Chapter 12: Old and New Acquaintances — The Key of Oslov

Volume 10: The Trip to Harbour

Chapter 12 Old and New Acquaintances

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Malsha Linnett still wore white. His loose coat was cut like a Harbourer’s now, and he had thick-soled slippers instead of boots, but everything was that one non-color, making him stand out like a piece of Oslov on the vibrant green lawn.He stopped a meter or so from Tilrey and surveyed him through large-framed glasses. The crags and hollows of his face had intensified, but you could still see the outlines of the square chin, the high cheekbones, the shapely lips.After a moment, he said, “The buckskin suits you nicely. Your hair needs a wash, though.”Part of Tilrey, a part he’d spent the past five years trying to outgrow, was ready to respond to the command by bobbing his head and saying, “Yes, Fir,” and then trudging dutifully inside to wash his hair in whatever facilities the house offered.Instead, he stared coldly back. “You look older, Fir.”“So do you, lad. Thirty this year, aren’t you? Coming into your prime.”There was no leer on Malsha’s face, but the sharp eyes traveled up and down Tilrey’s body in a way that made him itch and straighten his spine. “Yes,” he said curtly. “Nice spread you’ve got. I suppose those armed-to-the-teeth soldiers downtown don’t bother you?”Irritation flitted across Malsha’s face. “The Colonel’s way of displaying her power is so unsubtle. But you needn’t worry about them coming up here; we won’t be disturbed.” He hadn’t moved his gaze. “I always knew you’d age without losing much of your bloom. Still working out, I see.”Don’t react; he wants you to. “Are we going to get down to business, Fir? We’re scheduled to leave tomorrow at first light.”“Of course. Where are my manners?” Malsha raised a pale arm and beckoned to someone behind Tilrey. “You’ve come such a long way; you must have some refreshment.” His eyes paused on Gavril, who still stood protectively beside Tilrey. “And who’s this?”Tilrey introduced the sergeant. Instead of offering his own hand for Malsha to clasp, the way a Laborer would do for an Upstart, Gavril pumped the disgraced Magistrate’s hand. Staring straight into his eyes, he said, “If you don’t mind, I’m not gonna call you ‘Fir.’ Doesn’t seem appropriate after the way you screwed over the Republic.”“Sergeant,” Tilrey muttered. Albertine had instructed him to give Malsha at least the minimum of respect he was used to commanding, to keep him in good humor.But Malsha laughed delightedly. “Frankness. I like that. You’re quite right, Sergeant, and you must dine with us.” He snapped his fingers. “We’ll eat Harbourer-style, sitting at my table—it’s so much more civilized. Krisha, could you show Rishka and Sergeant Ardaly to their rooms? I trust the Duke’s men have already been accommodated.”“Yes, Fir,” said a deep voice behind them, with an unmistakable accent that to Tilrey’s ears still sounded coarse.Taken by surprise, Ardaly swung around with an unmilitary look of near-panic on his face. Tilrey turned with less hurry.There stood Krisha—still slender-waisted and rugged, with hooded dark eyes and cheekbones like scythes. When Tilrey knew him in Redda, the driver had dyed his hair pale blond so it clashed with his brows. Now it had returned to its natural glossy black, a crow’s wing sweeping across his eyes, which suited him better.Gavril’s eyes were wet and his cheeks flushed, as if he was restraining an urge to fold the younger man in his arms. For his part, Krisha gave no sign that he knew the sergeant aside from a grimace tugging at his lips. “Come along then, Fira,” he said tonelessly. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”“Wait a moment, Krisha.” Malsha joined them at the edge of the drive. “Do you and the sergeant know each other?”Krisha winced visibly. He clearly knew, as Tilrey did, that the more Malsha knew about you, the more he could (and would) hurt you.Tilrey shot a pointed glance at Gavril: I told you to be careful. But the sergeant only shrugged, apparently unashamed to wear his heart on his sleeve. “Yeah, we met at Base G-5. I’m the one who got him flying lessons.”Malsha smiled a small, dry smile. “Then I must thank you, Sergeant Ardaly. Thanks to those skills, Krisha flew us both here from Redda after I ‘screwed over the Republic,’ as you put it.” The smile widened. “How lovely, then. We’ll have a reunion of sorts on both sides. Krisha, set a place for yourself at the table as well, and