“They’ve been adjusted, Jean. They’ll defer enthusiastically to you, at least where the election is concerned. We’ve prepared them for your arrival.”
“Gods.”
“It’s nothing you don’t try to do with raw charm and fancy stories. We just work faster.”
“We’ve got six weeks, is that right?” said Locke.
“Yes.” Patience sipped at her tea. “The formal commencement of electoral hostilities is the night after tomorrow.”
“And this Deep Roots party,” said Locke, “you said they’ve won the last two elections?”
“Oh, no,” said Patience.
“You did,” said Jean. “You said we were being entrusted with a winning tradition!”
“Ah. Pardon. I meant that myfaction of magi has backed the winning party of ungifted twice in a row. It’s a matter of chance, you see, which party either side gets. The Deep Roots have been rather lackluster these past ten years, but during those years fortune gave us the Black Iris. Now, alas—”
“Gods’ immaculate piss,” muttered Locke.
“What are the limits on our behavior?” said Jean.
“As far as the ungifted are concerned, not many. You’ll be working with people eager to help you break every election law ever scribed, so long as you don’t do anything bloody or vulgar.”
“No violence?” said Locke.
“Brawls are a natural consequence of enthusiasm,” said Patience. “Everyone loves to hear about a good fistfight. But keep it at fists. No weapons, no corpses. You can knock a few Karthani about, and make whatever threats you like, but you cannotkill anyone. Nor can you kidnap any citizen of Karthain, or physically remove them from the city. Those rules are enforced by my people. I should think the reasons are obvious.”
“Right. You’re not paying us to assassinate the entire Black Iris bunch and ride off into the sunset.”
“Your own situation is more ambiguous,” said Patience. “You two, and your counterpart controlling the Black Iris, should expect anything, including kidnapping. Guard your own backs. Only outright murder is forbidden in your respect.”
“Well, that’s cheery,” said Locke. “About this counterpart, what do we get to know?”
“You know quite a bit already.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s uncomfortable news,” said Patience, “but we’ve learned that at least one person within the ranks of my faction is passing information to Archedama Foresight.”
“Well, that’s bloody careless of you!”
“We’re working on the situation. At any rate, Foresight and her associates learned of my intention to hire you several weeks ago. They acquired a direct countermeasure.”
“Meaning what?”
“You and Jean have a unique background in deception, disguise, and manipulation. You’re a rare breed. In fact, there’s only one other person left in the world with intimate knowledge of your methods and training—”
Locke shot to his feet as though his chair were a crossbow and the trigger had been pulled. His glass flew, spilling watered wine across the tabletop.
“No,” he said. “No. You’re fucking kidding. No.”
“Yes,” said Patience. “My rivals have hired your old friend Sabetha Belacoros to be their exemplar. She’s been in Karthain for several days now, making her preparations. It’s a fair bet that she’s laying surprises for the two of you as we speak.”
II
CROSS-PURPOSES
When the rose’s flash to the sunset
Reels to the rack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”—
Maybe I’ll tell you then
some other time.
—Carl Sandburgfrom
“The Great Hunt”
INTERLUDE
STRIKING SPARKS
1
IT WAS COOL and dark in the Elderglass burrow of the Gentlemen Bastards, and far quieter than usual, when Locke awoke with the certain knowledge that someone was staring at him. He caught his breath for an instant, then mimicked the deep, slow breathing of sleep. He squinted and scanned the gray darkness of the room, wondering where everyone was.
Down the hall from the kitchen there were four rooms, or, more appropriately, four cells. They had dark curtains for doors. One belonged to Chains, another to Sabetha, the third to the Sanzas, and the fourth to Locke and Jean. Jean should have been on his cot against the opposite wall, just past their little shelf of books and scrolls, but there was no sound from that direction.
Locke listened, straining to hear over the thudding of his pulse. There was a whisper of bare skin against the floor, and a flutter of cloth. He sat up, left hand outstretched, only to find another warm set of fingers entwined around his, and a palm in the middle of his chest pushing him back down.
“Shhhh,” said Sabetha, sliding onto the cot.
“Wha … where is everyone?”
“Gone for the moment,” she whispered into his ear. Her breath was warm against his cheek. “We don’t have much time, but we do have some.”
She took his hands and guided them to the smooth, taut muscles of her stomach. Then she slid them upwards until he was cupping her breasts—she’d come into the room without a tunic.
One thing the bodies of sixteen-year-old boys (and that was more or less what Locke was) don’t do is respond mildly to provocation. In an instant he was achingly hard against the thin fabric of his breeches, and he exhaled in mingled shock and delight. Sabetha brushed aside his blanket and slid her left hand down between his legs. Locke arched his back and uttered a noise that was far from dignified. Luckily, Sabetha giggled, seeming to find it endearing.
“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I do feel appreciated.” She pressed down firmly but gently and began to squeeze him to the rhythm of their breathing, which was growing steadily louder. At the same time, she slid his other hand down from her breast, down her stomach, down to her legs. She was wearing a linen breechclout, the sort that could be undone with just a tug in the right place. She pressed his hand between her thighs, against the intriguing heat just behind the fabric. He caressed her there, and for a few incredible moments they were completely caught up in this half-sharing, half-duel, their responses to one another becoming less controlled with every ragged breath, and it was delicious suspense to wonder who would snap first.
“You’re driving me mad,” he whispered. The heat from her skin was so intense he imagined he could see it as a ghost-image in the dark. She leaned forward, and her breath tickled his cheeks again; he drew in the scents of her hair and sweat and perfume and laughed with pleasure.
“Why are we still wearing clothes?” she said, and they rolled apart to amend the situation, fumbling, struggling, giggling. Only now the soft heat of her skin was fading, and the gray shadows of the room loomed more deeply around them, and then Locke was kicking out, spasming in a full-body reflex as she slipped from his grasp like a breath of wind.
That cruelest of landlords, cold morning reality, finished evicting the warm fantasy that had briefly taken up residence in his skull. Muttering and swearing, Locke fought against his tangled blanket, felt his cot tipping away from the wall, and failed in every particular to brace himself for his meeting with the floor. There are three distinct points of impact no romantically excited teenage boy ever hopes to slam against a hard surface. Locke managed to land on all three.
His outflung right hand failed to do anything useful, but it did snatch the opaque cover from his cot-side alchemical globe, bathing the cell in soft golden light for him to gasp and writhe by. A carelessly stacked pile of books toppled loudly to the floor, then took several similar piles with it in a fratricidal cascade.