Janice Hardy - Blue Fire

“Maybe she’ll go away,” I said.

Another hard bang.

“Or maybe not,” said Aylin.

Danello held out both hands. “What should I do?”

More insistent banging. She’d start to draw attention if she kept it up. Soek left the kitchen, a dripping wooden spoon in his hand. He held it like a weapon, and with good cause. He’d been in the spire room with Tali too.

“I know you’re in there,” the rent collector shouted. “Open up and talk to me.”

For the love of Saint Saea, I didn’t need this today.

“Open it,” I said, stepping into the hall.

She didn’t wait to be invited in. Just marched right past Danello and over to me. “Rent’s due.”

“We already paid it.”

“It’s due again. And it’s gone up.”

I folded my arms and tried not to scream my frustration. A handful of jewellery had convinced her that Aylin, Tali and I were Zertanik’s daughters. She’d doubled the rent, probably planning to pocket the extra, but let us stay. She could throw us out if she wanted, and we had nowhere else to go. “How much?”

She grinned and handed me one of the reward posters. “Five thousand oppas.”

Chapter Two

I didn’t know whether to scream or shiver.

Danello scowled. “How could you turn her in? She’s Gevegian, same as you.”

“Look, I could have gone to the Governor-General and gotten the reward money from him. I didn’t . But I can’t let five thousand oppas pass me by.” She glanced around the town house, her eyes shimmering with greed. “None of this is yours anyway, so what do you care if I get some? We all win.”

Not if she took so much that it drew attention at the alley market. That was the only place in Geveg to sell stolen goods, and even though the soldiers were bribed to look the other way, if enough riches hit the market at once, people noticed, so they had to report it. We could both benefit if she didn’t get too greedy. She needed us to pose as tenants for the Baseeri owner. If he discovered Zertanik was dead, he’d claim everything in the town house for himself.

I looked at Danello, red-faced and shaking his head behind her.

“Can I offer you something in Verlattian teak?” I said, waving at the sitting-room furniture. If she wanted money so badly, let her haul it away.

“No, I think those blue crystal decanters are more my style. And maybe these statuettes?” She brushed past me and ran her fingers over the goldstone figures of the Seven Sisters. “These will cover it.”

And then some. “Help yourself.”

“A lot for one person to carry.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m sure we can find you a pack of some kind to carry them. Aylin? Could you check upstairs, please?”

Aylin slapped the banister, muttering something about finding a bag big enough to stuff her head into, and disappeared.

The rent collector pursed her lips and looked around the room. “More than just the three of you living here now.”

I crossed my arms. “We have guests for dinner.”

“Oh, I’d say longer than dinner.” She leaned over and looked up the stairs. The Takers fled into their rooms. “What are you all doing here anyway?”

“Trying to survive, same as you.”

She nodded absently. “Nice place. Wish I could move in myself, but the Baseeri scum who owns it would get suspicious, and then all these trinkets would go to waste, eh?”

I kept my face still. She kept scanning the room, the walls, and I pictured her totalling up the oppas. The neighbours would also get suspicious if they saw her carrying out load after load of items. As Grannyma used to say, wealth can make the wise weak, and I doubted the rent collector was all that wise to begin with. She could ruin everything.

Aylin clomped down the stairs and threw a heavy canvas bag at her. “That should hold them.”

“Nothing to wrap them in?” She frowned. “What if they chip?”

“Goldstone doesn’t chip. That’s why it’s so valuable.”

Her eyes lit up. Saints, did she even know the value of what she was taking?

“Really? Anything else made of—”

“Are we paid up now?” I said, hands on my hips. I tried to look menacing, but I’d never been good at it. Danello was better, and Aylin could do scary as a croc when she wanted.

“Well,” she said slowly, her gaze again on the crystal decanters. “Just to be safe you might consider paying next month’s rent as well.”

“I think we’ve paid that already,” Tali said from the stairs. Everyone else stood behind her – all the Takers, even Danello’s family. His father looked pretty imposing glaring down at us.

“Maybe even three months,” he said. The rent collector would have to be a fool to miss the threat in his tone. Trouble was, she could threaten us right back, and her threats had a lot more teeth.

She knew it, too. She smirked at them, then carefully stuffed her treasure into the bag. “Oh, I think you’ll be gone by then, with nothing left for me. Why shouldn’t I get all I can now?”

“Because someone will notice,” I said. “And if we have to run, we’ll make sure the owner knows Zertanik moved out.”

She glared at me and tied the bag shut.

I smiled. “Why don’t you come by next week? A weekly visit is a lot safer for all of us.”

She hesitated, sizing me up and probably wondering if my emphasis on safer was a threat. If she believed the poster, I was a murderer.

“Fine.”

Danello yanked open the door and she jumped. She recovered fast and put her sneer back on her face.

“Next week works better for me anyway.”

She lumbered out, and Danello slammed the door behind her.

“That’s not right!” he said as I sank to the stairs. “She can’t just come in here and—”

“Yes, she can.” I knew how he felt, though. I’d seen the Baseeri do the same thing to my family’s home. Only they took it all. Saints! It wasn’t fair.

“We’d better sell off what we can now,” Tali said, sounding just like Mama. We’d heard her say a lot of things like that right before the war started. Might as well stock up on food. Jewels trade better out of the setting anyway. You’re safer at the League with your grannyma. “She’s never been upstairs, so she can’t take what she doesn’t know about.”

“We also need to look for a new place to live,” Aylin muttered.

“Who’s going to rent to us?” Danello said, not nearly as quiet. “And how will we find someplace large enough for everyone?”

Odds were we wouldn’t. “Maybe it’s time to leave Geveg.”

Shocked silence, but they couldn’t argue with the idea. There was a lot of money in the town house, enough to bribe a fisherman for passage off the isle, no matter how tempting the reward was.

“We could go to the marsh farms,” Danello said. “Da, doesn’t your friend need help?”

His father nodded. “He does. He’s barely keeping his farm running. Some money and extra hands would let him hold on to it and help us out.”

The Duke cared about Takers and pynvium, not sweet potatoes and sugar. I’d never done any farming before, but it sounded good. Honest work, fresh food, open fields with lots of places to run and hide if we had to. The soldiers probably wouldn’t look for us in the marsh farms either. Mama used to take Healers there every few months since the farmers didn’t have their own, and it always took her at least a week to visit them all.

“Should you ask him first?” I asked. “Showing up with fifteen people is a lot to put on a person on short notice.” And I didn’t want to abandon the town house until we knew we had somewhere to go.

“Might not be a bad idea. I haven’t spoken to him since we went into hiding. He may have lost the place by now.”