House War - The Hidden City Part 72

"That bad?"

"It is bad, Haval. Bad, as you might say, for business."

"Then it's not your business you're here on. And which of these two hold your strings?"

Jewel was almost shocked.

"School your face, girl," Haval told her. But he spoke gently. "It gives away much that Rath wishes to hold secret. Very well; he is here because of you. I hope you're worth it. I will now a.s.sume, from Rath's reticence and your open shock that the Patris in question is not aware of your existence at this time."

She said nothing, and tried, very hard, to school her expression. Haval winced.

"Rath, is this wise? They are not-"

"It is not wise."

"Very well. You know your own business." Haval rose. "But I will have the name."

"The name will tell you too much."

"The name," he said quietly, "will tell me whether we have business here at all."

And Rath surrendered. "Patris Waverly."

Haval's face did not change at all; he seemed the same pleasant and oddly stern man who had led them to the room. But Jewel knew he recognized the name, and more, the unspoken history that surrounded it.

"Not that Patris, Rath."

"We have little choice, Haval. Either you will aid us, or we will go without your aid. There is no one else I care to ask."

"Two weeks, you said? There's no one else you could ask."

"That's more or less what I said."

"He doesn't play games," Haval continued, staring now at Jewel and Duster, before once again giving Rath his full attention. His expression had become utterly impa.s.sive. "Ararath, I have long held some affection for you, but affection is like any other coin once spent; it is gone. If you intend to use these girls as bait-"

Duster rose, shoving her chair back so quickly it toppled. Jewel rose almost as swiftly, catching her den-kin by the arm in a grip that could have broken bone. There was a moment in which silence was strained almost to breaking, but it eased. Jewel was relieved to see that Duster did not draw her dagger.

"I see," Haval said, and Jewel thought he just might. "Forgive me, Ararath. I felt I had to speak plainly, and if insult was about to be offered, your friends have spared our friends.h.i.+p that.

"If you do not play this carefully, you'll be dead," Haval continued, looking at the two girls and testing their resolve. But he said it absently, in a tone of voice better suited to discussing the variants in shades of blue fabric. "What role, then, will the two of you play?"

And Duster said, "I'm going to kill him."

Haval did not laugh. He met Duster's gaze and held it for a long moment. "You've met him, I see," he said at last, his tone completely without inflection. Without pity.

She nodded her defiance, her trembling anger.

"Very well. I will help you as I can, because I am fond of Rath. I do not consider this wise," he added. "And I will need two full days of preparatory time before I can be of use to you.

"But I would suggest, if you have any other recourse, that you consider it carefully."

Rath's smile was thin, but it was there. "Believe that we have considered it carefully, and believe that," he added, as he bent down and righted Duster's fallen chair, "all other options were gently refused."

Haval nodded. "They'd almost have to be, with the current state of the magisterial guards in the lower holdings."

Rath frowned. "What news, Haval?"

"It is not appropriate to discuss it here," Haval replied. Jewel silently added in front of the children, and clenched her teeth to stop herself from speaking.

"Perhaps not, but it bears discussion and study. You are not the only friend I've visited in the past few days."

"Then I will trade information for information," Haval replied serenely. "I will do what I can to help your young friends to adopt suitable roles, and you will share what you deem wise when the information is in your possession."

"Wisdom plays little part in this," Rath replied.

"It seldom does. But if you were wise, we would never have met. And I? I would be elsewhere, I think. In the Kings' service."

None of the words made sense to Jewel.

"Come back in two days," Haval said to them, rising. "I have work to do in the meantime; House Havani has commissioned three very fine dresses, and Lady Havani has specifically requested that I see to their details myself. We all have to eat," he added.

Rath laughed. It was not a kind laugh. "And Lady Havani is well?"

"She is, of course, as hale as a horse. On a rampage."

Duster and Jewel walked back to the apartment in lock-step. Rath walked ahead in silence. The cold made itself felt in every step, every breath; the streets were as empty as they were when the moon was at nadir in the rains. Rath was angry, of course. Jewel knew it, and knew as well that there was nothing she could offer to ease his anger.

"You shouldn't have said anything," she told Duster quietly.

Duster was sullen, her shoulders bunched together, her skin red with either cold or embarra.s.sment. "I had to," she said, through clenched teeth.

"Why?"

"He-" She shook her head. "I'm not bait. I'm not-" She stopped walking, and Jewel stopped two steps ahead of her, and went back. Rath, however, kept walking, dwindling into the distant, crushed white of Winter. "I don't understand you," Duster said softly. Or as softly as she ever spoke. "And I don't understand your Rath either.

