image [https://i.imgur.com/PVQZiJI.png]

Chapter 29

Old Friends

I woke up in total darkness and felt a complete sense of dislocation. Something was on top of me, and I grappled it in desperate panic for a breathless moment before I realized it was only the soft, shapeless coverlet I was sleeping under. I was in my competitor’s room, on my ridiculously comfy bed, hidden and safe. I slumped back into the mattress, heart thumping, breathing hard. My body could tell it wasn’t morning yet, and I resolved to sleep uncovered for the rest of the night. I wasn’t used to sleeping that deeply. It wasn’t safe.

Then the evening came rushing back to me and I groaned, shame and anger spiking my blood just as hard as fear had the moment before. I lost. I ran. That cheating son of a bitch got the best of me. I could still hear the rich folk laughing and jeering as I’d fled down the stairs. They didn’t know for sure I’d have died if that monstrous specter had taken a swing at me, they didn’t know Gerad played dirty; all they saw was a snot-nosed gutter kid turning tail after their gallant Prince took a horrendous blow – a massive monster’s sword halfway through his body – and stayed on his feet.

How did he do it? Did he slip some cards back into his Mind Home? I didn’t think so; we’d been out in the open in front of the gods and everybody. It wasn’t like when his buddy Losum – that was his name – slipped on an damage-enhancing Aura ring when the crowd was looking elsewhere. No, Gerad took the hit fairly, much as it galled me to admit it. His soul card must give him extra health. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He really just is the better man. Tougher. Better with people. A slicker cheater. I wanted to be outraged by that, but to be honest, I’d have cheated in a heartbeat if given a way to do it. What did cheating even mean, anyhow? A fellow won whatever fight he found in whatever way he could. Anybody crying about cheating was just someone looking for an excuse as to why they’d lost.

And I had lost. I jammed my head back into the feather pillow and gritted my teeth. Can I even show my face for the next matches in the morning? That was stupid. Of course I could. Who cared what these rich tits thought? You do. Like it or not, you care. I hissed out a long breath and tried to dismiss the thought. It lingered anyway.

A tiny light bloomed by the doorway, revealing a slender man in a long coat sitting in a chair that hadn’t been there when I went to bed. He lit a cigarillo and let the flame from a little brass Artifact firemaker die. “Bad dreams?” He took a long draw, the cherry ember of his smoke stick painting his face in red like some nightmare fiend.

It was Ticosi.

I scrambled into a crouched position on my bed and put my back against the wall, panic hitting me as hard as that bastard Rockfist. I reached for Nether and threw one up over my head as quick as I could.

Harker loomed up out of the darkness at the foot of my bed and grabbed my wrist just as a card materialized in it. “None of that, kid. I’ll break your arm.”

“You should listen,” Ticosi advised quietly. “My darling Harker has been itching to get her hands on you since your little fracas a couple of days back, and I won’t stop her if you get out of hand.” He tapped the wall behind him with a sharp knuckle. “Thick stone walls here. No one will hear.”

“Dismiss it,” Harker said, her voice like granite and her fingers even harder. “Now.”

My mind raced. I didn’t even know what card I held; the light from Ticosi’s cigarillo only showed the dimmest of outlines. I could try summoning it blind and just see what happened, but did I even have enough source for whatever it was? Besides, I believed her. She’d break me if I tried.

I’d been thinking too long, and Harker’s other hand clamped down on my forearm. Her grip tightened, ready to snap my arm bones like sticks. “Okay, okay!” I said shrilly. I mentally dismissed my Nether. “It’s gone.”

“Good lad,” Ticosi whispered, sitting at his ease with his long legs crossed. “This will be a far more productive conversation if everyone keeps their head.”

I noticed he had a full six or seven source circling his head. It was hard to tell by the light of his tiny, lone ember, but I thought they were all the dripping red spheres of Chaos. The message was clear: behave.

“How did you get in?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. Harker released my arm and stepped back to where I could barely see her. It didn’t make me feel any better.

Ticosi folded his hands in his lap and puffed contentedly. “The powers that be might spend their breath talking about Order and peace and all that, but I’ll tell you a deeper truth for free: they need someone like me in the Lows. I keep the malcontents with nothing to lose in line. People like you. In return I am given… a certain amount of leeway. Nothing official, mind you,” he said, blowing a careful smoke ring, “but as real as good coin. A smart man might use that leeway to develop relationships. Make friends. Grease palms. Put people in his debt who would never otherwise deign to admit he exists. Enough years of that, and getting the master key to the competitors’ rooms at the Coliseum is a small thing. I could murder every single one of you in your sleep if I wished it.” He clicked his tongue. “Mind you, that particular indulgence would cost me more than it’s worth – no matter how much a certain young man has tested my patience lately.”

