“No, but you are deliberately pissing me off in hopes that, in the midst of all the furor, these pesky questions,” he waggled his fingers, “evaporate.”
The girl looked at him, wheels spinning, before turning back to their new friends. “He certainly seems to have a point. And you really need to stop baiting him. If you do manage to get under his skin, his fuse is,” she snapped her fingers. “Then you end up back in jail with a broken bone in the bargain, being asked these questions by people who aren’t as nice as me.”
There was a brief silence, then Smooth Guy shifted slightly in his chair as if to put Havec out of his line of sight. “I was sent by your mother to help you and ensure that you’re safe, I told you as much already.”
“Why did you ride past the first time we met?”
He hadn’t expected that question, but there was no flinching, no licked lips or anxious swallows, no visible rearranging of thoughts. Just a very still silence before he talked. It wasn’t a sign that he was being honest but that he was a practiced liar, Havec thought.
“I was instructed to find you at the school. It was strange to find you not at the school, so I rode on.”
“You went to the school. You lied to the detective,” Havec noted. Less because he cared about lying to detectives than because he wanted to be sure Qanath took note of how readily this man bent the truth
Smooth Guy heaved an aggravated sigh, keeping his eyes on the girl. “When I got close to the house, I found it swarming with politzqa, bodies being carted out. If you have a problem with me covering that up,” his voice grew hard, although he addressed the words to Qanath, “why don’t you look at it from my perspective? I had no idea what was going on, but I knew it was bad and Siva Qanath might have been involved.”
“Hota,” the girl corrected. “I’m Pemets, did she not say?”
He cleared his throat, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Your mother instructed that I was to defer to you in all things.”
“Oh?”
“My mother is an addict and my father sells sex, so bending the knee to the daughter of a cobbler isn’t actually a stretch.”
This gave birth to a tense silence, the two of them trading looks. Havec had never understood the Tabbi class system and looked away, waiting for the meaningful conversation to resume. It was then that he noticed Hair-On-End watching him, eyes fixed provokingly on his face. He had only just wondered what the devil he thought he was looking at when the man blew him a kiss.
Because he had never been hit on before and had no idea how to react, he went with a skeptically-cocked brow. He had found that cynicism was like the color black: it went with everything. Hair-On-End made a pouty face, then ran his tongue along his upper lip.
Its tip was forked.
Havec stared at him, wondering what he was. He realized he was breathing heavily, and it wasn’t anxiety but rage. He wanted to scream and scratch the thing. It took every ounce of self-control he had to remain motionless in his chair.
It couldn’t be instinct: he hadn’t grasped when first they met that The Thing was anything other than a man. Then it struck him: the anger must belong to Kebbal. He hadn’t known it could communicate with him, but he was certain the dismay he felt was Kebbal’s and not his. It didn’t want this thing anywhere near him.
It took him a heartbeat to decide to let Kebbal have this one, then he braced a foot on the front of Hair-On-End’s chair and shoved. The chair shot back a good four feet, where it bounced off the wall. The Thing flew from its seat while the chair was still rocking, dissolving before its feet hit the ground into a raven that let out one angry caw.
It didn’t come for Havec but landed on Smooth Guy’s shoulder. It cawed again, then spread its wings and opened its beak, turning its head to one side to fix him with a beady eye. He had no idea what this pantomime meant in Demon Bird, but knew in his bones that it was lewd.
Crossing his arms, he said, “Nice trick. It my turn?”
Smooth Guy clamped its beak delicately between forefinger and thumb. “Forgive me. Arandgwail has dreadful manners and an attention span that would put a toddler to shame. In the best of circumstances, shyins are prone to mischief. I should have known he couldn’t sit still so long without causing trouble.”
Qanath had gone still, reassessing furiously now the rules had changed. Releasing a tired breath, she settled back in her chair, making it clear she was unimpressed. “I thought familiars went out of style five centuries ago. Relying on the service of a shyin even at one remove hardly seems worth the risk.”
Smooth Guy let go the bird’s beak, running the tip of his finger along it soothingly. The demon bird fluffed its feathers angrily but finally retracted its wings. It shifted its feet a few times on his shoulder in order to present its profile to Havec as if it was now ignoring him, but no one was fooled.
“Your mother is less concerned with her reputation than your welfare.”
“That is a lie,” Qanath replied. “There’s no such thing as a politician who doesn’t care about their reputation. Come on,” she added, collecting Havec with her eyes as she pushed back her chair. He was already on his feet and more than ready to leave.
“Please.” Smooth Guy leaned forward, laying a hand on the tabletop beside her drink. “Hear me out.”
“I have been,” she reminded him. “Lies are all I’m hearing.”
“Fine, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“That easy?”
“You mother would rather I tell you things she wasn’t ready for you to know than let you walk away.”
After a tense pause, she sat back at the table and folded her hands. Smooth Guy looked next to him. “Please, Avat. Sit. I apologize again for Ara, he’s young. I ought to have warned you, I see that now.”
Havec was clear on the fact that Smooth Guy hadn’t stumbled accidentally onto rudeness: he had made a choice. Knowing full well that what he was doing might upset them, he had done it anyway on the off chance they would be too intimidated, or just too curious, to hold him accountable. If his initial assessment of Hair-On-End had clearly shot wide, he had been spot-on when it came to Smooth Guy. This prick was exactly what Havec thought from the moment they met: far too smooth for anyone’s good.
He hesitated, but Qanath was looking at him now, a plea in her eyes. She didn’t like her mother but she had been waiting all her life for the woman to acknowledge her. She wasn’t ready to walk away.
She’d had the grace to step back and let him decide how to handle his affairs, it was only right that he return the favor. He made no effort to hide his scowl but did return to his seat. As he pulled up to the table, the raven turned into a kitten with lustrous black fur, small enough it could have fit in one hand. He tensed when it hopped onto the table, but it was after different prey and pounced on the cork from their wine bottle, batting it about.
Once they were both settled, Smooth Guy topped up their glasses. “It’s true that open reliance on sorcery is only slightly less frowned-upon in the Illiumate than open ties to the faith.” He’d had his eyes on his hands but looked up, meeting Qanath’s gaze directly. “The same is not true of the Hakam.”
Havec saw some revelation hit her like a physical force. “You cannot be serious.”
“But I am.”
He opened his mouth, then wondered if revealing his confusion would make things harder for her. Qanath had already grasped, though, that he didn’t understand. Keeping her eyes fixed on the man across the table, she said, “Mother isn’t satisfied with her station and wants to climb.”
“I thought she already was your highest class.”
“Not quite. That title belongs to the twenty-three bloodlines that possess a hereditary seat on the Hakam.”
