Detan did not believe in ghosts. But sitting in that booth, that same booth where Bel Grandon had summoned him to to ask a question all that time ago, he thought he could feel her. She was in the smoke swirling between him and Renold now, in the heady-sweet scent of alcohol in the stale air. The very memory of her stern gaze forced Detan to sit straighter with some foolish hope that, if only he presented himself well, he could do honor to her memory.
He bore Renold’s drunken stare, and thought of the first time he’d seen the man. Bloated on his own importance, swaggering with his mistress as he gallivanted through the Salt Baths. Renold had done nothing to offend Detan, save being a likely target when Detan was in need.
Detan had looked at Renold Grandon, and thought, he’ll do.
And an innocent woman had died.
And countless futures were snuffed to dust with her passing.
“You,” Renold said, but there was very little malice in it. Just a wan sort of tiredness that bit deeper than anger ever could have.
“Me,” Detan agreed.
Renold looked at him. Really looked. His swollen face puckered up as he squinted, digging with his gaze into all the details that made up Detan now. His clean hair, his expensive clothes. The leanness of his frame, and perhaps even the slight hunch he harbored due to pain in his shoulder from Aella’s careful administrations. He swept all this up, counted it, and with a snort dismissed Detan as irrelevant. Little more than a fly drawn to the stench of his sorrow.
“I didn’t–” Detan began, but Renold cut him off with a sharp gesture, spilling dribbles of liquor down the side of his hand.
“You didn’t hold the knife that split her throat,” he sneered. “You don’t have the steel in you. But she does, our fearless commodore, and you riled her up as sure as a man pulls back a knife hand to strike.”
Detan swallowed, laced his fingers together under the table to stop their tremble. “Thratia killed Bel to make you hate me. To make you hunt me.”
Renold studied the depths of his glass, as if he could see his dead wife’s face lurking within. “Told you that, did she? And you believed her? Dumber than I thought. No. She knew I’d never believe a floundering fop like you could have ever spilt real blood. Not Bel’s, anyway. That was a warning for me, not you.”
A little flare of anger sparked in Detan’s blood, fleeting but sharp. Sel’s presence loomed in the liqueur, in the lanterns, in the… He shut his sense down. Forced himself to focus. “And this is how you answer her?”
Renold’s bloodshot eyes roamed the empty glasses on the table that his wife had used so often to host her private meetings. He breathed deep, let out a slow breath, and pierced Detan with a stare. “Virra, our daughter, captains a ship in Thratia’s fleet as a sensitive pilot. It was Bel’s greatest ambition to see that Virra never had to work the mines. Yes. This is how I answer her.” He bared his teeth. “And aren’t we all just one big happy family?”
Ill with revulsion, Detan pushed to his feet and staggered through the curtain that separated that booth from the rest of the world. The cool opulence of the Red Door Inn pressed all around him, mirroring a deeper cold, one which ensconced his bones and chest and made him gasp despite the delicately perfumed air.
Ignoring the concerned queries of the valet, he dragged himself up the stairs to the final floor, legs growing heavier with every step, and only when he was out on the blistering hot streets of Aransa, dust on his shoes and dry air whipping the moisture from his eyes, his lips, did he feel he could breathe again.
He had been so very tempted, walking down these beaten streets to this pristine door, to flee. To take to the open skies once more. To find another flier, another path to freedom from duty and consequence. Now the very thought churned his stomach, broke sweat across his chest and brow.
What good was his freedom, when he had done as Thratia? What good was he, when he had looked at a man and thought: he’ll do, without ever considering the breadth and depth of the consequences?
Whatever freedom existed for him out there in the empty sky, he had not earned it.
Detan straightened his lapels, stood tall and brushed the dust from his coat sleeves. Aransa stretched out around him in all directions: the shanty towns downward, the tenuous government-worker class upward, and topping it at its very peak, lower only than the city’s highest garden, Thratia waited.
She’d looked at him, and said, he’ll do. He knew not what for, yet, but with the memory-scent of Bel’s cigarillos warm in his nostrils, he was going to find out. And whatever the consequences were, wherever the pain fell, Detan would see it through, or break himself trying.
Chapter Twelve
Enard caught Ripka by the arm in the hall on her way to Dame Honding’s sitting room, causing her to nearly jump clear out of her skin.
“Enard!” she gasped, then stifled a laugh when she saw the embarrassed shock in his eyes.
“I apologize, Captain, I thought you had seen me.”
“Ah, no, that’s my fault.” She ran a hand through her hair and offered him a small smile. “Between the bright berry tea, and my adventures with Honey this morning, I’m wound up tighter than a harpoon spring.”
He frowned. “Tell me.”
She did. It was so very easy to spill her thoughts to Enard. He listened attentively, asking pertinent questions, and as she expressed her suspicion regarding Thratia’s influence in the city via the cafes, his growing alarm reassured her she had not been mistaken, there was a real threat lurking within Hond Steading’s walls.
“That is troubling news. Are you going to report to the Dame?”
“I had thought as much, I have a few marks yet before that performance Latia wants us to join her for.”
“May I go with you? An extra set of eyes and ears couldn’t hurt.”
She grinned, just a touch. “Are you worried about me?”
“I – ah – well. You’re perfectly capable, of course, and Honey–”
She squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right, Enard. It’s even a little sweet.”
He clamped his mouth closed so hard she watched his lips disappear.
“Come on, let’s see what the Dame thinks.”
They found the Dame surrounded by her attendants, head bowed as she listened to a portly young woman explain something that, by the way she was gesticulating, was of grave importance. Ripka pinched Enard’s sleeve and they found an out of the way spot toward the back of the room to wait, just within sight but not intruding. When the five people who had come to beg the Dame’s ear had said their piece and been sent away, the Dame fixed her gaze – Detan’s gaze – upon Ripka and curled her fingers to gesture her forward.
“Ripka Leshe, Enard Harwit. How are you two finding my city?”
“It is in danger, Dame.”
She pursed her lips in a tight smile. “I am aware of such matters.”
“Not from Thratia’s advance, though that is an obvious threat. No, you have an insurgency brewing from within.”
She stiffened, fingers coiling tight around the ends of her chair’s armrests. “It is only due to my great respect for you as Aransa’s watch-captain that I ask, so tread carefully: explain, quickly.”
Ripka began with her time in Aransa, and her too-late discovery of the honey liqueur crates in which Thratia had hidden her weapons, then moved onto her brief interview with Captain Lakon, and her trip to the bright eye berry cafe. She left out the names of Dranik and Latia, but the implications were strong enough. A taste for revolution was brewing in Hond Steading, and Thratia had lit that spark.