City of Night (61 page)

They came up a very narrow set of stairs, through a door that barely looked like it was built for one—but it opened, as Jay and Carver had said, onto the roof. The roof itself was mostly flat; it sloped very gently to the streetside and the back road. Water pooled unevenly along the edges to either side, an artifact of the time of year. Eaves lined the roof, and creepers twined around them, climbing from unseen cracks in the stones across the face of brick and wood.

Carver flattened himself against the roof, and inched his way across it until he could see over the edge, alley-side. He lifted his hands; signed,
Pursuit
and pulled back much faster.
It’s Rath,
he mouthed.

Angel crouched; he didn’t drop, didn’t flatten himself out. Couldn’t fight on his stomach, and didn’t relish the thought that he’d be caught out that way. But he listened. Someone was climbing the wall.

Rath?

Angel glanced at Jay; she was utterly still, and her face was winter white. She didn’t say a word; she barely seemed to breathe.

Carver leaned out over the alley-side edge of the roof, drew a dagger. Angel started to shout, stopped; it was too late. The dagger flew from Carver’s hand.

“Cartanis’ blood.” Carver pulled back again; his hand, empty now, was shaking. He was about the same color as Jay—and it suited neither of them.

“It’s him,” Jay whispered. “It’s Rath.”

“The knife. It—it
bounced
.”

Her breath was so sharp it cut. “Everybody, north side.
Now.
”

If the roof had been a ship, Angel though, it would have teetered with the sudden redistribution of weight. Jester looked at the eaves, the trellises, the lips of the windows that the creepers crossed. He glanced at Jay; she nodded. Jester wasn’t the one who was afraid of heights. The tavern was only two stories tall, and they could drop from one full story without breaking anything. He went over the edge.

Finch hesitated as she watched him climb; Jay said
nothing,
but it was a loud, desperate nothing. Angel stepped in front of Finch, sheathing his dagger for the climb; he motioned Teller over to Finch’s side as well. “Step where I step,” he told her. “Unless I fall.” He grinned.

Her grin was a faded, nervous echo; Teller’s was sharper; he clung to the iron box until Carver reached over and plucked it from his hands. But he led, and they followed; they moved as quickly as they could. He looked up halfway down, to see Arann struggling with the same climb. Arann’s body was shaking with effort or pain. Probably both. Angel flinched as Arann missed a hold twice, but he managed—barely—to keep himself from falling. He had Carver just above him, and Carver could climb these walls in his sleep; he could climb them one-handed, and he more or less did, juggling the iron box between the two.

So could Angel; it was possibly the only thing that Angel had over Carver in terms of raw skill. But Angel was with Finch and Teller. Carver spoke to Arann; the sense of syllables drifted down, but the talk and the sound of street noises drifted up, canceling them.

Jay was still at the top of the roof, looking down, when Carver was halfway home. He looked up at her, lifted his hands—both of his damn hands, the bloody show-off—and signed.

She signed back, but her hands were shaking enough that Angel couldn’t read them.
Come on, Jay,
he thought, as he jumped the last eight feet to the ground.
You can make it. Come on.
Teller and Finch were already down when she started to climb, and they were pressed against the wall, looking up—at Arann. Their arms were raised, hands open, and Angel joined them; he didn’t tell Arann to jump or let go, because in Arann’s case the landing would hurt him.

Jay headed down while they huddled near Arann. Her arms were stiff as boards, legs trembling as she moved them to place her feet. She missed more often than Arann, but like Arann, she didn’t fall.

And just before she let go and leaped down the last few feet, she shouted in frenzied relief, and pointed.

A carriage—significantly, an empty carriage—was pulled into view by two horses that looked like they’d seen better years. Jester ran to flag it down, while Jay shouted.

 

It was a good thing Jay, Finch, and Teller were so damn small, because the cabin of a carriage wasn’t
meant
to have this many people cramming themselves into its small doors. The driver opened his mouth to say as much, but the den moved
fast
.

