House War - The Hidden City Part 69

Duster bristled visibly; Jewel, however, did not.

"He is a somewhat quirky man, and he was never patient. Do not play cards with him if he asks. He always cheats; he is never caught."

At this, Duster perked up.

"It is not card tricks that I wish you to learn," Rath added, seeing her expression. "You must be able to pa.s.s unseen while being seen by everyone. Wherever it is you will go, you must be both noticed and so much a part of the scenery, no one will actually pay attention.

"The Lords live in manors upon the Isle, and they leave seldom, usually on business affairs. I do not intend," he added darkly, "to cause difficulty in the Merchant Authority; nor do I feel it wise to attempt to accost said lords in alleys in which they would not otherwise travel.

"They are, however, victims of their own proclivities."

"They're victims?" Jewel said, almost outraged. The fact that she didn't know what the last word meant escaped her attention.

"Very well, they are fools. Does that suit better?"

She nodded. Duster said nothing.

"You have responsibilities here that are entirely your own, Jewel. When you have seen to your newest arrival, and you have taken the time to purchase the clothing and blankets we require-I have taken the liberty of seeing to wood-I will take you to meet the man who will be your guide."

"What will we tell the others?" Duster asked him.

"You are not so fond of the truth that you are incapable of lying," he replied sweetly. "Come up with a lie that suits you. I should warn you, however, that Jay is famed for her inability to lie; if it comes at all, it must come from you."

Duster said, "You don't like me much, do you?"

"At the moment? No. But things change, and people have been known to change as well. You are not without that ability; you simply lack the desire."

This suited Duster. Had Rath given any other answer, it would have been the wrong one. He knew it, and saw from Jewel's expression-relief-that she knew it as well.

Hate and contempt were things that Duster understood. Jewel and Rath were things she didn't-and she needed some stability.

"I will take a few days to arrange the meeting with my a.s.sociate," he added, as he nodded vaguely in the direction of the closed door. "In which time, tend to your own."

Things were not exactly lively when they escaped Rath's room, but Duster had lost the look of anger that usually informed her face. Jewel had hit her hard, and the mark lingered like a white accusation against her ruddy skin, but Duster had forgotten it, as if it were nothing.

Jewel was ashamed of herself. And of her temper. It had taken all of her meager self-control to wait until Rath had left the d.a.m.n room-but not waiting would have been worse, and she knew it.

Finch approached her quietly, as she often did. "He's in our room," she said.

"Our room?"

"There's more room there; the other room is too crowded."

"You don't mind?"

Finch raised a pale brow. "Not more than you do."

Duster said, "I don't give a s.h.i.+t. He's just a kid."

Jewel shrugged. "I don't mind," she told Finch, and only Finch. "Has he eaten anything?"

"Not hardly. But . . ." Her voice trailed off, and fell until it was almost inaudible. "Lefty told us what happened. I didn't want to push him."

Jewel nodded. "What do you think of him?"

"He seems nice," Finch replied with care. "But quiet."

"I think he'll always be quiet. It's when he's not that we'll have to listen."

"He loved his mother," Finch added. And Jewel remembered what had happened to Finch and said nothing. But she touched Finch's shoulder, wanting the contact, or wanting to offer it. Nor did Finch pull away. "He's talking to Lander," she added.

"Talking to him?"

"Well, gesturing at him. Lefty taught him a bit, and he picked it up really quickly. I think Lander likes him."

Jewel nodded quietly. "Lander will talk to us," she told Finch, and knew it for truth. "In his own time, he'll talk."

"Maybe Jester will stop," Duster added, but without much malice. Fires banked, here. It gave Jewel hope. "We have to go to the Common," she added, "before the day is out."

To Teller, the noise was almost overpowering. The rooms were crowded, and the kitchen large compared to his home, but every corner seemed to be filled with something or someone. He wanted to feel lucky; felt, instead, a simple lack of anything but cold. His fingers ached with it, and his chest was tight. He could no longer feel his toes.

He watched them all. Especially Jay, because everyone seemed to look to her for guidance. She was dark-haired, and her hair curled around her face so awkwardly she was constantly shoving it to one side or the other; she was slender and neither tall nor short. Her eyes were dark, and her skin Southern.

And she understood his loss.

He understood hers. He had no way to speak of either, no words for the certainty. But some part of him had been waiting for her in the snow; for her or for the G.o.ds. She had come first. His mother had believed in fate, and in the malice of Kalliaris, the G.o.ddess of luck. Teller had believed in his mother, and had accepted the way her world worked. This world, however, was new to him.

New, and yet, still his own. Because Jay was here; she had found him, he had followed. He had watched the silent giant carry his mother home. He wouldn't have asked it; couldn't have demanded it-he had no words, not then.

But she had seen it and understood it, and what she asked, they offered. He labored under no illusions; he knew that she could never ask him to do what Arann had done. If he had a place here, it wasn't Arann's place. But he had one; he had to find it, and hold it.

