The Mirador (56 page)

Now, I’d always hated that nickname, which she started using within two days of people starting to call me Mildmay the Fox. But it wasn’t until I was halfway to my third septad that the way she said it started to bug me. I’d tried and tried to pretend to myself that it was, you know, loving, that if she’d known how I felt about it, she would’ve quit, but one day—I don’t even remember what she said—it hit me that there wasn’t no love in her voice. Nothing but meanness.

At first I’d been pissed off, and I lay awake half the night imagining fights with her I’d never be brave enough to go through with, not if I lived a septad of Great Septads—what right did she have to sneer at me? I was Mélusine’s top assassin. But then, somewhere around the ninth or tenth hour of the night, when all the thoughts in my head had started to go in ruts, and it was eating further and further into me that Keeper wasn’t proud of me, and she didn’t love me, and I didn’t know what I could do to make her love me, make her proud of me, I started thinking maybe she was right. Maybe there was nothing to be proud of in being the city’s best assassin. Sure, I could kill people, but plenty of people died every day without my help. And, I mean, the people I killed were dead, and it was my fault they hadn’t gotten to live any longer, and what the fuck was the good of that?

And then I thought, Sacred bleeding fuck, Milly-Fox, have you been killing people all this time because you thought it would make Keeper love you?

That was what did it, right there, although it took me a lot longer to get enough guts together to walk out. I might be good at killing people, but it wasn’t nothing to be proud of being good at, and it wasn’t nothing I wanted to do when I looked at it head on. I’d done it because Keeper wanted me to, and that was a shitty reason. What was worse was that Keeper didn’t care that I was doing it for her. I would have died to please her, and it was hard to realize that I couldn’t please her, that nothing I could do would ever be good enough, and she hadn’t even fucking noticed that I was trying.

So I’d stopped. I don’t suppose cat burglary was any great moral victory, but at least nobody was dying no more. It had taken me a long time to see how much of myself I’d killed along with Bartimus Cawley and Griselda Kilkenney and Cornell Teverius and all the rest of them and how much of that was just as dead as they were. There was a lot of stuff in myself I couldn’t bring back to life by saying sorry, either. Which I figured was about what I deserved.

What I hated most was the way the assassin wouldn’t fucking lay down and die. I kept saying I was done with him, and it was like the world was just going out of its way to prove me wrong. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t the guy who’d killed Cornell Teverius, even if the person I’d been when I’d done it wasn’t the person I wanted to be anymore, and it was that person, the assassin, that everybody saw when they looked at me. And every time I saw that fucker in their eyes, I hated him more.

Gotta put your money where your mouth is, Milly-Fox. You want to stop being that guy, you gotta stop. No fucking back-sliding.

I knew what I really meant, even if I didn’t have the guts to say it outloud to the spiderwebs. No more giving into Felix. Make him use the binding-by-forms, and make him use it hard. Because I knew that was the real problem. I didn’t kill for myself—never had. I’d killed for Kolkhis, and then I’d killed for Felix. And it wasn’t the killing I couldn’t quit, neither. It was the doing what I was told.

You know how sometimes you can be going along and do something or say something, and suddenly you know yourself? I mean, it’s like you’re looking at somebody else, and it’s just so fucking clear you want to hit something.

I sat down right where I was and made these noises like a coyote having a conniption fit in a sack, and I can’t tell you if I was laughing or screaming or maybe both. It was a long time before I could get myself upright again, too, and I was glad there wasn’t nobody around to watch.

Because fuck me for a half-wit dog. People’d kept asking me why I’d let Felix cast the obligation d’âme on me, and I’d kept giving them these shitty answers, and all the time the reason had been right fucking there.

Why’d I asked Felix to cast the obligation d’âme? Because let’s keep that straight, too. I hadn’t let him. I’d asked him. And why? Because I’d needed somebody to tell me what to do, and I’d wanted it to be him instead of Mavortian von Heber. Or Kolkhis.

And boy, don’t that just show I don’t have no business making decisions in the first place?

