Pale Lights - Book 2: Chapter 11

“The pork?”

“Nine coppers a pound,” Abrascal replied as he slid onto the bench.

The tip of Song’s reed pen scratched against the paper, adding the latest price to the list. Poultry seemed marginally less expensive than pork, but the costs were more or less the same across the board. Frowning down at her work, an orderly cluster of names, goods and prices, the Tianxi fit the pieces together.

“We will have to rely on fish,” she finally said. “And rice.”

It had surprised her how cheap bags of rice were on Tolomontera. Though it was hardly an uncommon crop in Old Liergan, it was not a staple the way it was in Tianxia and the Someshwar.

“Maryam’s going to have a fit,” Abrascal snorted. “Did you see the face she made when I ordered ojo de pez this morning?”

Song took a moment to translate the Antigua – ‘fish eye’, more or less – and matched the meaning to the plateful of fish and eggs Angharad and the Sacromontan had taken for morning meal.

“She will have to grow used to it,” Song said. “It is the cheapest meat by far.”

“Well, we’re not living in Farm Allazei,” Abrascal drawled back.

Song did not roll her eyes at the feeble humor, though it was a close thing. The thief’s continued attempts at being charming were, at least, without witnesses: they were alone in the dining hall.

The Rainsparrow Hostel had neither a terrasse nor a garden, being an inferior establishment to the Emerald Vaults in every way. For eating what it offered was a sparsely decorated hall – drapes and tapestries hung from the walls – set with long tables, more a cantina than a true establishment. There were no servants doing the catering here, the guests instead invited to order at a counter in the back and choose their own table to eat.

After leaving word out front for Angharad and Maryam to be sent their way when they arrived, the pair had claimed at table in the corner and begun the work of accounting for their stay on Tolomontera. It mostly involved Abrascal venturing out to find out prices in shops while Song sat and took notes, putting together passable meals as she remained behind to ensure someone would be there should the others arrived.

She was on her second cup of water, but Abrascal was so often on his feet his first was still halfway full. Setting down the reed pen, Song looked up into the dark-haired man’s frowning stare. It seemed that, just like her, he could tell something was off.

“Suspicious, is it not?”

He sharply nodded.

“Those prices are too low,” he said. “There’s no way any of those shops are turning a profit.”

Reaching for his cup, he sipped absent-mindedly and set it down.

“Back in the City, if I stretched my leftovers and planned well I could live off about five coppers a day in food,” Abrascal said. “Now, let’s be conservative and double it-”

“More than that,” Song interrupted. “We will do strenuous physical exercise and keep long hours, both of which require good meals to compensate for. One portion of meat, one of rice and another third.”

He whistled, as if impressed. That bought him a sliver of pity, despite herself. Song’s family had been more influential than wealthy before the Dimming – generations of service even in the higher reaches of the bureaucracy brought respect but not overflowing coffers, unless you were corrupt – but even in the early days of their exile they had been able to provide at least this much in fare to their own.

“So about six coppers a head for every meal,” Abrascal said. “If we lean on fish and soup.”

“That sounds accurate, yes,” Song said.

He grimaced.

“The same meal you’re describing would cost somewhere between nine and twelve radizes, in Sacromonte,” the thief said. “And there is no way that food on this nowhere island should cost less, even if there is some kind of hidden colony tucked away somewhere.”

And there she must agree again. The prices per pound were close to the bargain a buyer might get for acquiring a large bulk at once, or perhaps buying straight from the farm. Unless the meat and greens were quite literally dirt cheap, the shops could not be making a profit off the sale. Which meant profit was not the point of having those shops there.

A concerning thought.

“On our end, at least, the costs seem reasonable,” Song said. “At twelve radizes a head for every day, over a month the price comes to-”

Thirty-four copper radizes to a silver arbol, three arboles to a golden rama. That would come to – three hundred and thirty-six coppers a week, one thousand three hundred and forty-four a month. A little under thirty-seven silvers and a half, meaning…

“- around twelve ramas and an arbol every month,” she finished. “I would not wager it a coincidence that is half of the twenty-five gold our brigade receives monthly.”

Abrascal blinked at her.

“When did you have time work that out?”

Song’s brow creased.

“You just heard me,” she said.

