Текст книги "The Republic of Thieves"

Автор книги: Scott Lynch

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“Sweep beneath the wagon, would you, Giacomo?” said Galdo. “Don’t want turds for pillows.”

“Sweep it your fuckin’ self, Castellano,” said Calo. “Nobody put you in charge.”

“Mind yourself,” whispered Sabetha, grabbing Calo by the arm. “We’ve got ten days on the road ahead of us. Do they have to be a miserable trial for no good reason?”

“I’m not his damn valet,” said Calo.

“That’s right.” Locke stepped between the Sanzas, thinking quickly. “None of us are. We’ll share sweeping duties, all of us. Calo starts tonight—”

“I’m Giacomo.”

“Right, sorry. Giacomo starts tonight. Other brother when we stop tomorrow. I’ll take the night after that, and so on. A fair rotation. Good enough?”

“I can live with it,” muttered Calo. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. Just won’t have him putting on airs.”

Locke ground his teeth together. The Sanzas had spent the last several months steadily discarding their old habits of synchronicity in action and appearance. They took pains to distinguish themselves from one another, and their differences in grooming were the merest outward flourishes of the phenomenon. Locke would never have begrudged the twins an individualistic phase, but their timing was awkward as hell, and their ongoing spats were like fresh wood heaped on an already rising fire.

“Look,” said Locke, realizing that the gang’s mechanisms of fellowship needed oiling rather badly, “with so many taverns close at hand, I don’t see any need for us to torture ourselves with boiled beef and bag water. I’ll fetch us something more pleasing.”

“We have the coin for that sort of luxury?” said Sabetha.

“I might have cut a purse or two while I was out this morning. Just for the sake of, ah, financial flexibility.” Locke shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. “You want to come with?”

“You need me to?”

“Well … I’d like you to.”

“Hmmm.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, during which Locke experienced the curious sensation of his heart apparently sinking several inches deeper into his chest. Then she shrugged.

“I suppose.”

They left Jean with the horses, Galdo watching their supplies, and Calo gingerly cleaning the ground beneath the wagon. There was a well-lit tavern at the end of the lane beside the wall, just past the Andrazi stable, and by unspoken mutual consent they headed toward it in the gathering darkness. Locke stole a glance at Sabetha as they walked.

Her tightly-bound hair was further packed beneath a close-fitting linen cap, and all of her clothing was long and loose, disguising her curves. It was the sort of dress a prudent, mild, and unassertive young woman would choose for the road, and as such it suited Sabetha not at all. Still, she wore it as well as anyone could, as far as Locke’s eyes were concerned.

“I was, ah, hoping I could talk to you,” he said.

“Easily done,” said Sabetha. “Open your mouth and let words come out.”

“I—Look, can you not … can you please not be glib with me?”

“Requesting miracles now, are we?” Sabetha looked down and kicked a stone out of her path. “Look, I’m sorry. Contemplating ten days stuck together on the road. And the brothers being … you know. The whole thing has me feeling like a hedgehog, rolled up with my spikes out. Can’t help myself.”

“Oh, a hedgehog is absolutely the lastthing I would ever compare you to,” said Locke with a laugh.

“Interesting,” said Sabetha, “that I mention my own feelings, and you seem to think that what I’m after is reassurance concerning your perceptions.”

“But …” Locke felt another knot in his chest. Conversations with Sabetha always seemed to call his attention to malfunctioning internal mysteries he hadn’t previously known he possessed. “Look, come on, do you have to dissecteverything I say, pin it up like an anatomist and sift through it?”

“First I’m too glib, now I’m cutting too fine. Surely you should be pleased to be receiving such close attention to what you’re actually saying?”

“You know,” said Locke, feeling his hands shake nervously with the thought of what he was about to put in the open, “you knowthat when I’m around you I find it very easy to shove my foot into my mouth. Sometimes both feet. And you do see it.”

“Mmmmm,” she said.

“More than that. You make use of the advantage.”