instruct Jack to wait on us.”Krisha bobbed his head, and the old man’s eyes returned to Tilrey again, coolly observant, looking for weak spots. “My cook slaughtered a pig this morning. It’s delicious as long as you don’t think too hard about it—swine are rather intelligent animals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have my afternoon nap. An old man at death’s door needs his rest.”With that, he swept past them—still moving with all the majesty of someone wearing a Councillor’s robe of office—and into the house.Krisha tried to disappear along with his master, but Gavril caught up with him. Under the portico of the house, he cornered the younger man and began speaking rapidly in a low voice—without touching him, Tilrey noticed.Krisha always had a habit of startling at sudden noises or touches. In their two years living together, Tilrey had found it bizarre that Malsha’s driver could be both so brutish and so high-strung. Now he felt an uncomfortable pinch of empathy.Gavril was saying urgently, “I know you’re surprised, love. Wasn’t any way to warn you. But if you’d only give me a second to explain—”Giving them their privacy, Tilrey continued into the house’s foyer. To his relief, Malsha wasn’t lurking there; good as his word, he’d gone up for a nap. And why not? He knew Tilrey couldn’t leave till he’d gotten what he came for.Trying not to feel like a rat in a trap, Tilrey examined the neat, spacious interior: white-washed walls, waxed maple floors, cozy sofas, and a stone hearth with crimson-and-white dishes displayed on the mantel. White, he couldn’t help noticing, was the dominant color. Malsha may have his precious Harbourer retirement, but he’ll always be an Oslov.A snaggle-toothed woman in a calf-length dress and white apron bustled in, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Can I help you, lad?” she asked in Harbourer, then took a second look and curtsied hastily. “You’re the guest, aren’t you, sir? Understand me all right? I’m Mrs. Desautels, the housekeeper.”He nodded. “Could you show me to my room?”“Of course, of course, sir. The master said you’d want the corner room so you could have a view. Said you always liked to see the sunsets.”Her lips twisted as she conveyed this sentiment, as if she knew a favor from Malsha could be a curse in disguise. “Nice of him,” Tilrey said, following her up a flight of golden maple stairs into a quiet white hallway.She opened the door. “Oh, he’s always so thoughtful, the master is.”The corner room had a wraparound view of the lake from a windowseat. Reddening maple leaves rustled just beyond the glass. The brass bed bore a fluffy white counterpane, and the stone hearth had an iron kettle on a frame.“Thoughtful indeed,” Tilrey said neutrally, liking the room more than he wanted to.While Mrs. Desautels pointed out his baggage (already piled on the hearthrug) and the amenities, Tilrey went straight to the map on the wall. Nailed above the bureau, enormous and hand-drawn, it seemed to encompass most of Bettevy, the lake, Placid, and the Park. He leaned in to peer at the empty spaces between towns, searching for the location of the secret settlement.“Looking for the phantom damned, are you, sir?” She sounded amused.He managed not to give a visible start. “So you have that legend, too? I heard it in Bettevy.”“Oh, it ain’t no legend, m’lad. My nephew’s best friend’s cousin saw ’em with his own eyes when he was out hunting bear by the ghost mine, way deep in the Park. Men and women speaking your language. They don’t wear white, though, least not in the summer.” The housekeeper leaned in, scrutinizing him knowingly. “They wear green, and they live inside a high wall with guns and blinking electrical lights. Course, my nephew’s best friend’s cousin’s given to drink like most trappers, so I wouldn’t put much stock in the details, but you never know, do you?”Blinking lights—that would mean cameras. The True Hearthers must surveille and arm their perimeter. But was it really safe for them to be in Resurgence? Tilrey hoped the trapper’s story hadn’t reached the Colonel’s black-clad troops, or that they’d written it off as a tall tale.“Is this drunkard trapper here in town?” he asked casually, picking up a few books arranged on the bureau. They were Tangle favorites of his, as if Malsha had chosen them specifically for him.