Havemercy. Part 5

Nearest landmark to the Basquiata"stuck up on a nice little hill of its own, neat as you pleasea"was the aVersity Stretch. That was where good boys and girls went to drain their mamas and papas of their hard-earned cash in order to learn how to speak all proper and read things in dusty books that happened to no one left alive today. Not nothing or no one useful ever came out of the aVersity Stretch, and our sensitive new p.i.s.s-pot professor was only further proof of it.

aYouare clenching the reins,a said Havemercy.

I was. Just thinking about that little wh.o.r.eson and his plans and his research made me want to spit, so I did, since there was no one to give me black looks in the air.

aVersity students didnat have much money, of course, after spending it all on books and whatever the f.u.c.k, so if you followed the Stretch itad run you right into the Rue. The Rue daSt. Differencea"where you could buy anything except slaves and s.e.xa"was where the merchants established themselves and vied for customers every sunup to sundown. Foreigners coming to the city from elsewhere had a real problem with the Rue, since it was the only place where the roads ran straight instead of all crabbing crooked in the same direction. Niall, who spent more time on the ground and in the city than any self-respecting airman should, said that this year the Rue was crowded with milliners, and women in fancy wide-brimmed hats with feathers and ribbons. I tried to get him to bring me one back so we could stick it on Balfour, but he went on whining about the price until I wanted to punch him in the face; and then he said he was never going to do me any favors, ever.

Whatever. Adamo would only have torn me a new one for it, anyway.

The roads went crooked again sure as rain as soon as they bent off into Charlotte. The middle sister was where most men found their sport. Grouped together were the unmistakable red roofs and pointed, storied buildings marking the Amazement, Volstovas entertainment district, filled with opera and theatre and a bit of whoring just to keep things interesting afterward. aCourse there were restaurants, if coffee after was more your bag, but you were like to be laughed straight back into Miranda with a priss att.i.tude like that. Charlotte didnat coddle, and it made no bones about someoneas ideas of segregation. If they wanted you out, theyad let you know. It was only a madman whoad want to live in Charlotte after Miranda, but you had to respect her att.i.tude.

Through the center, just to one side of the Amazement, ran a road that was sharp and jagged as a lightning bolt. This was man-made. Wolf as Run, where the Provostas men made their digs, and they didnat have time for meandering around slow, sloping curves. The Run was located special in the center of things, so the wolves could duck into upper or lower as neat as they pleased whenever they had to keep the peace. I donat know why they didnat just stick the whole thing on the Mollyedge and keep the troubles out that way, but thereas no accounting for what some people think is sensible.

I didnat have any desire to fly over Mollya"Hapenny Lane, Tuesday Street, and an over-f.u.c.king-abundance of dirty, diseased urchins being its only commodities and sole export of the lowest maiden with her skirts soaking in ocean brine. No, I didnat want to get near it, and not even to get to the ocean.

I said so sudden and firm to Havemercy as she twisted and climbed, fickle in the wind.

af.u.c.k that,a she said. aI wanted to see the boats.a aNo time,a I replied, though honestly I didnat know whether it had been twenty minutes or forty since wead took off.

She made a wheezy sound, like a cranky bellows, and flicked her tail in a way that meant she knew I was lying.

Twenty-five, I decided impartially, and only for the harbor. We continued on.

The harbor was a deceptive place, clean and bustling as it was. Thremedon City wasnat a port town in that we needed the trade or nothing, but boats came and left just as often as they pleased since the Ke-Han had no use for the seas. Theyad been f.u.c.ked over more than once trying to cross them, which was why itad been such a big surprise when theyad snuck up and took the Kiril Islands right out from under thaEsaras nose. Took aem a good few years to manage that one, and not from their fighting skills or nothinga"because it took them that long to get across the water without capsizing in the storms.

Thremedonas harbor was filled with s.h.i.+ps built by people who knew what they were doing, else I didnat think theyad have made it to us at all. Caelian barges with their dark orange sails like buildings on fire; little merchant vessels from Arlemagne; the fis.h.i.+ng boats of the Molly-dwellers that were almost too small and insignificant to make out, like everything else that made up part and parcel of Molly.

