Shatterglass (25 page)

The Ghost had taken that from Keth, just as he’d taken a loving mother and a foster-mother from Glaki. What else would he take?

Settling the globe on his knees, Keth tried again.

Late in the afternoon Tris roused herself from her reading and proclaimed that Keth had worked enough today. Plagued with a savage headache, Keth didn’t argue.

Instead they cleaned up the shop, bid Antonou and his family goodbye, and left for Khapik. Headache or not, Keth took Tris’s pack, though it seemed to get heavier as he walked. By the time they saw the yellow pillars of the Khapik gate, he felt as if someone had worked on him with hammers. Every bone in his body hurt.

As they passed through the gate, strong hands removed the pack from his grip. “You need a bath,” said Tris, her eyes sharp and knowing. She hung the pack on her own shoulders. “You’re exhausted. It happens when you aren’t used to working magic for hours, I should have remembered. Make sure the bath attendants know to wake you up and send you home. Do you cook in your rooms?”

Keth wiped his forehead, trying to think. “No,” he said at last. “We buy food cooked at the Lotus Street skodi. It’s cheap, and not bad. Instead of turning into Chamberpot Alley, you turn right and follow Peacock Street to the wall. The Lotus Street skodi is right there.” He fumbled in his pocket.

“Never mind,” Tris said testily. “I sold some of those pendants you made for me.

”We’ve money enough. Go wash.“

Keth stood there, staring down at the plump girl who looked up at him. If he hadn’t been drunk with exhaustion, he never would have said what he did: “You’re actually a nice person, aren’t you?”

She went beet-red. “No,” she retorted. Steering Glaki ahead of her, she walked away, disappearing into the crowd of early visitors to Khapik.

•

They were eating the supper Tris had bought when Xantha stuck her head into Yali’s old room. “There’s a Farewell for Yali at the Thanion,” she said. “If you want to go, Keth. And you,” she added with a glance at Tris.

Tris looked at Glaki. The little girl had been fine for most of the day, until they returned to this room. Now she was silent, eating little, burying her face from time to time in her battered rag doll.

“Thank you,” she told Xantha, “but I’ll stay with Glaki. It’s been a long day.”

Keth lurched to his feet, tired as he was. “I’ll drop the globe at Elya Street with Dema,” he told Tris. “I think it’s starting to clear.”

She nodded. Keth had placed it on the table, where it sparked and flashed. She had watched when he tried to clear it once he returned from his bath, but as before, he’d used up his magical resources. Now the surface lightnings were growing thin, showing the bolts that still shone thick inside the globe. If it cleared as the last one had, it would be another hour before they could see anything. Since Keth was exhausted, it was better that Dema get the thing before the lightning was gone.

Xantha’s blue eyes widened. “Keth, did you do that? You did magic!”

“Not any that’ll be of use,” Keth said bitterly. He picked up the globe and ushered her outside.

As the door closed behind them Tris heard Xantha say, “Can you do anything with complexions? Mine chaps so easily these days.”

Tris shook her head. Then she looked at Glaki, who sat on the floor with her back to Tris. Here was another problem, one she needed to sort out. “Can you make a picture in fire?” She picked up the table lamp and walked around in front of the child, then sat on the floor and placed the lamp between them. “Would you show me a picture in the flame?” she asked gently. “It’s not much of a fire, but I bet you can do it. What do you see there?”

Glaki frowned at the lamp, her fine black brows knit, her deep brown eyes intent.

Slowly the lamp’s flame rose, then spread until it formed an oval the size of Glaki’s hand. A face appeared in it, that of a woman with Glaki’s large, heavily lashed brown eyes, glossy black curls and olive complexion. “Mama,” whispered the child. The image dissolved: the lamp was out of oil. Glaki began to weep.

This time she didn’t fight when Tris dragged her into her lap. Softly she cried into the front of Tris’s sensible pale blue dress. Tris patted her back and crooned softly, letting her weep. Now she was certain. Glaki had shown two of the three signs of academic magic: moving things and producing images in fire.

As if my life weren’t complicated enough already, Tris thought, grouchy, though she was already making plans. Glaki would not be pushed from household to household as Tris had been. She would have a proper home and all the things a child needed to hold her head up in the world. Tris would take her to Lark, Rosethorn and Discipline Cottage when she and Niko returned to Emelan. Glaki would become part of the household that was rooted there.

