Chapter 12

The taste against the roof of his mouth was foul, like rotten flowers.

What had it been – mafeisan, juniper, letheon? Not letheon, it would have knocked him out faster. It must have been mafeisan, the Tianxi tincture supposedly had over ten different herbs in it. Tristan slipped out of the sheets, bare feet against the wooden floor, and crouched to put on his boots. Move, don’t think. Move. His clothes were on the chair in a neatly folded pile, Song Ren’s quiet touch, and methodically he put back on what the physicians had removed in his sleep. Under the clothes he found his weapons.

Not that’d he used a single one of them tonight.

He turned, ready to reply to the mocking quip, but no one stood there. Bile rose in his throat. Move, don’t think. Soft steps in the hall, a dimmed lantern approaching. One of the gray-robed physicians going around the hallway paused by the open door, frowning down at him, and checked the slate she carried under her arm.

“Tristan Abrascal?”

His pistol had been unloaded and cleaned. Song again. He tucked it away, strapping back into place his knife and blackjack.

“You are to stay in bed until discharged,” the physician said.

He considered her, just a moment. The stern face, the hunched shoulders of someone whose shift had been going on for too long. By instinct he tried to run his fingers along the side of the cup, to feel the rattling of the dice – the strength of the odds gathered here – but there was nothing. A spasm of fresh grief burned out any affability he might have been able to scrape up.

“Then consider me discharged,” Tristan flatly said, and walked through the doorway.

She tried to block him, but between the slate and the lantern she couldn’t quite place herself right. He shouldered her out of the way, none too gently, and ignored her call to come back while heading for the stairs. By the time she was threatening to call the guards on him, still in a lowered voice since she was afraid to wake up other patients, he was already going down the steps.

He had to get out. To find a place to go to ground. Already he had broken down in front of Tredegar and – his jaw clenched until his teeth ached of it. Tristan spat out a breath as he hurried down. Tredegar could be trusted. He had her measure, and tonight she had saved his life at great risk to her own. That went in the ledger. But he couldn’t think here, with all these things and people to watch out for. He needed quiet, he needed dark, he needed for there to be no one around.

There were no guards at the bottom of the stairs. Only another gray-robed physician, another woman who- shit. That wasn’t a woman at all, was it?

“Now what do we have here?” Lady Knit purred.

The goddess didn’t move, not really. Her body was a trick of the eye, an assemblage of threads to let you buy into the lie that she was something like a person. And when she dispensed with that deception, it was the strands themselves that moved – like a plume of blood in water, an almost lazy spurt of threads. They curled around him in the blink of an eye, almost close enough to touch, and like a line of flipped cards she rewove herself into a person’s shape besides him. Almost. She was still too tall, too slender, too elongated. And even in the dim light of the lantern, he could make out the faint lines of the threads making up her ‘face’.

In a sick way, the horror of it was a comfort. A rabbit had no time to spare for grief when standing before a fox.

“Honored elder,” Tristan tightly greeted her, fist over heart as he bowed.

“Tris-tan Ab-ra-scal,” Lady Knit spoke into the air, as if tasting the words. “It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? A roll of the tongue. It fills the mouth.”

“Your praise honors me,” he said.

The goddess… fluttered, for lack of better word. Every thread of her moving all at once.

“It does not,” she said. “You are out of bed.”

“I am leaving,” Tristan said. “I would not haunt your hall any longer than required.”

The thing laughed. A shiver, half of her disassembling like a pulled thread while she reformed on the other side of him, bent over to whisper into his ear.

“And you no longer require my aid, Tristan Abrascal?” she said. “Come now, the hollowness inside you echoes. Celebrant to an empty altar, contracted to a corpse. Every step you take rattles in the wind, Tristan Abrascal.”

He did not like how she said his name. Did not like it at all. It felt intimate in a malformed way, like someone playfully trailing a finger against the inside of your lungs.

“A sad state of affairs, for a Mask,” he drawled, putting on a charming smile. “I will spare you further rattle, my lady, and remove myself from the premises.”

“She isn’t dead, you know,” Lady Knit idly said. “Not yet.”

Every part of him clenched, a man made into a grip. The thief almost reached for his knife before stopping that foolishness. What would a knife do, save weaken his position? His instincts were being too vicious, too reckless. Reckless got rats killed.

