One other factor-the decider for Nophel, the silver seal upon the casket of his betrayal-was that there were very, very few instances of a Baker's giving birth naturally. He was one such example, and she had thrown him away.
She's no sister of mine, he thought. Whoever this new Baker might be, however possessed of her mother's talent and knowledge handed down from the past, he had no doubt that she came from somewhere vastly different than he did. He was a Baker's child, and she little more than another chopped monster.
But that did not mean he had no wish to meet her. On the contrary, he was eager. Perhaps in her he would find an answer to the question that plagued him always: Why did she cast me aside?
He drove down self-pity. His bitterness toward his mother was rich, and though he had learned that it was not necessarily his betrayal that led to her death-the Dragarians had killed her, or so Dane claimed-the responsibility still sat well with him.
He wondered what this new Baker looked like, how she spoke, what her young life had been. Dane had told him little, feigning ignorance, but Nophel sensed in the Marcellan a wealth of knowledge that he was simply unwilling to share. Such was the prerogative of a Marcellan. Most of all, he wondered whether this sister knew of his existence. If she had known about him all this time, then she must have chosen to not trace him or contact him. He did not care. That only made things easier.
The day was hot, his mind was abuzz, the past was becoming a shady, misunderstood place. And with every step Nophel took, the future came closer, more exciting than he had ever hoped and perhaps offering the chance for some sort of revenge.
Ferner, landlord of Ferner's Temple, was a thin man with an abnormally large head, and he carried the veined tracework of a drunk across his cheeks and nose. He seemed not to notice Nophel's disfigurement, and he sent him to a chocolate shop close to Course's western extreme. It took Nophel a while to walk there, and, in the end, tiredness overcame him and he bought a carriage ride. The two small horses walked slowly, breaking wind and generally ignoring orders shouted at them by the driver, until finally the western wall of the city came into view. Nophel muttered his thanks and disembarked, walking ahead of the horses toward the wall.
The chocolate-maker was an incredibly thin woman with a huge nose and a chopped third limb protruding from her hip. Her right hand gathered samples to sniff and taste, while her two left hands measured, stirred, and poured into a vat of new chocolate. She said nothing when Nophel entered her shop, simply staring at his disfigured face and continuing to work. When he told her that Ferner had sent him, then repeated the code words Ferner had whispered into his ear, the woman halted in her stirring for a beat. Then she carried on, using her third limb to stir while her two natural hands carved something onto the back of a slab of dark chocolate. She wrapped it, handed it to Nophel, and, when he offered some money, shook her head and waved him away.
He left her shop and read what she had carved.
By late afternoon he had visited three more places, imparting code phrases to six people, and he was convinced that he was being followed.
It was surprising how quickly he became used to being seen again. People stared at him and steered their children out of his path, and some of them offered uncertain smiles of sympathy. Those he respected most were the ones who either ignored him or treated him as they would anyone else-trying to con him out of money, overcharging him for food or services, or shoving past him in the street with little more than a mumbled apology. They made him feel human, while the frightened ones and the smilers turned him into a monster.
The last person he was directed to was an old man sitting on a bench by the main canal leading from the refineries to the Western Reservoir. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and heavy coat, even in the heat. Beside him on the bench were a fishing rod broken into three pieces, fishing paraphernalia, and a wooden bucket filled with water, in which a single fish swam in tight, slow circles. The woman who'd sent Nophel here had told him that Brunley Bronk sat on the same bench every day between the hours of noon and sunset, and most other times few people were able to find him. She said it was an old man's habit, but to Nophel it sounded like someone making himself available.
Nophel had doubled back several times on his walk along the canal, leaving the overgrown towpath and slinking between buildings, trying to make out who was following him. There was never any sign, but that only served to unsettle him even more. He felt eyes on the back of his neck. And since his experience with the Blue Water, he knew that not seeing someone did not mean no one was there.
So if the Unseen followed him, what of it? He did not know the rules and capabilities of his mother's potions, whether he would still be able to see the Unseen after taking the White Water. But he was also sure that such people would know of the Baker's continued existence, because they could sit in any shadow in the city and see, hear, and smell every secret.
Besides, caution was good, but paranoia would not serve him well.
He sat beside the man and looked down at the fish.
"You're from Dane Marcellan," the old man said.
"How did you know that?"
"Tell me."
Nophel muttered the code that the woman who'd sent him this way had written down for him. The old man nodded and scratched at his ear.
"Eat the paper," he said. "Don't want you dropping it so that just anyone can use those words. They have power. See this?" He held out his hand.
"What am I looking at?" Nophel asked.
"My reaction. Those words. They stop the shakes, because they make me excited. Something's happening. And you've come to ask me how to find the Baker."
He knows! Nophel thought. I'm close now, so close! The weight of Dane's message tube made itself obvious in his jacket pocket, as if aware that the end of its journey was near. He glanced back along the canal path, but the only movement was the splash of ducks and the scamperings of canal rats. They were twice the size of normal city rats, fattened on birds and frogs and water mice.
"What you looking for?" the old man said.
"Nothing."
"You thought you were being followed. You should have said." The man had turned to him now, and any lightness was gone from his voice. Nophel saw the seriousness in this man's eyes, and the startling intelligence, and he berated himself for forming foolish opinions. I thought he was feeble.
"So what do you want with the Baker?"
"It's not me, it's Dane Marcellan." I hope he can't hear my lie, he thought.
"Why?"
Nophel snorted. "I can't tell you anything like that! You expect me to-"
The cool touch of keen metal pressed against his throat. A hand curved around him from behind and clamped across his forehead. And, in the center of his back, he felt the bulky heat of a knee.
"One wrong move," a woman's voice said.
"So who the crap is he, Malia?" a man's voice whispered.
Nophel felt the woman lean in close and sniff at him. There was something animalistic about it, something brutal, and her voice purred like a serrated knife through flesh.
"Marcellan pet."
They took them farther along the canal to Malia's boat. It wasn't the safest place, but it was the closest. Malia and Devin guided Nophel, an arm each and a knife pressed into each side. They let Peer bring the old man Brunley. Brunley complained that he'd have to leave his fishing gear behind, but Peer assured him that they wouldn't be long. She could not inject any certainty into her voice. For all she knew, Malia was going to kill them both.
Inside the moored canal barge, Malia quickly drew curtains across the windows, while Devin tied Nophel into a chair. Brunley sat on a comfortable bench behind a small table, crossing his hands before him and watching the proceedings with a sharp eye.