“We met in Petrastad,” Ripka said before Honey could explain herself further. “Both out of work, and decided to head to Hond Steading for a fresh start.”
“Pity,” Dranik said, “that you chose this place. There’s nothing fresh in these streets.”
“Piddle,” Latia said.
“You don’t know how beautiful it is,” Honey murmured.
“I know,” Latia insisted. “It’s this tosh-head who can’t see the beauty through his own self-importance. Say, where are you two staying?”
Honey’s lips parted. Ripka said, “The palace district.”
Dranik coughed over his cup. “Prizefighting must pay well.”
“I was very good.” At least that much was true.
“Well! I was going to invite you to stay awhile, the studio has been so quiet lately.”
“You never ask me to stay,” Dranik protested.
“Quiet of worthwhile conversation. But! You are new arrivals, yes?”
“Just last night,” Ripka said.
“Marvelous. Let me be your ambassador to this sweet city. Tonight, the Ashfall Lounge, around the seventh mark a friend of mine will sing. Please do join me.”
“I don’t know…” Ripka demurred, tried to catch Honey’s eye but the woman was staring down at her cup.
“We’ll come,” Honey said.
“Wonderful!” Latia leapt to her feet and swept the empty cups from their hands, stacking them one atop the other. “Now I must usher you out, I feel all bursting with desire to paint – shoo, shoo, all of you. Yes, you too, Dranik. I shall see you tonight!”
Before Ripka could so much as thank the woman for her tea and invitation they were, all three of them, back out on the street, staring at the door that’d been closed in their faces.
“Well,” Ripka said.
“You get used to it.” Dranik ran a hand through his hair. “She gets… creative fits. Runs off in the middle of dinner sometimes.”
“You’ve known each other long?”
He stared at her, wide-eyed, and barked a laugh. “She’s my little sister.”
“Little?”
“I know. She takes after our father.” He paused. “You don’t want to meet him. See you tonight?”
“Yes,” Honey agreed.
Dranik gave them both a quick bow and took off at a brisk stroll. From within the studio, the sound of banging pots echoed. Ripka frowned at the door, then looked to Honey.
“You really want to go tonight?”
“Yes.” Her expression grew wistful. “I miss singing.”
“No cutting anyone who doesn’t try to cut you first.”
Honey sighed the sigh of a long-suffering child, kicked at the dirt, and gave a sullen nod.
Chapter Eleven
Aransa settled into darkness. Detan paced its winding streets, following the dusty, twisting paths cut into the side of the dormant mountain as if finding the right path would reveal to him just what in the pits he was supposed to do now.
He’ll do. Thratia’s words filled every silent moment of his mind. Whatever that viper was up to, he didn’t want anything to do with it, but he could hardly run off now that he’d taken things so far. He had Thratia’s trust, insomuch as she allowed him to wander her city a free man, and that was a prize he wasn’t quite ready to squander. With her trust, he could do a lot of damage to her plans from the inside – if only he knew what they were, what angle he should take.
Aransa was quieter than it’d been since he last walked its streets. A strange hush encapsulated the city, swathed it in muted cotton wool. Last time he’d been here, night was the time to be on the streets, to be seen. There’d been raucous parties and overflowing bars. Except for one night, the night Thratia took control. And it seemed the fear of that night had yet to die out.
A red door appeared to his right. Detan stopped cold, drawing a curse from a man who had been walking behind him. Dust hung heavy on the air, clung to his boots and his hair. He shoved his hands in his pockets, stared at that red door a little longer.
The Red Door Inn. Not the most imaginative name, but in a city full of working-man taverns and rough-and-tumble gambling halls, it stood out for the simple fact it wasn’t an allusion to a curse word or a carnal act. He’d been through that door once. Invited by a sharp-eyed woman who’d wanted to ask him how he’d lost his sel-sense, so she could save her daughter from working the mines.
He hadn’t lost his sense, of course, and though he didn’t tell her that, he’d tried to make her understand that chasing that path was a dangerous one. What she’d decided to do to keep her daughter out of that hard, hot life, Detan didn’t know. Whatever her plan had been, she’d died before she’d had the chance to see it through. Cut down, bleeding her last on Thratia’s dock, all because Thratia wanted to pin the murder on Detan.
The parlor of the Red Door Inn was cool, kept insulated from the desert heat by its thick mud-stuccoed walls and lack of windows. He didn’t recall opening the door, but the brass knob was in his hand, and he stepped into the chandelier light of the entry hall.
“May I help you, sir?” A man in the red-vested livery of the inn hovered at his shoulder, his smile pure solicitation. Of course the welcoming was warmer than last time. Despite the dust on his boots, Detan was a whole lot cleaner than he’d been the last time he’d stepped through that door. Aella hadn’t let him take any of his old clothes with him to Aransa, and so he’d been trussed up in upperclass wear – slim, dark trousers, a contrasting cream vest, and matching dark jacket. Sometime along the way, he’d started dressing like the man his auntie had always wanted him to be. Too bad the inside didn’t match the exterior.
“A table, please,” he said. The thought of cloistering himself away in one of the Inn’s private booths drew him like a moth to a flame. Something strong to drink, and a curtain to pull against the world. In one of those little booths, he could almost pretend for a moment that the world outside was friendly.
The attendant led Detan down the steps of the inn, deep into the bottom levels where only the richest patrons lingered. Detan wondered, fleetingly, if Thratia had put the word out amongst high-brow places that he was residing in her compound now, but cast the thought aside. No, this wasn’t Thratia’s doing. Between his clothes and the brand on the back of his neck, Detan had enough cachet on his own to warrant this flavor of treatment. Didn’t much like being reminded of the fact, though.
A familiar voice shook him out of his moping, brash and male, behind the cloak of a curtained booth. The man called for an attendant, slurring slightly, not reaching for the bell meant to do the job for him. Detan froze.
“Sir?” the attendant asked, all professional concern.
“I…” he cleared his throat. “I’m going to say hello to an old friend.”
The attendant followed his glance to the booth with the slurring man and frowned, weighing the guest’s probable desire for privacy against both rebuking Detan’s wish and having to deal with the drunken man. He eventually shrugged, and gestured toward the booth.
Detan moved before he could think better of it and pulled the curtain. He sat.
Renold Grandon peered at him across the thin, lacquered table. Smoke curled around the man’s eyes, and a glass dangled from his swollen fingers – twin to a litter of empty glasses filling the narrow table. Red blotches bloomed like storm cells across his cheeks, and cactus-prickle stubble clung to his sagging chin.