“I know what it’s called. What was it?”
Amanda’s irritation boiled into impatience. “Girl, I don’t know what you’re babbling about, but I have no time for silly games.” She turned to go, and Skate pulled her hem again. Miss Amanda whipped around, snatching the piece of her dress out of Skate’s hands.
If looks could kill, Skate mused, this one would be hanged for murder on a daily basis. “Why can’t I remember any of it?” The question sounded insane to her as she asked it, but it was what she could make no sense of. This time, Amanda’s and Kibo’s shared glance carried something that looked like fear.
“If you want someone to explain the story to you, I’m sure someone else can—”
“They can’t; I’ve asked. You know they can’t. Why?”
Miss Amanda scoffed and turned. Skate reached out to pull her back again, but stopped short when waves of pain shot up her arm. The pain lasted only a few moments, but she screamed. She felt like she’d dipped her hand into a pot of boiling water.
Kibo turned and followed Amanda. With the torchlight of the paltry amphitheater now distant, it took only a few moments for the pair to dissolve into shadow.
Skate rubbed her hand, not knowing what to do with any of this information. The pain was quickly fading, but she found she needed to rub for the sake of warmth as much as for soothing. She walked slowly back to where the performance had taken place, but Tillby was gone. Some stragglers remained, perhaps hoping for an encore performance, but most had gone out into the night, back to their huts or ragged blankets, or in search of awnings to protect them from the snow. Twitch was gone, too. With nothing else to do, Skate began the long trek back to Belamy’s home.
The late-night journey was a dull one, and it caused her more than once to consider just tossing herself into an alleyway to sleep through the night. In addition to how boring it was to walk alone in the snow in freezing conditions, she had to deal with the strain of being careful not to slip and fall; the clean stones of the Old Town were a dangerous place for snow to be falling, and her legs ached from the effort of constantly reacting to each small slip of her feet. She didn’t even have the energy to puzzle over what had happened at the performance.
When she got back to Belamy’s house, Skate saw that the fire had burned down to smoldering embers in the hearth. She rushed over and heaved two logs onto the fire. The coals were still very hot, and it was only a few minutes before the wood was crackling vigorously, renewing the orange light that usually filled the room. She briefly considered changing the color to the only shade she knew the words for, but decided against it. It was cold enough in the room already without going through extra work to make it look colder.
Skate was warming her hands by the fire when Belamy’s front door creaked open again, and in walked the owner himself. He looked much as he had when he’d stormed out hours earlier, though his expression was simply neutral rather than bitter and angry. He also had an impressive layer of snow sticking to his clothing and hair.
Skate didn’t move away from the fire, but waved at him as he came in, a motion he returned with only the smallest reluctance.
“My word, what are you still doing up?” His question was probably a point of genuine interest, but the way he avoided her gaze when he asked it probably meant he was asking as a way to avoid talking about something else.
“I took a walk.” She wanted to talk about what had happened at the show, but didn’t think this was the best time to broach the subject. “Stayed out longer than I meant to. What about you? Where’d you go after…earlier.” Nice save, dimwit, she thought as Belamy broke off the brief eye contact he’d managed to establish.
“I talked to some more people. Found out why nobody’s wanting to talk with me: these hooligans have wizards of their own. Fairly dangerous ones, it would seem. This isn’t just a trio of low-principled ruffians. It’s an organization, one that’s involved in all sorts of nasty business. I don’t have a name yet, but I’ve managed to gather a sense of what they’re about.” He shook his head, sending small clods of snow flying; the stroke of his goatee achieved much the same. He noticed all at once how much of the white stuff he’d accumulated, and began to brush it off onto the stone floor in fussy swipes. “That they’ve managed to ensnare the like of Jack Gherun into their web of illicit criminality is a testament to the scope of their influence, whoever they are. Lady Flandel is a woman of no small standing and influence, but Jack’s money outweighs most bloodlines in the city by itself, never mind his pedigree.”
“Huh.” She wondered how Belamy’d managed to piece all of this together in the span of roughly half a day, but she didn’t want to seem too interested; in her exhausted state, she didn’t trust herself not to give herself away, especially since tiredness was a disadvantage that the old man did not have to deal with. “What does them having wizards have to do with anything?”
“Most of the time, those of us who have any appreciable skill at magic have a distinct advantage over those who don’t. If you’re facing another wizard, though, or are faced with the prospect of facing more than one at once? Well, then, the wizard’s advantage disappears, and he’s among peers—in this case, peers who want to take his money and keep him from talking about the group to anyone who comes around asking questions. This group must make extraordinary amounts of money in order to be able to afford to keep more than one of us fed, especially since anyone who knows how to cast spells could easily afford to sustain themselves through honest work. The danger of a life of crime would push many away from such associations…unless, of course, the aforementioned fees were high enough to be irresistible to wizards and witches with, shall we say, dubious standards.”
“Magic isn’t cheap,” Skate muttered, recalling a conversation she’d had with Haman. Magic was an incredibly difficult skill to learn in the first place, he’d said, and that meant that people who could do it could charge whatever they wanted for the services asked. The Ink did, in fact, keep contracts out with several wizards in the city, though the Bosses alone knew just how many. Most of them weren’t like Haman—they weren’t members of the organization, but were involved in a more-or-less mercenary capacity. The only other known magic-user who was actually a member of the Ink was one of the Big Boss’s small crew, a trio of people he kept around himself at all times. Their names were on a need-to-know basis, and people like Skate didn’t need to know.
“Quite true, quite true,” Belamy responded, satisfied that the snow was now off him entirely. He looked at her and narrowed his eyes. Skate’s instincts almost took over; her muscles tensed and prepared to shoot her out the door. She forced herself to relax, though, when she saw concern in that expression rather than suspicion. “Skate, are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah.” The lie came easily, as many did for her, because she didn’t really think before answering. In truth, she was exhausted from the trek, cold from the air, and confused from the show.
“Come, come,” Belamy said, waving her toward himself, “let me look at you.”
“What?”
“I think there’s something wrong with you,” he said, not waiting for her to comply but walking over to her. “Does your mind feel foggy?”