BALFOUR

 

One of the first things I’d been taught as a child was not to stare at anyone. It caused others to feel self-conscious, and it was rude, no matter what your intentions were. Curiosity was a feeling best indulged in private, when no one else would take notice, and I knew that I had finally reached adulthood when I was able to keep myself from staring, no matter how much I might have wished to.

Still, I’d have defied any of the others to be sitting on a couch next to Raphael and not look at him, just a little, for some evidence that he was actually there.

I wasn’t afraid of being teased since I’d weathered all that and more in the past, and there were more important things for everyone to be thinking about than mocking me. What I was frightened of was that this would all turn out to be some cruel dream. That in reality, I’d fallen asleep on Luvander’s couch while waiting for news, and any second now someone was going to shake me awake and tell me that Margrave Royston had arrived, and also, that I’d missed supper while sleeping like a little lamb.

It was the most wonderful surprise I could ever have asked for, but it hurt, too. Knowing Raphael had been alive this whole time but unable to make some contact with the rest of us, with his home, made me feel guilty, as though I ought to have sensed him. His dragon would have been able to if she were still in one piece.

But the worst part about Raphael’s resurrection, despite my gratitude, was that it sparked new hope in me. It inspired the foolish—and highly unlikely—possibility that there might be others out there, still alive and not lost forever at all, just living out the past half a year in some other remote fishing village.

It had taken me a long time after the war to convince myself that my fellow airmen were really and truly gone. I would never see them in the streets again or hear them laughing raucously at a stupid joke at someone else’s expense. They’d never fill my boots with piss or my gloves with other, less savory liquids. They were dead, and no amount of magic could bring them back.

Except that Ghislain had brought Raphael back without using any magic at all.

This was a dilemma, one that I’d be agonizing over for years to come. The possibility might have been slight, the chances incredibly slim, but now that I had new hope in the form of Raphael, alive, I would never be able to stop wondering, What if?

If Adamo had been with us, he would’ve told me—told us all—that there was no point in focusing on the dirty end of the stick when you’d finally turned up some good fortune at last. It was morbid and unnecessary and a waste of time. Whether or not Adamo himself believed that, he would’ve been able to make us believe it. That was something he was uncannily good at.

Still, I wished Adamo was here to see this. Despite knowing very little about the man in question’s more personal feelings, I did know how much it had bothered him to have so few of us left. Privately, I almost worried he felt responsible, but I’d never been able to broach the topic. Not even with all my shrewd diplomatic training could I find a humane way.

And so, as with most topics, we had all avoided talking about it.

Ghislain, however, hadn’t been afraid to look the matter squarely in the eye. He’d chased a rumor of the seas and found one of our fellows, presumed dead—and still looking as though he might keel over at any moment though he was putting on a brave face for the rest of us.

Maybe it was just the rough journey back that made Raphael look so shaky. But the white in his hair made him look like the Esar in the old tale—the one who’d lost his three sons to fever and gone mad the following year.

The noise from downstairs had at least given me an excuse to stop thinking about the whole mess and an excuse to stop staring at poor Raphael as well. He looked as though he needed a full week’s sleep, and there we were hauling him along on another calamitous adventure.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way, of course, but it hardly seemed decent.

Laure positioned herself by the door, and, with the purposeful, stony weight of a golem, Ghislain stood up. Since Ghislain barehanded was more than the equivalent of both Luvander and me and half the Provost’s Wolves all armed with pokers, I remained seated on the couch, and Luvander continued chopping eggplant at the counter, though his entire demeanor had sharpened. He’d use that knife as well as Ivory if he had to, covered in slices of vegetable as it was—something Ivory himself would never have allowed.

Light flooded the stairwell from below, and we all held our breath.

“I’m so glad I’m back,” Raphael whispered privately to me as Toverre moved quietly over to stand with us. Perhaps he assumed, however falsely, that as members of the ex–Dragon Corps, we’d be able to defend him from any sudden attacks. “This is even better than a welcome-home party.”

“Stop yapping,” Ghislain suggested from the doorway.

We did as we were told and waited for the intruder to show himself. As my heart pounded in my chest, I thought I could hear the sound of large, metal gears turning—but it was probably just my imagination, the sound of the cogs inside my hands moving, made louder by anticipation.

Then Royston crested the top of the stairs, presumably having found the switch in the storeroom so he wouldn’t have to blunder about in the dark.

“You know, I do have a bell,” Luvander pointed out. “Although since everyone I know seems intent on simply letting themselves in, I wonder why I ever bothered to have it installed in the first place.”

