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In the cage, two more murderously a
"Did I mention," said Dure
The pair currently free in the enclosure looked angry enough; the boy was dancing a lively jig to keep them away from his back and flanks. "Fascinating," said Jean, working a series of specific hand gestures into his ma
He was about to answer when a familiar hard weight fell on his left shoulder.
"Master Kosta," said Selendri before Locke had even finished turning. "One of the Priori wishes to speak to you on the sixth floor. A small matter. Something concerning… card tricks. He said you" d understand."
"Madam," said Locke, "I, ah, would be only too happy to attend. Can you let him know that I'll be with him shortly?"
"Better," she said with a half-smile that didn't move the devastated side of her face at all. "I can escort you myself, to greatly speed your passage."
Locke smiled as though that was exactly what he would have wished, and he turned back to Madam Dure
"You do move in interesting circles, Master Kosta. Best hurry; Jerome can tend your wager, and share a drink with me."
"A most unlooked-for pleasure," said Jean, already beckoning an attendant to order that drink.
Selendri didn't waste another moment; she turned and stepped into the crowd, setting course for the stairs on the far side of the circular room. She moved quickly, with her brass hand cradled in her flesh hand before her like an offering, and the throng parted almost miraculously. Locke hurried along in her wake, keeping just ahead of the crowd as it closed up again behind him like some colony of scuttling creatures briefly disturbed in its chores. Glasses clinked, ragged layers of smoke twirled in the air and wasps buzzed.
Up the stairs to the third floor; again the well-dressed masses melted away before Requin's major-domo. On the south side of the third floor was a service area filled with attendants bustling about shelves of liquor bottles. At the rear of the service room was a narrow wooden door with a niche beside it. Selendri slid her artificial hand into this niche and the door cracked open on a dark space barely larger than a coffin. She stepped in first, put her back against the wall of the enclosure and beckoned him in.
"The climbing closet," she said. "Much easier than the stairs and the crowds."
It was a tight fit; Jean would have been unable to share the compartment with her. As it was, Locke was crammed in against her left side, and he could feel the heavy weight of her brass hand against his upper back. She reached past him with her other hand and drew the compartment closed. They were locked in warm darkness, and Locke became intensely aware of their smells — his fresh sweat and her feminine musk, and something in her hair, like the smoke from a burning pine log. Woodsy, tingly, not at all unpleasant.
"Well," he said softly, "this is where I'd have an accident, right? If I had an accident coming?"
"It wouldn't be an accident, Master Kosta. But no, you're not to have it on the way up."
She moved, and he heard the clicking of some mechanism from the wall on her right. A moment later, the walls of the compartment shuddered and a faint creaking noise grew above them. "You dislike me," Locke said on a whim. There was a brief silence.
"I" ve known many traitors," she said at last, "but perhaps none so glib."
"Only those who initiate treachery are traitors," said Locke, injecting a hurt tone into his voice. "What I desire is redress for a grievance." "You would have your rationalizations," she whispered. "I" ve offended you somehow." "Call it whatever you like."
Locke concentrated furiously on the tone of his next few words. In darkness, facing away from her, his voice would be detached from all the cues of his face and his ma
"If I have offended you, madam — I would unsay what I said, or undo what I did." The briefest hesitation, just the thing for conveying sincerity. The trustiest tool in his verbal kit. "I would do it the moment you told me how, if you only would give me the chance."
She shuffled ever so slightly against him; the brass hand pressed harder for a heartbeat. Locke closed his eyes and willed his ears, his skin and his pure animal instincts to pluck whatever slightest clue they could out of the darkness. Would she scorn pity, or did she crave it? He could feel the shuddering beat of his own heart, hear the faint pulse in his temples. "There is nothing to unsay or undo," she replied, faintly. "I almost wish that there were. So that I could put you at ease." "You ca
"I don't want to be your enemy, Selendri. I don't even want to be trouble." "Words are cheap. Cheap and meaningless."
"I can't…" Judicious pause again. Locke was as careful as a master sculptor placing crow's feet around the edges of a stone statue's eye. "Look, maybe I am glib. I can't speak otherwise, Selendri." Repeated use of her proper name, a compulsion, almost a spell. More intimate and effective than titles. "I am who I am." "And you wonder that I distrust you for it?" "I wonder more if there's anything that you don't distrust."
"Distrust everyone," she said, "and you can never be betrayed. Opposed, but never betrayed."
"Hmmm." Locke bit his tongue and thought rapidly. "But you don't distrust him, do you, Selendri?" "That's no gods-damned business of yours, Master Kosta."
There was a loud rattle from the ceiling of the climbing closet. The room gave a last heavy shudder and then fell still.
"Forgive me, again," said Locke. "Not the sixth floor, of course. The ninth?" "The ninth."
In a second she would open the door. They had one last moment alone in the intimate darkness. He weighed his options, hefted his last conversational dart. Something risky, but potentially disquieting.
"I used to think much less of him, you know. Before I found out that he was wise enough to really love you." Another pause, and he lowered his voice to the barest edge of audibility. "I think you must be the bravest woman I" ve ever met." He counted his own heartbeats in the darkness until she responded.
"What a pretty presumption," she whispered, and there was acid beneath her words. There was a click and a line of yellow light split the blackness, stinging his eyes. She gave him a firm push with her artificial hand, against the door that opened out into the lamplit heart of Requin's office.
Well, let her roll his words over in her thoughts for a while. Let her give him the signals that would tell him how to proceed. He had no specific goal in mind; it would be enough to keep her uncertain, simply less inclined to stick a knife in his back. And if some small part of him felt sour at twisting her emotions (gods damn it, that part of him had rarely spoken up before!), well — he reminded himself that he could do as he pleased and feel as he pleased while he was Leocanto Kosta. Leocanto Kosta wasn't real.