Nila sat beside Jakob’s bed and listened to the soft sound of his snores. The boy’s chest rose and fell slowly, his face peaceful. It reminded her of the cherubs she’d once seen painted on the ceiling of a church. Outside the open window she could hear the sound of a carriage clattering by on the cobbles.
They’d moved from Bo’s apartment in the factory district to a small house in one of the few fashionable areas of High Talien, in Adopest’s northwest side. From what Bo had said, he had several such “safe houses” scattered around the city. She had wondered at one point where he had gotten the money for all this before remembering that he was a member of the Adran royal cabal.
It was easy to forget, sometimes. Cabal Privileged were known for their cruelty and power. Not for their quiet humor, flirting smiles, and silent generosity.
But he was leaving tomorrow. Heading south, he’d said, to rescue Taniel Two-Shot.
Nila would find herself alone once again, sole guardian to the little boy sleeping before her. What was she going to do with him? Go to Fatrasta? To Novi? Live out the quiet life of a single laundress and tell everyone that Jakob was her little brother?
Would Jakob be able to live with that as he grew older? After all, he’d been a duke’s son. Not more than a couple of months ago there had been the very real possibility of him becoming king. She would have been his caretaker and surrogate mother, maybe even a noblewoman by decree of the new king. She would have had wealthy suitors and servants and actual power.
How life would have been different.
But it wasn’t.
Now she had to figure out where they would go when Bo left the city. It occurred to her that the silver she’d buried in a graveyard outside the city might not even still be there. Someone might have found it and taken it, and then where would she be? She didn’t want to think about it.
She heard the front door of the house open and shut, and her heart beat faster until she reminded herself that they were under Bo’s protection – at least for another day – and that Lord Vetas could no longer harm them.
Bo stepped into the room, treading quietly. He knew that Jakob went to bed by eight in the evening. He gestured for her to join him in the kitchen.
“Can the boy watch himself for a few hours?” Bo asked after she’d closed the door to Jakob’s room. The words were rushed, and his eyes were alight. He was excited about something.
He wanted to take her somewhere. Where could it be? She felt her cheeks grow a little warm. “Well, he’s sleeping. He might get scared if he wakes up and no one’s in the house with him.”
“Can he read?”
“A little.”
“Good. Write him a note. I need your help. We’ll be back in just a few hours.”
“I could wake him and take him with us.”
“You won’t want him with us,” Bo said.
Nila felt her cheeks flush.
“Not for that,” Bo said, giving her a lopsided smile.
Nila’s cheeks felt on fire. Was that disappointment in the pit of her stomach?
She suddenly wondered how young Bo really was. He seemed so confident, and his status as an Adran Cabal member made her think of him as quite a bit older, but there were times he looked barely twenty.
“Come on,” Bo said.
She wrote a note for Jakob and left it on the kitchen table beside a glass of water, then joined Bo in the carriage. He pounded on the roof, and they were off.
“Do you know what you’re going to do when I leave?” Bo asked as the carriage jostled along through the streets.
Nila looked down. She had hoped that, perhaps, he would stay a little longer. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“I can’t imagine you have much money,” Bo said.
“A little. I have some silver buried outside of the city that I took the night Tamas’s soldiers came to the Eldaminse house. I hope it’s still there.”
“And if it’s not?”
Nila swallowed. “I don’t know.”
They rode along for several moments in silence, and then, “I’ll leave a couple hundred for you when I go,” Bo said.
A couple hundred could buy her and Jakob passage to Novi, or pay for a week in an inn.
“Thank you,” Nila said, not sure what else to say. “That will go a long way toward helping us start a new life.”
“A long way? It should go the whole way.”
Nila frowned at Bo.
“A couple hundred thousand krana?”
“Hundred thousand…” Nila sputtered. She and Jakob could live the rest of their lives comfortably off a couple hundred thousand krana. “What, why would you…?”
Bo waved a hand as if it were nothing. Nila turned to stare out the window, partially so that Bo could not see the tears forming in her eyes.
“The house, too,” Bo said. “The one we’re in now. If you decide to stay in Adro, the house is yours. I’ve already put the title in your name.”
She couldn’t help but stare at Bo. Who was this man? Why was he doing this? He was a Privileged of a royal cabal – some of the most powerful men in all the Nine. People like that didn’t take notice of orphan boys or lonely laundresses.
“Why?” she asked.
Bo shrugged. Several moments passed before Nila realized that she wasn’t going to get a real answer. She dried the tears in the corners of her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“Thank you,” she said.
Bo was looking at his feet. He seemed uncomfortable with the thanks, as if he didn’t feel he deserved it. Another shrug.
“Where are we going?” Nila asked.
“When I was a boy,” Bo said, apparently happy to change the subject – he lifted his finger to the carriage curtain to look at the darkening sky outside – “Field Marshal Tamas took me in off the streets. He didn’t want Taniel playing with an uneducated ruffian. He gave me a place to sleep and hired tutors for me and Taniel.”
Nila remembered watching Field Marshal Tamas sleep, her knife ready to kill the man who’d brought so much suffering to Adro and killed the king, before she’d been distracted by Captain Olem. “That seems very kind of him,” she said.
“I hated those damn tutors. I abhorred reading and writing, but Tamas told me I had to practice my letters. So I did. By copying all of his correspondence while he slept. His old ones, his new ones. Tamas kept all his letters in a strongbox, the lock of which I picked easily.”
Nila couldn’t help but give a shocked laugh at that.
Bo smiled too. “I kept all the copies I made. Just in case. I’ve always been good at planning ahead. Part of being a successful street rat, I suppose. Anyway, in one of those letters, from when he was a young man, Tamas talked about forcing the nobility out of the army in order to combat corruption. It seems that many of the nobles were purchasing supplies with government money and then selling them elsewhere in order to line their own pockets.”
“And what does this have to do with me?” Nila asked. Bo had spoken at length over the last week about his quest to find evidence of profiteering among the General Staff in order to exonerate Taniel Two-Shot after his court-martial. Nila was willing to help if she could, but it worried her to leave Jakob by himself.
“Tamas’s letter mentioned one name in particular. Duke Eldaminse.”
Nila breathed in sharply.
“We’re going to Duke Eldaminse’s manor,” Bo said. “Or what’s left of it, anyway.”
Nila hadn’t been back to the Eldaminse manor since the night the soldiers had come and taken away Lord and Lady Eldaminse. Nila had barely escaped being raped before taking Jakob and fleeing into the darkness of the early morning. “I… don’t know how I can help you.”
“Well, I hope you can,” Bo said. “I’ve not heard word from the south since finding out that Taniel was being court-martialed. At best he’s in prison. At worst, he’s already dead. I need evidence to condemn the General Staff that court-martialed him, or I’m going to have to go down there and kill a lot of soldiers to get him out.” Bo scowled at his ungloved hands. “I’d rather not do that. So inconvenient.”