Ianthe glared at him defiantly.
Hana glanced at her daughter, then back at Granger. ‘I told you she doesn’t read minds.’
Granger lost his temper. ‘You’ve told me nothing but lies,’ he exclaimed. ‘It seems to me that I’m the only one who’s acting in our daughter’s interests. What is it with you? Pride? Selfishness? Are you so afraid of being alone that you’d keep her rotting in jail when she could be out of here in a heartbeat?’ He set down the bowls roughly, spilling porridge everywhere. ‘I don’t get it, Hana. Do you think I’m suddenly going to become the good father? My responsibilities to you ended fifteen years ago in Weaverbrook, when you chose to keep your pregnancy a secret.’
Hana stiffened. She closed her eyes. In a voice no louder than a whisper she said, ‘You wouldn’t have stayed with me.’
‘I was an Imperial soldier.’
Ianthe had paled. ‘Lies,’ she said. ‘You were never in Weaverbrook.’
‘Inny…’ Hana reached for her.
‘No!’ She snatched her hand away. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. You told me you met him years before Dad died, you said…’ She let out a small shriek of frustration, then shook her head fiercely. ‘He can’t have been in Weaverbrook.’
‘Inny, please.’
‘He’s not my father.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Granger stared in astonishment as Ianthe began to wail.
CHAPTER 4
TREASURE-HUNTERS
To Sister Briana Marks:
My name is not important. I am a jailer in Ethugra who has recently, and legally, been granted incarceration rights to a powerful psychic. Given this person’s value to your Guild, I would be glad to hand them over in return for a finder’s fee of two hundred thousand gilders. If this is agreeable, please have a Guild representative (yellow-grade only) meet me at Averley Plaza on the 30th HR. I will find her.
Faithfully,
A Friend
Granger stared at the letter. How could he send it now? Ianthe was more of a mystery to him than ever before. She knew things she couldn’t possibly have known: the slop drawer, the four hundred gilders. And yet she seemed blind to the most crucial information of alclass="underline" the poisoned water, her own parentage. Every one of his instincts told him that her reaction to that last revelation was genuine. She hadn’t known he was her father.
Had Hana been telling the truth all along?
Or had they outwitted him again?
He cradled his head in his hands. She couldn’t have seen him put the money into his pocket. She couldn’t have known about Duka’s condition from hearing his sobs. So why hadn’t she known he was her father? Nothing made sense – not least her supposed ability to find trove. Psychics didn’t find treasure. The sea had no mind to read.
Granger folded up the letter and slid it down inside his sock. If Ianthe turned out to be valuable, he would send it, and if she didn’t, well, it might at least stop Creedy’s damn whaleskin galoshes from chaffing his ankle so much.
Ianthe ignored him for four days. Granger went about his duties in a workmanlike fashion, bringing his captives food and water and emptying the slop drawer. Ianthe kicked all their food into the brine before her mother had a chance to protest or even to thank Granger. But she drank the water and she allowed her mother to drink it too.
On the fifth day she said, ‘If you want me to find trove, you’ll have to let me out of here.’
‘Who says I want to find trove?’ Granger replied.
She threw the water jug at him.
Two more days passed.
On the seventh day of their incarceration he found Ianthe in an edgy, restless mood. She sat with her chin pressed against her knees, gripping the soles of her boots as though making a conscious effort to stop her coiled muscles from lashing out again. They had, at last, eaten their breakfasts and left the empty bowls for Granger to collect. He took this to be a small victory.
‘She wants to work with you,’ Hana said.
‘Does she? Was this her idea, or yours?’
Ianthe stared at the wall.
‘Take her out in your boat, she’ll find treasure.’
Granger shook his head. ‘I could lose my licence if anyone sees me.’
‘Then go at night,’ Hana said. ‘Her sight is good enough.’
It was bad enough being on the brine in daylight, but the thought of trawling Ethugra’s canal’s at night felt like a lead weight in his gut. ‘My boat leaks.’
‘Your friend’s boat doesn’t.’
Creedy scratched at the Gravediggers tattoo behind his thumb. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘She’s either psychic or she isn’t.’
Granger sat in the bow of the sergeant’s launch beside a tarpaulin that hid their dredging equipment – the lamps, ropes, nets and iron hooks Creedy had borrowed from another of his cousins. Stone facades and barred windows slipped by on either side, both above and below water. The seabed was about seven fathoms down here, and the honey-coloured water unusually clear, but Granger couldn’t see anything of worth in the flooded street below. Rubble. A torn net. Bones and paint cans. ‘Maybe it’s instinctual,’ he said.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, birds once used to migrate across the oceans. How did they navigate? What guided them across the endless wastes to the same roosting spots year after year? Or dragons… You’ve seen the way berserker dragons hunt the Drowned off the Losotan coast. They know where to dive and where to avoid.’
‘I once saw a dragon taken by an erokin samal,’ Creedy said. ‘Man, that was nasty.’
Granger shrugged. Maybe that wasn’t such a good example. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain Ianthe’s talents yet. She might not be psychic, but she has something.’
Creedy shook his head in disapproval. ‘I know a con when I smell one, Colonel.’
A passenger boat puttered by, almost identical to the vessel Granger had taken out to Creedy’s place. This one was full of jailers’ wives back from the Averley Day Market, their wares piled between their knees, but it was as overcrowded as any other. Ethugran captains liked to pack them in. Long rays of sunlight slanted into the city from the west, turning the top stories of the buildings to gold.
Gloom had filled Halcine Canal by the time they reached Granger’s wharf. Creedy tied up, and then the two men climbed up the ramshackle stairs into Granger’s garret.
To keep Ianthe hidden, Granger looked out a spare whale-skin cloak from the storeroom: a sour old garment, hardened by long exposure to rain and brine spray. He felt sure she would complain.
She complained and raged and threw it on the floor. But when he made it clear she’d wear the cloak or remain inside, she snatched it back up and swept it fiercely about her shoulders. Creedy said nothing but he stared at Ianthe in a way that made Granger feel uncomfortable.
Shortly after sunset, the three treasure-hunters departed in Creedy’s launch. High cloud had drifted in from the south and veiled the dusk. There were no stars, but a half moon shone through the clouds like a faint illusion. Creedy manned the wheel while Granger swung a lantern from the bow to light their way. Ianthe told them to head to Francialle, and then she yanked her foul-smelling cloak over her face and buried her head in her knees. They left Halcine Canal and turned into Elm Canal and then Broughton Canal, before finally nudging the boat into the old Unmer district via the Rat Passage. Night deepened around them. Creedy cut the engine and took up his boat hook. ‘What now?’
‘She starts looking.’
They waited.
‘Ianthe?’
She gave a snort of irritation, then crawled over to the side of the boat and peered down into the water.
Granger exchanged a glance with his former sergeant. Creedy shook his head. It was impossible to see anything down there.