Chapter Text
When all you got to your name are shackles, everything looks like a chain.
The soot-smeared man—a jumble of bones and hair and sputtering sparks—has awfully quick fingers and quiet footsteps for someone his height, and that's not accounting for the rattle and clank his unusual choice in accessories ought to make. But Kremy Lecroux is quicker. Quieter. He senses those fingers reaching for his pocket before they even connect, and he doesn't even have to move. A whoosh and a rush like some great beast drawing in breath, and his Shadow does the work for him, coiling around the man like a snake. Kremy waits, leaning against his cane, and doesn't move until the swearing and thrashing stills. Then he finally turns around to face the little sneak, grin baring his vicious teeth.
. . . Not so little sneak. He may be strung out like dried jerky, but he's tall, with a dense frame. Fury burns in amber eyes peering out from a scraggled mess of beard and hair, the kind of murderous intent that might almost give Kremy pause if his Shadow didn't have a good hold. Kremy clicks his tongue against the roof of his snout and tilts his head to one side. "Didn't your mama every tell you, boy, not to take what don't belong to you?"
The Shadow squeezes on the man's hand until he drops the coin pouch he'd been in the process of lifting, and Kremy catches it with a clink.
"Ain't no fuckin' boy," the man spits.
"Try actin' it." Kremy tosses the pouch in the air and snatches it once more before disappearing it back into his pocket. "Look like you just clawed your way outta prison. You that eager to go back?"
"Fuck you."
"All's I gotta do is shout," Kremy says, "and the guards down the street corner come runnin'. Reckon that ain't something you want."
The man gives another futile shrug of his shoulders, trying to break the Shadow's stranglehold. "I said fuck you, man. Just tryina eat here, dammit—"
And then he does something even Kremy couldn't predict.
The chains that had been hanging from the chunky manacles on his wrists begin to lift. Even with the man's arms clamped to his sides, they somehow slither up on their own accord, the dull gray metal of the links starting to warm into a molten gold. And then they're trying to pick the Shadow apart with a surprising heat that even Kremy has to fight against. They sizzle and pop as they try to sink in.
"Neat trick you got there," Kremy says. "You say it's food you're after?"
"Lemme go!"
"You want a hot meal," Kremy says, "meet me at the Agwé park in two hours. Shady oak by the fountain, can't miss it."
"Fuck you!"
"And if you can learn to watch your mouth," Kremy says, "might even have a job for you."
Kremy doesn't wait for an answer. In a blink, both Kremy and the shadow are gone.
Gideon Nathaniel Coal repeats his name to himself under his breath as he paces a tread into the dirt of Agwé Park. Over and over, rising and falling like a train piston, his voice scorched-out and husky from disuse. He shouldn't be using it now, either. He shouldn't be trusting anyone to do a damn thing they say, shouldn't be staying in one place. He's only gotten by this long by never staying put, shambling from town to town, any direction that's away from the war host's path, though they were always on the move, was the whole damn point. Agwé—was that was the lizardfolk said?—seems a bigger city than most, less like to suffer invaders lightly. A proper city, bigger than any he's ever known.
Could he make a life here? It's the wrong question to ask. Life is a terrifying chasm stretching before him with no tracks to follow, no map. All he wants is the next meal. The next place to rest his head. The next distraction, some tavern that'll turn stolen gold into oblivion, maybe a warm pair of thighs, forgetting everything else for a night and then on to the next.
A job sounds like a trap. He got paid to drag some pallets of stone off a cart once, or moving crates off a river barge a few towns back, but it wasn't any kind of arrangement beyond being in the right place at the right time and looking the way he does. A job sounds more involved. And this lizardfolk man seems the kind to get his hooks into someone, clutch them tight. As impressive as that trick was with the shadowy . . . thing, it was too much like a whole new chain.
No need for something consistent, reliable. No need to trust in someone else. One foot in front of the other, on and on, chugging inexorably toward . . .
Toward what?
Gideon shakes himself off like he's dusting away soot, and paces back toward the oak once again.
"Gonna wear out those boots pacin' round like that."
There he is, the damn lizardfolk, like he'd stepped out from nothingness, leaning against a simple cane with a pewter top. Now that he isn't trying to lift his wallet, Gideon can get a better look at him: a fine gray suit that fits him smartly with a purple floral vest underneath, and a gray fedora to match with a velvet purple band. There are probably fancier words for what he's wearing, but if Gideon ever knew them, he's forgotten. And tucked in the crook of one arm, clearly too heavy for the guy: a woven picnic basket with a blanket spilling out.
And then the smell hits Gideon, a mouthwatering scent of meat. Sausage and spice and all kinds of herbs he can't name. His stomach groans, traitor that it is, and the lizardfolk laughs.
"Well, least you got an appetite." He pulls the blanket out from the basket, and shakes it out with an effortless flick of his wrist, forming a perfect square that drapes over the grass beneath the tree's shade. "You got a name to go with it?"
Gideon's mouth goes dry as he watches. The man . . . is fastidious. Precise. There's something admirable in that, even if it feels rehearsed. A man who pays attention to detail. No wonder he caught Gideon's sticky fingers when no one else had.
"Uh. Gid," he stammers, his practicing completely forgotten. "—Gideon, I mean."
Had anyone on the train ever asked him his name? He doesn't think so—not even the other slaves.
