Chapter Sins of Our Patrons #2
“Of course. That’s his problem. He equivocates—it’s so annoying. He never really learned how to lie properly, is the issue.”
“Dee,” Mallory says darkly.
“Right, right. Come on, darling. Best get you cleaned up. You two have some talking to do.” He leads her into a wooden passageway. “God, it does make espionage such a chore with him—but there you go. Without his contamination, I’d have no hope of overthrowing the Chancellor, you see.”
A chill crawls up Aster’s spine, and her stomach rises with it, fluttering at Demetrius’s handsome, ambitious smile.
She tries to suppress the feeling of weightlessness, the same terrified tingle she gets when Elspeth, shrieking with laughter, speeds her car blindly over a hillock.
“Don’t…” she says. “Don’t hurt Elspeth.”
“Hurt her? I worship her. If ever there was a progenitor of Extemporism, it’s Elspeth Scholin.
Well, besides Merrett, maybe. But she was too far ahead of her time to be credited with anything.
” The corridor opens into a wide cavern, lamplight pouring in from its twisted offshoots.
A few figures amble by, nodding at Demetrius as they pass.
“Is she … is she all right?” Aster asks.
“She always is,” Demetrius answers. “You know her better than I do. You know that woman could talk a fire out of burning her.”
“Where is she?”
“As far as we can tell…” Demetrius stops to receive a message from one of the passersby, which he folds into his pocket without reading. “They’re taking her to the Sanitarium. Gorslung will keep her close. He can’t have anything throw off his wedding plans.”
“He does love his plans,” Aster mutters.
“And that’ll be what kills him.” Demetrius ducks down a narrow corridor. Moonlight spills up from the planks under his feet. “Vralen Vost, El would really want you at the ceremony. We all would. A guest like you could really shake things up.”
Aster can’t name the emotion that tightens her throat. Anger, anxiety, eagerness, spite. “What exactly were you plotting?”
“Well, I plot nothing exactly. I’m more of an improviser.
” He laughs. “Oh, lose the look, vralen. If I had any carefully laid plans, I’d be in a panic right now.
In this town you have to prepare for nothing and expect everything.
” He slows, turns, and offers her a radiant smile.
“Vralen Vost, I’m about to turn this stump onto its side.
Once I dissolve the Ministry of Aesthetics—”
“Dee,” Mallory says, resting a hand on Aster’s shoulder. “Let her breathe a moment.”
“Of course, of course. Think on it, vralen. We could use you. This is the last gasp of Revivalism. Not many get to say they’re present at the death of an age.
” A pair of women pass by, sabers over their shoulders.
One leans up to whisper in his ear, and he nods.
“All right, then. I’ve a few things to do in the meantime.
A few performances to get out of the way.
Like they say, the only thing more important than swordsmanship is showmanship.
” He kisses Mallory on the cheek, and Aster on the bare hand.
As he disappears down the corridor, another bell echoes from above.
This time, the roar that comes after sounds more like a crowd than a floodgate.
“Extemporists,” Mallory mutters. “Pleasure to watch, terror to work with. Insist on making everything up as they go.”
Aster watches Demetrius’s glow fade, wheezing softly. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Mal.”
“You sound strained. Let’s get you some fresh air.” He gestures with the little bag he carries over his uninjured shoulder. “I’ll show you something.”
He leads her down a stairwell. The pink haze of reflected sunrise seeps up from below, and they emerge into the undercity.
Catwalks creak under their feet, deformed with the fractal motifs of ecdytoxin.
The twisted roots swarm with life. Rats and insects and criminals climb through the catwalks, and though Aster flinches as they pass, they barely glance at her, unconcerned with two overdressed and bloody exiles.
She clings to Mallory as they cross a splintered plank. Hundreds of feet below, the ships pass by. “Where are you taking me?” she asks.
“Just an old haunt of mine. You’ll like it.”
He leads her through a net of vines, into a little tunnel, down a rickety spiral of fungal growths she assumes might have once been stairs. He saunters across the gangways with uncanny familiarity, as if he has come this exact way hundreds of times before.
He pulls her over one last knot and onto what remains of a mesh platform. A cluster of deformed pitcher plants dangles nearby, gurgling clear, steamy water.
“No better baths in town,” he says. “Climb in.”
He struggles to shimmy out of his jacket, so Aster helps him. She eases the sleeve over his bandaged arm and folds it across the nearest branch. “You owe me a story, Mallory.”
“I know.”
“And a whole story. A true one. None of this shit about Dagdrun and military college.”
“All that is true. Everything I’ve told you is true. Flour sack and all.” He turns, letting her pull open his belt. “I’m familiar with Don Javunech. I know what happens when you seduce women with lies.”
Despite herself, Aster laughs. As she helps him undress, she takes him in, all of his scars, his flaws, his single dark tattoo. As he sinks into the water, she takes off her gloves. “He’s a passionate man, that Demetrius,” she says.
“He’s the best of Tiliard’s many bad men.” Mallory shrugs. “He’s a visionary. He just can’t quite make out what that vision is.”
She sheds her dress, then her underclothes. “Do you … do you really think he’ll make a good Chancellor?”
“That hardly matters. The position isn’t made for good people.
” He leans back, staring at the rustling leaves above him.
“It doesn’t matter what he does. He could burn this city to the ground and only one thing will grow from the ashes.
‘Change is the boldest face of constancy.’ Do you remember who said that? ”
“No.”
“Neither do I. It may have been Aufhocker. When he was young.” His voice wavers. “What happens to this place means nothing to me. What Dee does with Tiliard when this is over—what El does, what you do—I don’t care. I’ll never care. I’m not in all this to change this place.”
“What are you in it for, then?”
“I’m in it to get out.”
She hesitates at the lip of the tub, watching his face briefly disappear in the steam. “Who are you?” she whispers. “Really?”
“Mallory vant Passand,” he replies. “My mother was a seamstress who found me in an oil drum. My father was a bishop of the Last Monday. My brother is Olaf Aufhocker.” He glances at her. “Come on in. Water’s fine.”
She sinks into the caustic steam, submerging her ankles, her bruised knees, her aching back, her sore heart—everything unwinds, suspended over the void of the Catoptric. When she glances at Mallory, slender and naked, she can’t help but swim over to embrace him.
“Well,” she mutters. “Get telling.”
He stares into the woody underside of the piping. If not for the mist, she might dare to say she sees tears in his eyes. “Where should I start?”
She runs a hand through his hair. “Same as every good story. With a dead man.”
“Fucking Aufhocker.” He smiles. “No. Not this one. Not a dead man. Just a dreaming one, who sings in his sleep.”