“Dame Honding and I attended a private academy together as girls. I have not seen her in decades, you understand, but there is a flavor of loyalty amongst young school girls which stands all tests of time. Now, a return to more pertinent matters. My husband will be briefly occupied in acquiring a new vessel for our daughter, but such a thing will not take long, and then he will set his fervid eyes on you, my boy. Shove off before he has the chance.”
Detan stared at the sun-weathered face of his companion, trying to imagine it as a young girl terrorizing the schoolmasters of the Scorched’s Academy for Young Ladies. She seemed older than her years to him, but then the desert was unkind to the delicate.
And how long had it been since he’d last seen his aunt? Nothing but letters and parcels strung out between them for the last few years. He cleared his throat of an imagined lump and sipped again. The liquor was cool and palliative, a viscous balm to his unsteady nerves. On second taste he found the flavor deepened by muddled cactus pulp – his aunt had favored cactus liquors, too. He shook his head. Best not to dwell on matters familial while in uncertain company.
“Why the rush for a flier at all? I supposed mine was a theft of opportunity, not a predestined desire.”
Something ticked beneath the thin skin of the lady’s careful mask, a little flicker of pain trembling along her cheekbone. She drank of her own vial, nibbled on the edge of the honeycomb and placed it back in the sand.
“Our daughter is sensitive, and growing stronger. Not too strong, mind you, she’s nowhere near verging on becoming a doppel, but her strength has been noticed. The mine master wants her training for the line soon, but I’d much rather see her in the skies than working in that… mess. Renold and I decided to teach her piloting so that she may easier find a place upon a vessel. Unless…”
“Yes?”
Lady Grandon breathed deep of the smoke-laden air, a nervous gesture so far outside her characteristics thus far that Detan felt his own chest clench with anxiety.
“I’ve heard, of course, that the young Lord Honding’s sensitivity for selium dried up. Renold was too disgusted by you to put the question to you himself, but, considering our familial friendship, I had hoped you might be forthright about the circumstances.”
He waved his hand in the air, cutting her off before she could press him further. “My loss of sensitivity was achieved through great trauma, lady. The loss of life of my entire line back in Hond Steading inspired it. It is not a route I think viable for your girl.”
She sighed heavily, her sharp shoulders sagging forward. “I was afraid of that.”
“If I could help…”
“Just leave town, Honding. My girl is safe in my hands, but I will not be distracted further. If Renold decides to move against you, I will not stand in his way again. For the moment he thinks me merely incompetent, in that I was tricked by your performance into believing you truly ill. I will not risk his realizing I was insidious instead.”
“You don’t seem a mite fond of your husband, lady. Going to the same school as my aunt I can take a guess at what name was yours before you wed, one with deep roots, eh? Doth the lady bear the stars of the landed?”
Her eyes flashed, and her lips pressed tight around the extender of her cigarette, but she said nothing. He nodded to himself and drained the last of the liquor.
“So you’ve got resources all your own. Why don’t you pull them, take your girl and go?”
Thin streams of smoke snaked from her nostrils. “You’ve misunderstood. My husband and I loved one another once, long ago. We’ve drifted apart in age and ambition, he to his merchanting and me to my medicine, but our resources remain inexorably pooled behind our girl. As much as I disapprove of certain aspects of his business, he does not meddle in my interests nor I in his. We are an alliance. Alliances are necessary for survival on the Scorched, young Lord Honding. To whom do you hold?”
His back stiffened of its own accord. “I got people I’d stick my neck out for.”
She snorted. “Only worth it if the feeling is mutual, hmm?” She stubbed the cherry end of her cigarette against the ashtray as if she were spearing some rare delicacy.
“There’s something to be said for selfless sacrifice,” he said, annoyed by the defensive timbre creeping into his voice against his will.
“Hah. Not your style in the slightest.”
“You hardly know me, lady.”
“But I know of you, young man, and I know the temper of the blood that flows through your veins. You’re a stubborn, idealistic people. It’s what drove your ancestors to sail to the asshole of the world in the first place.”
“I think I know my own temperament well enough.”
“As you say.” She gestured toward the thick curtain with an idle flick of the wrist, and the gesture was so like his aunt’s own that he stood without thinking, thin glass vial still clutched in one hand, honey dribbling over his fingers.
“Leave Aransa, Honding. Before you have to stick your neck out.”
Detan blinked in the sunlight just outside the Red Door Club, sweat seeping a slow return to his brow and the hollow between his shoulder blades. He looked down at the empty vial in his hand, rolled it back and forth a few times with the edge of his thumb, then dashed it to a thousand glittering fragments against the club’s scrubbed feldspar steps and ground the sweet honeycomb beneath his heel.
“That nice of a talk, eh sirra?”
Tibs detached himself from the shadows across the street, but did not come near. He lingered off to the side, well out of sight of any idle passersby. Detan joined him, sighing in the slim shade offered by the neighboring building’s roof overhang.
“It seems that we have been instructed in no uncertain terms to make our way out of Aransa, double-time.”
“And what are we going to do about that?”
Detan blinked once more, but not because the light stung him. A smirk threatened to overwhelm his features, and so he let it, and knew he must look deranged as he turned back to Tibs.
“Come along, Tibs old chum. We’re going to make sure New Chum keeps the flier well out of Grandon’s reach and then, tomorrow morning – well. With any luck we’ll be clear of this rotten hunk of rock by dinner time.”
“And the doppel?”
“We’re going to make her come to us.”
Chapter 18
Pelkaia stood in the middle of her sitting room, flowing through her morning warm-up stretches, while shock echoed in her heart. Just the day before, Detan Honding had come knocking on her door. She still could scarcely believe it.
So very close. Her skin tingled with the memory of excitement upon seeing him. So close, so clueless. Insofar as she could tell, he hadn’t marked her for anything other than a standoffish woman of middling age.
Still, he had nearly undone her. Nearly ended her path before all was finished, before her fresh promises were kept. She could hesitate no longer. Now, before she lost the iron of her resolve, she must take the last name on her list.
Pelkaia thanked her guiding stars she’d had the foresight to keep her usual disguise intact. Even having caught her unawares, Detan had yet to see her true face. Sometimes, the best disguise an illusionist could muster was their own plain visage, and it did her nerves good to know she still had that trick in her toolbox.