27. Songbird in a cage

Gold, as it soon became clear, was a problem easily solved. Solen and Lark had murmured of a job that would surely bring in the coin, a job that Ada was to accompany Solen on the following afternoon. Solen seemed confident in her plan, the details of which remained concealed beneath hushed breaths and shifting eyes. All that emerged was that the next day appeared to be less of a trial for gold, and more a test of Ada's loyalty. A taste of her resolve.

Ada tried not to dwell on what job was so probable to supply the self-proclaimed bandits with gold, but her heartbeat faltered when Solen emerged later that evening with a bandolier of silver knives, each blade larger than the one before. With dainty fingertips, she drew out a square of silk from her trouser pocket and began to polish the knives' glinting edges.

Raeph had stolen away when the shadows had crept like sea tides through the taproom. There hadn't been a whisper of his footsteps climbing the staircase when he left, as though the man had mapped the house for every creak and clatter. He had simply disappeared like smoke drawn to dusk, and Lark's later grumbles that he was labouring too hard these past nights suggested Raeph had left the house altogether. That, at least, loosened the knots down Ada's spine.

It hadn't taken long for Lark to move his complaints onto other matters, rubbing his hands across his stomach and insisting that he had never known such hunger in all his life. Solen had simply rolled her eyes, a newly polished blade flickering in the candlelight as she pointed out they had eaten stew not five hours ago.

Even so, Lark had charged off ten minutes later, returning with a disgruntled Armestrong and a book of matches for the hearth. Armestrong must have prepared for their supper earlier that day, as a plucked and trussed pigeon hung from her arm. Ada thought of the soot strewn streets of outer Wysthaven, and decided not to ask where they had caught it.

Armestrong kept her gaze reigned in on the bird as she filleted it, her patchwork dress in colourful conflict with her clouded eyes. Lark, too, seemed to struggle to find his voice. Despite the smile he had offered Ada that afternoon, the boy now kept a subtle distance. He tiptoed around Ada, not quite in fear, but with a distinct unease that rippled beneath his stiffened limbs.

He relaxed a little after he pulled a strange instrument from beneath the bar, its shape something like a lute, but with a head that twisted in and around itself, blooming at the top like a posey of chiselled carnations. He perched back down on his stool, Solen a sprawled buffer between himself and Ada, and began to play.

The melancholic tune that shivered from the strings did not match Lark's boyish features. There was a sorrow that clung to each note as it sank into the air and sighed of a hardened heartache. It was beautiful; so much more resonant than the fiddle Ada's father would bring out on Christmas Eve, or the keys of splendid pianos that would drift over a neighbour's window boxes on lazy Sunday mornings.

The fire beneath the warming skillet hissed faintly in time, and when Lark had finished, Solen hummed in appreciation, running silk over silver even as her eyelids softly shuttered.

"That was lovely," Ada said, watching the young man whose fingers had not yet left his strings.

Lark lifted his bright eyes to hers, his stare unwavering for a handful of stuttering seconds. Whatever he found upon her face, he seemed content with, because his lips tilted up once more at Ada and he gracefully bowed his head.

Their meal was a sober affair. Lark dragged a table out from a dusty corner and arranged it with chipped plates and dulled silverware. They each sat on a wooden stool, though Ada silently cursed her choice as one of the whittled legs below her wobbled precariously on the uneven floorboards. Raeph did not return to eat.

Solen carved the single pigeon and served it between the four of them. It was stained a rich purple from what Ada could only guess to be beetroot, for its flavour had been lost to vast quantities of shredded tarragon. Ada thought of Min as she ate, wondering when the young girl had last eaten anything heartier than nettle soup and crackers.

They all cleared the table after they were done, Ada following Solen as she stacked their empty plates and drifted towards the sink. She seemed lost in thought, caught in the same reverie borne from Lark's solemn tune. Ada hesitated, debating whether she should take the quiet moment to ask about tomorrow's plans. But before she could decide, Lark approached Solen, murmuring to her in a quiet and cryptic voice.

They Ada left alone by the sink, the rushing of the water matching the blood pulsing around her head. An ache was forming behind her temples as she stared down the murky drain. Her mind felt as distant as Solen's mysterious scheme and her stomach was already turning itself over. She felt like the pigeon within a den of hungry foxes.

But her thoughts lingered on Min, the girl who had already faced such hardship within this city and yet still struggled towards a brighter future. Perhaps that was the same future these bandits were promising; a place in which a child's magic would be nurtured, not starved into submission. It was a world of freedom. A world braced with wings.

"You're wasting water," scolded a gruff voice that caused Ada to stumble backwards into the bar. She winced as splintered mahogany stuck into her side, but Armestrong bustled past her and wrenched the tap shut.

The woman busied herself with the dishes, ignoring Ada as she grabbed a bar of discoloured soap and began to scrub at the purple-tinged plates. Her lips were sewn into a tight line, her eyes focused unwaveringly upon the washing.

The kindly woman who had freed Ada from the attic seemed like some distorted dream. The red that now rosied Armestrong's cheeks wasn't the same shade it had been when she had brought her homemade stew, nor when she had smuggled berries to Min. But Ada refused to believe that such a spirit could be so easily lost.

"I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear I wasn't fae when we met. I didn't mean you any harm—"

Armestrong didn't let her finish. "Apologies are useless. There are histories and tales you have never heard of. Things that entwine us, but only serve to push you and your kind further away. Your being here will only bring misery to my friends, to my family." She spoke with words that spilt in murky sluices like suds inside the sink.

"Then, perhaps you can teach me. It's true that I don't know anything about your world, but I do want to help you." Armestrong snorted at Ada's entreaty. "I want to contact a girl. A young child who helped me named Min."

Armestrong stilled, her lips scarcely parting as she asked, "How do you know that name?"

"Min found me when I... arrived here. Honestly, I think she may have saved me. She said that I could help her in return, and I now want to. She was so kind to me, and the least I can do is try to keep her safe too."

Armestrong did not reply, her expression giving little away as she rubbed her fingertips raw against the chipped silverware.

"I know I'm in no position to ask you for a favour. But I think we're both the same in our hope to protect Min." Ada thought of the child, and of the last distant cry she had heard before falling unconscious in that tattered caravan. "I was last with her in the Este Lyceum. Please, if you can, tell her that I'm not injured. And tell her that I will try to help her, in whatever way I can. She deserves that much."

Armestrong took a long time to consider Ada's words, her hands sketching circle after circle in the tepid dishwater. When Ada could no longer take the silence, she picked up a cloth from the bartop and moved to the woman's side. A dripping fork lay discarded by the sink, and Ada began to dry it in the dim light.

"Min is just a child. She did not ask to be born with power, and she does not deserve to be caught up in this mess," Armestrong said, her voice so low that Ada barely caught her words.

Ada set down a plate. She had never paused to consider just how great a rupture she may have torn within the young girl's life; a life of bitter truths and a city rallied against her.

"Why does her father let her run around Wysthaven, then? Would it not be safer to keep her close, away from the Hounds, I mean?" Ada asked.

Armestrong breathed a sigh and, for a moment, there was a glimmer of the woman Ada had first met. "A songbird trapped within a cage will quickly lose its tune. If Florentin kept Min within that caravan of his —if he took away her freedom to roam— then how would he be any better than the rest of this damned city?"