Aveline (17 page)

“I can do more than lift furniture with my
mind,” Tiana answered. “Sometimes, I dream of the future, and in
these dreams, I see my death.”

Aveline was silent.

“My father cannot afford to let me live past
eighteen. I must leave the city before that day.”

If Tiana knew Aveline was the one to kill
her, she gave no indication, which worried Aveline even more. How
many other people were there waiting in the shadows? People smarter
and less obvious than Matilda? Perhaps those who hired Karl to kill
Tiana?

Of all the questions Aveline had for Tiana,
none of them seemed safe to ask without tipping off Tiana that the
danger she dreamt of was real.

“What else can you do?” Aveline asked
instead.

“I do not try to do any of these things,”
Tiana replied. “It is forbidden, and I try so very hard not to do
anything, but I cannot always control what happens.”

“You seem to control lifting furniture
well.”

“It happens when I am distracted or upset or
crying. When I become aware of it, I can stop it, but that is all.
I can do nothing about the dreams or about hearing the thoughts of
those around me.”

“You can read minds?” Aveline echoed and
shifted uncomfortably.

“No. Single thoughts, and very rarely. Once
a month, perhaps.”

Burn me.
Aveline was going to have to be more careful about where she
allowed her mind to wander when she was around Tiana.

“Matilda screamed every time I looked at her
for the first month and when my bed floated, she fainted,” Tiana
said. “Why do my abilities not shock you?”

Because I have a blood curse
of my own.
Aveline was not ready to share
her secret, even if Tiana had chosen to disclose hers. “How do you
have these … abilities? They were inherited?”

Tiana nodded. “It is why my father burnt my
mother,” she whispered.

For once, Aveline wished she had thought to
ask her father more about the devil’s blood. Where the curse
started, why it happened. It was not possible for her and Tiana to
be related, which meant there were potentially many more people
with a similar kind of inherited ability.

Aveline looked from Tiana to the map,
uncertain what to think. Tiana deserved a chance to live outside
her room but was not in any form prepared for what lay beyond her
door. Aveline wrestled with herself, with her contradicting duties,
and the growing sense that the issue of Tiana was much more
complicated than she could guess. The question she had been
avoiding for a few days – how someone locked in her room rated the
level of dedicated attention Tiana received – returned. Aveline did
not want to become more involved, to understand why so many people
wanted Tiana dead, to empathize with her eventual target.

But two months was a long time to try to
ignore her persistent instincts and what was before her eyes. Two
months was a long time to fight the urge to help brighten Tiana’s
day or worse, help her find out more information about the one
topic that made her face glow.

“Promise me you will not run away without
telling me,” Aveline said at last.

“You will help me?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t want to
leave the city. But I’ll make sure you aren’t dead by the time you
reach the main floor.”

“Very well. I will not.” Tiana sounded
disappointed.

“Why would anyone want you dead?” Aveline
asked with some frustration.

“My father cannot risk exposing my
deformity, or it will cost our family our position and lives.”

“And Matilda?”

Tiana shrugged. “Perhaps she knows my father
wishes it?”

“Anyone else?”

“I do not know anyone else, aside from
Arthur, who hired you to protect me.”

“Who kills you? In these dreams?” Aveline
ventured.

“Someone I have never seen before.”

Aveline almost sighed and then sat back on
her heels, agitated. Who else had been hired to assassinate Tiana?
How deep did this conspiracy to murder the Hanover girl run? If
Aveline failed in her secondary duty, she would never become an
assassin. Who, then, was her competition?

“Tell me everything you’ve seen in your
dreams about your death,” she directed Tiana.

Tiana started to comply when they both heard
her door swing open and smack the wall behind it, announcing
Matilda’s entrance.

“No. Tea.” Aveline mouthed to Tiana.

The Hanover girl nodded, but Aveline doubted
Tiana would disobey Matilda if she were ordered to drink poison.
Tiana’s backbone was severely lacking, and her sincere belief that
she deserved to be mistreated was going to make Aveline’s job
protecting her even harder.

