Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

“Does Duke Gyre know?”

“Yes. He and I are friends. Regnus is loath to demand control of Logan’s flirtations, given the circumstances of his own marriage.”

“I’m not familiar with those. Can you enlighten me?” Solon asked.

“It’s not my place. Anyway, Logan and Serah will grow out of it. What appears to be the problem?”

“Catrinna Gyre.”

“Careful,” the count said.

“Did the duke give you letters that declared his son Lord Gyre in his absence?”

“He spoke of it, but he had to leave quickly. He said his steward would bring them.”

“Lady Gyre has stolen the letters and destroyed them. Then she went to the queen.”

“She went to whom?” The count was astonished.

“Is that unusual?”

“They have no love for each other. What happened?” Count Drake asked.

“Lady Gyre asked to be made Logan’s guardian. The king overheard them. He came in and said he would take it under advisement. What does that mean?”

Count Drake removed his pince nez and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It means that if he acts quickly, he can appoint a guardian for Logan.”

“Will Catrinna Gyre do such a poor job?” Solon asked.

Count Drake sighed. “Legally, the king can put anyone in Logan’s place that he wants so long as they’re related to him, which means almost anyone in the nobility. And once he’s got a guardian in place, even Regnus won’t be able to rescind the appointment. Catrinna has just delivered House Gyre to the king.”

“But you’re Duke Gyre’s solicitor—and he told you his wishes. Doesn’t that carry any weight?” Solon asked.

“If the king were interested in the truth, yes. As is, to save the Gyres, we’d need the Gyre family parchment, the duke’s Great Seal, and a reckless willingness to forge a state document. The king holds court in half an hour. I’d guess this will be the first item on the agenda. There’s just no time.”

Solon cleared his throat and produced a roll of heavy parchment and a large seal.

Count Drake grinned and snatched the parchment. “I think I suddenly like you, Master Tofusin.”

“Wendel North helped me with the wording,” Solon said. “I thought I’d leave the signature and the seal to you.”

Count Drake rummaged through his desk, found a letter from the duke, and laid it on top of the writ of guardianship. With quick, sure strokes, he forged the duke’s signature flawlessly. Count Drake looked up guiltily and said, “Let’s just call it an artifact of a misspent youth.”

Solon dribbled sealing wax on the parchment. “Then here’s to misspent youth.”

“Next time you’ll move,” Blint said as Azoth groaned his way back into consciousness.

“I don’t think I’ll ever move again. My head feels like someone threw it against a wall.”

Blint laughed, the second time Azoth had heard him do that recently. He was sitting on the edge of Azoth’s bed. “You did well. They thought you were embarrassed because you got knocked down in front of Drake’s daughter, so they decided it was all harmless kid stuff. The young lord Gyre was mortified that he hit you—apparently he’s a real big friendly giant, never loses his temper. The fact you’re about a quarter his size and Serah was furious with him also helps. They were all quite impressed.”

“Impressed? That’s stupid.”

“In their world fighting has rules, so fighting means risking embarrassment and pain and at worst risking your looks if you get a broken nose or an unfortunate scar. It doesn’t mean dying or killing. In their world, you can fight a man and then become his friend. In fact, you’re going to play it so Logan does become your friend, because with a man like him, you can only come out of this as a great friend or a terrible enemy. Do you understand that, Kylar? We’ll work together on your new identity soon.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, why didn’t you want Master Tofusin to see you? That’s why you made me fight Logan, isn’t it? To be a distraction?”

“Solon Tofusin is a magus. Most magi—that’s male mages—can’t tell if you’re Talented just by looking at you. On the other hand, most magae—female mages—can. There are disguises against their sight that I’ll teach you later, but I didn’t have the time to do it and I didn’t feel like going upstairs and jumping out a window.”

Azoth was confused. “But he doesn’t act like a mage.”

“And how would you know?” Durzo asked.

“Uh …” Azoth didn’t think saying, “He isn’t like the mages in stories” was going to please Durzo.

“The truth is,” Durzo said, “Solon hasn’t told Logan or anyone else that he’s a mage, and you won’t tell anyone either. When you know a man’s secrets, you have power over him. A man’s secret is his weakness. Every man has a weakness, no matter …” Master Blint’s voice dropped to nothing, his eyes suddenly distant, lifeless. He stood and left without a word.

Azoth closed his eyes, confused. He wondered about his new master. He wondered about the guild. He wondered if Ja’laliel had bought review. He wondered how Jarl was doing. Most of all, he wondered about Doll Girl.

“Hey-ho, Azo.”

“Hey-ho, Jay-Oh,” Azoth said. Even as he gave the words the same stress he always had, Azoth felt part of himself die. This was supposed to be one of his last outings as Azoth. Soon, he would have to become Kylar. He would walk differently, talk differently. He wouldn’t ever visit his old neighborhoods in the Warrens. But now he saw that Azoth’s world was already dying, that he would never connect with Jarl again. It had nothing to do with the lies Kylar would tell, and everything to do with Rat. It was different now. It always would be.

Azoth and Jarl looked at each other for a long moment in the common room of Momma K’s house. It was almost midnight, and the guild rats would soon be shooed out of the house. They were welcome in the common room all day, but they were allowed to sleep here only in the winter, and then only if they obeyed her rules: no fighting, no stealing, no going anywhere but the kitchen and the common room, and no bothering the adults who visited. Any guild rat who broke the rules got his entire guild banned from Momma K’s for the winter. Usually, it was a death sentence for the offender, because it meant the whole guild would have to sleep in the sewers to stay warm, and they would kill him for that.

Still, the place was always crowded. There was a fireplace and a floor covered with soft rugs good for sleeping on. Those rugs had once been clean, but were now stained from their filthy bodies. Despite the damage, Momma K never got mad at them—and every few months, new rugs showed up. There were durable chairs the guild rats were allowed to sit on, toys, dolls, and piles of games they could play. Sometimes Momma K even brought them treats. Here they gambled and bragged and gossiped freely with anyone who was here, even children outside their own guild. It was the only place the guild rats were allowed to resemble children. It was the only safe place they knew.

Coming back, it looked different. What had seemed so recently the very lap of luxury now was just a plain room, with plain furnishings and simple toys because the guild rats would ruin anything better. They would stain everything and break anything delicate, not from malice but from ignorance. The place was the same; it was Azoth who had changed. Azoth—or Kylar, whichever he was—marveled at the stench of the guild rats. Didn’t they smell themselves? Weren’t they ashamed, or was it just him, ashamed to see what he had been?

As he always did after his reading lesson with Momma K, Azoth had looked for Jarl. But now that they were face to face, neither could find anything to say.