Page 89 of Confounding Oaths
“Really. I promise. Although in candour I am not certain what we aregoingto do. I fear we have exhausted our options.”
There was an opportunity here to turn things against my rival or, at least, to prod the mortals into doing something interesting. Iruffed in a way that I hoped might stir my not-exactly-mistress into action. And it did, in a way. “I could still use my situation to advance Anne?”
“You sincerely think she might be queen?” asked Mr. Caesar, less incredulous than he would have been a year ago. His various encounters since had taught him pleasing respect for the abilities of uncanny beings.
“I think the Lady has great power. And”—she shut her eyes, the light dimming inside her—“I do not think her kind break their promises. Not as they are spoken, at least.”
“Such a perceptive girl,” the Lady said to me. “Well, perceptivenow.”
As true as this seemed, Mr. Caesar was not certain that it wasn’t a horrendous trap. Which was also perceptive ofhim.“Whatever Anne’s wishes may be, and as powerful as your patroness undoubtedly is, we should strive to keep heroutof her clutches, not to herd her into them.”
“And me?” asked Miss Caesar.
Mr. Caesar was silent for long enough that I wondered if he, too, had undergone some manner of transformation. “I do not know. And I cannot help but blame myself.”
“Don’t,” Miss Caesar told him with a gentleness that seemed to rankle at the Lady, who expected better from her protégés. “This was my choice.”
It did not escape me that she was now using the past tense.
“Still,” her brother replied, “I would free you from it if I could. But I do not know how. We have sent to the Folly for a vitki, but he has limited knowledge of Titania’s court.”
An air of melancholy was radiating from Miss Caesar, which I would in other contexts have found satisfying, your people’s passions being a vintage we savour when we can. But there was a bitterness to knowing that this particular drama had been orchestrated by our rivals, and for the benefit of their queen rather than of my good and noble lord.
“I am sorry, John,” she said at last.
“Don’t be. You fell foul of an indifferent world. It happens to thousands of people every day, no better or worse than you.”
And again, Miss Caesar laughed. But there was affection in it this time, rather than despair. “You’re beginning to talk like the captain.”
“Apparently he’s a good influence on me. Or a bad one. I have yet to work it out.” Fearing, perhaps, that he had overstayed his welcome, Mr. Caesar rose and, taking care to avoid the glass roses, laid a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder. “And—if you’ve still a mind, we will take you to speak with the witch.”
When she’d raised the question of returning to Amenirdis, Miss Caesar had not expected her brother to support the notion, or to insist on accompanying her despite his having almost as little experience of the city’s worst districts as she had herself. “I do,” she told him. “Dangerous as it might be.”
Reaching across the narrow space between them, she took her brother’s hand in hers, and Mr. Caesar tried not to notice how cold and unyielding they were.
Chapter Nineteen
While Mr. Caesar was speakingwith his sister, his lover and champion was returning on foot to Lord Wriothesly’s Folly to reconnect with his men, and especially with the specific man who had knowledge of magic. And it was as he entered that warren of alleyways that I caught up with him.
Having grown up in St. Giles, he knew these streets well, and there was a tension in the air that he disliked. He knew he was not being followed—at least by any material agent—but still there was a sense that something clandestine and unfamiliar had crawled into the district and was nesting there like a tangle of rats.
The atmosphere in the Folly was subdued when he entered, and Mistress Quickley watched him warily as he made his way to the bar.
“Long day, Orestes?” she asked.
“Went visiting with a young lady.”
The landlady stared at him over an imaginary pair of spectacles. “That don’t seem your sort of thing. In any way.”
A little distance away, Sal and Kumar had been gamblingmoney they didn’t have at a game with crooked dice. Overhearing the comment, Sal turned his head towards the bar. “It’s exactly his sort of thing. Forever rescuing people is the captain. It’s his worst habit.”
“I’ll have to find a worse one then,” Captain James replied.
Ordinarily, this would have raised a laugh from the company and that would have been the end of it, but Kumar was still looking concerned. “You should, Captain. We may be mere weeks from a fresh war with France and the men need you with them, not off—”
“Offwhat?” asked Captain James with a tone that did not resort to menace, but reserved the option for a later date.
“Off chasing cock,” said Sal, flatly.
