The Demon King Read online

  “Have we met?” he asked.

  “I am sure we have not,” she said, sniffling a little, looking miserable.

  Blood and bones, he thought. Please don’t go crying. As if things aren’t bad enough.

  “Hey now,” he said. “I’m the one should be crying. Thanks to your bluejacket, I’ve got no home, no job, no prospects.”

  “May . . . maybe you should have thought of that before you killed those people.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said, stung. “I told you. That wasn’t me.”

  She said nothing, only wrapped her arms around herself and shivered a little.

  “If you’d like some dry clothes,” he said, “you can look through the trunk and see if anything fits. I could . . . um . . . turn my back or go back outside.” Into the rain. He was really going above and beyond with this girlie.

  “I’m fine,” she said, too quickly. She sank into a puddle of skirts in a defensible corner, watching him with big, wary eyes.

  “Would you like something to eat? Biscuits? Or biscuits with jam?” He gestured expansively, the proper host. “Biscuits with sugar on?”

  “No.”

  He sat, cross-legged, at a distance that he hoped would make her comfortable. “What were you doing at Southbridge Temple?” he asked.

  She paused long enough to make up a lie. “Applying for a job.”

  “Really? What kind of job? What are you good at?”

  Her expression said, Cutting the hearts out of thieves and kidnappers.

  He tried again. “Where do you live?”

  Another pause. “Near the castle close. On Bradbury Street.”

  “That’s rather posh,” he said, surprised.

  “I’m a servant. A ...um ...tutor. In the ... Bayar household.”

  She lied in little fits and starts, making it up as she went. Either she wasn’t very good at it, or she didn’t care to be convincing.

  But she’d got the name Bayar from somewhere.

  “Lord Bayar’s the High Wizard, right?” he said, aiming for casual.

  She nodded, looking surprised that he’d heard of him.

  “So what are they like, the Bayars?” he asked, gnawing on a hard biscuit. “Is it true they’re really decent sorts, once you get to know them?”

  She narrowed her eyes, reappraising him. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Well, like I said, I thought we could rest until morning, and—”

  “No,” she said impatiently. “Why didn’t you lock me in with the others back at the temple?”

  Han had to admit, she had starch. It was a risky question to ask, when she didn’t know what the answer would be.

  “I thought I might need you to get across the bridge and ...”

  She hunched her shoulders and glared at him. She wasn’t buying it.

  “I don’t know,” he said simply. “Just a spur of the moment thing, I guess. Does everything have to have a good reason?”

  In fact, he’d been asking himself that same question. There, in the study, she’d come toward him, saying, “What happened to you? Who did this?” with this kind of fierce look on her face, like she was totally on his side, ready to do battle on his behalf. She’d touched his arm, and it had warmed his center like a coal fire.

  Then Byrne had named him a murderer, and she’d yanked her hand back with this look of revulsion. And the next thing he knew, Han was dragging her across the bridge. Like he might somehow drag her back into his corner.

  Well, if she was on his side before, he’d ruined it now. Six or eight murders was a big hurdle to overcome. Plus, he’d end in gaol if he showed his face in Fellsmarch again. There was another barrier, right there.

  To what? What did he expect from this girlie? Did he think they’d go walking out together? Would she call on him in his palace over the stable?

  Rebecca kept sliding glances at him, as if memorizing every detail. Probably so she could pick him out of a lineup.

  “Where’d you get the wrist cuffs?” she asked unexpectedly. “Did you steal them from somebody?”

  It was almost like she was trying to provoke him, to end the suspense.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

  “You know they’re looking for us,” Rebecca said, just full of good news. “They won’t rest until they find us.”

  “Try and get some sleep,” he suggested. “That’s what I’m going to do. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out a way to turn you loose.” He rooted in his trunk and tossed her a blanket that wasn’t too smelly. And a pair of breeches and shirt that were way too small for him now, just in case. Then he dragged one of the cots over to the bottom of the stairs and curled up resolutely.

  Sleep was a long time in coming. He heard rustling from Rebecca’s corner, the whisper of fabric sliding over the floor. She’d apparently decided to change out of her wet clothes after all. He stared out into the darkness, trying to keep that image out of his head. It would only cause trouble.

