her beer. “Why is this warm?”
“I don’t know,” Florian answers. “It’s warm?”
“Here, feel it. We need another. Actually, something stronger. I have a big event tomorrow I need to be hungover for.”
He plucks the beer from her hand, palpates the glass, and then, frowning, disappears.
“What event?” Aster asks.
“Just a meeting to plot the bridal luncheon. I wanted Hart Park, with badminton—but my patron wants to show off his riverboat. Flo didn’t make these, did he?” She takes a sandwich and opens it to ensure there are no fingers or ears inside. “You’re coming to it, by the way.”
“To what?” Aster asks. “The meeting?”
“No, I don’t hate you that much, dear. The luncheon. Wherever it is—it’ll be early next month.”
“I thought—”
“We’re moving it up. He wants the wedding on Rut Moon now.”
“No.”
“I know! A wedding in Rut—kill me. But what to do? Call off the engagement?”
“You could. You should. Call it off and run.”
“In my heels? They’d catch me within a block.”
“Sabotage it, then. Poison the banquet.”
“That’s an idea—Lorelei had a wedding like that.
You remember her, the sculptor? When she married that Wherewithal banker, his old rivals sent a casserole the size of a car.
It really was a delightful play. The groom’s whole party puked through the reception.
Everyone lived—well, except for the ones who had two helpings.
I mean, it is a lesson. We all really shouldn’t eat as much as we do. ”
Florian returns and hands Elspeth a fresh glass. “Still warm,” she says, and this time, he’s wise enough to disbelieve her. He sighs, retreats to the balustrade, and nurses his own beer.
“You should get the orchestra to play something heinous during your duet,” Aster suggests.
“Oh, yes! Imagine—I’d give my right thumb to hear them play the old Borisch company jingle.” Elspeth sits up, inspired, and Aster can’t help but grin at her perfect, deep vibrato. “‘Brave men and women, oh, brave’—come on, Flo, you too, take the harmony—”
She doesn’t wait for him to respond before she flings her hairpin in his direction.
Instinctively, Florian drops his beer and whips his arm toward the streak of silver—Aster half expects him to stumble over the balustrade in pursuit of the bauble, flailing down into the gardens, but his feet stay on the tiles.
Flawlessly, his fingers close around it.
His glass shatters, and the air stills. Florian opens his hand and gazes at the treasure in his palm, wide-eyed and wordless as a dog.
“Don’t drop it,” Elspeth says, shock evident through her perfume. She has never so severely misjudged a throw. Maybe her affliction is worsening, Aster thinks. Maybe she too is avidly avoiding a visit to the Surgeon General. “Don’t let it leave your hand.”
A lump travels down Florian’s throat. “I won’t.”
“And don’t let anyone catch you with it. You’ll … see me tonight, I suppose.”
He nods. As he rolls the hairpin in his hand, stroking it with his thumb, the air turns cold in Aster’s lungs. His scent is changing by the second, maturing, peeling—shaping him into something much more menacing than a lovestruck child.
It is only the touch of another perfume in the air, an aggressive mix of liver tree ash and bilge musk. The Marshal glides into the sunlight, blinding in his white uniform, eyes fixed on Florian.
“Eir Sorav,” El says. “Lovely to see you—if I could. Step back into the shade, would you?”
He doesn’t. “Always a pleasure, Vralen Scholin. Glad you’re safe.”
“I’d say the same for you, if it could be any different.”
“I’m going to borrow these two for a minute.”
“Of course. Bring them back in one piece. Or two pieces. No more than two.”
“No more than two,” the Marshal assures her.
Aster and Florian follow their patron from the balcony, through the arched hall, and up the stairs.
For a moment Aster fears he’s leading her to her punishment, up to the jeweler’s shop to have a ring of magnetite drilled into her wrist, a record of her truancy.
The Palas jeweler is a fine, fast worker, but that is only because, like his master, he eschews the nonessentials, including anesthetic.
“I was told you were found in some contaminated wreckage,” the Marshal says. “How are you breathing?”
“Quite well,” Aster replies. “Considering.”
“You’re wheezing.”
“Not much, Eir Patron.”
Sorav glances at her. “If you need a lavage, I can call the Surgeon General. Dr. Whyck will be happy to see you.”
