The Hidden City (27 page)

Questions, and Rath hated questions. Mostly because he'd discovered with time that they had answers, and the answers were almost always worse.

Farmer Hanson had not heard of Finch, at least not by name. That much wasn't a surprise to Jewel. But he also couldn't identify her by description. Granted, a terrified, tiny girl wasn't the easiest to comfortably describe, but the farmer had always had keen eyes.

Like, say, now, as he helped her with her basket. “Arann's fine?” he asked her.

She shrugged. She'd left Lefty at home with Arann, which was strictly against Rath's orders, and had come down to the Common, ostensibly to shop.

“You said she's smaller than Lefty?”

Jewel nodded.

“You're certain she's on her own, that she has no family?”

And nodded again. Because she
knew
. “Her hair's longer than mine, and I think it's lighter. It's hard to tell. I only saw her at night. Her skin's pale, though, and she's all bone.”

Farmer Hanson raised a brow. “This would be the pot calling the kettle black, hmmm?”

Jewel shrugged. “She's shorter. Than me.”

“What was she wearing?”

Good question, given what the street orphans usually owned: what they wore, and nothing else. Jewel started to answer, and then frowned. “You know,” she said quietly, “that's a damn good question.”

“Language, Jay.”

“Good question, I mean,” she corrected herself. “I think she was . . . I think she was wearing a
dress
.”

“Here?”

She nodded again. “It was gray, I think. I mean, it wasn't fancy. Maybe it was a—what do you call it?”

“A shift.”

“Or a nightshirt.”

“If she has that, she's not alone.”

But she
was
alone. Jewel looked up at the sky; she got a slow face full of drizzling rain for her trouble. The clouds were heavy, but pale; no thunder waited in their folds.

“Jay,” the farmer said, reaching out to touch her wrist. He was one of few men who could, without causing her to flinch or pale.

“What?”

“You can only do so much.”

Which made almost no sense.

“You took Arann and Lefty in, and if I had to guess, Rath's not thrilled.”

“Not much, no.”

“You mean to keep them.”

Her eyes widened, and then she had the grace to redden. “Is it that obvious?”

Farmer Hanson shrugged. He punctuated the movement with a sharp word to one of his useless sons, as he so often called them. He spoke more fondly to his daughter. “It's obvious enough to me, but you've always been a strange one. This girl—where did you see her?”

“I'm not sure. Maybe the twenty-fifth holding. Maybe the twenty-sixth. Near Taverson's.”

“At
night?
” He looked scandalized. It made her smile. Although he didn't trust Rath—because, she thought, he didn't know Rath—he had come to think of the odd man as her guardian. And guardians did not let girls out near Taverson's in the evening. Not if they weren't looking for a different type of customer.

She shrugged. And tried to lie. “I saw her before. Before Rath.”

His brows rumpled in the middle. Really, Rath would be embarrassed.

“You stay away from there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Where was I?”

As she didn't want a lecture, she tried to retrieve her hand without reminding him. He held on.

“You've done well,” he told her, voice gentling. “And I think you'll
do
well. But you can't save everyone.”

“I know,” she said bitterly. Thinking of her father. Thinking of her gift. Hating them both, for just a minute. Because it was always like this. “But I
have
to try. You understand that, don't you?”

He met her gaze and held it. “Trying,” he said at last, “is good. It always is. But failing? Everyone fails, one time or another. It's how you deal with failure that counts, in the end. It's the successes that you're known for—but it's the failures make you what you
are
.”

She looked up at Farmer Hanson for a long time. “Farmer Hanson?” she asked, in her politest voice.

“Yes?”

“Could I just be adult now?”

He laughed, but the laughter trailed off, and she knew— watching it die—that he was thinking about his children, their childhood, and hers. “It doesn't get easier,” he told her quietly.

“It
has to
. It has to be easier than
this
. My mother used to tell me I had my whole life ahead of me. I don't
want
my whole life ahead of me. I want it behind me. I want to be whatever it is I'm
supposed
to be. I want to be listened to. I want to be able to make a difference. I want to—”

“To save people?”

She looked at him. “You do.”

“You have, Jay. But you can only do it one person at a time. And you can't save everyone. You couldn't even
meet
everyone in your whole life, if you did nothing else.

“But it's a dream,” he added, bending slightly to bring his eyes level with hers. “It's a
good
dream. Some people dream their life away. Some make goals of their dreams. If you don't fail, it only means you didn't try.”

“And do people always fail?”

“Not always, but not never.” He shouted at his sons again, and turned away. It was busy enough that she let him go.

When Rath returned, Jewel was in his room. The paper he prized so highly was laid out against his desk, and the inkwell was to one precarious side. She had quill in hand, and ink on her lips and fingers; she had never been a neat child.

He said nothing; she had ears, and she had obviously chosen to ignore his approach; to keep her place on his chair, two volumes of ancient history beneath her in order to give her the height she needed to make proper use of the desk. Red leather, worn and faded, was not the cushion he would have chosen, and he was annoyed.

But not so annoyed that he failed to notice her work, and when he saw what it was that she attempted, the annoyance evaded his slight grip. Straight lines, with names marking them; small squares with words in their centers. Radial lines going out from the Common at the heart of the holdings, and slinking into the different districts that comprised the old city.

A map, he thought. A poor map. But not a poor first attempt. Taverson's was marked, and by it, the old warehouse that was known as Fennel's place. It was occupied by squatters; it wasn't safe—or warm enough—for anything else.

The map was not to scale. He wondered if she knew it, if she knew what scale was, and if she cared. Her hair was pulled up and out of her eyes, but curls darkened them anyway. Flyaway curls, dark eyes. This child, he could almost come to care for.