“I do.” She looked at him strangely. “You fancy me.”

“That,” said Locke, feeling thunderstruck, “that is … really … not how I would have …”

“Not as grand in plain speech as it is up here?” She tapped her forehead.

“Sabetha, I … I value your good opinion more than anything in the world. It kills me not to have it. It kills me not to know whetherI have it. We’ve lived together all these years, and still there’s this fog between us. I don’t know what I did to put it there, but I would throw myself under a cart to lift it, believe me.”

“Why do you assume it’s something you’vedone, and something you can undo at will? I’m not some arithmetic problem just waiting for you to show your work properly, Locke. Did you ever think that I might … gods, you’ve got me stumbling now. That I might be actively contributing to this … to our awkwardness?”

“Actively contributing?”

“Yes, as though I might have warm-blooded motives of my own, being as I’m not an oil painting, or some other decorative object of desire—”

“Do you like me?” said Locke, shocked at himself for blurting the question out. It was an invitation to have his heart laid out and smashed on an anvil, and there were a thousand things she could say that would do the hammer’s work. “At all? Do I ever please you with my company? Am I at least preferable to an empty room?”

“There are times when the empty room is a sore temptation.”

“But—”

“Of course I likeyou,” she said, raising her hands as though to touch him reassuringly. She didn’t complete the gesture. “You can be clever, and enterprising, and charming, though rarely all three at once. And … I do sometimes admire you, if it helps you to hear it.”

“It means everything to hear it,” he said, feeling the tightness in his chest turn to buoyant warmth. “It’s worth a thousand embarrassments, just to hear it. Because … because I feel the same way. About you.”

“You don’t feel the same way about me,” she said.

“Oh, but I do,” he said. “Without qualifying remarks, even.”

“That’s—”

“Hey there!”

A polished club came down on Locke’s shoulder, a gentle tap, yet impossible to ignore. The club was attached to a heavyset man in the leather harness and mustard-yellow coat of the city watch, attended by a younger comrade carrying a lantern on a pole.

“You’re in the middle of a lane,” said the big yellowjacket, “not a bloody drawing-room. Move it elsewhere.”

“Oh, of course, sir,” said Locke in one of his better respectable-citizen voices (this constable, not being agitated, didn’t require the use of Locke’s very best). He and Sabetha moved off the lane and into the shadows beneath the wall, where fireflies sketched pale green arcs against the darkness.

“No one thinks of anyone else without qualifying remarks,” said Sabetha. “I love Chains dearly, and still he and I have … disappointed one another. I’ll always be fond of the Sanzas, but right now I wish they’d go away for a year. And you—”

“I’ve frustrated you, I know.”

“And I’ve returned the favor.” She did touch him now, gently, on his upper left arm, and it took most of his self-control not to jump out of his shoes. “Nobody admires anyone else without qualification. If they do they’re after an image, not a person.”

“Well,” said Locke, “in that case, I harbor a great many resentments, reservations, and suspicions about you. Does that please you better?”

“You’re trying to be charming again,” she said softly, “but I choose not to be charmed, Locke Lamora. Not with things as they stand.”

“Can I make amends for whatever I’ve done to frustrate you?”

“That’s … complicated.”

“I like to think that I take hints as well as anyone,” said Locke. “Why not throw some at my head?”

“Going to be a lot of time to kill between here and Espara, I suppose.”

“Can we … speak again tomorrow night? After we’ve stopped?”

“The gentleman requests the favor of a personal engagement, tomorrow evening?”

“At the lady’s pleasure, before the dancing and iced wine, immediately following the grand sweep beneath the wagon for stray horseshit.”

“I may consent.”

“Then life is worth living.”

“Don’t be a dunce,” she said. “We should do our business at the tavern and get back before the Sanzas try to sneak off to the Guilded Lilies one last time.”