“Did you-” he began, glancing down at her list for something before shaking his head. “Never mind.”

The thief cleared his throat.

“We haven’t got the prices for supplies yet but I suppose it doesn’t matter if we are not yet sure what we actually need,” he said.

“I think it prudent to assume another seven gold and two silvers,” Song said. “Between ink, paper, clothes and blackpowder the lot might end up rather costly.”

And it brought the costs at an orderly twenty ramas out of twenty-five, a round number satisfying to the mind.

“That’s five gold loose,” Abrascal said. “Toss a rama our way each in private funds, then stash the last away for a rainy day and that is still quite the generous allowance for the Watch to give us.”

“So long as the prices stay the same,” Song warned. “Should they rise…”

It would eat into everything else, and worse.

“That is the part that trips me,” Abrascal admitted. “The current prices are apt to ruin the business but the shops don’t seem Watch-owned. Why would the owners empty their pockets for our sake? It smells like a racket, but I cannot see the point of it.”

“The point could be to provide us food at an affordable price,” Song said.

“Then why involve shopkeepers at all?” he asked. “Why not have some Watch quartermaster run the whole affair instead?”

That was, Song would admit, a reasonable question to ask. It seemed unnecessarily complicated, something the Watch was usually decent at avoiding. Tristan drummed his fingers against the table.

“Last night, the cooks and servants at that fancy evening were not part of the Watch,” he said. “They were tradesmen, here at its sufferance.”

Song nodded.

“It is the same on Regnant Avenue,” she said. “I saw a watchman buy from one of the butchers when first exploring the streets and he paid as anyone would.”

The man grimaced.

“All right, so the obvious play is letting the shops raise prices so everyone gets squeezed,” Abrascal said. “I just don’t see the point.”

“Why not have higher prices from the start, you mean,” Song said.

He nodded.

“Poor planners might find themselves lacking funds,” she suggested.

“Would anyone that foolish make the cut for Scholomance?” he asked.

Again, a fair point. Song had yet to ascertain the skills of her fellow captains but it would be a mistake to assume incompetence.

“Whatever the game,” he continued, “we should stock up on food that’ll keep.”

It was a step in the right direction, but not far enough.

“We need to learn how to fish,” Song said. “Or find a place where we might hunt. That might be the very reason two days a week are potentially left to us.”

The Sacromontan hummed in approval.

“Well, we have a garden,” he said. “Good black earth, not that I know much of gardening. We could buy seeds and plant them so we won’t have to rely on the greenmongers.”

Clever, that. She nodded.

“Herbs and vegetables,” Song mused. “A fruit-bearing tree would take too long to grow to be useful, I fear.”

“Berry bushes can grow quickly,” he disagreed. “But better to stick with vegetables, yes. I believe saw a bag of carrot seeds in one of the shops.”

The Tianxi glanced down at her papers, musing a new list involving seeds, and found there was little room left for one. She should have brought more paper. It was unfortunate that only so much of it that could be carried on you easily in a Watch uniform. Before she could begin debating whether or not to set out to obtain more, movement at the entrance of the eating hall caught her eye. Given that they were late for the morning meal and too early for the evening one, she had a guess as to who it might be.

As expected, it was Maryam and Angharad.

The former wore a hooded cloak Song was going to have to discreetly inquire had been stolen from who, given the distinctive blue and yellow embroidery, while the latter had a new saber belted at her hip. Much richer work than the standard-issue Watch blade she’d been using since the Dominion, but the sword was not what caught her eye: both women were carrying a pair of muskets whose make she did not recognize.

Song saw in fine detail so long as she could see at all, a consequence of her contract’s nature – though her experiments had established that the guiding nature of the ability was conceptual instead of physical, so ‘sight’ was not entirely correct – and the look of those flintlocks was not artisanal. These were workshop-built. Interesting, given that the barrel was overlong for a musket. Were these like her Zhangshou, built for sharpshooters?

Maryam put the two guns she had been carrying on the table and sat by Tristan, stealing his cup of water without even bothering with a greeting first. He let that pass without comment, looking amused, and a heartbeat later Angharad set down the other two muskets on the pile before joining Song’s side of the table.

Now was not the time to ask about these, but most definitely would.

