"What 'we,' Perrez? I should think it would be clear-even to you-that this Nareel has plans that don't involve you."
Perrez wanted to disagree; Bezul could see the arguments forming, then fading on his brother's face. It was painful to watch, but Bezul did, in icy silence, until Perrez broke.
"I should have come to you," he admitted. "As soon as I realized what the Nighter had baiting his traps, I should have come to you and let you handle everything: getting it away from the Nighter and finding a buyer, too. But it was going so well… I was going to come to you with the seventy royals, Bez, I swear I was. I'd lay them down on the counter and you'd be proud of me. Shalpa, Bez-I don't want to be Nareel's partner. I want to be yours. I want you to trust me with the changing house. You've done so well, and what do I have to show for myself?" From his knees, Perrez reached up to take his elder brother's hand. "Help me, Bez. I know where Nareel's gone, I think. If you confront him, he'll honor his bargain. I'm begging you, Bez. Our honor's at stake, here. You can't let Nareel get away with what he's done."
It was a good speech and it might have melted Bezul's heart, if he hadn't heard similar speeches too many times before. He withdrew his hand. "Nareel's robbed a thief. Where's the honor on either side in that? That glass never belonged to you. No, it's over. The aromacist's made a fool of you, and there it ends. Stand up. We're going home. Be grateful you still have one… and pray you've figured the odds right. What little I hear, it's not going the way anyone expected."
With a whimpering groan, Perrez rose unsteadily. His brother could not tell how much was genuine pain, how much just another part of the act.
"What about Dace?" Perrez asked. "If the attractor wasn't mine, then it belongs to the Nighter, not Nareel. We can't walk away, Bez. We've still got to get it back."
Bezul scarcely believed what he was hearing. "Don't you-" he cut himself short. The aromacist's workroom was no place to continue an argument with Perrez, who would neither listen nor change. "I gave Dace one of Father's glass bulbs to replace his 'red lucky.' "
He returned to the garden. Perrez followed.
"You can't do that, Bez. You can't replace a fish-eye attractor with a bulb of ordinary glass. It's not going to catch crabs. I mean, a few nights, and he's going to know it's not their frackin' froggin' lucky."
"Maybe; maybe not."
"No maybes. The attractor's got pull, froggin' fish-eye sorcery. There's nothing in Father's chest to compare with it, nothing in the whole shop. Dace'll be back… with his relatives. I've seen 'em. The gimp's one of the normal Nighters, Bez. You've got to think they've been screwing rats and trolls-"
Bezul opened the gate. He had the impression of a face and a yell, then he was reeling as something surged past him. The fence kept Bezul upright. Perrez was not so fortunate. He was on his back, bellowing panic and pain, beneath not the mysterious aromacist, but Dace, who attacked him with wild fury. Bezul seized the youth's shoulder, hoping to pull him off Perrez, but he underestimated Dace's determination, not to mention his skills and his strength. The Nighter broke free with an elbow jab between Bezul's ribs.
With greater caution and an eye for self-defense, Bezul tried again and succeeded.
"He can't say that!" Dace growled while struggling to get his fists on Perrez again. "He lied. He stole the lucky."
Realizing that he couldn't break free, Dace twisted about and attacked Bezul. Bezul successfully defended his groin and his gut, but lost his grip when Dace stomped his instep. Still, he caught the Nighter before he laid into Perrez.
"Enough!" Bezul gave Dace a shove into the fence that nearly toppled it and quieted the youth. "Yes, he stole it and lost it, because he's a frogging fool, but, you're no better. You gave it to him for a scrap of cloth and a promise! Let it be a lesson to you both." He shoved Perrez, who'd just gotten his feet under him, at the open gate. "Start moving."
Perrez, who hadn't actually lost anything that could have been called his in the first place, went through the gate without protest. Not so Dace. The Nighter retreated toward the aromacist's workroom.
"I'm stayin'. That Nareel comes home, I'm gettin' the lucky back. Don't care 'bout no royals."
By that Bezul assumed Dace had overheard his entire conversation with Perrez. "You don't need sorcery to bait crabs, Dace. The lucky's not worth dying for," he told the youth and silently chided himself for caring. He turned around and nearly walked into Perrez.
"We don't have to wait. I know where Nareel's gone-he'd brought a map with him from Ilsig. He was looking for some dead shite's hoard. Fastalen-something like that. The map didn't match with what he found in the quarter. There's not a house up there now that was standing when whoever drew Nareel's map. That's where the attractor came in. He and I were going to use it to find the hoard. Said it had to be today-couldn't wait 'til tomorrow, something about the sun. He's up there now-I swear it-and we don't need an attractor to find a man rooting through rubble."
"We don't need anything," Bezul replied. "We're going home to Wriggle Way." But Bezul stopped short of shoving his brother toward the gate again. He wasn't blind to the allure in Perrez's argument. "Look at yourself," he said in one last attempt to free them all from temptation. "Clothes torn. Face bloodied. And don't tell me you've got full use of your right arm. The aromacist has already beaten you once today, Perrez-"
"Because I wasn't ready. This time, I'll be surprising him… and you'll be with me."
"No."
"Bez-"
"No."
"You're getting old, Bez. Ten years ago, you'd have led the way."
"Not a chance," Bezul said confidently.
Children hadn't changed him, marriage hadn't changed him, even the Troubles hadn't changed him. He'd changed the day his father abandoned their uptown shop for Wriggle Way. Perrez couldn't remember that day; he'd been a toddler, younger than Lesimar; but Bezul had been old enough to see the despair on his parents' faces and it had burnt the wildness out of him forever.
"Let it go, Perrez. Come home. Chersey will bind up your ribs and cuts."
"No. It's the Nighter's lucky and our gold, not Nareel's. Tell Mother I'm coming home rich, or not at all."
Dace-Father Ils bless his limp and his stubbornness-had hobbled out of the workroom to stand beside Perrez, all but announcing that they were partners again. Bezul closed his eyes. He imagined himself returning to Wriggle Way: sober, righteous… alone. Wealth had never tempted him. It still didn't, but the tide had turned regardless.
"If we're going," he conceded, "we'd best get started."
Between Dace's withered leg and Perrez's bruises, the three men crossed Sanctuary slowly. Bezul considered that their prey might be flown by the time Perrez got them to the right quarter. He kept his thoughts to himself. If they missed the opportunity, then they missed the danger, too.
"Not far now," Perrez assured them as they trudged up one of the steepest streets in the city.
They'd paused for water at a communal well where Perrez had washed the worst of the blood from his face, which only made the bruises more noticeable, and the swollen kink in his nose. Bezul was a grown man with children of his own, but he'd always be the elder brother. He reserved the right to pummel Perrez; he conceded it to no one, especially not an aromacist from Ilsig.
Perrez led them down a treacherous alley to a courtyard that had seen better days, much better days, a generation or more earlier. Patches of fresco murals clung to the weathered walls, none of them large enough to reveal a scene or subject. The windows and doorways were empty, stripped of everything valuable or moveable.