The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (48 page)

Pika shrugged.  “I’m just saying.  He’s scared.”

I shoved off my cot and ruffled her hair.  “I think you’re
silly.  Scram.”

She stuck her tongue out at me and bolted, scattering soot
everywhere, leaving me all alone again.  I waited till she’d good and gone,
then slipped out of the Hole and made my way down to Chancy’s, because for all
I wanted to sulk at my cot, I couldn’t let the lads have all the fun without
me. 

Chancy’s joint sat on the river bank down past the Station,
where the streets weren’t quite as abandoned as they were out by the Hole.  It
had been a decent looking place, once, with brick and beam walls and green
awnings for setting about on nice days, but now it just had a saddish kind of
face about it, likely because so few people went there anymore.  Mostly kids
from the Hole hung around Chancy’s, so he’d given up thinking he had a hard bar
for the local roughs, and took to making short beer and sugar candy to serve
the kids too young for the real stuff. 
Business is business, and money
don’t smell,
he’d always said, and so long as we could pay or work, he
mostly ignored us being there. 

It’d always been that kind of joint, anyway.  No rules like
up northside where you had to have the right look to get a seat.  The place
felt perpetually dusty, like the inside of a mill, with faded floors and faded
walls covered from corner to corner with the kind of rebel slogans that the
coppers would never stand to see.  I’d never figured Chancy for a rebel
himself, but I knew a lot of the older lads played at being revolutionaries
here in the shadows, meeting over stale beer and stolen cigos, imagining the
handful of them could actually change the world.

When I wormed my way through the door, I found Anuk and Jig
with a couple others up at the bar, all of them staring at me coming through
the door like they thought I’d be someone else.  I disappointed them, I could
tell.  They kind of all turned around and went back to talking, and none of them
even tried to say hullo to me.

I hopped onto a stool next to Anuk.

“You seen Shade?” he asked, turning.

I shook my head.  “Not since last night.”

“He was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”

“So, he’s late,” I said.

Red shot me a nasty glare.  “Shade’s never late.”

I prickled, just.  But I didn’t get to think about why,
because at that minute the door opened and Shade slipped in, quiet and
shadow-like.  He didn’t even glance at any of us.  He leaned on the bar in a
fine black greatcoat I’d never seen, and Chancy came out quick as rain to serve
him.

“Hullo, Taumir,” he said.  He rubbed at the bald patch on
his head, and wiped the sweat from it on his apron front.  “Care for
something?”

I sniffed.  We all had to shout at Chancy for a good five
minutes these days to get him to give us aught.

“Brandy,” Shade said, and we all gawped at him.

Chancy’d never serve him that,
I thought, but he
did.  And Shade slipped a two-kip note across the counter as if it were
nothing.

Finally Bugs couldn’t keep quiet any longer.  He looked
about to bust out of his skin, he was that excited.

“Shade, where’d you get that coat?” he asked, almost
hollering it at him.

Shade took a sip of the brandy, then set down the glass and
stared at it a good while.  “The last fellow didn’t need it anymore,” he said.

We all caught our collective breath, but he didn’t seem to
notice.  Sometimes…sometimes I hated him.  Hated him and that silence of his,
when it felt like that silence should not exist.  Because when he got like
this, I imagined he didn’t care a jot about any of us.  We didn’t even exist
for him. 

These moments made the other moments feel like a lie—as when
he taught Bugs how to fight, or jibed Anuk and Jig just to get their hackles
up…or those precious moments a few nights past when he’d come to kick the
leather ball around the enclosure with me in the moonlight, when the wee
skitters had gone to bed.  We’d laughed and talked about all and everything,
the way that made me smile when the other kids complained about how Shade never
talked.  And I wanted those moments to be real more than anything, but how
could he really care about us and treat us like this?

Maybe, though…maybe the silence and the stoniness were just
a mask, as if his gift meant he always had to hide something, even if he was
just being himself.  I knew how much a gift could drive a person.  I sure knew
how much mine influenced me, making it so I never knew quite what I was.  Or
who
. 
So what would being a Mask do to a person? 

