Scholar of Decay (14 page)

It wasn’t until he stepped out over the ruins of the door that Aurek realized the hour had grown so late. The sun had obviously set some time before, and evening had nearly been overtaken by night. He shrugged his pack higher on his shoulders and carefully made his way down the crumbling townhouse stairs. There were families—or at the very least, people—living in the houses on either side, but the building he’d searched was empty. All the buildings he searched were empty. Apparently, the traces of power that drew him kept others away.

“Have you found anything of interest?” inquired a silken voice from the shadows.

His heart beating a little faster, Aurek turned and waited as Jacqueline Renier approached. She burned in the dusk like a black flame, and he wondered how many moths had scorched their wings flying too close. “I would have informed you if I had,” he told her flatly, keeping any and all reaction completely hidden.

“Good. I appreciate a man who remembers his commitments.” Falling into step beside him, she shot him an enigmatic look from under thick lashes. “But after all this time, you must have found something?”

“Little things,” he admitted. “Broken things.” Her silence seemed to pull a further explanation from him. “Today, I found a mirror.” Whole, it would have been used for simple scrying. “Or, if you prefer, I found pieces of a mirror.”

“Which you left where they were.”

“I have no interest in mirrors.” His lips pressed to a thin line, he waited for her to ask him where his interests lay.

But after a long pause, all she said was, “I can see that. You’re growing a beard.”

Aurek felt as though something had just slipped through his
fingers, but he had no idea what it might have been. Until this moment, he’d had no doubt that Jacqueline Renier would take full advantage of any opening he might give her.

They walked together in an almost companionable silence and once, when a number of paving stones had disappeared from their path, leaving a rough and shallow hole, Aurek held out his arm, forgetting for that instant just who exactly he was with. Jacqueline looked down at the bend of his elbow in some astonishment, then, with a gurgle of laughter, allowed him to help her over the break.

At the bridge to Lacheur Island, she stopped, and he realized that she wasn’t going to accompany him across. “You’re a fascinating man, Aurek Nuikin, and not much fascinates me anymore.” Her manner bordered on friendly as she extended her gloved hand.

He took it, and lightly brushed his lips over the knuckles. Get your sister away from my brother. The words hung in the back of his throat, but something stopped him from voicing them. The last thing he wanted to do was direct Jacqueline’s attention to Dmitri. He found himself saying instead, “I was wondering, who took that piece out of Louise’s ear?”

“I did.” Jacqueline smiled at the memory. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “An uncle once said he couldn’t tell us apart. Now he can.”

She withdrew her hand, half turned, and murmured, “I hear that your wife is dead. How sad.” When he made no reply, she added, “I’m sure you did all you could to prevent such an unfortunate … accident.”

Natalia. He closed his eyes for an instant to deal with the sudden overwhelming feeling of guilt, and when he opened them again, Jacqueline was an impossible distance away. He watched, almost mesmerized, until her slim, black-clad figure blended with the shadows. “It is dangerous to walk alone at night in Pont-a-Museau,”
he said softly, but he meant the warning for the people of the city, not for Jacqueline Renier.

Hidden behind a faded but clean curtain, Dmitri peered out at the esplanade bordering the river in front of their house and tried unsuccessfully not to fidget. Its foundation undermined by the water, a considerable chunk of paving by the dock had collapsed, leaving a hole too wide to jump and impossible to avoid. There had been a rough plank bridge laid over it, but Dmitri had removed the boards earlier in the afternoon while Edik was busy in the kitchen.

Now, he waited for Aurek. He hated waiting, and he wasn’t good at it.

When Aurek reached the hole, he’d have two choices: either do something wizardlike to get over it, or go a very long way around—not a pleasant prospect given the time and the reputation of the city.

It was almost full dark, the sky the deep sapphire that colored the moments between evening and night. It was also hours later than Aurek usually returned and, in spite of himself, Dmitri began to worry. Although the musicians did their nightly best to drown them out and everyone else seemed happy to ignore them, he was sure he’d heard screams rising like an incriminating counterpoint behind more than one evening’s merrymaking.

Concern warring with irritation, he’d just decided to take a lantern out searching when he saw Aurek approaching, his pale hair ghostly in the shadows. Relief that the test would soon be complete overwhelmed any other emotions.

“Finally,” he muttered, drawing back a little from the window. “Now we’ll see.”

The hole was a black pit in the gray stone. Aurek stopped on the far side, looked around for the boards, and threw up his hands in patent exasperation. He didn’t seem surprised the bridge was missing, but then, scavenging was Pont-a-Museau’s leading industry.

“He’s thinking about how late it’s getting,” Dmitri told himself as Aurek glanced at the sky. “And he’s working out how far he’ll have to walk if he goes around.”