“I didn’t want to cause a commotion,” Royston said, shaking off his coat, the shoulders of which were glistening with melting ice. Sometime between afternoon and nighttime, it had started to snow. When he was finished, he paused, looking at Laure with her poker, Ghislain by the door, and the rest of us, ranged around the room and—speaking mostly for myself—positively vibrating with nervous energy. “Did you multiply while I was gone? I know that children are made during times of duress, but really, this is too much.”

“Ghislain just has excellent timing,” Luvander said, tasting a sauce he’d been stirring around in a pot. “It seems he brought a friend with him, too. I hope that’s all right. We can vouch for him; he was an airman, you know.”

Royston gave him a distracted nod, then did a double take, eyes falling on Raphael with more attention than they had before.

“Hello,” he said, passing a hand through his hair to shake out the melted snow. “You aren’t Rook.”

“Bastion,” Raphael said, giggling faintly. “Can you imagine if I was? What a life that would be! I don’t even think I can imagine … If the fishermen were shocked by the size of my assets, they would have all fainted dead away once they saw Rook’s! Actually, I’d rather not think about it. It’s too perverted.”

“So he’s a babbling idiot?” Royston asked, still carefully regarding our newest companion.

“He has always been a babbling idiot,” Luvander huffed.

“Found him near Seon,” Ghislain said, sitting down now that we’d determined Royston wasn’t a threat. “They were worshipping him for being a fish god or something.”

“And for the size of my—well, no need to anger the lady any further, especially when she’s wielding such a fearsome weapon herself,” Raphael said, catching himself.

“Now he sounds a little more like Rook to me,” Royston said, then smiled. “I’m sorry for staring; my manners aren’t usually this atrocious. I was merely thinking about how happy Owen would be to see you … But of course, thinking about him reminds me of this whole rotten situation, and it hasn’t found me in the best of states.”

“Owen?” Raphael asked, as though someone had just told him it was his birthday and they were giving it away for free at Our Lady of a Thousand Fans, all in his honor. “Ghislain—someone—please tell me I heard that correctly. Who’s Owen? Is that who I think it is?”

“Owen’s Adamo,” Luvander said, sliding the sliced eggplant into the pot. “Or rather, he’s Owen Adamo. I’m not sure which is more fun to say, really.”

“I’m glad we’re all so concerned about him that we’re cracking jokes about his name,” Laure said, setting her poker down at last. She rounded on Royston, and I didn’t envy him his position as sole receiver of her wrath. “Weren’t you supposed to come back here with someone?”

“I had intended to, yes,” Royston said, looking put out. “I thought I’d left Antoinette in a rather reasonable state of mind; but as it turns out, she lost her temper after I left and ended up being ‘hauled in,’ as Josette so charmingly put it. Hauled in! Can you imagine? If my lover had me arrested—”

“Hasn’t your lover had you arrested before?” Luvander asked cheekily.

“The scenario was different,” Royston replied.

“So that’s it, then?” Laure demanded. “We’ve got no Lady Antoinette, still no Adamo, and not even a plan now?”

“It’s truly a comfort that even though Owen is not here to badger me, I have you in his stead,” Royston said, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. “You’ll recall that I said velikaia have a way of casting their thoughts outward—like a net from a ship, for catching fish—which makes it difficult for other people with Talent to ignore them. Well, I can still sense her. The projection is faint, but I believe I could follow it to Adamo’s location. I don’t plan on going alone, of course, since I am not the Esar’s favorite person to do business with. But if you’re willing to follow me, instead of your captive leader, for a little while, I believe I can be of some use to you, at least in guiding you to him.”

“And then what?” Laure asked.

“And then … something,” Royston replied. “I am not a Chief Sergeant or even an ex–Chief Sergeant, you know.”

“But can’t you make things explode just by looking at them?” Ghislain asked.

“I wouldn’t call it that, precisely,” Royston said. “But yes, I quite take your point. If it comes to that—and I really would prefer that it didn’t—I can be of more than ‘some’ use. Though exploding a hole in the wall of the establishment would not be the most subtle choice, and could result in unwanted carnage, some of which might even be our own, depending on how closely Owen is guarded.”

“How do we get in?” Laure demanded. Now that she had some indication of a target—any target—she was clearly dying to get out and start swinging at it rather than standing around discussing our next move. It was there that she and Adamo differed, I thought, though Adamo didn’t like to dwell on strategy for too long, either.