“Might be. I heard he stepped in a trap, laid himself up for a few months. I could ask around.” The servant’s eyes glittered in a way Tilrey didn’t quite like; she knew an intrigue when she saw one. “But he’s a poor man, you know. Need to grease his palm to tempt him out of his way.”It took Tilrey a few seconds to untangle the metaphor, but he was already reaching for his wallet of Harbourer currency. “My boss is a collector of Harbourer legends,” he said evenly. “He’s quite curious about this one, so I promised him I’d learn what I could.”He placed several coins in the housekeeper’s wrinkled hand, hoping he had the denominations right. “Why don’t you give this to your trapper as a token of my esteem, and keep the rest yourself? Bear in mind, though, I’m leaving tomorrow.”It was a risk, he knew, and a diversion from his mission, but he couldn’t resist. If Gavril succeeded in persuading Krisha to come back with them tomorrow, the sergeant would need Tilrey’s (and probably Gersha’s) help to keep Krisha from ending up in an Int/Sec cell. And if Gavril needed help badly enough, then he might just be persuaded to take a detour on the way home.Telling Gavril about the True Hearth would be a drastic step. But Tilrey had a feeling that, if he prepared the ground carefully, the sergeant might be receptive. For all his patriotism, Gavril seemed to have a healthy natural sense of justice. More importantly, a Dissident settlement might be the only place left where he could safely live out his life with his lover.Mrs. Desautels wore a look of studied indifference now, but the coins vanished into her apron. “I’ll see what I can do, sir. And I’ll be sure the master doesn’t hear about that dirty trapper coming round—he wouldn’t be pleased, you see. Likes to keep the yokels off his estate.”She winked as she spoke, reassuring Tilrey she had no qualms about going behind Malsha’s back. Perhaps her master had alienated her with his fastidiousness or the cruelty he couldn’t always hide, and his loss was Tilrey’s gain.He gave her his most innocent, disarming smile. “Tell your drunkard he’ll get twice that amount if he shows up here tonight without troubling your master. The same for you.”*When Gersha returned fully to himself, the sky was nearly dark, and he was in a cage, and the cage was in a tree.At least, he thought so. The sky was striped with uneven black bars, and the floor beneath him swayed gently. Or could he be on a boat again? He heard an incessant creaking as of masts, a rustling as of sails.No, not a boat. The rustling around him was leaves. The forest was everywhere, and, and—people. Somewhere below him, hundreds of voices were laughing, bellowing, and singing, too distant for him to make out words. Merry as they sounded, they made cold sweat bead on his temples.When he managed to sit up, his hands found crude bars—saplings lashed with twine. Cage, then. The swaying intensified with his every movement. Through the cracks in the floor, he spied a galaxy of torches off to his right.Maybe he was back on the spacious grounds of the Duke’s palace. This was some sort of new festivity, and the cage was a . . . game? Played by men with wolf teeth and sumac in their dyed-white hair?Then, at last, everything came back at once: the blood gushing from Nestor’s throat, the horse’s scream, Foster lifeless on the ground, Overton begging for his life. They’d come here because of Gersha, because of that mad passion the Duke had chided him for. Now they were dead, all of them.I killed them. And he’d been ready to die, too, so ready, but for some reason he was alive.My handheld. He dug in his coat pockets and found nothing but that damned book, The Marriage of Oslov and Harbour. He reached into his shirt, suddenly frantic, and found Tilrey’s pendant secure around his neck. He pressed it to his lips and closed his eyes.His attackers hadn’t knocked him out, he remembered. They hadn’t needed to. His legs had refused to run, his arms to strain against the ropes they bound him with. He remembered foggily, as if it had happened in a dream, being tossed over a man’s shoulder. He remembered jeering laughter and the rank smell of his captors, and after that everything hazed over as dread and humiliation shorted out his brain. He didn’t think he’d fainted, but he might as well have.Now he could stretch out his arms and rise to his feet, but only just. Standing made the cage sway wildly. He sank back into a crouch, his stomach heaving, and began creeping around the edges, feeling for a door. The tightly lashed saplings jabbed his knees, while the bark hurt his hands. He’d seen a man’s throat cut, and here he was wincing over a few scrapes.

