“This is all fascinating,” Tibal said, “but could we perhaps discuss the deviant in the room?”
All gazes turned to Sasalai, who was looking a touch peaky. Ripka shooed Laella out of the only seat and eased the older woman into it. She looked grateful, but Ripka still made sure to move her cane out of striking distance before getting too close.
“This deviant in particular, or deviants as a whole?” Laella plucked her wig from her head and tossed it onto a stand on the room’s only table.
“Laella,” Ripka said, and watched the girl cringe at the use of her real name. “Stop dancing around. Get to the point already. What are you doing here? Are you working with Thratia?”
She flicked her gaze to Dranik and chewed the corner of her lip.
“He’s fine. He’s with us,” Ripka said.
Laella let out one long, drawn-out sigh and slumped against the wall with her hands folded across her stomach. “Listen, it didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on at the bright eye berry cafes after we arrived here, all right? I knew Thratia was working through them somehow, or at least using them as a way to collect people sympathetic to her cause, so I went poking around. Turns out, looking like a posh Valathean gets you some cred.” She flashed a bright smile. “And it was easy enough to twist a few arms into thinking I was in tight with our dear commodore. Once I’d delivered a few likely ‘messages’ from the girl on high, I started changing tack. Asking for things – supplies and such for a stockpile, I claimed. Eventually I hit upon the idea to use them to snag the local deviants out from under the empire. Look, I know it’s messy, but–”
“You don’t work for Thratia Ganal? At all?” Dranik’s jaw hung open, his eyes wide as saucers.
Laella sniffed and tossed her hair. “I’d rather lick a shit-smeared shoe.”
“Skies above,” he murmured. Enard gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. Ripka wasn’t feeling quite so charitable.
“So I spent the last couple of days working to get close to Pelkaia’s network? Pits below, why didn’t you lot tell me what you were up to? I could have helped.”
“Uh, yeah, about that.” She twisted an already braided chunk of hair around one finger. “Pelkaia doesn’t know about any of this.”
Tibal whistled low.
“It’s not like that,” Laella insisted. “I’m not selling them or anything. I found a place, a safe place, for them to live, and used my resources to set up a system to get them there. Valathean-founded cities just aren’t safe for deviants any more.”
“And the Larkspur isn’t a safe place?” Ripka prodded.
Laella winced. “I… don’t know. Pelkaia hasn’t been herself, lately. She’s ill, but she’s trying to hide it, and Coss isn’t… well, he’s pretending everything’s all right, and it’s not. She can’t stop talking about putting an end to Thratia, which is well enough, but her level of obsession isn’t. We didn’t sign up to be soldiers.” She glanced to Sasalai. “And I don’t think anyone should be conscripted just because they’re deviant and have nowhere else to go.”
“Perhaps we should ask Sasalai what she wants, now that her ability has been discovered,” Ripka said.
Tibal took a knee before the elderly woman, his hands braced on the arms of her chair, and tried his best to look contrite.
“Now, ma’am, you know we’re not here to harm you. Your deviant sel-sense has been discovered – not just by us – and we want to keep you safe. I know it wasn’t right of us, grabbing you like we did, but if you’d like to hear us explain it all we will. I can promise you this: no one in this room means you harm.” He half-turned over his shoulder. “Isn’t that right?”
A chorus of agreement all around. The woman’s eyes softened, just a touch, but as Tibal reached for her, her back stiffened and she leaned away, angling herself out of his reach. Ripka shook her head.
“You’ve got her pinned there. Here, shoo.” She nudged Tibal away from the woman and stepped around behind her, sliding her thumbs under the knot on the gag to keep it from tugging too much against the woman’s face as she wriggled the knot loose. She’d done the maneuver enough times as a watch-captain, it came easily to her now, though she was out of practice.
“You’ll feel a slight tug–”
The floorboards shook, jarring her hands. Shouts echoed from the bottom floor of the theater, deep and controlled – a pattern she recognized.
“What is this?” Laella snapped, springing toward the door. Ripka grabbed her elbow and yanked her back.
“Watchers,” she hissed, low so that she wouldn’t be overheard. “Stay quiet. Don’t step heavily, all of you. Laella, is there another way out of here?”
Her eyes were huge. Skies above, the girl was so young. Stupidly brave, for doing what she’d done. Brave and bold and reckless, assured in her own success. She had probably never even considered the possibility of being caught. From the look in her eye, she was considering the consequences in depth, now.
“There’s a fire ladder outside the window,” she whispered almost too low for Ripka to make out.
Thank the skies for that. “Tibal, can you handle Sasalia’s weight? Enard will go down first, and I’ll be last out.”
Enard frowned at this, but did not protest. The two of them were the only hands in the room with any real fighting experience, and things could get messy on the ground just as easily as they could in this room.
“I have her,” Tibal said.
Sasalai yanked her gag the rest of the way free.
Laella gasped, Tibal lunged for the woman, but it was done so quickly the scream was out of her lips before Tibal’s legs had even begun to move.
“Up here! Help! Help!” Sasalai’s lungs were surprisingly robust for her age. The stamp of footsteps turned their way immediately, pounding up the stairs. Ripka had only a moment to stare at the woman, who risked being hanged if her ability were discovered, before the watchers burst through the door.
“Hands high! All of you!” a sturdy male voice she was grieved to recognize bellowed.
Ripka lifted her hands to the air, fingers splayed, as all the others did, and turned, slowly, to face Watch-captain Lakon. His eyes bulged. She really couldn’t blame him.
“Leshe?” he asked, bewildered. The crossbows pointed at her chest from his flanking watchers, however, did not waver.
“Long story.” She tried an embarrassed smile, but his expression just hardened into a firm mask.
“I’ll have it all from you, then. Restrain them.”
The watchers of Hond Steading were quick to act on their captain’s orders. They flowed into the room, filling it with blue, and made no comment as they went about binding the wrists of everyone save Sasalai, and divesting them of weapons.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” Lakon picked up Sasalai’s cane and offered it to her. She took it in trembling hands.
“They kidnapped me.”
Ripka bit back a protest as Lakon threw her a questioning glance. “I see. Can you walk? We’ll need you to give a full statement at the station house.”
“Boy, I’d sprint to the station to file this complaint. I’ve never been so rudely manhandled in my life.”
Lakon helped the woman to her feet and handed her off to the care of a watcher, keeping his own crossbow ready at his side as they ushered the group down the creaking steps, one at a time – it seemed Lakon was just as wary of the building’s construction as Ripka – and out into the night.
She took in the area on instinct. Low light, little to no foot traffic, plenty of twisting streets and vague garden walls and alleys to obscure her way with. If she zig-zagged, and used the alleys and rock walls, she’d be nearly impossible to hit with that crossbow. But then, there were the others, and she couldn’t be certain they’d be so lucky. Couldn’t be sure Laella would even think to run if they all made a dash for it. She told herself she’d escaped from worse situations – near death on the Black Wash, the fortress of the Remnant. But each of those times, she’d had help coming for her: Detan.