Everything looked neat enough, and the stack was where he told Csilla to put it, but as he approached his work it was clear that it was a facade. There were fingerprints and ink dots and one very suspicious paw print, and as he shuffled through the papers, one was missing.
His brows drew together. The paper was replaceable, the information less so. She was probably going to take it to the stupid Izir, the person in Silgard least likely to keep their mouth shut. She was going to spook the killer, no matter who or what it was, even further into the dark.
9
Csilla
The day was rudely bright. Snow had melted into puddles in the street too large to avoid, dampening her hem. She hiked her skirts up, trying to keep her dress out of the slush, suddenly conscious of the value of the fabric. Her clothes had rarely been nice and never new, but if she stained or tore something beyond repair, it would be dear to replace now.
Everything in her told her to look back. But what had been safety was now locked from her. She had to look ahead. And she had to be careful. Even when working alone, the knowledge she had a home to return to and people who knew and cared where she was had been a comfort as tangible and unnoticed as the fit of perfectly broken-in shoes. Stripped of it, every step was cold and aching.
There were eight districts in Silgard, with the cathedral at its heart, once divided to provide a seat to every angel and the representatives of their respective territories. Now the lines bled and the grand governing houses only sheltered the secular nobility when they saw fit to make pilgrimage. With the Incarnate returning, some were no doubt preparing for just that, and there’d be no chance of hiding in an empty outbuilding to save her coins.
First, to find Mihály. Maybe he could even convince one of his followers to give her a place to stay. They seemed willing enough to do anything for him.
She picked up speed, brushing past women on their way to and from shopping at the streetside market stalls, nearly stepping into the road as a carriage clipped past. She couldn’t move back fast enough to avoid being splattered with grey water and barely got her arms up in time to defend against flecks of gravel that shot out from beneath the horses’ hooves. The driver never slowed, yelling an insult to her mother as he passed.
Well, the insult was a black mark on him and nothing to her. Csilla had no idea who her mother was. She shook her skirts off as best she could and picked up her pace again. The alley looked more open in the bright light – all the easier to see that the ladder on the side of the house was gone.
‘Izir!’ Csilla called, but her voice didn’t carry. She scuffed her boot against the ground, seeking a rock to toss at the window, but there was only cobblestone and grit under the slush.
She hefted the weight of her bag again. The cheapest coins were thick iron grots, heavy and rough. She pulled one from her bag and threw it.
It hit under the window with a clank on the stone facade, then fell back. It left a pierced hole in the grey snowmelt banked against the house below. Csilla fished it out of the snow, ignoring the cold on her fingers. Steadying herself, she took better aim and threw again.
This time it hit the shutters with a satisfying crack, but the wood panel chipped under the assault, a flake of green drifting to the ground. Csilla gaped at the pale wood revealed by the damage. She hadn’t meant to hurt anything.
She startled at the creak of a tight-hinge door swinging open, and from around the front marched a middle-aged woman, face red beneath her kerchief.
‘What are you doing to my house, girl? All the commotion last night, and now throwing...’
She paused when she saw what Csilla was holding.
‘Throwing coins! Oh Great Asten above, deliver us from madwomen.’ She threw her hands up, eyes rolling towards the sky, and Csilla shrunk back. ‘I suppose you’re looking for the Izir,’ the woman continued. ‘He’s gone, came down the trap door in a hurry last night and took off. Scared my wife half to death.’
‘Gone? For good?’
Her stomach dropped. She’d told him to go herself, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but he was her only lifeline.At least he’s safe, she told herself. That was the most important thing. She had to be cheered by having saved a life, even if her feet were freezing and she wasn’t sure where her meals would be coming from.
The woman waved her hand. ‘He’s always coming in and out at odd hours, might be gone, might not be.’ Her face shifted, eyes narrowing with hawk-like focus. ‘What did you want with him?’
That was a very long story that wouldn’t make her come out any better in the telling of it.
‘I... I’ll just wait here and see if he comes back. And I’ll pay for that.’ She gestured to the chipped wood, hoping it wasn’t all the coins she had.
The little sack Ágnes slipped to her had felt like riches when she’d first held it, but now she could feel how quickly money slipped away and how hard it would be to replenish. She touched her iron mark again. Those calculations had never crossed her mind when she belonged to the Church. Asten provided for those who served Them so they could focus on more important work.
‘Don’t worry about that, just get on. His people are like pigeons. One starts strutting around thinking there’s food and the whole flock shows up squawking.’
She waved Csilla away like one of the birds, and Csilla stepped back.
‘Do you have any idea where he is?’
The woman looked over her worn clothes, the money sack in her fingers all too clearly all she had in the world, and her face softened.
‘Try the cemetery. When he doesn’t come home, he’s talking to ghosts.’
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