Chime’s flames would help. They had to pay Keth’s cousin Antonou for the sands, scrap glass and colouring agents that Keth used to study his magic, but part of the money to be made from Chime’s flames would go to Glaki, to give her the things that little girl-mages needed. Tris nodded, her mind made up. She would not leave Glaki to scrabble for a living in Tharios.

Outside Tris saw that the sky was growing dark. In the street under the window she could hear the chime of dancers’ bells, chatter and laughter, test notes played on musical instruments. Khapik was coming to life, which meant the Ghost would be stirring, too.

Glaki had dozed off on Tris’s lap. Carefully the older girl got to her feet. Glaki protested sleepily, just as she grumbled while Iris got her into her night clothes; but once tucked into bed, with Chime on one side and Little Bear on the other, she slept.

Tris suspected that, like Keth, Glaki was probably exhausted from her first deliberate use of magic.

She went to the window and leaned out, summoning breezes. As she had the night before, she sent them out to bring her word of violence done with silk and a woman’s stolen breath. Then she refilled the lamp, lit it, and sat down with Winds’ Path. She had little hope for what her breezes might learn tonight, but she wanted them to get used to searching. They might find something and take her to its source, and they would be practised at exploration when Tris learned enough to scry what they had touched. She didn’t care about seeing the future, as Niko did. She just wanted to catch the Ghost before any more little girls were left motherless.

Keth returned from the Farewell for Yali to bid Tris good night. The city’s clocks chimed midnight. Some time after that, Tris closed her book. She was unable to grasp another word; what she had read was a jumble of complex ideas that would take time to sort out. With the tides and lightning still moving in her veins, she wasn’t sleepy.

She needed a walk.

First, she discovered that Chime did not want to be left behind, which meant Tris had to don the sling and settle the glass dragon. Then she went downstairs. As she’d hoped, Ferouze was awake. The old woman kept the same hours as the yaskedasi. “I’d like to go for a walk,” Tris explained. “Would you watch Glaki until I come back?

She’s asleep in Yali’s room.”

“She pays no rent for it,” Ferouze grumbled through her handful of remaining teeth.

“And I’m no children’s maid.”

Tris got two copper five-bik pieces out of her purse. “One of these to watch Glaki, one to pay a week’s rent, and don’t tell me Yah paid more than that. Will you do it?”

“I’ll do it.” Ferouze reached greedily for the money.

Tris held up a finger in warning, then stroked a thin braid with her free hand. Sparks of lightning jumped on to the copper coins. She loved copper: it held lightning for hours. “When I come back, I’ll take the sparks off these,” she said, placing them on Ferouze’s table. “I wouldn’t do that,” she added as the woman grabbed for the coins.

“Ouch!” Ferouze sucked on her stinging fingers. “That hurt!‘

“I know,” Tris replied. “Better hope that I remember to take the spell off when I get back. Of course, I’ll find you up where Glaki is, won’t I?”

“You dhaski are hard folk,” grumbled Ferouze as she followed Tris into the passage.

“Your mother would be ashamed.”

“I’ll tell her you said so,” Tris promised, turning on to Chamberpot Alley.

Khapik was as fascinating as ever to both Tris and to Chime. Together they went down alleys and through streets designed to tempt the coldest heart, up to rooftop gardens and down to sunken open theatres where dancers, jugglers and fire-eaters entertained the public. She passed rough taverns overflowing with drunkards and select wine shops where people sipped and talked about vintage and palate. Her breezes sought her out wherever she went, carrying snippets of conversations, including some that made her blush.

“They say you’ll get an education down here.”

she confided to Chime. “They just don’t say if you’ll like what you learn.”

Only once did she encounter a problem, on a street off Willow Lane. A man drew a knife when he saw her, showing bad teeth in a nasty grin. “Just the purse, girl. I’m doing you a favour here, teaching you about walking dark streets alone.” He came so close to her that Tris could smell his breath. She moved back a step before he grabbed her by the arm.

Tris tried to yank away. “What if I don’t want the favour?” she asked coldly, trying to decide how she would punish him. She felt Chime clamber on to her shoulder.

“That’s life, Dimples,” the robber said, fumbling for Tris’s purse. He was on the girl’s far side, in the light. Tris’s right shoulder, and the dragon, were in shadow.

