Julia Vanishes (8 page)

So Mrs. Och has a brother: Gennady. I wonder about this Bianka, staying at a brothel in the Edge with a child. Madam Loretta is known for taking in women in trouble, women afraid of husbands or fathers or employers. Her whores have a well-fed look about them, unlike so many of the starved waifs selling their bodies in this part of the city, and I have heard she never shuts her door on a woman in distress. A softy, in other words, though her brothel has stood for a good many years, so she must be a decent businesswoman too. I reseal the letter, fold up my copy, and tuck it away in a pocket. Then I turn to the brown parcel, plucking the knots in the twine apart and unwrapping it. Inside I find a book in Inglese, a vial of powder, and a small leather pouch.

“I thought I might need your help,” I say to Liddy, who has been sitting in silence all this time, lost in her own thoughts, I suppose. “What have I got here?”

Liddy takes the stopper from the vial and sniffs the powder. My bet is that she was some kind of lady alchemist in another life, wherever she lived before she came here, though when I suggested this to Esme she just snorted.

“Rifolta,” she says. “Poison.”

Inside the pouch is something that looks like a piece of bark or a dried mushroom. It is brown and withered and gives off a pungent, moldy smell.

“Oxley root,” says Liddy, examining it. “Good for snakebite, among other things, and might go a ways toward neutralizing the effects of the rifolta too. It was used long ago for combating sickness caused by magic.”

“What's the book?” I ask. I recognize Inglese, but I can't read it.

Liddy glances at the title, then opens the book and flips through it.

“About the absorption of poisons.”

I wonder if any of this will be significant to the as-yet-unknown client I am writing my reports for.

“So the person who wants all this…is he planning to poison somebody? Or cure somebody who's been poisoned?”

“My best guess, dear, is that he wants to poison somebody
and
cure them, at the same time.”

“What in blazing Kahge is the point of that?” I ask.

“He wants to use a poison but mitigate the effects in some way,” says Liddy. “Fascinating. I can't imagine why.”

I ponder this a bit, and not knowing what to make of it, I let my mind wander. It wanders where it always wanders, straight into Wyn's arms, and I think again of what I saw, or thought I saw, at the Cleansing. Liddy watches me, black eyes just visible in the folds of her remarkable face.

“Are you well, Julia?”

“Yes, fine,” I answer distractedly.

“And Benedek?”

“We're both fine,” I say.

Liddy looks up at the ceiling. So do I. There are patches of mold on it.

“I wonder sometimes about the pattern that holds you. The places you return to.”

Heaven help us. “You mean like here?”

“No.” Liddy smiles—a fearsome expression, on her face. “I mean like the river Syne whenever there is a Cleansing.”

My heart skips a beat. “How did you know I was there?”

“Because you are always there,” says Liddy. “You are caught in something that takes you back. But I think it does you no good, Julia.”

I shrug. “I almost
didn't
go yesterday. I got talked into it. Does it matter?”

“That depends,” says Liddy. “Maybe nothing matters. But here we are. What can we do?”

I don't know what Liddy's getting at. Well, besides maybe not approving of my going to Cleansings.

“I don't think about it much,” I say. “Life is short.”

I think of Wyn again. If I go to the river Syne to stare at Death, I go to his bed to drink my fill of Life. I want love and good food and adventure. I want my days to hold the possibility of surprise and joy. I want to see the sea someday. I don't care about the patterns Liddy is talking about, as long as I don't have to break my back working for pennies, as long as my life gives me room to breathe, something to laugh about, a lovely boy to keep me warm when winter sets in.

“Sometimes life is short,” says Liddy. “Sometimes life is very long. It's always all we have. Do you want to spend yours at the bottom of the river?”

A shudder runs through me, and I leap to my feet.

“It's cold, Liddy. Should I light the stove?”

“No,” says Liddy.

“I'd better go,” I say.

Liddy nods and parcels up the book, the root, the vial, tying the twine around the parcel just as it was. Liddy never asks questions about that sort of thing.

“Be careful, Julia,” she says.

“I always am,” I call back over my shoulder. I'm already halfway out the door.

I should go straight back to the house. They will be wondering where I am if I don't, and Frederick will surely be worried now, having sent me to the Edge. I hope his gallantry doesn't provoke him to go looking for me. But I can't help myself. I'll think of some excuse for why I got held up. I have to see Wyn.

Esme is alone in the parlor, seated on the floor in a bizarrely contorted position, eyes closed serenely. She is burning scented herb sticks on the table and the room is a dizzying mix of jasmine and foxruth. Suddenly she raises her arms up over her head, palms together. I jump, and her eyes open.

“Julia,” she breathes.

Esme is a great believer in some very strange exercises practiced in the far eastern isles of Honbo.

“Hullo,” I say, looking around hopefully for something to eat but finding nothing. Three emerald necklaces are laid out on the table on handkerchiefs. Stealing jewels is easy, Esme always says, but fencing them is getting harder all the time. I doubt whoever brought her these got what he'd hoped for them.

“Esme, what happens to witches in Sinter?” I ask. “Aren't they drowned, like here?”

“Witches are drowned across New Poria and beyond,” she says, rising to her feet. She moves with surprising grace for someone so tall and powerfully built. “But I don't believe the queen of Sinter is quite as invested in rooting them out as is our esteemed prime minister.”

