Ishmael

The second murder attempt came as Ishmael was being escorted from the interview cell to his new cell, adjacent to the guard station, where they kept all the troublemakers. Farther from the exit, to his regret. He could hear the profane heckling, and the shouts for silence, even before they turned the corridor, and both redoubled as soon as the first sonn caught their approach. Vicious as the harassment was, there was a peculiar forced quality to it, which he attributed to the fundamental hollowness of men who were compelled to fight all comers to prove they existed, had consequence, were men.

They were level with the cells when a prisoner reached through the bars and grabbed at the nearer guard’s belt. The guard was young, or slow-witted, or . . . for whatever reason, he reacted too late, for his backward lunge against the grip coincided with the prisoner’s push. He stumbled into Ish, thrusting Ish against the second guard; the guard twisted, seizing Ish, and shoved him hard against the bars of the opposite cell. The prisoner’s arm snapped up like a bar across Ish’s throat; a knife—he did not need to sonn it to know—was driven with killing force through his shirt and against the rings of his armored vest. His assailant swore. The guards shouted and tore him away before his assailant could deliver a second stab to his unprotected armpit or throat.

A seemingly random cast of sonn told Ish there was no hope of a dash for the exit. He let himself pitch forward into their arms, impersonating the stab victim he was meant to be. They lugged him into his appointed cell; there were shouts for the apothecary, amongst the greater cacophony of a triumphant prison kill. None of them attempted to open his shirt or examine his wound, clearly averse to touching the mage more than they had to. He lay inert, considering the choreography of the assault. The more he thought about it, the less accidental it appeared. Two prisoners, surely, the guard maybe, and whoever had contributed that knife.

All prisons were bad for a man’s health. This one promised to be exceptionally bad for his. He breathed steadily, knowing calmness was his best ally now.

The prison apothecary arrived, demanded in his thinly veneered accent that they leave one guard with him, one competent guard, please, and give him room to work. He’d let them know if he needed help to move his patient. Ish let the apothecary discover for himself the dry shirt around the knife tear and the hard carapace of the ring-stitched vest. He snorted and announced, “This one’s no more dead than I am.” He lifted Ish’s shirt, revealing the vest to those he’d banished outside the bars. “Don’t you even search your prisoners these days that one’s got a knife and another’s got armor? You’re lucky the one met the other. Come, your lordship, sit up. Enough malingering.”

Ish sat up as bidden, taking the opportunity to inspect the man he’d sonned only obliquely the night before. He was above average height, wiry, and slightly stooped, even at his young age, with the hollow chest left by a childhood of deprivation and its maladies. He would have been handsome were he not so thin. He wore a different coat than last night, another of the dandy’s castoffs. That accent said Rivermarch, the dress said Rivermarch, and with those origins he’d have come by his education through the indulgence of a rich protector, whether his mother’s or his own. Ish was long past judging men for what they did to survive, only for what they made of their lives beyond survival. The apothecary had had the nerve and gumption to save the poisoned guard, and he’d helped Ish last night.

“Magister di Studier,” the apothecary greeted him, startling him. A sonn revealed bare hands—not a mage—and an urchin smile on the narrow face. “Y’don’t remember me. I ran your errands when I was a street rat and you an apprentice. If I’d known you were a baronet, I’d have held out for three coppers.”

Ish laughed in surprise and recognition. “You’d not have got them, Kip.”

“Wouldn’t I?” he challenged with a familiar tilt of the head. “How many’d you pay two coppers to, Magister Tightwad?”

“None of th’rest could read, and half would garble a simple message. You’d your letters and your wits, both, for all you were a chancer. And I wasn’t a baronet then; I was an ex-Shadowhunter, living on his earnings.”

“You haven’t lost the hunter’s habits, I note, moving in high society.”

“There are daggers there no less deadly. You’ve done well for yourself; I’m glad of it.”

“No thanks to you, Baron Tightwad.” Ish smiled a little; so, the tutor he’d covertly paid to give the boy the little education he’d take back then had never let on.

Kip leaned forward to ask intensely, “What’s this about poisoned water?”

“I’d just taken a small mouthful before I felt the effect. The guard got more.”

“When you spilled it on him.”

“He was about t’pour it down my throat. All unwitting, of that I am sure. It goes in less easily through skin. The superintendent told me that he lived.”

“Aye, he did. Which is as well for you.” This was said without the least inflection. “He’s a mate of mine, and well liked. You know this poison?”

“Scavvern venom.”

“Any aftereffects to expect?”

“None; it’s quick-onset, quick-offset. I’ve met it before.”

Kip crouched, quickly sliding up Ishmael’s sleeve to take a pulse, his movements sure and competent. Ish caught the flavor of his thoughts: amusement at Ish’s predicament, speculation without malice as to how to turn it to his advantage, and a hoist-of-the-finger defiance toward Ish’s magical insights.

“Someone not convinced their case will hold?” Kip murmured. He was, Ish realized, largely untroubled as to Ish’s possible guilt or innocence. “You burned this arm,” he observed distinctly. Ish was impressed; he himself had barely heard the stealthily approaching step.

“I escaped the Rivermarch with my life, not my shirt.”

Kip’s hand closed hard, almost brutally, on his wrist. “My woman didn’t,” he said flatly. “Nor her youngest.”

“I am very sorry.”

“She was a shrew, but burning’s a bad end, and the child had done no one harm in all its short life.” Ish had a moment’s impression of a child’s high giggling, a squirming weight sprawled across his chest, the feathery touch of soft curls on his chin and nose—all that remained of the infant Kip had loved and, despite his cynical posture, yearned to avenge. Ish wondered how many like him there were in the city tonight.

“They say this was Lightborn set,” Kip said grimly.

“No,” Ish rumbled. “No Lightborn. Or Darkborn either. Say Shadowborn, if you must give them a race. They’ve put themselves outside race and law by this act. I know the spoor of them.” Kip’s quick wits, he trusted, would make the connections Ish intended. “Where are you living now?”

“Other wing, so long as there’s an empty cell,” said Kip, after a moment’s pause. His thoughts had grown wary; he lifted his hand away. “How’s your chest wi’ the smoke? You seem to be breathing well enough.”

“For now I am,” Ish said dryly. He lowered his voice. “Can you get me my lock picks? They went with my shoes.”

“I likely can, or a set as good,” the other man said in a voice as low. “It’ll cost you, for all those times you should have paid me three coppers.”

Ish grinned; he was on sure ground here. He would need to sweeten his offer enough that it, and old district loyalties—such as they were—would outweigh any counteroffer. The erstwhile street rat would warn him of the need to raise his bid. “You need somewhere to stay. There’s a boardinghouse run by Ruthen di Sommerlin up on Perlen Street. It’s on the north side, well clear of the burn. Tell him I sent you.” Nobody raised in the Rivermarch would be offended at the house lifestyles, and he rather thought the faded glamour of its burlesque past would appeal to Kip. Kip would suit the old men, and he’d care for them, in his own way, if Ish did not survive these toils.

“Seems to me,” Kip said softly, “next time they try you should let them succeed. Feet first’s the easiest way out of here.” The prison apothecary rose and ran his sonn over Ish. “Think about it,” he added casually.