"Does one of them live there?" I studied the elegant building.
"No." Her expression softened momentarily. "The man who lives in that house has never done anything wrong to anyone. His only crime was to marry a coward."
Fury began to burn through the tones of her voice. "A weak, lying bitch who should never have been born. She should've been wiped off the face of the earth."
I felt the change in the air as the girl spoke. The smell of burning lime intensified to the sickening scent of acid. The familiarity of it made the wounds across my back shudder with remembered agony. The same sharp scent had come just before the attack against Sariel's conjuring.
"If you want to do a good deed tonight, you'll make sure that the Inquisitors get him out of that house."
The girl didn't spare me a glance. She whipped out her knife and spat on the blade. The steel blade turned instantly black and flames sprang up. She hurled the knife out into the sky. It streaked through the air and slashed through a window on the second story. An instant later, yellow flames exploded up, shattering the glass and tearing through the shingles of the roof. Black and violet clouds of smoke curled up into the air.
I glanced at the girl, but she had already kicked off the cathedral and swooped up into the night sky. The Inquisition men rushed to the fire. I watched. They pulled men and women out of the house, most of them servants. The timbers of the roof began to collapse, and a huge geyser of fire leapt up into the open air. I floated up on the hot currents.
Even through the thick smoke and waves of heat, I recognized the last man to be dragged from the burning house. For a moment, I lingered on the searing currents. Below me the searchlights uselessly raked the thick walls of smoke. Down in the midst of the confusion and shouting, Edward Talbott stood in his nightshirt, watching the flames consume his home.
Chapter Eight
Smoke
I knew nothing about Joan Talbott except that her Prodigal friends were dying. Now her husband's house was in flames. Violent devastation seemed to encircle the woman, sweeping away those nearest her while she remained a mystery at the center of it all.
The smell of fire and smoke permeated my clothes. It hung in my hair, mouth, and nostrils and lay against my skin like a sheen of perfume. I wiped my face and kept walking. I wanted to think, clearly and calmly. Too much was happening, too quickly.
I needed to know more about Joan Talbott. Why had she inspired such hatred from a single Prodigal girl? Where had she gone, and how was she tied to Peter Roffcale's murder? I needed to find out what she had actually done in Good Commons.
All of these questions churned through my thoughts, but I couldn't concentrate on any one of them. They aroused flickers of my curiosity. But I was tired and too disconnected from them. They seemed like they should fit together, like they did, but I was missing just the right angle to slip them into place.
I toyed with possibilities, not because I thought I could solve anything, but to distract myself from another thought. I took in a long breath. The flavor of burning wood and the heat of full, rich flames rolled up through my thoughts. The smoking remains of Edward Talbott's house lay far behind me. The scent and sensation arose from my own memories of Sariel. Everything about fire reminded me of him. Now the scent of burning clung to me like a ghost, and I could not stop thinking of him.
I had kept memories of him buried for so long and so well that I had imagined that I had forgotten about him altogether. It had been a lie I wanted desperately to believe, and so I had.
But now, the very air seemed saturated with his presence. There was some detail in every object that I touched or passed that recalled a memory of Sariel.
The hiss and gurgle of the gas lamps reminded me of the way he had whispered curses constantly behind the backs of his least favorite teachers. He had also whispered, in that same quiet way, after he had fallen asleep in my arms. The low moaning of cats made me remember suddenly the first night we had made love. It had been in an alley, and neither of us had known very well what we were doing.
The smell of him seemed to rise through the wind. I closed my eyes and took in another deep breath. Above the reek of the horse shit in the street, there was that deeply familiar scent. I opened my eyes. It wasn't simply my haunted imagination; Sariel's presence twisted through the wind. He was nearby.
Unconsciously, I had been wandering toward him. I had followed his scent, all the while attempting to think about something else. I supposed it was in keeping with my deceptive nature that I should have lied even to myself.
The thin wisps of cigarette smoke drifted up against the dark sky. I followed them easily. Even among my own kind, my sense of smell was powerful. I found Sariel long before he caught sight of me. He strolled up Butcher Street as if it were his. A cigarette hung between his fingers. He exhaled, whispering softly as the smoke blew past his lips. His long green coat flapped slightly in the breeze, and the dark scarf he wore waved back behind him. The smoke rolled ahead of him, and he followed it.
He was beautiful. I had taken that for granted when I had known him before. His languid motions and bright eyes had been so familiar to me that I had not really known how rare he was. I had never understood why the headmaster at St. Augustine's insisted that Sariel keep his tempting glances to himself. He had simply been Sariel, and I had loved him. Now I realized how handsome he truly was. At the same time, I did not overlook Sariel's wickedly sharp black nails or his fixed expression of superiority.
He took a long drag off his cigarette. The fire in it burned bright red. After a moment of gazing up at the sky, Sariel released the white smoke in a long whisper. I felt him say my name; the pulse of his breath washed over me.
The exhaled smoke rushed up from Sariel's lips. It shifted and twisted as the wind moved through it, but it always wound its way back to the rooftop where I sat. Sariel watched it move, and at last he saw me. He came forward slowly, his outward calm betrayed only by the words he had burned into the air with such intense force.
The tongues of Sariel's smoke curled over me. They were warm and smooth, like delicate fingers. Wisps rolled over my bare stomach and shoulders. Sariel smiled at me and then soared up to the rooftop.
"Hello, Belimai," he said, and he flicked his dying cigarette back down to the muddy street. "Mind if I join you?"
"Do as you please," I replied.
Sariel sat down on the roof tiles and leaned back against the brick column of the chimney. We watched each other in silence for a few moments. He lit another cigarette.
"How's your back?" he asked.
"It's all right, so long as I don't think about it."
"You always were tougher than you looked." He frowned, then took another drag off his cigarette.
I watched the smoke he exhaled rise and twist up into the night sky.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked at last.
"Was it obvious?" he asked, and then he went on. "I wanted to say something to you."
"Oh?" I cocked my head slightly. "What?"
"Something. Anything. I just wanted to see you again, to say something more than goodbye," Sariel said.
I couldn't think of a response that didn't sound clever or cruel, so I kept quiet. Sariel smoked and at last crushed out the butt of his cigarette against the roof.