They came away from the tavern with cold boiled chicken, olives, black bread, and two skins of yellow wine with a flavor somewhere between turpentine and wasp piss. Simple as it was, the meal was ducal indulgence compared to the salted meat and hardtack waiting in crates on the back of their wagon. They ate in silence, distracted by the sight of the Five Towers shining in the oncoming night, and by hungry insects.

Jean volunteered to sit first watch (no Camorri ever born, least of all one who’d made it out of Shades’ Hill, would blithely trust to providence even in the literal shadow of a city watch barracks). After acknowledging this noble sacrifice, the other four curled up beneath the wagon, sweaty and mosquito-plagued, to bed down.

It occurred to Locke that this was technically the first time he and Sabetha had ever slept together in any sense of the term, even if they were separated by nothing less than a complete pair of Sanza twins.

“We crawl before we walk,” he sighed to himself. “We walk before we run.”

“Hey,” whispered Galdo, who was curled against his back, “you don’t fart in your sleep, do you?”

“How would you be able to detect a fart over your natural odor, Sanza?”

“For shame,” said Galdo. “There’s no Sanzas here, remember? I’m an Asino.”

“Oh yes,” said Locke with a yawn. “Yes, you certainly are.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIVE-YEAR GAME: STARTING POSITION

1

“SABETHA’S IN KARTHAIN,” said Locke.

“She could hardly do the job from elsewhere,” said Patience.

“Sabetha. My Sabetha—”

“I marvel at such a confident assertion of possession.”

“ OurSabetha, then. TheSabetha. How do you people know so gods-damned much about my life? How did you find her?”

“I didn’t,” said Patience. “Nor do I know how it was done. All I know is that her instructions and resources will mirror your own.”

“Except she has a head start,” said Jean, easing Locke back into his chair. The expression on Locke’s face was that of a prize fighter who’d just received a proper thunderbolt to the chin.

“And she’s working alone,” said Patience, “whereas you two have one another. So one might hope that her positional advantage will be purely temporary. Or is she really that much of a tiger, to set you both quaking?”

“I’m not quaking,” said Locke quietly. “It’s just … so gods-damned unexpected.”

“You’ve always hoped for a reunion, haven’t you?”

“On my own terms,” said Locke. “Does she know that it’s us she’s up against? Did she know before she took the job?”

“Yes,” said Patience.

“Your opposition, they didn’t do anything to her?”

“As far as I’m aware, she required no compulsion.”

“This is hard to take,” said Locke. “Gentlemen Bastards, well, we trained against one another, and we’ve quarreled, obviously, but we’ve never, ah, never actually opposed one another, not for real.”

“Given that she’s completely removed herself from your company for so many years now,” said Patience, “how can you believe that she still considers herself part of your gang?”

“ Thank youfor that, Patience,” growled Jean. “Do you have anything else for us? If not, I think we need to—”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. The cabin is yours.”

She withdrew. Locke put his head in his hands and sighed.

“I don’t expect life to make sense,” he said after a few moments, “but it would certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

“Don’t you want to see her again?”

“Of course I want to see her again!” said Locke. “I alwaysmeant to find her. I meant to do it in Camorr; I meant to do it after we’d made a big score in Tal Verrar. I just– You know how it’s all gone. She’s not going to be impressed.”

“Maybe she wantsto see you,” said Jean. “Maybe she leapt at the chance when the Bondsmagi approached her. Maybe she’d already tried to hunt us down.”

“Gods, what if she did? I wonder what she made of the mess we left behind in Camorr. I just can’t believe … working against her. Those bastards!”

“Hey, we’re just supposed to fix an election,” said Jean. “Nobody’s going to hurt her, least of all us.”

“I hope,” said Locke, brightening. “I hope … damn, I have no idea what to hope.” He spent a few minutes nibbling at his food in a nervous daze, while Jean sipped his warm red plonk.

“I do know this,” Locke said at last. “On the business side of things, we’re already in the shit.”

“Up to our elbows,” said Jean.

“Given a choice, I would have grudged her a ten-minute head start, let alone a few days.”

“Makes me think back to when Chains used to play you two off one another,” said Jean. “All those arguments … all those stalemates. Then more arguments.”