“What do you know?” he demanded.

“I know that the imposter-beast swallowed her whole,” Lady Knit said. “And I know she went against her own nature at the end, Tristan Abrascal.”

She leaned in just shy of his skin, this spindly thread-thing, and breathed in deep as if savoring the scent.

“She spent herself to save you,” Lady Knit said. “It’s on you still, we can all feel it. The last prayer of the Lady of Long Odds: that the jaws would miss you. That you would live. And it smells delicious.”

She had- he swallowed, wanted to weep. Fortuna had? But gods, gods could not go against their nature. Could not change, could not truly love because it was outside of what they were and they could only ever be that. And still Fortuna had… No, not here. Not now. He could not falter, there would be no recovering from it.

“It swallowed her whole,” he said, concentrating on the most important part, “but she still lives?”

She must. Song, Song had said the contract was still there. Just dulled.

“Like a snake swallowing a mouse, it must render the fat of her,” Lady Knit said. “Digest her, layer by layer.”

“How long does she have?” Tristan pressed.

A flutter, a riot of threads, and like a flock erupting backwards into itself the tall goddess stood tall and whole before him with her hands tucked into her sleeves.

“It seems I have something you want,” Lady Knit said. “Shall we make a bargain, Tristan Abrascal?”

And the urge was there to accept. To leap into the pit, to snatch the apples from the display and run. But that was the first thing a good thief learned to kill, that little voice that told you there just wasn’t enough time and you had to do it now. He was in Scholomance. There were Savants here, instructors and libraries that few on Vesper could rival.

He might need what she peddled, but he didn’t need her.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” Lady Knit purred. “Only that little prayer, Tristan Abrascal. Not even something of yours.”

Tristan cocked his head to the side.

“So it has a use of some kind for gods,” he said. “That is good to know. Thank you for the information, Lady Knit.”

And he walked away.

A hiss of anger and the threads skittered angrily, a roiling mass with only her head forming at the end. She slid along the floor, keeping up with him as he made for the front door.

“You will regret this,” Lady Knit said, and the writhing threads sounded like a thousand wriggling worms. “I am-”

A mistake, how he had done it. Slighting her. There might come a day where he needed her services and gods held grudges. He should back down now, give her a victory to chew on. And yet. His teeth ached from the blind urge to take a fucking bite.

“You are a pawn shop with priests,” Tristan cut her off. “You feed on mistakes, honored elder, but you’ll not find such an easy meal in me.”

They were in the great hall, by then, and the weight of gazes made Lady Knit pull away. A god was not such a fearful thing, after you had seen them throw a tantrum, and Lady Knit needed that fear. How many students would knife her in revenge for the price she’d exacted, given half a chance? Not few, and the number would only grow after tonight.

Tristan walked out of the accursed place and did not look back. A green star burned far above, morning’s mark, but it was fading.

He might still make it in time if he hurried.

—

The Chimerical was closed.

That would not have stopped him, never had before, but he did not need to pick the lock as despite the sign the door was not barred. There was a murmur of talk inside, momentarily drowned out by the rush of warm and bitter air as he closed the door behind him. Even after over a year Tristan had not come to enjoy the smell of coffee.

The cramped insides of the shop were not entirely full, but still had more seats filled than would be usual at this hour – a mere stroke before seven. Two of the walled booths were occupied, between them fitting five Masks who all looked up as he entered. Tristan graced them with a nod then went straight for the counter.

Behind it stood Hage, cleaning up a cup with a moist rag and an obsessive need for every nook and cranny to be pristine. The old devil only acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow before inclining his head towards the booths. Good, Tristan had not arrived so late he would have to pay a fee. Hage never missed an opportunity to squeeze something out of them, even if it was just coppers the devil had no real use for.

The other students were familiar sights, Hage’s pupils in one of the two subjects he taught. The fuller of the two booths boasted the three he had first encountered during the hunt for the Deicide class. Cressida, hat off and on the table, graced him with a bored look as she sipped at a steaming cup of black tar. Silumko, who sat by her, offered a smile and pretended not to notice while the Someshwari on his other side – Ira of Vennai, Silumko’s old ally from last year – stole a piece of shortbread from his plate.

