“I will make my report, then.” Misol snapped the warden an overly formal salute and stalked toward the door. Ripka could not capture her eye, could not even see her face, before the door clicked shut behind her.
“Captain,” Radu said, bringing her head around with a start. Cold dread filtered through her, freezing her in place like a rabbit in a hawk’s shadow. He could not have learned her nickname so quickly. He was a lout, a drunkard, incapable of disciplining his staff into any meaningful force. He was not so aware of his new intakes that he already knew the made-up nickname of a woman who’d been in his care less than two full turns of the sun.
She looked him in the eye, tried to keep her expression calm and mildly confused despite the runaway pounding of her heart. The confusion she didn’t need to fake, it was only the fear she had to mask. “Miss Enkel suits me fine,” she ventured. “I’m no kind of captain.”
“No, no.” He sneered as he leaned forward, yellowed teeth looking even more tarnished in the ruddy light of the oil lamps scattered around the room. “Fine woman like yourself is deserving of the title. You earned it fair, even if it was stripped from you under dubious circumstances. “
Pits below, but she wanted to bolt. To tip any one of those merrily burning lanterns into his rat’s nest of a desk and flee while the flames made a meal of his neglect. She willed herself to be calm, to stand with her shoulders slouched and her hips cocked to one side – not rigid and petrified, as she actually was. What would the woman she was pretending to be do, if accused of being a disgraced watch-captain?
She forced a smirk and puffed hair from her eyes. “Lovely that you think so highly of me, warden, but the only blues I’ve been near have been hauling me off in chains.”
He chuckled. “Nice try. Been practicing that, have you? Might have worked on another man. Trouble for you is, you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I know you, captain. I traveled with Faud out of the Brown Wash same as you, though he didn’t end up elevating me to such a lofty position.”
Radu snorted, hawked, and spat. Right on the floor. Ripka felt a little faint. Squinting at him, she might see how his face could be familiar. If it were younger, maybe. More hair and less jowl. But she couldn’t remember a stitch about him. There’d been a whole handful of mercenaries protecting Faud’s vanguard as he crossed the Scorched to settle in Aransa. Most of them had moved on to whatever job was willing to pay as soon as they’d spent the grains Faud had given them in the city. She’d been the only one to stick around, and Faud had rewarded her loyalty by recommending her to the watch.
“I…” she began, but he held up a hand to cut her off. It was well enough, she’d had no idea what she was going to say next.
“I don’t begrudge you the post you were given. Truth be told, you were the only member of our band of miscreant do-gooders who actually gave a shit about doing the job right. Now. Why are you here?”
“Theft of classified imperial information,” she said automatically, her lips numb from shock.
“Hah. You? The sun would fly down from the sky and kiss the empress’s ass before that happened. There’s not a body on the Scorched straighter than yours – morals and hips.” He smirked, but she swallowed a sharp retort. Years dealing with the bootscrapings of Aransa had left her hard to such harassment.
Enard, however, hadn’t experienced the case-hardening she had.
He took a quick step forward, faster than Ripka could follow, his body moving with all the sinuous grace of a snake as he scooped up a lantern. He held it above the mountain range of paperwork upon Radu’s desk, tipped precariously.
“Insult the captain once more, and I will see to it that certain parts of your anatomy never stand straight again. Sir.”
The calmness with which Enard spoke chilled her. She was tempted to intervene, but she knew that to do so would reveal fear of reprisal. And so she waited, jaw clenched, struggling not to grind her teeth.
Genuine fear flickered across Radu’s face, but it was only in passing. He held up his other hand, revealing a small bell cradled in his palm, chained to a ring on one thick finger. He ran his thumb over its shiny brass edge, caressing.
“Everyone plays nice, or I call my friends waiting outside, understand? I ring this, they come and cut you down without a second thought. You willing to start that fire?”
Enard’s smile was wistful. “Sometimes, I wish I would.”
He set the lantern down with exaggerated care and stepped away, his body angled so that he could come between Ripka and Radu if the need arose. It rankled to be protected so, but she reminded herself that, to Enard, this was his duty. His life’s calling. He’d agreed to help her find Nouli, and he couldn’t do that if she were dead.
“Now that the cockfighting’s out of the way.” Radu closed his hand around the bell to keep it silenced. “We can move on. Why are you here? A woman like you doesn’t stumble across the yellowhouse without forethought.”
She pressed her lips together, drawing them into a thin, hard line.
“Fine.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Keep your cursed secrets. I know you. You can’t be planning anything bad for my charges. But here’s the deal. A person with your skillset has value, value I can’t afford to let go unused. Not now, at any rate. You’re poking around my island, so I might as well get some use out of you. Lately, we’ve had a new source of extracurricular experience appear here. Understand?”
“Drugs?” she asked before she could stop herself, professional curiosity overriding her instinct to conceal any interest.
“Aye. Nasty stuff. Makes the inmates minds move faster, makes them restless for more. We’ve had three breakout attempts since it showed, and one nasty riot. They’re calling it clearsky, but no one knows where it’s coming from.”
Ripka scoffed. “Surely you have informants within the population.”
He grinned, as if he’d scored a point by drawing her into using the terminology of a watch-captain. “I do, I do. But they look after my addition to the population. Good stuff, keeps them sleepy-headed and amenable. This new junk, clearsky? Not one of my people can figure out its source.”
“Your addition? You’re leaking drugs to your own prison?”
Radu waved his hand through the air as if brushing away a mildly irritating insect. “I don’t force it on anyone, and it keeps them docile.”
Ripka stared, open-mouthed, recalling the elderly inmate she’d seen smoking along the path that morning. “You’re the mudleaf source? You’re encouraging a black market within your own walls. Once those channels open up, they’re impossible to close.”
“Bah. My people have tight rein on–”
“Then where’s the clearsky coming from?”
He clenched his fists so hard she wondered if he’d warp the shape of his emergency bell. “You’re going to find that out for me, captain.”
She swallowed around a dry throat. It didn’t take wild speculation for her to discern a possible source for the drug. If it were new, that meant someone was bringing it in from off-island – so that someone had to leave periodically and be able to return. Based on what she’d seen of the Remnant’s guards, imagining one or more of them slipping in a new poison wasn’t much of a stretch. Some of them might even be pretending incompetence and laziness to deflect suspicion.
But she wasn’t about to tell Radu that. The fact that he hadn’t come to the same conclusion himself meant he was either stupid, or blind arrogant in assuming his guards would never betray his trust. The way Misol had stiffened when he’d dismissed her… That told Ripka all she needed to know about the so-called warden’s relationship with his staff.