I held my tongue. He lounged in his chair completely at ease, but I had no doubt he could strike like a viper if I said the wrong thing. Inside, I was cursing myself in every way I knew how. I’d thought I was safe. I’d gotten too cozy with the naive noble kids and forgotten how the world really worked.

“When I realized you’d entered the Tournament, I thought you’d be bounced out in short order,” he admitted, idly pulling a card into his hand and then putting it back in behind his right ear. It was just another way to remind me who held the power. “I assumed I’d meet you at the front gate, a complete failure, and then I could take my time having your legs ripped off in the washing square once we got back to the Lows. Imagine my surprise, won’t you, when I hear the hoi polloi talking about an angry-faced poor boy with an Epic who was winning his matches.”

He held his cigarillo between two fingers and gestured at me with it. “Such a strange coincidence, a thing like that happening on the same day a dark-market card shop went up in flames. I hear the City Watch is investigating. A lucky thing that shop wasn’t under my protection, or whoever managed such a thing wouldn’t need to wait on the high folk’s justice.”

He waited for a moment, one eyebrow quirked at me. I said nothing. It was the only safe move. Strangely, he seemed pleased by my silence, wagging a finger at me like a tolerant uncle. “And then, Hull, and then… I sat in on your final match this afternoon. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw. All these years, and you managed to hide your Nether from me and mine. I thought you were just another one of my sad little street boys scrounging for shards.” He leaned forward, his words suddenly razor-edged. “All. These. Years.”

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From a pitch-black corner, I heard Harker’s dull, stupid voice. “I shoulda known he couldn’t hit that hard. Happened too fast for me to see his source.”

Ticosi raised a placating hand. “None of us saw it coming, dear girl. I stopped keeping an eye out for Nether-wielders years ago. Shame on me; I shouldn’t have forgotten so quickly.”

He sat back and lapsed into musing silence. His cigarillo burnt down to a stub, and he cast it to the floor, grinding the ember underfoot and throwing us back into total darkness.

Not seeing his silhouette emboldened me. “If you want me to go to the fighting pits, go ahead and kill me now.”

His laughter floated out of the darkness. “The pits are for refuse. Fate must love me to keep me from making such a mistake with you.”

A flicker of hope flared within me, all the brighter for the midnight both inside and out. “You’re not sending me to fight?”

His magical flame cylinder flared to life again, making me squint. He lit another smoke. “I am not. You deserve it, and plenty more besides… but a boy like you knows that the world cares intensely about what we have and very little about what we deserve.” His chair creaked, and he stood up, approaching my bed.

I couldn’t help it; I cringed back against the wall. I’d taken a hit from a man encased in stone, but that guy had nothing on Ticosi. The Big Man of the Lows loomed every bit as dangerously as the vampire’s Revenant had.

“You come from the Lows, and that means you belong to me,” Ticosi said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Every breath, every scrap of everything you possess is mine. You’re going to keep competing to the best of your considerable, surprising ability, and when the Tournament is over, you will hand over every last card to me.”

“No,” I said. I didn’t mean to; it just slipped out of me.

A card appeared in his hand. “I’m not finished. Those cards and every single other you are able to win already belong to me; you simply have them on loan while you expand my collection. Getting that fact firmly planted in your mind right now will improve your odds of seeing sunrise. Once the Tournament is over, we’ll make a big public show back home of you handing everything over and then have a big party to celebrate. Won’t that be nice?”

He paused as if waiting for me to agree. He gave a tsk of disappointment when I stayed silent but then continued his instructions. “You’ll take Skop’s place on my crew. It’ll be weeks before he’s right in the head after the hit you gave him. If – if – you prove your worth, your reliability, and above all your loyalty, perhaps in due time you’ll get one or two of those cards back. Maybe even for good. And in the meantime, you’ll live a far better life than you have up till now.”

My fists balled against my stomach. I felt sick. Of course this was how it went. No grand, powerful deck for me. No delicious revenge as I stalked my father’s court unknown and finally found the moment to kill him. Instead I’d have a life of petty thuggery under Ticosi’s thumb until he grew paranoid and had me murdered. A few days ago that might have been a solid upward trade on my life, but now I’d met Basil and Esmi. I’d seen how they lived, how they trusted, how they relaxed. I wanted more.