I only felt sorry for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who didnat realize where theyad landed, smack in the middle of the cityas poorest and filthiest.

I was so f.u.c.king glad to be out of there.

Havemercy was humming a tune Iad taught her myself, picked up in one of the bars and memorized acause I knew shead eat it up with a spoon. The bawdy songs were her favorite, and I could tell when she was in high spirits because of when she broke out with one. Anyone who says the dragons canat have emotions acause theyare made of metalas never flown one, see, though that sort of talk never bothered me. Have and I understood each other.

aFeeling better?a I asked before she could get to the line about the earl with a girl on each knee.

aAre you?a Havemercy beat her wings extra-hard, like she was jumping in the air, and evened out again.

I thought about it. aAlways better when weare off the ground,a I answered, at length.

aBastionas own truth,a she said, and went back to her song.

THOM.

aSo,a Marius asked that evening. aHow was it?a He was being kind about everythinga"treating me to dinner in Reliquaryas finesta"because he pitied me. And though I didnat relish being pitied for prolonged periods of time, I knew that the more I spoke to him, the more I could postpone heading back to be given the grand tour. Anything to avoid that, I thought; and, because Marius was paying and had a.s.sured me it was all right, I ordered the duck.

aYouare asking after the grand offender himself, arenat you,a I said, suddenly very interested in the design of my salad fork.

aWell, I was going to wait for a while to bring it up. But since you mention it . . . Indeed, I am.a aI think he might have been raised by wolves,a I replied. aOr at least by the Ke-Han themselves.a aHa,a said Marius, though somewhat humorlessly. aHilarious. That dreadful?a aWe already know heas an abuser of women,a I said darkly. aThe first exercise I had planneda"a aIntroductions, yes; I thought that was very clever.a aThank you.a Marius always knew what to saya"and, surrounded by the friendly candlelight of the Amory Rose, I felt comforted, less fatalistic. aWhen it was his turn, he spoke at great length about the joys of forcing his way between a ladyas legs.a aItas said he comes from Molly,a Marius pointed out. aSo of course, heas bound to be vulgar, isnat he? Itas common enough. Heall be a nuisance, but at the least you can always remind yourself how much smarter you are.a aI donat know,a I said. aWhether or not he can write his own name seems to have very little impact on his ability to be an a.s.s.a aSo heas the heart of the trouble, do you think? The ringleader?a As much as I wanted to ask Marius how he managed the most troublesome of students, I was nearly certain that much of it had to do with his age, his experience, and his own confidence. I had none of these three tools, and was rather certain of my imminent doom. aYes.a I sighed.

aI have no advice for you, Thomas,a said Marius, though he did look rueful. Perhaps I wasnat so averse to pity as Iad thought. aYou must weather ita"and you mustnat let him win.a I thought of the stark gray lines of the Airman, where the pilots slept close by to their dragons. It was a new building, an ugly intrusion on the landscape of Miranda. And, like its inhabitants, it was made too many allowances.

aI know,a I said, firmly. aI wonat.a HAL.

If Iad known getting myself almost drowned by the rain would help improve the Margraveas spirits so enormously, I would have done it sooner.

Well, that mightnat have been entirely true, and at least, if Iad been clever enough to plan it beforehand, I wouldnat have involved poor William.

After the chatelain recovered from his short-lived period of relief, the boy was confined to the indoors for the rest of the month, and by no more than the second day of his punishment he was nearly climbing the walls with boredom. I myself was suffering from something of a cold and was also cautioned to remain inside the castle, so I tried to entertain him with a few storybooks, but soon we ran out of stories he hadnat already heard. If we were left to our own devices much longer, I feared he might run away and really be lost to us for good.

Yet Margrave Royston was like unto a different man, and so we werenat left to our own devices at all.