  Eventually she quieted, and he could hear a soft rhythmic breathing that said she was asleep.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the green serpent amulet, like it was engraved on his eyelids. He was beginning to think it was a bad-luck charm. His recent troubles had started when he’d found the thing. Maybe Micah Bayar had cursed it when it came into Han’s possession. Maybe he should ignore Lucius and dig it up and return it to its rightful owner.

  Only, according to Lucius, the Bayars weren’t the rightful owners.

  But why wouldn’t they be? They’d killed the Demon King and taken it from him, hadn’t they?

  Maybe that was it. Maybe it was only good for dark magic. But all the tools of dark magic would have been destroyed after the Breaking, right?

  Finally he slept. And Corporal Byrne’s face haunted his dreams.

  Somehow, Raisa slept, though she’d have said it wasn’t possible, trapped in this dirt-floored cellar with a multiple murderer. She woke early, unravished, though stiff and aching all over from sleeping slumped in the corner.

  The lamp had gone out, but pale morning light leaked around the cellar doors. Cuffs was asleep, sprawled on his cot at the base of the steps.

  Raisa watched him for a bit, to make sure he was really out. He slept fitfully, muttering and twitching as if troubled by dreams.

  Or a guilty conscience.

  Raisa creaked to her feet, padded across the cellar, and looked down on him. He looked younger, somehow, when he was sleeping, his splinted arm over his chest, his other arm flung out to the side, his eyes moving under his bruised eyelids. His knife lay half underneath him.

  He was handsome under the bruises, though his muddy red-brown hair didn’t match his coloring. She resisted the urge to reach out and run her fingertips over his fine-boned face.

  Why would he be wearing clan garb? she wondered. It was just one of many mysteries she’d never have the answers to.

  Could she trust her instincts—the ones that said he wasn’t capable of doing the crimes he was accused of? Did he really mean to let her go? He hadn’t harmed her yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

  Then again, maybe it would be better just to let him cut her throat. When her mother heard about this adventure, Raisa would be locked up for sure. Amon would be exiled to Chalk Cliffs, and it would be her fault. Even now, the whole of the Queen’s Guard was probably combing the city.

  She’d spread her cloak, skirts, and petticoats over a chair to dry. When she fingered them, she found they’d gone from dripping to stiff and only damp. She considered changing back into them, but worried she’d wake Cuffs in the process and be caught betwixt.

  The breeches were overlong and loose at the waist, so she found a length of rope and threaded it through the loops, rolling the hems to fit. The shirt was dingy white and hung nearly to her knees. She buttoned it up to her neck, wrinkling her nose at the scent of boy sweat. She found a brightly colored rag on a pile of clothes and tied her hair back with it, then draped her cloak around
her shoulders.

  Would she be able to slip up the stairs and out the doors without waking him? She’d need a good lead, since he knew this neighborhood and she did not.

  Heart pounding so loud she felt sure it would wake him, she stepped over his prone body and put her foot on the first step. She shoved off with her other foot and climbed the steps as quickly as she could, expecting at any moment to feel his hand close around her ankle. When she reached the top, she looked down, taking a long slow breath. He was still sleeping in his rowdy fashion.

  Raisa reached up with both hands and shoved at the double doors.

  Scr-e-e-e-ch! The squeal of the hinges split the early morning silence. Below her, she heard Cuffs’s measured breathing break off, followed by a sleepy exclamation.

  Well, there was no going back now. She thrust herself upward, slamming open the doors, squinting against the light outside. After a moment’s panicky tangle with her cloak, she was out of the cellar and sprinting across the courtyard. She heard a muffled shout behind her as she slid into the sliver of space between the buildings.

  She popped out the other side like a cork from a bottle, and then she ran, twisting and turning through the narrow streets, not knowing or caring where she was or where she was heading, just wanting to put distance between her and her former captor.

  She ran until a stitch in her side and a lack of breath forced her to stop and huddle in an alleyway. She stood for a time catching her breath, listening for pursuit, looking up and down the street.

