Downshadow

TWENTY-SEVEN

"That's the matter, child?" asked her patron over ale at the Knight 'n Shadow.

Fayne couldn't tell him the truth-didn't know the truth. She didn't understand the source of the discontented hollow in her chest. She thought she'd feel better with it done. But now…

They sat in the shadowy lower level, in the last hour before dawn. It would be darkest out now, or so the saying went, but the darkest time in Waterdeep occurred not in the city at all but below it, when the hunters of Downshadow returned from a night spent above, pillaging and raiding and doing what they loved best.

Fayne used to love this time, but now… she felt nothing but sadness. And anger.

"That damned dwarf stlarned it up." Her ale tasted sour-like goblin piss-and she pushed it aside. She gestured at a serving girl to bring wine. "I had Lady Dawnbringer-I had the situation fully in control and he just… damn!"

She slammed the heel of her palm down on the table. The loud bang attracted the notice of a few fellow drinkers, but her patron's magic made them look away. As for the man himself, he merely listened to her without speaking.

"No one was supposed to die," she said. "And she wasn't supposed to get any kind of vengeance. Her lover was supposed to leave her, not die." She scowled. "I'm glad that hrasting pisshole Rath got scarred-served him well for taking matters into his own hands."

Her patron watched her levelly, his easy smile betraying nothing. If he agreed or disagreed, she had no idea. She hated that about him, at times. With that face, he could bluff a dragon out of its hoard, or a god out of her powers. The bastard.

She hated feeling so weak when she sat across from him-hated the way he stared at her, weighing her, like both a prized horse and a petulant child.

That was the way Kalen had looked at her-as a child.

"My sweet?" her patron asked. Fayne looked up, startled. "What are you thinking about?"

"Only how I'm better than her? Fayne said, as much to herself as to her patron.

Though Fayne hadn't named her, her patron must have known who she meant: the bitch who styled herself Lady Nathalan. After what Fayne had done this night… well. At least Ilira Nathalan's anguished face should chase away Fayne's nightmares about that night eighty years gone.

"Ah." Her patron gazed at her closely. "And yet, something is amiss. What is it?"

"Naught." Fayne downed her bowl of wine and waved for another. "Tell me this, though-it was a brilliant plan, aye? If Rath hadn't come, I'd have ruined Lorien for her, right?"

She saw her patron's wry smile-saw his eyes glowing dimly in the light, as though he enjoyed some private jest. Now it was his turn to grow quiet. "What?" Fayne asked.

"Just reflecting," he said, "how like your mother you are."

Any other day, she'd have taken that for a grear compliment.

Fayne sniffed. "What do you mean?" she asked, false bravado in her voice. "That I am proud? Regal? Competitive? Perhaps"-she flipped her hair back-"beauriful?"

He waved a gloved hand and laughed once. "Why not?"

She glared across the table. "Speak plain, fate-spinner."

"As you wish," he said. "She was all those things and more, but she was also flawed. You have shown a similar weakness, but rather than frustrating, I find it endearing."

Fayne bristled. "My mother," she said, "had no weaknesses."

He shrugged, and she saw a quiet twinkle in his eye. "As you say."

Those three little words cut her legs out from under her. Thfey reminded her that she was just a foolish child who had never really known her mother-not as her patron had.

Sometimes, she truly and utterly hated this man. Loved him, of course, but hated him too.

P "If you're going to mock me, at least be plain," Fayne said. Her lip trembled.

"Very well," he said. "Your mother… if all did not go exactly as she had planned, victory was dust to her. I see the same drive in you, my sweet child."

"That's ridiculous," she said, her voice breaking. "I'm pleased. See how I-"

He reached across the table and laid a hand on hers, cutting off her words. She felt a fearsome heat in his fingers, as though fire coursed in his blood. She stared at him.

"In the end," he said, "did you not succeed at destroying herthis Lady Nathalan?"

The name struck her like a blow, but Fayne felt only a deep, irresistible sadness. "I–I suppose, yes, but-" Fayne wiped her cheeks. "Damn you, I'm pleased!"

"Then why are you crying?" he asked. She looked down, and there was a white kerchief in his dainty, perfect hand, the runes for L.V.T. stitched into the corner in red thread.

She ignored his handkerchief and wiped her nose with her hand. "It's not relevant," she said.

Illusions could hide tears, anyway.

"As you say." Her patron smiled patiently, his eyes unreadable. "Don't worry-folk do not change. Killer or hero, angel or whore, no one ever changes. We only wear different faces."

