Havemercy Page 36

  “Should I,” Hal asked, hesitating at the door, “wait out here?”

  I thought of how cruel the airmen could be when faced with a stranger. I’d had theories on why once—their distrust of the rest of the world which, I’d argued, they needed in order to foster a disproportionate trust among one another. It was their mechanism: the corps against the rest of the world. It was what allowed them to be so deadly and so fierce. I’d sought to condemn this behavior once, but now I was less sure if they weren’t in some ways, at least, partially justified—especially in light of what was happening right now in the rest of the city.

  The last thing Hal needed was to be mistreated at their hands, for in order to be pilots of such precision and mercilessness, most of them had severed their ties to any empathy with which they’d been born. The system required this of them, but nevertheless it was a fact of life inside the Airman’s walls.

  At the same time, it would be perhaps just as cruel to leave Hal out here to wait as we discussed things within. It would place him in much the same position he’d been in earlier, sitting outside alone in front of the Basquiat, enduring an interminable wait.

  “You’d best come,” I decided. “Stay close, and say nothing. If you’re lucky, they’ll barely acknowledge you—and I’ll need all the information you have to hand about what’s happening at the Basquiat. It may be what convinces them to act.”

  “If something is happening to the magicians,” said Hal astutely, “then the Dragon Corps may be next.”

  Best not to phrase it like that, I thought, but they were smart enough to deduce that for themselves, and the unspoken threat might indeed inspire them to rally together and approach th’Esar with their complaints.

  I was pleased to note that I did know a little about Rook by this point, a specialized sort of knowledge. At the very least, I understood enough about him to be certain of this: that he wouldn’t fight a war for anyone so long as he felt vital pieces of information were being kept from him by those in charge.

  When I thought of Rook in the air, piloting a dragon that he said was “off,” I wanted to be ill.

  The Airman was quiet, for it was early yet, and no man was yet awake and arguing over the coffee or the tea. I bid Hal sit down on the edge of my couch, told him I’d gather the others despite how dangerous a game it was to wake them, then started for Rook’s room.

  It was my only recourse.

  I was not even halfway down the hall when his door opened and he stepped out. “You’re fucking loud,” he snapped at me. “There’s men trying to sleep here.”

  That was his way of asking me how I’d fared. I drew close to him, for I knew how angry he’d be if anyone overheard us. “Th’Esar refused to listen,” I began, but he cut me off with an angry sound.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you’d be fucking useless.”

  “Listen,” I said to him. “Please—listen to me for only a moment.”

  He folded his arms over his chest and gave me exactly the sort of look—impersonal, uncaring, almost amused by how useless I was—that so shattered me. You’re my brother, I wanted to say, but my tongue and throat blocked the words, and I couldn’t.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “Spit it out.”

  “There’s something happening in the city,” I said, wincing that I could phrase those words easily enough, but not the others. “Something very important. I’m not sure entirely what the details are, but there are magicians being kept quarantined in the Basquiat, and their families told of their whereabouts but denied permission to see them. The Basquiat is locked up tighter than—” I flushed for a moment. “Tighter than th’Esar’s safe,” I finished, changing tack halfway through the metaphor. “Some are believing foul play. Some sort of cover-up.”

  Rook snorted. “Magicians,” he said. “Fucking magicians, always fucking magicians. They don’t have anything to do with us.”

  I licked my lips and shook my head. “That’s untrue and you know it,” I said. “Magicians built your dragon—all the dragons. It’s their magic upon which the dragons run.”

  Rook mulled it over for a while, toying idly with a loose thread at his sleeve. His chest was still bandaged—a direct result, I was beginning to think, of whatever game it was th’Esar was currently playing with the corps. I felt like a common shadow puppet, and I knew that if Rook were to feel this way too, he would be spurred to some kind of action. It was my job—my duty as his brother—to make sure he acted effectively, in a way from which he might benefit.

