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  15

  Decent Folk

  THIYO URGED THEIR HORSE AROUND a curve into a narrow, shaded alley. Only the prosperous neighborhoods of Nalitzva had wide, tree-lined streets that intersected at right angles. Here in Shadeside, not far from Dyevyer Erinsk’s shop and the prison, the winding streets followed no logic at all. Newcomers to the neighborhood got lost easily. Thiyo was counting on that.

  He dismounted, helped Ev down, and gestured for Alizhan to dismount as well. They set their borrowed horses free in the alley with a slap on their rumps. Thiyo took them a little further down, and then they turned another corner into an even narrower alley, one that no horse could fit into. Ev had her right arm slung over his shoulder for support, and the two of them had to maneuver attentively to fit between the buildings on either side.

  Thiyo let Ev rest against a wall for a moment. Alizhan stood with her. He pounded his fist against an unmarked wooden door. He’d never patronized Madam Zhenev’s establishment himself, but Erinsk was good friends with her. And the tailor had once said, in a particular tone he used for conveying important information, you might like her. Thiyo had taken that to mean that he—or Lan—had something in common with Zhenev. He’d kept the location in the back of his mind as a possible refuge in case things went wrong at court. Now that he needed it, he hoped Erinsk’s longstanding business relationship with Zhenev would buy him some good will.

  Behind him, Ev slumped against the alley wall. Alizhan stayed close to her, hovering, clenching and unclenching her hands. Things had gone far more wrong than his worst imaginings. His contingency plan was starting to look pathetically flimsy.

  The door creaked open, just enough to pull tight half a dozen heavy chains keeping it latched, and a woman with iron grey hair appeared in the crack. Above her high, slanted cheekbones, her blue eyes narrowed. Her lips were set in a hard line. Even with that look on her face, she was beautiful. She must have been astounding in her youth. The famous Madam Nataryet Zhenev herself. “What the hell is this?”

  Thiyo gave her an uncertain smile. His ruined dress was hanging from his shoulders and he was covered in blood—his own, the guard’s, and Ev’s. “Help, please.”

  Zhenev’s impassive expression didn’t change. “This is a private residence. We don’t take kindly to being woken during this shift, when decent folk are asleep.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we’re not decent folk at all,” Thiyo joked, and then regretted it immediately. It was too close to the truth, and unlikely to win him any sympathy with the humorless madam. He adopted a more serious tone: “I’m a friend of Dyevyer Erinsk, and I can pay you.”

  It didn’t have the desired effect.

  “I don’t know you, or anyone by that name, and I don’t know what you’d be paying me for.”

  Alizhan, impatient with this exchange, said, “She’s losing blood. Let us in.”

  Zhenev peered past Thiyo into the shadows, where she saw Alizhan standing next to Ev. She blinked, squinted, and her expression transformed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Thiyo watched in amazement as she undid all the locks and opened the door. “Help or get out of the way,” she snapped. Then she bustled into the alley to help Ev up, slinging one of Ev’s arms over her own strong shoulders. Thiyo hurried to support Ev from the other side. Alizhan held the door, and then closed it behind them once they were all inside the foyer of the narrow townhouse.

  “Get these three a room,” the madam shouted. “Number three is empty, right?”

  Madam Zhenev’s wasn’t the high class establishment he’d pictured. Brothels were, of course, illegal in Nalitzva. A low profile was necessary. Thiyo had still imagined this one being spacious and well-appointed, just because Zhenev could afford to dress her employees in Erinsk’s tailoring. Apparently she spent all her money on clothes.

  Thiyo could easily reach up and touch the wooden beams of the ceiling, which made the windowless foyer feel even smaller. The room was lit with a hearth fire and candles rather than lamps. In another context, the red and orange quality of the light might have made the space feel cozy rather than dingy. As it was, Thiyo was seized by fear that the young woman who ran across the small foyer carrying a bundle of white bedsheets was going to catch them all on fire. It was hard to feel safe with Ev nearly collapsed against him.