“I did what I could in terms of research before returning to you,” Royston said. “Not to give too much fanfare to my own skills, but you’re fortunate that I am the one who can sense her since my knowledge of the city resembles that of an obsessive lover. The direction from which I could sense Antoinette is to the north of Miranda—an out-of-the-way location, but not so remote as you’d think. Unless they’ve built something new in preparation for this sudden purge—which I don’t think they’ve had time to do yet—then the only appropriate building given the location is a prison they once used to hold disagreeable magicians captive. It’s underground.”

“I don’t suppose you have any tunneling equipment?” Luvander asked, his voice hushed, but still unable to keep from making the joke entirely.

“It is manned on the surface,” Royston said, rubbing his fingers against his jaw, “as it’s the location of one of the old Provost’s buildings. Not the main one, but there are a few officials there to keep an eye on things. Still, the only real difficulty would be in getting to the actual prison cells underneath the city. I can’t communicate with Antoinette directly; otherwise, I’d ask her for a more comprehensive layout—that is, if she has one in that head of hers. But since she’s always made a point of knowing everything there is to know about the Esar’s business, private or no—”

“How scandalous,” Raphael said.

“Get to the point, boys,” Laure warned.

“Though I’m reluctant to assume anything,” Royston continued, “I will tell you what I think, based on what little information I have gathered, from what Antoinette seems to be implying, and from what Josette herself told me. Though neither of them is in the best of mindsets; the former being imprisoned and the latter dealing with Lord Temur’s questioning. What a mess. I suspect the force that took Adamo and Antoinette is not the Wolves, since they’re being kept elsewhere, and I never once saw Dmitri. Thus—and again, this is merely speculation—I can assume that it’s a more private force, one the Esar would trust implicitly not to betray him. They’re obviously less concerned with secrecy than they were once since they’ve arrested people in the streets; but they’ve managed to assemble without drawing much attention to themselves. That speaks to a rather small contingent of personnel, all things considered. Just enough to keep an eye on their dangerous guests.”

“So we go down there, you blow up the building, I crack some skulls, and we carry Adamo away,” Ghislain said, cracking his knuckles again for emphasis. The way he said it, it almost sounded like a viable plan. But then, Ghislain could be very convincing. “What’s the problem?”

“Besides potentially murdering innocents and forcing the Esar to retaliate in a harsh and likely fatal manner? Oh, nothing,” Royston said. “No problem at all.”

“What if I …” Laure began, then stopped herself. When everyone turned to look at her, I saw her gather her considerable mettle, forcing herself to finish the thought. “You think there’s a chance that he’s in there because of me, right? That Margrave Germaine made me crazy, and she’s been trying to hunt me down ever since. What if I went down there, said I’d heard about Adamo, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help? They wouldn’t be suspicious of me ’cause I’m a girl, and the rest of you could sneak in—though with that big bugger you might want to give up on the idea of being stealthy and skip straight to the exploding part.”

“Wonderful, and how did you learn about Adamo’s location in the first place?” Luvander said, turning his gaze to me and trying to communicate something to me with his eyes. “More importantly, I don’t know how Adamo would feel about us using a civilian as a diversion.”

I wasn’t as thickheaded as some of the other airmen had always assumed I was, but if what Luvander was attempting to convey was what I thought it was, then I was a little disturbed. Surely this young woman was too young for Adamo—though stranger things had happened, I supposed.

“Oh, bastion, not that,” Luvander said with a groan, upon seeing my expression change. “What about you? Our diplomat? Why don’t you go in there and be diplomatic?”

“You mean Balfour?” Royston asked. “They would arrest him on the spot. There were people looking for him, according to his landlady.”

“Yes,” Luvander agreed, “but he’s one of us. We send him inside, and then he gets in contact with Antoinette, then perhaps some other things happen—and then you start with the explosions.”

“This is ridiculous,” Laure said. She drew herself up to her full height—puffing out her chest the way Adamo did, though it looked less pigeony when she did it—and straightened out the front of her dress. “You lot are an embarrassment, and I, for one, can hardly stand to look at you. Th’Esar’s already made his move, and he did it in public. If there’s nobody we can go to for help, then we make a stink. Adamo’s a hero, isn’t he? And don’t you think the people of Thremedon would be a mite ticked to learn one of their heroes is locked up without any good reason? They’d be pissed, same as how we’re pissed. We oughta be able to use that.”

“They’d need to hear it from Owen’s mouth before they believed anything,” Royston said. “But I do agree, that is a sensible way of thinking.”

“It’s an Adamo way of thinking, is what it is,” Luvander said.