Fayne shivered. She fixed her patron with a cold glare. "You must really hate her."

"Who?" he asked, tucking his kerchief into his colorful doublet.

"Her." Fayne ground her teeth. Who else could she mean? The yellow-eyed whore-the woman who had destroyed her life-she who had taken the only thing she held dear in the world.

He was going to make her say it, she realized. Might as well accept it.

"Ilira," Fayne said, the name like bile in her mouth. "You must hate her as much as I do."

"Ah."

Fayne swore under her breath, remembering. She'd seen such pain on that damned face-and yet, it hadn't soothed her. Now she was not sure what to feel.

Her patron reached across the distance between them and laid a lithe hand against her cheek. She felt his awful heat over her scar-felt again the cutting bolt across her face.

"Do I hate her? No." His eyes were burning pits of molten gold. "Quite the opposite."

Fayne opened and closed her mouth several times. "I don't understand," she said.

"No." His eyes seemed very sad for a moment. "No, I don't expect that you do."

He drew away. She felt as if something had been cut from her-as though an axe had taken her arm, leaving a stump that tingled impotently.

"You wouldn't," he said. "Not yet. Not for several centuries, I don't think."

Anger rose from where it guttered in her belly-the rage let her ignore her doubts. She had always used it to protect herself from herself-that and guile.

Her words were cool and sharp as steel. "Treating me like a youngling?"

"No," he said. "Just someone who is missing the relevant experience."

"That being?" Fayne stretched sinuously. "You'd be hard pressed to find something I haven't… experienced." She wet her lips in one long stroke.

The casual flirtation made her feel better. She was no child to be dealt a chiding.

He smiled. "Where were we?"

"The next mark." Fayne leaned across the table, putting her nose alongside his.

"No holiday?" her patron asked. "No rest for the misery-makers' "Never." Fayne shook her head and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

"Careful," he said. "You've a place, young one. Remember it." Wirh a sigh, she leaned back and crossed her arms, pouring. "Tell me* one thing."

"Yes, dear one?" he asked.

"Who hired the dwarf to kill Lorien?" she asked. "It wasn't me-so who was it?"

He grinned and did not answer.

Fayne scowled. "Well-who sent Avaereene and the Sightless? You must know that?

"Ah yes, lovely Avaereene. Heavens save us from spoiled, sharp-tongued girls!" He winked ar her. "Present company excluded."

Fayne smirked. Present company excluded, her curvy backside.

"It seems an old friend of mine," her patron said, "one with whom I used to play a game oP-he waved as though thinking of the proper word-"wit, say, has decided this city holds an interest for him. Something suitably intriguing-and dangerous, for what it can do."

He yawned and waved. The serving lass brought two more bowls of wine. Her patron winked in thanks, and Fayne saw a shiver pass through the poor girl.

"You were saying, old one?" she teased.

He rolled his eyes. "Naturally, I determined what it was-this plaything my friend has discovered."

"And I'm to obtain it first," she guessed.

"Indeed-tonight, if possible." He raised his hand. "You'll need this."

Seemingly out of the air, he conjured a small pale gray stick, about the length of his smallest finger. He squeezed it once and it lengthened to about twice the length of his hand.

It was a wand, Fayne realized. It didn't feel any more powerful than her mother's wand-the one she carried now-and she had no idea what it was for.

"It isn't my fashion," she said. "So this must belong to someone else."

Her patron smiled. He pulled a pink quill and ink bottle from somewhere and was wrote a single word on a scrap of parchmenr. He contemplated his writing plume for a moment, then released it into the air, where it vanished. "Though I must tell you the sum total of this one's powers."

"Yes, yes, give it here," Fayne said. When her patron frowned, Fayne batted her lashes. "Please?"

He slid the parchment over and took up his wine as Fayne read the name. She stared.

"You-you must be hrastingjtsting me." Fayne read it again and blinked at her patron.

He chuckled. "I see the irony is not lost upon that clever mind of yours."

"Oh." A sharp-toothed grin spread across Fayne's face. "Oh, no. Not… not at all." She peered at him, eyes glittering. "Why the interest-I mean, for your friend?"

"For that, I must tell you a story, dear child, of long ago-of this very city."

Fayne leaned forward, chin on her hands. Her whole body was tingling, her mind racing. This would be fun.

"The story of a great mage who wanted to stop the spellplague driving the world mad-only he had one impossible barrier." Her patron took up his wine.

"He was already mad."