I would not speak until spoken to.
We left the residential streets and entered a commercial district where I could hear the popping race of goblin chatter and conversations in a dozen variants of Latin. His hands stilled, and he seemed to be listening. A Greek demanded directions in his choppy diction. On the other side of the street, a man declaimed in stentorian tones, “We must stand together. We must raise our voice. We must demand a seat on the city’s ruling council. Our own councillors, elected by us, not appointed by the prince.” The Northgate Poet! Now, at least, I knew where we were.
I smelled the luscious aroma of coffee and heard the rumble of masculine conversation from inside a coffeehouse, where brew and the company of like-minded raconteurs could be imbibed, a place where a woman would never dare set foot. Farther away, handbells rang a rhythm and abruptly ceased. Close by, a peddler called, “What do ye lack? What do ye lack?”
Answers, I thought. Questions.
The cold mage coughed into a patterned kerchief.
I sat up straighter, waiting for the words I was sure would come.
He lowered the handkerchief and resumed his drumming.
The coach rolled along thoroughfares that stayed alive after the fall of night. Beggars clacked for alms. Bells conversed: first an opening from the sharp tenor of the bell that guarded the temple dedicated to Komo Vulcanus, answered by a scolding bass out of Ma Bellona-Valiant-at-the-Ford, and the high, excited response of the sister temple towers, Brigantia and Faro by the river.
He brought the handkerchief up to his face again, but this time to cover the reek of urine and vomit off the street. I was made of sterner stuff. A flood of noise marred our passage down a street filled with lively evening life, the scent of spilled beer and the off-key singing of drunken men.
“Away with the oppression of mages! Why should they break our gaslights just ’cause they don’t like ’em?”
“Nay, it’s princes and their greedy kin who trample us!”
“You take your choice: taxes or fetters!”
“Nay! Nay! Let’s call, like the Northgate Poet says: freedom or fetters!”
“Oi! There’s one of them bloody House coaches now. As you please, boys! As you please! We’re many, and they’re few.”
A heavy object slammed into the side of the carriage. I grabbed the seat to keep my place as a roar of voices mobbed around us and began, with the weight of their bodies, to rock the vehicle back and forth. If my heart thundered, it was no more than what I hoped the horses would do: gallop out of there.
“Clear off ! Clear off !” shouted our coachman, although how I could know it was his voice I can’t say. It carried so.
Jeers and curses greeted his cry.
“See how you like the mud when you freeze yer pale white arse in it!”
“Tip ’em over! Tip ’em over!”
Maybe my teeth were chattering. “What are you going to do?” I demanded.
His hands stilled. He’d shut his eyes!
Even cats can’t see through wood. Nor could I. But I saw a spray of sparks, like Han fireworks spitting gloriously in five colors. A blue sizzle landed in my glove, as if it had spun right through the carriage walls, and it burned not hot but deadly cold as it seared my skin. Men screamed, more in fear than in pain, and the mob scattered as the vehicle lurched forward, throwing me sideways so I hit my shoulder and bit down a yelp. I would not cry in front of him.
My husband said, quite clearly, in his precise, cultured voice, “A pox upon that cursed wraith!”
We rolled on. The blue sizzle popped and vanished.
“You are uninjured?” he asked stiffly. A spark pricked the darkness and expanded into a wan cold light by which he examined me with a frown.
I was shaking, and my shoulder ached, and I clung to the seat strap, wanting Bee beside me to face him down and wishing Aunt was there to smooth my hair and offer me a cup of hot chocolate, but…
But.
But.
But the truth was that I was trembling too hard to get anything out of my mouth.
I heard a chant rise in our wake like a nest of hornets maddened by smoke: