House War - The Hidden City Part 90

I don't give a s.h.i.t about "us."

And Jewel's Oma said, Words are cheap. They don't say what we mean. The don't mean what we say. Judge, learn to judge, by other means.

Judgment had always been a top priority for her Oma.

Jewel tried not to judge now. Not Duster, who had done, in the end, what Jewel herself was afraid she could not have done; not the boy who had waited-she saw this clearly now-for Duster to keep her word. To kill the man who had hurt them both in their captivity.

The blood might never wash out, Jewel thought. But that was fair. The memories wouldn't either; they were just harder to see unless one knew how to read their signs and shadows in the ways the people who held them behaved.

Lander bowed his head, bowed it low enough that it could touch Duster's forehead; they stood this way for a long moment. Long enough, but Duster was not Jewel, and was not Finch; she was justice, judgment, death-but she could offer comfort for only so long before it became just another cage.

And Lander said, "Thank you," so softly it might have been signed. It was enough. Duster's eyes widened slightly. It was her version of surprise, and even grat.i.tude. But she didn't tell Lander that she hadn't done this for him. She didn't deride him. She had always somehow managed to be, if not gentle, then not cruel, while dealing with Lander.

Because damaged people were the people she best understood, and she wasn't terribly perceptive. It took very little to see Lander's wounds; it took more to see what might exist beneath them, when all the scabs had cleared. Let Duster do the former; let Jewel do the latter. They each had a role to play, and as long as they could, they would have a home, and a family. Blood bound them, and if it was not birth blood, it was enough.

"Go out the kitchen doors," Rath told her. "Left, here. They'll swing in. No one will stop you," he added, his voice slightly lower. "I have business here to which I must attend, but I will meet you at home before dawn."

"And if you're not there?" Jewel asked, with just a trace of hesitation. It was not a question she had really dared to ask before. But many things had been torn from her this evening.

"I will be there," he replied.

She could not doubt that tone.

"We'll be waiting," she told him, and then, in a slightly louder voice, "Kitchen, then; we'll leave that way. Do you remember how you got here?"

Teller said quietly, "I do."

"Good, because I have no idea how to get back."

His smile was slight, almost shy, but there was a shadow across it that he would never, ever put into words; she saw that clearly as well. "I know."

She would love him for it for a long, long time, if the G.o.ds smiled, and if they were kind.

Rath watched them go. In silence, he watched, stood guard over the dead. The dead that would cause them all so much trouble, if the situation were not handled carefully, correctly. This, Ararath Handernesse, heir to a House among the patriciate that he would never claim, could do.

But there were other things that he could not do. Watching as they walked, this odd group of strange children who now circled and hid both their leader and her adopted killer, he felt a strange sense of something that was almost pride, and a bitter certainty that he had failed them all; that they were strong enough to bear his failure because Jewel was strong enough to bear it.

He had opened up his home to Jewel's intrusive presence, and he had lied to himself about his reasons for doing so. Or perhaps not; was ignorance truly lying? He had encouraged her in the end to do what he said he would not accept: invade it, by stealth and by determination, take it over, make it her own.

She had chosen her den, although she would never have called them that at the time; she had chosen as wisely as she could, given her circ.u.mstances-and never in ways that he could have conceived.

He had always known that she would be tested. He had intended-from the moment he had agreed to help her-that this would be her test. And it had been. And she had not only pa.s.sed it, but risen above his expectations in ways that were bitter and horrible to him now.

Pride in her, yes, and wonder.

But for himself he felt only loathing, and a blacker loathing than he had ever felt. He had fallen lower than he now stood many times in his life, starting with his abdication of all responsibility in the face of what he had thought of as his sister's betrayal. But he had fallen; he had paid the price for the fall, and he had struggled to stand, to walk, and to survive, aware of it.

This time, it was not his price to pay. He had never intended this to happen; he had never intended for things to go so far, so quickly. And he should have seen it. He should have known that Duster would fail in her duties. He should have known that somehow-somehow-the demons in the brothel and the Patris AMatie were so intimately tied, that AMatie would be a concern.

He had failed to see. He had failed to plan accordingly. And there she was, in the wake of his failure.

She could walk, surrounded by them. She could smile, or cry, or speak, could ignore it in their presence. But Rath was not Jewel; he did not live on hope. He lived, rather, by bitter experience, and he knew that the scars she bore would never truly fade.

And yet, in the end, she had all but denied what was completely obvious to every single child in the room, because to do less was to damage them. He had seen what was on her face; he had seen the dagger in her hand; he had seen the uncertainty, the revulsion, the horror and-yes-the desire for vengeance and death. And she had handed Carver the dagger instead, and by managing to do just that, she had become-did she know it?-the sheath for Duster that she had spoken of so carefully.