“Don’t think I don’t remember.” Locke tapped a piece of biscuit distractedly against the table. “Well, hell. It’s been five years. Maybe she’s learned to lose gracefully. Maybe she’s out of practice.”

“Maybe trained monkeys will climb out of my ass and pour me a glass of Austershalin brandy,” said Jean.

2

DAWN OVER the Amathel, the next morning. A hazy golden-orange ribbon rose from the eastern horizon, and the calm dark waters mirrored the cobalt sky. A dozen fishing boats were moving past the Sky-Reacherin a swarm, their triangular white wakes giving the small craft the appearance of arrowheads passing in dreamlike slow motion. Karthain itself was coming up to larboard, not half a mile away.

From the quarterdeck, Jean could see the clean white terraces of the city, bulwarked with thick rows of olive and cypress and witchwood trees, misted with a silver morning fog that gave him an unexpected pang for Camorr. A blocky stone lighthouse dominated the city’s waterfront, though at the moment its great golden lanterns were banked down so that their glow was no more than a warm aura crowning the tower.

Locke leaned against the taffrail, staring at the approaching city, eating cold beef and hard white cheese he’d piled awkwardly into his right hand. Locke had paced the great cabin most of the night, unable or unwilling to sleep, settling into his hammock only to rest his unsteady legs.

“How do you feel?” Patience, wrapped in a long coat and shawl, chose not to appear out of thin air, but approached them on foot.

“Ill-used,” said Locke.

“At least you’re alive to feel that way.”

“No need to drop hints. You’ll get your command performance out of us, never worry about that.”

“I wasn’t worried,” she said sweetly. “Here comes our dock detail.”

“Dock detail?” Jean glanced past Patience and saw a long, low double-banked boat rowed by twenty people approaching behind the last of the fishing boats.

“To bring the Sky-Reacherin,” said Patience, “and mind her lines and sails and other tedious articles.”

“Not in the mood to wiggle your fingers and square everything away?” said Locke.

“One of the few things that we agree upon, exceptionalists and conservatives alike, is that our arts don’t exist for the sake of swabbing decks.”

The dock detail came aboard at the ship’s waist, a very ordinary-looking pack of sailors. Patience beckoned for Locke and Jean to follow her as two of the newcomers took the wheel.

“I do assume you’re carrying your hatchets, Jean? And all of the documents I gave you?”

“Of course.”

“Then you shouldn’t mind going ashore immediately.”

She led them to the Sky-Reacher’slarboard waist, where Jean could see four sailors still waiting in the boat. It was an easy trip down the boarding net, just seven or eight feet. Even Locke made it without mishap, and then Patience, who evidently required a hoist only when gravity wasn’t on her side.

“Some of your people are waiting on the pier,” she said as she settled onto a rowing bench. “They’re all sensible of the urgency of the situation.”

“Our people?” said Locke.

“As of now, they’re entirely yourpeople. The arrangement of their affairs is in your hands.”

“And they’ll just do as we say? To what extent?”

“To a reasonableextent, Locke. Nobody will fling themselves into the lake at your whim, but you two are now the de facto heads of the Deep Roots party’s election apparatus. Functionaries will take your orders. Candidates will kiss your boots.”

The sailors pushed them away from the Sky-Reacherand pulled for the lantern-lit waterfront.

“This is the Ponta Corbessa,” said Patience, gesturing ahead. “The city wharf. I take it neither of you knows much about this place?”

“Our former plan was to avoid Karthain, uh, forever,” said Jean.

“Your new associates will acquaint you with everything. Give it a few days and you’ll be very comfortable, I’m sure.”

“Hrm,” said Locke.

“Speaking of comfort, there is one last thing I should mention.”

“And that is?” said Locke.

“You will of course be free to communicate with Sabetha in whatever fashion she allows, but collusion will not be acceptable. You are opponents. You will oppose and be opposed, without quarter. We’re paying you to see a contest. Disappoint us in that regard and I can assure you, not getting paid will be the least of your worries.”