Iad given up on the storybooks entirely and thought to try a bit of the lesson plan I was forever amending to please Williamas ever-changing interests. It began with an explanation of Volstovas war with Xiaan, its history and the reasons for ita"though Iad never been able to find two textbooks that agreed on the lattera"but to my dismay, there wasnat anything more recent than fifty years ago, and it had none of the detailed descriptions about famous battles that William was so enthusiastic about.

aI donat understand,a he said, peering at the book over my shoulder as though he was angry with it.

aWhat donat you understand?a I asked, in a calm voice that Iad been perfecting for just this purpose. I thought that if I at least sounded like a proper tutor, it wouldnat matter so much that I didnat feel like one at all.

aYou keep talking about the war,a William said, aand about the mountains and those others, the Ramanthines. But I donat understand. Who are the villains?a aI . . . well,a I said, turning to the table of contents in the front of the book and stalling for time. aIam not sure. Itas not exactly that simple.a aOh but there must be villains,a William insisted. aIt isnat a proper story without them. Papa always does the villains with a scary voice, but Mama says it hurts her throat, and she pretends like there arenat any in the stories she reads me. Does it hurt your throat too?a aNo,a I said, reaching for another book that might have the answer I was looking for. aItas not that. I only think that there may really not be any villains in this story in particular. It all depends on what side youare coming from.a aOr whose side of the table youare sitting on,a said the Margrave Royston from where he was standing in the doorway.

aOh,a I said, and stood, brus.h.i.+ng dust off the backs of my trousers and fighting away the urge to rub my nose with the back of my sleeve. (Such behavior was countrified, vulgar, and unacceptable, said the Mme; only sometimes I forgot myself, and there was no kerchief handy.) aIam afraid I donat quite follow.a I thought at first that the Margrave must have caught a fever from being out so long in the downpour the same way Iad caught a cold, but on that second day, as he showed no particularly feverish symptoms, I realized that what head actually caught was the memory of a purpose.

It changed him, chased the darkness from his eyes. He shook his head as though head only just remembered. aIam sorry, I forgot. It happened before you were born. The last time we attempted diplomacy with Xiaan, William, our amba.s.sador had some bad eel, which caused him to be ill all over the Ke-Han warlordas favored niece.a aHe threw up?a William asked, with scandalized delight.

aYes,a the Margrave said, looking very serious. aShe thought it was an attack, poor creature, and defended herself with a knife.a William was now looking at the Margrave Royston as if he were the last slice of chocolate cake at dinner.

He was not so absent a man that he did not notice the attention. aHave you run out of stories already, William?a aYes, wella"a I couldnat help speaking up, since I was feeling somewhat responsible in the first place. aYou see, weave read most of them before.a aYes,a William said sullenly, awe have,a as if it were the worst fate in all the world. Part of me very much agreed with him.

aWhat, even the one about Slipfinger the Penniless?a the Margrave asked.

aAnd his fifteen different adventures,a I confirmed.

William scuffed his toe against the carpet, and added under his breath, aWhich werenat so different, not really.a aWell, after the tenth they do tend to get a bit similar,a the Margrave agreed. He took a moment to look around the room, half of its shelves miserably empty and the dusky sunlight sinking low just outside the lone, squat window. For a moment I thought he would reject it and be lost to his fog just from the sight, but then, to my surprise, he stepped inside and clasped his hands before him. aIf youad like, William, I could always tell you about Cobalt Range.a That was the most famous battle in the past fifteen years, and Williamas eyes widened enormously. aWere you there, Uncle Roy?a he asked, all his sullenness forgotten.

aMore or less,a the Margrave said.

aWould you like a seat?a I asked, admittedly eager to hear the story myself.

aIf itas no trouble,a said the Margrave, who seemed to have only just realized there was but one comfortable chair in the entire room.

aPapa broke the other one,a William said sagely. aHe was very angry.a aHead lost his favorite horse,a I explained, then drew up the chair for the Margrave. I caught him looking at me with a curious expressiona"I couldnat understand ita"but by the time Iad thought to look again for any clues to the puzzle, he wasnat looking at me at all, turning instead to helping William scramble up beside him on the chair. I sat at his feet, knees drawn up to my chest.

aAre you quite all right down there?a the Margrave inquired. aSurelya"though this is the countrya"there are other chairs to be had somewhere about the place.a aHal enjoys sitting in strange places,a William confided.