“No, no,” Aster says quickly. “I’ll be all right.”
“Very well.”
The Marshal leads them past the solarium, up the stairs to his office. He ushers them in and closes the door, moving to the window, where he mulls something over for a minute. Aster has long since learned not to ask what he thinks about when he stares into the grimy haze.
Florian is the first to buckle under the silence. “Eir Patron,” he starts, “how may we serve you?”
“Serve me, Florian?” He turns with a stern frown. “Firstly, you can serve me by staying away from the Chancellor’s wife.”
Florian’s scent shifts as his fingers tighten around the hairpin. “She’s not his wife yet.”
“Whatever she is, she’s a convenient way to get yourself killed. And you’re no good to me dead.” He extends his hand. “Give it to me.”
“She threw it. I caught it. The Chancellor can’t do anything about that.”
“Sure he can. And I won’t see the Palas heir fed to his own tulips.”
“No,” Florian growls, “that would be embarrassing for you, wouldn’t it?”
The Marshal gives him a look that could freeze the Catoptric. “Florian. I care for you. Deeply. You’re a son to me. But if you don’t learn a little subtlety, I will terminate your contract.”
“And waste all your hard work?”
“I’ll start from scratch if necessary. You’re in no fit state to run this place when I’m gone.”
Florian’s grip on the bodkin loosens. “When you’re gone.”
“Hand it over. If you don’t, I’ll slap a black band around your wrist and send you to Strangleroot.”
Finally, the bodkin changes hands.
“Thank you. Now.” The Marshal gestures toward the door. His protégé obeys, leaving a sillage of bloodwort. In the ensuing silence, Aster tries to subdue the whistle of her wheeze.
“That boy,” Sorav sighs. “All sensation and no fucking sense. I can’t seem to chisel away those parts of him.
” He rounds the desk and sits, laying his face in his hand.
Suddenly, he looks older than his fortyish years, brow wrinkled, hair almost white in the lamplight.
“You, I expect more from. You should’ve let the Tender Guard collect you last night. ”
“I’m sorry, Eir Patron.”
“Don’t lie to me, Asteritha.”
“I just wasn’t prepared. I didn’t expect—”
“Sudden upheaval? In this city? I’ll let you claim abduction this time. But the next, I’ll have your wrist redecorated.”
“Yes, Eir Patron.”
“You picked quite the night to go gambling for a dancer.” He pauses, deflates, breath framed by facets of oakmoss and leather.
“Don’t ever disappear on me again. I can’t be caught with my guard down.
Especially now. Whether this attack is real or not, the Chancellor demands I do something about it.
” He opens a drawer and pulls something from it.
“Well, like Aufhocker says. Stability is fragile. Even eternity never lasts.”
“What is that?” Aster asks. Her stomach tightens. “Oh, no. I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Perfume can’t serve you forever. If it didn’t protect the Chancellor, it won’t protect you.” He offers the gun, small as an egg. “Take it. Even the best hedge witches carry one.”
A bead of sweat gathers on her forehead. The weapon is antique, pre-Revival. “I—don’t—”
“You do. You’re as trained as the rest of the household. It’s only lead. It shoots where you point it, nothing more.”
Aster’s throat tightens. “Marshal…”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“If … you insist.”
“I insist.” He watches her hands shake as she opens the wooden cylinder to count the rounds. “I need fumes,” he says. “I’m going to wipe out Splinter Row.”
She lifts her eyes.
“These Neo-Repressionists have cropped up again. I’ll need a perfume for the speech afterward, too. Woody, but soft. Nothing sharp. Nothing that evokes shredding.”
A shiver runs down her spine. “Eir … are we … again?”
“Don’t panic. I’m only pulling a few weeds.
” He reaches for her shoulder, and Aster submits to his unnerving touch.
Unfailingly, she is astounded by his solidity, the gentleness of his fingers, the same that have strangled bare necks and pulled pins from ecdytoxic grenades, that have plunged effortlessly into flames, acid, fumigants, everything but the Catoptric itself.
“This won’t be the Revival, Asteritha. This place can only resurrect itself so many times. ”
She is unable to answer him with anything but a despondent “Yes, Eir Patron.”
“I need more mayfly in my bath oils tonight.” He squeezes the back of her neck. “I have some things I’d like to forget.”