He liked Lefty, although he thought it odd that Lefty spent most of his time with his arm wedged under his armpit. He only stopped that when he spoke with Lander, the mute, pale boy that Jewel had also taken in. Lefty told Teller how Lander had come to be here, and Finch stood by, correcting him gently when she felt he needed it. Fisher could talk, but didn't; it wasn't so much that he was quiet-you knew when he was in the room-as that he didn't feel a need to talk at all. He nodded often, grunted once or twice, ate three times as much as Arann, and kept mostly to himself.

But he was willing to learn what Lefty was willing to teach or share: the movement of hands, the silent language that Lander responded to. Not one of these children had family. Not Jay either, according to Finch.

Carver told him the story of Finch's rescue, and Finch let him talk. When he had finished, Teller said, looking up at Carver from the patch of floor he'd made his seat, "I don't understand one thing."

"What?"

"Why you were there."

Carver shrugged. "I don't understand it either," he said at last.

"But you helped her-in the tavern-you started the fight."

Carver nodded.

"Why?"

"She needed help."

"A lot of people need help," Teller replied quietly.

"She needed help I could offer."

Teller nodded at that. It made sense. "What do you do here?"

"Do?"

"What kind of work?"

"Work?"

Finch looked at her feet. They weren't bare. "We do whatever Jay tells us," she said at last. "She's teaching us to read. And to write. Well, most of us. Not Lander, yet. But she says he'll learn."

"She's teaching you to read?"

Finch nodded.

Teller felt a peculiar hunger then, the hunger that had entirely escaped him when Finch had offered him food or blankets. "Read what?" he asked carefully.

"She says anything, in the end," Finch told him. "But we're learning letters first. And our names."

"Why?"

Finch shrugged. "Her father taught her, before he died. And Old Rath told her she had to keep learning if she wanted to stay here."

"He's teaching her?"

Finch nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know. You ask a lot of why."

Teller smiled. "It's the only way I'll understand anything."

"Jay would ask, too. Why," Finch added. "I asked her why. Why she saved me. Why she saved the rest of us."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't. I think if she could, she'd save the whole city, or die trying." Finch's eyes were bright, and wide, as she spoke. "And I want to help her," she added, looking down at her slender arms, her orphan hands. "Whatever she wants to do-it can't be bad. And I'd rather help Jewel than do almost anything else. If it means reading, I'll learn to read. If it means fighting, I'll learn to fight."

Teller frowned, and Carver shook his head. "She's been trying to teach Finch and Lefty to fight a bit. Not like soldiers," he added, "but just enough to be able to get away if they have to."

From what? He didn't ask. Enough, to have the questions answered. Enough, because it made him think of something other than his mother. She had died alone, in the cold; he hadn't even been there. He couldn't remember if he'd told her he loved her before she'd gone. He couldn't know for sure that she knew it, while she lay in the street dying.

"Teller?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Cold," he said. "Just cold." Winter death in the tone of the words. And Finch didn't ask more. He liked Finch. He liked Carver. And Lefty, so nervous, and yet in his own way so generous; Arann, who stood over Lefty like a shadow or a guardian; Jester who tried so hard to make people laugh, when there was so little to laugh about. Even Fisher, who in his own way tried to make Lander more comfortable.

But Duster scared him.

"So we learn to read?"

"And we go to the market with her, sometimes. We get the water, we help some of the older people. She doesn't ask much, Teller."

And you want her to ask more. Again, he didn't say it. "She will," he told her gently. "From both of us, even us, she will."

"You're not afraid of her?"

He shook his head. "I feel like I've known her forever," he said, meaning it. "I don't know anything about her, but . . ." He shrugged. "I know she wants me here, and that's enough."

Finch nodded. "It's good, this place."

"Crowded," Carver added. But he smiled when he said it, his hair hanging over one eye as he leaned back against the wall. "She's got a bit of a temper."

"And she speaks Torra," Finch added. "Do you?"

"A bit."

"I think-" Finch shook her head. "You'll like it here."

"And what about Duster?"

"Duster saved my life," Finch replied. But her expression was troubled. Teller didn't ask more; Carver's expression had frozen in place. Teller was new here; he would learn. Was determined to learn.

Jay went out with Carver and Arann and Lefty, and when she came back, snow melting in the curls of her hair, she had blankets, clothing, food. The blankets, she handed to Teller. "We don't have beds," she added. "These will have to do for now."

She paused for a minute, and then said quietly, "Kitchen." It was to Teller she spoke, and only to Teller, and the rest understood it; when he rose, they stayed where they were. He followed her. On the scant counter s.p.a.ce, she was carving bread that had almost frozen; it was like chipping soft rock. She nodded toward a chair, and he took it, waiting by the table.

"I don't know what they've said about me," she began, back turned toward him as she worked, "and most of it probably isn't true."

He had to smile at that.

"But you should know something if you're going to stay here. You haven't asked me how I found you."

"No."

"Why?"

"When Kalliaris smiles, it's not a good idea to ask why. She might frown instead."

Jewel chuckled. "Good answer. You would have liked my Oma."

He said nothing.

"But you should know that-" she put the knife down with a curse, and he saw she'd cut her finger; saw blood ebb into bread that seemed too frozen to absorb it.