“There were messages in front,” Angharad told her, reaching inside her pocket. “From our covenants, unless I am greatly mistaken. I took the liberty of bringing yours.”

She passed Song a folded paper sealed in wax, the hand-and-bolts of the Academy clearly visible.

“My thanks,” she said, and broke it open.

The contents were short and to the point, almost brusque. A time and a place – three in the afternoon, the OId Playhouse – as well as a dress code. She was to come in her regular uniform and armed. Song turned, cocking an eyebrow at Angharad.

“Maryam and I also received one,” the Pereduri said.

“Akelarre lessons will be in the chapterhouse, unsurprisingly,” Maryam contributed.

“I do not know where the training will take place for the Skiritai,” Angharad said, “but it is at the front gates of Scholomance we are summoned to. Fully armed.”

“The Old Playhouse for us, armed as well,” Song offered, then flicked a glance at Abrascal.

“I haven’t received summons,” he said. “Unless Maryam has mine?”

She shook her hand. The thief snorted.

“I suppose it would have been too easy for the Krypteia to just tell me what it wants,” Abrascal said. “I’ll have to find my own way without summons, I think.”

Song slowly nodded.

“I could ask other captains about it, should you fail to find a trail,” she offered.

He inclined his head in thanks. Good. It had been a concern he might be too proud to accept. Song’s attention returned to the cabal at large.

“We have investigated our funds and a variety of prices,” she said. “Meanwhile, word was sent to Captain Wen as to our choices of electives.”

A pause.

“Now we must agree on what will be bought and how we will divide the work of obtaining everything before we return to the cottage,” she said, eyeing the other three.

Already there had been a casualty: Angharad had preemptively become bored by the matter. She was feigning attention, but not very well. And while Maryam seemed attentive for now, Song suspected most of the interest would be withdrawn when it was established what her private funds consisted of. The Triglau was tight-lipped about her origins, but Song had noticed in her a tendency to expect she would be provided for most common in those born to means.

It was rather irritating that the only other soul at the table with any financial acumen was an avowed thief. Well, perhaps Song could add a little something to keep the attention of the miscreants.

“After which we will be discussing this afternoon’s robbery,” Song casually said.

And fancy that, now she had their full attention and all it had taken was crime.

—

The hood did its work.

Maryam looked suspicious going around with it pulled down, but it still drew fewer stares than her skin had. Suspicious was not that uncommon, in a place like Tolomontera, and she found it a relief. Her time on the Dominion had let her forget the invisible weight following her everywhere – oh, sometimes there had been stares but were too exhausted or worried to take issue with her paleness. But here on Tolomontera, where blackcloaks patrolled and students wandered around, she could hardly turn a street corner without someone gawking.

Or glaring.

The smithy’s front shop – called Brillante, if the sign hung above the door was to be believed – was run by an older woman of Lierganen looks, gray-haired and heavyset. Tristan haggled with her in Antigua so fast and so peppered with jargon she could hardly follow, though it appeared to involve the price of a pair of iron pans leading to either the Thirteen Brigade living in the streets and dying of the plague or the old woman being divorced by her wife while their grandchildren were sold as slaves to pay gambling debts.

By the time Tristan paid both seemed pleased, and the old woman threw in a tin ladle to encourage them coming back. Maryam remained profoundly unsure whether or not they’d been gouged.

“The old bastard at the Petstik will rob you on anything that has iron in it,” the old woman warned them. “Izcalli can’t work anything but noble metals properly anyway, everyone knows that.”

“I will heed your advice, tia,” Tristan assured her.

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Out, you pest,” she said, shooing him out. “I’ll need to trick at least two fools to make up for your taking advantage of me.”

Maryam trailed after him, openly amused, as he put away the pans in the bag. Song had left them with a list, written in her neat looping handwriting, and by the time Tristan looked up she had found the next items.

“We need knives,” she told him. “At least two. Should we head back in?”

He shook his head.

“Let’s go see the old bastard at the Petstik,” Tristan mused. “Might be he cuts us a price if he hears what the fine ladies of the Brillante have been saying about him.”

“You sound like you enjoy this,” she noted.

“I have never spent so much coin in a single day,” he admitted. “It feels like a fever dream.”

