Chapter Four

THE NARROW stairway rose steeply, each step creaking under our feet and taking us into increasing darkness. I smelled onions and fish—a bit strong, but better than my apartment’s odors—and blindly held on to the banister. It occurred to me that Pearce was in a good position to attack me, since I’d have trouble defending myself in the blackness of unfamiliar territory. But I wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe some of his enchantment lingered.

We climbed four flights to the top floor, where he unlocked another door. A few scattered spiritlights flared to life at once, but he lit two lanterns as well.

It wasn’t a large apartment, and the roof angled steeply on both sides so that he had to stoop a little when he hung his lute and midnight-colored cloak on a hook. Bright fabrics adorned the walls—silks and embroidered cottons—and a thick mat and pile of pillows were heaped in one corner. Rag rugs and pillows for seating covered the wide floorboards. The apartment held little else other than a dry sink, a few shelves, a little stand with a chamber pot, a painted wardrobe. But it was a cozy space, and two pottery vases of flowers squatted on the windowsill.

“Do you want some wine?” he asked.

It wasn’t what I expected, so I didn’t answer at once. “Uh, yes. Sure.”

He took a green glass bottle from the shelf, pulled the cork, and poured a red liquid into a pair of plain clay cups.

He was no longer wearing the gauzy silks he’d performed in, but his current outfit was hardly understated. Embroidered snakes—matching the bright blue of his chausses—trimmed a sunshine-hued tunic, and instead of sensible boots, he wore scarlet stockings and yellow slippers with curled, pointed toes. On another man, the clothing would have been gaudy, but it suited him well.

I remained near the closed door. With a tiny quirk to his lips, he prowled closer. He held out one cup of wine, which I took, and when I hesitated to drink, he took a dainty sip of his own. “It’s mediocre, I’m afraid.”

Not being able to distinguish good wine from bad, I swallowed a mouthful. It tasted fine to me.

“What shall I call you?” he purred, standing quite close. He was older than I’d thought, but the fine lines at the corners of his eyes didn’t make him any less beautiful.

“Daveth Blyd.”

“It’s a pleasure, Citizen Blyd.”

“I’m not a citizen.”

He tilted his head. “Oh?”

He wore a scent—something spicy and warm—that made my head swim. And his voice….

When I was newly signed on as a city guard, my duties had included carting my captain’s soiled uniforms to the laundry. It wasn’t one of my favored tasks. But she’d been a showy woman and had her capes trimmed not with dyed wool but with velvet. I’d rarely felt anything so soft, and I used to give the velvet surreptitious little pets as I carried her clothes.

Jory Pearce’s voice was like that velvet: soft and rich and plush. And, I reminded myself, expensive.

I took a step back, bumping up against the door, but he followed me, grinning, and trailed one soft fingertip down my cheek. “Are you shy, Daveth Blyd?”

Over the years, I’d been called a good many things—few of them flattering—but never shy. My bark of laughter broke the spell I was under. “No, I’m not.”

I gulped the rest of the wine, pushed him away gently, and strode past him. He watched silently as I set the empty cup in the dry sink and then poked around the apartment. I didn’t expect to find Lord Uren’s ring sitting out in the open, but I hoped to get a better sense of who Pearce was.

He liked pretty things: the fabrics on the walls, the flowers, the colorful rugs, the clothes he wore. He’d even arranged bottles, boxes, and jars on shelves with an eye to symmetry and flow. In contrast, I just kept things wherever they were handy.

But then I looked closer and noticed the flaws. His wall hangings were sun-faded or carefully patched. His dishes—painted with tiny flowers—had small chips. His few pieces of furniture were cheaply made and scarred from use. So he didn’t have as much money to throw around as his surroundings first suggested, and I saw no signs he’d gone on a spree funded by the stolen ring.

I also noticed that he kept his apartment clean. That wasn’t easy to do in these old buildings, where bits of plaster flaked from walls and dust accumulated in the corners. No signs of insects or rodents either, apart from a few dead flies at the window. His vermin-warding spell was better than mine.

“I’m out of food,” he finally said. “But there’s a good meat pasty stall not far from here. They’re open late.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“And you don’t want more wine. What are you looking for, then?”

I didn’t answer him. Instead I inspected the contents of a small tarnished box—which turned out to be empty.

He didn’t stop me from pawing through his things, not even when I opened the wardrobe. It contained a rainbow’s worth of bright silks, some gauzy like the ones he’d worn onstage and some more substantial. He favored blues and purples, but I thought the gold ones must have suited him best, bringing out the color of his eyes.

Shoved to one side of the wardrobe was a single mud-hued tunic and beige chausses, both of coarse material. I couldn’t imagine him wearing them.

“Are you a tailor?” he asked, voice lilting playfully. “Or a furniture-maker? Or maybe you’re just looking for ideas to make your attire more interesting.”

I closed the wardrobe and didn’t respond.