I felt my ears grow hot, and knew without having to see them for myself that they were as pink as my cheeks.

The Margrave cleared his throat; not entirely in disapproval, I thought, but it hardly mattered, as I was still blus.h.i.+ng. aIs that so?a he said. aTo each his own, it would seem.a aTell the story, Uncle Roy,a William pleaded, and I was grateful for the distraction.

aWhich story was that? Oh, yes, Cobalt Range.a The Margrave closed his eyes for a moment, and sigheda"not entirely happily, but with a certain pleasure in remembering. aYes. Ten years ago, almost eleven. It was only my second campaign, and the first had hardly given me any experience at all. Now, a curiosity of the mountains is that no one wants to fight there for long. Though the higher ground is what counts, of course, in a battle, itas a lot of mean, close-in fighting. You canat get any s.p.a.ce to fight, trapped like that, and s.p.a.ce becomes very important when, wellaa"he paused, with a glance at Williama"awhen there are a frightful amount of explosions going off all at once.a aBrilliant,a said William happily, and the Margrave looked relieved. If head been worrying over Williamas appet.i.te for violence, he neednat have done. Mme was often chasing him away from Cooke when he told his stories of terrible riding injuries and horses with broken bones.

aOn the other side of the Cobalts,a he went on, athere is a valley. Imagine it like this: The Ke-Han city closest to our mountains is like a blue bowl, carved deep and smooth into the earth.a He spoke of it like a beautiful thing, respect lighting his eyes and touching his voice, though I thought that where the Ke-Han were concerned every man was a barbarian and in no position to be concerning himself with beauty.

aNow, this city of theirs,a the Margrave went on. aWe thought that if we could push them back to it, get out of the mountains and into the open s.p.a.ce, those of us with . . . particularly useful Talentsa"skills that were doing no one any good all pinned together as we were like sardines in a cana"the fighting would end more quickly. And we did need it to end, because while much of our battle magic was rendered useless by proximity, theirs was doing just fine, and many men were dying.

aNo one quite understands the Ke-Han magic. We do know that itas something unique, feral and uncultivated when compared to ours. Something to do with the elements, though, and they seem particularly fond of wind. I think they focus on that because they know our air forcea"the Dragon Corpsa"is so vital to our successes past and present.

aSeven days they hammered at us with everything they had. The Reds took it the hardest, being commanded to fight no matter what, and most of them with no knowledge of magic save what their grandmothers had told them about the Well.a He shook his head, as though the memory was painful for him, but it was clearly an old hurt, long since healed over, and nothing that I recognized of that deeper hurt with which I was already familiar.

aTheyad only spared twelve magicians on the Cobalts, and there were two and a half times more than that against us. Their leader was a man named Jiro, and he was clever, as much as I hated to admit it. He was going to keep us holed up in those mountains until we died of starvation, or ran out of soldiers, or both.a aWhat about the dragons, Uncle Roy?a Williamas mouth hung halfway open as though he were under some spellbinding enchantment.

aIam getting to them, nephew of mine,a the Margrave said, poking the end of Williamas nose with a heretofore unseen affection. Then he looked at me.

I swallowed, feeling peculiara"as though I were under some kind of enchantment myself. I tucked my knees in closer to my chest.

aWe moved just after noon,a he went on, and this time his eyes did not leave my face. aWaiting until night would have given us better cover, but those dragons you love so much, young William, arenat worth p.i.s.s in the daytime. Pardon my vulgarity. By then the Ke-Han had done us so much damage that theyad grown complacenta"a.s.sumed theyad already won the battle. There were the eight of my fellows left, along with the Fourteenth Company of Reds and a handful of the Ninth. The rocks were sharp and loose from over a week of near-constant a.s.sault, and pus.h.i.+ng down through the mountain pa.s.ses became like sliding on an ever-s.h.i.+fting sea of shale. One of our members had a Talent for concealment; this may very well have saved all our lives.

