“Hand it over.”
Detan edged back a step, sweat dampening his back while he strained to hold the platform and keep his guts in his belly. “Now, now, we’re all reasonable gentlemen here, and I’ve got it ready, Tibs.”
“Don’t you fucking talk to him! Hand it over!”
“’Bout time,” Tibs said.
He grabbed the front of Detan’s shirt and shoved.
For a moment, he thought this was the best idea Tibs’d ever had. He arced backward, huffing in fresh air while his body floated free in the endless sky. To be without tether, even without a selium craft, was beyond his imagination.
He was quickly reminded why he didn’t do this kind of thing very often.
The treetops rushed up to meet him, slapping his cheeks and twisting his limbs. He wanted to cry out, but all the air whooshed from his lungs as he thunked into the selium-floated platform. In the moment of impact he almost released his hold on the craft, but pain kept him sharp and he held on.
Tibs landed beside him with a grunt, looking quite a bit better for having suffered the same experience. Detan rolled to his back with a groan and glared up at him.
“How’d you avoid the branches, Tibs?”
“I let you go first.”
Tibs gave him a hand up, and Detan grinned as he gave him a playful slug in the shoulder. Crafty bastard.
Refocusing his sel-sense, he forced the platform down, drifting lazily toward ground. As they drew closer, he could make out patterns in the rocks below, different colors of stones raked with care. Well, except for the spot where he’d dumped the platform’s table and other accoutrements. Broken wood marred the design, twisting what he thought might have been a fish into some sort of nightmare creature.
When he heard guards start to raise the alarm nearby, he let his control drop and nearly let his stomach slip his lips as the whole thing clattered to the ground faster than he’d expected. Must have damaged one of the buoyancy sacks in the process, he thought, as very angry men with very long swords came rushing up.
Still better than being knifed in the gut by a petty thief.
“I say!” He leapt to his feet and shook leaves from his hair, hiding a grimace as pain lanced through his growing collection of bruises. “What sort of deathtrap is this? Can’t a man have a drink with his friend without fearing mutilation? By the pits!” He swung around and hauled Tibs to his feet. “Get these blasted things fixed, you swine, or I’ll report this!”
The guards exchanged uneasy glances. Detan finished brushing off his stolen suit and strode right through their line as if they bothered him not a whit in all the world. In truth, his skin was crawling with the proximity of so much fine, sharp steel, but they responded to his confidence with rushed apology.
Once safely away from the guards and the wrecked platform they paused, breathed deep, then shook themselves and stood up a little straighter.
“That was a might close, sirra.”
“I felt the press myself. Shall we?”
He gestured toward the wide open doors to Thratia’s compound, and they sauntered inside.
Chapter 10
Detan found himself stuck in a herd of uppercrust, all clumped up toward the entrance and goggling at the decorations. He didn’t mind a bit. Thratia had really put her back into it, and he wondered just how much this was about raising support and how much it was about flaunting her wealth and connections. Probably the two motives were so finely intertwined the distinction was irrelevant.
The lanterns inside were covered with thick paper, cut-outs in the shapes of those family crests which supported her throwing shadows over the partygoers. The hard stone floor thrummed with the pounding of hundreds of dancing feet and deep-throated drums. His skin prickled with the nearness of so much human energy. Somehow, she’d managed to import great ropes of green vines with crisp white blossoms and had strung them all around the railing of the second-story balcony which looked over the dance floor below.
Tibs whistled low. “Thistle blossom, those are.” He gestured to the vines. “Damn brave of her to trot those out, tastiest treat in the world to selium-addicted insects. Heard a rumor there was a hive of sel bees round here, dangerous to tempt ’em.”
“Thank you for your entomological insight, but I’m rather more interested in the disposition of the crowd than the native vermin.”
“There’s a difference?” Tibs said as the band struck up a song Detan’d never heard of. He rose to his toes and glanced about, looking for the musicians. He found them on a sel-supported stage, drifting over the dancers’ heads. Every time they passed above, the partygoers threw their arms into the air and cheered. Detan’s mouth hung open.
He hadn’t even realized there were this many noblebones in Aransa. He swept his gaze over the crowd, estimating, and decided he was right. There was no way every last body here tonight was from the privileged lot. That meant a good chunk of them were the top dogs of the downcrust. Thratia was not messing about here. She wanted every soul she could get on her side.
“Where to?” Tibs called over the thump of drums.
“Er.” He tried to get a better look at the crowd, but the band was frenzied enough to keep them moving in constant flux. Who was he looking for, anyway? He wanted to get eyes on Thratia’s flagship, not her bosom companions. What he needed now was a solid lay of the land, something he could get his teeth into.
“Let’s go up,” he yelled.
They hurried up the steps, squeezing past people who were pressed together in the dark, near-privacy of the stairwell. By the time they reached the balcony, the band had transitioned into a slower tune and the dancers swirled at a less nauseating pace. They crowded up against the balcony rail and Detan scanned the press, looking for the lady of the hour, but couldn’t spot her amongst the revelry.
“Has it occurred to you, Tibs, that this is all a bit overkill for the wooing of one city?”
“Seems the ex-commodore wants to prove she can take a city through legal channels.”
Detan frowned at that, something about it not quite sitting right in his mind. “Think she’s courting the empire? Angling to get back into their good graces?”
“Can’t imagine a woman like her would be satisfied with exile.” Tibs waved a hand through the air as he spoke as if outlining a celebratory banner. “Commodore Ganal’s Triumphant Return.”
“Charming,” Detan drawled and turned back toward the interior of the balcony, and nearly jumped out of his skin at a tap on his shoulder.
“Detan Honding.”
He spun around at the familiar voice, laced with honey-venom, and beamed into the watch captain’s scowling face.
“Hullo, Ripka.”
“Captain,” she corrected. “Where’s your better half?”
“Tibs is right–” The little devil had slunk off somewhere, leaving him alone with the law. “That rat.”
“I only see one rat here.” She snorted her derision, and Detan drew his head back at the sharp bite of wine that laced her breath. He waved the cloud away and scowled, scarcely resisting the urge to chastise her for getting drunk while they were working together.
“I thought you said I was a snake,” he muttered.
Her brows creased in mild annoyance, or confusion, he couldn’t really tell the difference when it came to her. “What? Don’t be stupid, Honding, if you can at all help it.”
He leaned forward and dropped his voice down to a sand-whisper. “Is it wise for us to be seen chatting in public like this?”