“What you’re going to do,” said a voice behind Copper as the degan froze, her eyes going wide, “is let go of my boss and keep your hands out in front of you.”
I knew that voice. I smiled.
I shook off Copper’s hand and peered around the degan. Behind her, long knife prodding the space just to the left of the degan’s spine, stood Fowler. The Oak Mistress’s hair was a near tangle, her clothing wrinkled and stiff from having dried on her body, her eyes ringed by dark smudges of fatigue. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the spark that shone within the hollows of her eyes and the thrust of her lower lip above her dirty chin. What mattered was she was breathing. That, and the fact that she had a pair of her Oaks behind her.
If Copper hadn’t been standing between us, I would have kissed Fowler then and there, consequences be damned.
Copper looked over her shoulder. I saw her grin in profile.
“Three?” she said. “You think I can’t handle three of you, little bird?”
Fowler tilted her head and met the degan grin for grin. “I know you can. Which is why I made sure to send word to Blue Cloak Rhys and his boys before I came to interrupt.” She looked past Copper to me for the first time. “Sorry for the delay.”
I shrugged. “These things happen.”
It might seem strange, but I didn’t control Blackpot Street or any of the surrounding cordon, collectively known as Paper Hill. Gray Princes didn’t operate that way. We didn’t control territory; we controlled people. We influenced them, manipulated them, bought and sold them, steered and guided them-all without most of them being any the wiser. The threat of the Gray Prince was not that he would send his people after you-it was that he would get your people to do his bidding for him. With a Gray Prince, you didn’t have to watch out for enemies-you had to watch out for everyone.
Or, at least, that was the theory. I hadn’t quite figured out the finer points of pulling all of the marionette strings yet, and so had to rely on other tools, one of which was Blue Cloak Rhys. Fortunately for me, Rhys was the local Upright Man. He was also mine. And while I might not have controlled the surrounding streets, he most certainly did.
Copper knew all this, of course, just as she knew that when Rhys showed up, it wouldn’t be alone. A degan she might be, but I suspected an alley full of heavily armed muscle could ruin even her day.
If the degan spent any time weighing her options, she didn’t show it. She merely nodded once, put both of her hands in plain sight, and stepped slowly aside. She showed me a cool smile.
“Another time, then,” she said.
I smiled back. “Mm-hmm.”
Copper turned and, without sparing even a glance for Fowler or her men, strolled off down the street.
Fowler watched the degan go. When Copper was half a block away, she nodded to her Oaks. They headed out after her, one melting into the crowd so expertly that I had trouble picking him out after ten paces, the other moving toward a side street where he could parallel Copper either from roof or alley. Neither of them, I knew, would stop following the degan until she was well out of Paper Hill.
“Is Blue Cloak Rhys really coming?” I said to Fowler as I watched them go.
“Are you joking?” said Fowler. She slid her long blade home. “When’s the last time you saw Rhys before sunset? That bastard’s eyes would shrivel up if he ever looked on daylight.”
I nodded after the retreating degan. “Thanks for tha-”
“Fuck you.”
“Excuse me?”
Fowler turned, slapped both of her hands against my chest, and shoved. “I said, fuck you!” she shouted as I stumbled back. “What the hell were you thinking back there at the landing?”
“I-”
“Shut up. I’ll tell you what you were thinking. You were thinking you knew better. You were thinking you needed to do something so you could save my ass. You were thinking you were going to be clever and fast and play the hero.” She stepped forward and shoved again. This time I stayed put. “You were thinking like a fucking Nose.”
“I was thinking,” I said, stepping forward, “that we were overmatched and needed to get the hell out of there. Or would you have rather waited for more of Soggy Petyr’s people to arrive before we ran?”
“I would have rather you left it to me in the first place. If anyone’s supposed to draw Cutters away from someone else, it’s me. You don’t get to take those kinds of risks anymore.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s precisely the point. If I’d stayed we might all be dead. You were busy killing one cove and holding off another, and Scratch was pinned in; I was the only one who could play the hare. So I did.”
“And ended up with three Cutters on your blinders.”
“Better on my blinders than in your face.”
Fowler’s hand flew faster than I could catch it. The crack of it connecting with my cheek practically echoed off the surrounding buildings.
“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Don’t you dare pretend that my life is more valuable than yours, that I don’t get to make that choice. I’m your Oak Mistress, dammit-it’s my job to watch out for you.”
“Watching over me doesn’t mean-”
“Doesn’t mean what? Doesn’t mean I get to put my ass on the line? Doesn’t mean I get to care? To hell with that. I get to decide what my life is worth, not you.”
“Not when it comes to trading it for mine, you don’t.”
“That’s precisely when I get to decide: When you’re busy being a stubborn, shortsighted, selfish ass.”
“In other words, most days.”
“Damn straight, most da-oh, you bastard.” Fowler turned away, trying to stifle a grin. “You son of a bitch. That’s not fair, making me laugh.”
I smiled in turn and forced myself to release some of the tension that had been gathering in my shoulders. “Fair has nothing to do with it. Or didn’t you realize that, now that I’m a Gray Prince?” I made the last two words sound comically ominous.
Fowler snickered, then took a deep breath. When she turned back to me, her fires were, if not out, then at least banked. “You’re right,” she said. “Fair has nothing to do with it. But that’s my point. You’re a Gray Prince now, Drothe-you don’t get to take stupid risks. Drawing three swordsmen away in a street fight is our job-we’re the ones who’re supposed to face the steel while you fade. It’s not just about you being smart enough to stay ahead of the rest of the Kin; it’s about you staying alive. About letting the rest of us handle the street-level shit so you can focus on the bigger picture.”
I shook my head. “That’s not how I work and you know it.”
“Maybe not, but it’s how you need to start operating. Otherwise it won’t matter whether it comes from another Prince or some cut-rate Eriff who gets lucky in an alley-you’ll still end up dead because you couldn’t let go of the street. And I’ll be damned if I lose any more people just so you can keep playing the Nose instead of the Prince.”
“Give me some cred-wait,” I said, picking up on what she’d just said-or rather, what she hadn’t said. I looked past her, scanning the street. “Where’s Scratch? Is he dust-mans?”
Fowler barked out something that, on any other day, might have passed for a laugh. Now it just sounded like pain. “There’s no getting anything by you, is there?”
“How’d he-?”
“Does it matter? He was doing his fucking job, which is more than I can say for you.” She turned her head as if to spit, then seemed to think better of it and instead pulled off her cap. She ran a hand through spiked, greasy hair. “People are dying for you, Drothe. And they’re going to keep dying. My people, your people-Kin you don’t even know. And you can’t stop it. All you can do is be worth it.” She put the cap back on and turned away. “Try to be worth it, will you? At least for me.”
I stood there, watching her go, until the morning crowds swallowed her up.