  The young woman with the sheets ran up the narrow spiral staircase to the left of the entryway, and then Madam Zhenev gestured for the three of them to follow her. It fell to Thiyo to help Ev up the stairs. He cringed every time he jostled her. She didn’t comment on how badly he did the job, so she must really be in terrible pain.

  Madam Zhenev helped him get Ev into the bed in room number three, while Alizhan hovered near by, twitching with anxiety. The left side of Ev’s coat was stained with blood, and red was already seeping into the white sheets beneath her. Thiyo froze at the sight of it. How could a person lose that much blood and not die? He didn’t know what to do.

  “Get her out of those clothes,” Zhenev ordered.

  “Why did you let us in?” Thiyo said. The gears of his mind were turning too slowly. It had only just occurred to him to ask. And why ask? Ev was—Ev was—they should be doing something.

  It was Alizhan who answered, albeit in a different language. “Some of her workers were in prison. They came home and told her two women—a little Laalvuri one and a big Adpri one—came and let them out. How many pairs like that can there be in the city? She thought it must be us.”

  Madam Zhenev was giving Alizhan an assessing look, but she didn’t say anything. She turned toward the open door and shouted “Henny! Bring your sewing kit and some liquor!” down the stairs. And then, “A lot of liquor! And some clean rags for bandages!”

  Another young woman appeared in the doorway a few moments later, holding a basket full of everything required. She was yawning. Her sleepy brown eyes opened wide when she got a look at the crowd in room number three. Then, all business, she set her basket on the floor and pushed a long tendril of coppery hair that had slipped free from her bun back behind her ear. She was barefoot and wearing a sleeveless white shift.

  “This is Henny,” the madam said. “She does neat stitches.” Then, noticing that Thiyo and Alizhan hadn’t followed her previous order, she glared at them. “Get to it. I didn’t invite you in here so that this one could die in one of my beds!”

  Thiyo picked up a pair of scissors from Henny’s basket and began to cut through Ev’s tunic. He cut from the bottom hem all the way up the front, until it parted to reveal the linen wrap that was binding her breasts.

  That shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone working here, not from what Thiyo knew of Zhenev and her clientele. Henny didn’t say anything. Thiyo cut apart Ev’s sleeves and Henny helped him remove the fabric. They repeated this process on her other side, until she was clothed only in the linen binding and her trousers. Henny accepted the scissors from Thiyo and began to cut through the binding, careful not to nick Ev with the scissors as she did so.

  She kept a bare hand lightly touching Ev’s belly.

  “Your… touch,” Ev murmured.

  “Not a word,” Henny said, narrowing her eyes at Ev. She spoke Laalvuri with a charming accent that belied her glare. Thiyo liked her. “You say anything, I’ll tell everyone you’re sick with fever and can’t tell Day from Night. You’ll have a hard time getting out of prison again in this state.”

  Ev closed her eyes and did as she was told.

  “I am grateful to you, though,” Henny said quietly. “I was in that cell.”

  Thiyo was still focused on Ev’s comment. She’d hardly said anything since being wounded. Why remark on Henny’s touch? Thiyo purposefully brushed Henny’s bare hand when he took the scissors from her. The pain in his left hand dimmed.

  Henny narrowed her eyes at him, aware of what he was doing. Thiyo held her gaze. She was just like Mala, then. Henny shifted so her hand was touching his more fully, and the relief he felt was beyond words.

  �
��You’re hurt, too,” Henny said. Anyone else might have asked what had happened, but Madam Zhenev’s employees knew better. Instead, she said, “You’ll be no good to me. It’ll have to be her who helps.” She tilted her head toward Alizhan, who was already vigorously shaking her head.

  “It’s just blood,” Henny said, misinterpreting Alizhan’s resistance. “The work has to be done.”

  “You can do it, Alizhan,” Thiyo said. “For Ev. Get a pair of gloves, take a deep breath, and focus on doing what she tells you.”

  Deprived of Henny’s touch, Thiyo sank into an armchair in the corner of the room. It was only fear that kept his eyes open to see Henny cleaning out the gash and instructing Alizhan in how to hold the two sides of the wound together so Henny could stitch them shut. Alizhan’s brows were drawn together and her bottom lip was between her teeth, but she was getting through her discomfort.

