Page 102 of City of Stone and Silence

He swallows and nods. Garo dismisses his Melos gauntlets, and the dark-suited guards escort us inside. The halls of the Black Flower are quiet now, no pretty young men or willowy girls hanging around looking elegant, and no customers to ogle them. The guards hustle us up the stairs, down the hall past darkened doorways, and across to Thul’s office with the horned whale on the door.

Inside, Thul is waiting where I’d first seen him, iceling-blond hair shining in the lamplight. Unlike that first encounter, a pair of guards wait behind him, not the liveried thugs from downstairs but leather-armored mercenaries. They watch closely with carefully bored expressions. Thul himself affects nonchalance, but my Kindre senses are open and I can feel his unease.

“Miss Gelmei,” he says. “Surprised to see you here.”

I stare at him, this narrow-eyed, venal man, and try to contain my anger. Everything that has happened—the raid, Grandma’s death, and Kosura’s torture—is, in some sense, his fault. The only thing that keeps my rage at a slow burn instead of a white heat is the knowledge that, if fault is being assigned, a lot of it is mine. I piled the kindling in the stove. Thul just struck the match.

Still. I run the edge of my power across his unsuspecting mind, and he shivers as though from a draft. You had better tell me what I want to know.

Monster, goes the chant in the back of my head. Monster, monster, monster. But it’s getting easier to ignore.

I take a deep breath. “You seem to be lying low, Master Thul. Business not going so well?”

He shrugs. “Wise man takes shelter during a blizzard, Nan always said. Mobs don’t make for good customers. And when the guards move back in, heads are apt to get broken. Better to stay quiet.”

“Very wise. I can imagine this must be difficult for you.”

“I’ve survived before. Will again.” He frowns. “What I can’t figure is why you would come back here.” He glances at Garo and sneers. “Thought you lot had a revolution to run.”

“We do,” Garo says. “And we need your help.”

“There are ways around the walls,” I say. “I know there are. Tunnels, secret exits. For aristos who can’t be bothered to get home from places like this before the gates shut. To move people between wards without the guards noticing. We want them.”

I watch his mind. There’s no guilt there. Suspicion, satisfaction. His sneer turns into a grin.

“Even if that were true,” he drawls, “why in the Rot would I give you something like that? To put my head on a spike next to yours?” He barks a laugh. “Your sister understood how things work in the Sixteenth. We keep order, take our profits, and as long as the Guard get their cut nobody looks too closely. The wheel keeps turning, and we all get our share. But how long do you think they’d turn a blind eye if I helped a bunch of rebels?”

“If you don’t help,” I say, as calmly as I can, “those rebels might start to wonder which side you’re on. There’s no guards between the mob and your doors.”

Rage rises in his mind, and his voice goes harsh. “Don’t you rotting threaten me, you little whore.” I feel an answering anger in Garo, and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. The two mercenaries tense, and Thul laughs again. “Oh, go ahead. Try it, noble boy. You know your girlfriend here is the scrapings of the gutter, don’t you?”

“I know everything I need to know about her,” Garo grates.

“As for your mob, they don’t frighten me. I have friends in this district. Deep roots. People know this will pass, and when it does I’ll still be here.” He spreads his hands.

“Ordinarily, I think you’d probably be right,” I say. My heart is pounding, but I affect disinterest. “But we took a prisoner after we stormed the Immortal safe house in the Eleventh Ward, and she had some interesting things to say.”

I feel his emotions flare, crimson anger shading into ugly, yellow-green anxiety. Gotcha.

His expression remains dismissive. “So?”

“So she told me what prompted the raid on Grandma Tadeka’s hospital.” I lean forward. “It was a tip that you provided. A report of our conversation.”

This is a lie, sort of. Without breaking her mind wide open, I couldn’t extract that information from the stubborn Immortal captain. But I’d had a hunch, and when I’d questioned her about it the truth had been clear in her emotions. I have no idea why Kuon Naga and his Immortals are interested in me, but they came looking, and they did it after Thul passed along that I was trying to find out about Isoka’s disappearance.

“They were offering good coin for information about you,” Thul says. An edge of worry creeps into his voice. “I didn’t know what they’d do.”

“I’m sure you thought they were only going to protect me,” I snarl.

“Business is business, girl. Your sister—”

“Shut up about my sister,” I snap. “And I very much doubt the people of the Eleventh Ward will see it as business. I don’t know how many friends you have, how many roots, but I’m willing to bet that Grandma Tadeka had more. If I bring our captive out to tell what she knows, this filthy place will be burning down around your ears before you can rotting blink.”

I’ve gotten a little more heated than I intended. Garo is looking at me, mouth open, as though I’d grown horns. But Thul has leaned backward a degree, and as I watch a bead of sweat detaches from his hairline and runs down the side of his face. His head twitches, a suppressed instinct to glance over his shoulder at his hired muscle. I can see his next move in his mind, clear as day.

“You want to tell your thugs here to get rough,” I say. “Before you do that, you should know that my friends outside are very clear on what needs to happen if we don’t come out of here. It’ll be spears and torches at your doorway by sundown.”

“You…” Thul growls. “You little…”