"He cares about you. He wouldn't help me if I asked; he wouldn't lift a finger to help me."

"He's not like that-"

"He's exactly like that," Duster snapped, but without scorn. "He doesn't like people much, and he sure as h.e.l.ls doesn't trust them. But you?" She shook her head. "He likes you well enough. I thought maybe the two of you . . ." She shook her head. "But that's not it. I don't understand it."

"Does it matter?"

"No. As long as I get what I want, I don't give a s.h.i.+t."

"My Oma used to say-"

"Spare me."

Jewel shrugged. Started to walk. It was Duster, this time, who caught up to her. "I said it because I didn't want him to think that Rath was like-like the others. The ones who kept me chained in that d.a.m.n room."

"Why do you care?"

Duster shrugged. "d.a.m.ned if I know," she said at last. And it was true. She didn't.

"Rath can take care of himself."

"And you."

"And me." Jewel shrugged. Felt something like happiness, but thinner, and more fragile, as she met Duster's dark eyes. In Torra, she said, "The hardest thing to figure out is what will make you happy."

"Your Oma said that?"

"All the time."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It was just something she said. You would have liked her."

"I doubt it."

"She would have liked you."

"I really doubt that."

Jewel exhaled, her breath a mist wall between them. "I do," she said quietly.

"Because I saved Finch."

She nodded.

"You like Finch."

"Yes. She's important to me."

"Why?"

"Because she's Finch. She's not very harsh, and she's not-she's not like me. Or you. Sometimes we need people who aren't. My mother was never hard enough, according to my Oma, and she's some part of me. But Duster, Finch didn't save herself. If you hadn't decided to help her somehow, she would have died."

Duster said nothing.

"If I hadn't decided to help her, she would have died." She paused, searching for the right words when so many wrong ones waited like traps. "She didn't need you to kill for her. She didn't need me to do that either. But she needed both of us."

"And we were there." The words were bitter. "What about what I need?"

"I don't know what you need," Jewel replied. "Sometimes I don't know what I need."

"Your Oma again?"

"No, that's just me. I'm making it up as I go. We only have now," she added, "and yes, that part's my Oma."

"I'm not afraid of dying," Duster said, as they walked. "I'm not really afraid of pain either."

Jewel nodded. "I'm afraid of both."

"But you came to the mansion."

She nodded. "There are things that I'm more afraid of."

"Like what?"

Jewel shrugged. An invitation to expose herself to Duster wasn't going to happen every day. Thank the G.o.ds. But she felt that she owed Duster the truth. Or as much of it as she could actually see. "I'm afraid of failing," she said quietly. "I'm afraid that I've made promises I can't keep. I'm afraid," she added, stopping again and turning to face Duster, "of losing any of you."

Duster's laugh was harsh and grating. Jewel accepted it, let it pa.s.s her by. Duster didn't have any other way of laughing. Maybe she never would.

"Finch doesn't need what you need. I don't think any of the others do. Except Lander," she added softly, her vision suddenly sharpening as she spoke. "I think Lander needs what you need."

"Lander doesn't even talk."

"No. And I don't think he will until we-" She stopped. Wherever this was going, she didn't like it. But she was Jewel, her Oma's little fire. "Until we kill Patris Waverly." Her eyes widened a little. "You said that, then. I didn't-I wasn't-" She shook her head.

"I want them all dead," Duster told her, not even noticing.

"I know. But we start where we start." She closed her eyes. Opened them. "Thank you."

"For what?" Duster seemed genuinely surprised.

"For trying to spare Rath. Even if you know he can take care of himself."

Duster shrugged, retreating from the moment. Or so it appeared. But when she spoke, she said, "I've never had much I was afraid to lose. I wonder what it's like." The bitterness and envy that inflected the words weren't all they contained; it surprised Jewel.

But today, so had Duster, if only a little.

"It's like any other fear," Jewel replied. "But some weaknesses are good and some are bad. I think this is a good one."

"I don't want it."

Jewel said, quietly, "I know. But you saved Finch. That counts for something. It has to."

Duster didn't laugh. She said, "I'm trying. Not to be whatever it was they thought I'd become. But you keep harping on Finch. You want to know why I saved her?" She spoke the words with enough force, they were like a blow.

And behind that, Jewel knew she was afraid, for just a minute, of what effect those words would have. Was fighting fear the only way she knew how: By ignoring it. Worse.

"Doesn't matter."

"It should. I saved her because they needed her dead."

Jewel frowned. "They needed her dead?"