The ghost of his past was his sister, at that moment, his sister and her pale face, her abiding anger, her slow determination.

I did not understand you, Amarais, he thought, bitterly. And if I understand you now in some small measure it is because of Jewel Markess. An orphan in the poorest part of this city.

She had been hurt, and he knew why. Knew that in the end, Waverly was simply a tool. Knew, as well, that the hands that had wielded him had not yet been fully revealed; there was work to do.

He would dedicate his life to doing it, because only by doing so would he be free of the image of Jewel standing in her torn and b.l.o.o.d.y dress, her bruised face silent and still. And perhaps not even then.

Epilogue.

MAGELIGHTS IN DARKNESS. No moon, no sky, no lamps to hold them aloft. Held, instead, in cupped hands, carried with care and worry, they lit a small path, revealing cracked stone, fallen pillars, rocks with sheared edges that might have cracked centuries ago. Or days.

No snow here, and no rain; no weather to trouble the undercity. The only movement that could be seen was theirs; the den's. Jewel watched them, her hands empty. She had given her stone to Finch. She could not hold it herself.

But hold it or no, she followed where the light led, finding comfort in its presence. There was secrecy in this place, and in secrecy, a promise of safety. But more, there was history, and beauty, that lay untouched and undisturbed. The walk through the streets above had been cold and numbing, and she had welcomed that.

Duster walked by her side in utter silence, and trailing her like shadow came Lander, his shoulders black in the shadowed light, and not the red of blood. No one spoke. No one touched her. No one offered her words of comfort. This, too, was a blessing. She was shaking, and could pretend that this was because she was cold; they let her be.

Carver offered her his coat, and she shook her head; she had one, and she wore it. It hid much. Had she eaten, she might have thrown up.

But instead, she followed and led, surrounded by her den, the kin she had chosen, and the kin who had chosen her. She did not find the path into the undercity; Lander did. And Lander led only as far as the entrance, before giving way in silence to Arann. They entered it as they left it, aware of the things that had changed.

So much silence. The silence of the dead. The silence of a city that might be filled with ghosts, all mercifully still. The silence of fear, of regret, of anger. Too much silence.

The voice that broke the silence was hers. In the future, she thought, it would always be hers. But here, in the now, she had to struggle to break it, and when she did, she found surprise and some flicker of memory that was both attenuated and strong enough to cling to.

"I want to show you something."

They stopped walking, as a group, and turned to face her, and she realized she was at the center of a circle. It was a good circle, if a bit lopsided.

Teller said, "Here?" and light bobbed in his hand.

She nodded. Even managed a smile. There were so many things to cling to, all of them memory. But too many of those memories could be shared only with words, which were all that were left.

This one, this was different.

"Come," she told him, told them all. And they nodded.

She didn't remember the way, not consciously. Maybe her feet did. Or maybe she could see it in a way that did not give her nightmares. But she found a path over the cracks in the stone; paused once or twice so that they could navigate the more treacherous byways. She was not afraid here. Fear would come later, if it came at all. Accidents did not frighten her, they had now become so impersonal. There were worse things.

She looked once or twice to see if Duster was with her; Duster failed to meet her eyes, failed to meet anyone's eyes. But she followed, and that was enough for now.

You got what you wanted, she could hear her Oma say, in her bitter voice. Didn't I tell you to be careful of what you want?

Always, Oma.

And would you do it again?

No answer. She wasn't sure what the right answer was. No. That wasn't true. It doesn't matter, she told the past. It happened; I can't change it.

And if you could?

I can't.

Her Oma's ghost seemed to shrug at that, to offer something like a smile, twisted and laced with both anger and a grudging approval. That had been her Oma, in life, and in death, her voice was still strong.

You be practical, be a practical girl.

Jewel nodded. But it wasn't the practical that led her, in the end, to the tall face of a building she had seen only once. She heard Teller's sharp intake of breath, and said, "More light, Teller."

He looked at her, and she spoke a word, and the magelight flared in his hands with its cold fire. The face of the building grew sharper and clearer as the light blazed up from his hands-from all their hands-at once.

"Someone lived here?" he finally asked.

"Maybe. No one lives here now. Come."

And she led them into the terraced stone of the Maker's Garden, as she now thought of it, and she led them among the flowers that age and seasons did not wither.

"This is a secret place," she told them, and it was easy to speak in a whisper because no other voices intruded. "This is Rath's place, and he-" She shook her head. "And he'll share it with us, for now."

She bent to touch a petal, her hands drawing webs as she pulled them back. "It never ages," she said quietly. "And it never changes."

