‘Maybe not,’ Belltoller says. ‘Why is your father not here though?’
‘Because he respects our boundaries,’ Skinpainter cuts in. ‘Fallon can take a cue.’
‘Maybe that,’ Quickfish nods, surprising himself. ‘But he doesn’t know I’m here.’ He smiles, ‘Wouldn’t like it, I suspect.’
Belltoller smiles back. A half-moon, but a smile. She leans towards him. ‘Just you. All this way?’
Quickfish turns. ‘And Roofkeeper. My partner.’ He blushes, a little.
Icecaller makes kissy faces again.
Belltoller’s eyebrows raise. ‘It’s a long way. And we have made it clear that we do not welcome visitors.’
Quickfish nods, ‘Yep. I got that. Lots of spears. Lots of warnings.’ He straightens a little. ‘But it’s my mum. And there’s nothing else. Nowhere else.’
Belltoller taps her fingers on the haft of something beneath her robes. Glances at Kinghammer, Skinpainter, then the Deadsingers.
‘Fine.’
Kinghammer looks at her, and even Quickfish catches the flash of surprise, like a salmon in a river. It’s gone quickly. Caught and beaten on the rock of his expression. Icecaller takes a second longer, but the grin she shoots him is wild. No one saw this coming.
Kinghammer senses the momentum, and rolls with it. ‘Well, if Bell is willing, so am I. I’ve been waiting for your mother to come collect for a long time.’ He pauses. ‘It figures she’d find some awkward way to do it.’
Quickfish breathes, a little. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’
Kinghammer raises a hand. ‘We’re not done, lad. There’s more than me here.’
He looks at Ice and she shrugs.
There’s a pause then. Mutterings from the higher seats as the folk of Thell confer among themselves. Quickfish knows that noises. Notsold. Not yet. He doesn’t know what’s needed though. That panic flutters again.
Below Kinghammer, Skinpainter stretches. Offers a small wrapped twist to the Deadsingers. A sweet? Now? Quickfish almost laughs, but watches as the leftmost takes it. Pockets it. The pair turn to Quick, twin heads sliding like owls on a farmhouse gate.
The sisters speak as one, spider-soft, fluting. ‘Your father was a good man.’
Skinpainter’s voice is loud in the silence. ‘Is. You addled hags.’
They ignore the interruption. ‘Your father was a good man, and your mother was the grey of the sea. She was the sword unsheathed and the hawk of morning. Your father is a good man, and he is the heart of dusk. He is the lord of fire and brass. Your mother is the gold of dawn, and she is the song restitching itself.’
They wait. They seem to expect a response.
Quickfish has nothing. Nothing but the image of a dream, and the logic of that dream fading faster than he can hold it.
The Deadsingers laugh, a hollow, stripped little sound that scurries between them. ‘And you, beggar-child, you are twilight, the gold not yet burnt and the fire not yet dimmed, you are theedge of the blade and the untipped coin. And you come here! To the city that sings blood to blood and death to death, you come here asking us to wake the dawn, to call your mother like the chorus again?’
There’s enough for Quickfish to hang onto, and so he replies, ‘Yes. Please. Help her, if you can.’
The Singers glance at each other. ‘Help is an unlocking of the sealed door. Help is adding a new voice to the chorus and hoping for harmony. Help is calling to the dark, and hoping the sun remembers.’
Their eyes flicker over his face, to Skinpainter, and back. ‘We will help, if we can. We will see if we remember the songs to wake the dawn. We will sing them if the rest of the chorus permits.’
They glance upwards at the serried ranks of the council chamber, where the people of Thell watch and wait. There is a muttering again, the low thrum of the body politic deciding upon itself, more dissonant now. Quickfish knows that sound too, strands of persuasion weaving themselves into once hardened hearts. He allows himself a splinter of hope, sharp and bright. Just some other little push needed.
Consternation flits over Kinghammer’s face again, unexpected developments. He leans in and mutters something to Ice, who laughs. Quickfish hangs onto that laugh. Maybe this is working.
As the murmur from the stalls subsides, the Deadsingers still watch him. A slow hiss builds behind their teeth like rain on the fields.
As Skinpainter rises, it deepens, before the warlock flashes a look to the pair, and the two old women tuck their heads to their chests, mumming and fumbling with the ribbons and beads about their necks.