“Give the threats a rest,” said Locke. “You’ll get your gods-damned contest.”

The longboat drew up against a stone quay. Jean clambered out of the boat and heaved Locke up after him, then grudgingly offered his arm to Patience. She took it with a nod.

They were in the shadow of the lighthouse now, on a stretch of cobbled waterfront backed by warehouses and shuttered shops. A sparse forest of masts rose behind the buildings—probably some sort of lagoon, Jean thought, where ships could rest in safety. The area was strangely deserted, save for a small group of people standing beside a carriage.

“Patience, said Jean, “what should we– Ah, hell!”

Patience had vanished. The sailors in the longboat pushed off without a word and headed back toward the Sky-Reacher.

“Bitch knows how to make an exit,” said Locke. He popped the last of his meat and cheese into his mouth and wiped his hands on his tunic.

“Excuse me!” A heavyset young man in a gray brocade coat broke from the group at the carriage. “You must be Masters Callas and Lazari!”

“We must,” said Jean, flashing a friendly smile. “Pray give us a moment.”

“Oh,” said the man, who possessed the true Karthani accent, which was something like the speech of a Lashani after a few strong drinks. “Of course.”

“Now,” said Jean quietly, turning to Locke, “who are we?”

“A pair of rats about to stick their noses into a big fucking trap.”

“Characters, you git. Lazari and Callas. We should settle the particulars before we start talking to people.”

“Ah, right.” Locke scratched his chin. “We’ve got no time to practice Karthani accents, so to hell with hiding that we’re from out of town.”

“Less work suits me,” said Jean.

“Good. Then we need to decide who’s the iron fist and who’s the velvet glove.”

“Sounds like something you should be hiring a couple of strumpets to help you with.”

“I’d hit you if I thought it would do any good, Jean. You know what I mean.”

“Right. Let’s be obvious. Me brute, you weasel.”

“Agreed. You brute, me charming mastermind. But there’s no sense in setting things too taut before we even know who we’re dealing with. Be a brute that plays nice until provoked.”

“So we’re not actually playing characters at all, then?”

“Well, hell.” Locke cracked his knuckles and shrugged. “It’s one less detail for us to muck up. Anyway, Patience said these people would eat out of our hands. Let’s put that to the test.”

“Now then,” said Jean, turning back to the heavyset young man. “Start talking again.”

“I’m delighted to see you alive and well, gentlemen!” The stranger came closer, and Jean noted his round, ruddy features, the look of a man eager to please and be pleased. And yet his eyes, behind slender optics, were shrewd and measuring. His hair had failed to retain any sort of hold on the areas forward of his ears, but he had a thick and well-tended plait that hung, black as a raven’s wing, to the small of his back. “When we heard about the wreck, we were distraught. The Amathel is lately so mild, it’s hard to credit—”

“Wreck,” said Locke. “ Ah, yes, the wreck! Yes. The terrible, convenient wreck. What else could compel us to be here without decent clothing or purses? Well, I’m afraid everything happened in such a terrible rush, but I’m told that we survived.”

“Ha! Splendid. Fear nothing, gentlemen, I’m here to mend your situation in every particular. My name is Nikoros.”

“Sebastian Lazari.” Locke extended his hand. Nikoros shook it with a look of surprise on his face.

“Tavrin Callas,” said Jean. Nikoros’ grip was dry and firm.

“Well, I say, thank you, gentlemen, thank you! What an unexpected mark of confidence. I take it very kindly.”

“Mark of confidence?” said Locke. “Forgive us, Nikoros. We’re new to Karthain. I’m not sure we understand what we’ve done.”

“Oh,” said Nikoros. “Damned stupid of me. I apologize. It’s just that … well, you’ll probably think us such a pack of credulous ninnies, but I assure you … it’s tradition. Here in Karthain we’re close, extremelyclose, with our given names. On account of, you know, the Presence.”