“So Sinter would be safer for a witch than Frayne,” I say.

“Anywhere in the world is safer for a witch than Frayne. But a witch would have to go a long way—Yongguo, perhaps—to wield her pen freely.”

Yongguo is the terrible empire in the Far East, half the world away. It is a lawless, barbaric place, where the emperor is rumored to keep witches at court.

“Why do you ask?” She fixes me with her clear gaze.

“There was a Cleansing yesterday,” I tell her. “Agoston Horthy was there and made a pretty speech.”

“He has a gift for speeches,” says Esme, her lips tightening at his name.

Like any sane person, Esme gave up on the revolution after the Lorian Uprising. I asked her about it once, and she told me tersely that there were not enough courageous oppositionists left alive to effect a revolution anymore. We used to play revolutionaries and soldiers when we were little kids, but now that I am older, I don't waste much thought on it. Let the powerful run around having their wars and chasing their witches if they want to. It's no business of mine. Not anymore. They've taken everything they can from me already.

“Well, and I heard a cop telling someone that one of the witches had got away. I wondered where a witch might run to.”

“And you thought Sinter?”

I shrug. Even those that supported the uprising and who long for the old ways are uneasy about witches. Esme knows what my mother was, of course, and she has never been twitchy about my own abilities, but I am not sure what she would say if I were to tell her that I suspect Mrs. Och of helping witches.

“I imagine it is rather like Frayne used to be before King Zey's rule,” she says. “If a witch kept her head down and didn't do anything nasty or show-offy, she'd likely be left alone. There were even some who'd seek out a rumored witch to buy a spell in those days, if they were desperate enough.”

“Weren't people frightened of witches back then?” I ask.

“Oh, I reckon they were frightened,” she says, and I think of how, after my mother was drowned, the same people who used to greet her in the street spat on me, and those that had loved her best avoided my eyes and said nothing, did nothing for us.

Esme takes my chin between her thumb and forefinger, looking right into my eyes. “You look tired, my girl. How is it, at that house?”

“I'll have the job wrapped up soon,” I answer lightly.

“Good.” She lets go of my chin. “I'll be glad to have you home.”

“And I'll be glad to be home,” I say.

I am always taken aback by these odd moments of tenderness from her. She was a hard schoolmistress, and she is an uncompromising employer. I have watched her coldly break a man's kneecap for cheating her and then head straight out to take a warm supper to a sick employee. For all the kindness she has shown me, I wouldn't want to cross her.

“Is Wyn here?” I ask.

Her eyes cloud slightly. I do not think she likes it much, this thing between Wyn and me, but she has said nothing of it to either of us.

“Upstairs,” she tells me.

I leave her to her exercises and climb the stairs, heart in my throat. I knock on the door, too loudly. Wyn opens it, shirt open to the waist, eyes bloodshot.

“Julia Brown Eyes,” he says with a warm smile, and swings the door wide, stepping aside for me. “You're not scrubbing floors and spying today?”

“I'm working,” I say. “I had an errand to run, but I need some lunch. Join me?”

“Just had breakfast,” he says, gesturing at a greasy plate on the floor.

“Oh well,” I say. “Look, I need you to do me a favor. Can you track down a girl named Clarisa Fenn? She used to work for Mrs. Och just a few weeks back. She's Lorian, so I'm guessing she lives in Mount Heriot. Eighteen, I think.”

“I'll ask around,” says Wyn.

“Good. That's all I wanted to ask you.” I find myself backing out the door, suddenly wishing I wasn't wearing this horrid maid's uniform with its ugly buttons. I need Csilla's advice if I'm going to buy a gown with my earnings, I think wildly. I know nothing about fashion. I forgot to brush my hair.

“Hang on, stay a minute,” he cries, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me to him. “I haven't seen you in days! You're going to run off without even giving me a kiss?”

“If you insist,” I say. I try to sound lighthearted, but my heart is weighing me down so I can hardly move. He bends toward me, and I blurt out: “I was at the Cleansing. I saw you with Arly Winters.”

“Why didn't you say hello?” he asks in surprise, straightening up.

“I was with the other housemaids,” I say. And you were with Arly.

“You could have passed me off as a relative,” he says. “Shock seeing Agoston Horthy there, wasn't it?”

“Quite a speech,” I say, my mouth dry.

“I heard one of those witches tried to kill him, and that's why he was there. To watch her drown.”

“Charming.”

“I wish you'd joined us. I went to a pub with Ren and Arly afterward, and if I'd had a belt on me I might have hung myself from boredom. The pair of them! Ren spent the whole time trying to talk me into a game of King's Heir with some scoundrels from the Edge who would have cheated him blind, and Arly's still convinced some rich man is going to marry her for her dimples and take her away from all this. Their mother is too soft on them.”

“Well, the housemaids aren't exactly thrilling company either,” I say, beginning to relax. Maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw; maybe it didn't mean what I thought it meant. It's not as if I saw them kissing. We've known Arly since we were kids; why shouldn't he have his arm around her?

He fingers the buttons on my dress, thoughtful for a moment, then says, “Arly said she might be able to talk to the teacher of the class she's sitting for, get me a spot.”