Gathering of Shadows (A Darker Shade of Magic) (37 page)

“Yes, well,” Jin said with a shrug, “I suppose I’ll fit in splendidly. As will you,” he added, flicking the silver feather on Alucard’s hat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I should make the rounds and the welcomes. I’ll be back.”

And with that, he was gone. Lila turned to Alucard, bemused. “Is he always like that?”

“Jinnar? He’s always been a bit … enthusiastic. But don’t let his childish humor fool you. He is the best wind mage I’ve ever met.”

“He was
levitating
,” said Lila. She’d seen plenty of magicians
doing
magic. But Jinnar
was
magic.

“Jinnar belongs to a particular school of magic, one that believes not only in using an element, but in becoming one with it.” Alucard scratched his head. “It’s like when children are learning to play renna and they have to carry the ball with them everywhere, to get comfortable with it. Well, Jin never set the ball down.”

Lila watched the wind mage flit around the room, greeting Kisimyr and Losen, as well as the girl in blue. And then he stopped to perch on the edge of a couch, and began talking to a man she hadn’t noticed yet. Or rather, she
had
noticed him, but she’d taken him for the cast-off member of someone else’s entourage, dressed as he was in a simple black coat with an iridescent pin shaped like an
S
at his throat. He’d made his way through the gathering earlier, hugging the edges of the room and clutching a glass of white ale. The actions held more discomfort than stealth, and he’d eventually retreated to a couch to sip his drink in peace.

Now Lila squinted through the smoke and shadow-filled room as Jin shook his hand. The man’s skin was fair, his hair dark—darker than Lila’s—and shorter, but his bones were sharp.
How tall is he?
she wondered, sizing up the cut of his shoulders, the length of his arms. A touch of cool air brushed her cheek, and she blinked, realizing Jin had returned.

He was sitting again on the back of Alucard’s chair, having appeared without so much as a greeting.

“Well,” asked Alucard, tipping his head back, “is everyone here?”

“Nearly.” Jinnar pulled the competition roster from his pocket. “No sign of Brost. Or the Kamerov fellow. Or Zenisra.”

“Praise the saints,” muttered Alucard at this last name.

Jin chuckled. “You make more enemies than most make bedfellows.”

The sapphire in Alucard’s brow twinkled. “Oh, I make plenty of those, too.” He nodded at the man on the couch. “And the shadow?”

“Tall, dark, and quiet? Name’s Stasion Elsor. Nice enough fellow. Shy, I think.”

Stasion Elsor
, thought Lila, turning the name over on her tongue.

“Or smart enough to keep his cards close to his chest.”

“Maybe,” said Jin. “Anyhow, he’s a first-timer, comes from Besa Nal, on the coast.”

“My man Stross hails from that region.”

“Yes, well, hopefully Stasion’s stage manner is stronger than his tavern one.”

“It’s not always about putting on a show,” chided Alucard.

Jin cackled. “You’re one to talk, Emery.” With that, he dismounted the chair, and blew away.

Alucard got to his feet. He looked at the drink in his hand, as if he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. Then he finished it in a single swallow. “I suppose I better say my hellos,” he said, setting down the empty glass. “I’ll be back.”

Lila nodded absently, her attention already returning to the man on the couch. Only he wasn’t there anymore. She searched the room, eyes landing on the door just in time to see Stasion Elsor vanishing through it. Lila finished her own drink, and shoved herself up to her feet.

“Where are you going?” asked Stross.

She flashed him a sharp-edged smile and turned up the collar of her coat. “To find some trouble.”

V

They were nearly the same height. That was the first thing she noticed as she fell in step behind him. Elsor was a touch taller, and a fraction broader in the shoulders, but he had a narrow waist and long legs. As Lila followed, she first matched his stride, and then began to mimic it.

So close to the river, the streets were crowded enough to cloak her pursuit, and she began to feel less like a thief with a mark and more like a cat with its prey.

There were so many chances to turn back. But she kept going.

Lila had never really bought into fate, but like most people who disavowed religion, she could summon a measure of belief when it was necessary.

Elsor wasn’t from London. He didn’t have an entourage. As she closed the gap, she wondered how many people had even noticed him back at the tavern, besides Jinnar. The light in the Sun had been low. Had anyone gotten a good look at his face?

Once the tournament began, they’d have no faces anyway.

Madness
, warned a voice, but what did she have to lose? Alucard and the
Spire
? Caring, belonging, it was all so overrated.

Elsor put his hands in his pockets.

Lila put her hands in her pockets.

He rolled his neck.

She rolled her neck.

She had a variety of knives on her, but she didn’t plan on killing him, not if it could be helped. Stealing an identity was one thing; stealing a life was another, and though she’d certainly killed her fair share, she didn’t take it lightly. Still, for her plan to work,
something
had to happen to Stasion Elsor.

He rounded a corner onto a narrow street that led to the docks. The street was jagged and empty, dotted only by darkened shops and a scattering of bins and crates.

Elsor was no doubt an excellent magician, but Lila had the element of surprise and no problem playing dirty.

A metal bar leaned against a door, winking in the lantern light.

It scraped the stones as Lila lifted it, and Elsor spun around. He was fast, but she was faster, pressed into the doorway by the time his eyes found the place she’d been.