  Then she began to walk. She’d try to find an inn or shop that was open. Perhaps someone there would be willing to go for help, if she could convince them there was a reward in it.

  But the taverns were locked up tight, the houses too, the streets deserted at this early hour. She tried pounding on the doors of some of the more prosperous-looking dwellings, but no one answered. If anyone saw her, it was unlikely they’d let her in. She must look a fright—a ragged filthy creature of indeterminate gender.

  To the east, the towers of Fellsmarch Castle pricked the horizon, silhouetted against the rising sun. It was several miles away at least, somewhat farther than they’d walked the night before. Was it really just a day ago she’d crossed Ragmarket with Amon and her secret escort?

  There was no choice but to leg it. She headed for the towers, navigating the twisting streets and alleys, feeling as if she walked two miles for every one in a straight line. It was like the maze in her rooftop garden, only walled in with decrepit dwellings and paved with cobbles, broken brick, dirt, and debris.

  She was crossing a courtyard when a young girl ran out of an adjoining alleyway, all in a panic. She was thin, maybe a year or two younger than Mellony, with long blond hair scraped back into a plait. “Young miss! In the name of Madeleine the Merciful, help, if you please. It’s my baby sister! She’s sick!”

  Raisa looked around to see if she might be speaking to someone else, but there was no one in the courtyard. “Me? What’s wrong with your sister?”

  “She’s choking! Turning purple!” The girl tugged at Raisa’s hand. “Please come.”

  Raisa followed the girl down the alleyway, her mind racing. Maybe here was a chance to do some good. The choking sickness had been going around. There were healers in Fellsmarch Castle Temple who had been successful in treating it. Maybe ...

  Suddenly she and the girl came up against a brick wall. Raisa turned and saw that they were no longer alone. Five others came out of the adjoining streets, four boys and another girl, surrounding them. Her stomach did a nauseating flip.

  “Hey now,” the new girl said, squinting at her. “Where you going in such a hurry?”

  Her accent said she was from the southern islands. She was older than the first girl, maybe sixteen, with dark skin and long, wavy black hair wrapped with thread into sections. She had high cheekbones, and a generous mouth. She wore breeches and a sleeveless vest, exposing muscular tattooed arms.

  The girl reached out and ripped Raisa’s makeshift scarf from her hair. “What are you doing with this?” she demanded, shaking it in front of Raisa’s face. “Where’d you get it?”

  Raisa saw then that all of them wore bandannas of similar weave and color knotted around their necks.

  “Raggers!” she blurted. “You’re Raggers!”

  The girl flinched and looked up and down the alley before she replied. “Are not. Who says?”

  “Did Cuffs send you?” Raisa demanded, furious at being taken so easily. “Well, you can tell him for me that I don’t care how many cutthroat street ruffians he sets after me; I’m not—”

  “Shut it!” Now the girl looked angry and frightened at the same time. “We’ve got nothing to do with whatever Cuffs Alister be up to. He not in the Raggers anymore. He don’t give the orders in Ragmarket. Now let’s see what you got in your carry bag, hmm?”

  The Raggers closed in on Raisa, and she backed away until she came up against the wall of the building.

  An older boy in a faded red velvet coat reached out and fingered her hair, and she slapped his hand away. He smiled, revealing a tongue bright red from chewing razorleaf. “You got any family, girlie? Somebody who might pay to get you back?” He leaned closer, and his razorleaf breath made her eyes water. He seemed jumpy and jittery, like leaf users often did.

  “There you are, Rebecca!” Everyone swiveled, and Cuffs came swaggering down the alley like some pirate prince, in his clan leggings, fancy clan-made boots, and a beat up deerskin jacket overtop.

  He nodded to the other Raggers. “Hey, Velvet, thanks, mate, for looking after my girlie for me. I tell you, she’s been nothing but trouble.”

  As Velvet gawked at him, Cuffs grabbed Raisa’s arm and shoved her behind him, planting himself between her and the others. He pressed something into her hand, and she felt cold metal. Her knife. She palmed it and peeked out from behind his back, head spinning with confusion.

