ask me, I could have told him what a dumb idea it was! But no, he ran straight off to Red Dal without thinking twice.”
“Maybe I’m stupid too, but I don’t get it,” Cara said. “Why was it such a bad idea? Like you said, she’d be cared for, and the Dalradians wouldn’t find out.”
I stared at her, then reminded myself that although she’d grown up streetside in Ninavel, her family was skilled and self supporting and had never been near a ganglord.
“Even for a Tainter, breaking mage wards is a tricky, dangerous business. One mistake, and you’re brain-burned or dead. Sure, your handler will be a little disappointed, particularly if your Taint was strong, but he can always find another Tainted kid to replace you. Red Dal’s a good handler, and he and his minders train their Tainters well, but even so I’d say less than half even make it to the Change.”
Cara’s eyes widened. “I had no idea.”
“That’s not all,” I said bitterly. “Sethan didn’t think enough about the buy-out at the Change. He just assumed it wouldn’t cost much, because he knew mine hadn’t. He should’ve bargained with Red Dal at the first and forced him into a contract specifying the sale price and Sethan as the buyer, but no. He handed her over and assumed everything would work out. There’s nothing preventing Red Dal from selling Melly to the highest bidder, and damn it, she takes after Sethan, with that red hair and good looks.”
“You think her price will be high,” Cara said.
“Hell, yes. The pleasure houses will be panting after her. Before I left, I heard Karonys House was sniffing around.”
Cara grimaced. She knew as well as I did how Karonys treated their jennies. “When did you find out about all this?”
“Not until four years ago,” I said. “Only hint I had before that was when I started riding as Sethan’s apprentice and he made me promise that if something happened to him, I’d—how did he put it?—‘take care of some loose ends’ for him. He told me there was a letter in a vault in Koliman House I’d need to read. The way he talked about it, I thought it had something to do with his sisters.”
Cara pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and finger. “And then he died.”
I nodded. “When I found him after the rockfall, he begged me...” I coughed, my throat filling with the remembered stink of blood and rock dust. “He didn’t...didn’t have time to explain it all.” He’d choked out a scattered, desperate string of words through the blood pouring from his mouth, one hand fisted in my shirt. “But I vowed on my life I’d take care of Melly. Do whatever his letter asked, and never tell she was his.” I’d have promised him anything, at that point. As if by promising I could turn back time and make the rockfall never happen.
“Oh, Dev.” Cara’s voice sounded rough. “You should’ve told me. Or Sukia, or Randen...we could’ve helped you.”
I shrugged, not trusting my voice. I’d promised Sethan my silence, and I’d been so sure I could handle it myself, that I had enough time to earn what I needed.
Cara’s brows drew together. “But to take this job...why would you need so much coin? I know you’ve done pretty well over the last few years.”
Oh, gods. So much easier to talk about others’ stupid mistakes than my own. I turned and faced out the window. The cool night air did nothing to soothe the heat in my face.
“Yeah, well. Sethan’s not the only one to make a fool of himself over a woman.”
I heard a hiss of indrawn breath. “That black-haired little bitch...Pello was right, then. She played you, all this time?”
“Her name is Jylla,” I snapped. “And no, it wasn’t ‘all this time.’” I couldn’t, wouldn’t believe that the girl who’d held me tight in Tavian’s cellar while I’d shaken with sobs had never cared.
“What did she do?” Cara asked, quietly.
“She set her sights on a mage.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. “You know how it is in Ninavel. Mages live in a whole other realm, beyond even highsiders. Jylla wanted a way in to that world, and she found one.”
Found a swaggering asshole of a mage with a penchant for women with the shining black hair and slanted eyes of Korassian descent, and then used me, all unwitting, to deliver the poison that killed his current bedmate. The mage hadn’t cared,