a muffled curse and ran on. He grabbed a sword from and knocked aside a guard who tried to stop him, warn him probably, as if his eyes couldn’t tell him the place was afire. The sword wasn’t anything like as good as his own, but it would do. Smoke curled about his ankles in the empty hallway and obscured the vast painting of Licio that dominated the far wall. It looked like it was coming from the small door hidden under the stairs that led down to the basement where Vocho was being held.
She’d be here somewhere, had to be, but she wasn’t the woman he’d thought. Not honest, straightforward Kacha, always fidgeting, never still. No, she was all that and more. For whatever reasons that he could only guess at, she was, or had been, Eneko’s assassin. All that time, and he’d thought it was Vocho, that it was what made him preen so much, where all that money came from. He’d wanted it to be Vocho and let that blind him. So had Licio because that’s what Petri had told him.
He kept as still as he could given the seep of smoke choking his throat in the shadows by the door that led where he knew she wanted to go. It wasn’t long before a hint of movement caught his eye. If he hadn’t been looking, he’d never have seen her. No sound of footfalls or creaking leather, just a moving shadow that separated from the rest, and there she was like one of the optical illusions the prelate’s artist loved so much. Now the shadow of a statue, now Kacha.
He stepped forward and was instantly greeted with a drawn dagger. She wore the face of a woman who would not be crossed, and despite having a sword he held up his hands. It was speak or die, he knew that.
“If there’s this much smoke up here, then down there’s an inferno,” he whispered, he didn’t know why. “Vocho’s dead or as good as. Why risk your life to save him?”
A twist of her face, and the knife was hard up against his chest. “Because he’s my brother. Less fickle than you, for all his faults.”
“Fickle? I—” The blade pressed further, and he’d learned not to push her when she wouldn’t be pushed. “He tried to kill you, you know that? That and more. And yet you want to save him and perhaps kill yourself in the process. Leave him! Leave the little shit to himself and live. With me.”
The smile was pained but real enough. “Kill me? Ah, the trick that sent me into the river. And not all he did, not by the longest shot of any clockwork gun. I know, Petri. I always knew. I knew that our da beat seven shades of snot out of him, and I know why too. I know why Da loved me more, why I was always the perfect one, but I didn’t want to be. God’s cogs, no. I had to be perfect, and who is that? Still I try. I have to be the best because otherwise Da’d hate me too, and I couldn’t bear that, and I know it’s crazy wanting two opposite things at once. I know that Vocho hates me, but he loves me too, same as I hate and love him. He’s a lying son of a bastard but he never expected or wanted me to be perfect, just expected me to be me. For a time there I wanted to be perfect for you too, like I had to be perfect for Da, for Eneko. You and your bloody honour, and your lies. It was never you wanting me, was it? No, it was you poking around for the prelate or the king. It was all one big fucking lie from you, wasn’t it?”
“No, Kacha, I swear—”
“I told Eneko, you know, the morning after you gave me your ring, before I found Vocho and the dead priest. Told him I didn’t want to do his dark jobs any more, didn’t want to be his personal killer. I told Voch I didn’t like the killing part but truth was, I was sick of it. Sick of being who Eneko wanted me to be, of having to be perfect for him too. I’m finished with being perfect, you hear? I’m finished with being what everyone else wants me to be. So you can stick whatever it was you were about to say while