Masquerades - Kate Novak [144]
Olive told herself Alias could have survived losing her arm. Dragonbait and Mintassan might be with her even now. It was impossible, though, to come up with a reason why they didn't return, why Mintassan didn't just teleport them back to his home to reassure their friends that they were safe. Olive's hope began slipping away.
Five days after the ball, Olive Ruskettle, captain of the House Thalavar guard, self-declared bard, and self-declared Harper, was making a halfhearted attempt to drink herself to death. She sat on the open patio of the Black Eye tavern, with its excellent view of the market and the Tower. Three days had passed since the funerals of the croamarkh and the other felled merchant lords. The official period of mourning completed, the market was once again blanketed by a tapestry of motley-the wares of both minor and noble merchants being offered for sale.
That, if no other reason, was enough to keep Olive ordering round after round of a highly potent southern drink known as Dragon's Bite. She was disgusted by the way this city shrugged off its losses and returned diligently to the task of making money. There had been no funeral for Alias, Dragonbait, or Mintassan, no official period of mourning for the heroes who had so selflessly risked their lives for this town of money-grubbing greengrocers. Not that three days of mourning could be enough to honor adventurers of their cabber-adventurers who'd been her friends.
She wanted to blow this festhall of a city, to leave it to fester in its own greed, to head north where adventurers weren't treated like carpets for merchants to wipe their feet on. Still, Westgate held her in its thrall. She had business here still.
First, of course, she felt obligated to honor Lady Nettel's dying request to protect Thistle. Lady Nettel had been really decent. She would have made a good halfling. As for Thistle, Olive had actually grown to like the human child. She was a serious, hardworking girl, something Olive admired without actually emulating, of course. Three days of interviewing the halfling popula-
tion of Westgate, and even some of the humans, had left Olive with the certainty that there was really no one else as qualified as she was to be the girl's bodyguard.
Yet Thistle had walled herself up with her books, and there wasn't much challenge in guarding a hermit. Olive had wiled away hours outside the door of Thistle's study reorganizing every aspect of security for House Thalavar, its castle, its warehouses, its stockyards and its docks. The halfling was distracted to the point of madness waiting for the Night Masks to renew their vengeful attacks, but the thieves guild really did seem to be on hiatus. Thistle Thalavar, her castle, and all her property remained undisturbed.
The tension was enough to drive a halfling to drink. Olive drained her glass and thumped it on the tabletop, demanding a refill. House Thalavar would pick up the tab, making it possible to order drink after drink without actually plunking any money down or keeping track of how much one spent on liquor. Olive wasn't sure that was a good thing, but it was certainly a comforting one.
Her second order of business in Westgate was what to do about the new croamarkh, Victor Dhostar.
When the evil mage Flattery had disintegrated her friend Jade, Olive had wasted no time avenging Jade's death. Of course, then she'd had some formidable allies: Giogi Wyvernspur, who could shapechange into a wyvern; the mage. Cat; and the wizard, Drone. Here her only allies were an aging actress, a boy who had only just retired from his career as a Night Mask, and a castle full of pampered halflings. Then there was the question