So I could put it all off on Felix. Just do what I was told and not have to think about it. Not have to be responsible for who I was. That’s why I’d done it. That’s why I’d asked Felix to cast the obligation d’âme on me.

And the bitch of it was, it didn’t even work. I still had to live with my shitty decisions. I was still me.

So maybe I’d better make that somebody I could stand to live with.

But life don’t stop just ’cause you’ve decided to make big changes. I still had to show up for court with Felix the next morning, like I did every morning. We weren’t talking to each other after what I’d said on Troisième. On Quatrième, he hadn’t so much as looked at me, although I couldn’t quite figure whether it was because he was mad at me or because he was afraid I was mad at him. Today, he wouldn’t look me in the eye, but when the Lord Protector dismissed the court and people started moving, he hung back long enough to say, “You can come back to the suite if you want.” And then he swanned out before I’d figured out how to answer him. Which was probably for the best, all things considered. I didn’t know if it meant that he’d taken in any of what I’d said, but at least he’d forgiven me for saying it.

Mehitabel

Today we began full dress rehearsals; the premiere of Edith Pelpheria was only two days away. All that afternoon, there was no room in my head for anything but Edith, and as always, that was a blessing.

I did notice that we had an audience again, sitting in the same seat Danny Charlock had chosen last time. Gordeny saw him, too; I could tell by the way she abruptly stopped looking past the edge of the stage.

No business of mine, I reminded myself when I was offstage again, and managed to believe it for the rest of rehearsal and while listening to Jean-Soleil’s barbed commentary.

But as soon as Jean-Soleil was done, Gordeny went flying off the stage; I knew she was racing through the maze of backstage corridors to the stage-lobby, where she was most likely going to tear strips out of the hapless Danny Charlock. And I was following her—though more slowly and with a plausible excuse. I did, after all, have a right to check my pigeonhole.

Sure enough, when I came through the stage-lobby door, there were Gordeny and Danny Charlock. They both swung around as the door opened, and whatever they’d been saying was lost.

“Miss,” said Danny politely, with a bob of the head.

“She’s Mehitabel Parr, numbnuts,” Gordeny hissed. “Ain’t you heard of her?”

I couldn’t tell from Danny’s abashed expression whether he had, and had never expected me to be so plain, or he hadn’t, and had no idea of who I was or why he ought to be impressed by me.

“Don’t mind me,” I said and crossed to my pigeonhole, which actually did have something in it.

“Tabby, tell Danny there ain’t nothing wrong with me being an actress,” Gordeny demanded.

“Why should there be anything wrong with you being an actress? ” I looked at Gordeny, but she was looking at Danny. I raised my eyebrows at Danny.

He was looking mulish. “It ain’t right.”

“It ain’t none of your business,” Gordeny said. “Nobody’s died and made you king that I know of.”

“Gordeny, I’m just saying—”

“And I heard you say it the first time. And I know it ain’t you saying it anyways. You go on back, Danny, and tell Septimus Wilder that if he wants to say something to me, he should have the guts to come say it himself.”

“Septimus didn’t send me,” Danny said, but a stone statue could’ve seen he was lying.

“’Course Septimus sent you,” Gordeny said, with a toss of her head she must have copied off Corinna. “I ain’t so dumb I don’t know that. You tell him, Danny. Go on.”

He went, slinking off like a scolded dog. I was still standing there, turning that sealed envelope over and over in my hands. Gordeny turned to me.

“Don’t bother lying to me,” I said, not raising my head.

“Tabby, I—”

“Just don’t. And for the love of God watch your grammar,” I said waspishly and left her there.

I recognized the crest sealing the envelope, and that alone was enough to make me uneasy. Why would Ivo Polydorius be writing to me?

I could think of several answers to that question, none of them good. I opened the envelope reluctantly. Ivo Polydorius affected a peculiar green-black ink and highly ornate capitals.

