The scullion’s eyes rolled. Pale green, like Federo’s. This wasn’t a woman. I had captured a girl my own age or younger. The hot smell of piss cut the air between us.
Captured and scared to death. Sometimes I could hate myself.
“I won’t hurt you.” I kept my voice low, hoping I hadn’t already damaged her teeth. Whom to ask for first? “But I am very short on time and even shorter on patience. Where are the Mothers?”
She squeaked, her eyes rolling. I pulled the knife hilt out. A few chips of tooth came with it. Oh, well.
“That h-hurts,” the girl sniffled.
“A lot of things hurt,” I said roughly. “But not you, if you talk.”
“What m-mothers?”
“Southern women, dressed in dark leather.”
“Oh.” Her eyes glanced upward. “The priestesses. Jayce s-said there’d been a fight.”
Who the hells is Jayce? Squeezing her arm hard, I whispered urgently, “Where?”
“S-second floor. South w-wing. In the Azure Room.” She closed her eyes. “Kill me fast. I don’t want to hurt m-more.”
Oddly brave, this one. “I’m not going to kill you,” I told her. “Just hide for an hour. Then quit this household. It will not stand much longer in any event.” I put my knife away and fished out one of my last silver taels. “That’s a week’s wages at least. Walk out of here.”
She closed her hand over the coin and gave me a strange look.
“I’m a terrible villain. I don’t do evil very well.” I shoved her away and trotted up the hallway from where she’d come. There’d be stairs, maybe a lift, some way for the servants to move the laundry about without bothering the lords of the house. Finding Mother Vajpai, if she wanted to leave, would make freeing Corinthia Anastasia much easier. The Blades could help me fight my way to the girl much more readily than Corinthia Anastasia could help me fight my way to the Blades.
With a bit more scouting I located a laundry chute. No screaming echoed from behind me, so the girl had taken at least some of my advice. I didn’t mind killing men under arms, or sometimes even men in general, but my heart just wasn’t in murdering girls younger than me merely for the sake of silence.
The chute was inside a little closet with several large baskets piled to one side. The only stairs I’d seen so far were fairly wide, with kitchen noises echoing from their head. That did not strike me as my best option.
Instead I stuck my head into the chute and peered up. Miracle of miracles, it was angled. And small without being impossible. Whoever had built this had assumed that drapes or carpets might be sent down it someday. I touched the insides with my hand. Wood, lacquered with age and regular use. The panel joints were tacked over with slim laths.
That was enough for me. I’d easily make the second storey this way, and stay clear of both servants and masters. If the scullion kept her mouth shut another twenty minutes, I could find my fellow Blades without an alarm being raised, and possibly even Corinthia Anastasia.
Unfortunately, I still didn’t see breaking the child out. Not by myself. Certainly if I could persuade Mother Argai, and even better, Mother Vajpai, to my cause, Samma would follow them. The four of us would be only a half-handle of Blades, but I’d wager that nothing in Copper Downs short of a pardine Hunt could stand against us.
I braced and climbed, keeping my boot toes wedged against the laths as I went. A slip would not kill me, but I’d make a racket, and lose my progress. Belatedly it occurred to me that such a fall would be terrible for the baby as well. I could not touch my abdomen, but I whispered an apology. This wasn’t balancing, which pregnancy had begun to steal from me. This was strength, which I still had. I not yet gained sufficient weight to lose my ability to pull myself up.
I climbed past the first-floor trapdoor into the chute. The room beyond smelled of oils and soaps. I heard two more girls chattering about some boy as they worked. Do not open the laundry chute, I thought. I didn’t want to threaten more children. Thankfully, they were at some other task. I reached the second floor undiscovered. The chute went another flight above me to where I thought Corinthia Anastasia was being held, but I stopped at this trapdoor and listened.
Silence beyond.
Carefully freeing one hand, I checked both my short knives and my long knife. What was I doing burning away my morning skulking about inside the walls here? The city was stirring toward more fighting, if everything I’d schemed for came true. I didn’t need to be creeping like a mouse.
Except for Corinthia Anastasia. The Blades were my path toward her. She was my true goal. I was the only one who would make her rescue a priority.
Resolve steeled and weapons checked, I pushed open the trapdoor and slid into the second-floor maid’s closet.
No shrieking girls greeted me there. The room was small, painted stark white gone a bit grubby with age. Except for the laundry chute and the door into the hallway beyond-I assumed it led to a hallway-everything was shelving and equipment. A person couldn’t even sit in here to ease her aching feet. I looked around at the stacked linens, the mops, the buckets, and briefly considered grabbing an armload for disguise. But in a house with pale-skinned servants and Selistani masters, I would fool no one. Likely I’d slow myself down in the bargain.
Now was the time to stand straight and walk knife in hand into the throat of whatever awaited me. Still, I wondered where everyone was. The place was strangely quiet. The presence of servants about their business made me less fearful that Surali had stolen a march on me and simply decamped overnight. I worried nonetheless.
Worrying, I darted into the hall.
Thick carpets, probably from Selistan, I noted with some irony. The walls paneled with insets in a blond tropical hardwood. Honeytree, from the look of it. Smagadine art sat on small plinths every six feet or so-broken heads and hands, fragments of larger statuary. Someone had been making a political point when they’d decorated this hallway. At least two centuries past, I estimated, based on the details in the woodwork and the framing of the scattered paintings depicting traders and markets. The oils were all mediocre imitations of the style of Fechin during his Commensalist period. The ceiling was relieved in a line of low vaults, with a kerosene lamp flickering within each vault. Otherwise there’d be no light at all. This was an interior hall, connecting sitting rooms or suites.
South was to my right. Long knife bare in hand, my remaining short knife loose in its wrist scabbard, I walked that way, counting doors so as not to lose my place. Of course the owners of this house had not been so kind as to label the rooms. I could not readily tell which was the Azure Room. Double doors at the end of the hall would open into a larger space, perhaps a ballroom. I put my ear to them and listened.
More voices. Several men. Street Guild guards? Was the Azure Room behind this door? Or more likely their bivouac?
I thought a moment about the typical architecture of the great houses of Copper Downs. That could not be a conservatory-we were not on the uppermost floor-but it would be a ballroom or a gallery. Surali couldn’t keep prisoners in such a place. Too much space. She’d confine them instead. That was much more her style.
Stepping back, I tried the first door on my right. It opened to a dusty sitting room, drapes closed over the windows along the far wall. Furniture bulked awkwardly under white sheets. Even the paintings were covered over.
Not here. Unless they’d been stored as corpses. With that thought, I glanced at the floor. No sign of anyone being dragged through the dust, or walking in here.
Across the hall, I tried the other door. A bedroom that had been in recent use. The bed was stripped-I knew where these linens had gone-and the fireplace smoked slightly. The occupant had forgotten to open the damper.