My fault, all mine. No, I’m not really here. This can’t be real. I’m a Councillor of Oslov. I—

A high-pitched squawk to his left froze him in place, his heart thudding against his ribs. Before he had time to wonder if night birds could raise such a din, a voice sing-songed mockingly, “Little bird in the cage! I’ve got a birdy, then!”Gersha shrank away, sweat pouring down his cheeks, eyes straining through the gloom. Where are you? What are you?Just beyond the bars, a torch sizzled to life, and he saw slices of a pale, skinny face framed with red hair. The nails-on-a-chalkboard voice said, “Can’t get out, don’t try! It’s locked with iron.”It was a girl, perhaps no older than thirteen, perched in a fork of the same giant, gnarled pine that held Gersha’s prison. Her eyes glittered maliciously, or perhaps the flickering torch she held only made him think so.Just a child. Gersha forced his breathing back under control, but he knew she could see the sweat—and, perhaps, tears—slicking his face. “What is this place?” he whispered, fighting to recall each Harbourer word.Instead of answering, the girl poked something through the bars. “You munch that. Don’t try to grab me—got a knife, and I know how to use it.”Her bare arm was muscular for its size, snaked with crude tattoos. Gersha plucked the food from her hand—some sort of dark jerky. He shuddered.The girl’s eyes flashed, and the tip of a serrated knife breached the bars, pointed warningly at him. “Good meat we’re wasting on you. Eat it!”Gersha forced a little into his mouth, remembering the guardsmen’s dark mutters about Rogues. “Thank you,” he managed, chewing but resolving not to swallow. “Is this, uh . . .”“Venison, you fork-tongued foreigner! We don’t eat folks! That’s just what they say.”Trying to be reassured, though everything else he’d been told about Rogues seemed accurate, Gersha swallowed. He struggled to remember what he’d been taught in school about surviving a plane crash in the Wastes. The Outers won’t see you as human. You must convince them you are.But Outers didn’t massacre Oslovs as a rule. Most of them were smart enough to keep to themselves. How could he arouse empathy in people who acted more like wild animals?He forced himself to meet the girl’s wide, dark eyes. “Thank you. I was hungry. My name is Gersha. What’s yours?”She grinned tauntingly, but then her eyes darted away, as if there was fear on her side, too. “Names don’t count for shit. My dad killed your guards. Spilled their blood on the road. You missing your demon box?”Gersha collapsed against the wall of the cage, feeling sick. Blood. Demon box. His handheld. Of course—they were going to ransom him. To whom, though?Desperation pushed words into his mouth and made them flow, as if he were speaking on the Council floor. “Whatever your name is, what happened to my companions isn’t your fault. You don’t deserve to be hurt. But if your people don’t release me at once, if they try to play games with my people, you will be hurt. Tell your father that. Our leader can send fire from the sky to kill you. She’ll burn this forest to the ground before you even know we’ve arrived.”Fear distorted the girl’s features. She tugged a pendant of her own from her buckskin shirt—a wooden cross. “Godless damned! This is our forest, and we have the true faith. Demons can’t hurt us!”Verdant hells, was everyone in Harbour obsessed with religion? Gersha raised his hands to emphasize his harmlessness. “Not demons. Heat-seeking missiles. But it won’t matter to you, because you’ll be dead.”And so will I if they actually do bomb the forest, but he wouldn’t think about that. He needed to focus on how Albertine Linnett would react if these psychopaths actually did manage to reach her with a ransom demand. Could he convince her he’d been abducted from Bettevy? Would the Duke play along?And could he count on such a gigantic if?“Is your father the leader here?” he asked hoarsely. “I need to see him. He needs to know the danger he’s putting himself in—”“You ain’t worthy to speak to him!” The girl rose so quickly Gersha expected her to fall, even braced in anticipation of the rush of air as she tumbled to her death. But she simply grabbed a bough and adjusted her balance.“My dad sits on the second branch on the right hand of the Preceptor,” she hissed, her eyes slits of rage. “If I tell him what you said, he’ll cut you in pieces and string you up, ransom or no ransom, you godless tree-eating wolf of the north!”She was swinging her torch dangerously close to the bars. Gersha cringed back again. “I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect. But if your father really thinks he can make this situation work for him, he’s—”“Shut up!” She hurled the torch. Gersha dodged, his heart pounding, but she’d simply sent it to the ground below.The girl laughed with a show of scorn. “Dangerous man y’are.” She made a gesture that was clearly intended as rude, tucked the cross back in her shirt, and moved in a blur. By the time Gersha registered that she was climbing down the tree like a squirrel, she’d disappeared from view .For a while, he lay trembling on the floor of the cage, realizing he was thirsty, wondering if the little hellion would report his threats to her father. And if her father was the big man with the sumac berries in his hair and the knife—green hells, no, don’t think about that.He rolled over and curled up, willing the whole scene away. He shouldn’t be here. He’d been about to die on the road, and he’d closed his eyes to spend his last moment with Tilrey.And here was Tilrey again, pressing a firm hand to Gersha’s shoulder blade and saying, You’re having a strange dream, love. Did she really call you a “tree-eating wolf”? Odd.Gersha did his best to hold tight to the fantasy. It quieted his breathing. “That is odd,” he whispered, closing his eyes on the forest and the distant torches. “‘Tree-eating’ could refer to the Muirthorn pines we tap for sap. But how would these people know about that?”The phantom Tilrey faltered for an instant, threatening to dematerialize. Then he stroked Gersha’s filthy hair and said, I wonder. We should do a scan of your Harbourer trope database for similar phrases. But she said “eat,” not “drink,” so maybe it’s a reference to the bark our Feudal ancestors supposedly boiled when they were starving.They were still arguing about the most likely derivation of the insult when Gersha finally slipped off to sleep. And somewhere in the midst of the debate, between sleep and waking, he found himself saying almost casually, I forgive you. You know that, right?