"Whattado, Gideon. Name's Kremy Lecroux. Formerly a sous chef, more recently expandin' into a more enterprisin' role." Rather than hold a hand out to shake—the way Gideon's only ever seen city folk do back home in Yona anyhow, usually when they got sent into their farm town by a bank—Kremy rolls his free hand with a flourish and bows low. "So even if y'don't like what I got to say, you know the food'll be damn good."
"I'll be the judge of that."
The far corners of Kremy's mouth lift, and only now does it really strike Gideon just how big that smile is. How serrated—vicious teeth sprouting from both jaws, no less frightful for the wide gaps between them. It's a pretty smile the way a freshly-whetted axe is pretty, and Gideon suspects he uses it much the same.
"Well, c'mon, sit down, then, get to judgin'," Kremy says. "'Less you still got a mind to run?"
Gideon wonders, later, what might have become of him if he'd bolted. He'd have been fine, he's sure, in time. He'd scrape together enough gold to stay put for a while, maybe start a family, more likely wreck a few. Probably meet an ignoble end too soon, blackout drunk and copperless, with no one remembering his name except as a curse.
He wonders, later, if that won't still be his fate, but at least this way, he won't be doing it alone.
Gideon's arms fall down to his sides with a rattling clank of chains, and he strides toward the blanket—
"Ah, ah—boots off first," Kremy says.
And Gideon glares, but he's already committed himself to this meal. He can suffer this indignity, too.
"There's a fine fella," Kremy says, as Gideon unfastens his work boots and steps onto the blanket in crumbling socks. "I think we're gonna get along like ice cream an' pie."
The drifter has one devil of an appetite, Kremy will give him that. Gideon—a highfalutin' gospel name for such a scraggly mess—demolishes the gumbo Kremy had had to hastily assemble from ingredients to hand, and even with only half the shrimp he usually likes to add, if the man moans and smacks his chops any louder, the city guards are like to write them up for public indecency.
Kremy pushes the quick cornbread at him, but the ceramic serving dish is already cool to the touch. "Aw, hell. Hope y'don't mind it ain't at its best. Thought it'd keep warmer, but—"
Gideon snatches the dish away from him, something flashing in his eyes like a struck flint. Maybe Kremy should take it as a warning shot, and should answer in kind. He's used to the wink of drawn steel in the dark, hollow socket of an alleyway. He's never shy about sending his Shadow first and his questions later, as Gideon already knows.
But Gideon doesn't lunge. He doesn't look back to Kremy. He just cradles the cornbread dish in his arms, like a newborn, and this big, hulking bag of bones and dirt and hair looks almost . . . tender.
Then Kremy notices the shimmer in the air, the aching heat like a well-stoked oven. The thick shackles on Gideon's arms start to change: panels on them he hadn't noticed light up like grill vents, exposing a molten glow beneath. Something sizzles, and Gideon exhales in a noisy pant that sends steam and sparks in the air.
For a second, it even looks like embers dancing on the very tips of that filthy soot-brown hair. But Kremy blinks, and it's gone again.
"Warmer," Gideon says, and shoves the dish back to Kremy. Kremy presses one fingertip to the dish's edge, and hisses as it nearly burns him.
"Well, then," Kremy says. "Guess we'd better eat up."
Gideon shouldn't have done that.
His fire is for him. His fire is all he has left. A gift he never asked for and a curse that's robbed him of years of his life. Let the wrong person see it and it's right back to the chains, the days melting together in a heap of slag, the unending pain and fury as he's drained and drained and prodded for faster, more—
But the way Kremy looked at him wasn't like a man hungry to use him up. It was like someone who knew what it means to be dangerous, and fears and craves it in the same measure.
After devouring the gumbo, demolishing the cornbread, and still having room for three cinnamon rolls and a sticky bun, and a pitcher of mint tea to wash it all down—Gideon finally feels a pleasant fullness in his belly. It’s as foreign to him now as the sucking squelch of the Coal farm’s mud in spring and the yawning, open potential of a starry prairie sky while the sounds of strumming and laughter slosh out of the nearest barn like lukewarm ale. For ten years food was marrow sucked from bones picked clean by the teeth of strangers and softened, rotted vegetables that smeared into the crevices of his sooty hands as he snatched them away from the other grasping slaves. Of late, it’s varied wildly: sometimes a half-eaten roast chicken fished out of the trash heap behind a tavern; sometimes a warm loaf of bread offered with a sly smile, twinkling eyes, a creamy bosom heaving out of its gown. He’s long since abandoned any pretense of pickiness. Food is food.
The gatorkin’s meal, though, is something more.
Gideon sprawls out on the blanket and stares up at the willow fronds swaying around them, offering glimpses of the evening sky. The sky is beautiful everywhere, Gideon’s decided, to someone who was denied it for so long. But this sky, too, purple as a fresh bruise, seems prettier than most. If he closed his eyes right now, he thinks he could sleep for days, and the meal and its outside warmth would melt into him and leave him strong enough to carry on.
Toward what, though, he can’t say.
“You mentioned a job,” he finally says, and opens his eyes. Unmoving, hands tucked back behind his head, half-wondering if Kremy Lecroux is still there for as quiet as he’s gone.
“Indeed I did.” Kremy clicks shut the compact mirror he’d been holding and tucks it back inside his suit jacket. “Need me a strong, sturdy fella, not unlike yourself. One who knows how to fight, but more importantly, when to, and when to not. Ain’t hard work. Just gotta stand there and be quiet, most the time, ‘less I tell you otherwise. But when I do, then I gotta trust you’ll be ready to act, and act quick.”
