Bright Smoke, Cold Fire Page 14

  “I’m not doing anything,” said Juliet. “You’re the one who can’t stop shouting your thoughts. I suppose you could order me not to hear them.”

  “Could you stop?”

  Juliet shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “I would appreciate it,” said Runajo, “if you would try not to.”

  It wasn’t an order, but she didn’t want to be giving orders more than she had to; and though Juliet’s face didn’t even twitch, she could feel the other girl’s shock through the bond, and that was more than enough reward for her.

  “You’d order me fast enough if you had a need,” said Juliet, obviously not heeding her requests quite yet.

  “If you had to, by which I mean if you had the chance, you would slit my throat,” said Runajo, and Juliet grinned at her.

  Juliet had killed a reaper with her bare hands.

  The Sunken Library was full of them—and Runajo knew where she could get a sword.

  Her whole body was trembling, but it felt more like exultation than fear. She had faced the ancient nightmare of her people. She had survived. And she had an ally.

  Maybe she could survive the Sunken Library. Maybe she could be brave enough.

  And if Juliet was at her side in the library, they would live or die together. She might get Juliet killed, but it would be a clean death in battle, not walled up alive and starving.

  Before she could say anything, she heard voices in the halls. The Sisters were leaving dinner. She and Juliet were about to get caught.

  She pressed her hand against the wall and opened the door for Juliet.

  17

  “WAIT!” PARIS CALLED, BUT THE girl was already vanishing into the crowd.

  I see her, said Romeo. Come on.

  Together—taking turns edging close enough to keep her in view—they followed the girl as she went into three different shops: she bought bread in one, argued in another, and burst into tears in a third. After she had stopped crying, she paid what looked like quite a large sum of money for a huge butcher’s knife, and then slipped into one of the alleys.

  Paris slipped in after her, wondering if she was actually a robber and he was about to be knifed. But the girl was apparently just going home: she hurried down the street, hunched over a little, without looking to either side or behind.

  She didn’t live far away. It was only a few minutes before they saw her go into a huge, ramshackle tenement. It was not particularly dirty, but old; the designs once painted on the walls had nearly faded away, and many of the shutters on the windows were cracked or broken. Paris slipped in after the girl, trying to move as quietly as he could; behind, he could hear and feel Romeo running faster to catch up.

  One set of stairs. Two. Three. Then the girl turned down the hallway, fumbled with the lock on a door, and slipped inside.

  Paris paused. He could feel Romeo running up the stairs half a floor down.

  You should wait, he said. I’m going to talk to her alone.

  Why? asked Romeo.

  She wept for Tybalt, didn’t she? And she saw you kill him. She might remember your face.

  Of course, said Romeo. He didn’t sound upset, just weary and defeated.

  Besides, I’m Catresou like Tybalt, Paris went on. Maybe that will make her trust me.

  It was very logical. But as Paris knocked on the door, he couldn’t help being aware that he had never, even once in his entire life, persuaded anyone to do anything.

  Well, he had persuaded Romeo to help him. That was something, though really it was Juliet who had done that. Paris had only benefited from it.

  With a loud creak, the door opened just a crack and the girl peered out. “Yes?” she said suspiciously.

  There was nothing for it but to try.

  “Did you know Tybalt Catresou?” Paris asked.

  Her eyes widened as she took in his face and accent. “You’re his kin?”

  “Yes,” said Paris, and her face crumpled.

  “Thank the gods,” she said, tears trickling from her eyes. “I’d lost all hope.”

  Over her shoulder, Paris could see a small, dingy room with one door leading to a second room. It seemed like a dismal place.

  “Tybalt . . . did he make you a promise?” asked Paris, hoping that Tybalt hadn’t seduced the poor girl.

  In the distance, one of the neighbors started banging on the wall.

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re here to redeem it, aren’t you? To take me to the Night Game?”

  Paris felt sure that his bafflement showed on his face, but she kept looking at him with hopeful expectation.

