Darkborn Part 16

"Magister di Studier," the apothecary greeted him, startling him. A sonn revealed bare hands-not a mage-and an urchin smile on the narrow face. "Y'don't remember me. I ran your errands when I was a street rat and you an apprentice. If I'd known you were a baronet, I'd have held out for three coppers."

Ish laughed in surprise and recognition. "You'd not have got them, Kip."

"Wouldn't I?" he challenged with a familiar tilt of the head. "How many'd you pay two coppers to, Magister Tightwad?"

"None of th'rest could read, and half would garble a simple message. You'd your letters and your wits, both, for all you were a chancer. And I wasn't a baronet then; I was an ex-Shadowhunter, living on his earnings."

"You haven't lost the hunter's habits, I note, moving in high society."

"There are daggers there no less deadly. You've done well for yourself; I'm glad of it."

"No thanks to you, Baron Tightwad." Ish smiled a little; so, the tutor he'd covertly paid to give the boy the little education he'd take back then had never let on.

Kip leaned forward to ask intensely, "What's this about poisoned water?"

"I'd just taken a small mouthful before I felt the effect. The guard got more."

"When you spilled it on him."

"He was about t'pour it down my throat. All unwitting, of that I am sure. It goes in less easily through skin. The superintendent told me that he lived."

"Aye, he did. Which is as well for you." This was said without the least inflection. "He's a mate of mine, and well liked. You know this poison?"

"Scavvern venom."

"Any aftereffects to expect?"

"None; it's quick-onset, quick-offset. I've met it before."

Kip crouched, quickly sliding up Ishmael's sleeve to take a pulse, his movements sure and competent. Ish caught the flavor of his thoughts: amus.e.m.e.nt at Ish's predicament, speculation without malice as to how to turn it to his advantage, and a hoist-of-the-finger defiance toward Ish's magical insights.

"Someone not convinced their case will hold?" Kip murmured. He was, Ish realized, largely untroubled as to Ish's possible guilt or innocence. "You burned this arm," he observed distinctly. Ish was impressed; he himself had barely heard the stealthily approaching step.

"I escaped the Rivermarch with my life, not my shirt."

Kip's hand closed hard, almost brutally, on his wrist. "My woman didn't," he said flatly. "Nor her youngest."

"I am very sorry."

"She was a shrew, but burning's a bad end, and the child had done no one harm in all its short life." Ish had a moment's impression of a child's high giggling, a squirming weight sprawled across his chest, the feathery touch of soft curls on his chin and nose-all that remained of the infant Kip had loved and, despite his cynical posture, yearned to avenge. Ish wondered how many like him there were in the city tonight.

"They say this was Lightborn set," Kip said grimly.

"No," Ish rumbled. "No Lightborn. Or Darkborn either. Say Shadowborn, if you must give them a race. They've put themselves outside race and law by this act. I know the spoor of them." Kip's quick wits, he trusted, would make the connections Ish intended. "Where are you living now?"

"Other wing, so long as there's an empty cell," said Kip, after a moment's pause. His thoughts had grown wary; he lifted his hand away. "How's your chest wi' the smoke? You seem to be breathing well enough."

"For now I am," Ish said dryly. He lowered his voice. "Can you get me my lock picks? They went with my shoes."

"I likely can, or a set as good," the other man said in a voice as low. "It'll cost you, for all those times you should have paid me three coppers."

Ish grinned; he was on sure ground here. He would need to sweeten his offer enough that it, and old district loyalties-such as they were-would outweigh any counteroffer. The erstwhile street rat would warn him of the need to raise his bid. "You need somewhere to stay. There's a boardinghouse run by Ruthen di Sommerlin up on Perlen Street. It's on the north side, well clear of the burn. Tell him I sent you." n.o.body raised in the Rivermarch would be offended at the house lifestyles, and he rather thought the faded glamour of its burlesque past would appeal to Kip. Kip would suit the old men, and he'd care for them, in his own way, if Ish did not survive these toils.

"Seems to me," Kip said softly, "next time they try you should let them succeed. Feet first's the easiest way out of here." The prison apothecary rose and ran his sonn over Ish. "Think about it," he added casually.

