Page 35 of Midsummer Phoenixes
“Ah. Of course. In that case, I’m just passing through to the underground.”
Both nodded, and I made my way to and down the escalators, walking instead of just standing there. Not that I was in a hurry. I checked my phone on the way, and Amory hadn’t texted. That first day of reopening—it had been good, but I’d known he’d not give in that easily on a regular basis.
“Why the fuck did I have to pick a rule-follower?” I mumbled into the assembly hall with its vaulted ceiling at the bottom of the escalator.
Unsurprisingly, I drew some attention on my way along the boardwalk. I stared too, right in people’s face instead of behind their backs. Pseudo-faces in the case of the salinian, a saltwater dweller who had managed to either shift two of his tentacles to legs or had gotten them to look remarkably like legs. They wore a long coat and hat, so I wasn’t sure which. They had tea and cake in the company of a human, all of which spelled outdate.
I hated that and looked away. I damn near missed a step when I spotted one of the rarer sights, even in the underground. Sitting at a back table on the boardwalk, behind the salinian’s, I saw two black widows, their faces veiled in black, and one very difficult-to-miss Cassandrian who usually gave his name as Echo. I knew next to nothing about the Cassandrian, but Valentin hired him sometimes. Echo’s rates were astronomical if he decided to take the job.
Even his looks spelled exclusivity. His hair was practically white and his eyes blue, clear blue if I remembered correctly, nothing of the type of pattern that made it look like a normal iris. The curse he had inherited had apparently come down especially strong in him, and it showed.
For three steps, I pondered simply walking past, but then Echo looked right at me. I stopped, turned left, heading straight for their table.
The salinian’s shape vibrated, making their date stop in their story. I ignored that and stepped right up to the table at the back.
“We meet again,” one of the black widows said, the distorted voice anathema to that childlike body.
Huh. The one I’d met on Silver Line, near the Asymptote. Where that graffiti had been. The thing still nagged at the back of my mind.
I said, “A rare pleasure, madam.”
Echo picked up his teacup. He was still looking at me. “Beautiful evening for a walk, Lord Shuck. Though, I hear you do not spend much time down here or anywhere.” He cocked his head. “Did. Before you took a lover, and two vassals on top of that.”
“I’m not a lord.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “But you are.”
“No. And don’t argue with me. I don’t want to have to make a point with a man of your reputation.”
Echo chuckled. He looked pretty doing it in a way a lot of men could never hope to. Only Amory was more sublime if he deigned giggle for me.
“Fearsome, Lord Shuck. Anyway, the ladies had a disagreement and were about to ask me to settle it. But perhaps, since you are here, might you try first?”
The black widows nodded. Eagerly? I wasn’t sure they did anything eagerly. I shrugged and nodded, because I really had nothing better to do. And of course something interesting was happening here.
The other black widow—not the one I had met—said, “There are tunnels beyond these walls that make our world. You are aware?”
“Yes. Old maintenance mostly and connections never fully built out that Valentin had walled up.”
The widow nodded her veiled head. “You know of the Old Theater?”
I searched my memory and low-key hated that I’d spent enough time in the city to sort of know about the place. I said, “It was supposed to become an elevator or something, but the city shut that project down.”
“Emergency exit stairwell,” the widow I’d first met on Silver Line said.
The other spoke. “We were arguing whether it was behind this wall next to us and down, or whether it was up.”
“No idea,” I said. “I don’t really know the maintenance tunnels that well.”
Echo smiled at me. “It’s up, Black Shuck. Not ever the first choice of those who feel close in mind to the dread offered by hell or any underworld. Up like hope.”
Well, the fucker was a Cassandrian all right. I wasn’t going to give him lip. For all I knew, this was important, so instead of telling him where he might want to stick his idea of hope, I said, “Would you allow me to pay for your tea?” like a fucking gentleman.
Echo winked at me. “Not today. Another time.”
And that right fucking there, that was the ominous part. The suggestion I might owe him. Fucking Cassandrians. I excused myself, thinking,Should have just kept on walking.
The triglav brothers did make good business with their foot truck. Of course they spotted me right as I joined the line, just a moment before the chimera dude right in front of me did. The eyes of the man’s demon head went wide, the yellow cat-slit pupils contracting.