  At length, Rook said, “So you’re thinking this problem with Have—”

  “Is related to whatever’s happening with the magicians,” I concluded.

  “So you’re thinking,” Rook said again, “that if we figure out what’s going on with the magicians, then we’ll figure out what to do about Have.”

  “Something of the sort,” I confirmed. “Exactly.”

  He looked me up and down, not entirely appreciative, but at least as though he considered me actually there, which was a step up from where we’d been a few moments before.

  “You’re too fucking smart for your own good,” he said. “You know that?”

  I shrugged. “Th’Esar wouldn’t listen to me. He has no reason to.”

  “But he’ll listen to us,” Rook said. “We’re the fucking Dragon Corps. I’ll go get the boys.”

  A shiver ran down my spine, unbidden and fleeting. I felt as I imagined the Ke-Han magicians must have felt when using their skills with the weather: as though I’d unleashed into the world something impossibly feral and beyond my control.

  I hoped that I was doing the right thing. I would have liked to believe that I was doing it for Hal, to aid his cause as best I could, but the curious stirrings of unexpected loyalty I’d felt toward the Dragon Corps in th’Esar’s presence hadn’t diminished since I was dismissed.

  I knew that it was my brother’s doing, this strange unprecedented suicide I’d committed, for if ever th’Esar found out I’d betrayed him, it would be my head.

  In some ways I considered it my own small way of apologizing for the things I couldn’t say—and it was then that I realized I was stupider and crazier than Rook had ever been.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HAL

  The Airman was quieter than I’d expected, and there was no decoration on the walls. It was perhaps a strange thing to notice, and yet, since my arrival in town, I’d felt continually overwhelmed by what I’d privately come to view as the city’s insatiable desire for opulence. This was true of Miranda at least, the most elevated of the maidens and the one I’d explored most extensively at Royston’s behest.

  Thinking of Royston enshrouded me in a quiet, solitary despair. It was as though I was cut off from all the world—or as though, by losing Royston, I had somehow lost my touchstone to the city. I was cut adrift.

  I missed him terribly, and if I allowed myself to think of it, I would surely start to cry again.

  Instead, I focused on my more immediate surroundings. I was not so unaware of them that I couldn’t recall Royston telling me everything he knew about the dragons and their unusual pilots. He said that very few civilians ever got to see the inside of the Airman because the corps wouldn’t allow it. The way he’d described them was something like a very primitive, very xenophobic tribe of warriors who held themselves so high in their own esteem that they became quite separate from the common people.

  So I was both curious and anxious about meeting these airmen, who were in many ways the heroes of the country and yet whom no one seemed to like very much at all when you came right down to it. Royston had been speaking at length with their Chief Sergeant on the night of the ball before I’d slipped away, and I assumed that the rest must—they must—have friends of a sort somewhere or other. But it was still rather an interesting paradox and one I felt very lucky to view for myself.

  I heard a shout from down the hall, and someone went storming past the open door of the common room; I recognized hi
m as the man with a harem of women surrounding him the night of the ball. He had long, blue-streaked blond hair tied back in intricate braids and a purposeful look about him, as though anyone who got in his way would be very sorry, indeed. I found myself quite glad that he didn’t spare me so much as a second glance but went on barreling along to bang on a door much farther down.

  “Ghislain,” I heard him say, “you’d better wake the fuck up, seeing as how we’re hauling ass to the palace. Right fucking now.”

  I couldn’t hear a reply, but there must have been one because the next thing I heard was a bark of laughter, and an enormous crashing sound, as though the braided airman had kicked the door down.

  It was while I was listening to this that Thom reappeared, observing the scene in the hall with an inscrutable expression. I stood immediately, eager to find out what had been decided, though admittedly I’d been unable to stop my heart from leaping wildly up into my throat at the airman’s mention of the palace.

  “Rook is . . . quite forcefully decisive,” said Thom rather apologetically as he approached me. There was something about his face that made me wonder, however much it was none of my business, what sort of connection had been forged between these two seemingly so different men.