Tiana exited the closet first, eyes on the
floor, as she assumed her normal position seated on the bed.

Aveline trailed her.

Matilda was at the drawer where she kept her
drugs. She lifted one of the vials to the light of the window with
a frown.

“Slave,” she snapped, turning to
Aveline.

Aveline ducked her head quickly. She neither
smelled nor saw any cups of tea.

Matilda’s eyes narrowed when she saw Tiana,
the only sign she was surprised to find the girl perfectly
well.

“You. I need my medications from the
apothecary, and my useless personal slave cannot be found,” Matilda
said to Aveline. She held out a purple pouch. “This contains money
and a list. I have counted the ounces in this purse. If you return
with anything less than two ounces, I will have you burnt for
theft. Do you understand?”

Aveline nodded.

“The apothecary is located at the border of
the outer and inner city, on the east side of the fish market.
Place this in your hair, and he will know to approach you.” Matilda
held out a bright purple feather.

Aveline accepted both purse and feather. The
fish market was a landmark for those in both areas of the city
because of its smell. The area Matilda described, however, was not
reputable in the least, which supported Aveline’s assumption the
medications Matilda sought were illicit drugs banned in the outer
city by her own husband.

Her plan to wait until Matilda was gone
before vacating was quickly thwarted.

“Go. Now,” Matilda ordered.

Aveline left reluctantly. She calculated the
distance and time and realized she would have to run at least one
way in order to return before dusk, when Tiana was likely to be in
more danger. Although, she was always in danger with someone like
Matilda in the adjacent room.

Unwilling to leave Tiana alone for too long,
or at all with Matilda present, Aveline walked out of the room and
down the hallway. She hid around a corner and waited several
minutes, until she heard Tiana’s door slam closed once more.

She peered down the hallway to confirm
Matilda was returning to her chambers. Aveline pushed away from the
wall and raced through the apartment towards the elevator.

Her first excursion outside in a week was
far more invigorating than she expected. She ran with newfound
appreciation for the ability to stretch her legs and the harsh
winter wind. Even the overwhelming scent of the fish markets was
unable to dampen her joy at being free of Tiana’s stuffy room. As
she hurried to find Matilda’s drug dealer, Aveline began to form a
backup plan. She always carried a knife or two with her, in case
the apothecary needed encouragement to do as she asked.

The fish markets were at the center of the
city’s two major sides, patrolled by Shield members, and divided in
half by a wide road. Aveline slowed when she crossed the bridge
leading between the outer and inner cities. She continued to the
east side of the fish market, ignoring the curious looks she
received from those she passed. She picked up at least two hopeful
pickpockets. Mindful of them, she expertly observed those she
passed to pick up any threats or attempts to coordinate robbing
her. The green sash had little meaning to the residents of the
inner city, but the fact she was a privileged slave in clean
clothing with nice boots would be noticed by the hawks of the
streets.

Aveline tucked the feather behind her ear
when she reached the eastern part of the fish markets and began to
weave deliberately through the crowds. Five minutes passed, ten,
twenty. Three pickpockets approached her, one around the age of
eight and two much older, closer to her age. She rebuffed all of
them and remained wary for the next attempt, because, in the inner
city, there was always someone else waiting to pounce.

Impatient to be back by dusk, she shifted
the feather so it was more visible and began to widen her route
pacing back and forth along the eastern edge. Several native
merchants displayed their handmade wares on blankets beside a
building at the edge of the fish market. Her gaze lingered on the
goods often before she decided to take a closer look.

Aveline paused with her back to the dwelling
beside the natives’ display. Baskets and leather and wooden goods
were displayed by two elderly native women, each of whom possessed
silver hair that reached their ankles and leathery, wrinkled
features.

Catching sight of her, one of them nudged
the other, and they both watched Aveline. Neither spoke, but their
long looks caused her to lift her eyes from the goods to the
women.

