They came at last to the other end of the trapped hall and Toytere directed them to a single door set beside defaced statuary. It was not the main set of double doors, flanked by withered gold curtains, but rather a servant’s door.
“Heh!” Toytere gestured to a large black stain on the floor near the double doors. “That could be us, Little Dren. The doors sprout fangs when you touch them false.”
His huge smile unsettled Kalen more than anything he’d said before. The halfling seemed to long for death and every second without it made his smile all the more manic. Kalen checked Vindicator at his belt. Something about this felt so godsdamned familiar, as well. Almost-
“After you, goodsir,” Toytere said with a bow.
When they entered the Coin Priest’s chambers, it all made sense to him. The traps that could spring at any moment, the defaced feminine statue, the hall bare of ornamentation. He’d known all these things, grown up with them.
And the one common factor that tied them all together was the woman in the loose-fitting white robe, reclining on a black divan in the center of the room.
His hand went to Vindicator’s hilt.
“Kalen,” the Coin Priest said in recognition. “Take them.”
On her word, crossbows clicked and sighted on Kalen and Toytere’s faces. Six of her acolytes stood ready-men and women with cruel faces and no hesitation.
Kalen watched only the woman who issued the commands. She was much older, but he recognized her eyes. One was cold and pale, so like his own. The other was a platinum coin that winked at him in the candlelight.
Toytere eyed the crossbows. “I suppose you two have met, no?”
Priestess and paladin locked eyes across the room. For them, no one else mattered.
“Hail and well met, Kalen,” the Coin Priest said. “Little Brother.”
“Well met, Eden,” he said. “Sister.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
26 KYTHORN (MORNING)
"Well,” Eden said, grinning like a hungry fox among sleeping chickens. “My goddess must love me, to offer me this delicious reunion.”
“Truly.” Kalen did his best to ignore the crossbows. “You look well, Sister.”
“You’re a godsdamned liar.” Eden grinned. “But you’re sweet to say so.”
His assertion had been true, after a fashion. The Eden before him was not the sickly girl of his memory-poorly crafted and worse tempered. Some of the signs of her youth remained: a leather-and-metal brace on her left leg, a cane set with antlers at its head that leaned against the divan, quick to hand. There was a certain fleshy presence about her Kalen found all too familiar. She had the body of a girl who’d been told she could never be thin or pretty.
“Wait,” Toytere said. “Brother? Sister?”
“For a seer, you’re remarkably blind,” Eden said. “I suppose you hardly realize other folk exist, much less their relations. But I suppose you never met us together.”
“You came back to Luskan,” Kalen said. “After mother-”
“Spare me the reminiscences.” Eden brushed ebony black ringlets back from her weathered, Luskan face. “I should kill you right now.”
“If that is what you will have.” Kalen wondered if he could cut down one of the crossbowmen before they shot him. He could use that man as a shield, get to the next …
“A thousand pardons,” said Toytere, “but we be coming here under a banner of king’s parley, Lady of the Clearlight. Or do that not matter?”
“Oh bother.” Eden’s full lips turned into a pout. “Why, of course that matters. This one is with you? Think carefully, ’ere you answer.”
Kalen realized putting his fate in Toytere’s hands did not relieve him in the slightest, Sight or no Sight. The halfling could have his revenge right now.
“Aye, your ladyship, he is mine,” Toytere said at length. “And I’ll have no violence done against him, all the same to you.”
“It isn’t, but very well.” Eden waved her lackeys back, but they kept their weapons trained on the visitors. She gestured to a full sideboard with liquors of various colors. In Waterdeep, such a selection would be a matter of course in a noble’s sitting room; in Luskan, Eden must have robbed or killed a dozen bootleggers to acquire it. “Wine? Something stronger?”
“No,” Kalen said.
“Suit your own self.” Eden waved and one of her attendants poured her a snifter of brandy. “I’m surprised to see you here. To what do I owe the denied pleasure of your deaths?”
Kalen bit his lip. He should have known Beshaba had been frowning on this whole damned quest: to bring him to this city he hated, to try to rescue a woman who didn’t want to leave, to avoid a boy he could not teach. Now, the only lead he had was the word of a dying madman, which pointed to his sister.
He had no choice. “The plague.”
“The Fury. Quite painful, I hear.” She sipped her brandy. “So what of it?”
Kalen had hoped it would be easier, but he saw Eden would not part with any knowledge readily. “We were told you knew of it,” he said.
“Told by whom?” she asked. “The Dragonbloods, who you attacked this very day? I trust the Old Dragon’s well.”
“Dead,” Kalen said.
“Pity,” Eden said. “He was a worthy opponent. Unlike your little halfling there, who can’t even See a waiting ambush.”
“Ah-” Then Toytere shrugged. “True, it be.”
Kalen crossed his arms. “What are you doing here, Eden?”
“Why, serving the pleasure of the goddess.” Eden gave him a mock toast.
“Which one?” Kalen asked. “Tymora or Beshaba?”
“Neither. Both.” She shrugged. “I feed the hungry and clothe the naked-at the end of a night when fewer starve or freeze than had to, does it truly matter?”
“Yes,” Kalen said.
Eden smiled at him.
Silence stretched, punctuated first by the scrape of glass on wood when Eden set her empty glass on the side table, then by a click-click-click as Eden tapped her fingernail on her eye-coin. The rhythmic sound grated.
“That’s it?” Toytere said. “You’ll tell us nothing?”
The halfling’s tone drew their attention. He was the picture of anxiety; sweat beaded on his forehead and his jaw was clenched tight. He shivered, as though he could barely hold back a far more violent outburst. He recoiled as though chastened.
“The Fury.” Eden took up her cane and rose from the divan. “You’d expect, in the nature of plagues, to see folk hacking and coughing, but no. Rather”-she stepped toward Kalen with an awkward sort of sensuousness, like a wounded cat that yet stalks its prey-“rather, folk become beasts. Moody, aggressive, even mad. Rioting in the streets, brawls and duels … ’tis only after, if victims survive all the fighting, that the sickness eats them from within.”
“Well,” Toytere said. “Thanks, lass, but we knew all that. Now if you’ll excuse-”
“This plague,” Kalen said, his eyes on Eden. “How does it spread?”
He knew the answer already-in his heart-but he needed the words.
“None know,” Eden said. “It could be water, or air, or blood-maybe rats?”
“Bah,” Toytere said, avoiding Kalen’s questioning glance.
“Myself, I believe it simply a part of this city,” Eden said. “The gods’ curse, laid upon ruined Luskan. Here, after all”-she touched Kalen’s chin with her cold, gloved fingers-”who’d notice everyone fighting all the time? You could have it and think you are simply trying to live in the harsh world that is Luskan. At least, until the rages begin.
“A person with the Fury,” she began as she turned to Toytere, who veritably shook. She swayed up to him and gently laid her hand on his head. “He grows impatient, first. Then he shouts or snaps at naught. Then out of the blue he savages you. Like an animal. And then”-she clicked her tongue while reaching for Toytere’s wrist-“dear, dear-that doesn’t look well at all.”
The halfling swatted her hand away. “You shut your rutting mouth!”
“So.” Eden eyed Toytere, as did Kalen, pointedly.