House War - The Hidden City Part 40

"I'll feed you," she told him.

"Something that won't take the skin off the roof of my mouth this time?"

"Something like that. You don't draw that here. Unless there are intruders. You never draw it if you don't mean to use it."

"I do," he told her grimly, softly, "because I don't want to use it."

She started to argue, but Arann lifted a hand. "He's right," he said quietly.

"Not here, he's not. He can play games outside. This is my place."

"Rath's place?" Lefty asked.

"Mine. This room and everyone in it."

Carver whistled. Jewel still couldn't. And she couldn't snap her fingers either. "There's room on the floor. Not much bedding yet," she told them both. "I-there's some for Finch, but I didn't expect to find you."

He shrugged. "I can sleep on the floor. At least it isn't wet."

"And it's warm," Arann told Carver.

Jewel stared at Arann. Arann, sensing it, met her gaze and shrugged. "You brought him," he told her, starting something that neither of them knew would continue. She felt it, though; the force of his words, the weight of his unexpected faith.

Faith was an odd word. It existed in both Weston and Torra, but it was colored differently in either language. Arann used Weston. It was the brighter coloring, the cleaner shade.

"This is your den?" Carver asked her as she turned toward the kitchen.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

She shrugged. "Arann," she replied, nodding to the giant. "And Lefty. He's kind of shy."

"And me?" Carver asked, following her as she left the room, his bare feet slapping the wooden floor.

"Your feet are bleeding."

He shrugged. "They'll stop."

She made her way to the small kitchen in silence and began to a.s.semble food in a basket. No sense in plates; there weren't enough of them.

"Why?" he asked quietly.

"Why what?"

"Why did you try to save someone you don't even know?"

She shrugged. "Why didn't you stay in Taverson's? Why didn't you eat?"

"Burned my mouth."

"Why did you hit that man with the stool?"

Carver shrugged. Looked at the floor. "Stabbing him would have got me thrown out."

She laughed. It was an unexpected rush of sound, nerves driving it. "The stool would have got you thrown out if Taverson figured out you'd done it." She looked up, met his gaze, and held it. "You have anywhere better to go?"

"Not tonight."

"I owe you a meal. I'll feed you." She looked at his feet. "And I'll buy you boots, or something. Your feet-"

"The old ones fell apart. They were too big, anyway."

"When did you lose 'em?"

"Couple of days ago. I don't know." The gaze that had tried to hold hers became evasive.

She held up a hand. "You helped me," she told him quietly. "I didn't ask. I couldn't. I didn't know-" She threw the words away, chose different ones. "You helped me. I owe you."

"I'd say Finch owes me, if anyone does."

"She didn't ask either."

"She's smarter than she looks." His tone took a turn for the bitter. "What's the point in asking?"

Jewel couldn't really argue with that. But she was what she was; she did. "What's the point in not asking? What difference does it make, one way or the other? Sometimes you get what you ask for."

"Sometimes," he said, stone-cold words, "you don't know what you're asking for."

She nodded then. Thinking of Rath, thinking of all the things she hadn't asked for. Not in words. Maybe never in words. Thinking of his ruined jacket, his blood in thin welts across chest, ribs, cheek; thinking-knowing in a way that was less certain and more natural than gift-that he had almost died because he'd known that she would try to save a stranger.

Wondering what the cost would be, if she stayed here. Not to her-but to Rath.

She finished cutting bread, apples, hard cheese. "Take these," she told him.

He took the basket.

"Stay in the room, with the others."

"Where are you going?"

"To talk to Rath."

He waited another moment. "My name," he began.

"I don't care."

"I want to-"

"I don't care, Carver. Whatever you've done to survive, you've done. Telling me isn't going to change a d.a.m.n thing." She swallowed, turned to look at him, at this accidental boy who had hit death in the face with the seat of a bar stool. "What you do when you're here, I care about. That's the only thing that matters. That, and tonight."

His gaze was odd. She watched it waver, wanting to be elsewhere. "I'm not part of a den," he said at last.

"Good."

"I'd be part of yours."

"I told you-I don't have one."

He nodded, then, just before his stomach spoke. Embarra.s.sed, he retreated.

Jewel waited until she heard the click of the door; her room, occupied by four strangers, and shut against the world.

Then she walked to Rath's room, and knocked.

The door slid open; he hadn't really shut it. He was sitting, jacket still shreds across his back, in the chair in front of his desk; the magelight was in its stand and a quill was moving steadily in his right hand. Paper's edge curled to either side of the words that seemed to anchor him. He often wrote at night.

