Chapter 131: The Kettle

The note came at dawn, tied to the leg of a grey pigeon that landed on the ropewalk roof and walked straight up to Aren.

Kip, the water boy, had been on the roof since first light, pretending to mend a net and watching him sideways, and he didn’t come any closer while Aren untied it.

"Brother Coin’s birds," the boy told him from the net. "I was told never to touch one. They fly from Aurem in a single night. Nobody knows how they find people."

The handwriting was large and cheerful, and it took up most of the slip.

The Kettle, on the fish docks. Noon. Give Auntie the second one. You owe it to me. C.

The pill was still heavy in the silk twist under his shirt.

The Kettle had been a bathhouse once. It stood at the end of the fish docks with its back to the harbor wall, a low building of green tile with a copper dome gone blue with age, and a line of people waited outside it in the sun.

The first thing Aren noticed was that none of them were poor. There was a ship’s mate in Sarkhane colors, a merchant with rings on four fingers, a lady in grey silk with a maid holding a parasol over her, two men from the customs house in their coats. They stood in a quiet line along the tiled wall, not talking to each other, and every one of them held a small purse.

Reyna was waiting by the door.

"Don’t eat or drink anything she gives you."

"Who are they?"

"Customers." She held the door for him. "Every one of them owes the House, and every one of them took a sweet from Auntie once, with their tea."

Inside, the old bath was still there, an empty pool of cracked blue tile with steps going down into it and benches around the edge. At the far end, beside a small stove with a copper kettle steaming on it, sat an old woman in a black shawl, knitting.

Her feet didn’t reach the floor. She had a soft wrinkled face like an apple left too long in a bowl, white hair in a bun, and a smile with three teeth missing that made her eyes nearly disappear.

[Auntie Kettle. Rank B. Hostility: 2%.]

’Two percent. She likes me. That’s worse.’

The lady in grey silk held out her purse. Auntie weighed it in her small hand without opening it, and smiled.

"Two hundred, dear. Lovely!" She put down her knitting, poured a little hot water from the kettle into a cup, dropped a brown leaf into it from a jar at her elbow, and handed it up. "There. See you next month."

The lady drank it standing up, in one swallow, and her shoulders came down a little. She went out without a word.

The merchant with the rings came next. His purse was lighter, and Auntie’s smile didn’t change at all.

"A hundred and sixty."

"The cargo was late, Auntie! I swear on my children, next month..."

"I know, dear. It happens." She poured the cup, and dropped in a leaf, and then took a pair of scissors from her knitting bag and cut the leaf neatly in half before she let it sink. "There. You’ll be sick for two days. Next month, bring it all." She patted his hand. "Off you go."

He drank it with his eyes shut, and went out.

’A poison that never ends, and a cure that lasts a month.’

"The Servant." Auntie held out her small hand. "Brother Coin says you are interesting, and he is usually right."

Aren took the silk twist out of his shirt and put it in her palm.

The cold weight lifted off his chest at once.

[Debt: 1 crown. Paid in full.]

’Worst trade of both my lives. And I made it on purpose.’

’What it buys is Brother Coin’s eye. A man who pays twelve thousand to clear one crown gets his name read in Aurem, and every road to those wagons runs through Aurem.’

"Lovely." Auntie tucked the pill into her knitting bag, between the balls of wool. "Twelve thousand crowns for one crown. That’s good interest, even for us. Sit down, dear. You’ll have some tea."

She was already pouring, and behind him he felt Reyna go stiff.

The cup Auntie held out was thin white china with a blue flower on it, and the tea in it was pale gold and smelled of honey. The brown leaves in the jar at her elbow were the antidote; he had watched her hand them out. For his cup she had reached past it, into a small jar of sweets on the other side of the stove.

"Debt Candy," Reyna said behind him, under her breath.

’A sweet with your tea. Everyone in that line took one.’

’Refuse and I’m the one man in this city she can’t hold. Drink and I’m one more purse in the line.’ He looked at the cup. ’And if it goes wrong, the worst case is a monthly fee out of four thousand.’

He took the cup and drank it.

It was good tea. The sweetness went down warm, and a moment later he felt it arrive under his ribs, small and patient, settling in to wait.

Then the Scar on the left of his chest woke, cold and hungry, and the small patient thing was gone.

[Familiar of Nothing has fed.]

Aren kept his face blank, with the honey still on his tongue, and put the cup back on her saucer.

"Thank you, Auntie."

"You’re welcome, dear." She looked delighted. "First of every month, two hundred crowns. You will get used to it. Everyone does."

’I’ll pay it anyway, every month, for a cure I don’t need, with a grateful face. The day I stop paying is the day she knows.’ He let his shoulders drop a little, like the lady in grey.

Footsteps came down the bath steps behind him.

Teeth came first, smiling. Behind him came two small, neat, dark-skinned people of about thirty, a man and a woman so alike that Aren could tell them apart only by the woman’s earring. They walked in step, and as they sat down on the bench by the empty pool, the man moved two fingers against the woman’s palm.

"The Twins," Auntie told him. "Ilo and Ama. They make the locks for every bank in this city, and the keys for us." She smiled at Teeth. "And you’ve met Teeth."

[Ilo. Rank C. Hostility: 30%.]

[Ama. Rank C. Hostility: 30%.]

"We’ve met," Teeth said.

Auntie held up a small iron key on a ribbon round her wrist. "Five Hands keep this city for Brother Coin, dear, and each one carries a key like this from the Twins, with his own mark filed near the bow, so any House key I find tells me whose it is." She picked up her knitting again. "Brother Coin asked me to find out what you’re for. Teeth would like me to find out tonight."

"Send him back where he came from." Teeth didn’t take his eyes off Aren. "A man with no debt has no leash."

"He has a leash now, dear." Auntie smiled at the empty cup. "He drank his tea like a good boy."

Teeth looked at the cup, and then at Aren. Something in his face relaxed.

[Teeth. Hostility: 88% → 86%.]

’He thinks I’m on the hook. Good. Men who think they’ve won stop watching.’

The Twins were looking at Aren. The woman with the earring tapped her brother’s palm three times, and he answered with one finger.

Auntie put it into words without being asked. "They’ve heard about the Veil box. Walked in and out through iron, they say, and left nothing behind but two sleepy men. So they’ve built you a box with no door. It has never been opened, and they built it so it never will be." Her needles clicked. "It stands in the cellar under the silk warehouse. Open it tonight, before midnight, and you can choose your own place in my house."

"And if I can’t?"

"Then Teeth will walk you back to your ship," Auntie said comfortably. "He’s good at walking people places."

Teeth smiled at him, and all the iron showed.

Aren stood up and was at the door when the old woman called after him.

"Oh, and Servant?"

He turned round.

"First of the month," Auntie said, without looking up from her knitting. "Don’t be late. It gets so unpleasant when people are late."

"I won’t be, Auntie."

He went out past the quiet line of people with their purses, into the noon sun.

Reyna fell in beside him and didn’t speak until they were well along the fish docks.

"You drank it."

"It was good tea."

She studied him sideways, with no expression at all.

"Three people in eleven years have drunk her tea on purpose," she said at last. "Two of them are dead."

"The third one is Teeth."