Maryam hummed. Neither had she, but that was because she’d hardly ever had to pay for anything. Her father had fed and clothed her as a girl, sometimes bought her trinkets, and Mother’s warbands had shared everything. There was no spare coin there, or sometimes any coin at all.

“Best not get used to it,” she said. “Between the clothes, supplies and arms we are like as not to be thin on coin by the end of the month.”

The dark-haired man’s face tightened. He cared little for most of his belongings, she knew, but the loss of Yong’s pistol had stung. Like as not he would begin looking for where the Ninth might have stashed their possessions, which she wished him luck on. Maryam had learned to travel light and always keep what she could not afford to lose on her, but she’d liked her clothes. They were comfortable and fitted to her frame. The pair cut out of Regnant Avenue and through an alley, heading north towards where they’d seen the other smithy earlier.

“I won some coin off the Forty-Ninth,” Tristan idly said. “If you need anything that will not get a nod from Song, tell me.”

She squinted at him.

“Are you telling me,” Maryam said, “that we are going to be robbing these poor souls twice?”

She had been pleased to hear of the scheme, even more so for the way it visibly made Tredegar uncomfortable.

“It took only a few silvers,” Tristan easily replied. “We can call it reparations for trying to ambush me, if you like.”

She snorted.

“I will mention it should there be pressing need,” Maryam said. “Still, it is amusing that you and Tredegar would be the ones with coin to spare, out of the four of us.””

He cocked a questioning eyebrow.

“She got a pouch of gold from her uncle, along the saber and the rifles,” she explained.

And there her steps stuttered.

Maryam had not heard it laid out so plainly before. It had not truly sunk in, how the rest of them made do with what they could steal or scrabble for while Angharad Tredegar had been handed treasures and a pile of gold without so much as lifting a finger for it. Simply by virtue of who she was.

And Maryam had hardly even noticed, because the Malani had looked sad.

“Maryam?”

She looked down at her hands, found the fingers clenched into fists. She’d been had. Maryam had known better and still been had. That was how insidious they were. A hand on her arm dragged her out of her anger to find Tristan frowning at her.

“What happened?”

“She grew fragile looking at her new expensive saber, whining of the old one being a gift from her father,” Maryam bit out. “And like a fool, I bought it.”

Tredegar had been literally pocketing gold as it happened and still she’d fallen for it. The shame burned, enough she felt like walking away – only she did not know where they would be headed. The pair was standing by a condemned house, the door walled in with bricks but the front steps still standing, and Maryam had not been paying much attention to their path.

“Her family was murdered mere months ago,” he said. “I do not believe that grief feigned.”

“So we all have to pretend she does no wrong,” she harshly replied, “because she is grieving and polite and she means well?”

“Well-meaning doesn’t come into it,” Tristan said. “The nicest tick still sucks blood, Maryam. Tredegar’s an exceptional swordswoman, but she had the chance to become that only because her family squeezed the blood out of a hundred other families.”

He shrugged.

“There might have been talents greater than hers plowing the fields of Llanw Hall, cleaning her kitchen or washing her sheets. The world will never know, because she was born with the right surname and they were not.”

“But you like her,” Maryam accused.

“I have forgiven worse of people I needed less,” Tristan frankly replied. “I’ll not forget what she is, but what gain is there in pillorying her for it? It won’t take back the name or squeeze her back into her mother’s womb.”

You sound like my father, she thought. It was not a compliment. Mother might have been half-mad with blood and rage, at the end, but she had been right about everything. That they hadn’t listened to her was why Volcesta was now called Ifanje on maps and Malan’s ram-horn banner flew over her childhood home.

“That’s how they get away with it, Tristan,” she harshly said. “They come to you charming and generous, until their foot is on the door and then they begin squeezing you out. Small things, they ask, and you’re always talking with a reasonable man – it’s another Malani who wants to raise tariffs, who raided that town or seized that mine. You just need to meet them halfway, and isn’t the golden peace worth a small trifle?”

She leaned in.

“Then you take a step back, they take a step forward and before you know they’re sitting in your house,” Maryam said. “Eating your food, drinking your wine, until they do away with even that and call it their house.”