Telmaine Telmaine did not recognize the manservant who showed her into the apartment and Balthasar's room. Neither Lorcas nor Eldon was present, and nor, to her relief, was Olivede Hearne. Her husband was lying in his bed surrounded by unread newspapers. She knew them to be unread because Bal habitually reduced newspapers to a shambles that was the despair of every conscientious housemaid. His face was taut with strain, even as he smiled and opened his arms to Amerdale and herself. She was immediately frightened he might have relapsed, but when she slid her hand behind his neck she felt no greater physical duress. Emotionally was a different matter. She sucked in her breath at his emotional storm: He was trying and failing to avoid thinking of something, and all that did was fragment it. He made an effort, a valiant effort, at lightheartedness for their sakes.

At last, she coaxed Amerdale to agree that she would like to visit the menagerie in the central garden, and asked a manservant to find a nursery maid to take her. They sent her off with the young girl who appeared, and Bal sighed with audible regret. "She needs the distraction," he said, unwittingly echoing Merivan's unappreciated offer. Telmaine concealed a wince and slipped into the small, warm place left by their daughter, lay down beside him, and laid her arm across his chest, sliding her bare hand under the yoke of his shirt to rest on his shoulder. "Something's wrong," she risked asking. "I can tell it. What is it?"

The surge of utter, impotent hatred in him made her recoil, even so far as to pull her hand away. He did not notice. His thoughts, normally so orderly and engaging, were a hard coil of anger. After a long moment, he said in a soft, strained voice, "Telmaine, I'm sorry. But I can't . . . I haven't the strength to keep doing this. I've . . . withdrawn my support from Baron Strumh.e.l.ler. I've lost my nerve. I'm hurt and I'm worried and . . ." And to her touch, to her magic, his jagged memories of the night before told her the truth behind his lies, that his supposedly dead brother Lysander, the one who'd made him accomplice to murder seventeen years ago, had claimed to have their daughter, and was threatening her life.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know you'll be ashamed of me."

She could not speak, horrified at what her touch was revealing, horrified at the lie in his words. He had never lied to her, not like this. She knew Lysander had hurt him, but not that Lysander would exert such control over him.

She sought truthful words, to fit between his lie and her knowledge. "My love, my cherished, I understand. Don't hate yourself."

"I won't," he said, another lie. He felt so frail in her arms. She held him as tightly as she dared, sinking her awareness into his body and sensing the slow, natural healing of his injuries. She longed to inject her own vitality into the still-fragile bulk of the spleen, the delicate matrix of the broken rib, the clot-stiffened areas in the lungs. There . . . there was a small foul area, like the rotten spot on a peach: the beginnings of pneumonia. He'd not know that was gone, and it was so easily easily brushed away, as though she had been doing this for years. brushed away, as though she had been doing this for years.

"I haven't had any word about Florilinde," he said, resting his cheek against hers. "Or Baronet di Maurier."

She broke off her examination to remember that yes, she should have asked that question. "Theophile called in three inquiry agents. I spoke to them this morning, told them everything I knew. They said they would come and speak to you later on. They seemed very competent." Which she could not believe of Guillaume di Maurier, social scandal that he was. One of the agents, fortunately, had reminded her of Ishmael, a seasoned man with a brusque but gentle manner.

"Good . . ." he murmured. "Telmaine, I am worried about Olivede. She went back to the Rivermarch to help. Eldon says that she had company, a guard, but after everything that's happened . . ." They are They are my my children, Balthasar, children, Balthasar, Lysander's voice spoke through him. "And I'm . . . I can't help thinking about the twin babies. I don't know whether they're alive or dead, Telmaine. It's all mixed up in my mind with Florilinde. . . ." Lysander's voice spoke through him. "And I'm . . . I can't help thinking about the twin babies. I don't know whether they're alive or dead, Telmaine. It's all mixed up in my mind with Florilinde. . . ."

She stroked his forehead, though his memories and guilt and lies lacerated her. "Bal, no one can care for them all at once. Your sister is a grown woman, responsible for her own well-being. No one can know better than she does what the dangers are. Baron Strumh.e.l.ler is a great landowner and a Shadowhunter; he has money and lawyers and powerful friends. Yes, it would be terrible if anything happened to the twins, but you have done your best for them already. We must must think first of our Florilinde." Deliberately, she added, "I cannot think of anything that I would not do to get her back safely." think first of our Florilinde." Deliberately, she added, "I cannot think of anything that I would not do to get her back safely."