“An’ what if I’d rather just fight?”
“Well, we can see ourselves about that too, if you prove yourself first. Lotta good money to be made either way, if you can be just a little bit patient.”
“Patient.” Gideon snorts, although the warmth spreading through him now dazzles with something more promising than just the food. “Done wasted too much of my life as it is. Don’t see the sense in waitin’ around more.”
Kremy chuckles, too, and there’s something a little higher-pitched and breathy in it, like the first hints of someone who lurks behind his polished facade. Someone as hungry as Gideon is; as eager to seize something more. “I promise, you stick with me, I’m of no mind to keep you waitin’ long.”
And like agreeing to the meal, Gideon knows he’s already decided, because the alternative is no choice at all. But this doesn’t feel like a desperate act. This doesn’t feel like his back to the wall. There are still plenty of paths for him to wander down, but damn, if this one doesn’t sparkle with far more potential than all the other lonely, dusty ones.
“When do we start, then?”
Kremy’s thick tongue clicks at the roof of his snout. “First things first, Mister Coal. We gotta clean you up.”
Kremy damned well can’t take him to Mrs. Willoughby’s townhouse, where he rents an attic bedsit for the cost of cleaning and regular meals, without inviting far more questions than he himself has answers for; and he refuses to bring him to the Hungry Catfish or any of those other joints, offering poor Mister Coal up for far too much scrutiny. The chains dangling off his wrists already invite more stares than they should, and without a clear idea of their source that Gideon seems uninterested in volunteering, Kremy ends up throwing the picnic blanket around the man’s huge shoulders and making sure it drapes just ride to cover up all but the dangling ends.
“I’ll cover the cost of a room for ya tonight,” Kremy says, “an’ just take it out of your pay first couple jobs we do. Should have work for you midday tomorrow so it won’t be long.”
They’re outside the Crawdad Quarter now, the rougher seam where it meets Brickington and the warehouse district, and Kremy keeps his back stiff and his cane clutched tight as they pass hollowed-out eyes and flashes of bare bullywug and halfling thighs in doorways, rough groups of gnomish dockworkers who watch Kremy a moment too long before shrinking away from Gideon’s towering height. Gideon follows him, but slows down every so often to stare before Kremy prods him with the cane’s tip.
“Don’t advise wastin’ your coin on none of that. You’ll be like to find more missin’ than just what you paid. Gonna try to get you a room somewhere tolerable, but they’ll be quick to toss you out at the first signs of trouble.”
“Is there anywhere near the railroad tracks?” Gideon asks. He doesn’t look toward Kremy, but seems to sense Kremy’s confused stare. “—Sleep better with the noise.”
“You might be the first person in the history of ever who does. Think I know just the place, but keep your mouth shut about it and I might just be able to get you a discount.”
Sure enough, they find a crumbling tavern inn past the warehouses that butts up against one of the rail depots for the docks, and Kremy manages to sweet-talk the taverness down to a single gold piece for two nights after one of the big steam engines rattles dust down from the rafters in the middle of the deliberation. He borrows a washbowl and ewer from her to go with the scissors and straight razor he brought with him, and marches Gideon up to the room, a monastic little closet barely big enough for bed, rough cabinet, and mirror wedged into it, but at least it seems clean enough. He has to sit Gideon on the bed and perch on the dresser with his feet planted to either side of Gideon’s thighs as he leans in to start examining the nightmare of tangles and scraggle he has to contend with.
“Lookin’ pretty hopeless, Gideon, I must confess.” Kremy gives a few experimental tugs with the corner of his comb at one of the knots in his beard where it hangs down past his collarbone, but it’s unyielding. “Might just have to shave it all off and start fresh. How’s you like to wear it? An’ don’t say just like this.”
Gideon heaves his massive shoulders in a shrug, making the hollowed protrusion of his clavicles even more pronounced. It’s going to take more than just one meal to put some meat on those big bones. “Used to just shave us every coupla months.”
“‘Us,’” Kremy repeats. An interesting choice of words. Again his gaze drifts toward the strange manacles. They seem too elaborate to just serve as prison shackles, with those unusual gear-dials and slots on them. But he certainly could be an escaped prisoner. Military deserter also flits through his mind, though the business up north hasn’t made its way down anywhere toward Agwé, far as he’s heard.
“Mm.”
Clearly he’ll need a bit more prodding than that. But Kremy doesn’t mind; some folks are just built like phyllo dough, and each golden crunchy flaky layer is every bit as tasty as the mystery tucked inside. “And is that what you prefer?” Maybe that’ll give him some hints about these fellow us, and the they subject Gideon’s statement implied.
Gideon takes a minute to consider the question, eyes askance, grunting faintly as Kremy catches another snag. “No. Not that. I think I’d like . . .” His mouth twists to one side in thought. “Tidier. But still full.”
Kremy smiles, and reaches for the barber’s scissors. “I bet we can manage something of the sort.”
The gatorkin is deft with the scissors and razor. Patient. He looks more like Gideon’s pa used to look when he’d handle the seasonal shearing. It isn’t at all like when they’d grab a fistful of Gideon’s hair—swearing about how fast it grows—and line him up with the other slaves to shave them. None of the painful nicks and gouges against his scalp, no blunt and angled tufts where they hacked at his hair unevenly. He starts by cutting off huge fistfuls of ratty, matted curls, then settles in for finer work, chattering away to fill Gideon’s silences, and it’s clear he’s happy to talk to himself if Gideon ain’t of a mind to reply.