Gray eyes considered her, and she already knew how it would end. Mother had told them how it would end, that pack of kings grown fat on trinkets and trade, and they had turned on her for it. Vranasestra, they’d called her. Crow-sister, mouth of ill omens. Tristan was cleverer than they’d been, but-

“All right,” he said. “If you’re sure, we kill her.”

Maryam blinked, looking at his face for any trace of a lie.

“It will have to be poison,” Tristan continued. “Something slow acting, dosed over several days – we can blame the cottage for it, maybe plant something sinister-looking in her room and claim it was a hidden curse.”

She licked her lips.

“You are serious,” Maryam said.

He shrugged.

“You have yet to steer me wrong,” Tristan said. “If it is your honest belief she needs to go, she goes.”

Maryam swallowed. Either he meant every word or he was a much better liar than she had thought. She let herself consider it for a moment – once Tredegar was gone they would have to recruit a fourth, but it should not be impossible. Glassy eyes, stiff limbs. Worst come to worst they could grab someone from a team of spares as a temporary helper until they found a better fit. That full face gone gaunt, feverish. It would be easier to make peace with the Ninth and… Maryam bit her lip and cursed, looking away.

Much as she wanted to think only on the consequences, the outcomes, that was not where her mind kept leading her. It would be murder to kill Tredegar now. Simple murder. There was no getting around that.

Feeling lost, Maryam stumbled back. She caught herself before Tristan’s hand could grab her elbow, gently lowering her to sit on the edge of the stairs. Her limbs were shaking, weakness haunting her. He sat down by her, close without touching, and spoke not a word. Her voice was shaky as her fingers when it came out, feeling like it belonged to another woman.

“They hunted me, you know,” she said. “An entire company. Hounds and men chasing me for half a month through the wetlands.”

Her nails bit into her palm.

“They would have caught me, if I hadn’t run into Captain Totec,” she said. “They were soclose, just hours behind. If the rain hadn’t swept the ford and forced me to go south, if I’d not used the Craft where the blackcloaks could see me, I’d be…”

She swallowed.

“I don’t know,” Maryam said. “Dead or a slave. I’m only here because I got lucky, Tristan.”

She passed a hand through her hair.

“How do you forgive that?” she quietly asked. “Coming so close.”

“You don’t.”

She found him gazing ahead, eyes fixed on the road. The thief hesitated.

“After my mother died,” Tristan said, “I had to flee. Had a coterie after me. Just thugs, really, but they had the run of the neighborhood and the landlord an in with them. But they knew the streets well, all the hidey holes. They found me twice on the first day and I had to run through the night, getting not a wink of sleep.”

He smiled bitterly.

“Then I found this attic in an abandoned house behind a tanner,” Tristan said. “Perfect place – you could only get there by the tanner’s roof and the stink kept everyone away. Only when I crawled in there, I found there was already someone inside.”

Maryam watched, saw how his face tightened.

“A boy, sound asleep,” he said. “Just a year or two older than me but bigger. Stronger. I knew he’d beat me if it came to a fight.”

“It might not have come to that,” she said.

“No,” Tristan softly agreed. “He must have been on the run too, to end up there. Might be we could have helped each other, shared the place. There was enough room.”

He paused.

“Or maybe he would have turned me in to the coterie for a few coppers.”

She bit her lip, put himself in his boots. About to collapse, alone and afraid. She knew how that story ended.

“I couldn’t take the risk, Maryam,” Tristan said. “So I loosened one of the tiles from the roof and I beat him to death with it.”

The gray-eyed man kept staring ahead.

“He didn’t die from the first blow,” Tristan said, “and there was nothing clean about what followed. I slept, Maryam, with his corpse three feet away from me and blood under my fingernails.”

“And you regret it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I was cornered, so I fought. There can be no sin in that. The boy I was, he made the only choice he could.”

His gaze moved to hers, holding it.

“But I’m not that boy anymore,” Tristan said. “I made sure of that, Maryam, so that one day I would have a better choice than trust or the tile.”

And she felt like lashing out, for what went unspoken behind the tale, only every time she felt like raising her hand or her voice at him she was stopped by a single, simple truth: if she asked him to, Tristan would murder Angharad Tredegar. No hesitation, no questions asked. He would just do it, was likely already considering how to.

Maryam was not sure how to get into a fight with that.

