“You’re good, guvner, but you ain’t perfect. I go anywhere near you, I got to assume Nadrett will find out. And if I don’t ’ave a good answer for it, I’m a dead dog. So I’ll tells ’im I wanted to know whether you and Lacca are plotting something, and in the meantime, I tells you I’m ’ere to buy information.”
“Of what sort?”
Dead Rick thought he’d managed to intrigue the other faerie, at least a little bit. Intrigue was good; it gave Aspell a reason to keep listening. “Information that gets close to Nadrett. You see why I can’t ’ave ’im finding out about this.”
Aspell settled deeper into the embrace of his chair, one slender hand stroking its arm with an idle motion. “Indeed. Very well; what do you wish to know?”
After leaving the night garden, Dead Rick had decided he had a choice: give up on his absent ally’s mission, or continue pursuing it himself. The former choice would just sink him back down into the pit of helplessness that had trapped him before. The latter might get him killed—but if it didn’t, he might have something valuable enough to buy the help he needed. “I ’ear tell Nadrett’s got a fellow named Chrennois working for ’im. I wants to know more about Chrennois.” Dead Rick paused, licked his dry lips. “What’s the price for answering that?”
His options for payment were limited. Dead Rick didn’t have anything resembling wealth, not since his little store of valuables had been crushed beneath falling stone. That left information—but selling any of Nadrett’s secrets could get him killed. The skriker curled his bound hands into fists and prepared to bargain hard.
Aspell sat in thought long enough to make him squirm. Then an unreadable smile curled one corner of his mouth, and he said, “You intend to betray your master.”
Dead Rick shook his head. “No, I ain’t that ambitious. I just need to know what ’e’s planning, so I can—”
The former lord put up one hand, silencing him immediately. “You needn’t bother denying it. I know you have been in contact with someone, who has asked to you investigate… let us say, certain of Nadrett’s activities.”
It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over him. Dead Rick’s skin jumped, and his hands clenched tight. “’Ow in Mab’s name do you know that?”
This time the smile curved Aspell’s entire mouth, but not pleasantly. “You approach me to buy information, and ask how it is I know things? I will not tell you. All that matters, at least for this conversation, is that I do know. But be at ease; I shan’t ask you anything about your master. Instead I want to know about your ally.”
That was safer—maybe. Aspell smelled intent, in a way Dead Rick didn’t like. “I ain’t seen ’im in a while,” he said, hedging.
“Do you meet regularly?”
“No, I—” Dead Rick stopped. On the one hand, this was a betrayal of the voice; on the other hand, for all he knew the owner of that voice was dead or gone. On the third hand—he switched to paws—his scant knowledge might not be enough to satisfy Aspell; on the fourth paw, that made it not much of a betrayal.
Making up his mind, he said, “If you already know ’e exists, that’s the dangerous bit, I suppose. I think the cove’s somebody in the Goblin Market—or was.”
“Was?”
“Like I said, I ain’t seen ’im in a while. Think ’e might ’ave died when everything fell. We’ve got a way of signaling when I wants to talk to ’im, but I did that days ago and ain’t ’eard so much as a whisper.”
Aspell frowned. “Where does he speak to you?”
“In—” Dead Rick stopped again. “In my old ’ole,” he said slowly, thinking. Which is gone. Maybe that’s why I ain’t ’eard back. Could be ’is trick only worked there, or ’e don’t know where to find me now that my ’ole’s gone.
None of which he shared with Aspell. The other faerie asked, “What else do you know about him?”
’E ain’t you, and that’s about all I know for sure. “’E talks like a gentleman,” Dead Rick said. “But ’e ain’t nobody in the court, I don’t think—I asked ’im what ’e thought of the Queen, anyway, and ’e don’t seem to like ’er much. Knows a bit about the Goblin Market, but I think ’e also knows people in the Academy.”
“What else?”
Dead Rick racked his brain, trying to find anything else to say. Otherwise Aspell would declare that wasn’t payment enough, and then he’d end up betraying Nadrett as well as the voice, which was a quick way to end up dead. “’E’s got some ventriloquist trick, making ’is voice sound where ’e ain’t.” Aspell still didn’t look satisfied. Then Dead Rick thought of one more thing. Reluctantly, he added, “And ’e knows some things about me.”
That got Aspell’s interest. “What kind of things?”
“Things I… I don’t remember.”
He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not that Aspell didn’t ask what he meant by that. Relieved, I guess. If Aspell’s knowed all this time that I don’t ’ave my memories, ’e ’asn’t used it against me, not that I’ve seen. And that means I ain’t told ’im nothing about myself ’e didn’t already know.
Either way, he’d rather be talking about anything but himself. “Is that good enough?”
“It is,” Aspell said, surprising him. The former lord sounded obscurely pleased. “So—Chrennois. French, as you may have guessed, though not from the Cour du Lys; he originally hailed from some provincial court. He came to the Onyx Hall more than twenty years ago, with the intent of studying at the Academy. If memory serves, he wanted to develop some new kind of faerie photography. But he and Yvoir, another French fellow working on the same topic, had a serious falling out—not surprising, as Chrennois was a cold-blooded sort, far more willing than Yvoir to try… let us say, unorthodox methods.”
The frog worked for Nadrett; by unorthodox, Aspell likely meant horrible. But Dead Rick needed better specifics than that. “Like what? And what kind of photography?”
Aspell spread his delicate hands. “I’m afraid that sort of technical matter falls beyond my expertise. If you truly wish to know, however, I can make inquiries in the Academy.”
No need; the methods didn’t really matter, and as for the kind, Dead Rick could guess easily enough that it had to do with ghosts. As if the voice of his ally were in his head, he thought, But what ’as that got to do with going to Faerie?
He didn’t know, and his ally wasn’t around to ask. On impulse, Dead Rick said, “How much to find out who it is I been talking to?”
Aspell controlled his expression, but Dead Rick heard the hitch in his breath that indicated a suppressed laugh. “When I have only just now gathered the first scraps of information? Once I know the answer to your question, I can quote you a price; until then, I do not know how much it is worth.”
Dead Rick hunched his shoulders and glared, putting as much threat behind it as he could while tied to a chair. “You’d better be quiet about it.”
“Yes, yes; you do not want Nadrett to find out. Your lack of faith in my discretion is really quite offensive. Well, I believe our business here is done…” Aspell smiled in a way that raised Dead Rick’s hackles. “Except for one simple matter.”
The other faerie paused, clearly wanting to make Dead Rick nervous, and to force him to ask. On another day the skriker might have refused to cooperate, but right now, he just wanted out of that chair. “What?”