“—Now, in Agwé of late the fashion is something a little more structural, a little more delicate and fussy,” Kremy is saying, as he combs through the fine hairs at the side of Gideon’s neck, then tidies them up again with his scissors. “I myself am not immune to such an instinct. Hence the pencil-thin mustache.”
Gideon glances again to the front of his maw that he’d been studying before. “Penciled-on.”
Kremy’s inner and outer eyelids blink out of sync as his smile twitches. “—Well, yes. Not all of us are quite so follicularly gifted as yourself. But I think it still lends to an overall air of sophistication, demonstrates a willingness to enter into the unspoken social contract of the prevailing culture, don’t you think? A sharp sense of style and a sharp smile will open many doors, as I will show you very soon.”
“Y’don’t want folks to respect you on your own terms?” Gideon asks. His pa was like that, usually. Any guests to the Coal farmstead had to march through the muddy side yard round to the back if they wanted to introduce themselves, and more often than not he’d be waiting for them with a bucket or rake or even, sometimes, the culling axe. It worked, usually. The bank men trying to collect would rather mark him as ‘unreachable’ than splatter chicken blood and feathers on their nice suits. And any townsfolk who wanted something from him quickly learned they’d have to be willing to give something up in return, even if it was just their pride.
“Well, now.” Kremy curves the scissors artfully as he begins to shape, and Gideon can somehow feel that shaping transpiring in the way his hairs are tugged and finessed, even if he can’t feel the hair itself. “That’s where you’re gonna come in. Once we’re big men, folks won’t have a choice but to meet us on our own terms. Our terms’ll be the only ones in town.” A crisp snick rends the air, and a weight falls from Gideon’s face. “But we’ll get there first by playing their games. Just enough to learn the rules.
“Just enough to learn how to break ‘em.”
Gideon relaxes; the patient unveiling of whatever new shape his hair is taking is soothing, and he likes the way it keeps Kremy’s eyes on him, focused, smiling, hands clever and quick. For once, he isn’t waiting for the next blow to fall, or the threat to slither out of the night. There’s a low, steady momentum in his chest that’s his alone, and not the glide of grooved wheels on a track. He doesn’t know if he’s as clever as this Kremy wants him to be, but he supposes, as long as one of them is, all he really needs is all he’s ever known: quiet to learn when to strike, and the strength to do it. If it means steady coin, he’s happy to let this man handle the rest.
“Now, would you look at that.” Kremy tidies up with a few more snips, then brushes Gideon’s face with the towel. “There was a handsome fella lurking under all that mess. Whaddaya think?”
He pulls a round silver compact from his pocket and flips it open, then turns it so Gideon can see himself in the mirror. Gideon barely recognizes himself at first: dark hollows where his eyes should blaze, cheekbones like narrow scythes, his skin that used to be a ruddy, healthy pink now depleted and gray, like shriveled-up salmon after the spawn.
But his hair—now that much has been transformed. Swept back into neat, wavy locks with structure and style, and a single shorter one that tumbles forward to curl, rakish, on his forehead. And his beard, no longer a sagging sadness, is lush, full, shaped. He touches one wing of his mustache and twists his finger through it, grinning at the way it coils against his face.
No longer a boy, full of anger that had no face to punch, shimmering with the heat of it around folks who didn’t deserve it, not really, a conclusion he reached much too late.
No longer a thing, shaved and whipped and scolded and shamed, scrabbling for scraps tossed out onto the roach-strewn floor that could never be enough to fuel the fire in him for much longer. But his anger fed it. His anger fed it well.
A man, now. His own man. A man with a purpose, maybe, in time. A man with a reason, maybe, to see morning.
“Think I could get used to somethin’ like this.”
Kremy snaps the compact shut and makes a pleased little hum. “Didn’t even know you had these till I started cuttin’.” He taps a claw to one of Gideon’s stubby horns. “Tiefling? Satyr? Didn’t notice a tail or hooves.”
Gideon’s smile falls. “Does it matter?”
“Not to me. Only makin’ conversation.”
“Matters too much to some.” Gideon sits back, away from Kremy’s grasp, and scoots along the mattress until his back finds the wall. “Pretty tired now, so if y’don’t mind—”
“You think I don’t know what that’s like?” Kremy asks. “Not bein’ the right kinda person, not lookin’ like the rest. Pretendin’ I’m as comfy as can be when I gotta sit on my tail all wrong and that I don’t mind no one ever looks at me like they got the first clue how to kiss me? Not that anyone would. So no. It don’t matter to me, ‘coz I know I don’t matter, too.”
It’s the first time Gideon’s heard anything other than total control, flawless elocution in his tone. Sure, he has an Agwé drawl, but it’s a cultivated one, not muddy around the edges like something that crawled from the swamp. Gideon can hear it now, though, where the damp is seeping into the edges and trying to reclaim it.
He knows just how that goes. Time was he tried to bury everything of him that came from Yona, back when he could dream of nothing but leaving—trying his hand at the big city, or even (foolish, desperate, wishful) finding his way to the City of Brass to learn just who he was. He crisped up the edges of his consonants and pulled together the taffy of his vowels because that’s what it meant to sound learn-ed, cultured.
Never got the chance, of course. Never did him any good. The cities he wound up in never needed his words at all.
“Why d’you put up with it, then?” Gideon asks. “Why try at all?”
Though as he asks it, he catches himself looking, and wondering, too: just how do you kiss a mouth like that?
