“Of course,” he said, smiling broadly. “You think I would frequent just any cafe?” He leaned in closer. “Besides, the owner is my wife’s second cousin-their whole family are excellent cooks. Ahnya would never forgive me if ate anywhere else.”
I smiled in turn. The image of Jelem’s small, delicate, yet fiery wife, Ahnya, berating the Mouth for snubbing her family was a picture I could easily imagine.
I leaned back in my own seat, tore off a small strip of flat bread, and decided to take advantage of Jelem’s relaxed frame of mind.
“You were saying,” I said as I dipped the bread into the beans and peppers, “something about Tamas’s rope?”
Jelem sighed and closed his eyes. “I had said I could not find out who made the item, which is true. What I can do, however, is try to find out how they made it. There are only so many ways to gather magic and weave it into something like this.”
“And how does knowing how it was made help us?” I said.
Jelem opened his eyes and regarded me with the same expression he might use for a pheasant that had asked why it was being eaten. “ ‘How’ tells us which style of magic the maker used,” he explained. “ ‘How’ tells us what degree of ability the maker had. ‘How’ tells us how much, roughly, someone is willing to spend on killing you. And ‘how’ tells me-maybe-how to make more of these charming little baubles.” He tapped the rope. “The magic is keyed to the runes. That ought to make it easier to unravel.”
I looked at the pieces of paper-scraps, really-sticking out of the knots. On a hunch, I reached into my pouch and pulled out the strip of parchment I had taken off Athel the Grinner’s body.
“What can you make of this?” I said.
Jelem took the battered slip of paper in his long fingers and held it up to the light of a lamp hanging above us.
“It means nothing to me,” he said after a moment. “Why?”
I took back the paper. “I haven’t been able to figure out what’s written on it. It just occurred to me it may be some sort of notation or script used in glimmering.”
“If it is, I’ve never seen its like before.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of that lately,” I said. I looked at the paper again in the dim light. It looked the same as before-dots, dashes, squiggles, and angles, with the hint of something legible here and there. Except for “imperial” and “relic,” though, nothing on it made sense.
“Is it important?” said Jelem.
“It had better be,” said a familiar voice off to my right. “Otherwise, he’s been doing a lot of chasing for nothing.”
I looked up to see Degan stepping onto the porch of the cafe. He brushed the brim of his hat in Jelem’s direction; the Mouth smiled lazily in return.
“Sometimes, nothing is the best thing to chase,” said Jelem.
“Drothe’s ‘nothings’ usually carry swords,” said Degan, “and come with several well-armed friends.”
“Ah,” said Jelem. “That kind of nothing.” He sat up in his chair. “In that case, I think we have ‘nothing’ further to discuss.” Jelem laid his hand on the rope. “We are agreed?” he said.
“We’re agreed.” I didn’t have much of a choice. “Just don’t screw me too bad on the price. And make it quick.”
Jelem stood, sketching a graceful bow while tracing a complex spiral pattern in the air. “As the Scions of the Great Family allow,” he said. He took the rope, coiled it, and walked back over to his game.
I turned to Degan as he took Jelem’s vacated seat. “I’ve been hoping to catch up with you,” I said.
“Must be your lucky night,” he said, tearing off a piece of flat bread and running it through the beans. “Or mine.”
“I have a name to run by you.”
“Oh?”
“ ‘Ironius,’ ” I said, letting the name of the man we had heard in the sewers of Ten Ways and I had seen at Rambles’s drop into the space between us.
Degan froze, the bread poised before his mouth. Without looking at me, he set it back down and stood up.
“We’re leaving,” he said. Before I could answer, he had turned away and begun walking. I hurried to my feet and followed.
Degan led me through Raffa Na’Ir cordon and out, then into the Hounds, all in silence. I was nearly running at points to keep up with his long, quick stride. Finally, I stopped in a small piazza and leaned a hand against the fountain in the center. I was breathing hard.
“Enough,” I said. “Here is good enough.”
Degan stopped and looked around, as if not realizing where he had brought me. Perhaps he hadn’t. He came over and scooped up a handful of water from the basin in the fountain, sipped, then spit it out onto the bricks of the piazza.
“How’d you come by that name?” he said.
I hesitated for half a second, debating about pushing him to talk first. The hard look in his eyes persuaded me otherwise.
“He was with Rambles,” I said.
“Nicco’s Rambles?”
“Do you know any other Rambles?” I said. “They were in Ten Ways.”
“Doing?”
I told him about the conversation I’d overheard, about Rambles’s apparent arrangement with Ironius, about my brief meeting with the latter on the roof. “Ironius and the woman are working Ten Ways,” I finished. “Have been for a while. It sounds as if they’re trying to unify the local gangs for some reason.”
Degan scowled. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “To take over the cordon? No one runs the place right now. But if they’re that organized, why waste time on Ten Ways? There are better cordons out there that would be easier to take over.”
“Why indeed?” said Degan. He ran his hand over a carved faun’s head on the fountain, letting his thumb brush the stream of water coming from it. “What makes the cordon worth going after? Is there something about Ten Ways itself, a reason they need to control the cordon?”
“You mean besides the charming atmosphere?” I said. I’d been asking myself the same question: why try to control a hellhole like Ten Ways, given how hard it would be to bring it together? If they could bring it together. “I suppose it would be a nice feather in someone’s cap. No one’s been able to unite Ten Ways since Isidore, and he went on to become the Dark King. If someone managed to do the same, it would go a long way toward making him look like…” I trailed off and looked over at Degan. He was staring back at me.
“That can’t be it,” I said, almost in a whisper. “Follow in the Dark King’s footsteps? Take control of all the Kin in Ildrecca again? That can’t be it.” The first time had been a work of genius, a miracle, a fluke-no one could repeat that. Could they?
“It doesn’t mean someone can’t try,” said Degan.
I nodded as I connected the dots in my head. “And a war between a couple of Upright Men-like, say Nicco and Kells-would only help. Hell, if done right, it could draw in most of the bosses and Uprights within three cordons of the place.”
“That would put almost half of the Kin in Ildrecca at one another’s throats,” said Degan.
“And get the local element in Ten Ways up in arms, too,” I said. “Having the neighbors come in to fight their war wouldn’t go over too well.”
“It might even be enough to get the Kin in Ten Ways to unite behind someone,” said Degan.
“Someone who jingles when she walks and has Ironius in her back pocket,” I said sourly. “And all they’d have to do is sit back and wait for everyone else to weaken themselves by fighting one another. Then, when things are at their worst, they step in at the head of the Kin in Ten Ways and take over.”
“How very imperial,” said Degan.
He was right. It had been working for the empire for centuries-get local kings or chiefs to fight one another, then step in and shore up whoever looks to make the best puppet.
And now someone wanted to do it to the Kin.
“Tell me about Ironius,” I said.
“I-” Degan sighed and ran a hand over his face.
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“Damn it, Degan! How can you not?” My voice echoed off the buildings around us. Somewhere, a dog started barking. “This is me, for Angels’ sake!”