There was little room left there so his eyes moved to the other booth and its occupants. Imani Langa sat in the middle, smiling at him in every way that Silumko had not, but it was a thin mask. Her face was drawn tight, the cast of her shoulders slumped. She must have lost someone last night. Part of him sympathized, but another marked the angle.

The other Mask there was Ruo Xuan Liu, a fresher acquaintance. The Cryptic from the Ninth Brigade gravely greeted him, though the impression was somewhat undercut by the way Mephistofeline was half-perched on the Tianxi’s shoulder and purring loudly, shoving his wet nose into Ruo’s ear as the man tried and failed not to show discomfort. Tristan slid onto the bench besides Imani Langa, on the opposite side from Ruo Xuan.

Hage set down the long-clean cup, checked the clock on the wall and only turned to face them when it struck seven.

“As of this morning, your orders have changed,” the old devil told them. “You will no longer be aimed at your underclassmen.”

There was not a word of disagreement, even though for some of them it would mean leaving coin on the table. The assignment of tricking the first year Masks into seeking the tutelage of fake teachers had been popular – especially after he and Ruo settled on how much they would charge for the ‘information’ they were selling – but after Misery Square there was no longer a taste for it.

It felt like a distraction, because it was.

“You are all now on fishing duty,” Hage said. “Marshal de la Tavarin pushed through his scheme of slaying the Lord of Teeth as surrogate yearly test, so the student body will be split between that hunt and the response that Colonel Cao arranged. We want eyes in both.”

Tristan tried to hide his ignorance but evidently he was a beat too slow. Imani Langa leaned in, beads clattering.

“Exploration crews are to be sent into the depths Scholomance to find a path towards the Lightbringer’s own library, where dwells a god that may have answers for us,” she murmured.

He forced himself to smile and give a thankful nod. It was so minor a debt he was not truly worried over it, but it was a debt still. Langa had taken every opportunity to put him in these since Asphodel, and he knew exactly why. She wanted him to owe her enough that should Angharad ever come for her neck he would warn her first. Ira cleared her throat, getting a nod from Hage.

“Are we fishing for anything in particular, or just going out to sea?”

Fishing was a tradecraft term when used in that manner. To ‘go fishing’ was to insert yourself into an enterprise or movement and gather information from the inside. This could be done for a particular reason like ‘going fishing for a cult’ or ‘going fishing for treason’, or it could be done in the more general sense of investigating the situation. The latter was referred to as ‘going out to sea’.

“After revision of last night’s events, there are some concerns that a third party might be attempting to help Scholomance by attacking the Watch,” Hage said. “Investigation and pursuit of such a party takes precedence over anything else you might encounter.”

Vague words, too vague for the revelation he had just dropped on a room full of suddenly blank-faced Masks. Tristan cleared his throat, getting a permissive nod from the devil.

“What kind of third party?” he rasped out. “Because this doesn’t sound like the work of our cousins.”

The ‘cousins’ were too many to count, but everyone knew the important names: the Lefthand House, the Monkey Society, the Kautilyaka, the Yellow Earth and even the Ambassadorial. The Monkey Society and the Lefthand House were sure to have people in Scholomance, and likely the Kautilyaka as well, but letting loose a Lord of Teeth on students did not sound like their kind of play.

“I must agree with Master Abrascal,” Ruo Xuan Liu said, sipping at a cup of Totochtin gold. “Even the most radical of Yellow Earth zealots would balk at the death being courted by such an attack.”

Tristan was inclined to agree. If the Watch got a name to blame for tonight, bodies were going to pile up. It was a very public black eye for the Obscure Committee and none of its sitting members sounded like the sort of people to take that without pulling a knife.

“Could be the Kautilyaka,” Ira suggested. “Some are bold enough to bet that without knowing which clan is responsible the Watch won’t dare to retaliate.”

Which would be foolish. It might have worked for a tap on the nose, but a mess like this? The Watch would just turn the screws on all the clans until they started giving up those responsible.

“The Crooks don’t move without a reason, they’re mercenaries,” Cressida pointed out. “Who in the Imperial Someshwar has both the means and a reason to want last night to happen?”

“Nobody’s suggesting the Ambassadorial might be behind it?” Silumko lightly said. “Strange.”