I studied Shade quietly, and not for the first time I
wondered if Derrin was right.  How
could
you trust a Mask?  How could
you ever know if aught about them was the truth?  I knew what Shade would say
to that, though.  He’d look me straight in the eye, and in that low, sea-wild
voice of his he’d say,
“We all wear masks.”

Bugs was still hounding him, because he never even noticed
Shade’s silence.  He just took it as a matter of course, and kept right on
yammering at him.  Sometimes I wondered if that was why Shade was so fond of
him.

“Where’d you get the kips, Shade?  From the dead guy?”

Shade turned to him then with a hard, strange gaze.  Then a
little smile quirked his mouth and he went back to staring at his drink.

“What’s the plan?” Anuk asked.  “We still got the meet?”

“Just confirmed it with Branigan’s lackey,” Shade said. 
“We’ll head out tomorrow night at the dead hour.  It’s the only time he’d agree
to.”

They nodded, and watched all agog as he drained the brandy
and slipped out of the bar without another word to any of us.  I scowled at my knees. 
He hadn’t even glanced at me.  Not once.  Not even a little.  Stars, I grobbing
hated
him.

Still, it didn’t keep me from jumping down and rushing out
of the bar after him, not caring what the rest of the boys said about me.  He
wasn’t hard to find, not with that enormous coat and his pale hair.  The
streets here weren’t crowded anyway, but he stood out like a giant the way he
walked.

“Shade!” I shouted, because I had a wee bit too much pride
to go running down the street on his heels.

He turned.  I kind of expected him to nod and keep walking,
but he actually stopped and waited.  I took my time catching up to him,
watching the street so I didn’t seem too interested.

“Hayli,” he said as I reached him.

Then he turned and walked on, so I fell in step beside him.

“You lads got something gannin’ down tomorrow?” I asked.

“Nothing big.  Just a chat with some folks.”

“Branigan.  The one who has dirt on the royal family?”

He shot me a strange glance, and I hoped I didn’t look quite
as sick as I felt.  Somehow I just kept thinking about the assassination
attempt, and how the Queen had wept, and how angry Tarik had been.  I’d never
been much of a loyalist—I’d never been much of an anarchist either—but I
realized I didn’t want Shade finding out bad things about the ruling family. 
The King might be a royal mess according to the lads at the Hole, but he was
our royal mess, and Shade was Istian.  He didn’t have any business knowing
their secrets.

“That’s the one,” Shade said.

I jutted my lip and shoved my hands in my trouser pockets. 
“The fellow you came to Brinmark to have words with,” I said.  “Was that his
coat?”

He smiled a little and tipped his head back.  “No.”

“You div’n just off some bloke for his coat, did you?”

This time he turned to glance at me, slowing up just a
step.  I couldn’t gauge the meaning in his eyes.  It flitted between humor and
hurt, and maybe just a bit of conceit.

But all he asked was, “What do you think?” and kept walking.

“I dan’ think you did it,” I said, skipping a few steps to
catch up.  “I bet you got some uppity lady-girl who thinks you’re a doll, and
she gave it to you.”

He laughed at that, tugging a smug grin to my face.

“Not quite,” he said.

“You ganna gan to the plaza for Kalethelia?  A lot of the
kids are.”

“Are you?” he asked.

I blushed something fierce and stared at the ground. 
“Maybe.  Not sure.  If it’s just Jig and Anuk, I dan’ na if I could stomach
it.”

He opened his mouth, got a rather peculiar look on his face,
and then turned away with a scowl.  “I’m not going.  I’ll be out.”

“You should.  I’ve heard it’s pretty spectacular.”

“It’s not really my kind of thing,” he said, a stray scrap
of sunshine flaming off the white of his mark.

“I could gan with you tomorrow.”  I clacked my teeth shut,
but the words were already out.

“No.”