“I don’t trust her,” she said, hesitating. “I can’t. She’s… she doesn’t see anything wrong with what they do, the Malani. Not really. She dislikes the uglier parts, but she doesn’t care about the rest.”

“So don’t trust her,” Tristan shrugged.

She looked away.

“Song asked me to make nice with her.”

“I expect she would settle for fewer barbs,” he noted.

“So I’m to just let everything go,” Maryam bitterly replied.

He hummed, as if considering her words.

“You don’t act like you’re her equal, you know,” Tristan finally said.

Blue eyes turned to glare.

“Careful now.”

“You don’t,” he said. “You’re not fighting her, not really. When she steps on your toes you prick her, but that’s… resigned? It’s not a fight, it’s ceding the ground. If you called her impolite, faced her like an equal, she might bend. But you don’t. The barbs are funny, sure, and probably scratch an itch. But they don’t move the needle.”

“It is not my responsibility to teach Angharad Tredegar her wrongs,” Maryam flatly said.

“I don’t care if you do,” Tristan said. “I care that you act like there’s no winning an argument with her. Like I would – Manes, even Songwould – be on her side just because she’s polite and good at stabbing people. You’re not less than her, Maryam. You’re allowed to tell her to fuck off without needing to hide it.”

“You don’t,” she said.

“I don’t care enough about her opinions to be offended by them,” he honestly replied.

That startled a laugh out of her. They sat there in silence and Maryam closed her eyes, letting the tension bleed out of her. After a moment she leaned to the side, her head on his shoulder. He stiffened, for a moment, then loosened and even slipped an arm around her shoulder.

“I feel like a nap,” she muttered, “and we’ve barely even begun the day.”

“Ah, but I know what will you cheer you up,” Tristan said.

“What’s that?”

“Song made the mistake of leaving us in charge of buying the bedding, so we can buy Tredegar the very ugliest sheets in the shop and then watch her force herself to politely thank us for them later.”

He was right, Maryam mused. That did cheer her up.

—

Earlier that morning it had taken Song twenty minutes of interrogation to be satisfied, and to Abrascal’s honor he had not seemed irritated by the questions.

First came the acquisition of the necessary materials: a sponge, powder and a binding cloth. Nine coppers for the lot, it turned out. Song bound her breasts tightly, allowed Abrascal to fake stubble on her face with the sponge and powder then received Angharad’s help in putting up her hair in a Sanxing topknot: the knot unadorned with loose hair to the side. After that came the details.

Did they have a name?

Yes, that of Captain Tengfei Pan.

Did they have a brigade plague?

Yes, Tristan had seized one from his ambushers last night.

So the required essentials were in hand, leaving only questions. Song might now be able to pass as a man so long as she was careful with her voice, but what of her eyes? Their silver tint was distinctive, apt to unmask her.

“We saw the list they use when you took coin from our vault,” the thief pointed out. “It has names but no descriptions.”

True, but the silver of them remained recognizable and she had been seen there earlier today. Two silver-eyed Tianxi visiting the same day was sure to draw suspicion. How many of them could there be on Tolomontera?

“So we wait until the afternoon,” the thief said. “When the morning shift is gone and no one who saw you is still present.”

Feasible, she admitted. What, then, if the Forty-Ninth Brigade came to withdraw funds while she was present? It was unlikely but not impossible.

“The rest of us lay an ambush in the street,” the thief proposed. “We can fire one of those rifles their way to drive them off.”

What if they returned with allies, reinforcements?

“You should be able to hear a shot from inside,” the thief said. “If you do, hurry or retreat as you see fit.”

And on and on they had gone, until Song exhausted the worst outcomes her mind could muster and was yet satisfied with the Thirteenth Brigade’s ability to extract itself from the situation should the situation turn on them. It had been… oddly satisfying, planning what was in practice very much a crime. Not by the rules of Tolomontera, perhaps, but certainly by the world’s.

It was with a straight back and little uncertainty that ‘Captain Tengfei Pan’ entered the brigade vaults, ushered in by the guards.

Advancing unhurriedly past the antechamber and into the main hall, Song chose among the four desks the one opposite from the one she had last visited. The clerks inside were not the same as before, and neither were the guards in front, so it was likely unnecessary. She still did it.