aIntelligence and more than an appropriate amount of guesswork told us that the Ke-Han were operating from an elaborate network of tunnels in the mountains. Of course, those tunnels were the only spot on the whole d.a.m.ned mountaina"donat tell your mother I used that word, Williama"where wind hadnat hammered the rock to death. We slipped into the tunnels silent as shadows, the other magicians and I, while the Reds advanced farther into the city. Wead been promised air support if the dragons could untangle their wings from their a.s.ses in time. If they werenat there by nightfall, then it wouldnat much matter, either way.a He sighed, rubbing his long fingers over his forehead as though he were suddenly weary, though in a moment it pa.s.sed and I was left wondering if Iad been seeing things. I still didnat understand Margrave Royston and his all-too-mercurial moods, but he smiled with far more teeth than strictly necessary, and it was better than the resignation from days before.

aIt all went wrong in the tunnels. Jenkins knocked over some rock-rabble shrine, and released some d.a.m.ned wind spirit that started howling like fury. Of course the Ke-Han woke up, came pouring in from every direction; it was like being trapped in a rat warren. We ended up racing for our lives. By some miracle we ended up outside. Ia"I went last, collapsed the entire setup behind us.

aBy then, of course, wead caused such a ruckus that the city below was sending off alarm fireworks, bright red like fire in the darkening sky. Our colors.

aWith the element of surprise lost, many of us no longer had anything to lose. The sun was dipping below the edge of the mountain range at our backs; in a few hours it would stain the sky as red as the soldiersa coats. We descended into the city, Ninth Company at our backs and the Fourteenth with me in front.

aI . . . operate better if there isnat anyone in the way, you see, as it wouldnat do any good to go blowing away our allies.

aI donat remember who it was who started singing the anthem, low and rolling. It moved through our battered little platoon like a wave until we were shouting it to the skies, song punctuated by blasts of rock and the shouts of our enemies. We made it nearly to the gates before theyad mustered almost enough of a force to greet us. Wead caught them off guard, remember, and most thought our campaign in the mountains quite over and done with.

aJenkins died with a spear in his throat; it was a terrible way to go. And thatasa"Well, that was when I lost my temper and blew a hole in the cerulean wall surrounding the city. Nearly killed myself in the process, interestingly enough, as thereas only so much a magician can do with his own Talent before it starts to tug at his blood, and the wall was built with a very old magic. Still, it seemed like we might almost be ma.s.sacred then and there, after all, with the Ke-Han screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder with their deep-throated war cries, and cras.h.i.+ng their enormous war gongs, and pouring out from behind the city walls like an endless stream of ants.

aThen the dragons came.

aIt started as a high whine, like the whistle of a kettle. Then the sound changed, became akin to that of the wind spirits that had rushed through the tunnels earlier that morning. It was, of course, the sound of wings, metal and magic, beating the aira"and turning the tides of battle, I like to think. They covered the sky, streaking copper and silver, platinum and gold, flas.h.i.+ng their bellies and glinting ferociously in the moonlight. Iad never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.a aDo they really breathe fire?a William asked.

I realized my mouth had been hanging open and closed it abruptly.

aIn a way,a the Margrave answered, and his eyes lost the distance theyad gathered with his story. aThe city certainly burned, I know that much.a aItas a mechanism,a I said. My throat was dry, my tongue no more useful to my needs than a rock. aI . . . I think,a I added, very soon after that, for this was the Margraveas story, and surely he knew better than I.

aIndeed, it is that,a the Margrave confirmed. aA complicated businessa"another story entirelya"and perhaps one Iall tell you tomorrow. What do you say?a aPlease,a William said, though he never liked to use the word unless he was coerced or tricked into it. I couldnat help but smile. aIs that really your Talent, Uncle Royston? Blowing things up?a aAh,a the Margrave replied. aThatas . . . well . . . in a way. Itas very hard to explain.a aWill you explain that tomorrow, too?a I was grateful for Williamas questions, since they were the ones I wanted to ask for myself but couldnat. I tried not to look too eager for a favorable reply.

aIndeed,a the Margrave said. It wasnat the first time I found him watching mea"as if he could see my wishes because I was very poor at hiding them. aI think, nephew, that I shall.a That night I dreamed of the war cry of the Ke-Han, and Margrave Royston in the tunnels at Cobalt, at that time scarcely more than my own age, much as I would have dreamed of any favorite roman. When I woke, I was almost disappointed to recall it had no bearing on my life at all.

