Alex Lidell - The Cadet of Tildor

After her trip to Atham, the mass of green filling Catar’s streets irritated Renee all the more. Unlike people in the capital, who hurried along with a purpose, here groups simply loitered. Renee quickened her step and kept a hand on her purse.

The mage tavern Alec had introduced her to buzzed with conversation. Renee nodded a greeting to several patrons. The irony of Cadet de Winter’s slide from upholding the Crown’s laws to frequenting a felons’ gathering spot was not lost on her. In one corner, two boys extended glowing hands toward identical water pails, the crowd cheering the competition. Alec was absent but her true target, Jasper, sat alone at a small table. Renee slid into a chair.

Jasper’s head hid behind hunched shoulders. He ignored her.

“What are they on about?” Renee pointed toward the now chanting clump of boys.

He shrugged and kept his face down. “Boiling water or similar nonsense.”

“What’s with you?” Renee asked.

Jasper lifted his head to reveal a fading five-fingered bruise on one cheek and a small round burn healing on the tender underside of his chin. “Forgive me.” He brushed his palm over it as if trying to erase the mark. “One of my pups found some trouble this week. Mother blamed me for it.”

“Who?” The question was out before she could stop herself.

“Cat.” He stared at the tabletop. “It wasn’t my fault, Den’s the one who lost his amulet. In gods’ names, I was sleeping when it all happened!” Jasper shook his head. “I’ve Healed Cat many times, you know. His hand was burned when I got him and then Den’s methods . . . But the pup never so much as gave me a glance of thanks. And it’s somehow all my fault anyway.” Jasper scrubbed his hand over his eyes and looked away.

Renee’s heart pounded. “What’s your fault, Jasper? What happened?”

“Cat tried to run.” He hung his head, speaking to the table top. “Mother is putting him down at the next fight.”

She stared at him, unable to find words. Not only was she without men, she was without time. “When is that?” Her voice shook despite her grip.

“A week or so.” Jasper frowned at the opening door and sank deeper into his chair. “Wonderful.”

At the tavern’s entrance, a boy of about twelve was looking around like a ferret on duty. His gaze came to rest on Jasper and the boy trotted forward. His dark eyes weighed Renee, as if deciding how her presence affected his mission. Shrugging, he turned to Jasper. “Madam says you are to attend to the weeds.” An unpleasant smile curved his lips. “Immediately.”

Jasper’s nostrils flared.

The messenger took a step back, although his smirk stayed in place. Clearly, he considered himself employed by a higher authority and thus immune to any insult he offered. “If you refuse, I’m to advise her at once.”

Jasper’s jaw tensed, the only defense to dignity he seemed able to conjure.

The boy snorted and rubbed invisible dirt from his cheek.

“Your message is understood,” Renee said, pushing herself away from the table.

The lad stopped smiling and raised his nose into the air. “Madam said—”

“You may go.” She lifted her brow. “If you have no other duties to attend to, I am certain some can be found.”

The boy swallowed, mulled over the threat for a moment, and scurried away.

Jasper shook his head. “That is twice you’ve stood up for me, blinder.”

She blushed. It was Jasper’s connections, not genuine friendship, that brought her to sit at his table. She searched for words that were both true and appropriate. “You healed my nose.”

He said nothing, but a spark of pleasure lit his face. It seemed no one said thank you to the boy very often.

And now she had to turn his goodwill against him. Renee swallowed her rising bile. “Could you get me in to see Cat tonight? I’d like to see him again before, you know . . . ”

To her relief, Jasper nodded at once.

The Madam was not one to be kept waiting and the weeds had to be seen to first. Renee agreed to come along with Jasper for the company. She had followed him for several blocks before she realized they were heading toward the arena entrance. Sure enough, the boy took her inside the same door Den once had. Apparently, the Viper weed variety flourished beneath the ground.

They entered the main corridor and Renee took her bearings. Savoy and the Predators lived toward the left, west of her position. Diam’s old cell lay toward the right—east. Her jaw tightened as they passed the entrance to a narrow tunnel that she knew led to Duke Leon’s grounds. Savoy had been captured there.

Jasper turned right into an unfamiliar corridor. In addition to lanterns, specs of blue shimmered in the occasional crevice near the ceiling, such that the space would not surrender to total darkness even if all lanterns failed at once. A professional setup to rival the palace in function if not decor. The tunnel system of Catar’s bowels was proving even more extensive than Renee imagined. It was a wonder that the topside structures had not caved in to join their darker cousins.

They took another east-bound turn and the musky scent of stone and earth gave way to stink. Renee’s groan drew a nod of agreement from Jasper.

“That’s the weeds.” He shook his head and returned to discussing the fighters. “Keeping pups is like tuning an instrument. Heal an injury too soon and its lesson is lost. Too late, and you lose training time. Diet is important. Even mood. Den understands nothing of it. Once, he strained Cat’s hurt shoulder for pure enjoyment.” Jasper frowned at an askew lantern but did not fix it. “Weeding, that’s the opposite. No skill. No finesse. Repetitive drudgery any half-trained mage could manage.”

The reek increased.

Renee coughed, interrupting him. “Why the stink?”

He shrugged. “That’s just the way weeds are.” He took a third turn toward the odor. Twenty paces more brought them to a cell similar to the one Diam had occupied. The next step took Renee’s breath.

The filth-covered forms swarming within were children.

“Where are they from?” she asked. There had to be thirty of them, all under ten, in a space not four spans square. The slop bucket lay overturned in the corner and one little boy relieved himself where he stood, having no care for whom the excrement landed on.

“This batch came from Atham, I believe.” Jasper scratched the back of his head. “The harvesters are lazy there, taking whatever the locals bring instead of doing their job. Likely as not, most of this batch will wither before anything useful can be made of them. The pleasure houses pay coppers unless the product is trained.” He sighed. “There’s always tunnel work to do, I suppose. ”

“They are but children.”

He shook his head. “They are hungry street urchins who would have frozen to death in the winter if not for us. The ribs show on half the stock and the other half is too dumb to find the slops. Not even a blind noble would buy these.”

She turned away before the horror on her face revealed itself. Noble estates, including her father’s, often bought children who worked in exchange for clothing and a roof, but those youngsters were orphaned, not kidnapped. So this was the fate of the people disappearing from the capital’s streets. “What are you to do with them, Jasper?”

“Heal the worms and whatever other corruption they brought with them. The washers will launder the ones worth keeping.” He sighed, letting blue fire spread over his fingers. “Pray we catch none of their pestilence.”

Renee forced herself to approach the bars and memorize the young faces behind them. A dark-eyed boy with a scar over his brow holding a smaller boy’s hand. A toddler girl whimpering for her mother. A five-year-old with a distended belly lying listless on the stone floor.