House War - The Hidden City Part 59

His reservations were loudest-in that unspoken way he'd mastered long before she'd been born-when it came to Duster, and Jewel, often honest to a fault, couldn't bring herself to argue against his suspicion. Over the next three days, Duster had started two arguments and one actual fight.

She'd drawn a knife on Arann.

And Arann had refused to blink or step back. Had Duster intended to threaten Arann, and Arann alone, he would have given way instantly; whatever pride he had, it wasn't the stupid kind. But she'd taken an instant dislike to Lefty, with his obvious fear, his obvious insecurity, and she had pushed too far.

Arann, angered, had pushed back in one of the only ways he knew how.

In all, it was not a scene that Jewel wanted to dwell on. Which meant, of course, that she did. She couldn't force Duster to accept Lefty; she could barely force Duster to eat or sleep. Nor could she comfort Lefty; Duster had a cutting tongue, and between knife edge and word, Jewel was hard-pressed to choose the more palpable threat.

Duster enjoyed it.

Jewel hated it. But she let it play out because she had to see how far Duster was prepared to go. To know it, as fact, as something irrefutable. Duster was no idiot-she didn't push far enough that Arann would be forced to actually fight. But it was close, and in those cramped quarters, the others as witness, Duster earned anger and a growing dislike that bordered on hatred without quite crossing that boundary.

Because Finch could still reach her, and Lander-Lander, silent, almost insensate, could also reach out to touch the hem of her clothing. And he had, even when the knife glittered like the wrong kind of promise.

So Duster remained in the cramped quarters of Rath's home. Only when they left as a group to go to the Common did they emerge into what could laughingly be called sunlight; endless stretch of gray that was colder with each pa.s.sing hour. The s.h.i.+ps in the far harbor could be seen, flags and great sails furled as if they were leaves out of season, waiting their chance to bud again. The ocean itself was choppy with wind, and when the rain began to freeze, Jewel wondered-as she so often did-why the sea itself didn't stop its endless motion.

Lander did not speak during the three days that pa.s.sed beneath ground; he ate when food was brought, and slept when the lights-such as they were-were doused. But he slept poorly, and often loudly, and there were grim circles under the eyes of the boys by the end of the second night. Even Jester-Jester, red-haired, freckled, his skinny long face perpetually turned up in an almost fey smile-found the nights difficult, and his humor developed an edge that amused only Duster.

Fisher was mute in sleep, but spoke a few words here and there when Jewel prodded him to see if he had a tongue. He didn't speak about the great house, and she didn't ask.

She couldn't speak to these newcomers as easily as she had spoken to either Lefty or Arann; couldn't plan with them, as she had, without thought, begun to plan with Carver or even Finch; they were strangers to her, and beyond her; she did not know how to draw them out.

On the morning, the third morning, after the great fire, she walked into the boys' room-the door was open, a signal that visitors were either welcome or desperately needed, Finch her shadow. What Duster was, Jewel still wasn't certain, but Duster followed as well, making room for herself just by walking. She wasn't much taller than Jewel, and she wouldn't surrender her age-which probably meant she didn't know it exactly. Duster considered almost everything a weakness, and it was still important not to be weak.

Lefty was sitting by Lander's side; Arann was sitting against the wall, watching them. Lefty wasn't speaking-he seldom did, when strangers were present-and had he been, Duster's shadow would have caused his jaw to shut so fast you could have heard its snap from Rath's room. But he was doing something with his hands.

It must have been important; he was using both of them. His right hand and his left, one short a couple of fingers, were moving above Lander's palms. And Lander appeared to actually be watching him. His own hands didn't move in response, but his eyes-the eyes that had been so vacant for all of the three days he'd lived here-flickered back and forth at the dance of Lefty's hands. Lefty was tapping his palm, left hand to right.

"Jay's here," Arann said quietly. In this room, with the single exception of his explosive shout at Duster, he always spoke quietly. He understood, without the need for words, what was needed of him. And he was willing to give it.

Had Jewel seen that in him, the first day, or the second? Had she failed to see it? He was the oldest of them, she thought. Certainly, if age could be judged by size. But he was more than that; she realized, at this moment, that he was also the best of them. What they could all hope to be, had they patience and grace.

And grace was a word that had seldom been used by her Oma.

"Lefty," Arann added. "Jay's here."