Some sparse laughter, none from Tristan. Sacromonte’s diplomatic service was usually considered the least competent of the spies fielded by great powers, often making them the butt of such jokes. But Tristan was in no laughing mood and his eyes stayed on Hage. There was one rival institution that the word ‘cousins’ excluded, the one with which the Watch was never at more than a temporary truce.

“We do not suspect the Office of Opposition at this time,” Hage told him. “Our working theory is a hostile entity, so keep an eye out for… influence.”

He breathed in sharply and was not the only one. ‘Entity’ could mean quite a few things, but usually it meant a god. Fuck. Another god might be helping Scolomancia eat the Watch, and its idea of an opening move was apparently unleashing a Lord of Teeth on a student gathering.

“You will be expected to give weekly reports,” Hage told them. “And I would suggest taking care in writing them, as they will be passed directly to Lord Asher.”

Which had an obvious implication.

“He’s to stay on Tolomontera, sir?” Imani asked.

“Until the current troubles are brought to a conclusion,” Hage agreed.

He picked up his rag after, grabbing another cup to clean. A signal that the briefing was at an end, though not a dismissal. If receiving assignments was the only reason to come here, they would not have all come at the same time. Tristan might not even have shown. No, it was for what was now to begin he had dragged his tired body across Hostel Street to the coffee house. Hage’s part was finished so now the students could begin horse trading.

“I’ll trade for anything on Marshal de la Tavarin,” Cressida announced. “Skiritai don’t usually have the kind of pull he just showed.”

“And your offer in exchange, Mistress Barboza?” Ruo Xuan asked.

“A firsthand report on the effects of candlesteel against the-”

She was universally booed by the rest, since any Stripe in good standing would be able to get access to that anyway. The report was sure to end up filed in the Galleries, they’d all know the contents within a few days.

“Fine,” she scowled. “Information on Yaotl Acatl and how she ended up in Scholomance.”

She sent him a smug look as she made the offer, which he did not react to. However pleased she might be at the notion of using what she saw as his coin to buy up she wanted, he’d had no intention of airing Izel’s dirty laundry. She robbed him of nothing.

“I’ll put up the identity of three lemures getting added to the Steel List this year,” Silumko said, “for quality roseless compass schematics.”

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That got some whistles. So the Twenty-Ninth was leaning the way of Scholomance exploration. Tristan ran a quick mental tally of their members. They were run by a nobleborn Malani, a Stripe by the name of Emeni something, then they had a Skiritai in Yaq and an Izcalli scholar from the Peiling Society. A better fit for exploration than the hunt, Tristan agreed.

“I’ll take that,” Ira called out.

No one bid over her, so on it went.

“I would require a list of known candlesteel weapons in Port Allazei,” Ruo Xuan asked. “For the trouble, I offer a detailed dossier on Ritwik Banerjee for any to peruse.”

That was the name of the signifier from the Third Brigade. How like the Tianxi to try to screw over his brigades’ rivals even when he was paying up. Going for a list of candlesteel was good as stating the Ninth was aiming at the Lord of Teeth, which meant decent odds the Third would be doing the same. Good news for Tristan: the more of the princelings went after the beast, the better. The Thirteenth would help him get Fortuna out, he was sure of it, but it was not work for a single brigade.

Imani Langa asked for information on a student whose name Tristan did not recognize – shopping for a replacement? – and offered in exchange a report on the relationships inside their year’s circle of Malani lordlings. Shallow give, but shallow ask. Ruo Xuan matched it, but Cressida did as well and added an introduction to said student by a friendly acquaintance. The Tianxi declined to bid further, ceding way. Ira passed her own turn, preferring to listen, and eyes turned to him.

He hesitated. Not struggling with the words – he had known every single one before opening the Chimerical’s door – but because saying them would make it real. Strip him of the distraction this small interlude had been and back into the bleak reality of Fortuna being gone. Weakness, he snarled at himself. He would not let his own fragility get in the way of getting her back.

“I need blackmail material on a Savant specialized in practical theology,” Tristan said, tone even. “Or a question answered by one such with a guarantee of privacy.”

Calculating eyes all landed on him.

“For?” Cressida asked, leaning forward.