“Spite?” Kremy suggests, then laughs. “—Only a little bit. No, it’s ‘coz I know it’ll all be worth it in the end. Guess what I’m sayin’ is it doesn’t matter to me just what kind of strange you are. The fact you know what it’s like at all—that’s how I know we’ll work together well.”
Gideon nods slowly. The truth isn’t anything Kremy can’t learn for himself easily enough; the fact he doesn’t recognize it only means he’s ignorant of Gideon’s kind, though maybe not what they can do. Or worse, what others think they can do. Wishes, fuel, forces of destruction—whatever shape it takes, they’ve always been the kind people want to put on a chain. The work this Kremy’s offering seems far more equitable than all that, but give someone a glimpse of a leash and they’re apt to use it.
“How about we work together first, then, and I’ll explain.”
“Deal.” Kremy slides down off of the dresser and brushes stray hairs from his pants. “Oh, and the answer, by the way?”
Gideon flushes. “Hm?”
The fatty rolls of the gatorkin’s upper lip tug back, front to back, tightening, baring dozens of well-honed teeth that gleam in the candlelight, and gums pale for now but that look made to be splashed in blood. Gideon’s stomach rolls, and he catches himself imagining. Teeth sinking and cutting and rending. Jaws latching and refusing to release.
“Very carefully.”
Against his better judgment, while Gideon bathes in the communal washroom, Kremy pulls out the bottle of bourbon he’d kept hidden at the bottom of the picnic basket—the last kinda thing one should offer to a man who tried to rob him, after all.
Against his better judgment, he pours two fingers for them each when Gideon returns, damp and fresh in the clothes Kremy nabbed from the thrift store, and when those are gone, he pours again.
But the bourbon does what a good drink should: softens the defensive earthen mounds between them, eases the flow of words and thoughts, washes away the grime to show who’s really lurking underneath. And the man—the devil?—who was lurking beneath all that filthy hair and gruff is fascinating. Maybe not the brightest, but he’s got a quick wit, and he seems good at remembering things, fitting them together when Kremy least expects it like puzzle pieces. What he seems to lack in manners and social custom—and he’s lacking quite a lot there—he accounts for in an easy, generous tone. If all he wants is Kremy’s money and to be on his way, he doesn’t act it. It’s like he’s relishing the chance to finally rest.
Best of all, no matter what dark conversational alleys Kremy starts to wander down, Gideon stays right behind him, not a single hint that it’s spooking him off.
“—and they weren’t the kind of men you walk away from without leaving ‘em with some kind of message, see.” Kremy waves his drink-hand in the air, tracing out a sigil that means nothing to Gideon, but Kremy certainly recalls its meaning, the devastation it wrought. “Thankfully, I’ve got a line to someone a bit less forgiving than myself, and I would so hate for him to get bored. So I tore me a little hole in the air right then and there, and shuffled ‘em on off to the swamp to have a think about what they’d tried.”
“A hole. In the air,” Gideon repeats, dubious, and then guffaws. Damn, but he’s got a big laugh now that he’s using it—just like the underfed muscles Kremy sensed on his frame, it’s probably just in need of warming up.
“You know. A little one-way ticket through time and space. Then just give ‘em a little shove and they tumble right through!”
Gideon tries to squish his lips together into something that looks scolding, but he can’t hold it, and dissolves into another snicker-snort that Kremy’s quick to join. “You called me a devil, but I ain’t sure you’s not one your own self,” he says. “Between that and that shadow-thing you done pulled on me, you can be a frightenin’ man, Mister Lecroux.”
“Please. Just Kremy’s fine.” He tips back his glass to shake free the last few drops. “Enough to frighten you off from workin’ for me?”
Gideon stares at his own empty glass, but shakes his head. “No. No, I reckon that kinda ruthlessness suits me fine.”
The silence that follows is long enough that Kremy knows the polite thing would be to excuse himself for the night. Mrs. Willoughby’s long since gone to bed, and Kremy knows how to let himself up into the attic without waking her, but if he’s not there in the morning, there’ll be some Concern. She doesn’t tolerate tenants who get up to “funny business,” and however she means it, Kremy’s got that in spades; best not to tip her off. He starts to contemplate how best to excuse himself for the night, how to handle logistics for the next morning, for the plans bourgeoning so bright and eagerly in his mind.
Then the mournful sob of a late-night freighter peals through the night, and the inn begins to rumble, so low it’s almost at the bottom of their hearing. Louder, then. Louder. The whole room shaking and swaying, the candlelight sputtering, dust pouring down from the rafters as the train rattles past the bolted-shut window. Each howl of the train’s whistle threatens to split through Kremy’s skull—
And when he looks over at Gideon, the big, hulking thing is wedged into the corner of the bed so tight and tiny it’s like he’s been replaced by a kid half his size. The look of a man who can’t bear the thought of being alone.
“. . . You gonna be all right?” Kremy asks, once the last car has finally rolled past and the rumbling fades down the tracks. “You said you wanted—”
“Yeah. I do. An’ I’ll be fine.” Gideon finally peels his face up off the backs of his thighs where he’s tucked them up against himself, and there’s an odd glow around him, the light almost coming from inside. “It’s just that I . . .”
Kremy waits for him to finish, but the aching silence that follows shows no signs of being broken.