Duster crossed the floor, pa.s.sing Jewel before Jewel could reach out and grab her arm. She knelt beside Lefty, and Lefty cringed, flinching as if her mere presence was a physical blow, a thing to be dreaded and feared.

Duster snarled at him, but wordlessly, her fangs hooded a moment by figurative lips. The contempt that she turned on Lefty at a moment's notice was never present when she looked at Lander.

But Lander's eyes were caught by Lefty's hands, or rather, by their sudden absence. If Lefty had been brave enough to risk approaching the strange boy-and Jewel admitted it didn't take much courage, given Lander's state-he was nowhere near brave enough to do it with Duster six inches away.

Finch crept up behind Duster, and stopped two feet away. This was safest, although Duster also seemed to have some sort of weak spot-no, that was the wrong word-tolerance for Finch. Finch didn't frighten Lefty, and she gently squeezed herself into the almost invisible s.p.a.ce between Duster and the maimed boy.

"What were you doing?" she asked Lefty, without meeting his eyes. Which would have been impossible unless she laid herself out on the slats, faceup.

"Just-hand stuff," he answered lamely. Quietly. "He doesn't like voices," Lefty added. "But sometimes-sometimes he'll answer other things."

"Answer what?" Duster snapped.

Lefty snapped in a different way.

Jewel sighed.

But Carver, quietly sitting with his back to the corner of the room, stretched his legs and stood. "Lefty's been trying to teach him to talk with his hands."

"Lander can't talk?"

"He can talk. He won't." Carver's eyes were lined with dark circles, and he appeared to have lost weight. Or gained height. "But he responds to some things. We were talking," Carver added, "yesterday afternoon. Jester thought it would be useful-"

"I said neat," Jester interjected.

"Useful," Carver continued, "to be able to signal, between ourselves. He says other dens do it, when they're afraid of making noise or drawing the wrong type of attention."

"He did?" The fact that Carver had used the word den-and that Jewel had let him-escaped everyone's notice.

Jester nodded almost gleefully.

"You've been listening to too many stupid stories," Duster said, with easy contempt.

"They don't have to be stupid," he replied, completely irrepressible. "So we started to come up with one or two. We've got a really good one for danger," he added.

"What kind of danger?" Jewel asked, curious in spite of Duster's growing look of bored contempt.

At this, Jester slowed down. "What do you mean, what kind?"

The bored contempt flared into something a little more testy, but Duster held her tongue; she was still seated in front of Lander.

Jewel shook her head. "Later," she said. "Go on."

"Anyway, Lefty kind of made up something that goes like this-" He lifted his palm in the universal gesture for stop.

Jewel failed to notice Duster's expression, but it took work; any expression on Duster's face was always hard to ignore.

"And Lander kind of lifted his hand. Both hands. In the same gesture. One after the other."

"Why both hands?"

"Lefty doesn't like to use his bad hand, and Lander was making the gesture with both because it can be done with either. I think," Jester added. "I think that's why he did it. He didn't exactly say."

Well, no, he wouldn't. But in spite of herself, Jewel felt something a lot like hope. "Danger? Just that?"

"Well, sort of. I came up with a couple of other signals," Jester added, "but for some reason, he didn't repeat any of those."

Jewel could well imagine what they were; if Jester had a sense of humor, it wasn't actually funny most of the time.

"But Lander tried a couple more of Lefty's. It took an hour," Jester added, with a shrug. "And Lefty's been trying since then. Lander doesn't always respond. But he does sometimes."

"Lefty," Jewel said.

Safely bracketed by Finch, Lander and wall, Lefty took the risk of lifting his head.

"Can you teach me those?"

He nodded.

"I think," Carver said quietly, "that we should all learn them. If it's the only way Lander will talk, it's better than nothing."

But Duster had had enough. Enough of games. She rose, and her expression was smooth as merchant gla.s.s, barred and uninviting. "There's another way," she said grimly.

Jewel was on her guard instantly; Duster did that. Whatever it was that Duster was about to say, she wasn't going to like it much. But she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"You talk to that friend of yours?"

"Talk? About-"

"What you said you'd talk to him about. We need to find a few people."

"I don't think-"

Duster glared toward the door, and the hall beyond it. Jewel, taking the hint without the benefit of Lefty's hand language, stepped out of a room that had offered hope like the scant rays of cold sun in winter. She felt their pa.s.sing, and missed it.

"Lander and I," Duster said, without preamble, "we had some of the same visitors."