And she knew, as she said it, that it was the truth, should and had to be the truth. She pushed herself upright, tucking her legs under her beneath her hampering skirts, and put a hand on the table beside the medicine bottles. "Which one of these helps you rest?" She would use her magic to help him sleep, but with his experience, he would surely know.

"It's all right," he said. "I don't need-"

"You don't need need to lie here and fret. I'm going to go and pay a call on Mistress White Hand." to lie here and fret. I'm going to go and pay a call on Mistress White Hand."

"I sent her a letter."

"A letter's too slow. Then I am going to call at the rooms of Guillaume di Maurier and find out what he knows, and then I . . . well, what I do next depends upon what I find out."

"It's not safe," he protested.

She allowed a moment for him to tell her the truth as to why it was not safe, and then leaned over and kissed him lightly, a blithe wife disregarding her husband's fretting. "I'll not use my own or the ducal carriage: I've asked Sylvide to call on me. I will start by taking hers, as far as I think it's safe for her to go. Then I'll hire."

"Telmaine-"

"I can do this, Bal. You can't. Baron Strumh.e.l.ler can't. Did I not hear you say, just before we left the house, that whatever condition we find ourselves in, we are the ones to fight this evil? You made no distinction then between Baron Strumh.e.l.ler and yourself, and your sister and me."

"I do not think," he said, after a long silence, "I could live if anything happened to you."

She swallowed. "I thought the same. But we have children, and we cannot be so selfish. Promise me that if anything does happen to me-anything that forces us apart-promise me you will still live for, love, and care for the children. And I will make you the same promise."

"Kiss me," he whispered. She braced herself against his profound unhappiness and sense of inadequacy, but drew strength from his unexpected admiration. She did not press him for his promise, knowing by the kiss and the emotions that, consciously or otherwise, it was given. Despite her better wisdom, she pressed healing on him through the kiss.

"Better than any medicine," he breathed, his hand curling around the back of her neck as she drew away. They smiled at each other, each wreathed in secrets and unspoken truths.

Eight

Telmaine

T elmaine's conscience twinged as Sylvide peered from the carriage, her flowerlike face creasing in worry as her sonn brushed Telmaine. "Dearest, what is it? Your note was very strange." The ducal footman came forward to open the door, and Sylvide gathered her extravagant skirts to rise, but Telmaine forestalled her, hitching hers up to climb aboard. She had dressed plainly, in a style that would let her move as freely as possible. "Let's go," she said to Sylvide. "Anywhere." elmaine's conscience twinged as Sylvide peered from the carriage, her flowerlike face creasing in worry as her sonn brushed Telmaine. "Dearest, what is it? Your note was very strange." The ducal footman came forward to open the door, and Sylvide gathered her extravagant skirts to rise, but Telmaine forestalled her, hitching hers up to climb aboard. She had dressed plainly, in a style that would let her move as freely as possible. "Let's go," she said to Sylvide. "Anywhere."

Her friend's expression was one of hurt bewilderment at her abruptness. Not clever, and made well aware of it by her brothers, Sylvide hated the sense of events moving too quickly for her to understand. Telmaine shuffled forward to take both her hands in her gloved ones, across the s.p.a.ce between them. "I'm sorry. I had to get us moving while I explained."

"Explained what? Why did you have me bring a pistol? Why aren't you at your town home? What has happened to Balthasar? Where are your children?"

"Amerdale is with Bal. Flori . . . Flori is part of the reason I asked you to come here. I need your help."

"Telmaine! Are you in trouble?"

"A great deal of trouble," Telmaine said grimly. "Until this moment I thought it was a good idea to . . . to use your coach. Now I am not sure. Could I have the pistol, please?"

