"You're missing the toast," he chided me, not really angry, rather amused.
I stood. "Where did you go?"
He chuckled. "Missed me? You had Lord Sporinov and his closest cronies eating out of your palms like a bowing, preening flock of pigeons." He grinned at his own wit. "You didn't need me at all!"
"I didn't say I needed you." How had he convinced me to come here? How had I allowed myself to believe nothing had changed? I was too different now; I had moved on. "I think it's time to leave."
Devich, taken aback, tried take my hand. I didn't let him. "They are toasting, Tanyana. You know it's rude to leave before the toasts are finished."
"No one will notice."
He opened his mouth to protest.
I said, "They won't."
For a moment I thought Devich would leave me to fend for myself, as he glanced over his shoulder to the open doors and the carpet of light running down to the carriageway. Was the landau waiting for us? Had Devich paid the driver? Could I walk home before dawn came?
But he sighed, and shook his head. "This is a mistake. But if you really want to leave, we will."
"I do."
Devich held out his hand again and I continued to ignore it. I walked past him, and heard his shuffling feet follow slowly.
Applause echoed from the open doors. I headed for the stairs, but a low, gravel-dry laugh slowed me. A man leaned against stone beside one of the large open doors. His face was hidden in shadow, save for the fiery end of a cigar he was sucking.
"Don't like them either," the man said in a voice as dry as his laughter. "I've tipped my glass at too many toasts, and they never change." He straightened, and stepped from the shadow.
I realised then how very old he was. He stooped beneath a coat that was too big for him, and walked slowly, his shoulders hunched, his knees bent. Faint wisps of pale hair hung like cobwebs over a bald and sun-spotted head. His eyes were sunken, blue lost in watery red, and his hand, where it clutched the ivory head of an ebony walking stick, shook so the point rattled against stone. The long, thin cigar remained in his mouth as he walked and he breathed smoke in and out with every pronounced breath.
A bright pin lanced his silver necktie. On its woven pewter head, a bear roared. An ancient ruby was clutched in its jaws.
Devich sketched a sharp bow. "My lord Sporinov."
The old man chuckled. "You're a sharp one."
It took me a moment to understand. This was Vladir's father, surely.
"Thank you, my lord." Devich glanced at me, and made tipping movements with his head.
I repressed a groan and bowed instead. "My lord." Why was it so difficult to leave this place?
"You're a lady?" The old man leaned forward, putting so much weight on his walking stick it bent, and peered at me. "Don't look much like a lady to me." He laughed again. "But don't let that upset you. Nothing looks much like it used to do."
It hadn't upset me.
"Ah, now I know you." A smattering of empty spaces broke up the teeth as he smiled. "You're the one Vladir's so excited about. You're the Unbound."
From legend, from children's tales and fanciful stories, that word reached out to grab me.
"Unbound?" I whispered.
"Heard that before, haven't you? Didn't you know what you were? Didn't my son tell you?" He made a strange snorting sound. "Acts like he knows everything, doesn't he? I can still teach him a few things, if he'd shut his mouth long enough to listen."
I knew what I was. "I am a debris collector."
"That's a pretty name for this new age. Not always called that, you know. Didn't always collect, did the Unbound."
Didn't they? What other purpose could we have, if not to collect the waste of the world and keep its systems working smoothly, cleanly?
Devich, suddenly, was at my side, gripping my elbow, turning me around. "Your pardon, my lord," he said to the old man. "But our coach is waiting."
"Well, go and catch it. I won't keep you." He shuffled so he could look over his shoulder through the open doors. "Toasts still going? I'd never bore my guests like this." He spat out the nib of his cigar, still glowing. "Yugeve? A cigar, boy! A cigar!" And he shuffled slowly inside, calling to some servant I couldn't see.
I turned. Sure enough, the landau was waiting. The driver had been watching us with interest, but was suddenly absorbed in his own knees.
I allowed Devich to guide me into the coach. We sat in silence as it slid through the streets of Movoc-underKeeper. When it pulled up at my apartment I opened the door myself, dropped to the paving stones, and had unlocked my front door before Devich had even paid the driver.
I was about to close the door when Devich hurried up the path. He jammed an arm in the gap and winced as I pushed against it. "What are you doing?"
"Good night, Devich."
"Not without an explanation. And please, keep doing that. Let's see who tires first."
I took my weight off the door, and he nudged it open. With a sigh I stepped away and he entered the hallway, rubbing his arm, pouting.
"What's wrong?" He wasn't exactly angry, but he was close to it. Somewhere in between anger and hurt. "Why did we have to leave like that? Why did you jam my arm in there?"
Only then did it occur to me that he could have let himself in, whether I had shut the door or not. I had opened myself to this man. He wasn't going away that easily. "I told you I didn't belong with those people any more. And tonight only proved that."
He shook his head.
I scowled at him, and tore the scarf from my neck. I picked at the shirt buttons near my wrists and pulled the whole thing over my head. It felt better without the bulk of clothes.
"Tanyana." Devich stepped very close. One hand cupped my chin, the other slid over my hair. Gently, he placed a soft kiss on my lips. "Tonight I saw you hold the attention of some of the most powerful men in Movocunder-Keeper, and the whole of Varsnia itself. I saw you walk into a room filled with the rich and the powerful with your head held high, with your back straight, and a bearing that said 'This is who I am, and I don't really care what you think about that'. Do you know how amazing you looked beside the puffed-up finery and the artificial smiles? You were magnificent, you are magnificent." Both of his hands held my head. "I wish you could see that."
I wanted to ask him if he'd seen the woman who was once my subordinate lose all her respect for me. Or if he knew what it was like to be treated like an oddity, like a specimen under glass. But his smiling lips were so close, and his hands were so warm. And Devich had made a place for himself among those people, he had been given the invitation, and he had melded well into the dancers and the feasters and the drinkers. If he thought I belonged there, if he still respected me and knew me as a woman, not an insect, then perhaps I did.
It was enough. Enough to let go of the angry ache in my belly. Enough to lean against him as he kissed me, and work the buttons in his sleek shirt. As he did the same to my ill-fitting pants I remembered the jar of pills in my drawer and wondered how long they would last.
10.
Dawn, Mornday, with the Tear splitting silent and smooth around the prow of the near-empty ferry. In the raw sunlight on river spray, I thought of the Unbound.
The Unbound were troublemakers, always in the background, always sabotaging the work of good, honest pion-binders. They were the figures in dark cloaks who would not show their face.
My mother had told me few fairy tales when I was a child. "You should learn about real life," she would tell me, "because in real life there are no magic solutions, there are no first sons to sweep you from the arms of dark danger. There is hard work, kopacks, and status. Remember that."