“Why hello, Honding,” she drawled, an irritatingly bemused smile turning up lips that suddenly appeared too plush to have ever been Ripka’s.
“I touched your face,” he growled, pressing her tighter against the shelf though she did not squirm. “Nothing. There was no sign, I’m sure of it. How did you…?”
She rolled a shoulder. “I’m afraid to tell you your actions have become predictable. Unlike my hair.” The doppel looked up and puffed out a breath, blowing away the betraying tendril. It settled right back against her cheek. This time, not so much as a flicker. The blasted woman was showing off.
“We signaled for you. We had the ship! Why all of this subterfuge? Why waste time dragging me all the way to this rusted hole? Do you have any idea what’s waiting for you, if you’re captured? Walking the Black would be a damned holiday compared to what they’ll do to you. Do you have any sands-cursed fucking clue what I’ve risked for you?”
“I wasn’t finished yet.” Her voice strained, her chin jutted upwards. Stubborn, stupid woman.
“It’s over. I don’t know what’s kept you here. I don’t know why you’ve gone after Aransa like you have. But–”
She twisted in his grip and panic shot through him, paralyzed him. Had she lured him out here to put a spike in his gut, too? Was it a belly full of selium for him? If he cried out he’d only draw Thratia’s thugs down on them, and then they’d both be sold out. Hog-tied and dragged off to that blisteringly white tower with its knives and its drugs and its impassive, bored faces making notes while he screamed his throat bloody.
But he’d escaped that tower before. Harder thing to do, escaping a knife in the gut.
Detan opened his mouth to scream, and she shoved a wad of paper in it.
He staggered back a step, arms windmilling, and coughed the spittle-laden ball out into his hand.
“Read it,” she ordered, then crouched down and began to gather her fallen collection of papers.
Straightening his twisted lapels to recover some sense of dignity, Detan spread the crumpled sheet flat against his thigh and rubbed it smooth. A few of the marks were smeared, his own spit spreading the ink around, but he’d seen plenty of accident reports before to know what he was looking at. Seen plenty of ones where people had died.
But the one he held had been doctored, made up. Every real report he’d seen before had been scribbled all over, bits crossed out and rewritten when the reporters finally got the story straight. This one was nice and neat, no corrections necessary. He’d only seen a report like it once before. Just once. When the empire had stepped in and provided their own explanation for what had happened to him.
“It’s faked.”
“Part of it.” She kept on collecting her fallen slips, not bothering to look his way. Probably not wanting to.
He read it again. It’d been a simple landslide, or so the report claimed. A small group of men working on repairs for a damaged line had been crushed by those rocks. He scanned the list, absorbing every last syllable. More than likely that little list of names was the only true thing about the whole report. Names that matched the list of young sel workers who’d handled Thratia’s profitless transaction.
“Which one’s yours?” he asked.
“Kel.”
“Brother? Lover?”
Paper crinkled between her fingers. “My son.”
Detan let out a slow breath through his teeth. “I can’t possibly understand your pain. But what you’ve started here – it’s over. Thratia’s itching to sell you to the highest bidder so she can go about getting her new little fiefdom tucked tight under her thumb.”
“Let her try.”
“No.” He crouched across from her, rested his wrists against his knees and tried to make his voice gentle. Cajoling he could do – but kind, compassionate? All he could offer her was a slightly softer shade of himself. “What is all this, anyway? What’d you even need out here – and why drag me along for it? Can’t be anything here worth getting caught over.”
“I knew Thratia’d lock it up. I needed you for the punchcode.”
He rocked back on his heels and squinted at her. “You musta worked here, once, knowing your way around the files like you do. They haven’t changed that code since I was a babe – why don’t you know it?”
“I knew it once. Then they changed it.”
“But–”
She snapped her head up, scowling. “I’m older than you’d think, Honding. Now help me get these together.”
“This is worth your life? We’ve got the Larkspur, you’ve got your revenge, and now we’ve got to go.” He snatched a paper from her hand. She lunged at him, her swipe going wide, and he popped back to his feet, skittering away a few steps as he scanned the information she risked her freedom for.
It was a personnel file. The name meant nothing to him, but the man’s profession was clear enough: a regular deckhand on Valathean traders. He stared, bewildered, as realization crept slow as a summer rain into his mind.
She’d said she wasn’t finished yet, he just hadn’t understood her meaning.
“You can’t.” He crumpled the paper and shoved it into his pocket, then kicked the scattered sheets nearest her away. “These people, they had no hand in your son’s harm!”
“How can you be so sure?”
She stretched to snatch up the papers he’d kicked and he grabbed her arm without thinking, lurching her to her feet. With a hiss she twisted, slithering away from his grasp. He snapped a hand out to steal away the papers she held but she danced back, deeper into the shelving.
“Leave me to my work,” she growled, her tone low and rumbling.
“This is murder.” He thrust a finger toward the sticky stain she’d said was Galtro’s. “Folk like that – those with real knowledge of what was happening – I’ll grant you may have deserved what you brought them. But deckhands?” He peered at one of the papers fallen to the floor. “Stewards? They don’t deserve your hate, any more than Kel deserved Thratia’s.”
She reared back like a cobra bracing to strike. “You dustswallowing–”
Footsteps thundered down the hall. A voice called out, “You hear that?”
Someone else answered, “Probably a rat.”
“Big fucking rat. Come on, we’d better do a sweep to be sure. Boss’ll skin us if we botch this.”
“Time’s up,” Detan hissed and grabbed the doppel’s arm. She stumbled behind him as he hustled toward the door, careful not to disturb the thickening pools of blood. Keeping his grip tight so she wouldn’t go and gather up more personnel files, he pressed his ear against the cold door.
Footsteps echoed toward him, softer than before, as their owner crept down the hall.
He swore under his breath and pulled away.
“How many?” she asked, all the anger gone from her eyes, her expression drawn and focused. Their argument forgotten, for now.
“Just one coming this way. We have to count on at least one more being within shouting range. I don’t suppose Aransa took to installing back exits or sneaky escape tunnels in their records room, eh?”
She snorted. “The back wall is up against the central containment and is reinforced with steel, bolted to the bedrock to keep the whole Hub from floating away. But by all means, try to break through.”
“Real helpful.” He glanced around the darkened room, looking for anything at all he could put to use. The lone candle guttered on the shelf he’d left it on, the wick growing clogged by the deep pool of wax yet to spill over its side.