The word visitor sank like a rock. Like a rock dropped through Jewel, and down into a darkness that she had never really explored. Didn't ever want to. She let it go before it dragged her with it.

"How will that help Lander?" she asked.

"How do you think?"

Jewel shrugged. "I don't waste time asking questions if I already have the answers. Or think I have them," she added, to be fair.

"He needs to know," Duster said coldly, "that they're dead."

"They're not dead."

"Not yet."

"How will that help him?" Because seeing a bunch of corpses wouldn't have done much for Jewel. She was smart enough not to say so.

Duster's glare was both hot and cold. Jewel thought the conversation had ended; when it was like this, it usually had. But apparently this was important enough to Duster that she was willing-barely-to make the attempt to get her point across. If she had to bury it to do so, that was just Duster.

"Because he'll know, if they're dead, that you're different. We're different." The we hung in the air for just a moment, it had been spoken with such heat. It was . . . an invitation. An opportunity. The first one that Duster had offered Jewel.

And it came cloaked in death, always death. Duster was still talking, and Jewel's hearing caught up slowly with the rest of the words. "He'll know that we won't use him the same way. Won't sell him. He'll know, if they're dead, that they'll never hurt him again."

"Doesn't mean that others won't."

"No. It doesn't." Duster seemed to deflate a little. "But you won't keep him here. Not like this. And don't think he doesn't know it. Don't think he's not waiting to be sent back to the place you dragged him from. Or sent somewhere else just like it."

"We can't send him anywhere else."

"The Mother's people will take him."

Jewel was absolutely silent.

"You think I don't know? You might be willing to keep the cripple because you get the giant with him-"

Jewel turned and walked away. Duster wasn't the only person who could end a conversation in anger, and it wouldn't be the first time-in a mere three days-that Jewel had proved this. Duster followed, but only so far as the door to Rath's room; if Duster was willing to show all her edges to anyone who could see them, she kept them sheathed near Rath.

"I'll talk to him. I'll talk to him even though you haven't yet given me the promise I need from you. I'll get your d.a.m.n information," Jewel said, spitting the words out when she could unclench her jaw. "But d.a.m.n you, leave Lefty alone." And without knocking, she opened Rath's door. Kalliaris smiled upon her attempt at a dramatic exit; the door wasn't locked.

Rath was waiting for her, lit to one side by the magelight in its pedestal. He looked, in that lopsided glow, as if he had aged; as if his shoulders had suddenly taken the weight of years and bowed beneath them. The air in the room was cool and damp; although there was a small grate here, he hadn't bothered to feed it.

Jewel made her way toward it, and he lifted a hand, catching the bend of her elbow before she pa.s.sed him.

"The door," he told her quietly.

She looked back; the light was moon bright, although day had not yet pa.s.sed beyond the meager window. She nodded quietly, and he released her sleeve. The door clicked shut as she turned again.

His smile was slight. "I told you," he said quietly, "to let her go."

She nodded. She didn't mention Duster by name. "Maybe," she added grudgingly, "I should have listened."

His brow rose in mock surprise. "But you have no intention of ridding yourself of her."

She could honestly say she'd been thinking of nothing else for the last two minutes; Duster could rile her in a way that only her Oma had, while she lived. But-as her Oma had often said-thought and action were different. "I don't understand her," she said instead.

"No, you don't. I think it highly likely that you will never understand her, and if you have no cause to do so, thank Kalliaris."

"You do."

"Thank the G.o.ddess? Hardly."

Jewel frowned. Mockery was something she accepted in small quant.i.ties. Very small. But Rath's charity-inexplicable charity, as it seemed at this moment-was all that stood between Jewel and the cold Winter that was coming. And Jewel was the bridge between Rath and the snow for the rest of the children packed together in these rooms. She bit her tongue, held it. "You understand her," she said at last, when she could.

"I've spent more years observing people."

She couldn't argue with that, and didn't want to. She started toward the logs again, and he shook his head. "Leave them, Jewel." He gestured to the other chair in the room. "And sit. Your pacing makes me think of caged animals."

She dragged the chair across the floor, bringing it inches away from his knees. This was awkward, as it didn't leave any room for hers; she had to tuck them beneath her.

"Why does she treat Lefty like that? Arann almost hit her."

"She almost stabbed him."

Jewel, uneasy, said nothing; she looked at the magestone instead. "You heard that?"