Even once Locke’s stomach was thoroughly emptied, the dry heaving continued. He shuddered and shook and moaned, clutching at his guts. Jean hauled him bodily over to a sleeping pallet, where he looked down in genuine worry. “You’re pale and clammy,” he muttered. “Not bad at all. Very realistic.”
“Pretty, isn’t it? Gods,” whispered Locke, “how much longer?”
“Can’t rightly say,” said Jean. “They should be arriving down there right about now; give them a few minutes to get impatient with waiting around for us and come storming up here.”
During those few minutes, Locke became intimately acquainted with the idea of “a short eternity.” Finally, there came the creak of footsteps on the stairs, and a loud banging on the door.
“Lamora!” Anjais Barsavi’s voice. “Tannen! Open up or I’ll kick the damn door in!”
“Thank the gods,” croaked Locke as Jean rose to unbolt the door.
“We’ve been waiting out front of the Last Mistake! Are you coming or…Gods, what the hell happened in here?”
Anjais threw one arm up over his face as he stepped into the apartment and the smell of sickness. Jean pointed to Locke, writhing on the bed, moaning, half wrapped in a thin blanket despite the moist heat of the evening.
“He took ill just half an hour ago, maybe,” said Jean. “Losing his stomach all over the damn place. I don’t know what’s the matter.”
“Gods, he’s turning green.” Anjais took a few steps closer to Locke, staring in horrified sympathy. He was dressed for a fight, with a boiled leather cuirass, an unbuckled leather collar, and a pair of studded leather bracers tied over his hamlike forearms. Several men had accompanied him up the stairs, but none of them seemed in any hurry to follow him into the rooms.
“I had capon for lunch,” said Jean, “and he had fish rolls. That’s the last thing either of us ate, and I’m fine.”
“Iono’s piss. Fish rolls. Fresher than he bargained for, I’d wager.”
“Anjais,” Locke croaked, reaching out toward him with a shaking hand. “Don’t…don’t leave me. I can still go. I can still fight.”
“Gods, no.” Anjais shook his head emphatically. “You’re in a bad way, Lamora. I think you’d best see a physiker. Have you summoned one, Tannen?”
“I haven’t had a chance. I fetched out the buckets and I’ve been looking after him since it started.”
“Well, keep it up. Both of you stay. No, don’t get angry, Jean; he clearly can’t be left on his own. Stay and tend him. Fetch a physiker when you can.”
Anjais gave Locke two brief pats on his exposed shoulder.
“We’ll get the fucker tonight, Locke. No worries. We’ll do him for good, and I’ll send someone to look in on you when we’re done. I’ll square this with Papa; he’ll understand.”
“Please…please, Jean can help me stand, I can still-”
“End of discussion. You can’t fucking stand up; you’re sick as a fish dropped in a wine bottle.” Anjais backed toward the door and gave Locke a brief, sympathetic wave before he ducked out. “If I get my hands on the bastard personally, I’ll deck him once for you, Locke. Rest easy.”
Then the door slammed, and Locke and Jean were alone once again.
4
LONG MINUTES passed; Jean unshuttered the canal-side window and stared out into the glimmer of Falselight. He watched as Anjais and his men broke loose from the crowds below, then hurried across a Via Camorrazza catbridge and into the Arsenal District. Anjais didn’t look back even once, and soon enough he was swallowed up by shadows and distance.
“Long gone. Can I help you out of…,” Jean said, turning away from the window. Locke had already stumbled out of bed and was splashing water on the alchemical hearthstone, looking ten years older and twenty pounds thinner. That was alarming; Locke didn’t have twenty pounds to spare.
“Lovely. The least complicated, least important job of the night is done. Carry on, Gentlemen Bastards,” said Locke. His face was alight in the reflected glow of the simmering stone as he set a glazed jug of water atop it. Ten years older? More like twenty. “Now for the tea, gods bless it, and it had better be as good as the purple powder.”
Jean grimaced and grabbed the two vomit buckets Locke had used, then moved back to the window. Falselight was dying down now; the Hangman’s Wind was blowing up warm and strong, bringing a low ceiling of dark clouds with it, visible just past the Five Towers. The moons would be swallowed by those clouds tonight, at least for a few hours. Pinpricks of firelight were appearing across the city as though an unseen jeweler were setting his wares out on a field of black cloth.
“Jessaline’s little potion seems to have brought up every meal I’ve had in the past five years,” said Locke. “Nothing left to spit up but my naked soul. Make sure it isn’t floating around in one of those before you toss them, right?” His hands shook as he crumbled the dry Somnay pine bark right into the jug of water; he didn’t feel like messing about with proper tea-brewing.
“I think I see it,” Jean said. “Nasty, crooked little thing it is, too; you’re better off with it floating out to sea.”
Jean took a quick glance out the window to ensure that there were no canal boats drifting below in the path of a truly foul surprise, then simply flung the buckets, one after the other. They hit the gray water seventy-odd feet below with loud splashes, but Jean was certain nobody noticed or cared. Camorri were always throwing disgusting things into the Via Camorrazza.
Satisfied with his aim, Jean then slid the hidden closet open and pulled out their disguises-cheap traveler’s cloaks and a pair of broad-brimmed Tal Verrar caps fashioned from some ignoble leather with the greasy texture of sausage casings. He flung one brownish gray cloak over Locke’s shoulders; Locke clutched at it gratefully and shivered.
“You’ve got that motherly concern in your eyes, Jean. I must look like hammered shit.”
“Actually, you look like you were executed last week. I hate to ask, but are you sure you’re going to be up for this?”
“Whatever I am, it has to be sufficient.” Locke wrapped one end of his cloak around his right hand and picked up the jug of half-boiled tea. He sipped and swallowed, bark and all, reasoning that the best place for the stuff would be his empty stomach. “Ugh. It tastes like a kick in the gut feels. Have I pissed Jessaline off recently, too?”
His expression was picturesque, as though the skin of his face were trying to peel itself back and leap off his bones, but he continued to choke the near tea down anyway. Jean steadied him by placing both hands on his shoulders, privately afraid that another bout of vomiting might be more than Locke could handle.
After a few minutes, Locke set the empty jug down and sighed deeply.
“I can’t wait to have words with the Gray King when this shit is all finished,” Locke whispered. “There’s a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions. Like, ‘How does it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls, motherfucker?’”
“Sounds more like physik than philosophy. But as you said, we have to wait for the Falconer to leave first.” Jean’s voice was steady and totally empty of emotion; the voice he always used when discussing a plan only loosely tethered to prudence and sanity. “Pity we can’t just blindside the bastard from an alley.”
“Couldn’t give him so much as a second to think, or we’d lose.”
“Anything less than twenty yards,” mused Jean. “One good throw with a Wicked Sister. Wouldn’t take but half a second.”
“But you and I both know,” Locke replied slowly, “that we can’t kill a Bondsmage. We wouldn’t live out the week. Karthain would make examples of us, plus Calo, Galdo, and Bug as well. Not very clever at all, that way out. A drawn-out suicide.”