  The banging was getting louder. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of the door behind the girl, but that didn’t make any sense.

  “Do you know where it is?” Paris hedged, not willing to make promises he couldn’t fulfill.

  She shrank back, suspicious again. “You’re not—”

  And with a crash, the door burst open. On the other side was an old man, his gray hair a tangle, his mouth wide and gasping.

  No. It was not an old man, but a thing that had once been an old man.

  A revenant.

  Paris had heard all his life about what the dead were like when they inevitably rose again, mindless and furious and hungry. This revenant wasn’t like the ones in the stories: rotting or half mummified, naked with their skin peeling, their hair fallen out. This one was fresh. From a distance, from the corner of an eye, it might have passed for human. But so close—

  Paris had only seen an unembalmed dead body once: his mother, before she was carried to the magi for her funeral preparations. He had been very young. But he still remembered how empty she had looked. In her final illness, she had been pale and still as death, and he had frightened himself a dozen times by thinking she had already died. Once dead, she had no longer looked like a woman at all; she had been like a hollow doll made of wax, and Paris had feared her—feared it—in a way he had never feared anything before.

  The revenant had that same quality—that utter, absolute emptiness.

  It hissed at them and lunged forward.

  “Father!” the girl shrieked.

  Paris grabbed her by the arm and hauled her outside, then slammed the door shut just as the revenant slammed into it. The door shook, and he pressed himself back against it.

  “Why’s your father—”

  “I tied him up,” the girl gasped, also throwing her weight against the door. “I swear I tied him up.”

  “Why do you have him?” Paris demanded. It took two or three days for a dead body to turn into a revenant. The City Guard should have taken him away long before this.

  Icy dread pounded through his veins. They couldn’t hold this door forever. But if they ran, the revenant would be able to follow them. Or hunt down other people.

  Then Romeo came hurtling up the stairs.

  Paris had never been so glad to see a Mahyanai sword in his life.

  “You,” the girl said, in a voice of terror and loathing, but Paris was already hauling her aside. The door flew open and the revenant stumbled out.

  Romeo drew his sword, but as he swung, the girl threw herself in front of him, crying, “No!”

  Just in time, Romeo pulled the strike. Through the bond, Paris felt his mind flash white-hot with something too stark and all-encompassing to be called fear.

  Cold fingers gripped his arm. The revenant hissed in his ear.

  Without thinking, Paris flung himself back against the wall. He heard a crunch; then he flailed, kicked, and sent the revenant staggering back. It was the perfect moment to kill it—but Romeo was three paces back, still as a statue and eyes wide.

  “Use the sword!” he yelled at Romeo, and finally Romeo came back to life, lunging toward the revenant. But it was too late; it dodged back and skittered down the stairs.

  Down toward the street and the crowded marketplace full of people.

  Revenants loose in Viyara, rending the city apart with their ceaseless hunger for human f
lesh. It was the nightmare that everybody dreaded, and for one moment, that dread held Paris in place. Then he bolted down the stairs after the revenant, calling silently to Romeo, Come on!

  Whatever had kept Romeo from attacking properly was done now; he ran just as fast as Paris did down the stairs.

  Why didn’t you kill it when you had the chance? Paris demanded, still silently because he didn’t have the breath to spare.

  She nearly died, said Romeo, and there was a shakiness to his voice that Paris had never heard before. I nearly killed her.

  Two memories welled up between them: the girl flinging herself in front of Romeo, and Romeo flinging himself in front of Makari, along with a horrible, paralyzing sensation of not again not again.

  He hadn’t thought that Romeo truly regretted anything except the loss of Juliet, but maybe he did.

  They nearly caught the revenant at the base of the stairs, but it slid away from them and out into the street. They ran after it, past one corner and around another, but Paris was starting to feel a horrible certainty that they wouldn’t catch it. His lungs burned and his legs felt heavy. He had trained in dueling, not in sprinting, and he could tell that Romeo was the same.

