The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [4]
“You don’t want to be here, do you?” Adam asked after a moment. Shadows hid his face, but she felt the weight of his regard, those eerie green eyes.
She sipped iced-and-honeyed lassi. “It isn’t that, exactly.”
“You’re angry with the old man.”
She kept her face still. She hadn’t cried since the first night at sea, but emotions still threatened to surface when she wasn’t careful. “I know the job. My problems with Kiril won’t interfere.” Her voice didn’t catch on his name, to her great relief.
“I hope not. He’ll skin me if I don’t keep you safe.”
Isyllt paused, cup half raised. “He said that?”
Adam chuckled. “He left little room for doubt.”
Wood clacked as she set the drink down. “If he’s so bloody concerned, he could have sent someone else.” She bit her tongue, cursed the petulant tone that crept into the words. The side door opened with a squeak, saving her from embarrassing herself further.
Xinai slipped in, feet silent on marble. “I found Teoma. He frequents a tavern on the wharf called the Storm God’s Bride.” Izachar Teoma had made most of his wealth and notoriety smuggling along Imperial shores, but sailed north often enough to have encountered Kiril’s web of agents before. A ship quick and clever enough to escape harbor patrols would be useful if they had to flee the city.
Xinai tossed a stack of cheap pulp paper onto the table. “News-scrawls, from the past decad or so. The criers will have stopped spreading those stories by now.”
“Thanks.” Isyllt flipped through the stack—wrinkled and water-spotted, and the ink left gray smears on her fingers, but the looping Assari script was legible. The latest was three days old. She took a moment to adjust to the Assari calendar; today was Sekhmet seventh, not the twelfth of Janus; 1229 Sal Emperaturi, not 497 Ab Urbe Condita.
She often found the pride of nations silly. Trade and treaties between Assar and Selafai had to be twice dated, because the founders of Selafai had abandoned all things Imperial when they fled north across the sea five hundred years ago. But if not for the pride of nations, she’d be out of a job.
She sipped her drink again, watery now as the ice melted. Moisture slicked the curve of the cup. “Did you hear anything about the protest we saw?”
“Not much. The guards ran them off not long after we arrived, it sounds like. There were arrests, but no real violence.” From Xinai’s tone, Isyllt couldn’t tell if she was disappointed in that or not.
Adam rose, taking a slice of mango with him. “Finish your dinner, Lady Iskaldur.” The title dripped mockingly off his tongue. “We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
Night draped the city like damp silk. Heat leaked from the stones, trapped between close walls; sweat prickled the back of Isyllt’s neck. The end of the dry season in Symir, but the Drowning City would never be truly dry. Insects droned overhead, avoiding the pungent lamp-smoke, and rats and roaches scuttled in the shadows. Charms hummed around them, soft shivers from doors and windows. Safe, some murmured, home. Others pulsed warnings—stay back, move on, look away.
Shadows pooled between buildings, leaked from narrow alleys; the glow of streetlamps drowned the stars. Voices drifted from taverns, floated up from the canals as skiffs passed. Water lup-lup-lupped against stone and wind sighed over high bridges, rattling the chimes that hung on nearly all the buildings. Hollow tubes and octagonal bronze mirrors flashed and clattered—in Erisín, Selafai’s capital, no one left mirrors uncovered and even still puddles were avoided, but here it seemed they were lucky.
The crowds had thinned after dusk, stores closed and shuttered, the last clerks and shopkeepers hurrying home. More than once they passed guard patrols, green uniforms edged with Imperial red—a whispered word kept the soldiers’ eyes off them.
A cool draft wafted past Isyllt, and a whisper light and hollow as reeds. Her bare arms prickled and the diamond chilled on her finger. She smiled—the touch of death was comforting, made the