"It's-" Finch, now. Finch, kneeling with as much care as she would have had the flowers been real. "It's like magic."

Jewel nodded. It was. But she couldn't feel it, here. She could feel it in memory. Perhaps you couldn't go back. Or perhaps you could only have it once, and that once-she wanted it for these people.

But they failed you.

She closed her eyes, let the words echo, hating them. Hating them, believing them, denying them.

And Duster said, in a voice that was quiet in this quiet place, and so unlike her own that Jewel almost couldn't recognize it, "I don't deserve this." Laying herself bare.

Or blossoming, in a way the stone couldn't.

Beauty, Jewel thought, in the things that never changed. Whoever had made these flowers, those twining stone leaves, those trellises-they had captured a moment in time, and held it; you could almost feel the reverence in the creation itself. But they could not capture the beauty of the things that did change; only by being there could you see it, and only with memory could you hold it.

She turned, lifted the hands that touched petals and the webs that had been spun around them, and faced Duster who was crouched by her side like a wounded creature. "Maybe," she said, with a shrug. "Maybe you don't. But who's to say that any of us do? We get what we get, most times. We just have to deal with it." She paused, and said, "Judge what you have to judge. Change what you need to change.

"If you don't deserve it now, earn it."

Duster was shaking. Just . . . shaking.

Her hair would grow out, the pale blonde edges eclipsed by natural darkness. Her skin would grow ruddy again, and no doubt her face would lose this wounded wonder. But Jewel would remember it.

For both of them, if she had to.

Teller whispered something to Finch; Finch said something to Arann, words crept into the stillness, like a breath of warmth and life.

Jewel reached out for Duster's hand, and she held it tightly for just a moment before letting go.

Duster raised that hand to her face, and the other hand joined it, and she sat there, huddling into her knees, her face now hidden.

It was the only way she would cry. It was something else they had in common, now, this need to gather and hide their weakness.

Rath sat in the Magi's tower, waiting. Hard, to sit, and wait. Hard to sit at all, to be confined; he had rarely been driven by the anger that drove him now. Anger was for the young, and he had spent it carelessly in his youth. Had spent enough of it that he had grown to realize how much energy and effort it took to sustain anger, to nourish it.

He had thought it left behind, like all else about his youth, and it was a bitter surprise to find that he could not shake himself free of its grip.

But then again, why should he? It was wed to guilt, here; to his absolute certainty of failure. That Jewel had somehow emerged, that she had proved to Rath that his testing had not been in vain-it galled him. It sickened him. She was a child, and he had given her a test that she should never have been given. Not even as an adult.

But he had thought of his sister, then. In the planning, and even in the execution-he had thought of Amarais, who had never been vulnerable. And Jewel had paid for that.

What Rath would pay had not yet been decided. That he would was not in question. Here, now, he understood that he had already chosen his fate, and if he could not clearly see where it lay, the ignorance made little difference.

He sat at the end of the long table that he had seen only once before, but he wore no messenger's garb, no disguise; he no longer needed one. Or perhaps he had pa.s.sed beyond disguise to come to this point: he could not discern who he was anymore, and he did not wish to hide.

Upon the table, the daggers lay, dull and flat, their runes no longer glowing. Both daggers. He had used them, and as he had promised the Magi-and only a fool broke a promise given to a woman like Sigurne-he had come to make his report, and to return them. But that was not all he had come for, and sitting here, his hair in a warrior's braid, a hint of his year in the North, he faced those daggers, and he waited, and he longed to cut all waiting short, to take up sword or knife, to hit the streets fighting. To kill.

Long, long time, since he had felt such a pointless, visceral desire. But even so, the distance of years could not lessen it. Wisdom had failed him. Everything had failed him.

He had failed Jewel.

But she? She had not failed herself.

And because she had not, he could not now kill Duster, although the desire was strong. He remembered that anger was like this; like fire, it burned everything in its wake; it did not discriminate. Perhaps this was not true of other angers; perhaps Jewel, trusting, implacable urchin, was not possessed of this, and her anger was something that could be appeased, could be put out. Not so the anger of Handernesse, slow to wake, and impossible to quench with anything less than blood.

He heard the door open; it creaked. He took the sound as a courtesy, and not a lack of attention to the oiling of door hinges, and in this, he knew he was not wrong; that door could open so silently a man could die in this chair before he was aware that someone had entered the room.

But it was thus that Sigurne Mellifas announced her presence, and he rose at the sound, and turned to face her. She stood framed by peaked arch, and she seemed slight and frail as she saw who waited, even though she must have known who it was long before she made the onerous walk in the cold from the height of her tower to this room where strangers might meet in safety.