Blue Fire. Janice Hardy

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      “Well,” she said slowly, her gaze again on the crystal decanters. “Just to be safe you might consider paying next month’s rent as well.”

      “I think we’ve paid that already,” Tali said from the stairs. Everyone else stood behind her – all the Takers, even Danello’s family. His father looked pretty imposing glaring down at us.

      “Maybe even three months,” he said. The rent collector would have to be a fool to miss the threat in his tone. Trouble was, she could threaten us right back, and her threats had a lot more teeth.

      She knew it, too. She smirked at them, then carefully stuffed her treasure into the bag. “Oh, I think you’ll be gone by then, with nothing left for me. Why shouldn’t I get all I can now?”

      “Because someone will notice,” I said. “And if we have to run, we’ll make sure the owner knows Zertanik moved out.”

      She glared at me and tied the bag shut.

      I smiled. “Why don’t you come by next week? A weekly visit is a lot safer for all of us.”

      She hesitated, sizing me up and probably wondering if my emphasis on safer was a threat. If she believed the poster, I was a murderer.

      “Fine.”

      Danello yanked open the door and she jumped. She recovered fast and put her sneer back on her face.

      “Next week works better for me anyway.”

      She lumbered out, and Danello slammed the door behind her.

      “That’s not right!” he said as I sank to the stairs. “She can’t just come in here and—”

      “Yes, she can.” I knew how he felt, though. I’d seen the Baseeri do the same thing to my family’s home. Only they took it all. Saints! It wasn’t fair.

      “We’d better sell off what we can now,” Tali said, sounding just like Mama. We’d heard her say a lot of things like that right before the war started. Might as well stock up on food. Jewels trade better out of the setting anyway. You’re safer at the League with your grannyma. “She’s never been upstairs, so she can’t take what she doesn’t know about.”

      “We also need to look for a new place to live,” Aylin muttered.

      “Who’s going to rent to us?” Danello said, not nearly as quiet. “And how will we find someplace large enough for everyone?”

      Odds were we wouldn’t. “Maybe it’s time to leave Geveg.”

      Shocked silence, but they couldn’t argue with the idea. There was a lot of money in the town house, enough to bribe a fisherman for passage off the isle, no matter how tempting the reward was.

      “We could go to the marsh farms,” Danello said. “Da, doesn’t your friend need help?”

      His father nodded. “He does. He’s barely keeping his farm running. Some money and extra hands would let him hold on to it and help us out.”

      The Duke cared about Takers and pynvium, not sweet potatoes and sugar. I’d never done any farming before, but it sounded good. Honest work, fresh food, open fields with lots of places to run and hide if we had to. The soldiers probably wouldn’t look for us in the marsh farms either. Mama used to take Healers there every few months since the farmers didn’t have their own, and it always took her at least a week to visit them all.

      “Should you ask him first?” I asked. “Showing up with fifteen people is a lot to put on a person on short notice.” And I didn’t want to abandon the town house until we knew we had somewhere to go.

      “Might not be a bad idea. I haven’t spoken to him since we went into hiding. He may have lost the place by now.”

      “How fast can you get there and back?” We’d need time to search the town house for as many valuables as we could carry anyway.

      “A day or two. He’s not far from the marsh docks.”

      Danello’s little sister, Halima, dashed over and hugged him.

      “I won’t be gone long, don’t you worry,” his father began, then looked at Danello. “You OK to watch them?” Something in his tone made me think he meant more than just the family.

      Danello nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on everyone.”

      “Hold them safe. I’ll be home tomorrow night.”

      “Be careful, Da.”

      “I will.” He sounded strong but I caught the worry in his eyes.

      Bahari glared at me like I was purposely sending his father away. Jovan nodded stoically as ever, while Halima just looked scared. Danello’s father hugged his family one more time, then went upstairs to pack a bag.

      “What about the Takers?” Tali asked after a minute. “They’ll come with us.”

      She shook her head. “I mean the ones we haven’t found yet. There are dozens more out there at least.”

      “Tali, I can’t save everyone.”

      “I know, but—”

      “If we stay here, we risk everyone else getting caught.”

      “Maybe we can get the word out that we’re leaving so more can come find us?”

      “Someone besides the Takers will find out. The soldiers are actively looking for me now.”

      She sighed and nodded. “I was just hoping to find a few more missing friends.”

      “Me too. Maybe we’ll find some before we have to leave.” I turned to the group gathered on the stairs. “Everyone, go to your rooms and start searching for anything of value. Smaller is better since we’ll have to carry it, but if it’ll sell, grab it.”

      “Who’s gonna sell it?” asked one of the less-trusting Takers we’d found. I couldn’t blame him. League guards had broken into his family’s home in the middle of the night looking for him. He’d barely gotten away.

      “We’ll choose folks to go to the alley market first thing in the morning. If a bunch of us hit the vendors, it won’t be as obvious we’re selling off a lot at once and they won’t lower the prices on us. After, we’ll split up the oppas and make sure everyone has enough in case we get separated.”

      This seemed to make everyone happy.

      “A friend who repairs boats has been helping us smuggle people off the isle. He usually has several at a time he’s working on, so he’ll have enough space to get us all to the mainland.” Risky to use Barnikoff again if there was a chance he was being watched, but we could trust him. He had a good heart and no love for the Duke. “With a little luck, we’ll be able to leave tomorrow night soon as Danello’s father returns.”

      Or a lot of luck. It wasn’t nearly as easy to get off the isle as I was making it out to be, but they didn’t need СКАЧАТЬ