Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

“What payment do you think you can expect?”

“Do you think I name my price first?”

“Can you suppose I will show my hand by naming mine first?”

She hissed a sound meant, I thought, to be a laugh. “An unusual negotiating technique.”

A hammering rush of excitement flushed my body. I was learning how to use the very binding that trapped me. “Answering questions with questions?”

“Betraying your knowledge of the maze.”

“What makes you think I have any knowledge of it?”

Her crest lifted as a strange crease narrowed the bold, watchful eyes. “As you rats would say, you have scored a point. Custom demands I acknowledge your step upward on Triumph Spire.”

“Triumph Spire, where the young bucks preen,” I muttered, recalling Maester Godwik’s words. I had thought it a physical place, like a rocky promontory, but now I wondered if it was more abstract than geological in the way that males competed for intangible but recognized forms of status. “Tell me, Keer, why would a cold mage from Europa work with trolls?”

Keer gave a hiss I took for an indication of amusement or anticipation. “Next round. Yours now the right to draw the circle and step inside.”

I hadn’t the desire to begin another round. “Mine the right. I will return.”

Trolls did not insist on a long ceremony of leave-taking, perhaps because sometimes one did not take one’s leave but was merely consumed after a loss. I took my leave, hoping to order my thoughts as I trudged home. No, the boardinghouse was not home. It was for the best, anyway, that I move out, because I was putting them at risk by living and working there.

Aunty’s gaze was steady on me as I came in the gate. “I hope yee got done what business yee had a mind for.”

I glanced away, for I found I could not tell her I was leaving. “I did.”

Her smile put me in mind of a basking lizard awaiting its inattentive dinner. “I don’ mind saying we shall miss yee this evening. Yee get a nap. Yee have not yet danced at an areito.”

I just could not tell her. “No. I haven’t done that.”

She exchanged glances with Brenna and Uncle Joe. I was too restless to nap, so I made myself busy with sweeping and mending while Brenna spent hours braiding Luce’s hair. Luce chattered the whole while for she was so excited that she would get to go with us. I could not bear to break Luce’s heart by not going. And I wanted to go; I wanted to dance and sing at an areito. Bee wouldn’t begrudge me one more night. Rory would enjoy such a festival! Tomorrow I could make my farewells.

It rained, but the clouds cleared off under a brisk wind. I washed in the shower, and afterward Luce, her hair done, dragged me upstairs to dress. She wore a lovely pagne and a new blouse. She brought a mirror and, while I dressed, held it to check the way her tiny braids curved in at the ends around the back. When I complimented her, she smiled.

“Oooh me stars!” She angled the mirror to show me the cut and fit from behind. “No wonder yee saved this for an areito! Yee look so fine!”

Normally I wore the wrapped skirt and a loose cotton blouse that was the common fashion, but over the weeks I had labored over piecing together a skirt from my ruined petticoats, one that flattered my waist and hips but gave me plenty of room for my long stride and for climbing if need be. The top had proved harder to devise, since there was no possible reason to wear layers of clothing as we did in the north. I had cut down my wool jacket to three-quarter sleeves and a hem that ended at my hip bones. The wool challis wicked the moisture off my skin; layered over my sleeveless cotton bodice, it was quite comfortable.

She set down the mirror, sat me on the end of the bed, and began brushing out my hair, as she liked to do, humming a popular street melody. I heard footsteps at the base of the stairs. Luce brushed on obliviously, unaware.

The low, sardonic voice was Kayleigh’s. “Is that a bed???”

“I thought it was time to get off those uncomfortable cots,” answered Vai in a tone whose cheerfulness made me suspicious.

“Then why is there only one bed, Vai?”

“I can only make one at a time. After I’m done with my regular work.”

A bed!

“Cat?” Lucretia bent to look in my face. “Yee went stiff, like a frog hopped over yee foot.”

Vai was still speaking. “Aren’t you going to the areito? Kofi hopes so.”

Kayleigh’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I have to go back. But I had to bring you this news. This is not rumor. General Camjiata returned to the city last night.”

I choked.