“. . . My landlady’s probably locked up for the night,” Kremy says finally, the lie as easy and smooth as the bourbon. “Reckon it wouldn’t hurt my feelings none to sleep here. Or I could get the next room over—”
“Ain’t like I need the floor, too,” Gideon says. “Hell, you’re the one payin’. You can has the bed.”
Kremy smiles as Gideon finally unfurls from his tight knot; the haunted hardness to his eyes softens at last.
“Gonna need you in peak physical form for the work we got comin’, Gid. Might as well enjoy the luxury while you can.”
And Gideon’s grin, too, looks like it could use some exercising that Kremy’s happy to provide. “Best get my rest, then. G’night, Mister . . . Kremy.”
Kremy settles down onto the rug with the picnic blanket and a spare pillow from the dresser, and he’s still smiling as the big guy’s snores fill the room, unbroken when the next train goes by.
If he dreamed much on the train, he can’t recall it.
Sleep was just a waystation: a signal house diverting off the tracks, but routing back all too soon. Sleep was a reluctant necessity doled out drop by drop, like engine lubricant, because if they wrung him out too hard, too fast, and killed him before he was all used up, they’d be leaving too much behind. Don’t throw away the bottle half-drank. But there was a line, and they tried to find it. They certainly tried.
What most people probably dream of, he’d see in hallucinations instead, a private major picture he’d retreat into once the chains were fastened and the manacles dialed up and the pain became a steady thrum, excruciating but unsurprising. He’d play them on the backs of his eyes or in the dancing flames of the furnace: Pa striding back from the fields, one arm raised in greeting or victory for making it through another day. Stars winking to life over the prairie as the sounds of laughter, music, dancing, ill-advised drunk promises swirl from the barn nearby, and he strides toward it with jeans much too tight and flannel shirt much too loose to show the others what all those long days farming made him into. Most thought they were better than him because they still went to school, but they all melted the same from his wink, or a spin on the sawdusty dance floor. Sometimes he’d indulge them. Sometimes it was enough just to prove them wrong.
He’d hallucinate things that hadn’t happened, either. Wandering the plane of fire. The City of Brass’s spires up ahead, onion domes turned liquid and shimmery from the heat, and a woman’s voice calling to him, claiming him at last like she never did in Yona. Sometimes she’s a caliph, and all the other Efreeti bow to her, and she incinerates any who step out of line. Others she’s just another flame dancing through the streets, but she’s free, and even that’s enough.
Maybe he hallucinated Agwé once. Maybe he saw that gator grin calling to him from the flames. It’s easy to rewrite his memories of those ten years because they’re still molten, and they all flow together into one endless stream. Maybe there was always an invisible track of fate that pulled him toward here. Part of him hopes not, though. Part of him hopes he made this all his own.
While he sleeps in the cramped room at the inn, he dreams glimpses of the train, but it’s a static shuffle of images, no real plot or direction to it. He closes his eyes and the rhythmic rattle of the tracks lulls him into darkness.
Mister Lecroux is still there when he wakes, which is something of a surprise. More surprising is that he’s clearly gone and returned, his scales glistening with the damp humidity of a shower and restocked picnic basket overflowing with the smells of biscuits, bacon, eggs, pancakes, and more Gideon can’t identify. The scent alone is enough to pull Gideon out of the tangle of sheets he’s wound himself into—he’s still not used to sleeping with them, or any kind of bedding at all, really—and he paws at his hair, pleasantly surprised to find it still shorter, lighter, smoother. As he tugs his fingers through the sleek ends of his beard, a single spark even curls off of it and flits through the air.
“Breakfast in bed,” Gideon muses, voice thick and rumbling with rocks. “That gonna come outta my paycheck, too?”
“Well, technically, this here’s leftovers from what I made for my landlady. But I’m sure we can work somethin’ out.” Kremy glances over his shoulder from where he’s pouring them both tin cups of coffee out of an insulated vacuum flask, and his tail sways gently behind him. “Long as today goes well, I’m hopin’ we won’t have need of countin’ coppers between us.”
He presses one mug into Gideon’s palms, and starts heaping a plate high. Gideon catches himself open-mouthed and salivating at the downright sinful way maple syrup drizzles over the pancake stack, and the lusty gleam of grease on the bacon strips. “Why don’t you tell me ‘bout this job, then,” he says, mostly to stop himself from interrupting the presentation to grab a fistful of fluffy eggs right then.
“Naturally,” Kremy says, and finally, finally passes the plate to him. “Course, it’s best you don’t know too much. I wanna see your instincts for myself. But today we’re gonna be paying a visit to a gentleman by the name of Krause, one of them fancy sorts from the Magnolia District, who happens to own a number of business interests that I’d like to cut myself in on.”
Gentleman . . . business . . . Gideon’s attention is already straying as he shovels a forkful of pancake into his maw and moans when it performs its miracle work on his taste buds.
“See, his fine establishments deal a side trade in less-than-legitimate spells and services, the kind a drunken patron might be satisfied with at first, sure, but will likely come to regret in the harsh glowering of the morning sun. I happen to have a line on a similar product of far higher quality, produced, as it is, under the auspices of none other than the Good Baron Himself—”
“Kremy,” Gideon says around a mouthful of egg, “I’mma tell you right now I ain’t know what half those damn words even mean.”
Kremy’s grin tightens, and he tips his snout forward in concession. “My apologies. The short version is that Mr. Krause is selling crappy spells from one of my competitors and I want him to sell mine instead. If I cannot convince him on quality, then I hope that we, together, can persuade him on matters of practicality.”