  The Raggers stared at Cuffs with the avid interest given murderers, adulterers, kings, actors, and other notorious people.

  All except the tattooed girl. The expression on her face was more complex: a mixture of anger, desire, and betrayal.

  She’s sweet on him, Raisa thought. And he’s jilted her.

  “Get off, Alister,” the tattooed girl said to Cuffs. “The girlie’s ours.”

  “Nuh-uh, Cat,” he said. “I saw her first. Not much swag for a flimper like you, but she’s pretty, at least.”

  “Is she the one that beat you up?” Cat sneered. “Or was it the Southies, like everyone says?”

  “What’s all that in your hair, mate?” Velvet asked. “Blood or dirt?”

  Cuffs touched his head, looking momentarily puzzled. “Oh. Right,” he said, his confusion clearing. “Just trying out a new color. What d’you think?”

  “He’s in disguise, mates,” Cat said. “Can’t even walk the streets as himself anymore.”

  “Are you coming back, Cuffs?” a younger boy piped up hopefully. “Shares was always good when you was streetlord.” He clapped his mouth shut and darted a nervous glance at Cat.

  “No, he’s not coming back,” Cat said, stepping out in front of the others, her hand on the dagger shoved into the waistband of her breeches. “It’s his fault Flinn and the others got pinched. Cuffs is poison. We gang up with him, the bluejackets’ll be all over us.”

  “The bluejackets is all over us now,” an older boy pointed out. “We can’t move for the Guard. Cuffs always kept ’em bought off, at least.”

  “Shut up, Jonas,” Cat said, glaring at him, and Jonas shut his mouth.

  “There’s eight Southies down on the bricks,” Cuffs said. “That was a daft move. You can’t dawb your way out of that.”

  It was like Cuffs had slid into his streetlord skin and began speaking a foreign language.

  Cat glared at him. “You act like we did the Southies.”

  Cuffs shrugged. “Who else?”

  Raisa, feeling ignored, had been shifting from one foot to the o
ther, debating her chances of making a run for it. Now she focused more closely on the conversation.

  Cat snorted. “Us? We had nothing to do with it. We figure it was you. That’s who the Guard is blaming, anyway.”

  “The bluejackets are blaming all of us,” Cuffs said. “Look, how could I have done the Southies? All by myself?” He grinned. “You maybe, Cat. Me, I’m good, but not that good.”

  Cuffs is a charmer, no doubt about it, Raisa thought.

  Cat studied him suspiciously. “You’re not with anyone else? The Keepers? Widowmakers? Bloodrunners?”

  Cuffs shook his head.

  “We heard you was bringing leaf up from We’enhaven,” Jonas said. “Heard you’d made a killing selling it off to pirates in Chalk Cliffs.”

  “I don’t do business with pirates anymore,” Cuffs said. “They’re more likely to cut your throat than pay up.”

  “How you getting on, then?” Cat asked, rolling her eyes.

  Cuffs cleared his throat, as if embarrassed. “This and that. I’m a runner for Lucius Frowsley. Do some trading. Shine the gentry’s shoes.” He touched his knife. “Get in a little barbering.”

  Laughter rippled through the Raggers. All except for Cat.

  Cuffs noticed. “Look,” he said, going serious, “I got no idea who’s doing the Southies, but we’re all paying for it. I need your help. If you know anything . . .”

  “How about this?” Cat said, leaning toward Cuffs. “We’ll hand you off to the bluejackets. Then maybe they’ll leave us be.”

  “You can try,” Cuffs said. His voice was calm, his manner unruffled, but Raisa noticed that he straightened and gripped the hilt of his knife. “’Course, I’d not sell you out. I think mates need to hang together. But that’s just me.”

  The Raggers shifted nervously, stealing glances at one another, some of them nodding.

  I can learn something from Cuffs Alister, Raisa thought. He’s been here ten minutes, and he has them all in the palm of his hand. Except for Cat, who has a grudge against him.

  Cuffs moved in closer to Cat, fixing her with his blue eyes, his voice soft and persuasive. “Give me a moment, will you?” He looked from her to the other Raggers, raising his eye-brows. “Please?”