  Exhaustion overtook Thiyo. When his eyes drifted open again, Ev had clean white bandages wrapped around her middle, and Henny and Alizhan were gone from the room. His body protested as he levered himself out of the chair and went to check on Ev.

  To his surprise, when he leaned over the bed, she opened her eyes.

  “Prison,” Ev said, almost inaudibly.

  “Yes?” Thiyo said. Had she realized something? Was she giving him a warning? It must be important if she was marshaling her strength to say something to him.

  “I was right.”

  Thiyo stared at her for an instant. She was talking about their escape from prison and her decision to free some of the other prisoners. He’d argued against it. The whole affair felt like ancient history. His mouth hung open for a moment before any words came out. “Did you just step back from death’s door to tell me ‘I told you so’?”

  Ev closed her eyes and gave him a small smile.

  “Smug, petty, and unbearably self-righteous,” Thiyo told her. “I like you better already.”

  Alizhan entered the room then, with clean damp hair and new clothes. She looked between the two of them. Was it exhaustion dragging her expression down, or was she hurt? “The guards came,” she said, with no emotion. “You were both asleep. I hid and watched. Madam Zhenev let them in, and then one of the prostitutes—a little blond one called Ket—took all the guards by the hand as they left. They all forgot what they’d seen.”

  “Zhenev has someone like Merat Orzh, then. Someone who makes people forget things.” She must be taking in people who’d been cast out by their families, saving them from certain death. Nalitzva was a cruel place for those with magical gifts. Zhenev was sheltering these people, and in exchange, they were using their abilities at her direction. Henny had obviously had training as a healer, and Ket was protecting Zhenev’s business from prying authorities.

  Alizhan nodded. “Also, Vines departed the harbor an hour ago.”

  “What?” Ev whispered.

  Thiyo sat back down heavily.

  “There was no way we could have arrived in time,” Alizhan said. “And we can’t go now, either. You can’t go anywhere and the city is crawling with guards. Everyone knows what we look like. Zhenev has offered to hide us until you’re well enough to get out of bed.”

  “How we will get home?”

  “I don’t know,” Alizhan said. “I don’t know when Vines will dock here again, and it’s unlikely that another vessel will take us, unless we can come up with an enormous amount of money.”

  Thiyo almost offered, but there were only two casks of wai remaining in Erinsk’s basement. Exchanging wai for money would prove tricky if Thiyo was a wanted man—or woman—and Erinsk probably deserved both as payment, besides. Thiyo hoped Zhenev had forgotten his offer to pay her, since those two casks constituted the last of his fortune. There was a wardrobe full of gowns and jewelry in his room back at the palace, all worth a great deal, but all of that was impossibly far out of reach.

  “Our clothes,” Ev said, and her voice was a rasp. Thiyo wanted to tell her to stop talking and save her breath, since Alizhan certainly didn’t need her to speak her thoughts, but that would cut him out of the conversation entirely.

  “I know,” Alizhan said. “You left some money, including the ring, at Erinsk’s shop. I’ll see if I can get it back for us. But it won’t be enough for passage across the ocean for wanted fugitives, not unless we can find Ifeleh again.”

  “What, then?”

  Alizhan’s shoulders lifted as she took a breath. “Zhenev has a wagon. She thinks Henny and Ket could get us through the gates to a village outside the city.”

  “And then?” Thiyo said, before Ev could.

  “We go Nightward,” Alizhan said. “To Estva.”

  “To the Starwatchers?” Thiyo said. Estva was a remote monastic outpost, the farthest Nightward of any human settlement. He’d never been there, but Ilyr had told him about it. Ilyr, who was enthusiastic and romantic about everything, had said things like the stars, Thiyo, you can’t imagine how beautiful they are, but what Thiyo had understood from their conversation was that Estva was dark all the time and all the buildings were constructed from ice. People had to wear piles of fur before they could stand to go outside. It was sparsely populated and yet still claustrophobic. Newcomers were at risk of something called Night madness—a reaction to the darkness, the cold, and the close quarters. Ilyr, already given to anxiety, had confessed to feeling the creeping beginnings of deep-seated, irrational fear while he was there. It sounded like a desperate place. Poor workers went in hopes of striking gold in the mines, and young initiate priests of various religious orders shuffled in and out, marking the years and studying the movements of the stars. Why would anyone else go?