THOM.

Chief Sergeant Adamo and Airman Balfour met me at the door. From within, I could catch wisps of a melodya"one I didnat recognizea"as picked out on the keys of a piano. I could smell, too, the scent of the clove cigarettes certain professors and Margraves of the Basquiat smoked.

Above all that, though, was the smell of fire.

It wasnat simply something as commonplace as the sulfurous gasp of a match struck or a candle lit. It was real fire, the killing kind, the sort that ripped through cities and trapped children in their little roomsa"fire hot enough to melt metala"and the thick, dark smoke groaning at its heel, cruel and suffocating. I didnat like fire of that unpredictable, violent nature. I had my reasons for that, too.

My stomach turned over at the scent, but it was a grounding revulsion, one that reminded me who I was and the relative insignificance of what Iad been asked to accomplish. I didnat know where the dragons themselves werea"I a.s.sumed I wasnat important enough to see them up closea"and rather than overstepping my bounds, I simply allowed a young, rather grimy man to take my suitcase.

aYour quartersare this way,a Adamo grunted.

Balfour fiddled with the thumb of his left glove. aItas only a couch,a he said. aAnd a sort of . . . standing curtain. It wonat be very quiet. Niall wakes up early and he likes to sing while he makes breakfast, but in any casea"I wanted to tell youa"if you wake up and your hand feels funny, wet sort of, whatever you do donat bring it up to your face.a aOh,a I said, and I must have looked something awfully unhappy, because Balfouras face fell.

Adamo stifled what might have been a laugh or might have been a cough behind the palm of his broad hand. aIf youare stupid enough to fall for it,a he said gruffly, athen you get what you deserve.a aNo one deserves a blue face,a Balfour said quietly.

I was inclined to agree with him.

As I already knew, the Airman was a hideous, blunt building, erected in the modern style and designed for efficiency over beauty. It was somewhat nicer on the inside, I was relieved to note, though not by very much. It was also a mess. There were boots strewn about the hallway, and coats in disarray, so that I almost tripped over one. There was even a s.h.i.+rt and what appeared to be a pair of ladiesa undergarments. I realized all at once that these men had no idea how to clean up after themselves, and no awareness that they even should. I wondered what unpleasant smells the permeating scent of burning and the clove cigarettes masked, and found myself quite relieved I might never have cause to know.

I wasnat their nanny, and I wasnat their maid. I was their instructor in the skeleton of basic decency; I would teach them how to interact as humans rather than animals. What they did with their womenas undergarments was up to them.

aAnd thereas Niallas bunker, and Magoughinas,a Balfour was in the process of telling me, aand thereas the first row of showers. You sign up in advance, unless youave been out on a raid, and then youave got first priority whether youave signed up or not.a aUm,a I said, though I didnat mean to sound stupid. aWhyas that?a aOh,a Balfour said, as if it were perfectly common sense, ato wash off all the ash, of course.a aAh,a I said, and promptly decided to keep my mouth shut.

aThatas the common room, the one for music and smokinga"and thereas the private common room, for when youare engaged with a . . . ah . . . companion for the evening, or the afternoon, or whenever youave got off-hours.a A belch of perfume hit me from beyond the half-open door. It reminded me of my childhood, and I stepped quickly past it.

aThatas command,a Adamo said, jerking a hand toward a room across the way. aYou donat go in there.a aYes,a Balfour agreed. aNo one goes in there but Chief Sergeant.a aDuly noted,a I a.s.sured them both.

