“Thank you,” she said, sounding reflexive.
“There’s a reason. I mean, do you know Deadknight?” he asked. She shook her head. “It’s a card game. You play it alone. When my father died. . It’s hard not to just sink into all that sadness. I was starved for things to distract me, to keep my hands occupied. I played a lot of Deadknight.” He stared at the case, all too aware of that sick, sad feeling creeping up on him. Whiskey worked a lot better than Deadknight these days. “I wished someone had told me about that. Before.”
“I don’t think cards will fix this,” she said, her voice catching.
“No,” he said. “They just make it easier to sort through. Slow it down.”
She blew out a heavy breath. “Give them to Havilar.”
He took the second deck from his pocket. “I have one for her too.”
She stared at him. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Dahl said and regretted it immediately. It might be what he wished someone had said to him, but it wasn’t what she needed to hear.
“Thank you for the cards,” she said after a moment, her voice softer, smaller. She turned the deck over in her hand. “Is there anything else? I’d. .” She swallowed again. “I don’t really want to talk.”
“No,” he said quickly. “Sorry. I’ll check back another time. But can I say-”
She slammed the door before he could finish and a moment later. . a heart-wrenching wail, muffled so he wouldn’t hear. Dahl shut his eyes and stood before the door, wanting so badly to be anywhere else, but finding a perverse penance in listening.
You didn’t cause this, he told himself. You couldn’t have. Whatever you regret, whatever you were afraid happened. .
He shouldn’t have stayed so long. He should have left her alone. At least, he thought, as he went to Havilar’s room, he hadn’t managed to apologize-that had been a foolish plan.
His life had gone on, snarled and frayed as it was, but hers had stopped. He tried to imagine what it felt like-if it was anything remotely like how it felt to have fallen.
Gods, he thought as he knocked on Havilar’s door, either no more whiskey or enough to shut you up. Two makes you maudlin.
Havilar wasn’t much happier to see him. She took the cards as if they were some sort of trap. “Brin is coming too. Isn’t he?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Dahl said. That might smooth things over and it might start everything up again. “Do you want to talk about what happened, before they-”
“My pothac sister made a deal with a devil,” Havilar interrupted. “That’s what happened.”
“What did the devil have you do in exchange?”
Havilar scowled. “I didn’t do anything but get sucked into her stupid decisions. This aithyas isn’t my fault.”
“I wasn’t blaming you,” Dahl said.
“Well, don’t. Go bother Farideh. She’s the one who has to fix this mess.” Havilar slammed the door in his face.
Dahl sighed. You still have tomorrow, he told himself. He could show them each the rules to Deadknight, get them talking. He wandered back down the stairs, through the twisting corridors. He was already dreading it.
The sound of an off-key lute drifted through the hallway and he stopped beside a small alcove, where two battered chairs faced each other. Khochen had draped herself across one.
“Are you going to tell me?” Khochen asked, not looking up from her instrument.
“Tell you what?”
“The tiefling. The one with the odd eye.” She plucked a string, frowning as she tweaked the pins to raise the pitch. “Although, I’m curious about the other one too. She just seems to be less interesting, when it comes to you.”
“Oghma’s bloody paper cuts, Khochen,” Dahl said. “Stop trying to invent me a love life you can gossip about.”
She raised her eyebrows as she adjusted another string. “I didn’t say love life.”
“But were you about to. Honestly-say no and I’ll owe you an ale.”
Khochen looked up at him and smiled. “What’s her name?”
“Farideh,” he said. “And Havilar. They’re. . they know Tam. And one of the Suzail agents.”
“And you.”
“And me,” he agreed. “It’s not that interesting, I promise.”
“Don’t tell me what’s interesting,” Khochen chided. “If she hadn’t gotten into a shouting match with Nera, I would’ve guessed they were agents, maybe you were assigned together at some point. You and Tam both hopped-to, casting sendings and summoning the wizards, not even once suggesting this is a trick of Shade or Thay or Vaasa or who-in-the-Hells-can-even-predictanymore, so she’s-”
“They’re,” Dahl said.
“-someone you trust and care a little about. If she weren’t a tiefling, I’d guess old lover and be done.”
Dahl rolled his eyes. “There we are. She’s not. Not even close.”
Khochen waggled her fingers at him. “You say that, but you’re loitering around her room with gifts?”
“I got both of them gifts.”
“I’ll spare you the obvious ribbing about twins,” Khochen said dryly, and Dahl scowled. “I’ve never heard of you going for anything more complicated than a half-elf, so it’s not that.”
“It’s not that, because I said it’s not that.”
“So I’m left with two options,” Khochen went on. “Either your mother had a tumble with a devil-child at some point and those are your misbegotten sisters, or you have a very good story you’re not sharing with me. And I know you’ll tell me your mother is practically Chauntea come to mortal flesh.” Khochen patted the seat beside her. “So do you want to tell me, or shall I just keep guessing?”
Dahl stayed standing. “It’s personal.”
“Everything is personal with you, Dahl. That’s part of your problem.” When he didn’t speak, Khochen rolled her eyes. “I figured out about Oghma and your fall,” she said. “I’ll figure this out too.”
“Please don’t,” he said.
“You’re upset,” she said. “So you’re feeling guilty, I suspect. Embarrassed. It’s old, because you’re not angry-and you, poppet, stay angry a long time. You’ve had time to cool off and realize this might actually have been your fault and not hers or the world’s. Which means it’s something rather bad, isn’t it? Accidental though-you can be thoughtless but never cruel.”
“Stop.” But Dahl knew there would be no stopping Khochen, and his heart was too close to the surface to ignore. He dropped into the opposite seat. “Look, it’s complicated. It’s terribly complicated, and embarrassing, and it’s not for gossip, all right?”
Khochen’s brown eyes met his. “I’ll trade you,” she said solemnly. “I’ll tell you something personal, and you tell me this.”
Dahl snorted. “Be serious. You’ll tell me some fancy full of shocking details that I can’t verify-or won’t dare to. Nothing’s personal with you, Khochen.” He sighed. “Which is probably quite wise of you.”
“Poor Dahl,” she said. She regarded him a long moment. “I’ve started sleeping with Vescaras.”
Dahl waited for the jest, the sly mockery to come. But Khochen watched him, as if she’d done no more than remark on the possibility of finding currants in the market this time of year.
“You have not.”
“Have so,” she said. “You know how it is-you carry out a mission, you get to talking, one thing leads to the next. Naturally, we’ve agreed it’s no one’s business but ours-Tam would have opinions. Vescaras’s family would rather he settle down. And I lose a certain amount of. . effectiveness if my network gets word I take a man who wears silk smallclothes to my bed and he leaves keeping all his coin.” She snickered as Dahl looked away. “But,” she added, “now it’s your business too. So trade me.”
Dahl tried to tell her that wasn’t fair, he hadn’t agreed. He tried to tell her that wasn’t such a terrible secret, not worth his own. He tried to ask her what in the world she saw in Vescaras.