  An enormous man came tramping into the hallway, looking as though he’d just rolled out of bed; he was followed closely behind by the airman Thom had identified as Rook.

  “Rallying the troops, are we?” The enormous man’s voice was like falling rock. “I wondered how long it would take you to crack.”

  “It ain’t me that’s cracked,” said Rook, but he didn’t elaborate further than that.

  Ghislain—for that, I remembered, had been what Rook called him before kicking down his door—appeared to take this as explanation enough, for he nodded and set off down the hall in the opposite direction, where I could see doors set sporadically, small and cramped into the walls.

  I stood unnoticed with Thom in the doorway, and while I watched I couldn’t help but feel a sense of admiration at the seamless way the members of the corps worked without having to pause for any kind of apparent communication. Between the two of them, Ghislain and Rook set about rousing the remaining airmen with a synchronicity that clearly mirrored what they exhibited in the air. Surely it was showing my country manner all too plainly to stare at them so, but I found I couldn’t quite help myself.

  “I managed to convince him,” said Thom, as though he needed to hear the words in order to believe it. “Rook is rather like the ringleader. Once you’ve got him convinced, the others will follow.”

  “Did it take a very long time to figure that out?” I asked, remembering what he’d been charged with and how he’d been made to live like a foreigner among the Dragon Corps.

  “Not as long as you’d expect, no.” He offered me a smile, familiar, as though we were friends. “Not that, anyway.”

  I didn’t feel adequately equipped to guess after his meaning, but he’d been kind to me of his own volition, without any reason for it, and I was grateful. “Well, you can’t learn everything all at once.”

  “I suppose not,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over an indignant cry demanding to know what kind of rat bastard entered someone’s room unannounced.

  “You can’t,” I said, sure of myself in at least this. Royston had said as much to me when we’d first come to the city, and I was glad to have some opportunity to share my newfound wisdom. It was nice not to be the most uncertain person in the room for once.

  “Well,” he said, and went rather quiet and pink.

  “Who’s this?” A young man—young because he seemed closer in age to Thom than the others, and somehow less hard—came up to where we stood waiting in the hall. He had a wide-awake look about him, as though he was the only one of all the twelve remaining airmen who hadn’t been sleeping when Rook and Ghislain began their systematic rousing of the corps. He wore the high-collared blue uniform I recognized vaguely from the ball, though there were a few differences. There was a burn mark on his shoulder for starters, and both epaulettes were missing.

  “Oh,” said Thom, turning about at once. “You’re awake. That’s good. Rook—I believe—is going to ask th’Esar what is happening to the dragons.”

  “Is he?” asked the airman. “We’re all going? Because Anastasia’s been—” He looked at me again, with fleeting mistrust before lowering his voice. “Anyway, she’s acting a little strange.”

  I wasn’t at all interested in learning the secrets of the Dragon Corps, but I saw this privacy as a reflection of my own intrusion, as though I’d been noticed and caught out at last for not belonging here.

  Thom nodded, looking concerned. “I believe they intend to find an answer, or more likely they intend to demand one.” He laughed weakly, as though the very idea of anyone demanding an answer from th’Esar was a distressing one, indeed.

  I didn’t care about the imposition. However foolish it was of me, I resented any man who would tell me where Royston was, then declare I wasn’t allowed to go to him.

  There was a pause, punctuated by the sound of men tumbling from their beds and the pacing of booted feet against the floor.

  “I’m Hal,” I said, awkwardly. It was only then that I remembered what Thom had told me about keeping silent, and that perhaps that was the only reason why he’d kept from introducing me until now.

  “Are you?” The airman gave me an appraising look. He didn’t respond in kind, with his own name. “I suppose you’re a friend of Thom’s?”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping I wasn’t assuming too much. Thom didn’t speak out immediately to correct me, though, and I felt marginally better about my own impulsive answer.