He came to stand by the desk, and as his shadow interrupted the light—the magestone light, whispered to brightness—she looked up. Rubbed her eyes, and left a trail of black along their lower lashes. “You're back early,” she told him, no guilt, no guilty start, in the words.

He nodded, and removed his blue velvet jacket with care. “My client's abode seemed . . . under observation.”

She nodded, but it was clear from her expression that the words had passed in one ear and out the other without catching on anything in between.

She said, “The moon was out. And it was almost full. I think I know when the dream happens.”

He said nothing, draping the jacket with care over the armchair. He found his pipe, but he did not choose to sit; instead, he stood by her side, placing dry leaves in its flat bowl.

“It's supposed to stop raining in three—in two—nights. But that's wrong, for the moon, isn't it?”

“The full moon is at least a week off. You said it wasn't full?”

She nodded.

“In which direction?”

“I don't know. A day before. A day after. Maybe two.”

He could have been proud; he'd taught her that, and she'd actually listened. He would have bet money she hadn't heard half of the words.

“I don't know where it starts,” she added softly. “And I don't know where it ends. But I know that she runs past Taverson's. And Fennel's place.”

He nodded, and lit the pipe. Smoke was slow to fill the room.

“I'm going to wait by Taverson's,” she added, standing. “I know she runs near the river. I think I know which direction she'd have to be coming from.”

“You are
not
going to wait by Taverson's.”

“I can wait inside.”

“No, you can't.”

“It's lit, it's crowded, it's—” She couldn't quite manage to say the word safe. “It's better than waiting by Fennel's.”

“Jay, you have no idea what you're up against.”

“No. And maybe she does. I don't know. I only know she's running. And she should stop right here.” And she pointed to Taverson's on the crude map, her nail burnished with magical light, darkened with a line of ink. She looked at him then.

“I have to try,” she told him calmly.

He could have spoken the words before she had; he had heard them all before. “Arann won't be able to help you.”

She nodded.

“Lefty—”

“Not Lefty.” And waited.

“This is not the fight that Arann's was,” he said carefully. Pipe smoke left his lips.

She nodded. “I know. I don't think we'll win if we fight. I wasn't going to fight,” she added, as if it weren't obvious. “I was just going to help her run.”

“I spent an entire evening attempting to outrun one of these men, if your nightmare is accurate. And I have training. You have next to none; she has less than none.”

“I know.” She stood, tucked the quill absently behind her left ear, and after a moment, carefully moved the map. Rath considered it a minor miracle that she didn't upend the inkwell.

“And if I forbid it?”

She said, “You will.”

She was such a frustrating child. “Jewel,” he finally said, “If I agree to attempt to intervene on behalf of this child, will you stay here?”

Her smile was a quirk of lips, something that touched only her mouth. “I can't,” she told him, although her voice was quiet, rather than defiant. “I'm her age. I'm
like
her. She's—she'll be—terrified. She won't stop running if she sees you. You'll just look like one of the—”

He lifted a hand. “Thank you for belaboring the obvious.” When it looked like she was about to continue, he turned a thin frown on her. Which stopped her mouth. In the brief respite, he inhaled pipe smoke and exhaled it in rings. She was right, of course. “You can't bring her here.”

She said nothing to that, but that was about all he expected. “Understand that this is
not
something I would normally do.”

She nodded.

“But . . . three such men—even one such man—in the holdings is cause for some concern.” His smile, still sliver-thin, was cold. “I am not a man who desires competition, especially not competition that can afford to hire competence in such numbers.”

“Competition?”

He sighed. “Sometimes, Jay, you're old enough for your age I forget how young you are.”

Which caused her to bridle. Ten, it seemed, was somehow a magically transfiguring age; it had two digits, not one, if you knew how to write or count. And she did.

Sullen, but not so sullen that she could ignore curiosity, she said, “How are they competing with you? Aren't they willing to buy everything you find?”

“Yes. Everything. Without question.”

“This is bad.”

“It is if, as I suspect, their desire to acquire stems not from greed or obsession with ancient history, but from a desire to make certain no one else sees any of it.”

She frowned. “But that would mean—”

And his smile was less sharp, and far more indulgent. “Yes,” he said, setting the pipe in his bowl. “It means they either know about, or suspect, the existence of the maze beneath the city. And they want it to remain secret.”

“You want it to remain a secret.”

“Because I'm
greedy,
” he replied, “and it's my source of income.”

“And they don't need the money.”

“Not apparently, no.”

“Which means—”

“Enough. Yes, that's exactly what it means. I will help you find the girl,” he added quietly. “But you will do ex
actly
what I tell you to do.”

She nodded, and the taut line of her shoulders, the pinched narrowness of her lips, relaxed. “Rath, I'm—”

“I know.”

“It's just that she's—”

“Jay, I know. You are what you are. I knew it before I took you in. I should have left you by the riverbank. I didn't,” he added, “and this is my penance.” He closed his eyes, tilting his head toward the door. “I think Lefty is restless,” he said at last. “Which means Arann is awake. Tend to them. I have . . . other things to tend to.” He lifted his jacket from the back of his chair, and paused by the window. Rain. More rain.

He disliked the oiled cloth as much as Jewel did, but he could not afford to look like a bedraggled thug; not where he was going. He found it, folded in a corner, and began to unfold it, keeping distaste from his expression.

“I may not be back tonight,” he told her. “And I may not be back during the day. I understand that if I tell you not to leave, you'll leave anyway, and as you are so terribly pathetic at the art of prevarication—lying, Jay—I will not waste our time. Be careful. Buy food as you need it; bring water. But, Jewel, if someone comes to the door, do not let them in.”