He stopped a meter or so from Tilrey and surveyed him through large-framed glasses. The crags and hollows of his face had intensified, but you could still see the outlines of the square chin, the high cheekbones, the shapely lips.

After a moment, he said, “The buckskin suits you nicely. Your hair needs a wash, though.”

Part of Tilrey, a part he’d spent the past five years trying to outgrow, was ready to respond to the command by bobbing his head and saying, “Yes, Fir,” and then trudging dutifully inside to wash his hair in whatever facilities the house offered.

Instead, he stared coldly back. “You look older, Fir.”

“So do you, lad. Thirty this year, aren’t you? Coming into your prime.”

There was no leer on Malsha’s face, but the sharp eyes traveled up and down Tilrey’s body in a way that made him itch and straighten his spine. “Yes,” he said curtly. “Nice spread you’ve got. I suppose those armed-to-the-teeth soldiers downtown don’t bother you?”

Irritation flitted across Malsha’s face. “The Colonel’s way of displaying her power is so unsubtle. But you needn’t worry about them coming up here; we won’t be disturbed.” He hadn’t moved his gaze. “I always knew you’d age without losing much of your bloom. Still working out, I see.”

Don’t react; he wants you to. “Are we going to get down to business, Fir? We’re scheduled to leave tomorrow at first light.”

“Of course. Where are my manners?” Malsha raised a pale arm and beckoned to someone behind Tilrey. “You’ve come such a long way; you must have some refreshment.” His eyes paused on Gavril, who still stood protectively beside Tilrey. “And who’s this?”

Tilrey introduced the sergeant. Instead of offering his own hand for Malsha to clasp, the way a Laborer would do for an Upstart, Gavril pumped the disgraced Magistrate’s hand. Staring straight into his eyes, he said, “If you don’t mind, I’m not gonna call you ‘Fir.’ Doesn’t seem appropriate after the way you screwed over the Republic.”

“Sergeant,” Tilrey muttered. Albertine had instructed him to give Malsha at least the minimum of respect he was used to commanding, to keep him in good humor.

But Malsha laughed delightedly. “Frankness. I like that. You’re quite right, Sergeant, and you must dine with us.” He snapped his fingers. “We’ll eat Harbourer-style, sitting at my table—it’s so much more civilized. Krisha, could you show Rishka and Sergeant Ardaly to their rooms? I trust the Duke’s men have already been accommodated.”

“Yes, Fir,” said a deep voice behind them, with an unmistakable accent that to Tilrey’s ears still sounded coarse.

Taken by surprise, Ardaly swung around with an unmilitary look of near-panic on his face. Tilrey turned with less hurry.

There stood Krisha—still slender-waisted and rugged, with hooded dark eyes and cheekbones like scythes. When Tilrey knew him in Redda, the driver had dyed his hair pale blond so it clashed with his brows. Now it had returned to its natural glossy black, a crow’s wing sweeping across his eyes, which suited him better.

Gavril’s eyes were wet and his cheeks flushed, as if he was restraining an urge to fold the younger man in his arms. For his part, Krisha gave no sign that he knew the sergeant aside from a grimace tugging at his lips. “Come along then, Fira,” he said tonelessly. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

“Wait a moment, Krisha.” Malsha joined them at the edge of the drive. “Do you and the sergeant know each other?”

Krisha winced visibly. He clearly knew, as Tilrey did, that the more Malsha knew about you, the more he could (and would) hurt you.

Tilrey shot a pointed glance at Gavril: I told you to be careful. But the sergeant only shrugged, apparently unashamed to wear his heart on his sleeve. “Yeah, we met at Base G-5. I’m the one who got him flying lessons.”

Malsha smiled a small, dry smile. “Then I must thank you, Sergeant Ardaly. Thanks to those skills, Krisha flew us both here from Redda after I ‘screwed over the Republic,’ as you put it.” The smile widened. “How lovely, then. We’ll have a reunion of sorts on both sides. Krisha, set a place for yourself at the table as well, and instruct Jack to wait on us.”

Krisha bobbed his head, and the old man’s eyes returned to Tilrey again, coolly observant, looking for weak spots. “My cook slaughtered a pig this morning. It’s delicious as long as you don’t think too hard about it—swine are rather intelligent animals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have my afternoon nap. An old man at death’s door needs his rest.”

With that, he swept past them—still moving with all the majesty of someone wearing a Councillor’s robe of office—and into the house.

Krisha tried to disappear along with his master, but Gavril caught up with him. Under the portico of the house, he cornered the younger man and began speaking rapidly in a low voice—without touching him, Tilrey noticed.