“So here’s what I think,” Laure said. “We fake ’em out. You do your explosion bit nearby, just close enough so they think we’re making our move but we’ve got it wrong. Still, they’re gonna have to come check it out, or else they’ll look real suspicious—and while the place is left mostly unguarded up top, Ghislain here knocks the remaining heads together and the rest of us get inside.”

“And once we’re inside?” I asked, feeling the same thrill of excitement I always did when Adamo was outlining our new strategies. It wasn’t the same as planning for a night in the air, but the amount of risk did come close.

“What was your job?” Laure asked. “When you were flying?”

“Reconnaissance,” I replied.

“Then we sneak in there and do some reconnaissance,” Laure said. “Get the lay of the land, make sure there are no traps set up, lead the way for the others to come in after us and start unlocking some cell doors. And after that, we have Adamo on our side, not to mention a few pissed-off Margraves—and Antoinette, who by Royston’s account knows everything there is to know about what th’Esar’s up to.”

“And she’ll probably be able to enlighten us,” Royston concluded, “as to what the hell is going on there.”

“Now, I don’t want to get too detailed on what’s going to happen once we’re in there,” Laure added, “because we don’t know what we’re going up against, or even what we’re gonna find. If we overthink it, then it’s bound to make us panic when it doesn’t go according to plan.”

“Oh, are we not meant to be panicking already?” Toverre asked. I thought he’d been pale when we met, but he was looking positively white now, if a little green around the edges. It made sense; as an airman, I’d been trained in war, and even I was feeling anxious. This young man was no more than a civilian, a student. He was probably hoping our plans wouldn’t include him—and, in my opinion, they probably shouldn’t. “Silly me, then. Never mind. Carry on.”

“Nobody has to come who doesn’t want to,” Laure said, with a pointed look in his direction. In spite of her attitude toward the rest of us, this seemed almost like an act of kindness—as though she was letting him off the hook.

She was equally unqualified in terms of background, but in terms of her nerve, she might have even been leagues ahead of the rest of us. Excepting, of course, Ghislain.

“Well,” Raphael said, slapping his hand against his leg and startling me with the sudden sound. “If I wanted to do a foolish thing like sleep after a few days of vomiting, I wouldn’t have joined the airmen.”

“I’m sure there was a veritable plethora of jobs open to you at the time,” Luvander agreed. “Perhaps you could’ve been a stain-cleaner at the ’Fans. Or the city drunk.”

“So long as you save enough energy to muck out my boat after, you can tag along,” Ghislain said, standing.

“Well if everyone’s going,” Toverre said, looking distinctly put out about the whole thing. “Perhaps you’ll need someone to … To stand watch.”

“You can always stay here,” I said, as it seemed no one else was going to. “It wouldn’t be ignoble. Whenever a group of us went out on raids, there were always some who stayed back in case the others didn’t … Well, that was just how it was done,” I amended, realizing that perhaps talking too much about the gravity of the situation would have a sobering effect on our little rescue mission.

“No, it’s all right,” Toverre said miserably. “Don’t try to spare me or my dignity. What kind of wretched creature would I be if I let my fiancée attend this melee without following along to protect her? I merely hope you know, Sir Ghislain, that you are not the only one who wishes I was a velikaia.

“Sir Ghislain,” Raphael repeated. “Do you know, I rather like that? It sounds very impressive, not to mention romantic. Almost like something out of a roman.”

“Enough talk,” Laure said. I noticed that she’d put on her hat and coat while we’d been talking to one another, and felt the slightest niggling of guilt. We all should have been doing just that.

What we really needed was the air-raid bells to snap us out of it. That’d jump-start the whole crew into action in no time.

“Are my gloves dry yet?” I asked. Toverre handed them to me, pinching them by the thumbs, which weren’t stained, and dangling them between us like dead fish rotting on the line. “Thank you,” I said.

“You are welcome,” he sniffed in reply.

I slipped them on, looking around for something I might have been able to use as a bell. There was nothing in the house, save for a little clockwork timer on the table next to Luvander’s stove. Just as I appraised it, wondering how insane I’d have to be to set it off for a certain effect, Luvander seemed to catch my eye, then reached out for it.

It dinged only once, its tone hollow and tinny. But to us, it actually meant something.

“Let me just turn down the stove,” Luvander said, putting a lid on his bubbling creation. “If all goes well, perhaps we’ll get a chance to eat it. If not …”

“If not, it’ll soon be able to run the hat shop for you,” Laure promised. “Now let’s go get the Chief Sergeant.”