“Take a moment to control yourself,” Ticosi said, the source still circling his head. “This offer is a damn sight more than you merit. If I didn’t have such a sentimental streak, I’d drag you home right now and give you what you’ve earned. I’m giving you a chance, Hull. Don’t be stupid and waste it.”

I wrestled with myself. I could feel Harker looming off to one side, and Ticosi took a long drag, blowing smoke in my face. If you’re not dead you can keep on working for something better. I had no illusions – if I didn’t say yes to Ticosi in the next five seconds, I wouldn’t leave this room alive. When I thought about it that way, there was only one thing to say, no matter how much I wanted not to.

“I’ll do it,” I whispered.

He rocked back on his heels, the shadow of a smile curving his barely-seen lip. “So you can keep a lid on that temper when you want to. That’s something.”

“Boss,” Harker grunted.

“Yes, my sweet girl?”

“You sure we can’t… y’know… give him the business? Just a little?”

Ticosi grinned wide. “Oh, I think we can. If I’m going to ask you two to work together, there ought to be a balancing of the scales. Crossing my enforcers is the same as crossing me, after all.” He leaned in close enough that I could see a hint of the bloodshot spiderweb in the whites of his eyes. “Stay very still now, Hull, and take your medicine. This is part of the deal.” He cast the card he had into the air, and it shimmered into nothing, nearly blinding me.

image [https://i.imgur.com/R0Ppodw.png]

I felt a wrench in my Mind Home, and a Soul misted into being beside him.

image [https://i.imgur.com/i6WJsVf.png]

I gaped at it. That was my Soul, one of my heavy hitters! I hadn’t even summoned it myself yet, and he’d yanked control of it away with whatever that Spell had been. The demon glowered at me evilly, its eyes glowing brighter than Ticosi’s cigarillo. The Soul crowded forward, panting heavily through its sharp teeth.

“A good get,” Ticosi said, eyeing the Soul with interest. Settling back into his seat, he flicked a finger toward me. “Teach your new master a lesson, demon.”

It leapt up, swarming me on the bed even as I raised my arms to shield myself. I tried to summon a Nether, but I couldn’t concentrate. One taloned hand pulled my arms down effortlessly, and it was right there in my face, its panting breath sounding like laughter.

“Delicious,” it said in a guttural voice. Slowly, deliberately, it raked its other clawed hand down my face, starting at my hairline and razoring down my chest and belly. The pressure was nearly as heavy as Rockfist’s hit had been, but slower, more painful somehow. The wound in my back pressed against the wall and felt like fresh agony all over again. Shredded cards plumed out in all directions. The demon’s claws went down the length of me, leaving my shirt and pants in ribbons from throat to crotch. It swept down and away, tearing through the mattress and sending feathers up to mingle with the falling bits of cards.

It stepped back, still panting out its obscene laugh. Ticosi held out an arm toward it like an offering, and it raked its claws across him too, if somewhat more lightly. More cards puffed away. Then he waved a hand at it. “Begone.”

It misted away, and I felt its weight settle back into my Mind Home. For the first time, I wasn’t sure I wanted it there.

“You’ll need to ask for new clothes in the morning,” Ticosi said briskly, standing. “The noble folks tend to get squeamish if your soft bits are out in the breeze.” He pulled his chair to one side and opened the door. “Come along, Harker. We’ve had our fun.”

Harker obeyed like the cow she was, pausing in the dim light of the hallway to look back at me. She probably thought it was a meaningful look, but all I could see was her outline, so the effort was wasted. She stumped out of sight and I spent a futile moment hoping I’d never see her again.

Ticosi paused in the doorway too. “I’m glad we had this chat,” he said pleasantly. “I can’t believe you were right under my nose all this time and I never saw it. Now that I know, the likeness is plain as day. You’re quite a bit like your mother.”

And then he was gone.

I scrambled for the door in the pitch blackness the moment it shut and turned the key behind them. Not that it had stopped them before, of course, but it was something to do. After another breathless moment I pulled the bedside table in front of the door as well, barking my shin on the way.

I retreated to the bed, my mind awhirl, but when my hand touched the gash in the mattress I bolted back upright. I wouldn’t be sleeping on that bed again, not tonight. In fact, I wouldn’t be sleeping at all.

I stood stock-still in the darkness and clutched at my tattered clothes, feeling even lower than I had after losing to the Prince. No matter where I turn, there’s someone there to trip me up.

And then: He said he knew my mother. He’s lying. He must be. Is he?

I sat on the floor and waited for morning. It was a long time coming.