After the usual salutations, the letter read:

It is very kind of you to take an interest in Vincent. Certainly your patronage can do him nothing but good in the Mirador’s eyes. I would be greatly pleased for Vincent to have access to wider society; in particular I feel that the circle of Lord Shannon Teverius would provide him with the cultural and philosophical discussions so sadly lacking at Arborstell. Anything you can do to effect an introduction to Lord Shannon for Vincent would be most appreciated by both of us, and I would of course do in return any favor which lies within my scope.

Your most obedient servant,

Ivo Polydorius

Now that, I thought, was a very odd letter. I reread it in the hansom on the way to the Mirador, but found no enlightenment, and then set it aside, mentally as well as physically, to prepare for dinner with Stephen.

Stephen and I dined alone that evening and spoke very little. I didn’t think he’d care about my worries—except the ones I was most emphatically not going to share with him; his preoccupations remained behind his stone face. But the silence was amiable—I didn’t feel, this time, like I was being tested.

“Plans tonight, Mehitabel?” Stephen asked as we rose from the table.

“A small social gathering,” I said lightly. “I’ve persuaded Felix to join me.”

Stephen smiled; we’d be safe from interruptions from him. “Good. I won’t have to worry about him brooding on the battlements, then.”

“Brooding on the battlements?”

“His favorite pastime. I prefer it to pitching tantrums in the Hall of the Chimeras—which he has also done a time or two—but it makes me uneasy.”

“Afraid he’ll jump?”

Stephen snorted. “Hardly. Afraid he’ll amuse himself by pitching centimes over the edge. Or decide to go roof-walking and I’ll have to send the Protectorate Guard to get him down. Like a cat.”

I laughed. Stephen wouldn’t hear it was fake; he’d never heard my real laugh. “I’ll come to you later.”

“Good,” he said and kissed me. “I’ve got the bigger bed.”

Felix

I spent the afternoon alone with the Influence of the Moon. Clef had been right; I found Ynge’s theories both enlightening and provocative. Understanding Vincent’s odd gift in terms of a noirant sensitivity was suggesting some very intriguing possibilities—even more intriguing than I had originally imagined. We would see this evening if I was correct.

It was ridiculous of me, but with Gideon and Mildmay gone—driven away—I found my suite too empty. I could not work there. I sat instead in the Archive of Crows, and the silent, disinterested scholars meant I did not have to be alone with myself. Ridiculous to feel the emptiness of my rooms like a killing weight. Ridiculous to find myself turning half a dozen times a day to say something to Mildmay. Ridiculous to feel, every time, a sharp, blinding pain like grief.

So I stayed away from my rooms, except at night when I came back to toss restlessly, unsleeping, in my massive bed. I did not make the mistake of seeking out the Khloïdanikos again.

Not a single wizard asked me where I was or what I was doing. They were probably just grateful I was somewhere else, where I didn’t have to be noticed or dealt with.

That, too, was a lonely feeling, even though I knew with mathematical precision the exact degree to which it was my own fault.

Which was to say, entirely.

It astonished me how much I missed Mildmay. And it irked me because I could not fathom it. That Gideon’s absence should be painful, I understood—was even a little relieved by, for surely it showed there was a limit to my monstrosity. But why my silent, glowering, disapproving brother should feel so weirdly necessary . . .

It is the obligation d’âme, I told myself firmly. But I knew I was lying.

The truth was, he was right and I was wrong. We understood each other, needed each other, in a way that had nothing to do with the obligation d’âme and everything to do with our childhoods and my madness and the hurts he guarded and would not speak of. All the clever words in the world didn’t matter, all the barriers we put up against each other, turn and turn about. The obligation d’âme was not what bound us together; it was merely the manifestation of a much deeper, darker, wordless truth.

I had denied that, again and again. I had mocked him, embarrassed him, reviled him, used him uncaringly in one and another of my petty little wars. Even after I had sworn I would not, I betrayed him—oh, in small ways, nothing like forcing him to murder a blood-wizard, so it was easy for me to ignore. It was amazing that his trust was all I had forfeited.