He reached inside his cloak, pulling out from a patch sown inside the pocket a small thing. A piece of nacre, no longer than a nail because that was exactly what it was. He set it on the table with a small clack.

“A piece of solidified luck,” he said.

“Fuck me,” Silumko muttered. “That’s from when you almost went Saint, isn’t?”

“He howled like a pup with a thorn when they had to pull it out of his finger,” Cressida smiled.

He inclined his head at her. Unpleasant as she was being, she was also vouching for the authenticity of what he peddled.

“I’ll take that,” Silumko hastily said, eyes never leaving the nacre.

“I will match you, Master Silumko,” Ruo Xuan said, “and add that the inquiry will be answered within…”

He pulled out a pocket watch, checked it and smiled.

“The next hour and fifteen minutes,” he said.

Tristan’s eyes flicked back to Silumko, who sighed and shook his head. The thief might be closer to the Malani, but the sooner he had his answers the better.

“Done,” he said, sliding his former nail across the table.

Ruo Xuan carefully palmed it, placing it in a handkerchief he then folded and tucked away. The Tianxi rose to his feet.

“Should anyone desire to take up my trade, I will be here tomorrow evening,” he said. “Otherwise, I bid you all a good day.”

He bowed to them at large, then again at Hage, and cocked an eyebrow at Tristan.

“Shall we, Master Abrascal?”

“By all means,” the thief said, following him out.

—

Why Ruo Xuan had felt so confident to bid and even set a timeline became quite obvious after the man led them into the garden tables of the Emerald Vault and sat across one of his fellow cabalists.

Andreu Claver was a tall, curly-haired man with a quick smile and an easy swagger. He wore a cutlass and moved like a man comfortable using it, which made sense given his faint Riven Coast accent. It was a prized weapon in that chaotic stretch of coast, in a way the symbol of the turbulent pirate kingdoms that rose and fell there seemingly at a whim. It would have been unwarranted, of course, to assume that the man was a former pirate just because he came from the Coast.

But it wasn’t an assumption, because the Claver were famous pirates. They were one of the oft-quoted examples of pirates ‘made good’, their family having become the unofficially hereditary palace mayors of the city of Mendebal. The kings of Mendebal changed every few years, but never the last name of the palace mayor and wise men knew who it was deals must be struck with. Ruo introduced Andreu as a member of the Peiling Society, which Tristan had known, and a specialist in theology – which Tristan had not. The other thing he knew, though, was that Claver liked a drink and was one of the worst gossips in their year. So much for the guarantee of privacy.

Tristan turned an unimpressed look on the other Mask, who produced a pair of small bracelets of black stones, barely more than beads. They were painted with Cathayan symbols in gold, though Tristan recognized none of them. The sort of bracelet, though, was somewhat familiar. He had seen something similar on Tupoc Xical’s arm back on the Dominion of Lost Things. While he had never seen the last pair used, Angharad had told him of them.

“Oath stones,” he said.

“Fascinating things,” Andreu Claver said. “One of the Second Empire’s cleverest creations, though they had to hack up Antediluvian ruins for the materials. It is an aether seal, in practice, but one that can only be placed under very specific circumstances.”

“It is not lethal,” Ruo Xuan informed him. “Breaking the oath would instead wipe out a year’s worth of memories.”

“Likely less,” Andreu mused. “It has been used before and the methods to restore it are imperfect.”

Even if it were only six months, Tristan thought, it would still be deterrent enough.

“That will do,” he said.

“Then we have an accord, Master Abrascal,” Ruo Xuan replied.

The Ninth did business like the princelings they were: they paid for his breakfast, the three of them choosing the terms of the oath before the Ruo and Claver put on the bracelets and swore it. Ruo then polished off the last of his soup and left them to speak privately. Andreu flashed him a smile, dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief.

“Lay it on me, Abrascal,” he said.

Tristan simply slid a folded paper across the table. The Savant picked it up and his brow rose.

“I will need more information than that,” he said.

He leaned to the side, opening a small pack and taking out a steel-tip pen and ink.

“Ask,” Tristan said.

Claver hummed, flipping the paper to have the empty part looking up and quickly began to sketch out what looked to Tristan like an equation – though one with several strange symbols in it.