Sylvide pulled the box from beneath her full skirts and handed it over. She nibbled on the index finger of her fine glove while Telmaine unboxed the pistol, checked that it was unloaded, and confirmed that she understood the loading and safety mechanism. She left it unloaded for the moment. It was designed for a lady's hand and taste, but the di Reuther holdings were still close enough to the Borders and the Shadowlands that even ladies' weapons had heft to them. It also came with an ornate holster sash, another practical accommodation of the Borders, since a gun in a reticule or saddlebag could be more useless than no weapon at all. She settled the sash across her shoulder and laced the waistband, resting the weight of the gun on her hip. She would practice drawing it when she was indoors. She had once been a reasonably sporting shot, but the last time she had held a gun of any kind had been at a target compet.i.tion just after her marriage-one of the times she had unwittingly colluded in her family's humiliation of her husband, who had proven to be one of the worst marksmen she'd ever met.

She'd felt Sylvide's tentative sonn rippling over her as she completed her preparations. "Tellie," she said in a small voice, "I don't understand."

Telmaine drew a deep breath and put her head back. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to meet you at the town house. I . . . admit I forgot about inviting you. It was quite driven out of my head. You know that I accepted an invitation from Baron Strumh.e.l.ler to escort me to the city."

"Tellie, haven't you heard? Baron Strumh.e.l.ler has been arrested for murder and sorcery."

"I know. I was there when it happened."

"You were there! How . . . ?" Her suddenly appalled, guilty expression was enough to almost make Telmaine laugh. She said gently, "So was Bal."

"Tellie, I never-" Sylvide said, her voice nearly a sob.

"Shh, it's all right. I'm past being offended by any of the simple things. To begin at the beginning, when we-the girls and I, and Baron Strumh.e.l.ler-arrived at the doorstep, two men came out of the house. One of them picked up Florilinde and"-her voice thickened-"carried her away. We don't know where she is."

"Abduction! How horrible! But why?"

She had given some thought as to what to say to Sylvide and others she had to protect, for their lives, from the truth. "Bal had treated a patient. They wanted information about that patient-I think there was a great deal of . . . an inheritance riding on that information. He had refused to give it to them. They'd nearly . . . they'd beaten Bal unconscious: He's still in bed. They took Florilinde to force us, but we haven't even had . . . haven't even had a ransom note from them." She was not going to talk about Lysander Hearne's visit. "Baron Strumh.e.l.ler was helping us find Florilinde when he was arrested."

"How horrible! Can't your family help? What about the public agents?"

"What all has been done, I don't know; I'm merely the mother. My brother-in-law, may he be blessed, had me speak to private inquiry agents this morning. I know Bal asked Mistress White Hand to find out what she could, and Baron Strumh.e.l.ler spoke to someone else, whom I will also visit. I hope they might have found out something and we've just not heard. I'm hoping that you can drive me at least to Bal's family home. I'm going to start with Floria White Hand."

"Of course!" Sylvide said. "You poor dear."

Telmaine "I'll wait here," Sylvide said as the carriage drew up behind Ishmael's automobile, scattering three of the neighboring boys, who had been scrambling over it, crowding into the seat, pulling at the levers, and impersonating its noises. Telmaine relaxed slightly, and realized that she interpreted the children's presence as evidence of no danger. She reminded herself that danger could stay concealed.

"If it seems dangerous," she said to Sylvide, "and you have to leave, then do. If you hear me shoot, go. If you hear me shouting, go. If anything . . . if anything strange strange happens, happens, go go."

"Tellie," Sylvide protested at such an ominous litany.

"You have to promise, Sylvide. I've taken shameless advantage of you so far, and I'll never forgive myself if I've brought you into danger."

Sylvide's face set in mutiny, and she slid her hand under her skirts and brought out a second box, identical to the one she had given Telmaine. "I know you think I'm a feather-wit, Telmaine, but I've lived lived near the Borders. My coachman is armed, too." near the Borders. My coachman is armed, too."

Telmaine opened her mouth, closed it. Sylvide said, "We'll be in less danger if you get on with what you have to do." Her sweet, light voice trembled.

Forceful sonn cast along the street to either side, as the baron had cast, outlined nothing to alarm her. She could not help realizing that his sonn had revealed a greater distance, far more crisply than hers, but his sonn had been refined in the Borders and Shadowlands. That made her think, fleetingly, of the landscape of her dreams, and she shuddered.

The steps of Bal's home felt strange underfoot, almost as though she walked on ice and at any moment they would shatter underfoot, or tip and slide her over their edge. She had had no idea, when she scrambled from the ducal side door into the carriage, that this evening was so intensely cold cold. Or why she should be shaking so with fear that she had to brace one hand with her other to fit the key into the lock. It was absurd. The last time she had felt fear of this irrational intensity was . . . was in the garden. Where she had been drawn by the sound of a voice that was not her husband's, and where she had been brushed by an aura of fear and chill given off by a woman no one else perceived.