“Mixed,” one of the natives said.

Aveline pursed her lips.

“Was your mother or father native?” the
other asked.

“Mother,” she said in a clipped tone.

“And you are a slave?”

She did not respond, not wanting to invite
further questions from strangers about her position with the
Hanover’s.

“Do you know your tribe?”

“No,” she said.

One of them clucked in disapproval, and
Aveline crouched beside a handmade leather good she recognized.
“Dream catcher?” she asked and picked up one of the five
displayed.

“It is,” one of the native women
replied.

“Do they work? Will they stop … nightmares?”
She did not know what else to call Tiana’s visions.

One of the women picked up a dream catcher
and handed it to her. “This one will.”

Aveline studied it. Black leather, beads,
feathers and sinew webbing, all of which appeared to be high
quality.

“Do you remember your mother’s name?”

Aveline glanced up. “Walks with a Limp,” she
answered.

“Her tribe,” the other pressed.

“I don’t know,” Aveline answered. “She was a
slave brought to the city twenty years ago. My father fell in love
with her and purchased her. She died giving birth to me. How much?”
She motioned to the dream catcher.

“Quarter ounce,” one of them answered.

“Quarter ounce?” Aveline replied. “That’s
two days worth of food!”

One of the women leaned forward and gripped
the silk sash, rubbing the silk between her fingers. “Will you
trade this?”

Aveline fingered the sash for a moment.
Tiana had embroidered the flowers and eagle for her.

All the more reason to trade
it,
she thought, recalling her dual purpose
in being with Tiana.

“Take it.” Aveline lifted it over her head
and handed it to one of the women. “Thanks.” She rose and walked
away, tucking the dream catcher into her pocket as she began to
pace the edge of the fish market again.

Just when she began to think Matilda had
been trying to expel her from Tiana’s room for some nefarious
reason, Aveline sensed someone approach. She turned and saw a
slender, tall man making a line straight for her.

“Come with me,” he said, breezing by
her.

Aveline obeyed and followed him through the
throngs of people at the market towards a quieter street lined with
shanties that appeared to be propping each other up. He entered one
that smelled so heavily of pungent herbs and chemicals, she almost
gagged. She left the door open in an attempt to circulate the air
while the apothecary went to his desk. Along both walls were
various glasses containers, pots and other supplies. Drying herbs
hung from every inch of the exposed ceiling rafters.

“What did she ask for this time?” the man
asked and withdrew a box of empty glass vials from beneath his
desk.

Aveline handed him the list and watched him
read it.

“Tell your mistress arsenic is hard to come
by,” he complained.

Bitch,
Aveline thought to herself. “What else does she
want?”

“Her usual. Two ounces of Devil Powder and
three of Old World Death,” he replied.

“One to push her up, the other to bring her
down,” Aveline murmured. She opened the pouch again, this time
observing the amount of money Matilda had given her. “She pays
below price.”

“In exchange for recommending me to her
friends,” the dealer replied. He leaned down and pulled a dark
colored glass bottle from another box. He began to pour the pure,
white powder inside into vials.

“Do you have Ghoul’s Fancy?” Aveline
asked.

The dealer stopped and looked up. “You
aren’t the slave she normally sends,” he said.

“No, I’m not. Now, do you have Ghoul’s
Fancy?”

“I do,” he confirmed. “For her or for
you?”

“Mix it in with the Old World Death. Replace
the arsenic with sugar.”

When he did not move, Aveline withdrew one
of the weapons she had brought. She met his gaze, her own cold,
hard. “My father was the Devil. He trained me to use dozens of
weapons and to kill in more ways than you have ounces of medicines
in this shack.”

Her words had the affect she wished. The
dealer sat back, listening.

“You can do as I say, and survive, or you
can disobey me, and I’ll mix it myself after I slit your throat,”
she finished.

After a minute, he began to laugh. “The
Devil’s daughter? Here?” He shook his head. “If your mistress
refuses to pay for what she –”