“Why not?  You’re letting Bugs gan with you.  Bugs!  He can
barely buckle his own boots!”

“Bugs isn’t coming.”

My feet stopped.  “Oh.”

When he realized I’d quit following him, he turned around. 
“Getting Alby Durb’s name was enough for Derrin, but it wasn’t enough for
Kantian.  If I don’t get this juice from Branigan, that’s it.  So I’ve got no
choice.  Believe me, if it were up to me, I’d just walk away and leave this
whole business alone.  This kind of gossip means nothing to me.  But I have
got
to see Rivano, and this is my only chance.”  He studied me quietly, neither
warmth nor ice in his eyes.  “That doesn’t mean I’ll risk anyone I don’t have
to, though.  Don’t ask me to risk you.”  He took a step back and murmured,
“Nothing’s worth that.”

Then he turned and strode away, leaving me stunned and
speechless in the street.

Chapter 5 — Tarik

The kids were all in a fuss at dinner, going on and on about
our upcoming meet with Branigan.  I had knots in my own stomach, but they had
nothing to do with meeting a petty crook who claimed he had dirt on my family. 
In a few moments I’d have to make my escape, and return to Tarik’s life for the
first time in what felt like years.  Suddenly—strangely—I wondered if I would
remember what I’d been like.  How I talked, how I acted.  And I’d have to put
on that mask again, and keep up the pretense in front of all of Brinmark’s high
society.

I took a long sip of water and resisted the urge to check my
pocket watch,
again
.  Only a minute could have passed, because Bugs was
still eating and usually he inhaled his food in five minutes flat.

“What’ll you do to Branigan, Shade?” Bugs asked.  “Are you
ganna do what you did to Joren?”

“What’d he do to Joren?” Hayli asked, shying from my gaze. 

She’d been avoiding me the last few nights, so it didn’t
surprise me that she didn’t already know.  I knew she wasn’t happy with me.  I
hated it myself, how I treated her.  How I had to treat her, because I knew as
soon as I let down my guard…I would be lost.  Maybe Hayli was a Moth, but for
me she was the candle.  I didn’t know why.  I could never get myself to make
sense of the way the world tipped sideways when she came into the room, or the
way her smile put the sun to shame.  She was just Hayli— lost but confident,
unsure but dazzling.  A wild-eyed girl with the joy of the stars in her veins.

A slow burn crept over my cheeks, but I forced myself to
concentrate on my mask, to keep the blood from touching Shade’s face.  If only
she knew.

“Tell her, tell her!” Bugs hollered.

I jerked my head up, realizing at the last moment that Bugs
was talking about Joren.

“He pulled the toughs’ guns straight out of their hands,
like,” Jig said.  “From across the room.”

I held the cup to my lips, because I could feel Hayli
staring at me now, and I didn’t trust myself to meet her gaze.

“Shade, how…” she started, but never got around to
finishing.

I flicked out my pocket watch and checked the time, then
swallowed the rest of my water and slid off the bench. 

“Later, kids,” I said.  “I gotta scram.”

“Where you going, Shade?” Anuk asked.

“None of your business.”

“
Oooh
,” Bugs said.  “Shade’s got a secret.”

“Shade’s got lots of secrets,” I said, and left the table.

I could feel Hayli’s gaze following me as I left the mess,
but to my relief she didn’t get up.  Getting myself into the palace was going
to be hard enough without worrying about someone tailing me.  Especially her.

Zag met me with the motorcar at South Brinmark Station, a
great cloud of steam idling around the corner and away from the lamps.  I wore
his coat and a hat he had left for me in the alley, a fashionable sort of
thing, wool felt and narrow-brimmed.  In the darkness, no one would see that my
face wasn’t my own. 

As soon as I was settled in the back seat, we set off, and I
hid my face in my hands as we passed under the street lamps so that I could
bring my features back to normal.  Then I focused on my body, because in the
tailored dress suit I would have to wear to the ball, there was no way I could
hide behind Shade’s muscles.