Dreamstrider (13 page)

I’m grateful for the poorly lit ale hall, for whenever I blush, my face seems to radiate heat like a well-fed furnace. “I’m afraid we don’t have that luxury right now.”

“No? More’s the pity, my dear.” He smirks at me. “In Farthing, we can
always
make time to enjoy ourselves.”

My skin tingles at his words. I work my jaw, searching for an appropriate response, but before I can cobble one together, Marez leaps up onto the bench, and joins Kriza and the other patrons in a fresh round of drinking songs. I slump forward with a mighty exhale.

Stouts, porters, and saisons shower down on me from all directions as the grating, oomphing melody rings through the ale hall. “Well, I see there’s one bit of Barstadt culture you Farthingers don’t hate,” I say. Not that he can hear me over the lyrics detailing a northern farmer’s daughter and her bountiful virtues (among other bountiful things). After several more verses, some of the singers reach their limit, and tumble off of the benches; the song collapses similarly. Finally, the Farthingers plop down on either side of me.

“I don’t hate everything about Barstadt,” Marez says.

“Just most?”

Marez slings an arm around my shoulder, crashing into me like a drunkard, but his words are frightfully sober. “The problem with Barstadt,” he says, “is its obsession with
order.
” The hand around my shoulder trails down my back, sending a fresh flush to my face. “Everything must be so prim and proper. So rigid.”

I sit up straighter and shy away from his touch. “It’s—it’s good for there to be an order to things,” I stammer. “It keeps us honest. Allows us to focus on fulfilling the Dreamer’s messages.”

“You call it honest, the structure of Barstadt society?” He laughs—harsh, rimed in frost. “Only fully fledged citizens can live and work on the proper streets, while those deemed unfit for society are forced down into the tunnels. The rats of the city, herded this way and that by crooked gang leaders who know how to trade their tunneler subjects for a coin, any way they please. It’s slavery.”

“Slavery has been abolished in the Barstadt Empire for over three hundred years—” I stammer.

“Really? You could have fooled me.” He cups my chin in one hand and turns my head toward the doors. “Look around you. This hall was built by tunnelers, it’s cleaned by tunnelers, and the whole thing is orchestrated by a vast network of criminals, the go-betweens for the right proper citizens and the sad, forgotten wretches.”

Anger churns fierce inside me; his touch burns on my chin. He knows nothing of what it’s like to be a tunneler. The cycle of violence in the gangs, the tunnelers’ lack of citizenship—they are all broken, yes. But the Dreamer will show us the best path to resolve these issues. He must. We must trust in him and his plan—I can’t imagine any other way.

“And what of Farthing?” I ask. “Are you telling me that a confederation of pirates, smugglers, foresters, and more is free of all criminal elements? You’re nothing but a bunch of crooks. Your whole nation is founded on crookedness.”

“It’s not a crime if it isn’t illegal,” he replies with a twist on his lips. “We watch out for our own. No aristocratic inbreds telling us what to do. Everyone does their part for the confederacy because they
want
to be a part of it.”

What of the Dreamer’s plans?
I want to ask, but I doubt Marez cares much about those. I can’t imagine the Dreamer leading us away from Barstadt, his chosen land.

But neither do I hear the Dreamer asking me to stay.

Marez shakes his head. “You really must learn to loosen up, enjoy the small pleasures in life. If you ever have a chance to visit Farthing, take it, little secretary. You’re sure to learn a lot more about enjoying yourself.”

I try to imagine what it would be like for me in Farthing, or anywhere but here—not being indebted to Professor Hesse or the Ministry of Affairs. Not relying on my paltry skills as the dreamstrider to spare me from returning to tunneler life. Freedom to pursue whatever best suits me. Feeling like I belonged.

But it’s a fleeting fancy—these Farthingers are no more my people than Brandt and his aristocrat friends. He’s picking through my weaknesses with the same skill I’m certain those nimble fingers of his can pick locks. I lean away from Marez and hope the dark hall is hiding my blush. Tonight, I’m doubly glad it’s Jorn shadowing me, and not Brandt.

“Kriza? I think it’s time.” Marez glances over my head at her. She’s singing and flailing around with the best of them, but as soon as their eyes lock, she goes cold with determination. A shiver runs through me. Even Brandt isn’t that talented an actor.