Jay plucked the box from whoever now held it—in the press of bodies, it was kind of hard to tell—and she flipped the lid wide, scattering the coins beneath the driver. “It’s yours. It’s yours,” she added, glancing out the window, “if you move
now
.”

The gods knew there wasn’t much
in
the box; they also knew it was enough for one damn carriage ride to anywhere. Apparently so did the driver. He nodded, looking none too pleased.

“But pick ’em up.”

Jay did that, and the den—well, Finch and Teller, because they could reach more easily—helped.

“Where are you going?”

She swallowed, and ran her hand along the folds of her sleeves. They sounded like paper to Angel. “To the estates of Terafin.” She looked at Arann, then.

Angel and Carver looked out the windows; the carriage hadn’t started to roll yet.

But they saw two things. The first: that their pursuer had gained the height of the roof, and stood there looking out. Looking down.

The second: he jumped. He didn’t bother with the climb; it would have only slowed him down.

But everyone heard the landing; it sounded like it had just cracked the stones that were road in these parts.

The driver, apparently, heard this kind of noise all the time; he shook the reins and the horses began to move. It wasn’t a smooth damn ride, and it wasn’t a fast one. Rath—or whoever it was—unfolded, stood, and began to run after the carriage.

He ran damn fast.

“Jay, we’ve got a problem,” Angel told her.

“On it,” she muttered. She slammed her fist into the roof of the cabin, and, holding onto the edge of the window, leaned out and shouted. “You’ve got to go
faster
. What kind of lousy horses
are
these? Look—a man on foot can keep up!”

“Don’t get cheeky with me.”

Jay pointed in the direction of the road, and in the direction of the man who, on foot, and only barely bothering to avoid pedestrians, was
gaining
. Easily.

The carriage picked up speed, then. Whatever cheek Jay had offered the driver had stung his pride as well. Rath fell behind.

And behind, and behind.

They weren’t really thinking of where they were going; they were thinking, instead, of the fact that they’d escaped. The entire cabin erupted in shouts and high, clear laughter. It was the wrong kind of laughter to Angel, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t dead.

They weren’t all dead.

But one of them didn’t join in the noise, and didn’t seem to notice the cause for celebration.

“Arann, are you all right?” Jay’s voice was louder than it would have been anywhere else; the wheels made a lot of noise, and if they hadn’t, the horses and their driver would have.

“I’m fine.” He looked at her. Looked at all of them. His eyes were almost like window glass. You could see through them. You couldn’t see much of Arann.

Jay flinched. She touched his face. Reached out, and wiped away the trickle of blood that was falling from the corners of his lips. The carriage ride was
not
gentle.

“Tell me if it gets to be too much.”

“I will.”

 

Angel had never been across this bridge. None of the den had.

They quieted as they approached it, as if silence was a better bet. Which was stupid; you couldn’t hide this many people in a carriage. Or at all, really. The driver slowed as the bridge guards signaled.

Angel and Carver bracketed the windows, and they listened to the brief and cursory exchange of words, followed by an equally brief and cursory exchange of money. The tolls.

But if there
were
laws that prohibited the poor from seeking access to the streets of the Isle, the guards seemed to be ignoring them today. They asked the driver where the carriage was bound, and they nodded when he answered.

Jay was as tense as the rest of them, but most of her attention was now turned inward, and it extended as far as Arann. Her hand stroked his brow and brushed sticky strands from his forehead; they touched the darkening bruises around his left eye; they lingered, briefly, beneath his jaw, where the pulse—when it existed—could be found. All this, in silence, as if silence would stop the rest of the den from worrying.

Angel glanced at them from time to time. He felt almost guilty, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the passing streets. Here, on the Isle, the very richest of the nobles lived. On the Isle, the Guild of Makers worked, and the mages toiled in the Order of Knowledge. On the Isle, the Exalted lived, speaking to their parents: Cormaris, Reymaris, and the Mother.

And on the Isle, the Twin Kings ruled from
Avantari
.

Golden-eyed, all, beloved of the gods. Angel wondered what it was like.