  With a last, desperate burst of energy, he lunged forward, trying to grab the revenant. His fingers grazed its arm and closed on the sleeve. Paris threw himself back, his arm jolting. Now! he called silently to Romeo.

  Then he heard a rip. He stumbled back, clutching the remains of the sleeve, while the revenant bolted forward again . . . out into the busy marketplace.

  As Paris lost his balance and tumbled to the ground, Romeo charged past him. He could feel Romeo’s exhaustion through the bond, but also his desperation. He was going to stop the revenant or die trying.

  Then Paris saw the gray-and-red uniforms of the City Guard.

  Even now, his first thought was to call Look out! to Romeo, because seeing the City Guard never meant anything good. When one of them heard the screams and turned, his heart jumped in alarm.

  But the City Guard had a purpose besides persecuting the Catresou—and it was not to fight the living that they carried swords at all times.

  In one fluid movement, the nearest guard drew her sword and swung. The revenant’s head fell to the ground. The body wavered on its feet a moment after, fingers clutching at the air, and then it too toppled to the ground.

  As Romeo skidded to a stop in front of the staggering body, Paris climbed back to his feet. He looked away from the shuddering body and took a deep breath. It had already been dead. He didn’t know if that made it more or less sickening.

  Now that the chase was over, he was shaking. He also very much did not want to face the City Guard, but he couldn’t abandon Romeo, so he marched forward, shoving his way through the crowd.

  The guard who had killed the revenant was barking out orders for the others to search the surrounding area. She had the mark of a subcaptain embroidered on her shoulder, which meant she had responsibility for this whole section of the city.

  “You were chasing it,” she said to Romeo. “Where did you find it?”

  “Ah . . . ,” said Romeo.

  He noticed, which meant Paris noticed, that the girl had followed them. She was squeezed between two stalls, staring at her father’s corpse with both hands pressed over her mouth.

  “We were walking down the street that way,” said Romeo, pointing roughly the direction they had come. “It just . . . leaped out of an alley.”

  “‘We’?” said the subcaptain.

  Paris stepped up beside Romeo. “I was there too.”

  “Is that true?” she asked, looking down at him.

  She was tall. Her white-gold hair, a bright contrast to the dark skin of her face, was wrapped around her head in a six-strand braid. Her nose and cheekbones were as elegant as her accent. She wasn’t just Old Viyaran, she was clearly an Old Viyaran aristocrat. If she wanted to, she could certainly lock them up and throw away the key.

  We can’t turn that girl in, said Romeo. I already hurt her too much.

  People who hoarded corpses deserved every punishment they got. Paris had grown up knowing this. But if the girl was dragged away by the City Guard, they would never be able to find out what she knew.

  And he couldn’t forget the way she had cried, Father.

  “Yes,” he said. “We were just—just that way. Not very far down, I can’t remember now.” He knew that he must sound shamefully frightened, with the way he was stumbling over his words, but the only thing that mattered was the subcaptain believing him.

  Of course, if they started searching in that direction, they would sooner or later look into the girl’s tenement and hear about the commotion. But at least she would have a chance to clear out.

  “Just walking down the street,” said the subcaptain, and Paris remembered with a sick sort of terror that they were both fugitives. Well, Romeo was; his own family probably hadn’t wanted to report him.

  “Just walking,” he said quickly. “I know it looks odd, but we didn’t come to the Lower City for trouble.”

  “We came here for love,” Romeo said earnestly.

  “Love,” the subcaptain echoed, sounding faintly amused.

  It was like the time when Paris was a child, and he’d accidentally knocked over a pile of expensive dishes waiting for the servants to clean them. The pile had tottered for several moments, but Paris hadn’t been able to grab and steady them, or even flee before the crash gave him away. He’d been too entranced by the oncoming disaster.

  It was like that now. Paris knew this was going to end badly, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth working, and meanwhile Romeo was rambling enthusiastically.

