The Attic, Old Rose Harbor
Then, maybe within a year of his da getting work at that factory, he’d started to spring up. It’d hurt, he rembered, like his bones were making up for all that growth at once. By the time he’d stopped, he’d been a long, gangly thing, all arms and legs and no idea how to use them, at least at first. His da’d liked him better for his size, and he’d started at the factory, and he’d put on muscle right quick, and sorted out where to put his hands during a fight. By sixteen, he’d looked a proper man, for all his blonde hair and the wisps of a beard that seemed to be the best he could manage, and it wasn’t so easy to get men to bet against him in the quiet, underground fights on the back streets of the Rose.
Howie still didn’t have much in the way of a beard, but he worked for Silas Hawke now. Nobody doubted whether he was a man, these days, and he didn’t fight for scraps or quart’pennys, but proper birds. He had the respect due to him as a man, and a proper place and a proper rosh in Sharkswell. Moved up in the world, Howie had, though he still visited his ma in Voedale, like any man would.
All the same, there were bits and pieces of working for Hawke that Howie wasn’t so fond of. The golly sitting opposite him in the carriage was one of them. It was that field of hers, he thought; he’d never quite felt anything like it. It was sharp; it prickled over you. He’d seen what she could do, with that voo of hers; it wasn’t like the little bits of healing that wicks did. Couldn’t properly trust most wicks, of course, but you knew what they could do, even in a fight. Blind you, maybe, at worst, with them pinpricks of light, or hide in some dark corner when you were chasing them.
But a golly –
But this golly –
Howie’d’ve been glad not to be put on a job with her again. He still had nightmares about Niccolette Ibutatu, dipping her hands in that other golly’s wound and tracing shapes on the floor with it, the way she’d chanted and the whole room had gone strange around her. Even now, just sitting, she gave him the creeps. Maybe he’d thought she was a macha thing, at first, but he certainly wouldn’t’ve wanted to go against her, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was worth having her on his side. He’d heard that husband’ve hers had been a good sort – not quite a balach, maybe, but then few Brothers were, and fewer gollies, but the sort of man who’d have your back in a fight, and properly, not just with that voo of theirs.
He supposed she was grieving, although it was right hard to tell. Didn’t look proper, Howie thought. Not like his ma, when his da’d finally gone.
The carriage creaked to a stop, and Howie heard Glen pat the side of it. He eased back the curtain, and nodded at the sight of the Attic outside. “We’re here, madam,” Howie said.
Niccolette Ibutatu turned her head to look at him. Her eyes fixed steadily on him, and Howie swallowed a shiver. Then, just as calmly, she looked back away.
Howie held for a moment, frowning. “I’ll – I’ll go fetch the scrap, then,” he said, easing himself off the seat with a heavy creak.
“Passive,” Niccolette Ibutatu said, into the silence.
Howie felt the pressure in the air around him sharpen. He froze in the doorway, glancing back at him. “Passive,” he repeated, numbly. “Yes madam. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
Niccolette still wasn’t looking at him, and Howie hurried out of the carriage, feet creaking loudly on the steps, hoping she might forget about it. He ducked through the door into the Attic, glancing around. As far as he knew, somebody’d told the passive when to be ready, and he didn’t want to be the one to explain to Niccolette why they were running late.
“Evenin’, Mr. Resha,” Howie said, politely. “Uh, that – uh – Leo, he ready?”