Krisha always had a habit of startling at sudden noises or touches. In their two years living together, Tilrey had found it bizarre that Malsha’s driver could be both so brutish and so high-strung. Now he felt an uncomfortable pinch of empathy.

Gavril was saying urgently, “I know you’re surprised, love. Wasn’t any way to warn you. But if you’d only give me a second to explain—”

Giving them their privacy, Tilrey continued into the house’s foyer. To his relief, Malsha wasn’t lurking there; good as his word, he’d gone up for a nap. And why not? He knew Tilrey couldn’t leave till he’d gotten what he came for.

Trying not to feel like a rat in a trap, Tilrey examined the neat, spacious interior: white-washed walls, waxed maple floors, cozy sofas, and a stone hearth with crimson-and-white dishes displayed on the mantel. White, he couldn’t help noticing, was the dominant color. Malsha may have his precious Harbourer retirement, but he’ll always be an Oslov.

A snaggle-toothed woman in a calf-length dress and white apron bustled in, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Can I help you, lad?” she asked in Harbourer, then took a second look and curtsied hastily. “You’re the guest, aren’t you, sir? Understand me all right? I’m Mrs. Desautels, the housekeeper.”

He nodded. “Could you show me to my room?”

“Of course, of course, sir. The master said you’d want the corner room so you could have a view. Said you always liked to see the sunsets.”

Her lips twisted as she conveyed this sentiment, as if she knew a favor from Malsha could be a curse in disguise. “Nice of him,” Tilrey said, following her up a flight of golden maple stairs into a quiet white hallway.

She opened the door. “Oh, he’s always so thoughtful, the master is.”

The corner room had a wraparound view of the lake from a windowseat. Reddening maple leaves rustled just beyond the glass. The brass bed bore a fluffy white counterpane, and the stone hearth had an iron kettle on a frame.

“Thoughtful indeed,” Tilrey said neutrally, liking the room more than he wanted to.

While Mrs. Desautels pointed out his baggage (already piled on the hearthrug) and the amenities, Tilrey went straight to the map on the wall. Nailed above the bureau, enormous and hand-drawn, it seemed to encompass most of Bettevy, the lake, Placid, and the Park. He leaned in to peer at the empty spaces between towns, searching for the location of the secret settlement.

“Looking for the phantom damned, are you, sir?” She sounded amused.

He managed not to give a visible start. “So you have that legend, too? I heard it in Bettevy.”

“Oh, it ain’t no legend, m’lad. My nephew’s best friend’s cousin saw ’em with his own eyes when he was out hunting bear by the ghost mine, way deep in the Park. Men and women speaking your language. They don’t wear white, though, least not in the summer.” The housekeeper leaned in, scrutinizing him knowingly. “They wear green, and they live inside a high wall with guns and blinking electrical lights. Course, my nephew’s best friend’s cousin’s given to drink like most trappers, so I wouldn’t put much stock in the details, but you never know, do you?”

Blinking lights—that would mean cameras. The True Hearthers must surveille and arm their perimeter. But was it really safe for them to be in Resurgence? Tilrey hoped the trapper’s story hadn’t reached the Colonel’s black-clad troops, or that they’d written it off as a tall tale.

“Is this drunkard trapper here in town?” he asked casually, picking up a few books arranged on the bureau. They were Tangle favorites of his, as if Malsha had chosen them specifically for him.

“Might be. I heard he stepped in a trap, laid himself up for a few months. I could ask around.” The servant’s eyes glittered in a way Tilrey didn’t quite like; she knew an intrigue when she saw one. “But he’s a poor man, you know. Need to grease his palm to tempt him out of his way.”

It took Tilrey a few seconds to untangle the metaphor, but he was already reaching for his wallet of Harbourer currency. “My boss is a collector of Harbourer legends,” he said evenly. “He’s quite curious about this one, so I promised him I’d learn what I could.”

He placed several coins in the housekeeper’s wrinkled hand, hoping he had the denominations right. “Why don’t you give this to your trapper as a token of my esteem, and keep the rest yourself? Bear in mind, though, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

It was a risk, he knew, and a diversion from his mission, but he couldn’t resist. If Gavril succeeded in persuading Krisha to come back with them tomorrow, the sergeant would need Tilrey’s (and probably Gersha’s) help to keep Krisha from ending up in an Int/Sec cell. And if Gavril needed help badly enough, then he might just be persuaded to take a detour on the way home.

