to explain why it was necessary. “I asked, have you word from Dema?”
He might not know about her childhood, but he did understand the look on her face. “Nothing.” He wandered to the window and leaned out, letting the rain fall on his head. “At least not that many yaskedasi are out working in this.” Struck by an idea, he turned to Tris. “Could you keep it raining a few days? The fewer people on the street, the fewer targets.”
Tris shook her head. “The storm’s already moving on.”
“Then stop it,” replied Keth.
“You don’t stop storms,” she explained. “You usher them on, guide them down a path they might have taken anyway, but you can’t stop them. That’s why you had a drought before this, someone was holding the rains in place across the sea. Besides, Keth, the rain won’t stop him from killing. If he can’t find someone on the street, he’ll go elsewhere.”
Keth jammed his hands into his pockets. “You mean he’ll go to the nice, sheltered women of the city. Women with families who care what happens to them. Women who aren’t as shady as yaskedasi!”
She had only meant that the killer would try the back alleys, the courtyard yaskedasi, or even go after Khapik’s women in their homes. There was nothing in this room to stop anyone from coming in who wanted to; Yali’s lock was even worse than Kethlun’s. It hadn’t occurred to Tris that the killer might leave Khapik, to find victims in the rest of the city.
Once he’d said it, though, the truth became clear. “They’ll refuse him, won’t they? The Keepers, and Dema. Between the money this place brings, and the risk the killer will go elsewhere, they won’t let Dema shut Khapik down.”
Keth slumped into the room’s sole, rickety chair. “No. I don’t think they will.” He looked down at his clasped hands. “I don’t know what Dema can do if the Keepers won’t help.”
Tris leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling. “Me neither,” she admitted.
For a long moment Keth was silent. Finally he said, “I need to get back to work on the lightning globes. I’ll make them clear sooner. I’ll make one that will show us his face.”
“Then sleep,” Tris advised. “Try, anyway. We’ve a long day tomorrow.”
Her breezes reported back to her all through the night. They brought Tris nothing.
In the morning Tris made sure that Glaki, Chime and Little Bear were comfortable in the workshop at Touchstone Glass with Keth. He had agreed to watch them while Tris ran some necessary errands. Once she had purchased breakfast for the group Tris headed back up the Street of Glass, dodging two brawling prathmun whose wagons had collided. Other pedestrians and riders swerved around the brawlers as if they didn’t even see them.
The skies were clear; the brooklets that had run in the gutters were shrinking. The city sparkled, rinsed clean for the moment. Atop the two hills ahead, the white marble structures of Heskalifos and the Assembly gleamed like hope and dignity given shape. For the hundredth time Tris wondered how Dema had fared with the Keepers of the Public Good. She was almost positive that she and Keth had been right, that the Keepers would not shut Khapik down, but she wanted very badly to be mistaken.
At Jumshida’s, Tris found her hostess seated at the breakfast table, reading a book. “Niko’s still abed,” she told Tris. “He made a late night of it, at Serenity House.”
Tris frowned. “What was he doing there?”
“The arurim dhaskoi, Nomasdina? He came to us for reinforcements for when he talked to the Keepers yesterday. I felt badly for him,” Jumshida said, peeling an orange, “but he’s so obsessed with catching the Ghost that he forgets what truly matters here in Tharios. I tried to remind him of the duty he owes his clan, but he would have none of it. He convinced Niko to go to the Keepers with him. The Keepers didn’t see them until after midnight. I think it was the third hour after that when Niko returned to us.”
“Do you know if the Keepers listened?” asked Tris.
Jumshida shrugged. “Niko said nothing to me, but I would be much surprised if they changed the way we have done things for a thousand years, just to meet a temporary emergency.” She met Tris’s eyes with her own grey-green ones. “We are great believers in time, here in Tharios,” she explained. “Time, and the eternal balance of things.”