Besides, if she worked hard enough for the Ink, she might one day become one of the lieutenants, who had to learn to read as part of their responsibilities; running an organization like the Ink was a complicated affair, so all the Bosses and their assistants had to be able to read and write to keep the work going smoothly.
Skate moved over to Belamy’s desk. There was a drawer attached to the underside, which she tried to open but found locked. She pulled her pin from her hair and began trying to pick the small lock embedded in the desk, then stopped when she remembered the locked door downstairs. She bolted to the bookcase and began pulling books. When she found the right one, the secret passage opened up, and she made her way down.
The lights were on as they had left them, and the smell was as acrid as it had been before. Skate blew out of her nose and moved to the door, kneeling down to try to figure out the lock mechanism. She prodded the frame around the handle and tried the door several times to see if she could pinpoint where the lock was engaged. It seemed to be equally focused all along the side of the door near the handle. She scanned the jamb and noticed small markings all up and down the space where the door rested against the wall.
Skate swore under her breath. She recognized the marks as a magical lock. Twitch knew how to get past these things, but Skate had not figured them out yet. She knew that she needed two small metal bars, but she didn’t know what to do with them.
As she was trying to figure out what she was supposed to do, a resounding banging noise echoed down the stone steps. She jerked around and bounded up the steps two at a time, slamming the bookcase back into place behind her. She spun to put the bookcase behind her as she looked at the front door, from where the banging continued to issue throughout the room.
“Barrison!” a feminine voice called, and Skate recognized the voice of Laribel Ossertine. “Barrison, are you all right? Have you fallen down? Barrison!” She was obviously concerned, and Skate was worried that she might break the door down in her zeal to help her friend.
“Mr. Belamy isn’t here right now!” Skate called, moving toward the door to make sure she was heard. “He’ll be back soon!”
Ossertine was silent for a moment, then responded in more even tones. She sounded dangerous in her sudden serenity. “To whom am I speaking?”
“I’m Skate. Mr. Belamy’s letting me stay here.”
Another tense pause. “You stay here.” Ossertine stated it as somewhere between a declaration and a question. “And you are called Skate.” Not fully trusting of these facts, the woman said, “Unlock the door, Skate. I would like to come in.”
Skate bit her lip. She did not know if she had Belamy’s permission to let someone in, but she knew that Ossertine and Belamy were at least acquaintances. She did not want to be rude, but she did not want to let someone in whom Belamy did not want inside. Especially considering that Belamy had her stolen property upstairs, likely open where he had last left off. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to let anyone in,” she said finally, deciding rudeness was better than the possibility of her finding out about the theft.
“Skate, listen very carefully.” The threat was even clearer in Ossertine’s low voice. “I don’t know you. I don’t know where my friend is. For all I know, you’ve murdered him and are standing over his cooling body as you speak to me. If you don’t let me in, I will come in anyway by breaking down Barrison’s very sturdy and expensive door. If he’s alive, it will be your responsibility to repay him for any damages that result. Will you let me in, or will I have to come in on my own?”
Skate looked at the door. It was finely made and would be costly to replace, and it would be her fault if Ossertine thought she had to break it down to help a hypothetically dying Belamy. “Okay, okay, hold on,” she said, disengaging the latch on the door and swinging it open to allow Ossertine free passage in. “There,” she said, looking her full in the face and huffing, “I’m telling you, he’s gone, but he said he’d be back soon.”
Ossertine was standing with arms crossed over her chest. A woman in her late thirties, Skate guessed. Ossertine was thin of face and body, much as Haman was; but where Haman had eyes that could vary in expression from cold and calculating to warm and sympathetic, Skate only saw the former in Ossertine’s catlike gaze.
Ossertine was dressed in warm furs, snowflakes getting caught in the delicate animal hairs as she stood on Belamy’s old stone stoop. Her auburn hair, obviously quite long, was tied up into a tight bun on top of her head and draped in a light scarf that trailed behind her in the soft wind. She was very pale, but the chill of the air had brought a pink to her cheeks. Skate thought she had a pretty face, though it looked cruel at the moment.
“We shall see whether he’s gone or not,” Ossertine said, delicately lifting the hem of her furs off her feet as she crossed the threshold into Belamy’s home. The haughty timbre that Skate had first heard when she had been hiding in the kitchen was in full force, and Skate had to deliberately push down the anger she felt at the imperious woman.
Ossertine surveyed the room, looking for any sign of foul play. Not finding Belamy’s body anywhere in the main room, she focused in on details she could see. Her eyes lingered on the used plate on the floor, on the crackling blue fire, on Skate’s dingy clothing. The woman appeared, with much effort, to suppress a sneer as she broke into a venomously polite smile. “Krykyull dur angatak Morshkinok?”
Based on her expectant expression, Skate assumed it was something she was supposed to respond to. She had no idea what Ossertine had just said to her, but it sounded like the language that Belamy had called the language of the dwarves. Not knowing what else to do, she said one of the two phrases she had been taught: “Gerunk haktha.”
When the blue flame flashed away, Ossertine smiled a bit wider, and her face softened. “Very well. You can’t speak the language, but you know how to operate the fireplace. I doubt very much that you learned how to do that from anyone other than Barrison, so I believe you. You must be his guest. Fetch me a chair. I wish to warm myself by the fire. And clean your plate; you’re a guest in this house, and so must be expected to do your small part to keep it clean.” She was no longer looking at Skate but appeared lost in thought while staring into the flames, drawing her furs closer for increased warmth now that she was safely out of the cold.
Skate, frowning, picked up one of Belamy’s chairs along the wall and set it down harder than was strictly necessary behind the woman. Carrying the poufy chair had been somewhat awkward for her, and she had taken no care at all when setting it down. She then picked up her plate and walked into the kitchen, where she dumped it into the water that Rattle had left in the basin.
When Skate walked into the main room again, Ossertine had taken her seat, upon which she had draped her fine coat. She was using it as extra cushioning as she enjoyed the heat from the crackling fire. Without looking away, she said, “You did not wash that plate, dear.”
Skate did not move, but said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Rattle will do it.”
“Rattle is not here.” Ossertine’s tone had become harsh in addition to haughty. “And it is incredibly rude of you to assign it extra work in its absence. Clean your plate.” She had never taken her eyes from the flames as she talked, and now she returned to her silent contemplation.