“Do you need anything, captain?” a watcher asked.
“No, thank you,” not-Ripka said to the men he could no longer see. “I will take matters from here.”
There was some shuffling, an exchange of paperwork, and then the hall door shut and they were alone. A pair of old oil lamps kept the room beyond his cell lit, and though his view was limited he could make out the thick wooden desk both lamps rested on. Not-Ripka crossed to it and sat on the edge to face him, her arms folded.
“So,” he drawled as he let his hands hang out between the bars, “what’s your name?”
She smiled. “What gave it away?”
“Your legs are too long.”
“Are you a connoisseur of the watch captain’s legs?”
“I’m a connoisseur of all ladies’ legs. But I wonder – you took a mighty risk traipsing into Thratia’s fete like that. Ripka could’ve been just around any corner at any moment. What if her watchers catch you two in the same room? The same building?”
A sly smile graced the doppel’s lips as she ran her fingers along the lapel of her blue uniform. “I’ve made arrangements that allow me to know where she is at any given moment. I’m shocked you haven’t noticed. Your lack of diligence does not invest me with confidence, but I suppose some things can’t be helped.”
“Oh, it’s my diligence you’re worried about? Miss, you should spend some more time worrying about Ripka’s. That’s a thornbrush you’re trifling with.”
“Miss?” She allowed her voice to shift, to grow tired and aged. Showing off, no doubt. Detan wondered how long it’d been since she’d an audience for her talents. In her new gruff voice, she shifted the tones down to be distinctly masculine. “You assume too much. I could be male for all you know, or old and withered.”
“Sel can’t hide the way you move, lady, or the way you smile. I’ve spent a long time watching people. The way they tip their heads when they’re curious, or flatten their lips when they’re frustrated. I know every eye twinkle and every lip curl. You’re good, but now that I know what I’m looking for, well, you can never be that good. The real question I have for you, doppel, is when am I going to get some food in here?”
“Illusionist,” she snapped the word off, bringing Detan’s eyebrows up. Touchy girl, when it came to her talents. He could work with that.
“Fine, fine, you keep the old traditions, eh? One of the last holdouts, I would think. Most of the old sel workers are dead to bonewither or in diaspora in the south. But here you are, trotting out Catari words like they’re the common vernacular. Now why is that?”
“Just because the words are old doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It was your people who insisted on learning them, after all, and I do mean your people.”
He grimaced and tipped his head down to study all the little cracks in his door. “Wasn’t me on that expedition, I can’t be blamed for what’s passed.”
“But you can be for perpetuating it.”
“Illusionist, then. Fine. Makes no difference to me.”
“It should.”
“Well, it doesn’t. And what do you want with me, anyway? I’m a Honding, remember, and you’ve made it clear as a calm sky you’re not a fan of us founders.”
“Founders?” She snorted. “I don’t have the time to correct what’s wrong with that notion. And what I want, Honding, is assurance that you’re going to do what I paid you for.”
“Paid for with stolen silver.”
“You’re the last person I’d think would quibble about a bit of pinched grain.”
“True.” He picked his head up. “But why do you want me for it? You can’t even fly the thing yourself, and there have to be easier ways out of the city if it’s the law you’re running from.”
She laughed a little, shaking her head. “I’m not running from anything. And that ship is perfectly suited for single-pilot flight, if that pilot is an illusionist.”
That startled him. He frowned at her, extending his senses. His knowledge of the way the doppels worked their illusions was rough at best. He knew any color could be pulled out of selium with careful manipulation, that furrows could be filled in and bulbous bits sculpted, but he was shocked to feel the impossibly thin layer of sel the doppel had coating her skin.
In his mind’s eye, he could just see the topography of her real features beneath the veneer, an indistinct muddling under the fine manipulations of the sel. He came back to himself, panting.
“My control is complete, as you can see for yourself.”
“How…”
She shrugged. “It is natural for me. Manipulating the sel bladders of a ship is not such a difficult thing in comparison.”
“Fine, you can fly it. Marvelous for you, I’m sure, but that still doesn’t mean I’m willing to get my head lopped off for your trouble.”
“Here’s the deal, Honding. I’m not going to threaten you, I just want you to watch. Carefully.”
She stepped away from the desk and pulled a slender hand mirror from her pocket. She peered at herself, then her eyes looked a touch glassy and her face began to change. Detan scowled, struggling to see past the obscuring bars on his window and the eclipsing mirror.
Giving up on regular sight, he extended his sel-sense and focused on her minute movements, manipulations on a scale so small he was certain he could not see the effect with the naked eye.
Curious, he extended his own control of the substance and tried to pry a piece of it loose. She made a small grunting noise, annoyance, but nothing budged. She had mastered the selium she commanded, it was not for him to manipulate.
Her face seemed to lift off, the mask floating just before her real skin. He could not see her through it, and he gritted his teeth in frustration. As he watched, the elements rearranged themselves. Stretching, compressing, separating and joining at different angles. The hues changed. Now deeper, now bright, and when she pulled the mask taut against her skin he found himself looking straight into the eyes of Tibal.
“Now that’s… That’s just not right.”
Tibal’s face, Ripka’s body. The stuff of nightmares. He shuddered.
“You understand? I will see him walk the Black, just to spite you, if you do not do this thing for me.”
“Fine, yes, all right. Just please put the pretty face back on. Pits, woman, you have no idea what you’ve just done to my dreamscape.”
Tibal-Ripka rolled its eyes and the sel mask pushed away from it again. Hovering, reshaping, coming to settle back in an arrangement he was perversely glad to see.
“Better.”
“I will hear your plan now.”
He blinked, and laughed. “Plan? I don’t make plans. I allow for options.”
“Fine, what are your options?”
“Not likely, lady. You got me on the leash to steal the Larkspur, fine. But how I go about doing it is my own business. If I need your assistance, I’ll need a way to contact you.”
“Not going to happen. You do this without my hand in it, or not at all. I have other things worth doing for the moment. This is why I hired you, Honding. I suggest you live up to your name.”
She turned and snuffed one of the lamps, picked up the other one.
“You’re going to leave me here?”
“Oh yes. The watch captain needs a reminder of my reach. Enjoy your night.”
She strode from the room, taking the lamp with her, and when the door clinked behind her Detan dropped his forehead against the metal bars. He did it again, harder, just for good measure. He really wished he’d eaten at Thratia’s.
Chapter 13