As the thunder of their steps approached she forced herself to step away from the wall and stared through the thin membrane. The group approached the spot where the first rock had struck the road warily, peering all around. Pelkaia allowed herself a small smirk as the man who still held clumps of her hair glanced to the alleyway and then reached up to scratch the back of his head in confusion. Idiot.
That’s what they got for breaking with the old terms. For insisting on calling her a doppel instead of an illusionist. What you called a thing carried weight, implied meaning. Doppels could change the appearance of themselves. Illusionists could change the appearance of anything. Names mattered.
The group conferred in mutters too soft for Pelkaia to make out, then turned and started back up the slope. She suspected some of them must be relieved not to have to chase down something their mothers had told them scary stories of. Even the dullest of minds knew that being a member of a mob didn’t make one immune from harm.
Pelkaia reached up to rub the back of her head, and hissed through her teeth as she touched the raw patch of her scalp. Bastards. Her fists clenched. She could not stay here. Not anymore. There were too many layers in this city – of pain and of memory. It was only a matter of time until she slipped again. Until she was too slow to escape the claws tightening around her.
But there was no way out of the city, not tonight. Not with half the damned citizens donning Thratia’s grey uniform. There wouldn’t be any flights out. Monsoon season was coming – and Aransa was too far from anywhere else to risk the walk.
Not that she could manage a walk like that in the state she was in now. Battered and exhausted, nothing but copper and a useless knot of paper in her pockets.
Pelkaia massaged her face with both hands and groaned. She was marooned on this cursed hunk of dormant rock.
But… She clenched her jaw, drummed her fingers against her thigh. There was still one element in play. The Honding lad was out there and, as far as he was concerned, their deal was still hot. She glanced in the direction of Thratia’s compound, and caught sight of a slip of sailcloth drifting on the evening breeze. She almost laughed aloud. Trap or not, the Larkspur was calling to her.
And Pelkaia truly, desperately, did not want Thratia to have that airship.
She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. Maybe Galtro was a mistake. Maybe the people responsible for her boy’s death were too far away for her to ever reach. But maybe not. If she had a fine vessel like the Larkspur, she could go anywhere. Once she had Thratia’s ship, she could lay low for a while; lick her wounds and court future allies. Wouldn’t it be fun to take one of Thratia’s toys away before crushing her? And wouldn’t Thratia keep her own records, peppered with other names for her to collect?
But first. First she needed to get out of this blasted city, and leave its ghosts to rot.
Chapter 24
Something jarred Detan’s foot, thrusting him back into wakefulness. He snapped upright, half-tangled in the mass of excess sailcloth and rope he’d been dozing on, eyes blurry as they adjusted to the gathering dark.
“What?” he muttered, wiping crusted sleep from his eyes.
“Don’t you hear that?” Tibs said, crouched at his side. “Sands below, you’d sleep through monsoon season.”
Exhaustion had driven them both to rest, and now it seemed night had well and truly come to Aransa. The lanterns ringed round the u-dock gave him just enough light to see by, and Detan couldn’t help but wonder who’d come along and lit them while he dozed. The little kite still drifted in the wind, tied to the rail at the aft of the ship, fluttering like a forgotten party streamer. He closed his eyes against distraction, trying to hear whatever it was Tibs had picked up on.
The deck below him smelled of sharp Valathean teakwood and warm wax, the ropes holding the ship to its mooring posts creaked with subtle swaying. Tibs’s breath was soft beside him, calm but wary. His own heart thumped in his ears… and someone was scraping at the lock on the door to the servant’s entrance.
He snapped his eyes open and scrambled to his feet. “You think it’s the doppel?” he whispered.
Tibs shrugged, but had a small knife in his hand. “Let’s find out.”
As Tibs loped across the gangplank, Detan cast around for a weapon of his own – and came up with nothing. He had his knife, sure, but he was more danger to himself with it than anyone else. With a shrug he snatched up the leftover sap-glue pot and hurried after Tibs. The least he could do was confuse the creature, if it came to it.
They crouched behind a stack of cargo crates that rested near the door, listening to the faint click of thin metal picks moving within the lock. After what felt like half a lifetime, the door swung inwards and a slender woman stepped through, dressed all in black. The way the lantern was angled he could only see her silhouette, but he felt certain from the confidence of her steps it must be the doppel at last.
“Hullo!” Detan called.
The shadowed woman dropped into a ready stance, head swiveling as she searched for the source of Detan’s voice. They were well hidden – he’d made sure of it – and the woman didn’t have anywhere to go that he wouldn’t see her. The shade of the door obscured detail, but if she took a step in any direction she’d reveal her face to the light. Judging by the sigh he heard, he figured the owner of said shadow had just arrived at the same conclusion.
“Come on out now, into the light. No use mucking about in the dark,” he said.
The shadow moved closer in hesitant, stop-start movements that belied the owner’s consternation. A sun-dark face emerged, and he whistled good and low.
“Well I’ll be spit and roasted, it’s the good watch captain herself. No, wait.” He slipped out from behind the crates and crossed to her in a few long strides. She flinched back as he approached – not at all something the doppel would do – and he reached out and poked her in the forehead. There was no telltale ripple of sel. He nodded to himself, even as she scowled at him. “Yup, the lady is in the flesh.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t do that,” she growled.
He looked her up and down, real slow so she knew he was getting the detail of it all filed away. The upstanding watch captain did not appear before him in her blues, oh no sir, she was tipped from top to toe in black and had her hair pulled back so tight he thought it might pull her eyes to slits.
But then the finer details settled into his mind, and his skin went cold.
A crimson smear marred her lips, the knuckles of both hands ruddy and raw. Dark purple bloomed over the ridge of her jaw, and she stood with her weight shifted to one side to ease some unseen pain. A garnet splotch had settled upon her shoulder. Detan felt as if spiderwebs were clogging his throat. The watch captain had been in a real, honest-to-skies fight.
“I’m going to have a hard time forgetting I saw this,” he said.
“I suggest you do. I was just passing through, anyway.”
“Now, my dear captain, this is in fact private property, and while usually one would not bar the door to such an honorable slave of the common citizen as yourself, I must insist that you cannot go slinking about in the shadows of any private residence you so choose. Great dunes, woman, the violation is unfathomable.”
“I’m not here in any official capacity.”
“A social call between the crates, then?”
She clenched her jaw and drummed her fingers against her thigh. “Not that it’s any of your business, Honding, but I have personal matters to see to here tonight.”