Nico Morel
NICO ONLY TOOK TWO STEPS down the turn before he
stopped. He could heard Talis arguing with the strange man, and he
crept back toward them, putting his back to the wall of the house
at the corner and listening.
“I didn’t kill her,
if that’s your accusation,” Talis told the man, and Nico wondered
who he was talking about.
Evidently the man was
just as puzzled, for he answered “I spoke of no
murder.”
“Nor did I,” Talis
said. “ But then I don’t think it murder to kill your enemy in
wartime.”
War? Nico had time to wonder before the world
exploded. He was never quite certain what happened in the next
several breaths, or how he could ever describe it to someone.
Though it was daylight, there was a stroke of light that seemed as
bright in the shadows of the lane as a thunderstorm throbbing in
the blackness of night. He was certain that Talis was dead, except
that he heard Talis laugh even as Nico pushed away from the house
to run to help his vatarh, the croissants still clutched heedlessly
in his hand.
Then Talis was
grabbing him by the shoulder—“By all the Moitidi, Nico . . .”—and
pulled him running down the lane with him, ducking into a narrow
alleyway between two of the houses, and then along a back lane
between the backs of buildings, twisting and turning until Nico was
out of breath and confused, and finally stopping,
panting.
Talis put his hands
on his knees, his breath fast as he glared at Nico. “Damn it, Nico,
I told you to leave,” he said. “When we get home . .
.”
Nico fought not to
cry at Talis’ harsh tone. “I wanted to hear,” he said. “I thought .
. . I thought there would be magic.”
Talis cocked his head
slightly, though his too-dark eyes still glittered angrily. “Why
would you think that?”
“Because I could
feel it, all around, like when I get
cold all of a sudden and I get ghost bumps.” Nico rubbed at his
forearm, showing Talis.
“You felt it?” Talis asked, and now his voice didn’t
seem quite so upset. Nico nodded furiously. Talis stood up. He
glanced all around them, as if trying to see if the man had
followed them.
“Was he really
Ambassador ca’Vliomani, the Numetodo?” Nico asked Talis. “Matarh
says she saw him once, near the Archigos’ Temple on South Bank. She
said that the Numetodo shouldn’t be allowed here. She said that the
Archigos should be stronger against them.”
Talis scowled. “Maybe
your matarh’s more right than she knows,” Talis answered. He
sighed, and suddenly hugged Nico to him. “Come on,” he said. “We
need to hurry home now. While there’s still time.”
Nico ate supper alone
in the bedroom, while Talis and his matarh talked in the main room.
Nico nibbled on the croissants and sipped at the ground-apple stew
his matarh had made while he listened to their muffled voices. Most
of the time he couldn’t make out the words, but when they got loud,
he could understand them. “. . . told you I expected this. The
signs . . . just not so soon . . .”
“. . . want us to
leave now? Tonight? Are you insane,
Talis?”
“. . . you stay
you’ll be in danger . . . go to your sister . . .”
“. . . so it
was you? You lied to me . .
.”
Nico lifted his head
at that. He wondered whether his matarh was talking about the woman
the Ambassador had accused Talis of killing.
There was more
mumbling, then an exasperated huff from his matarh as she flung the
door open, glared once at Nico without seeming to see him, then
started gathering pots and utensils and stuffing them loudly into
the cloth bags she used when she went to the market, muttering to
herself. Talis, in the doorway between the rooms, watched her for a
moment and gestured to Nico. He followed Talis into the room,
watching as the man shut the door behind them.
“Matarh’s really
angry,” Nico said as he sat on the bed
Talis nodded
ruefully. “She is that,” he said. “And for good reason. Nico, the
two of you need to leave the city. Tonight. You’ll be staying with
your tantzia in Ville Paisli, which isn’t far from
Nessantico.”
“Are you going with
us?”
Talis shook his head.
“No. Nico, after what happened, the Garde Kralji is going to be
looking for me—the Ambassador is a friend of the Regent, and he’ll
have them looking for me. He probably knows my first name and maybe
yours, he knows what we look like, and he knows about where we
live. We have a few turns of the glass before he can alert anyone,
but I’m certain that Oldtown won’t be safe for the two of you soon.
So you’re going to have to help your matarh gather up what you can
and leave.”
“But the Garde Kralji
. . .” Nico sputtered. “Did you do something wrong,
Talis?”
“Wrong? No,” Talis
told him. “I’ll explain it all to you when I can, Nico. For now
you’re going to have to trust me. Do you trust me,
Son?”
Nico nodded
uncertainly. He wasn’t certain of anything at the moment. “Good,”
Talis said. “I’m going to leave now and arrange for a cart to take
you two out of the city—you remember the man I talked to at the
Market? Uly? He can help me make those arrangements. When I get
back, you and your matarh will need to be ready to leave, so make
sure you have everything of yours you want, and help your matarh
gather up her things.”
Nico’s mouth tasted
sour, and the food he’d eaten burned in his stomach. From the
kitchen, he could hear his matarh still packing things. “But if you
stay, won’t they find you?”
“I have ways to hide
myself if I’m alone, Nico, and I have things I need to do that I
can only do here. Also . . .” Talis paused and tousled Nico’s head.
Nico grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it
again. “What happened earlier has to be a secret, too, Nico—like
the rest. If you tell people what you saw, well, you’d be putting
your matarh in danger, and you wouldn’t want that, would
you?”
“It was magic, wasn’t it?”
Talis nodded. “Yes,
it was. And Nico, I think that you . . .” He stopped, shaking his
head.
“What,
Talis?”
“Nothing, Nico.
Nothing.” Talis was reaching under the bed as he talked, pulling
out the leather bag that held the strange metal bowl and putting
his clothing and other things into it. “Now, why don’t you start
gathering your things? Put them all in one place, and you and your
matarh can decide what you’ll take and what you’ll leave here. Go
on, now.”
Talis was already
looking away, opening the chest at the foot of the bed and pulling
out a linen nightshirt. Nico watched him. “Are you a téni?” he
asked Talis.
Talis straightened,
the linen half in the bag. “No,” he said, and the way Talis said
it, not quite looking at him and drawing out the syllable, told
Nico that it was a lie, or the kind of evasion of the truth that
Nico sometimes used when his matarh asked him if he’d done
something he shouldn’t have. “Now go on, boy. Hurry!”
Nico shivered. He
left, wondering if he would ever see these rooms
again.