Chime pulled herself on to Tris’s braids, leaned forward, and spat a handful of needles into the man’s cheek. The robber yelped, released Tris, and backed away, pulling the sharp bits of glass from his face. His fingers bled as the needles cut them.

“Maybe I’d better call for an arurim,” Tris remarked, though it seemed to her that Chime had punished the man enough. “Men like you are probably terrible for business.”

“Mage!” croaked the robber. He turned and fled into the darkness, still trying to pull bits of glass from his skin.

“I don’t have dimples!” Tris called after him. She sighed and walked down a broader street. “That was well done,“ she praised Chime. ”I’m impressed by your aim.“

The glass dragon butted her head against Tris’s ear. A breeze circled around them, carrying the voice of someone who yawned and said, “I’m done for the evening, Nerit.”

Tris caught herself yawning. “Sounds like a good idea,” she murmured, and returned to Chamberpot Alley.

When they arrived at Touchstone Glass in the morning, Dema was there, waiting for them. Keth halted in the courtyard, fists clenched. Get it over with, he told himself, and asked Dema, “Who, and where?”

Dema’s face was covered with sweat. He wiped it on his stole. “Stenatia, a courtyard yaske&asi from Swansdown House. He left her on the steps of the Hall of Records on the Keeper’s Road.”

“A courtyard…?” Tris asked, not sure what that meant.

“From one of the entertainment houses. Yaskedasi there are a cut above those who perform on the street,” explained Keth. “Their customers pay just to get in, plus whatever they give the performer. And the houses have watchmen to make sure the guests don’t get rowdy.”

“Which means he took her from under the nose of someone who was supposed to stop that sort of thing,” Dema added. “You have good instincts for this, Keth, to remember about the watchmen.”

“I don’t think that’s a compliment,” Keth said bitterly. “When was she taken, do you know?”

As they talked, Tris set out the breakfast they had purchased on the way to the shop.

Glaki took a honeycake to Dema, who smiled wearily at the child. He was ashen-faced with exhaustion. “Around midnight, between performances. Last anyone recalls seeing her, she was on her way to the privy at the back of the house.”

Heat — temper? magic? he didn’t know — welled up in Keth until he thought he might burst. The courtyard houses were safe, particularly for yaskedasi. There were hazards to performing on the streets, enough that those who could afford to do so and those who had gained some measure of fame thought it worthwhile to pay the monthly fees to those who operated the houses. “Does he walk through -walls?” he cried, furious. “Is he invisible?”

Inside the shop two tall vases shattered. Everyone turned to stare at the pieces on the floor until Tris remarked, as sensibly as ever, “The problem with bringing your magic under control is that it gets more powerful. If your control isn’t perfect…” She went into the shop and found the broom. “We’ll work on that today.”

“And the globes,” Keth said grimly. She sounded unmoved and level-headed, but Keth knew her a little better now. He could see the quiver at the corners of her mouth.

She was as upset as he was. It startled him to realize that, even though he knew she was upset, her braids remained where they were, without movement, without sparks.

For the very first time he wondered at the amount of emotional control it took, for her hair not to give her feelings away.

“And the globes,” agreed Tris as she swept up glass. “You said you have a fallback plan. When does it go into action?” she asked Dema.

“Tomorrow night at the earliest,” he replied, inspecting his honeycake as if he’d forgotten what it was for. “The arurimati have to rearrange schedules. The women, some of them, have families to be looked after. At least Mother isn’t screaming over the expense. She knows how close I am - we are - to disgrace.” He took a bite of the cake and chewed as though it were made of wood. “I wish I could explain how maddening this is!” he cried when he had swallowed his bite. “Nine times out of ten -

no, better than that — ninety-four times in a hundred, the victim knows her killer, his killer, whoever. We question the family, the neighbours, fellow workers, and usually it’s one of them. But how do we handle a thing like this? We question those who knew the dead, who saw them before they were taken, but all of the possibilities have turned to lead. We’ve found no one who knew all of the victims, no one at all. And no one who saw anyone suspicious around even two of the yaskedasi.”

Carrying broken glass to the cullet barrel inside the door, Tris saw a prathmun pick up the rubbish from Antonou’s house and carry it to his wagon in the alley. “Have you questioned the pmthmun?.” she asked, turning to Dema. “Maybe they saw something.”