“Practicality like keepin’ his legs in workin’ order?” Gideon asks.
Kremy winces, but it does nothing to soften his grin. “—Should it become strictly necessary, yes, I do believe you understand. But there are many reasons it’s in his best interest. Like not getting the Agwé guards sniffin’ around his businesses too closely off the tip of a concerned citizen. Not having a terrible fire engulf his kitchens. Things of that nature. Those are, of course, more extreme examples, but I think it’s good for us to know, going in, the many possibilities at our disposal.”
“Mm,” Gideon concurs, and tilts the plate up to lick the last of the cooling syrup and butter and grease.
Golden eyes focus intently on Gideon over the edge of the plate. “And likewise, I should like to know, going in, that this kind of work is amenable to you.”
Gideon sets the plate down. “I got no problems bein’ a mean-able sumbitch.”
“Then let’s dance.”
It works like this: a slow swirl of smoke drifting into the backrooms from the bright and buzzing bar, carrying with it the dark, tarry promises of the night that all the dancing elves and drinking dwarves and feasting bullywugs and scrabbling halflings and every other bleary-eyed creature is searching for at the bottom of a bottle and the snap of a spell scroll. The smoke is deep indigo, whispering, luring with a music all its own if you just tilt your head and let the melody wash through you. A low-plucked bassline. The metallic cascade of a cymbal brush. Chords hinting along the top register of a baby grand. A saxophone sneaks in, deep enough you can’t see it at first in the darkness of the shallows, but when it emerges, the moonlight catches on it and shows it shape.
The smoke becomes solid. Becomes a man. Becomes two men, though the second—despite his bulk—is not the one that commands the eye. No, that’s the finely dressed devil with a smile and a dark gleam in his eyes. The rings that glint on scaled fingers as he deals a fresh hand.
Whattado, he greets the table, and waits to be seated. He never questions whether he’s earned a place. He can clean them all out given half a chance, but he’s not just here to play. He’s always hungry for something more.
It works like a rising fog, a shadow that drags its fingers along their ankles and then calves as it grows, only a small part of the seduction that comes from the big gator grin, sharper than a sickle, wider than a crescent moon, reminder that he may be a man of spells and words and tricks and wits but back him into a dark alley and there’s always teeth, claws, prehistoric instinct and muscle. It works like a silhouette at his back so broad, so dark they forget it isn’t a wall, until someone gets a little too smart or a little too angry and then his manacles start to glow and they remember how each of those fists were bigger than their entire heads, or their chests.
The first few times, the threat is enough, and they walk away counting their take and blowing half of it on drinks, cigars, new suits to get them access to the next.
When that luck runs out, though, that’s when it’s really fun. When the violet light pours from the head of Kremy’s cane and the chains lash out so fast they slice clean through bone—when it’s screaming and panic for the other side and a calm, well-rehearsed dance on the other—they almost wish it could be that every time. If only it weren’t such a damn nightmare to clean up.
Nine speakeasies, lounges, card tables and pool halls in all: three abruptly under new ownership, six proudly selling Lecroux’s fine product and kicking the profits uphill. Mrs. Willoughby is sad to lose Kremy’s fine homecooked meals but she isn’t too sad given the odd hours and strange piles of cash and that big, bruising man suddenly glued to his side (though he sure is nice on the eyes). But Kremy’s got his eye on a townhouse off the Crawdad Quarter’s main path, far enough away they won’t hear all but the loudest drunks wandering around on Blanche Nuit, close enough they can still hear the city’s pulse, humming under their fingertips, each beat pumping with fresh blood and the possibility for more.
And one night when they run, it’s a dark alleyway Gideon’s dragging them into while Kremy’s Shadow stretches wide to shield the alley’s mouth. It’s his burgeoning body pinning Kremy’s lithe one to the dusty stone wall, he’s finally feeling like he’s more meat than bone, and there is something in the way the slender man squishes into him that awakens the fire anew. It’s a good fit. A custom-made one. Like everything they do: puzzle pieces that join seamlessly, a dance step and its perfect mirror.
There’s a version of this story that’s a fairytale, like the kind he’d tell himself over long days cutting hay or working the plow. There’s a version that’s a legend like tired men and wistful women would trade at the tavern, Bunny and Claude, robbin’ the rich and ridin’ into the sunset with gold coins spilling from their sacks, hand in hand until at long last they went down together, smiling while they fell.
But a story is a destiny. A destiny is a chain. And the clearer Gideon can see it, the more it feels like a fever dream from the train: something he’s trapped in, forever, the pain unending, the bindings pulling tighter and tighter, his screams swallowed in the roar of fire and the demands for more. More.
So even though he groans at the way Kremy’s body presses back against his, snout brushing over his chest and slim hips curved to his own, and he can’t stop hearing the wickedly wonderful way his voice wields his slippery threats—
“Coast’s clear, Gid,” Kremy mutters into his pecs, and nudges him—
Gideon already knows he won’t be going home tonight, because the problem with fire is that sometimes it just needs something to burn.
The slow strike of a match might as well be gunfire in the wood-paneled chamber, its walls rich and thick as a a coffin’s. Kremy waits, still standing, leaning against his cane, claws digging a little too deeply into the eye sockets and his tail a nervous, straight arrow behind him. He tries to set it into a casual, placid sway, like a cat’s, but it refuses.