Flame sparked in the man’s palm, and he held the light aloft, shadows dancing down the street. A fireworker.

It was the last sign Lila needed.

Her lips moved, magic prickling through her as she summoned a couplet of Blake. Not a song of fire, or water, but earth. A planter on the windowsill above him slid off the edge and came crashing down. It missed him by inches, shattering against the street, and Elsor spun to face the sound a second time. As he did, Lila closed the gap and raised the pipe, feeling a little less guilty.

Fool me twice
, she thought, swinging the bar.

His hands came up, too slow to stop the blow, but fast enough to graze the front of her jacket before he collapsed to the street with the sound of dead weight and the hiss of doused flame.

Lila patted the drops of fire on her coat and frowned. Calla wouldn’t be happy.

She set the bar against the wall, and knelt to consider Stasion Elsor—up close, the angles of his face were even sharper. Blood ran from his forehead, but his chest was rising and falling, and Lila felt rather proud of her restraint as she dragged his arm around her shoulders and struggled to her feet under the load. With his head lolling forward, and his dark hair covering the wound at his temple, he almost looked like a man too deep in his cups.

Now what?
she thought, and at the same exact moment a voice behind her said, “What now?”

Lila spun, dropping Elsor and drawing her dagger at the same time. With a flick of her wrist the dagger became two, and as she struck metal against metal, the two blades lit, fire licking up their edges.

Alucard stood at the mouth of the narrow road, arms crossed. “Impressive,” he said, sounding decidedly
unimpressed.
“Tell me, are you planning to burn me, or stab me, or both?”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“I really think I should be the one asking that.”

She gestured to the body. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Alucard’s gaze flicked from the knives down to the metal bar and the crumpled form at Lila’s feet. “No, not really. Because you couldn’t
possibly
be foolish enough to kill a competitor.”

Lila snapped the knives back together, putting out the flames. “I didn’t kill him.”

Alucard let out a low groan. “Saints, you actually have a death wish.” He gripped his hat. “What were you
thinking
?”

Lila looked around. “There’re plenty of transports coming and going. I was going to stash him away on one of them.”

“And what do you plan to do when he wakes up, turns the boat around, and makes it back in time to have you arrested and still compete?” When Lila didn’t answer—she hadn’t exactly gotten that far—Alucard shook his head. “You’ve got a real gift for taking things, Bard. You’re not nearly as good at getting rid of them.”

Lila held her ground. “I’ll figure it out.” Alucard was muttering curses in a variety of languages under his breath. “And were you
following
me?”

Alucard threw up his hands. “You’ve assaulted a competitor—I can only imagine with the daft notion of taking his place—and you honestly have the gall to be affronted at
my
actions? Did you even
think
what this would mean for me?” He sounded vaguely hysterical.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“This has everything to do with me!” he snapped. “I am your captain! You are my crew.” The barb struck with unexpected force. “When the authorities find out a sailor aboard my ship sabotaged a competitor, what do you think they’ll assume? That you were mad enough to do something so stupid on your own, or that
I
put you up to it?” He was pale with fury, and the air around them hummed. Indignation flickered through Lila, followed swiftly by guilt. The combination turned her stomach.

“Alucard—” she started.

“Did he see your face?”

Lila crossed her arms. “I don’t think so.”

Alucard paced, muttering, and then dropped to his knee beside Elsor. He rolled the man over and began digging through his pockets.

“Are you
robbing
him?” she asked, incredulous.

Alucard said nothing as he spread the contents of Elsor’s coat across the frozen stones. An inn key. A few coins. A handful of folded pages. Tucked in the center of these, Lila saw, was his formal invitation to the
Essen Tasch.
Alucard plucked the iridescent pin from the collar of the man’s coat, then shook his head and gathered up the items. He got to his feet, shoving the articles into Lila’s hands. “When this goes badly, and it
will
, you won’t take the
Spire
with you. Do you understand, Bard?”

Lila nodded tightly.

“And for the record,” he said, “this is a terrible idea. You
will
get caught. Maybe not right away. But eventually. And when you do, I won’t protect you.”

Lila raised a brow. “I’m not asking you to. Believe it or not, Alucard, I can protect myself.”

He looked down at the unconscious man between them. “Does that mean you
don’t
need my help disposing of this man?”

Lila tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure I
need
it, but I’d certainly appreciate it.” She knelt to take one of Elsor’s arms, and Alucard reached for the other, but halfway there, he stopped and seemed to reconsider. He folded his arms, his eyes dark and his mouth a grim line.

“What is it now?” asked Lila, straightening.

“This is an expensive secret Bard,” he said. “I’ll keep it, in trade for another.”

Dammit
, thought Lila. She’d made it months at sea without sharing a thing she didn’t want to. “I’ll give you one question,” she said at last. “One answer.”

Alucard had asked the same ones over and over and over:
Who are you
, and
What are you
, and
Where did you come from?
And the answers she’d told him over and over and over weren’t even lies.
Delilah Bard. One of a kind. London.

But standing there on the docks that night, Alucard didn’t ask any of those questions.

“You say you’re from London …” He looked her in the eyes. “But you don’t mean
this
one, do you?”

Lila’s heart lurched, and she felt herself smile, even though this was the one question she couldn’t answer with a lie. “No,” she said. “Now help me with this body.”