Kriza hops off the bench and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, girlie, let’s you and I visit the pissin’ room and have a chat, hm?” She’s slurring her words, staggering around. If I hadn’t seen her eyes seconds before, I’d swear she was three tankards past sane. I try not to let the prickle of fear under my skin rise to the surface. Let the professionals do their work.

We burst into Kriza’s “pissin’ room”—the chamber, as we call it in polite circles—and she hooks a chair under the door handle. The stench of ammonia and the weak bouquets of flowers that attempt to conceal it bring tears to my eyes.

“Ye gods, it’s worse than I imagined.” Kriza pulls the paisley-patterned scarf from her hair and ties it around her mouth. “Ain’t you stuffy imperials ever heard of plumbing?”

“It gets clogged down here by the docks, but you get used to it,” I say, in a pinched, nauseated voice that indicates otherwise.

Kriza hops onto the long wooden bench. I gasp as her foot edges dangerously close to one of the holes that open onto the sewer far below. But she’s as nimble as a squirrel, finding purchase on a sconce to hoist herself higher along the wall, then swinging her elbow into the giant wooden slats of the ventilation opening overhead. Brandt once told me that the ventilators in ale halls are the sole thing standing between a chamber full of ammonia, lit candles, and a massive explosion, and I’ve no interest in finding that out for myself.

“Do you need an engraved invitation?” Kriza asks me. “Come on.” She wriggles her way up the ventilation slot, and I hear her stomp onto the roof of the chamber.

Dreamer, protect me.
The acrid stench of human waste floods my senses, reminding me what awaits me if I fall. I’ve no desire to take a dive into that particular pond. Once, I evaded a gang enforcer by clinging to the stone wall that dropped down to sewers far below, praying he wouldn’t believe I’d been so foolish to drop down into that waste. Maybe I still have some of that strength. I reach for the wall sconce and prepare to swing myself up.
Come on, Livia. Focus.

The door handle rattles, jostling the chair to no avail. “Hey! Who’s in there? Let us in!” someone shouts from the other side of the door. My mother once warned me never to come between a bladder full of ale and a chamber, no matter how much more cleaning I had to do. I take a deep breath. I can’t lose my concentration.
Pretend you’re dreamstriding, Livia, and make your body work with you.

“Come on, now, I can’t hold it much longer!” another man yells. The chair groans as the mob on the other side throws its collective weight against the door. Now or never. I lunge for the sconce and swing a slippered foot into its crook. Pure determination carries me upward through the ventilation hole, and I brace my arms on the topside of the roof, my lower half dangling through the opening. Kriza stares down at me, hands on her hips.

I kick my legs, trying but failing to haul them onto the roof with the rest of me. “A little help?”

She presses her lips into a thin line, eyeing me like a worn bit of clothing she’ll soon have to throw out, then braces both her thick hands on my forearm, and yanks me up. Not a moment too soon, either. As my feet clear the lip of the hole, I hear the chair in the chamber splinter, and the mob clambers inside.

Kriza takes off running along the angled roof before I have so much as a chance to catch my breath.

“Wait! Won’t they know we’re up here?” I call after her.

She rolls her eyes. “I’d love to see any of those drunkards try to follow us. Come.”

I pad across the sloping slate roof and join her at a corner of the building. Like most buildings in Barstadt City, the ale hall is a tall and narrow pale structure with high, dark roofs that come to awkward points. Rooms jut out in a labyrinth of stacked floors.

“We should find the records we need in the manager’s office—up there.” Kriza points to the third floor. “Tall enough to sit on top of the main hall, with mirrors cut through the floor so they can watch for trouble.”

“And we’re heading for the office?” I ask.

She nods, her blood-red hair loose and wild around her face, free from her scarf. “We’ll see what tales their shipping logs tell.” Kriza hoists herself onto the roof of the second-story room beneath the office window.

“And we’re taking the outside route why?” I flail and flop around a few times before finally joining her on the next roof.

“Coz it’s far more fun!” She flattens against the outer wall beside the window. “Marez should be starting that riot for us right … about … now.”

“Riot?” I screech.

“To draw the owner out of his office.” She rolls her eyes. “I would expect anyone in the Minister of Affairs’ service to know such basic tradecraft.”