Telling Gavril about the True Hearth would be a drastic step. But Tilrey had a feeling that, if he prepared the ground carefully, the sergeant might be receptive. For all his patriotism, Gavril seemed to have a healthy natural sense of justice. More importantly, a Dissident settlement might be the only place left where he could safely live out his life with his lover.

Mrs. Desautels wore a look of studied indifference now, but the coins vanished into her apron. “I’ll see what I can do, sir. And I’ll be sure the master doesn’t hear about that dirty trapper coming round—he wouldn’t be pleased, you see. Likes to keep the yokels off his estate.”

She winked as she spoke, reassuring Tilrey she had no qualms about going behind Malsha’s back. Perhaps her master had alienated her with his fastidiousness or the cruelty he couldn’t always hide, and his loss was Tilrey’s gain.

He gave her his most innocent, disarming smile. “Tell your drunkard he’ll get twice that amount if he shows up here tonight without troubling your master. The same for you.”

When Gersha returned fully to himself, the sky was nearly dark, and he was in a cage, and the cage was in a tree.

At least, he thought so. The sky was striped with uneven black bars, and the floor beneath him swayed gently. Or could he be on a boat again? He heard an incessant creaking as of masts, a rustling as of sails.

No, not a boat. The rustling around him was leaves. The forest was everywhere, and, and—people. Somewhere below him, hundreds of voices were laughing, bellowing, and singing, too distant for him to make out words. Merry as they sounded, they made cold sweat bead on his temples.

When he managed to sit up, his hands found crude bars—saplings lashed with twine. Cage, then. The swaying intensified with his every movement. Through the cracks in the floor, he spied a galaxy of torches off to his right.

Maybe he was back on the spacious grounds of the Duke’s palace. This was some sort of new festivity, and the cage was a . . . game? Played by men with wolf teeth and sumac in their dyed-white hair?

Then, at last, everything came back at once: the blood gushing from Nestor’s throat, the horse’s scream, Foster lifeless on the ground, Overton begging for his life. They’d come here because of Gersha, because of that mad passion the Duke had chided him for. Now they were dead, all of them.

I killed them. And he’d been ready to die, too, so ready, but for some reason he was alive.

My handheld. He dug in his coat pockets and found nothing but that damned book, The Marriage of Oslov and Harbour. He reached into his shirt, suddenly frantic, and found Tilrey’s pendant secure around his neck. He pressed it to his lips and closed his eyes.

His attackers hadn’t knocked him out, he remembered. They hadn’t needed to. His legs had refused to run, his arms to strain against the ropes they bound him with. He remembered foggily, as if it had happened in a dream, being tossed over a man’s shoulder. He remembered jeering laughter and the rank smell of his captors, and after that everything hazed over as dread and humiliation shorted out his brain. He didn’t think he’d fainted, but he might as well have.

Now he could stretch out his arms and rise to his feet, but only just. Standing made the cage sway wildly. He sank back into a crouch, his stomach heaving, and began creeping around the edges, feeling for a door. The tightly lashed saplings jabbed his knees, while the bark hurt his hands. He’d seen a man’s throat cut, and here he was wincing over a few scrapes.

My fault, all mine. No, I’m not really here. This can’t be real. I’m a Councillor of Oslov. I—

Gersha shrank away, sweat pouring down his cheeks, eyes straining through the gloom. Where are you? What are you?

Just beyond the bars, a torch sizzled to life, and he saw slices of a pale, skinny face framed with red hair. The nails-on-a-chalkboard voice said, “Can’t get out, don’t try! It’s locked with iron.”

It was a girl, perhaps no older than thirteen, perched in a fork of the same giant, gnarled pine that held Gersha’s prison. Her eyes glittered maliciously, or perhaps the flickering torch she held only made him think so.

Just a child. Gersha forced his breathing back under control, but he knew she could see the sweat—and, perhaps, tears—slicking his face. “What is this place?” he whispered, fighting to recall each Harbourer word.

Instead of answering, the girl poked something through the bars. “You munch that. Don’t try to grab me—got a knife, and I know how to use it.”

Her bare arm was muscular for its size, snaked with crude tattoos. Gersha plucked the food from her hand—some sort of dark jerky. He shuddered.

The girl’s eyes flashed, and the tip of a serrated knife breached the bars, pointed warningly at him. “Good meat we’re wasting on you. Eat it!”

Gersha forced a little into his mouth, remembering the guardsmen’s dark mutters about Rogues. “Thank you,” he managed, chewing but resolving not to swallow. “Is this, uh . . .”

“Venison, you fork-tongued foreigner! We don’t eat folks! That’s just what they say.”

