House War - The Hidden City Part 50

"Another girl as well. And a boy."

"Good. I think it's about time to leave."

"Well past, I'd say."

But Rath lingered until Jewel had decided for herself that the danger was past. She spoke words that he didn't catch to her companions, and then walked slowly over to what should have been a corpse. She paused to look at what was left of her sole effective weapon. Frowning for a moment, she touched it with her toe, and then frowned more deeply.

What in the h.e.l.ls was she doing?

He had his answer a moment later; she picked the d.a.m.n thing up. Looked under it, as if for a hole in the ground, some escape route that the large, flame-robed man might have taken.

She found, instead, what was left of Rath's dagger, and she touched that with care. In fact, she wrapped her hand in the carpet, and picked it up by the hilt. Only then did she look up to see him, and when she met his eyes, she smiled weakly.

He nodded. He could manage that.

But words failed him for a few minutes longer, and in the s.p.a.ce of those few minutes, she had a.s.sembled her den, and she had dragged it, motley odd thing that it was, down the broken stone that had, in grander days, once been a narrow road.

Carver carried two carpets, rolled and bent over his arms; Finch and the latest stranger walked hand in hand, and it was hard to tell which of the two-the slender, young Finch or the dark-haired, bruised stranger-was in command. Certainly, the new girl looked as if she should be vacant-eyed or terrified.

But as she approached and Rath could clearly see her expression, he revised that thought and then threw it out. She wasn't terrified.

"Jewel," he said.

"Jay," she replied, her voice a little on the low side.

"Jay, then." He leaned in, so that his words only had to carry a very short distance, "that girl-I think it best that you leave her."

"Her name's Duster," Jewel told him quietly. She looked at Duster as she spoke. "I'm taking her with me."

"She's-" He hesitated. He knew what he might say to another person-to almost any other person. But to Jewel? The words would have no meaning. What experience she'd had of life had been sheltered; if it had been marginal, it had been safe.

Duster? No.

"You can't trust her," he told her instead.

"No," Jewel replied gravely, surprising him. "I can't. Not yet. But I will."

He let it go, then. He had no choice. "The others are waiting for you," he said, standing back. "And I think you'll be more of a comfort than Harald will."

She looked up at Harald's face and forced herself not to recoil-but Jewel's face was as expressive as it always was.

Harald, however, was not offended. He even smiled. It was meant to shock or scare. And because she was Rath's, she knew it, and it annoyed her instead.

"Duster?" Jewel said, touching the strange girl's shoulder with just the tip of a finger.

Duster turned to look at her. "I want to stay," she said quietly.

"We can't."

"I don't care if you stay. I want to watch it burn."

Jewel frowned for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. "It doesn't matter. No one's in it."

"I was."

"Yes. You were. You aren't now. But if we stay and watch it burn, we'll be caught here."

"By who?"

"Magisterians," Jewel replied quietly. "If we're lucky."

Duster stiffened. "And if we're not?"

"You tell me."

They squared off, his Jewel and this orphan girl. And into their uncomfortable and unfriendly silence, Rath spoke. "Jay's right," he said quietly. "The men you want aren't there. And if you stay here, and they find you, the loss of this building won't matter.

"You want to watch it burn? Watch it, then. But you'll probably never have a chance to make them pay."

She was young. Had she been another ten years in the streets, she wouldn't have blinked. Wouldn't have been tempted by what he seemed to be offering.

This was vulnerability, of a type. But not a welcome one. She nodded slowly.

Rath turned and walked down the street, skirting the gates, his own gaze drawn to the fire that now raged in the open, broken windows. Mage fire, yes, and strong at that.

He frowned. "Jay," he said, aware that the others listened. "What are those?"

She looked at him for a moment. "Maps," she said at last.

Of the answers she could have given, this was not one he'd expected. "Maps?"

She nodded. And held out the one she carried. "I picked up your knife," she added. "It's not very . . . practical."

"Practical," he replied, as he took it from her hand, noting its blackened metal, "is only in the doing. Remember that; just because someone looks rich, bored, and lazy doesn't mean they aren't dangerous."

She frowned. "Rich is usually-"

"Never mind. Come. We've been too long as is." But his gaze fell upon what she held, and in turn, he held his questions.

He almost made a detour to the Mother's temple in the twenty-fifth holding, but one look at Jewel's compressed lips told him how successful that would be. He would have this argument with her, when they reached the safety of his apartments; for the moment, he chose to retreat into the pragmatic. He counted.

Lefty. Arann. Carver. Finch. Duster. Three other boys whose names he had yet to discover. And, in their midst, Jewel Markess. Nine children. He doubted they would all fit in Jewel's room, but had no doubt at all that he was going to make her try; let her bear the brunt of her impulsiveness. Rath would.

They were silent when they left the thirty-second holding, but their silence unfolded, peeling back in layers as if it were an onion, one thin word at a time. Lefty's hand was in his armpit, its customary sheath, but his eyes were darting back and forth as if they were moving of their own accord; he practically crossed them. Arann hovered over the rest of the children by at least six inches, although Carver, in Rath's estimation, would one day equal his height.