“I mostly deal with paperwork, and—”

Kriza whips around to face me, her eyes deadly cold, like a viper. “Marez clearly sees something in your skills that I’m missing, and our nations’ agreement requires us to bring you along. But if you’re going to get in the way of our investigation—”

“Sorry,” I whisper. What else can I say?

She nods. “Stay close. Follow me inside. Move like I move; step where I step.”

I remain pinned against the wall while she busies herself prying the office window open. After a quick peek around the curtains, she shimmies through.
Dreamer have mercy on my poor, misguided soul.
I plunge in after her. I take care to place my feet only on the same floorboards she does as we move into the center of the office.

Kriza throws open a massive leather-bound ledger on the manager’s desk and flips through it a page at a time, scanning each one briefly for indications of what Lady Twyne was using the fence for. I raise one eyebrow and await further orders. “Check the room for hidden compartments,” she says after a prolonged silence. “Walls, desks, drawers, floorboards … It’s all right to make noise, but don’t get in a hurry.”

I nod like I know what she’s talking about and do my best to imitate Brandt and Vera whenever they search a room. I knock against walls, press on chair rails and crown moldings, tap on the floor. I’ve no idea what I’m listening for, but Kriza seems satisfied enough with my efforts to leave me be while she continues to pore over the manager’s records.

“This looks promising,” I say. I swing open a hinged painting of the turbulent Itinerant Sea to reveal the front of an iron safe. Kriza glances up, tilts her head at it for a moment, then crinkles her nose.

“You really
are
a secretary, aren’t you?” She smirks. “The ale hall’s manager likely makes regular payments to the many criminal groups in your fair city. He’ll only be keeping worthless Imperial notes in there. Any of the real proceeds—like those from his smuggling operations—will be hidden elsewhere.”

“Imperial notes aren’t worthless,” I mutter, but I continue my quest. Fixed to the underside of the desk is a lewd sketch of a naked lady in what I’m quite certain is an anatomically impossible position. I drop it on the desk and shuffle a mass of papers over it.

Kriza pulls a small notepad from her blouse—where she found space in her ale-wench clothes, I can only hazard a guess—and jots something down, but she offers up no clues, and I ask no questions.

My foot catches on an uneven floorboard beneath the northern hand-woven tribal rug. I toss the rug back, and the floorboard pulls away cleanly in my hand.

Kriza peers over the ledger at me. “Anything useful?”

“Looks like a stash of papers.” I pull out a tightly rolled scroll and unfurl it. “A map. I’m not sure of where.” I sort through the stash. “A list of figures. They look like dates perhaps, and then some sort of shorthand … And what’s this?”

A gem winks at me from the bottom of the hollow. It’s an amethyst, but a particularly ugly one, shot through with a milky crack and caked in grime. It warms my fingertips as I pick it up; maybe the hollow rests atop a gas line. I glance around the office, looking for gas lamps.

“Let me see.” She shoves me out of the way and scoops up the contents of the concealed stash, scarcely glancing at the gemstone before wrapping it in a paper scrap. “I’ll ask your minister if there’s any significance.” She studies the roll of papers hidden beneath where the amethyst rested. “Mm. Shipping records. We’ll review these with your minister.” She stuffs them all down her shirt and nods at me—about all the approval I’ll get from her, I suppose. “Anything else?”

I turn up some false citizenship papers (a poor job, really; I’ve worked the streets with Brandt enough to recognize bad fakes when I see them) and a stack of Imperial notes that must have been set aside in case a hasty escape was needed. I think for a moment about pocketing the bills. It’s only slightly more than the monthly pay the Minister sets aside for my living expenses—I live in the barracks free of charge—but this kind of money would feed a family of tunnelers for the rest of their lives. It’s the kind of money that might, just might, buy them the type of citizenship papers that could actually pass for the real thing, opening the door to working in the ale halls, or the merchant shops, and maybe even renting a room in a tenement someday.

My fingers twitch, thinking of the paltry savings I’ve set aside with Brandt’s creditor. This one stack of bills would nearly double it. I could easily buy my citizenship papers—no longer be owned by the Ministry. Or a lab rat that Hesse would have gladly sacrificed in his pursuit of greater knowledge and power.

No. I wedge the floorboard back into place. These Farthingers may see no problems with their moral flexibility, but I have the Dreamer to answer to. I can’t stoop to theft, no matter what scum I’d be stealing from.