Something was missing from his apartment. I’d noticed it mainly because my own rooms showed the same lack. Almost everyone in the city possessed at least one portrait of a family member or loved one, an image spelled onto parchment by a wizard. Poor people might have only one or two of these—parents, a lover, children—the images rough but useful enough when a client needed to show me what a missing person looked like. Rich people, I’d been told, had dozens of portraits. The most skilled wizards could create images that moved. Not much. A smile or turn of the head perhaps. Enough to capture a bit of the subject’s personality.

Most people kept their portraits in a prominent place in their home, although some kept them tucked away in a special box or near a small altar. But I didn’t see any in Pearce’s apartment. Maybe he’d just hidden them, along with the ring. Still, their absence caused my heart to constrict in an unwelcome way.

“Where’s your family?” I asked.

For the first time, his face registered genuine emotion rather than artifice. Just a flash of surprise followed by anger. “What business is that of yours?”

“I’m wondering if the ring is with them.”

He didn’t flinch. “What are you talking about?”

“The ring you stole from Lord Uren.”

Pearce raised his eyebrows. “Pardon me?”

“Lord Uren has hired me to bring back his ring. And you with it.”

“Hired you? Who are you?”

“I told you. My name is Daveth Blyd. People pay me to… find things. Find people. Find information.”

“That is a very strange way to earn a living,” Pearce said coolly. He glided across the room and refilled his wine cup but didn’t offer any to me. His brow furrowed in thought as he sipped. “Why would Uren accuse me of stealing something?”

I crossed my arms and stared at him. He looked honestly perplexed. But he was an entertainer, after all. Perhaps his acting equaled his singing.

Finally Pearce sighed. “How much did he pay you to find me?”

“A lot.”

“Which is how you bought those nice clothes. You’re a Lowler through and through, aren’t you?”

Lowler. It was a strange term. People who lived elsewhere in the city used it as an insult. It meant a person was poor, dirty, brutish, ignorant. Untrustworthy. More than one member of the city guard had called me a Lowler—before, during, and after my time in uniform. They hadn’t meant it kindly. But many people who lived in the Low wore the name as a badge of honor. Sometimes a neighbor might accuse another of putting on airs, and the response was always the same: “Oi, I’m a Lowler all right. Born and bred.”

I wasn’t sure how Pearce intended it.

I grinned at him. “Born and bred.”

“And you’re trying to work your way up in the world? Get into the nobility’s good graces?”

“I’m comfortable with my place in the world. And the nobility and their good graces can take a giant leap off Seli Hill, for all I care. I just want to pay the rent and feed my belly. You know what that’s like.”

I’d expected to get a reaction from that last statement—a not-so-veiled accusation of being a whore—but he only gave me a small smile. “That I do.” He shrugged and then refilled his wine cup. “But I’ve no idea why Uren sent you after me.”

We’d reached an impasse. He refused to admit anything, which wasn’t a surprise. I couldn’t bribe the truth from him, as I had from Redigon, because all the remi in the world wouldn’t get a man to admit to a capital offense. I could beat it from him—or, more accurately, twist and tug the admission from him by making his body sing with pain. Thanks to my training, I knew how to do things that would make a person beg for the hanging tree. But I have no taste for torture, especially when the evidence is weak. All I had to go on was Lord Uren’s accusation, and while I had no reason to believe the lord was lying, I also had no good reason to trust him.

Belatedly I realized that I should have done more background work before confronting Pearce.

I try to be honest with myself. If Pearce had been less alluring, I might have just dragged him off to Lord Uren’s palace so I could be done with the whole matter. What happened to Pearce after that—undoubtedly something unpleasant, likely something fatal—would be none of my affair. But Pearce stood there in his bright apartment with his yellow curls and his doe eyes, and I couldn’t force myself to bring him in.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said brusquely as I marched to the door. “If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, have the ring ready. Maybe I can persuade Lord Uren to simply take it back and forget all of this happened.” Fat chance.

Pearce came up close. “I don’t have the ring,” he said softly.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. And don’t try to hide—I’ll find you.” That much was true. Given enough time and incentive, I could find almost anyone. I was especially well acquainted with all the hiding spots in the Low.

He looked sad and exhausted. I was halfway through my fourth decade, and looking at him now, I suspected he wasn’t far behind. But then the corners of his mouth curled into a tiny smile and he again stroked my cheek. “You try to be a man of honor, don’t you?”

“No.”

Another slow pass of his finger made me tremble.

“People like Uren, they don’t care about people like us,” he said. “They use us, tangle us up in their affairs, and discard us. A good man like you deserves better than that.”

“I’m not a good man,” I rasped.

He only smiled.

I could have stripped off his clothing then and there, pulled off my own, and fucked him senseless. I wanted to. I ached to. And the shine in his too-old eyes told me he wouldn’t object.

Instead I fumbled behind myself for the latch, opened the door, and stepped into the tiny hall. It was dim and ugly compared to his apartment.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said for the third time. An irrevocable threat—or promise—because three times sets the charm.

He nodded slightly, and I fled down the dark stairs and into the night.