  “Yes!” he said. “It’s my friend here—he fell in love with a girl who worked in his family’s kitchen, and she loved him in return, but when his father found out he was furious and had her cast out into the Lower City, and then he lied and forged letters and tried to make him believe she had renounced him. But my friend loved her too dearly and trusted her too deeply, and he discovered the truth, and so we’ve come to find her!”

  Paris found that his panic was turning into a peculiar sort of calm. They were doomed. If he was lucky, he would be executed along with Romeo. If not, he would be handed back to Lord Catresou.

  “And you, a Mahyanai, are helping him?” asked the subcaptain.

  “Because I love her as well,” Romeo said earnestly, “and I will see her happy though it breaks my heart in two. Lovely, kind Maretta with eyes like the summer sky at twilight. Have you seen her?”

  “No,” said the subcaptain, “but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone so bad at lying, either.”

  Romeo looked uncommonly like a bird fluffing itself up for a mating display. “My love is as true as the stars are bright,” he said with terrifying intensity. “So is his.”

  The subcaptain’s mouth quirked. “Tiny and flickering and easily clouded over?”

  She doesn’t believe you, said Paris silently, so can you stop humiliating us?

  There is no shame in love! It shouldn’t have been possible to shout silently, but Romeo managed it.

  “I don’t much care if you’re stupid enough to think you can win duels down here,” said the subcaptain, “or if you think the liquor is better, though I can assure you it’s not. I need to know where that revenant came from.”

  “We really don’t know,” said Paris.

  The subcaptain sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Then you’re free to go,” she said. “Try to stay out of trouble; I don’t particularly want to explain your bodies to anyone up top.”

  And she turned away from them to direct the guards who were clearing out the body.

  Paris risked a glance at the girl. She was still in the same spot, but had sunk to the ground and was hugging herself.

  Romeo took a step toward her, but Paris grabbed his shoulder.

  No, he said. Wait. Then he realized he’d given an order again, and said, Sorry.

 
You’re right, said Romeo. They might be watching us.

  So they sat on the rim of the fountain. They watched the City Guard clear away the body and move out to form a search for any more revenants. They watched the marketplace return to its normal ordered chaos. Paris was surprised that everyone seemed to forget about the attack so quickly, but then, he knew that the Lower City was not as well-ordered. Revenants were not unheard of; there was always somebody who died in a corner, or whose family refused to deliver up the body, whether because they couldn’t bear to say good-bye, or they were too afraid of the City Guard, or they wanted to boil down the corpse and sell the bones for black-market charms.

  “You didn’t turn me in,” said the girl quietly, from right next to Paris.

  He started; then, trying to stay calm, he said, “No. Why did you keep him?”

  The girl gave Romeo a poisonous look. “Because Tybalt promised me a chance. Why are you running about with your kinsman’s murderer?”

  “He promised to help me set things right,” said Paris. “Please. We know that Tybalt was mixed up in something bad. We have to know what it was. Or a lot more people will get hurt.”

  “It wasn’t wrong,” said the girl, still softly, but with a passionate intensity. “He wanted to make things right for all of us. He said—”

  Her voice cracked and she pressed her lips together. Paris stared helplessly, wishing he knew what to say.

  “Did Tybalt—” Romeo began, but broke off when the girl went rigid.

  “I will not speak to you,” she said to the cobblestones.

  “I’m sorry,” said Romeo. “I’ll be silent.”

  For a few moments none of them said anything. Then the girl said to Paris, in a very small voice, “I owe you. I’ll answer your questions.”

  She hesitated for a moment longer. Then she sat down beside Paris.

  “I work in a tavern,” she said. “He came for drinks a year ago. He liked me. I liked him. And my father had just started dying. Tybalt told me he was King of Cats, and then he told me he was more.”

  Paris swallowed, terrifyingly aware that one wrong word could make the girl stop talking and flee.

  “What kind of more was Tybalt?” he asked.