And she often let him.

This night was different. She entered his room and shut the door quietly-and carefully-behind her. His pen continued its quiet scratching. She walked past him, to the cupboards above the chest he kept locked. She pulled out two small jars and a long, white roll of something that reminded her of cheesecloth.

He looked up as she approached him in silence, the jars and the bandages in her hands. There was no accusation in his face; there was nothing in it at all; it was closed. Intimidating.

But she'd come for a reason. She touched the shoulders of his jacket, avoiding what she a.s.sumed would be his glare. To her surprise, he let her remove it, and began to unb.u.t.ton the s.h.i.+rt-also ruined-that lay beneath it. Blood was a red conversation on that s.h.i.+rt. The rest, the welts and cuts, were shallow enough that they didn't expose bone and sinew. She'd seen worse.

But these were personal in a way that even Arann's broken ribs, bruised eye, swollen lips, hadn't been. She removed the lid from one of the jars, and with shaking hands, she dressed each wound. His pen stopped at some point, but she didn't mark it; there was something compelling and soothing about the dressing of these wounds.

"The bandages won't stay," he told her quietly, as she began to play out the long strip. He caught her hand, sticky with unguent, before she could touch his cheek. His eyes were lined and dark, his face gaunt.

Old Rath, he'd called himself, the first day she'd met him. And he'd seemed old to her-but not the way he was now. It frightened her. She could see the bones beneath his skin.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked her softly, holding that hand. He would not let her touch his face.

"Disinfecting the cuts," she replied. But it was the wrong answer. Or perhaps the right answer to the wrong question.

She wanted to touch him to make certain he was real. And alive. She couldn't tell him that. She couldn't have said that in her old home either, when her mother and father had been alive, and her Oma had been at the center of the universe.

"How many, Jewel?" he asked.

She knew what he meant. "I don't know," she answered, just as softly. "I only meant to save Finch. That's all."

"I know." The words were uninflected. "I've seen it before. In someone else. But not like this," he added, lifting his cut arm. His smile was almost bitter. "Then, it was all theory."

"It's worse," she told him.

"The seeing?"

She nodded. "Since I met you, Rath."

His gaze fell to the words he'd been writing. His cursive script was both strong and almost illegible. "Four," he told her quietly. "Will you keep them all?"

"Will you let me?"

"For now, Jewel." He shook his head, and his smile was strange; she didn't understand it. It was shorn of both sarcasm and edge, but it was also shorn of mirth, or joy. It cut him, she thought. Knew it was true, and didn't know why.

"You'll find others," he told her.

"You're seeing things, too?"

"Just you, Jay. Jewel Markess. Just you." He paused, and then let her hand go. "And perhaps myself, clearly. You're like a mirror," he added, "and it is not a kindness."

She wanted to ask him what he meant. But she knew the rules, even if he seldom bothered to put them into words. What he didn't offer, she couldn't ask for. Not here and now.

"Go back to your den-kin."

"They're not my den."

But his smile was still there, s.h.i.+fting in the light, gathering different shadows that showed the many lines that edged the corners of his lips.

She went.

Chapter Thirteen.

JEWEL HAD NEVER lived in a quiet room with this many people before. If she were honest, she had no memories of the time in which she'd lived with this many people at all, although her Oma had often spoken about them with some pride. She was always proud of the things she'd done, and the words had survived, some echo of that dim voice, when the memories themselves had been devoured by age and time.

It was crowded, but it was less crowded; the arguments that time had worn into patterns-between her father and her Oma, between her father and her mother, between Jewel and either of her parents, or sometimes both-had been a part of the house in a way that the quiet here had never been.

Her first task, in the foreign quiet of this new morning, was a visit to the Common. She took Finch and Carver, and after a moment's hesitation, asked Arann and Lefty if they wanted to come, too. Arann had been told not to move much, but it was getting d.a.m.n cold, and the cold couldn't be good for him. Just to the market, for clothing. Just that.

Arann nodded instantly, a sure sign that the "rest" was finally driving him insane. Lefty looked at Arann. He had momentarily lost his voice in the presence of Carver; Finch didn't seem to scare him.

Then again, Jewel couldn't imagine Finch scaring anyone.

Rath was either sleeping or out. His door was closed, and she didn't knock on it because she didn't want to know. Disturbing Rath was never a good idea anyway.