The Office of Shadow (42 page)

Silverdun led them through the crowd, waving away the boys as though
none of this was in any way new to him. As they approached the outer platform across a wide bridge, a warm breeze blew up from below, lifting up
Sela's skirts, and she realized why she'd been instructed by Paet to wear the
form-fitting underskirt.

From behind her, she felt Ironfoot's momentary titillation at seeing her calf
and smiled. The thread that connected her to Ironfoot was a pleasant thing. He
found her pretty and liked her, but that was all. His roving eye found most
every other young woman at Blackstone House, but he respected her role as a
colleague. At least that's how she interpreted the sensations she took from him.
She tried her hardest not to invade his privacy with her talents.

Silverdun, of course, she could not read at all.

Mali's Contempt lay moored directly ahead. It was a long, narrow craft,
with a single mast. Sela knew little about ships, but it appeared to have been
built for speed: all clean lines, streamlined. It looked fast, anyway.

They showed their tickets to a man standing in front of the ship. He
glanced at the tickets and waved them up the ramp that led to the ship's
main deck without even looking at their faces.

"Enjoy your journey," he muttered as they passed.

On board they wound their way through a tangle of deckhands and dock workers busy stowing the ship's cargo. A few soldiers, in uniform but on leave,
lingered abovedecks, smoking at the ship's prow. A family with a quartet of
young children were making their way belowdecks. Silverdun waved Sela down
the narrow stairs behind them, taking her handbag from her.

"After you, my darling," he said. Their cover story was that she and Silverdun were newlyweds; he was a bookkeeper and she was the daughter of an
innkeeper. Ironfoot was Silverdun's brother. They were returning from a holiday in Mag Mell. Sela had found the whole thing terribly romantic when Silverdun had first come up with the idea, but the reality of it left her feeling a
bit pathetic, her awkward fantasy coming to life as a mere illusion.

At the bottom of the steps, Silverdun put his arm around her. It felt
good, but Sela couldn't decide whether she was enjoying herself or not.

The main cabin consisted of a few dozen rows of plush leather seats.
Wide windows were set into the hull, admitting bright shafts of morning
sunlight. Silverdun led them to the rear of the cabin, where they sat facing
the young family.

"Good day to you all," said the husband, a friendly fellow with smiling
eyes. His wife nodded to them and went back to tending the children.

Sela eased into her seat and suddenly felt the weight of their travels come
down on her. Before Mab''r Contempt even slipped its moorings, she was asleep.

Sela knows from books that a Fae girl's sixteenth birthday is special. It is the
day she becomes a woman. The crones have promised her a fantastic gift for
her birthday, and Sela can't wait to see what it is. The only other gift she's
ever received was the mechanical bird that Lord Tanen brought her, the one
he crushed beneath his boot. She has asked the crones if this gift will be like
that, but they scoffed at her and told her to stop being foolish. Girls like her
don't have birthdays.

The day comes and Sela awakes early, with the sun. She dresses in one of
the special gowns, the ones that the crones have shown her how to wear. For
dances in the city. She has been taught how to match shoes and earrings, how
to put her hair up in glamoured combs, and how to apply the paint to her lips and eyelids. She knows quadrille and farandole and tarantella, and how to hold
a fan. All of these things will someday be useful, but she doesn't know why.

She hears Lord Tanen's carriage before she sees it. She is sitting on the
steps of the manor, making a daisy chain, making holes in one stem with a
stolen sewing needle and threading the next stem through, flower upon
flower. The crones will not approve of this, but she thinks that because it is
her birthday they won't punish her for it. She has nearly completed a necklace when she hears hoofbeats echoing through the trees.

Lord Tanen steps out of his carriage, and she can see that someone is with
him. He holds out his hand to the stranger and she descends. It is a girl, Sela's
age, dressed in a gown of whitest linen. Her hair is gold and put up in
shining plaits, her face scrubbed clean. Sela gets up and runs toward the carriage, but halfway there she stops, her breath caught in her chest.

What if this girl has been brought to replace her? What if she is going
to be taken away in that carriage and left in the forest? In stories sometimes
this happens. A girl is taken away by a cruel parent, usually a stepmother,
and left in the forest to die. These children usually end up as princesses, but
Sela has been told by the crones that her parents are dead now, and that she
is worthless on her own; her only value is what Lord Tanen gives to her.

But her thoughts of being replaced vanish when the girl looks at her and
smiles, showing a row of crooked teeth under bright blue eyes.

"Happy birthday, Sela," she says.

"Who are you?" asks Sela, mystified.

"I'm Milla," the girl says.

Sela looks at Lord Tanen, confused.

"This is your birthday present, Sela," says Tanen. "A most special gift for
a most important birthday."

Sela still doesn't understand.

"I've brought you a friend, Sela. I've brought you someone to love."