  “It’s a sanctuary of sorts. Anyone who’s willing to work can stay. They take all comers and ask no questions.”

  At this point, Ev nodded and then nodded off.

  Thiyo wished he could be so complacent about this plan. “Because they’re in desperate need of servants!”

  “Stay here and get executed for murder, then,” Alizhan snapped. “Going back to the palace and wearing silks isn’t an option.”

  “Is that what you think I want?” Thiyo said softly, unaccountably hurt by her outburst. He expected that sort of accusation from Ev, but his rapport with Alizhan had been easier so far. Why was she so angry with him?

  He’d almost been getting along with Ev. Was there some rule that only one of them could like him at a time? The thought stopped him short. Ev obviously liked Alizhan. Was the opposite true? Had Alizhan walked in on his little exchange with Ev earlier and felt excluded? Was she jealous?

  That was absurd. There was nothing to be jealous of. A little camaraderie after surviving a near-death encounter wasn’t the same as romance. Thiyo had seen Ev and Alizhan touch hands at the wedding feast. The bond between them ran deep.

  But jealousy followed its own logic.

  Alizhan scowled and crossed her arms. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “We almost died and now we’re all trapped far from home and wanted for murder—and Ev and I still don’t have what we came here for, and who knows if we even can go home without getting captured or killed—and we can’t get around Nightward country without you and you’re being difficult about the only possible solution. You’re selfish and mean just like Ev said!”

  “Ev said that?”

  Alizhan continued scowling, not quite at him, but into the room at large. He supposed he deserved it. He deserved Ev’s low opinion, too. She’d already made it clear that she thought he was a slut and a fool besides. She was right. And after this shift, she could add murderer to her list of his bad qualities. What were “selfish” and “mean” compared to that?

  Why in the watery depths had she run back into danger for him, then? Why take a gash to the side and nearly die, all for the likes of him?

  The answer was too easy: Ev would have done that for anyone. She’d spent precious time freeing prisoners she didn’t even know.

  Thiyo catalogued the wood grain in every plank of the u
neven floor while he tried to convince himself that he didn’t care at all what Ev thought of him. He didn’t care what Alizhan thought, either. He didn’t owe either of them anything. He wouldn’t be in this mess if not for them.

  “Yeah,” Alizhan said, reading his thoughts. He hadn’t bothered to conceal them. “You’d still be in prison. Or maybe you’d be dead.”

  “You’d like that, would you?”

  “No!” she shouted, and he recoiled. “I like you and we need your help and I want you to be stop being mad at me,” she added, fiercely.

  “You’re mad at me, too—you know that, right? And actually,” he said, giving in to a childish urge with a smirk, “you started it.”

  “I’m not mad at you. I’m right.”

  This was obviously a dead end. Thiyo held up his good hand as a request for a cessation of hostilities. “Okay,” he said. It was time to address something else Alizhan had just said: We need your help. We can’t get around Nightward country without you. “So you figured it out, then.”

  “Figured it out? You mean your gift for languages? Was it ever a secret? Thiyo, I lived one of your memories. That power is in every thought you have. And God knows how you kept your dick a secret for a year, because for someone with a gift, you’re terrible at hiding your thoughts.”

  “People like you are rare here,” Thiyo said. “Actually, I’m not sure there are any people like you.” He didn’t acknowledge out loud that she was right. Shielding his thoughts had never come naturally to him. With concentration, he could manage it. He could have developed the skill further, but practice was tedious, so he’d never bothered.

  “You weren’t even being discreet at the wedding. You were speaking three languages at the table. With fake accents, but still.” Fatigue must have sapped her anger. Alizhan sounded very tired. “And you didn’t want to drink any wai, even though you talked about it like it was delicious.”

  “I was being purposefully indiscreet,” Thiyo agreed. “I want all those people to think about how many languages I speak, and then get suspicious when Ilyr’s scholarly career falls apart in my absence.”