Mister Garou brings the match to the head of the cigar already clenched in his teeth, and lets it catch fire with a few leisurely bellows puffs to stoke it. He does not shake the match after to extinguish it. He simply hands it to the man standing behind him, who pinches it between his fingers with the barest wince, then with a nod from Garou, the man leaves the office as quietly as the smoke drifting from Garou’s cigar.
“Sit,” Garou finally says, and Kremy does, tucking his tail awkwardly to his side. Garou doesn’t offer to let him smoke, so he leaves his cigarettes in their case, even as his fingers itch and his lungs burn and his thoughts chafe against each other in need of relief.
“You asked to see me,” Kremy prompts, after the silence has grown too long. He glances down at the fine woven rug beneath him, different from the last time he was here. Stains are a hazard in Mister Garou’s line of work. Kremy left his Shadow behind in the waiting room, as is custom, as is Garou’s command; he still isn’t used to the ache of its absence, though, like leaving the house without pants.
“I know.” Garou plucks the cigar from his mouth like he’s ripping the bud from a flower. His white skin is tanned and a little wind-chapped like he’s been out on the water all day, though he looks freshly groomed as ever. “Any idea why?”
Kremy’s fingers curl hard in his lap. “I met with the Bowens boys about supplying to them. Been meeting with lots of folk. But you gave your blessing; said I was free and clear to manage the Garden District however I saw fit. And I’ll make the customary tithe soon as it comes in.”
“I know you will.” Garou looks at the cigar carefully before putting it back in his mouth. “You’ve got a new boy working for you.” He laughs around the cigar with a huff of dark smoke. “Sorry. A new man.”
The very tip of Kremy’s tail curls up taut, and he fights against the wary pull of his inner eyelids. “Figured some protection would be prudent, these kinda meetings.”
“Big ol’ slab of genasi, way’s I hear it. Not much meat, though, on them bones.”
Genasi. Gideon had had to explain it to him, which he did, finally, but only in his tossed-out kind of way like he was almost hoping Kremy wouldn’t hear. Half human, half fire elemental, an Efreet, he called it, and he pretty much left it at that. Kremy trusts whatever more there is to say will come in time. Gideon’s like that, he’s found. And like a damn minnow, Kremy stays hooked on every offered word.
“He’s underfed, but fillin’ out good. Strong as a bull already. I’ll have him up to fightin’ weight in no time.”
Garou laughs again, too slow and staccato for it to sound real. “Nursing him. Like a pet.”
Kremy shrugs. “Like an investment. He’s got that loyal streak in him. Grateful, y’know. That’s worth a lot to me.” One corner of his broad mouth tugs toward a grin. “The strength is icing.”
“Plannin’ to keep him around, then.”
For the first time, Garou’s eyes lift toward his. Amber flickers in them like flame, and in the back of his mind, Kremy hears the thud of drums, the low, reedy bray of a dark bassoon. There’s always a snare in those swamps, no matter how shallow, no matter how sure he is he’s learned the way. He just has to find it.
“Long’s he proves useful, sure.”
“Maybe I oughta have him sign a contract.”
Kremy stiffens. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be drafting one of my own.”
“Mm.” Garou sits back, and his face falls into shadow. “We’ll see.” He gestures with an empty hand. “Go ahead and smoke, I know you want to.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He pulls the long silver cigarette handle from his inner pocket first and fits it between his teeth before going for his cigarettes. A moment too late, he catches the look on Garou’s face, and knows, he just knows, Garou recognizes it as a gift.
A gift from Gideon.
“Maybe not just a pet,” Garou murmurs, and Kremy’s whole body burns with shame.
He pulls the empty holder from his mouth. “Actually,” he drawls, “I just remembered an appointment I have soon. So if there’s nothing else you’re needing from me . . .”
A single hard look from Garou and Kremy knows he can see everything. Golden eyes that follow Gideon a moment too long as he slinks off across the bar to where a group of giggling women have been watching him. Kremy’s claws when they tangled in the fabric of Gideon’s shirt while Gid pressed him against the alley wall. The nights he’s stood and smoked on the balcony, far too late, watching the streets for a man who won’t return, not for hours yet, sometimes days.
“Mind you don’t get in over your head,” Garou says. “I taught you better’n that, and he needs you sharp.”
Kremy swallows down the sudden bitter taste on his tongue. “Yes, sir.”
“‘Course, you’re always welcome back in the fold. Always got use for you.” He glances up from the papers he’d been reaching for. “You and your new man both.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
He flicks his fingers in dismissal. “Oh, and your tithe came up short. Watch that next time.”
Kremy stumbles from the office, and can’t gulp down fresh air fast enough away from Garou’s presence. Just a few years out on his own, and he’d already forgotten the rules. There was only one way to keep Garou from wanting something of yours. Only one way not to owe him.
The only way was not to want it yourself.
He takes a cigarette from his case—no holder this time—and fumbles a few times with his lighter to get it lit. A sudden memory, much too sharp, of Gideon’s hand closing over his own on the lighter and pushing it down, that hand so heavy, so warm, the embers in Gideon’s eyes so bright behind heavy eyelids. Then he was lighting his cigarette for him with a spark on his fingertip, mouth curling with the naughtiness of a secret now shared.
Genasi. Kremy thinks he was right the first time with the ‘devil’ part. That mouth, those eyes, that flame could convince anyone to sell their soul.
Kremy takes a deep breath in, and can almost taste that pure fire once more as smoke fills his lungs.
Just a taste. Just a wishful thought. It’ll have to be enough.
He smokes until his heart stops pounding, then heads out to the usual bar to meet Gideon.