  The airman didn’t introduce himself, though. Instead, he only looked at Thom as though expecting to hear more of an explanation as to why he’d brought a stranger with him inside the Airman. It was much akin to either the most exclusive of small country villages or, the thought entered my head unbidden, a prison, wherein everyone knew one another’s business, and distrusted all outside matters. Perhaps one day, if I didn’t say anything to offend him again, I would be able to ask Thom how he’d managed to live under such conditions all this time.

  My room at the chatelain’s house had been small, but there had at least been a bed, and not a couch.

  “Balfour,” someone hollered from down the length of the wide corridor.

  “Good, you’re up.”

  When I turned, I rather thought I’d been plunged into a roman, or that my life had taken some strange fantastical change. Ranged together in the hall were twelve men in matching uniforms but of such dissimilar appearance as to be completely—individually and separately—the most striking people I’d ever had the opportunity to see up close. When I’d first met the Margrave Royston, I’d been captivated by some impalpable quality he possessed, the innate ability to capture the attentions of a room without speaking so much as a word. Each of these men here had the same power—and when they stood together the effect left me breathless. I’d seen them at the ball, but now I was in their midst.

  “Who’s the kid?”

  Rather abruptly, I was torn out of the reverie, as I remembered the talk of the coarse manners of the airmen. Twelve pairs of eyes pinned me into place, and from behind me I was certain Balfour was doing the same. I cleared my throat, mouth suddenly dry.

  “He isn’t—” Thom hesitated, then changed whatever it was he’d been about to say. “He’s a friend of mine.”

  The handsome one I’d seen at the ball—Rook—gave me a look that was equal parts amusement and malevolence. He seemed about to say something when the redhead standing next to him elbowed him sharply in the ribs and indicated something over our heads.

  I turned, helpless in my curiosity, and not wanting to stand out against any uniform motion that might underscore my position as an outsider. Standing opposite us was the fourteenth and final member of the Dragon Corps. He stood with his arms crossed, and his bearing w
as that of a man who knew full well that crossing his arms would be discouragement enough against any kind of insurrection. I recognized the Chief Sergeant of the airmen from Royston’s table at the night of the ball although he now had a beard and there were exhausted bags under his eyes.

  I realized all at once that this was a coup. I was partially the cause of it, and I felt my cheeks and ears grow hot.

  “And just where do you all think you’re going?” The Chief Sergeant didn’t appear pleased.

  The men were momentarily very quiet, reminding me somewhat of a large passel of children who’d been caught worrying the chickens. Then Airman Rook stepped forward, crossing his arms just as neatly over his own chest, and I moved quickly out of the way, so that I wasn’t caught in their gaze as it met, straight and fierce as a path of fire.

  “We’re going to see th’Esar,” Rook said. There wasn’t any room for a please or may I in his tone.

  “Oh?” the Chief Sergeant asked. “Is that so? I don’t believe I signed the necessary paperwork for that.”

  “You can take that paperwork . . .” Rook began.

  Thom cleared his throat and stepped forward to join him. “You may already be aware of this,” he said, more gently, in what I assumed was an attempt to placate the Chief Sergeant, “but we are on the verge of something quite terrible. Inside the Basquiat at this very moment is some untold collection of magicians who are being kept there indefinitely for a reason it seems no one but th’Esar himself and those closest to him are privy to. Family and friends crowd outside the building, yet no one is being admitted entrance. Likewise, I believe that most—if not all—of your men are experiencing some manner of difficulty with their dragons.”

  “So we’re thinking,” Rook cut in, “that if there’s something wrong with the magicians, and magicians made our girls, then knowing what’s wrong with the magicians might maybe explain what’s wrong with our girls.”

  Thom colored just slightly—I believed I was the only one who’d caught the change—when the airman Rook used the word “we.” It was another interesting detail, but one I was ultimately too miserable to make very much of.