Dmitri planned to run out with the planks if Aurek decided to go around; he wanted to test his brother, not risk getting him killed. He didn’t have a good explanation of why he’d removed the boards in the first place, but as Aurek never listened to him anyway, he supposed that didn’t matter.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot as Aurek studied the pit and then methodically scanned the area. “He’s checking to see that he’s unobserved.”

Apparently satisfied, Aurek slid his right hand into the pocket of his jacket and brought it out with something—it didn’t look like a ring, but Dmitri was too far away to be sure—around his thumb. With the hand held parallel to the ground, he floated over the hole.

Dmitri felt his jaw drop.

“You were right.”

Louise tousled a golden curl. “Of course I was. I always am. What was I right about this time?”

“Aurek. He’s a wizard. And he never told me.” Staring just past her, his eyes unfocused, Dmitri recounted the result of his little test.

“Floated across?” She pouted. “Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?” he asked bitterly, refusing to meet her gaze. His sisters probably knew and had never seen fit to tell him either. Edik knew, of course; Edik knew everything. He wondered how many other people had been let in on the secret while he’d maliciously been kept ignorant.

Laying her palm flat against his chest, Louise could feel his heart beating, young and strong and hers. “You’re upset because he doesn’t trust you.”

“I’m upset because he’s my brother, and I don’t know anything about him.” Which was true as far as it went. It just didn’t go far enough. He’d spent his whole life trying to measure up to Aurek, and now he’d found out he never could.

“You don’t know enough about him anyway,” Louise conceded, frowning slightly. “Come walk with me; I always plan better when I’m moving.”

“But I thought we …”

She pressed a finger against his lips. “Don’t think.”

When they paused on the bridge joining Isle Delanuit—whether the Renier family’s Chateau Delanuit had given its name to the island or the island to the Chateau was not entirely clear—to Craindre Island, Dmitri pointed up into the sky. Although the air held a chill that foreshadowed winter, the sky was clear, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. “Do you know what they call that constellation in Borca?”

Louise pressed her cheek into his shoulder, willing, for the moment, to allow him to instruct her. “No, what?”

“We call it the Broken Heart.”

She tugged him into motion again. “I don’t believe in broken hearts.”

He smiled adoringly down at her, his eyes adapted enough to the darkness to see the pale beauty of her face. “Then you’ll never break mine.”

Under the bridge, clinging easily to the rough stonework, the white wererat followed, shaking its head. She won’t break your heart, you idiot. She’ll rip it out and eat it.

“I think,” Louise murmured as they started along one of the city’s many riverside esplanades, “that your little test was just a bit too simple. It isn’t enough to know that your brother is a wizard; we need to know how much of a wizard he is.”

By now, Dmitri knew better than to ask her why. “I guess I could find out,” he offered doubtfully.

“How? He won’t tell you anything; we’ve already established that.” She felt his arm grow rigid under her fingers and tightened her grip, pleased with his anger. “No, my sweet, you’ve done enough. Leave this to me.”

“But if he frightens you …”

Although her eyes glittered in anticipation, she managed to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “We should face our fears, don’t you think?”

“No. I don’t think,” he continued quickly as he felt her tense, “because you don’t want me to.” Her smile was all the reward he could have desired.

“It would help if we knew what he was searching for.”

“Knowledge.” Dmitri tried not to grind his teeth at the memory of Aurek’s sanctimonious one-word reply. “That’s what he said when I asked him but, as you pointed out, I know he’s not telling the truth.”

Louise ignored him. “What would a wizard be searching abandoned buildings for?” she mused, chewing on her lower lip.

“Abandoned wizardry?” The look she turned on him stopped
him in his tracks, the soles of his boots slapping down hard against the pavement. “What? What did I say?”

“Exactly the right thing.”

Surprised by her response, he beamed. “So you’re pleased?”

She gave his arm a squeeze and turned him back toward the Renier estate. “Very pleased.”

Her words were a promise, and Dmitri felt his pulse quicken.

While they walked, Louise made gleeful plans. If Aurek Nuikin was searching for magical items in the abandoned buildings of Pont-a-Museau, she’d just see to it that he found a few and, if he survived the finding, she’d know for sure if she could use him.

At the bridge, Dmitri shook his head and looked out over the city. Lights were burning in a number of windows and, though he couldn’t see it, he knew the party they’d left earlier was still going on—would be going on until dawn. “I don’t understand why everyone says this city is so dangerous. Standing here, with you, I feel perfectly safe.”

He jumped as a half-starved alley cat slunk out of the shadows, and then he laughed at his reaction. “Mind you, that’s not to say that some of the stories I’ve heard haven’t made an impression.”

Scrawny body low to the ground, scarred ears flat against a triangular head, tail lashing the night, the cat glared up at Louise and hissed.

Louise glanced down over one slender shoulder and hissed back.

The cat leaped into the air, tripped over its own hind legs, and fled in terror.