Cold Magic

“Nephew,” Brennan said. “Not an egg sibling child, but a clutch sibling child.”

“Ah, I see,” I said, although I had not the least idea of what he was talking about. Caith twisted his head back around to face me and displayed his teeth again. It was clearly an effort to mimic a smile, however disturbing he looked, like he was ready to eat us up. So I smiled in return and addressed him politely. “May you find peace on this morning, Caith.”

Caith led us to the back. In what had once been a sitting room, Kehinde knelt among the pieces of her press, which were spread out in a pattern I could not read. She was so absorbed in moving pieces around to see where they fit that she did not even look up.

Old Godwik was seated at a desk, pen in hand, but he looked up at once. “The Hassi Barahal in her mantle! What an exceptionally pleasant surprise! Let me crow on the rocks at sunrise! And this… the cousin, I presume. And…” He gave Rory an exceptionally piercing look. “Interesting. I’ve not seen one like you before. Well met. Please enter our nest.”

Belatedly, surprised by his words, Kehinde looked up. “Catherine!” She smiled.

Brennan lugged the two carpetbags into the room and set them against the wall. A moment later, Chartji walked in, claws stained with ink and carrying a bowl of water in one hand.

“Catherine!” she said. “And your clutch sibling Beatrice! And did I hear this one called brother? I thought you might come.”

“We have a proposition to make you,” I said without preamble. “Our services, in exchange for yours. We believe that if anyone can help us get out from under the power of magisters and princes, you can.”

“Drink first,” said Chartji. “That’s the proper way. Then we’ll talk.”

As we passed around the bowl, a knocking came again at the door. Caith’s footfalls pattered down; chains rattled softly. The hinges creaked slightly as the door was opened.

After a pause, he called in his uncannily pure voice, “Brennan! There’s a rat here who says you’re expecting a messenger. He says a rising light marks the dawn of a new world.”

Brennan said sharply, “Get him in fast and shut the door.” Then he stepped out into the hallway. With a frown, Kehinde pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and followed. Bee, who had been drinking, handed the bowl to Rory. She grabbed my wrist and tugged me after them. We all spilled into the hallway to see Caith stepping back from the door as a pair of men surged in. I knew them! Hard to forget those faces: They were the two foreigners I had seen in the inn in Lemanis. They carried themselves very differently now. No longer diffident, they prowled like scouts, gazes ranging over our faces and up the stairs. The young man clearly did not recognize me, although he stared too long and too admiringly at Bee. The older man looked twice at me with obvious recognition, then frowned as Rory strolled with a threatening grace out of the back room, followed a moment later by a limping Godwik. On the stoop was the woman dressed as a man, the third foreigner I’d seen in Lemanis, but after glancing inside, she jumped back down to the street.

A man walked up the steps and into the entry hall. He caught Caith’s gaze and gestured. Obeying this wordless order, the young troll closed and chained the door. The door’s lintel framed the newcomer: He was a tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired man about Uncle’s age, and he wore a shabby wool greatcoat and a faded tricornered hat rather the worse for the wear. The clothes did not make the man. He might have worn rags, or he might have worn robes of gold, and either way, he would be the first person in any chamber you would notice, no matter how large the crowd.

I had seen him before. Only not like this. Before, he had hidden the true crackling strength of his gaze and the coiled power of his presence.

The man and Kehinde were eyeing each other with the look of dogs who aren’t sure whether they will become friends or attack.

“I expected a courier,” she said. “An ambassador, to open talks between your people and mine.”

“I am my own ambassador,” he said with a lift of his chin that had more power than a grand flourish. “As I must be, in these troubled times.”

“Truly,” said Brennan, a little curtly, “I would have expected you to arrive with more of a retinue.”

“Numbers breed attention,” said the man. “You understand why I must avoid attention, here in the enemy’s country. However, be assured I have many agents already in the city.”

I knew him.

He looked at Bee and nodded, as if they had already met, although that was impossible. “You must be the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter, just as Helene told me. Black curls, she said, very young, quite beautiful, and with as much subtlety as an ax.”