He wasn't certain what the other boys would do or be. The redhead was chatting almost amicably with Finch, who was doing her best to keep up-mostly by nodding. The other two kept as much to themselves as it was possible to do, but to Rath's surprise, Lefty spoke to them.

Not loudly enough to be heard, and not loudly enough-at first-to get much of a response. But where Arann was intimidating, and Harald and Rath were terrifying, Lefty, his hand hidden, his shoulders hunched as if to avoid a constant rain of blows, was the opposite: he was like them. Too slight to be either dangerous or independent; too damaged to be of use.

And if Lefty felt safe enough, here, to speak, then there must be some safety. Rath could see the understanding, although he wasn't certain the boys themselves would have put it as succinctly. They were underdressed for the weather, and the rains-and curse the skies, it was raining-caused their thin, pale shifts to cling to their skin, exposing too much.

But Duster? She kept to herself. The boys seemed to know her, and they weren't precisely afraid of her, but they weren't entirely comfortable either. She enjoyed that; he could see the slight malice of her smile. And shook his head again, as he saw Jewel's wet curls grow tighter.

This was not the end to the morning that he had envisioned. But he was accustomed to the idea that all action had consequences, and he accepted these as his natural due; no good deed went unpunished, after all.

Harald and his friends drifted off well before they made the thirty-fifth holding. If Rath had encouraged them to leave-and he must have-Jewel couldn't quite tell how; they stopped a moment, and spoke in low tones among themselves. She couldn't understand a word they said; it was Northern, all of it, and that wasn't a language she knew.

Her Oma had always found the Northerners annoying. Or terrifying. Living in a desert, it seemed, was a good deal less difficult when the desert wasn't made of snow. To Jewel, they had seemed the same: death, either way. But her Oma had had her own ideas, and she always shared.

They made an odd procession as they walked through the streets. If there hadn't been so many of them-and if four of them hadn't been so strangely dressed-it would have been easier for Rath. As it was, Jewel could tell how uncomfortable the visibility made him; he was curt, cool, and at a slight distance for the entire walk home.

He didn't stop at the Common. He didn't stop by the well. The latter made sense-they had no buckets-but it still struck Jewel as odd. They made their way home, and only when Rath had ushered them into the hall of the apartment-and they were crushed between its narrow walls-did he seem to relax at all.

"We may have been followed," he told her.

She winced. But she kept her peace.

"You can use the drill room," he added, "if you need the s.p.a.ce. It might be best for now."

The last two words kind of hung in the air.

She did her best to ignore them. It didn't last long.

"Arann," she said quietly as Rath made his way to his room and shut the door behind his back.

Arann nodded.

"We don't have nearly enough food for everyone. We don't have enough water. We don't have enough anything."

He nodded again.

"We can manage food and water, for now. I need you to come with me," she added, in case this wasn't obvious. "And I need everyone else to sit in that room-that one-until we're back. Leave Rath alone. Carver?"

Carver nodded quietly.

"You stay. Finch-feed the others whatever you can find in the kitchen that isn't moving."

Duster stepped in her way. "You give the orders here?" she asked, in a voice that was quiet.

"Rath does," Jewel replied carefully. "It's mostly his place."

Duster shrugged. "If you say so."

"I say so."

"There are more of us at the moment."

Quiet kind of grew in a ripple. "I'd like it to stay that way."

"You work for him?"

Quiet could be so very loud. Jewel knew she'd have to have this conversation with Duster; she didn't want to have it now. "As much as he'll let me," she said. "You want to talk or eat?"

Duster's eyes were dark. She would have said more; her mouth opened. But Finch stepped between them-and as there wasn't much between to step into, it was awkward.

"She saved me," Finch said to Duster. And to Jewel.

"For what?"

Finch hesitated. "I don't know," she replied. It was safest because it was true.

"You trust her?"

"I trust you."

If Duster could have snarled, she would have; her whole expression twisted suddenly into something feral and dangerous. Jewel would remember it later. Wondered, now, if she would ever forget it. Trust was obviously not a word that Duster liked-either to use or to hear.

Rath was right about Duster.

Jewel knew it. "You saved her," she said evenly. "You figure out why. Don't take it out on me."

"You saved her," Duster snapped back. "You know why?"

"Yes. She needed me."

"I don't."

"Probably not." She looked at Arann, and nodded toward the door. He could reach the bolts. "Does it matter?"

"Do you know why they kept me?"

"No. I don't care either." It wasn't true. But Jewel made it true, for now. "I didn't make the rules. I didn't follow them."

"They'd've sent you away. Broken you, and sent you away."

Jewel nodded. "But they didn't. And we're here. You want to be them? You want to do what they didn't?"

Duster's eyes rounded. Jewel was afraid-for just a minute-that Duster would hit her. Or try. But her eyes subsided into narrowness, and her hands uncurled. "No," she said curtly. "Not me." She looked at the door that Carver stood beside.

Jewel waited until Carver pushed the door open. There was another awkward pause, while the three boys whose names she didn't even know let their gazes bounce off the walls, the door-anything but her face or Duster's.

Carver kicked one of them, and he jumped, reddened, and left the hall; the others joined him quietly, which left Finch hovering by the kitchen.

"Go," she told Carver.

"Lefty?"

"He'll come with us."