She was down a few sen and preparing to take a particularly prune-faced old geezer for a tocat or two when a matched set of cops lifted their boots in her direction. “Dellaria Wells?”
Delly looked about herself like she was looking forward to seeing some other silly old creature getting taken away in chains. The officer nearest her leaned in and grabbed her by the wrist. “Dellaria Wells,” he said, “I am arresting you in the name of the First Headman.”
Delly said, “Well, shit.” Then she used a bit of magic and set her own skirt on fire.
The resulting conflagration was large enough to startle, amaze, and generally annoy the arresting officers, but not large enough to facilitate any escaptionary maneuvers. There was some shouting and hopping about, and then some helpful citizen of the fair republic tossed a glass of beer over Dellaria’s person, which served very well to extinguish both the flames and Delly’s hopes of sleeping in her own bed tonight. She gave the cops a smile. “Horribly sorry, fellas, only that just always happens to me when my nerves are on edge. Nervous flaming is what it is.”
“Right,” said the taller of the two fellows, and gave her a bit more of a shake than Delly thought was really needful before marching her off at a lockupwardly slant.
2
Wherein Dellaria Talks Herself Out of a Situation That Was Really Entirely Her Own Fault in the First Instance, and Establishes a Prospect
This entire day had really gone balls up at a canter. Delly was impressed with herself. In all of her history of turnip-headedness, she didn’t know that she had ever fucked up so badly as to have gotten herself arrested before an early supper. Fortunately, what she did have was a whole sea of experience in talking herself right back out of the same shit she’d gotten herself into in the first place, and so she set herself to that task with all the energy she could muster.
“You’ve brought in the wrong woman, gents,” she said. “How could I ever have melted a chandelier in a bank when I was being interviewed for a domestic position up on Elmsedge at the time the crime was being committed?”
“How could anyone who wasn’t a damn thieving fire witch have melted the damn chandelier in the first place, you silly tit?” asked the warden, whom Dellaria suspected of harboring paternalistic feelings toward her person. He had, after all, practically raised her, considering all the time she’d spent in here before her age of majority. “And what the hell sort of domestic position could you be interviewing for? They want a girl around to drink them dry and make the house dirtier than it was to start with?”
“Those are hurtful words, sir,” Delly said. “Very wounding indeed. And here my poor self had been thinking that I was practically a daughter to your honorable self, sir.”
“Oh, shove it up your ass, Dellaria,” the warden said, fatherly-like. Then he said, “And what was the position, then? Go on, I want to hear it.”
“It was a bodyguarding position, sir,” Delly said. “At 332 Barrow Street, to be exact about it.”
The address, at least, caught the warden off his guard a little. Delly wasn’t usually too keen on providing verifiable facts to her interlocutors. “What the hell would they want with you for a bodyguard?”
“They were looking for women of a wizardly persuasion,” Delly said, with dignity. “To guard a lady in her matrimonial seclusion. And they’re expecting to speak to me again tomorrow, so you might as well let me go now and get on with finding the actual criminal.”
The warden dragged a skeptical eye up one side of her and then back down the other. Then he said, “We’ll just see about that, Delly Wells,” and removed himself from her presence.
Delly spent a few fruitful hours scowling at the ceiling, picking at her nails, and trying to teach herself to make miniature fireworks as she’d seen a fire witch doing once at a carnival. Maybe if she learned to do it well enough she’d be able to take up a life in the theater with her old pal Elo, which would provide her with a steady income and a reason to stay out of the fucking clink for once in her fucking life. Instead, she only succeeded in filling her cell with smoke, and she was pressing her face up to the bars to cough when a Lady appeared.
She was a very distinguished-looking Lady, thin and straight-backed, with a nose like an opinionated pelican and her white hair in a neat Hexian crop. “I’ve been told,” said the Lady, in milk-souring tones, “that you have been bandying about the address of my employer in an attempt to extricate yourself from your current state of imprisonment.”
Delly blinked. Then she said, in her most refined and least West Leiscourt accent, “There must be some kind of a misunderstanding, madam. I only meant to inform his honor the warden that I had the intention of presenting myself as a candidate for the position of bodyguard to your particularly honorable self’s distinguished employer, madam.”
They were both quiet for a spell, possibly stymied at having met another person with the same circumnavigatory habits of speech as themselves. Delly took a big breath of smoke, then gave a delicate hack.
The Lady frowned. “Did you produce all of this smoke?”
“Might it so,” Delly said—she was still coughing—and then winced at herself and started again. “That I did, madam. In fruitless pursuit of the production of fireworks, madam.” Then she added, by way of explanation, “I’m a fire witch, madam, which is why I wanted to present myself to yourself in search of a position guarding your employer, madam. I had intended on making my way to Elmsedge for the interview tomorrow morning, madam.”
“My name is Magister Fentan,” said the Lady. “You may address me as Magister. Why on earth would I be willing to interview a criminal for a position in my employer’s household, Miss Wells?”
“If I might beg your pardon, Magister,” Delly said, “I’m only a very petty criminal, but I’m a rare excellent fire witch, and we ain’t so very thickly strewn upon the local thoroughfares, Magister. It might be that having useful and steady employment would deter me from the path of wickedness I set upon at an early age due to the dreadfully neglectful behaviors of my mother and father, Magister, who abandoned me in the coal scuttle of a public house when I was a mere infant, Magister. Also, if any brigand were to attempt to shoot or stab your employer, I would be able to melt the weapon before any harm could be done, which I imagine would be of a great comfort to her elevated self, Magister.”
Magister Fentan looked at her consideringly. Then she pulled a pair of nail scissors from her pocket, handed them to Delly, and said, “Show me.”
Delly put the scissors into her palm and concentrated a bit harder than she needed to, then watched as the scissors melted, puddled in her hand, then trickled through her fingers and fell in droplets upon the floor. It tickled a mite.