I wondered where the rest of my welcoming committee was, or if theyad sent Balfour and Adamo ahead to lull me into a false sense of security while they waited just around the corner like jumping spiders, ready to strike.

aAnd thereas my bunker, and thereas Rookas, and thereas Merrittas,a Balfour continued, still giving me the grand tour. I didnat entirely see that it was necessary. I didnat think I would be spending much time inside any of these forbidding little rooms, their doors staunchly, disapprovingly, locked against me. It was, however, good to make note of which room not to stumble into in the dead of night, thinking it would be the right place to have a drink of water or to relieve myself.

aYou may notice the rooms are all scattered-like,a Adamo said. Indeed, I had, and I said as much. aThe docking areaas below,a he explained. aEach man sleeps above his dragon.a aWhen weare needed, the air-raid bell sounds,a Balfour added. aThereas a trapdoor for each of us that lets us down into each of our private bays directly.a aThe long way around isnat one you need to know, either,a Adamo said. aThe docks are off-limits.a And that was most emphatically the end of that.

aUnderstood,a I a.s.sured him.

aNow, Rookas out tonight,a Adamo added, privately, and I was embarra.s.sed to learn how easily everyone had seen through me, embarra.s.sed to feel Balfouras eyes moving between the two of us. aWe thought itad be for the best. And, knowing him, he wonat be back for a day at the least.a Before I could stop myself, I said, aBut thaEsara"a Adamoas look hardened. aWeare not much used to having thaEsar in direct command of us,a he said evenly. aSeeing as how he doesnat pilot a dragon, himself.a aAh,a I said. As theyad have noted in Molly, Iad stepped in it. aOf course.a I was quickly beginning to understand that conversation with any of the airmen outside of the requisite teachings would be akin to running the gauntlet. In a Ke-Han minefield.

aHere you are,a Balfour piped up, gesturing to a plain standing screen that had been pulled haphazardly across an alcove. This was where the couch was.

I examined my new living s.p.a.cea"it could hardly be called a rooma"with trepidation.

It was a largish couch, Iad give them that. Of course, it made sense that thaEsar would spare no luxury when it came to his precious Dragon Corps. I wondered if he even knew the extent of what went on down at the Airman when his influence wasnat physically present. I wondered if there would be certain things that I was to omit from my reports, and how I would know what was to be deemed information to which thaEsar didnat need to be privy. I felt the onset of a headache creeping from my temples to the bridge of my nose, knowing that if I got it wrong, the airmen would likely feed me to the dragons.

You are accountable only to the Chief Sergeant, I reminded myself. I would make my report, then Adamo himself could discern what information he wanted to share with the head of the nation. That would save me from trying to navigate the pitfalls of that particular arrangement, and also from trying to understand the strange circadian logic that governed these men. I did not at all cherish the deep anxiety fostering in my gut that came from not knowing what to expect.

aIvoryas on your left.a Balfour tugged his right glove on tighter, gesturing farther down the hall to another room, which had been placed as all the rest: with no real rhyme or reason. The man who had designed the building must have been a genius or a madman or both. aHeas very quiet, so you might not be . . . bothered.a He tacked on this last as if he hoped very much that it were true. On my other side, Adamo snorted; he didnat even bother trying to hide it.

I had never before felt so strongly the urge for a door of my very own that I could lock, not even when Iad been living in the very depths of Molly, where a lack of things to steal did not necessarily preclude break-ins.

Small blessings, I told myself again. Rook would be out for the evening, likely the entire night, and might not have the care to coat my hand in something strange and wet. I felt some helpless frustration once again at my predicament, that Iad allowed myself so easily to be caught at the tender mercies of the very type of system Iad made strict measures to avoid my entire life.

aWell,a I said, and was promptly cut off by a bloodcurdling scream that echoed down the hallways.

aMy books!a aAh,a said Balfour. aThat will be Raphael.a aMy books,a said Raphael again, louder this time and with a quivering timbre to his voice, as though he was a volcano on the edge of eruption. aWhat have you done, you p.i.s.s-drinking sons of Ke-Han wh.o.r.es?a as.h.i.+t,a Adamo said, the curse torn rough as crushed cobblestone from his throat. aIad better go. Docksare off-limits,a he repeated to me, as though I were simple.

I could take no offense at his att.i.tude, though, instead nodding to show that I really did understand. The Chief Sergeant was a man I did not want on any side but my own, and if that meant a little more bowing and sc.r.a.ping than usual, so be it.