There’s also a closet, tucked into one corner, and because of the shape of the servants’ kitchen on the other side, it happens to be very narrow and deep. It’s like a little tunnel that doesn’t go anywhere, lined with wooden shelves holding my clothes, beautiful silk kizen and more casual embroidered robes. Squeeze past those, and there’s a pile of spare bedding, folded mats and blankets. Squeeze behind those, I discovered, and there’s a little nook at the very back, a soft, secret nest of threadbare blankets and pillows. It’s a perfect place to keep things you don’t want anyone to find.
I take off my kizen, unwinding the knot and the long sash at my waist, and fold it carefully for the maids to clean. Working my way back to the secret nest raises clouds of dust, and I rub my nose to stifle a sneeze. In among the ancient blankets, there’s a chest, a battered old thing I’d rescued when Narzo the gardener was going to put it out for the dustmen. I flip the lid and pull out another set of clothes—rough trousers, a linen shirt, a leather jacket, a big lopsided cap.
I can’t actually pass for a boy anymore, not up close, but I’m a lot less likely to draw attention like this than shuffling along in a silk kizen. I dress quickly, and take a few moments to pin my hair—which normally falls well below my waist—into a tight bun before pulling the cap over it.
I don’t like lying to Ofalo. But he’d never let me out of the house without an escort, let alone allow me to visit the lower wards. Isoka pays him well to keep me safe, and I love her for it, but sometimes this place makes me want to scream. Not that I would ever tell her that, of course, after all she’s done for me. So I lie, and I try not to get caught.
It’s easier than it looks. For me, anyway. In the dark, quiet space at the back of the closet, I close my eyes and let my thoughts open. The house comes alive around me, full of bright, humming minds, and I can see every one.
* * *
I can’t read thoughts.
It’s not like reading at all, really. I don’t have words for what it’s like, because how can you explain that to someone? It’s a little like seeing, a little like hearing, a little like tasting or smelling or feeling something press against your skin. And not like any of that at all.
It took me a long time to realize what I could do—what I was. I don’t remember exactly when my power came to me, but it was before Isoka got us off the streets, when I was six or seven. (Later, I would learn this is unusually young for mage-bloods, who more frequently come into their abilities in their early teens.) At that age, I just accepted it as a fact of life, like the cold and the hunger. I could look at people and see what they were feeling, hear the pitch of their emotions, sharp, tangy anger or despair like a cold breath across the back of your neck. I could tell, sometimes, when someone was lying to me. I could feel Isoka’s pain, and how much she loved me, the diamond-hard weight of her determination.
When her own abilities came, she made me promise never to tell anyone, ever, about what she could do, and I felt the barely restrained terror in her mind. Not long after, she brought me here, and told me I was going to live with Ofalo, the tutors, and the maids, and that she’d visit as often as she could. I cried, but I could feel how much she was hurting, too.
It wasn’t until my tutors were hurrying me through my basic education, making up for lost time, that I learned to put a name to my power. Kindre, the Well of Mind, one of the Nine Wells of Sorcery. I read what I could about it, but there wasn’t much to find. Kindre mage-bloods are so rare as to be practically legendary, with decades passing between each new user, and scholars are constantly speculating that it will become the next Lost Well. The stories about what it can do vary widely.
Whether my power makes me merely a talent or a full adept, I have no idea. As much as I can, I try to avoid it. Aside from the practical reasons—if the Immortals found out what I was, they’d drag me away to serve the Emperor—it just feels wrong. It’s a violation, intruding into other people’s most private spaces, like having the ability to see through everyone’s clothes or read their diaries.
Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t have many other options.
It’s not like I’m trying to look inside anyone, not really. I just need to see where they are, and a little bit about what they’re paying attention to, so I can get by them. It’s not reading a diary, it’s just noticing where the diary is.
I have a feeling Isoka would laugh at my little sophistries.
From the back of the closet, I can feel three servants chatting in the kitchen, a maid in the hall checking the lamps, a watchman in his covered booth on the roof. The last is of most concern to me, but his post faces the main entrance, not the back, and his mind already has the oily patina of drink.
I squeeze back past the folded mats and into my room. A large window overlooks the narrow strip of grass, between this side of the house and the wall, split by a gravel path leading to the rear gardens. It’s real glass, smoked for privacy, and it hinges up and out. Checking one more time to make sure the watchman isn’t looking this way, I climb up onto the sill, turn around, and carefully lower myself down, grass tickling my bare feet.
I keep my boots here, tucked behind a bush against the wall, so as not to tip anyone off with mud stains on the floor mats. They’re big, stompy boots, hard leather with steel plates around the toe. I love these boots. Perversely, there’s something freeing about them—wearing the soft shoes that accompany a kizen, I don’t dare step off of the groomed paths, but in these boots I can go anywhere. I tie them up with mounting excitement, and use a long stick to push the window mostly shut.
That’s the easy part. The hard part is the outer wall, nearly ten feet high and topped with a decorative iron railing. Fortunately, not far from my window there’s an old willow tree, its bent branches hanging low to provide easy handholds. This wall faces the lane between my estate and Lady Amfala’s, and the wall is more a notional defense than a real one. Still, it’s a scramble, and I swing one leg over and take hold of the railing before dropping down.
What makes it tricky isn’t the height, it’s the watchers. The guard on our own roof is mostly for show, but there are other minds watching the house at night. Sometimes one, sometimes two or three, perched in a tree across the lane or crouching in a shadowy corner. Their focused attention stands out to my Kindre senses, strobing blue and peppermint.
They work for Isoka, I think. She doesn’t trust Ofalo. I guess she doesn’t trust anyone. I feel a little bad about fooling them, since they’re only trying to protect me, but once again I don’t have any other options. There are two of them tonight, and I watch their minds, timing my ascent for when their attention is elsewhere.
I must have made some unexpected noise, because I can feel one of them look back in my direction just as I cross the wall. I react automatically, reaching out to the distant watcher’s mind. It’s only a tiny push, honestly, a wash of fatigue and boredom. I feel the observer yawn, and their attention slips over me, like ice sliding across a hot griddle.
Yuck. Touching someone’s mind like that is … urgh. Imagine sticking your hand in a fresh, steaming pile of horse turds in the street. I want to withdraw my senses as quickly as I can, but I don’t dare stop watching the watchers, not until I’m clear of the house. Fortunately, the lane is empty, just a narrow dirt track with high walls on both sides, leading back to the rear garden gates. I slip out along it to the main road, a broader, winding thoroughfare slashed with wheel ruts. Two torches burn by the entrance to the main drive, but nothing marks this little back way, and I sneak off without anyone the wiser.