It was easy enough for Jean to hear the capital “P” as Nikoros pronounced the word.

“You mean,” he said, “the Bonds—”

“Yes, the magi of the Isas Scholastica. When we speak of ‘the Presence,’ well—we’re just being polite. We’re quite used to them, really. They’re not the objects of, ah, curiosity they might be elsewhere. In fact, I can assure you they look almost like ordinary people. You’d be amazed!”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Locke. “Well, this is useful stuff. I take it we should withhold our given names when we’re introduced to Karthani?”

“Well, yes. It’s the hoariest old superstition, but it’s been our custom since the fall of the old Throne. Most of us use birth-order titles or nicknames. I’m called Nikoros Via Lupa, since my office is on the Avenue of the Wolves. But plain Nikoros suits as well.”

“We’re obliged to you,” said Jean. “Now, what is it that you do, exactly?”

“I’m a trade insurer. Ships and caravans. But, ah, more relevantly, I’m on the Deep Roots party standing committee. I’m sort of a shepherd for party business.”

“You have real authority over party affairs?”

“Oh, quite. Funds and operations, with some latitude. But, ah, when it comes to that, gentlemen, my most important duty is to carry out your instructions. Once I’ve helped you settle in, of course.”

“And you understand the nature of our employment,” said Locke. “The realnature of it, that is.”

“Oh, oh, quite.” Nikoros tapped the side of his nose with a finger several times and smiled. “Those of us at the top understand that half the fight is, well, unconventional. We’re all for it! After all, the Black Iris are out to do the same to us. We think they might even bring in specialists like yourselves.”

“Be assured they have,” said Locke. “How long have you been involved with all this?”

“Party business, you mean? Oh, ten years or so. It’s the biggest thing going, socially. More fun than billiards. I worked with our, ah, specialist last election. We pulled off nine seats, and nearly won! We have such hopes, this time around.”

“Well,” said Jean, “the sooner we’re settled in, the sooner we can nourish those hopes.”

“Right! To the carriage. We’ll get you two wrapped up in something more suitable.” He beckoned, and a slender blonde woman in a black velvet jacket met them halfway as they moved toward the carriage. “Allow me to present Seconddaughter Morenna, Morenna Clothiers.”

“Your servant.” She curtsied, and a brass-weighted measuring line appeared in her hands as swiftly as an assassin’s knife. “It seems you have a sartorial emergency.”

“Yes,” said Locke. “Circumstance has flung us down and danced upon us.”

“Clothes first,” said Nikoros as he hustled Locke and Jean into the enclosed carriage box, “then we’ll see to your funds.” Morenna came last. Nikoros drew the door shut and pounded on the underside of the carriage roof. As it rattled off, Morenna seized the collar of Locke’s slop jacket and pulled him firmly to a hunched-over standing position.

“I beg your deepest pardon,” she muttered, plying her measuring line around his neck and shoulders. “We usually keep a fellow on hand at the shop to take the measurements of our gentlemen customers, but he’s taken ill. I assure you that I make these intrusions as impersonally as a physiker.”

“It would never occur to me to be offended,” said Locke in a dazed voice.

“Marvelous. If you’ll excuse me, sir, we’ll just need to have your jacket off.” She somehow managed to fold, wrench, and twirl Locke within the confined space, removing his jacket at last and causing a small rain of twice-baked ship’s biscuits to patter around the carriage interior. “Oh my, I had no idea—”

“Not your fault,” said Locke with an embarrassed cough. “I, uh, like to feed birds.”

Under his arms, around his chest, along the outside of his legs—Morenna took measurements from Locke with the speed of a fencer scoring touches. Soon it was Jean’s turn.

“Same thing, sir,” she muttered while she fussed with his coat.

“There’s no need—If you’ll give me a moment—,” said Jean, but it was too late.

“Heavens,” said Morenna as she pulled his hatchets out of their makeshift hiding place at the small of his back. “These have seen some use.”

“I’ve had to settle the occasional misunderstanding.”