“Plaque,” the bored young Lierganen at the desk instructed.

He had a half-eaten pastry on the corner of the desk and kept batting a fly off it. She provided the Forty-Ninth’s pilfered silver seal and received it back after a moment.

“How much is left in the vault?” Song asked, deepening her voice.

The clerk stuck out his tongue, paging through his ledger, then let out a little noise as he found the line he was looking for.

“Twelve ramas, two arboles and one radiz,” he replied.

Song kept her face calm, her heartbeat steady.

“I will withdraw everything,” she said.

The clerk did not answer. For a cold moment Song thought she had been caught, her voice or eyes caught on to, but it was not that.

Barely an inch above the pastry on the man’s desk, the fly was trapped as if the air around it had turned into amber. The Tianxi breathed in sharply, the sound of it deafening in the sudden and oppressive silence of the room. She pushed back her chair, rising to her feet, and turned to see a world gone still. One of the guards was adjusting his belt, a clerk had stopped while licking her thumb to turn a page.

“No,” Song cursed. “Already?”

It had only been four months, she’d thought she would have longer before… Her jaw clenched as she looked around. There was no one in the great hall but her and the frozen watchmen. Did she need to leave, pass through the gates and go outside into Tolomontera?

“You always miss what’s under your nose. The cost of turning it up so often.”

The voice was coming from besides the desk. And she could smell it now, the smell of wine and dirty clothes.

“You,” Song hissed, taking a step to the side.

And there he was.

The god was sprawled on the floor, back against the wood, and drinking from a gourd of plum wine as his pilgrim’s staff lay on the frozen clerk’s lap. His faded red robes were messy, tied only loosely at the waist, and he was barefoot. Infuriatingly enough he had sandals, but they hung off a rope tied to the staff and Song had never once seen him wear them. His robes and beard were stained with wine and meat juice, his hair matted and unkempt. Luren flashed a broad grin, then took a long drink from his gourd and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand afterwards, sighting in satisfaction.

He was her god, the granter of her contract, and Song despised him from the bottom of her heart.

“Do you know this?” Luren asked.

Her fists clenched. Always he asked this and always the words were meaningless.

“I won’t,” Song bit out. “Because you are a profligate liar who invents his stories in the moment.”

“Lies are better than truth,” the god said. “Truth is lazy.”

She grit her teeth. To say this was to insult their very contract, since she had asked to – Song smoothed out the thought, the rising anger. He did it, she knew, to get a rise out of her. But she would not fall for it this time. Song had prepared herself, meditated on the matter. Her hand would remain on the chisel. The Tianxi forced herself into a formal bow.

“I thank you for your visit, teacher.”

There was a clap like thunder and Song flinched, eyes flicking up to see Luren had slapped his palm against the side of the desk.

“King Cathay once summoned me to his palace,” the god said. “He had great treasures but could not decide which was the greatest, so he called on the aid of this monk.”

King Cathay was a nothing-name, what old folk tales called the legendary king that had ruled before Cathay and given the land his name. There had been no such king, the figure as much a lie as the rest of the story.

“What would a monk know of treasures?” Song challenged.

Luren was openly pleased.

“What would you know of monks?” he asked.

She had a retort on the tip of her tongue – Song had read the entire six volumes of the Way of Ways purely to establish beyond argument that Luren was, in fact, a terrible monk – but she swallowed it. She could not let herself be drawn into that. The god delighted in pointless, circular arguments and would drag them both into a pit of futility if she let him. Song bowed again.

“I thank you for your insight, teacher,” she angrily lied.

This time she was ready for him to slap the desk when she took her eyes off him, pushing down the flinch at the thunderous sound.

“King Cathay presented me three treasures,” Luren told her. “The first was the purest, most luminous jade that ever was or will be. It had no match in Heaven or Earth and was capable of upending all the nations of men.”

The god did not sound disapproving of such upheaval.

“The second was a great war spear of death-steel, making one triumphant in all battles and capable of slaying gods like stray dogs,” Luren said. “One wielding it could conquer all the world, as he once had in his youth before he began making trouble for monks instead.”

Song twitched. In the old tales, King Cathay was never claimed to have conquered all of Vesper. It was not even a good lie.