She clung to the door handle, panting and sick. She must must go on, go on, must must speak to Floria White Hand, speak to Floria White Hand, must must know what the Lightborn had found out about Flori. As she clumsily twisted the key, she felt sudden searing agony across her fingers, as though a branding iron had struck them; she shrieked aloud and flung herself away in an instinctive recoil, trod heavily on her hem, and pitched down the steps, arms thrown over her head to protect it, ribs unspared. Sylvide and her coachman had dismounted almost as soon as she landed, Sylvide crouching beside her in great distress. "Tellie, Tellie, what is it?" know what the Lightborn had found out about Flori. As she clumsily twisted the key, she felt sudden searing agony across her fingers, as though a branding iron had struck them; she shrieked aloud and flung herself away in an instinctive recoil, trod heavily on her hem, and pitched down the steps, arms thrown over her head to protect it, ribs unspared. Sylvide and her coachman had dismounted almost as soon as she landed, Sylvide crouching beside her in great distress. "Tellie, Tellie, what is it?"

The pain of the bruises and sc.r.a.pes inflicted by the steps went unfelt beside the agony in her hand. "Light!" she gasped. "The house is full of light light."

"Light? But-"

"The wall's wall's gone. The paper wall. I gone. The paper wall. I told told Bal. My Bal. My hand hand-" She half shrieked, sure now that if she unclenched her hand, it would crumble into ash. "No, don't touch it."

Sylvide's hands fluttered over her, brushing her down, feeling for injury. "Shall I go for a doctor, m'lady?" said the coachman, a thought that horrified Telmaine; all she wanted was to get away from here. By then several pa.s.sersby had gathered; one brought her the key, lost in her fall. Sylvide took it and uncertainly sonned the door. Telmaine struggled up to a sitting position, still near retching from the pain and the horror of the touch of light. "Mark the door! Light breach." The witnesses, whom she perceived indistinctly, recoiled; suddenly, instead of half a dozen, there were only two. One was a public agent, wearing the uniform of the city's law. He said, "Do you know this house, missus?"

"This is Mrs. Telmaine Hearne, and that is her husband's house," Sylvide said in her best great-lady tone. Her hauteur might not have been convincing, but her cultivated voice was. The agent, chastened into caution if not civility, said more politely, "Mrs. Hearne, could your husband be . . . ?" he faltered.

"No!" she said, in reflex rejection of the very thought. Imogene's Curse, was that what was meant meant, that the light was meant to immolate whoever next opened the door . . . ? The ground rocked beneath her. I am going to be sick, I am going to be sick, she thought, and then, she thought, and then, No, I'm going to- No, I'm going to- Someone was bathing her face with cool, scented water. She was lying, awkwardly, on a padded bench that was too short for her, which was jolting and rolling in the familiar coach-over-cobbles rhythm. She brought her throbbing hand before her sonn, too confused to remember why she did not want to know. Sylvide captured it, folded her own hand carefully around it, cradling its hurts. "It's all there, Tellie, dear, but you're going to have a nasty scar." She could feel, through the brush of skin on skin, Sylvide's shock and anxiety. "I'll never call your gloves silly again, Tellie. Your hand could have been burned right off."

"I thought it was," she whispered. "Where are we-where are we going?"

"You have to visit a doctor. It's still a bad burn. I thought . . . well, I didn't know whether to take you to your sister's or to Bal."

"Don't . . . tell him."

The carriage lurched, and Sylvide released Telmaine's hand to brace herself on the decorative arm of the bench. "I'm afraid, dear Tellie, that that agent seemed to have a very florid imagination. I believe he was working up a little story about how you had immolated your husband, though how he thought you might have done so without burning yourself up, I don't know." Sylvide was an avid reader of murder melodramas, and well acquainted with the logic of literary murder. "So I daresay he will be inquiring as to Bal's whereabouts and well-being."

"Ah," said Telmaine, half a groan. "I didn't want Bal to know. Did he . . . did the agent . . . mark the house?"