“Hey!” Rolan shouted.
Luc raised his hand to Rolan, quieting him, as the red-bearded man slunk away, the sour expression never leaving his face. In moments the street was empty again.
“That was rude,” Rolan said.
“Let it go,” Luc said. “Come, we’re almost…”
He paused, his grizzled head tilting as he studied something on the wall of the Confessory. There was a paper stuck there, and Rolan realized that’s what the people had been gathered around.
Luc ripped it down, his brows lowering.
“What is it?” asked Rolan.
The Arcanist’s lips pressed together as he scanned the paper. Then he balled it up and stuffed it into his pocket. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
“It’snotnothing! Whatever it is, it made you grumpy. Well, grumpi-er.”
But Luc would say no more. He strode off, quickening his pace and forcing Rolan to run to keep up.
Then Luc hooked a right, walking toward a large iron gate with guards stationed on either side, and the limits of Rolan’s imagination were stretched near to a breaking point.
“Your brother lives in the duke’s palace?” Rolan asked, watching wide eyed as the guards averted their gazes and made way for Luc to pass through. They didn’t ask for so much as his name. His scarred rock of a face was apparently identification enough.
Once through the gate, Rolan gazed upon Duke Benhald’s palace for the first time. Even at his most daring, he’d never attempted to scale the walls and pluck a trinket or two fromthisplace. In the afternoon sun the grounds sparkled like velvet, the grass trimmed within an inch of its life, ponds and fountains in precise rectangles flickering with fish and swans. A wide, graveled avenue led across this paradise to a massive building of gray stone. The ducal palace itself.
Rolan had spied its gabled rooftops before, barely visible over the high wall. The walls were even more spectacular, with turrets spiking off every corner and gargoyles keeping watch from the eaves. There had to be hundreds of rooms inside, judging by the number of windows. Rolan didn’t need his newfound math skills to guess at that.
And of course, there were lamps. Lampseverywhere.Probably as many as in the whole of Crisanth. Even at midnight, the place had to shine as brightly as noon. They marched tall along the paths, hung over every window, clung to the walls, and dotted the doorways. And even in daylight, they were lit.
“Luc,” Rolan said slowly, his voice sticking to his throat, “is your brother… the duke?”
Luc gave him one, brief glance, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Rolan swallowed, digesting this new information and finding it didn’t quite agree with him, for some reason. His stomach curdled.
All his life, the duke had represented the one thing that every criminal—or criminal’s son—in Crisanth feared:justice.
Notrealjustice, of course. Real justice was a warm bed and a full belly and not a care in the world, because when it all came down to it, what wasreallyso wrong about stealing a baguette that a baker was going to throw out anyway?
No, the duke representedthe duke’sjustice, and the duke’s justice said that boys born to criminal fathers were doomed to no good end—and were probably better off locked up. At least, that had always been Hoff’s interpretation.
Well. At least in all their tramping through the city today, they hadn’t had the misfortune of running into Hoff.
Sometimes, you had to cling to life’s smallest mercies.
“We won’t be here long,” Luc said, his tone slightly softened. Perhaps he’d noticed Rolan’s unease. He even reined in his stride a bit, so Rolan could walk alongside him without having to jog. “It’s easier to pick up our supplies from here rather than visit each individual shopkeeper. They aren’t all as welcoming as our apothecary friend.”
“Oh, she’sourfriend now, is she?” Rolan asked, grinning.
Luc made a rumbling sound deep in his throat. “That’s not what I—forget it. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Actually, you sort ofdohave to explain yourself to me. That’s sort ofthe whole pointof having an apprentice, isn’t it?”
Luc’s growl deepened, and he pushed Rolan through the doorway that rose ahead of them, and into the duke’s palace.
Rolan gaped openly. The interior was even more awe inspiring than the outside, with plush carpets that gave like moss beneath Rolan’s boots. Paintings hung on the wall, so realistic they might have been windows. Rolan ran a finger along a tapestry until Luc curled his lip at him in warning.
“Don’t touch anything. You’ll leave dirt for some poor servant to take the blame for.”