Trying to be reassured, though everything else he’d been told about Rogues seemed accurate, Gersha swallowed. He struggled to remember what he’d been taught in school about surviving a plane crash in the Wastes. The Outers won’t see you as human. You must convince them you are.

But Outers didn’t massacre Oslovs as a rule. Most of them were smart enough to keep to themselves. How could he arouse empathy in people who acted more like wild animals?

He forced himself to meet the girl’s wide, dark eyes. “Thank you. I was hungry. My name is Gersha. What’s yours?”

She grinned tauntingly, but then her eyes darted away, as if there was fear on her side, too. “Names don’t count for shit. My dad killed your guards. Spilled their blood on the road. You missing your demon box?”

Gersha collapsed against the wall of the cage, feeling sick. Blood. Demon box. His handheld. Of course—they were going to ransom him. To whom, though?

Desperation pushed words into his mouth and made them flow, as if he were speaking on the Council floor. “Whatever your name is, what happened to my companions isn’t your fault. You don’t deserve to be hurt. But if your people don’t release me at once, if they try to play games with my people, you will be hurt. Tell your father that. Our leader can send fire from the sky to kill you. She’ll burn this forest to the ground before you even know we’ve arrived.”

Fear distorted the girl’s features. She tugged a pendant of her own from her buckskin shirt—a wooden cross. “Godless damned! This is our forest, and we have the true faith. Demons can’t hurt us!”

Verdant hells, was everyone in Harbour obsessed with religion? Gersha raised his hands to emphasize his harmlessness. “Not demons. Heat-seeking missiles. But it won’t matter to you, because you’ll be dead.”

And so will I if they actually do bomb the forest, but he wouldn’t think about that. He needed to focus on how Albertine Linnett would react if these psychopaths actually did manage to reach her with a ransom demand. Could he convince her he’d been abducted from Bettevy? Would the Duke play along?

And could he count on such a gigantic if?

“Is your father the leader here?” he asked hoarsely. “I need to see him. He needs to know the danger he’s putting himself in—”

“You ain’t worthy to speak to him!” The girl rose so quickly Gersha expected her to fall, even braced in anticipation of the rush of air as she tumbled to her death. But she simply grabbed a bough and adjusted her balance.

“My dad sits on the second branch on the right hand of the Preceptor,” she hissed, her eyes slits of rage. “If I tell him what you said, he’ll cut you in pieces and string you up, ransom or no ransom, you godless tree-eating wolf of the north!”

She was swinging her torch dangerously close to the bars. Gersha cringed back again. “I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect. But if your father really thinks he can make this situation work for him, he’s—”

“Shut up!” She hurled the torch. Gersha dodged, his heart pounding, but she’d simply sent it to the ground below.

The girl laughed with a show of scorn. “Dangerous man y’are.” She made a gesture that was clearly intended as rude, tucked the cross back in her shirt, and moved in a blur. By the time Gersha registered that she was climbing down the tree like a squirrel, she’d disappeared from view .

For a while, he lay trembling on the floor of the cage, realizing he was thirsty, wondering if the little hellion would report his threats to her father. And if her father was the big man with the sumac berries in his hair and the knife—green hells, no, don’t think about that.

He rolled over and curled up, willing the whole scene away. He shouldn’t be here. He’d been about to die on the road, and he’d closed his eyes to spend his last moment with Tilrey.

And here was Tilrey again, pressing a firm hand to Gersha’s shoulder blade and saying, You’re having a strange dream, love. Did she really call you a “tree-eating wolf”? Odd.

Gersha did his best to hold tight to the fantasy. It quieted his breathing. “That is odd,” he whispered, closing his eyes on the forest and the distant torches. “‘Tree-eating’ could refer to the Muirthorn pines we tap for sap. But how would these people know about that?”

The phantom Tilrey faltered for an instant, threatening to dematerialize. Then he stroked Gersha’s filthy hair and said, I wonder. We should do a scan of your Harbourer trope database for similar phrases. But she said “eat,” not “drink,” so maybe it’s a reference to the bark our Feudal ancestors supposedly boiled when they were starving.

They were still arguing about the most likely derivation of the insult when Gersha finally slipped off to sleep. And somewhere in the midst of the debate, between sleep and waking, he found himself saying almost casually, I forgive you. You know that, right?

Chapter End Notes

As I wrote this, I realized Gersha’s arc here is heavily inspired by what happens to the technocrat Gundhalinu in Joan D. Vinge’s The Snow Queen. I haven’t read that book in ages, but clearly it left its mark on Oslov. I recommend it—and the sequel, The Summer Queen.

Chapter End Notes