“The third was King Cathay’s own wife, a friend of his childhood who knew his true soul and loved him truly despite his flaws and crown. That affection was true and could not be bought or swayed. He did not deserve her.”

If she could see his true soul, how could she not know the king was undeserving of her? Song’s fingers tightened.

“King Cathay sat across from this monk and smirked, for in his heart of hearts he played a trick. To his mind the greatest treasure was the crown set on his brow, for without it he was no longer king and possessed nothing at all.”

Song allowed herself a sliver of relief. They were soon to be done.

“So you chose the crown,” she said, helping the ending along.

The god laughed.

“Know this,” Luren said. “This monk slapped him across the face and said: there, I now hold the greatest treasure.”

Song twitched.

“Liar,” she said, finally unable to resist. “You would have been killed for that.”

“Yet here I am, so you are wrong,” the god happily said.

He took a swig from his jug, only he began laughing at the face she made halfway through the swallow and sprayed plum wine everywhere, staining his beard and clothes and the floor and…

“Would you stop-” she snarled.

No. Fuck. Again. Song breathed in, walked away with her hands on her head. She fought down the urge to strike at the wall. Every time. Every single time he got to her. It was like every detail about Luren was meant to drive her wild with anger – the sloppiness, the filth, the obvious lies and the nonsense lessons. Every iota of the god grated her sensibilities. She walked back, calmer but no less defeated for it.

“Thank you for your lesson, teacher,” she spoke through gritted teeth, bowing again.

“You learn nothing,” Luren dismissed. “Despite my many attempts.”

“You once told me to cut down trees until enlightenment followed,” she snarled back.

“And I notice you’ve stopped,” the god said, clicking his tongue disapprovingly.

Her finger clenched but no, he would not get her twice.

“What do you want from me?” Song asked.

“I thought it evident,” Luren said, squinting at her. “You should begin slapping kings.”

The drunken god eyed her with feigned worry.

“You were not this slow as a girl, Song.”

No, she had been worse. Fortunately, felling thirty-three trees with a dull handaxe at Luren’s sage instruction had cured her of it.

“You have told me your story,” she said. “Release me from this visitation.”

Dislocation, the common term was, but it was not the one Song had been raised to. Luren had brought her into himself, to torment her once more.

“Release yourself,” the god said.

“I cannot,” Song replied through gritted teeth. “That power is in your hands.”

“Because you leave it there,” Luren smiled.

Her fingers twitched, itching to punch that light out of his eyes, and in that very moment she understood. That was the point of his tale: King Cathay had the crown as his greatest treasure, but Luren had slapped him and so he possessed ‘a hand that can strike a king’. The greater treasure of the two.

So Song slapped the god, who took it with a thundering laugh.

The world around them began to crack, like glass fracturing in spiderwebs.

“See,” Luren said. “In your hands all along.”

“You are a liar,” Song said.

“Oh no,” the god grinned. “I’m much too lazy for that.”

Song’s fist clenched, and before she could reply-

“I will need you to sign for it,” the Lierganen clerk said. “And to see your plaque again.”

She was sitting in the chair again, freed of the visitation, and the watchman was frowning at her lack of answer. Song took in a shuddering breath, mastering herself enough to offer the silver seal again. And seeing the glint of it on light, she thought anew.

The Forty-Ninth would know they had been stolen from soon enough, she thought. They would ask questions of the watchmen, the patron seeing to it they received answers.

And since there was no hiding the silver of Song’s gaze, there would be no hiding the truth. The Forty-Ninth Brigade would only need ask around for a Tianxi with such eyes to know that who it was that had acted against them. Confrontation was inevitable.

And if the inevitable was on its way, why face it meekly?

“Apologies,” Song said. “I have changed my mind, I will not be taking everything.”

She paused.

“I have not thought to ask until now, but might I add something to the vault?”

The blackcloak clerk cocked an eyebrow.

“Only if it is no larger than a hand,” he said.

“It is not,” Song said.

He acceded carefully enough when she asked to borrow ink and paper. Minutes later, Song Ren walked out of the building leaving only two things in the vault of the Forty-Ninth Brigade.

The first was a single copper coin.

The second was a folded piece of paper bearing a short message: you may consider the truce offer withdrawn.