There was no answer, but as they drove, the spires of the three cathedrals came into view against the cool of azure. Flags rippled from the tower heights, and gold caught sunlight, brightening it.

There were fine carriages and armored guards in the streets, but very few pedestrians—at least compared to the Common and the streets of the holdings with which Angel was familiar. There were buildings behind fences, here. They were not as large as some of the estates the carriage had passed on the mainland, and Angel didn’t know enough about city versions of gardens to judge whether or not the smaller grounds were somehow finer.

But he knew that, among all the nobles, The Ten lived here. Their lands were their own, and not leased from the Kings or the Crown Estates; they were guaranteed a home upon the Isle. Rath said the rest of the patriciate was not so lucky; for the rest, it was only money or political power that mattered.

Jay explained only a little of what had happened with Rath. Where a little was a curt, “He’s dead” and not a lot else. But that was enough, for Angel. Teller wanted to ask questions; he could see that clearly. But Teller was good at silence, good at waiting. Both were needed here.

Duster.
Angel glanced toward the mainland, although it couldn’t be seen; here the buildings were tall, and they weren’t sparse. He must have said her name out loud; he hadn’t intended it.

But Jay said quietly, “She’s dead.” Just that. It was enough. He closed his eyes.

 

“Here it is.” The carriage slowed. The streets on the Isle were smooth, the stones large and flat; the journey from the bridge on had been less jarring and far less uncomfortable than the wild, careening ride that had led to it. “Home of The Terafin. You want me to wait?” Angel couldn’t see the driver’s expression, but he knew curiosity when he heard it. He could sympathize.

“No. We’ll be fine from here,” Jay told him curtly. She’d opened the door, and now stepped out, her knees folding slightly at the unexpected boon of solid ground beneath her feet. She took a breath, held it for a moment, and then looked across at the manse.

Coming to House Terafin had been no part of their morning’s plan. No part of their life’s plan, if it came to that. But the den looked up, now, to the gates that surrounded the property. Those gates were thick brass, the ends ornamented with tines that rose like solid spears into the heights. There was a guardhouse, of the type that existed in stories, and it was manned.

The den gazed at the building beyond these gates, at the small front grounds and the road that bisected the lawns, surrounded on either side by rows of flowers that Angel couldn’t name; they would never have grown them in the Free Towns.

Angel looked at the manse for different reasons than the rest of the den, emerging as they had into the streets, sunlight, and the lack of moving wheels. His father, Garroc, had served The Kalakar, one of The Ten. He had found distinction in service to the House, but in the end, he had left it, seeking the freedom and the quiet of the Free Towns in which to live out the remainder of his life. Short life, Angel thought, with a momentary bitterness, a clean resentment.

Angel now stood in the lee of the Terafin manse, before the guards who served the most powerful woman in the patriciate. Possibly one of the most powerful in the Empire. Here, so close to her presence, he could not help think of Terrick, of Weyrdon, and of his father’s isolated quest.

He glanced at Carver, and from there, to Jay. Jay was looking toward the carriage. She cursed, and Angel let go of the remnants of his old life in time to turn and see Arann, slumped partway out of the cabin. Caught, facedown, in the doors.

“Shit,” Carver said. “Angel, get off your backside and help me move him.” Carver went for Arann’s left; Angel crossed over and reached for his shoulder on the right. Arann was damn big, and he was unconscious. Moving him without killing him was going to take more than the two of them.

Finch and Teller moved in to try to help as well.

But Jay watched, her face graying in the bright sunlight.

“What’s wrong with him, Jay? Why are you looking like that?” Carver grunted as they managed to heave Arann into an upright position. He and Angel immediately slid under his shoulders before he could fall forward again, while Teller and Finch tried to brace him. They did their best not to touch his ribs, not to add any weight to them.

“It’s nothing.”

“Jay?” Teller looked at Arann’s face. It was gray. It was the color that Jay’s was slowly shading. After a pause in which no one spoke, Teller said, in the same quiet voice, “He’s dying, isn’t he?”

“Shut up, Teller.”