"I-" Tycho gritted his teeth, reining in his temper. "I do." He blew out his breath. "I'm sorry, Li. Thank you." He held out his hand. After a moment, Li took it and gripped it tight. Tycho patted their clenched hands. "We're in this together now, though. You haven't made a friend of Brin tonight. I don't think he's going to want to talk to either of us now." He released Li's hand and sat back.
"What about his beljurils, then?" Li asked as he slipped his arm back into his sleeve. "How are you going to convince Brin that Jacerryl was the one who stole them if you can't talk to him?"
Tycho blew out his breath and pushed his hands through his hair. Plans tumbled in and out of his mind. He couldn't run-he couldn't leave Veseene and she was in no condition to travel. Make a hostage of someone or something Brin valued… no, that was just a joke. Brin valued no one and nothing with the possible exception of Black Scratch and the thought of capturing the boar was ludicrous. Go to the guard? That thought made him snort out loud.
Carry the fight back to Brin? Stand up to the halfling? His snort turned into a shudder. He'd already done enough of that already. Tycho grimaced. This was how Brin always managed to trap his victims, wasn't it? A net of violence and desperation that struggling only pulled tighter. The only reasonable way out was not to struggle at all, to simply give in to Brin.
"Bind me," growled Tycho. He stood up and whirled out his blankets, spreading them across the ground. Li stared at him. "Go to sleep," Tycho told him. "We're going beljuril hunting tomorrow. If Brin wants the beljurils, we need to get them for him."
"But you said the Hooded-"
"Bitch Queen's wrath, I know what I said." Tycho flung himself down and stretched out. "I've lost track of how many balls we're juggling and which ones are burning. All we can do is try to keep as many as we can in the air until the fire goes out!"
Li sat down on his own blankets, his saber close to hand, and raised an eyebrow. "Tycho," he said seriously, "can we really trust Brin? If we get him the beljurils, is he really going to let me talk to him and let you go in peace?"
"I don't know." The bard looked up at the net-draped ceiling. "Brin has a kind of twisted honor. When he says he's going to do something, for better or worse you know he's going to do it."
"He said you had until tomorrow to get him the beljurils, but he came after you tonight." Li spread out his blankets and crawled between them. "That doesn't sound like any kind of honor to me."
Tycho stashed the glowing key in a pocket of his coat, smothering its light. The magic would fade by morning. The darkness in the shed was complete-eyes open or eyes closed, he still saw nothing. "It's no kind of honor at all," he admitted. "But Brin's up to something, I can feel it. If you can think of another option besides trying to get the beljurils back from the Hooded, I'd like to hear it because I can't think of a better one."
"I don't mind facing down the Hooded. I'd just like to know what Brin wants with us."
Us.
Tycho sat up sharply. "Li, Brin was looking for both of us! Veseene's message said the same thing. I'm the one he blames for losing his beljurils. What does he want with you? You're nothing to him. His men beat you up and robbed you." He drew a breath and his eyes narrowed. "The rubies you had hidden in your coat. Could Brin have found them? Could he be looking for more?"
"I looked at the coat when I fought the man wearing it." Li's voice drifted in the darkness. "It hadn't been torn. The rubies are still sewn up in it."
Tycho cursed and lay back down slowly. "Then what interest could he have in you?"
Li was silent for a moment before he answered.
"Yu Mao," he said. "He knows I'm looking for Yu Mao."
He knows I'm looking. The thought washed through Li's mind, relentless as the waves in the dark. Tycho drifted off to sleep; his snores were soon grating on the air. Li lay awake, staring into the darkness. Turning that thought over in his head. Remembering the hin's one-eyed gaze in the Wench's Ease. He knows I'm looking. Brin wanted him.
And yet for the first time since he had heard Brin's name mentioned in Telflamm, he didn't want Brin.
He flexed his left arm and felt the reassuring tightness of the hidden Yellow Silk, token of his father's trust and testament to the desperation of his journey. Soon, he promised himself. It would all be over soon. He closed his eyes.
Lander stared morosely at the floor of the Eel's gambling room. Brin had ordered the room closed as soon as they had returned from the Wench's Ease. Lander and his men had found themselves waiting on the halfling's pleasure while he took Black Scratch out to the sty. The boar's snout had been scorched by whatever magic had prevented the animal from pursuing Tycho and Mard Dantakain's daughter out of the Ease. He glanced around at his men. Ovel was trying to stretch around and rub ointment onto his burned back. Serg winced every time he flexed his abdomen. Nico was surreptitiously touching his groin as if making sure all of his bits were still there. And Bor… Bor was holding a rag filled with snow to a blackened eye-Lander had inflicted that on the idiot himself for staying outside the Ease when he should have had the brains and guts to get in and join the fight.
And a black eye is going to be nothing compared to what Brin will do to us all, he thought. The halfling couldn't be happy that Tycho and Li Chien had slipped through their fingers. A happy fantasy flitted through Lander's mind: kill Brin and seize control of his operations. He shook his head to dislodge the idea. Not that he didn't like it. He just didn't like the thought of what might happen if he failed.
A door banged closed and a moment later the curtains across the gambling room entrance twitched aside. Brin walked in. Lander-and Ovel and Serg and Nico and Bor-stared at him.
He was smiling. He was happy.
Lander swallowed. "Uhh… Brin?"
"Something worrying you, Lander?" Brin sauntered over to a comfortable chair and sprawled across it. He nodded sharply to Bor. "Get me a mug of ale." Bor dashed away, grateful for the moment of escape. Brin's gaze settled on Lander again. "You should be worried. That was clumsy."
Lander held back the observation that Brin had been no more successful himself. "Tycho said something about knowing where the beljurils are, Brin. He has to bring them to us tomorrow. We can get him and the Shou then."
"After tonight, / wouldn't bring anything to me." The halfling waved his hand. "Never mind Tycho and the beljurils. I want Kuang Li Chien."
"Why?" grunted Ovel.
Brin fixed him with a harsh stare. "Because I do." His fingers flicked and suddenly a knife stood between them. "Reason enough?" Ovel swallowed and nodded. A grin spread across Brin's face and he sat up straight. "We'll keep looking for Tycho and Li Chien tomorrow morning- and deal with the Wench's Ease, too. More important, I'm going to need messages waiting at three places uptown first thing in the morning."
"Where and who for?" asked Lander.
Brin held up a pinky finger. "Hanibaz Nassor at his home in Burned Street." Ring finger. "Mosi Anu at the Sil-verbell Inn." Middle finger. "Thaedra Korideion at Nelka Marsk's home near the citadel."