Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

“Lyria of Lagalos.”

“Martian?” He laughs. “Well, then I’m relieved they didn’t ask how the devil I knew you. Martian. Ha. That’s a rip. Could have undone it all.” He rubs out his burner and gets to his feet, about to leave.

“Why’d you help me?” I ask again.

“You look like someone I used to know.” He pauses. “And I hate that highColor piss. Flexing muscles, as if they haven’t already had their run. You have a lovely day now, Lyria of Lagalos. Mind your tongue when talking with tinpots. That Stefano was a nice one. Most are all twitchy as flies these days with all the terrorists and Vox firestarters.”

He walks off.

“Wait!”

He stops. “Yes?”

“I owe you,” I say, reaching for my billfold. “You mind me, I mind you. That’s how it’s done.”

“You want to pay me?” He’s offended. “Heavens no. Don’t cheapen the serendipity, love.” He pauses as people pass between us. He seems to be contemplating something. His hand rests on his sternum, touching something under his shirt. “Well, damnation,” he says with a sigh. “You do look like a lost thing. How long have you resided in our fair city?”

“It’s my first day.”

He coos. “You poor little rabbit.”

“I’m not a rabbit,” I snap.

He laughs. “True. Your teeth are much bigger. So, day one. And what have you seen?” He snatches my brochure when I hold it up. “Piteous child. You’ll stand in line all day. Well, just so happens I need to walk. It’s for the knee, you see. Old wound. How about you thank me by giving me some company and lending me an ear so I don’t have to talk to myself the entire time. It’s an even trade, I think.”

I hesitate.

“I promise you a splendid day of revelry and fraternity.”

He’s got mischievous eyes. On the whole, I trust those more than I do kind eyes. Those are the ones that pity me. “I can do that.”

“Splendid.” He turns to walk away. “We’re going now, Lyria of Lagalos.” He pats his leg. “Hop, hop.”

I find Philippe hilarious. We walk and talk across the Promenade level, stopping at the unpopular but beautiful Pallas Gallery to see glass sculptures that look like Laureltide dancers frozen in time, and at the Cerebian Zoo, where kangaroos and zebras and other extinct creatures have been brought back to flesh and blood by carvers. He introduces me to caramel and cardamom popcorn and flavored ice. We smoke burners amongst lamplit trees in Aristotle Park and watch loose dogs chase mourning doves that gather to drink at the fountains. Philippe narrates as if I asked him to. He has a way with words, using many I don’t know, and some in ways I’m not familiar with. There’s something worldly about him, something cultured, so cultured that he mocks the uppity manners of the ladies in the furs and jewelry that I at first thought so intimidating.

Ava, you’d love this man. Nothing like the stupid boys of the township.

He also seems to want to know me. Not about me like everyone else, but about what I think. I ramble on, forgetting to feel self-conscious, and he watches, touching that something beneath his shirt.

He might be older than my father, but he’s got something youthful about him that makes me smile. He hides something, a deep sadness maybe. And sometimes I catch him watching the trees or a fountain like he’s been here before with someone else a long time ago. When he does this, he always touches his chest.

I wonder who I remind him of.

I lose track of time, forgetting that the sun doesn’t set at the end of the day here. When I say I should get back to the Citadel, Philippe demands to escort me after we cap the day with a dinner at a little Venusian place he knows. I hesitate despite the growling in my stomach, about to make an excuse because I’ve never been to a real restaurant, and I’m self-conscious of my terrible coat, and I’m fretting I won’t be able to afford it; but he twists my arm. Damn well he did. The little Venusian place is the finest place I’ve ever seen. Napkins and plates as white as hardboiled eggs. Silver utensils. Music trickling from a Violet zitherist playing underneath an ivy gazebo that looks out at the Citadel and the mountains to the north.

“Pains me to think you’ve lived a life without oysters,” Philippe says, slurping one down.

“Well, you haven’t ever had fried pitviper eggs.”

“An acquired taste, no doubt.”

I shiver as I slurp down another oyster. I chewed the first one and almost retched, but now I know to take them down all at once, I’m beginning to like them if I sauce them with enough vinegar. Or maybe I like that I like them. I feel very important when the waiter comes and asks if we’d like anything else and I say, “That’s right, another flight please.”

“And two more martinis,” Philippe demands. “Insidiously dirty, you charmer.”

The waiter blushes and patters away. I watch him go, dreading what this will all cost when I could barely afford a coffee. Philippe tosses his empty shell into a pail. “These don’t hold a candle to true Venusian crustaceans, but with the war, Earth does its best.”

“I heard trade might reopen with the Peace,” I say knowingly. Heard that bit from one of Quicksilver’s men who visited Kavax couple weeks back.