“Do you prefer to carry them tucked away like this under a coat or jacket?”

“There’s nowhere better.”

“Then I can show you several rigs that could be stitched into your coats. We’ve got leather harness, cloth straps, metal rings, all reliable and discreet. Tuck a whole arsenal into your breeches and waistcoats, if you like.”

“You’re my new favorite tailor,” said Jean, contentedly submitting to the darting play of the measuring line while the carriage rolled along.

3

THEIR JOURNEY took about ten minutes, while the sun rose and painted the walls and alleys around them with warm light. Jean took advantage of his window seat to form several impressions of Karthain along the way.

The first was that it was a city of tiered heights. As they moved inward from the waterfront, past the ship-filled lagoon, he saw that the more northerly sections of the city rose, hills and terraces alike, to a sort of plateau that must have been several hundred feet above the Ponta Corbessa. Nothing so extreme as Tal Verrar’s precipitous drops, but it did seems as though the gods or the Eldren had tilted the city about forty-five degrees toward the water after originally laying it out.

Furthermore, it seemed to be an unusually well-tended place. Perhaps Nikoros had chosen a route that would best flatter his city? Whatever the case, Jean couldn’t fail to note the swept streets, the clean white stone of the newer houses, the neatly trimmed trees, the smooth bubbling of every fountain and waterfall, or the decorative enamel mosaics on the cable cars sliding between the taller buildings.

Most striking was the character of the city’s Elderglass. Its bridges over the wide Karvanu (which poured down five separate white-foaming falls before it reached the heart of the city) were not solid arches, but rather suspension bridges made of thousands of panels of milky black Elderglass, connected by countless finger-thick lengths of glass cable to supporting towers like spindly caricatures of human temple spires.

The first bridge they crossed had a disconcerting amount of sway and bounce—just a few inches of give, to be sure, but any bounce at all was of immediate interest to someone high over water in a carriage.

“Never fear,” said Nikoros, noticing the matching expressions on Locke and Jean’s faces. “You’ll be used to this in no time. It’s Elderglass! Nothing we do could so much as fray a cable.”

Jean stared at the other huge bridges spanning the Karvanu. They looked like the work of mad giant spiders, or harps designed for hands the size of palaces. He also noticed, for the first time, a strangely tuneful humming and creaking that he assumed was the music of the cables.

“Welcome to the Isas Salvierro,” said Nikoros when the carriage halted a few minutes later, blessedly back on unyielding stone. “A business district, one of the pumping hearts of the city. My office is just north of here.”

The small group bustled out of the carriage and into Morenna Clothiers, where they found a wide shop floor surrounded by a raised second-floor gallery. Seconddaughter Morenna locked the door behind them.

“These aren’t our usual hours,” she said. “You’re an emergency case.”

There was a strong smell of coffee wafting throughout the shop, and Jean’s mouth watered. The walls of the lower room were layered with bolts of cloth in a hundred different colors and textures, while several wooden racks of coats and jackets had been brought out into the middle of the floor.

“Allow me to introduce Firstdaughter Morenna,” said Seconddaughter, pointing to a taller, heavier blonde woman on the upper level, who was pulling a gleaming metallic thread from a rattling clockwork spindle. “And of course our darling Thirddaughter.”

The youngest of the tailoring sisters was as petite as Seconddaughter, though her hair was a shade darker and she alone of the three wore optics. She was absorbed in trimming some unknown velvet bundle with a pair of blackened-iron shears, and she gave the merest nod in greeting.

“Thimbles on, girls, it’s time for battle,” said Seconddaughter.

“My,” said Firstdaughter, who stepped away from her machine and descended to the first floor. “Shipwreck, was it? You gentlemen look like you’ve been in the wars. Is Lashain having some sort of difficulty?”

“Lashain is its old charming self, madam,” said Locke. “Our misfortune was personal.”

“You’ve come to the right place. We adore a challenge. And we adorn the challenged! Second, have you taken their measurements?”