Someone nudged Sela awake. She sat up, startled, not sure where she was for
a moment. Sunlight, sky, soft chair. She was still on board Mabs Contempt.

Silverdun leaned into her. "Camellia blossoms," he said.

"Hm?" she mumbled.

"Laurel blossoms. Whatever. There may be trouble," he whispered.

"How long was I asleep?" she whispered.

"About an hour. You drooled a little, by the way."

Irritated, she wiped her chin with the back of her hand.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"A few minutes ago, I saw a message sprite flit past the window toward
the main deck."

"And?"

The young husband across from them was giving her a questioning look.
She smiled at him and kissed Silverdun on the cheek. She reached out for a
thread with the young husband and found it: He was tired and hungry, and
a bit suspicious as well. Everything's fine, she pushed into the thread. He
seemed to relax.

"There was a bit of a commotion on deck, and then they showed up down
here." He nodded toward the front of the cabin, where the Unseelie soldiers
they'd seen earlier were walking slowly toward them, examining the passengers.

She looked over at Ironfoot, whose face was buried behind a newspaper.

"Do you think they're after us?" asked Sela.

"Who knows?" said Silverdun. "Either way, we'd just as soon not be
noticed."

Sela strained her feelings toward the soldiers, but it was no use. She
needed some kind of emotional connection to sense a thread, and the soldiers
didn't know she existed. Yet.

They continued down the aisle, engaging each row of passengers in turn.
When they came a bit closer, she could hear snippets of conversation.

"... two men and a woman ..."

"... persons of interest ..."

Sela noticed the young husband across from her looking at them, an odd,
curious expression on his face.

Silverclun leaned in again. "I'm going to try something. Follow where it
goes."

He leaned forward to speak to the young husband.

"Do you have any water?" he asked the husband. "I'm parched."

The young man's eyes widened. "What sort of water?" he asked, his voice
quivering a bit.

Silverdun looked the man directly in the eye. "Water from the freshest
stream."

What was Silverdun talking about? Whatever it was, the young man
seemed to understand, because he nodded and leaned forward himself, putting his hand on Silverdun's shoulder.

"There is water in abundance," he whispered.

Silverdun nodded.

"Where are you coming from?" asked the husband quietly.

"Mag Mell."

The husband smiled.

The soldiers came closer. When they reached Sela, Silverdun, and Ironfoot's row, they stopped, eyeing them with suspicion.

"Would you three be traveling together?" asked one, looking at Silverdun. "Just the three of you?"

"No," said the young husband. "We're all together. Just returning from
a holiday in Mag Mell."

"Ah," said the soldier, his eyes brightening. "May we see your passports,
then?"

The soldier took each passport in turn. The family, as it happened, had
indeed just returned from Mag Mell themselves, according to their passports.

"Is there a problem?" asked Ironfoot, casually.

"We've received word that there might be some persons of interest
aboard ship. Two men and a woman traveling together."

The young man's wife blanched. "Goodness, are they dangerous?"

"I don't think so," said the soldier. "Heretics. Aba-lovers."

"Ah," said the husband. "I've found that you can always tell an Arcadian
by the glassy-eyed stare of blind obedience." He raised his eyebrows.

The soldier chuckled. "You may be right, sir."

He nodded to the group. "Sorry to have bothered you."

His eyes rested on Sela for a moment, and the thinnest of threads leapt into place. He thought her pretty, nothing more. But it was enough. Believe
me, she nudged.

"I saw two women and a man on the platform before we came on board,"
she said. "They looked very suspicious. I remember them because they were
about to hand over their tickets, but then all of a sudden changed their minds
and headed back to the terminal. Isn't that odd?"

The soldier nodded. "Indeed! You've got a keen eye, ma'am."

He turned to his fellows. "Looks like they slipped away before getting on
board," he said quietly. "I'll send the sprite back and tell them to stop
wasting our time." The soldiers shared a quiet laugh and retreated toward the
front of the cabin.

Once they were gone, Silverdun took the hand of the young husband.
"Thank you," he said.

"I'm your brother," said the young man. "There is nothing to thank me
for."

Sela gave Silverdun a questioning look. "I'll explain later," he whispered.

Alpaurle: Let us speak, then, of the good man. How do we
determine which is the good man?

The High Priest: That is easy. He is the one who thinks
and acts virtuously, and avoids sin.

Alpaurle: And how do we know which thoughts and
actions are virtuous, and which are sinful?

The High Priest: Is the distinction not obvious?

Alpaurle: It is not obvious to me, but then, very little is.
Perhaps you can explain it to me?

-Alpaurle, from Conversations with the High Priest of Ulet,
Conversation VI, edited by Feven IV of the City Emerald

he rest of the trip passed without incident. They all slept through most
Df the day.