broccolifloret

  A clear, bright Monday morning. A steady stream of bicycles and small carriages had taken to the streets; the trains were crowded. I drove far beneath Menthe's top speed, not only because of them, but because I was driving Suri to basketball practice. I only allowed her to ride on Menthe if she sat in front of me. She'd called me a fussy old man at first, but I ignored her. That seemed to have hurt her pride.

  Her pride was unessential. I had to keep her in my sight at all times. It was far, far too easy to miss a milk cart speeding towards you.

  The King of the Dying Sun has an intimate knowledge of the many ways tragedy shapes itself.

  In the distance, school bells. Being summertime, they were meant for the basketball team only. The slim belltower already rose into the cloudy sky. Shortly after we turned left and came to a stop. Children and their guardians milled about the street by the open-air court.

  Suri jumped to the ground and gave me her helmet. Right away, she removed her jacket and stuffed it into her bag with the towel and soap. Suri didn't believe in bringing a jacket along in the summer. Her disbelief was, as you can imagine, unessential.

  I removed my own helmet and cleared my throat very pointedly before Suri could scamper away to join her teammates. Then I leaned forward so she could kiss my cheek.

  "Remember your water bottle," I put in. "Don't wait till you're already thirsty to drink."

  "I know!" She was already scampering away, though she did wave at me without looking back.

  Nothing would happen if I left. And I did attract quite a bit of attention simply by sitting on Menthe out there—in those days, few people outside the guard owned motorcycles. And no one in the guard owned a customized one like mine. In this comfortably middle-css neighborhood, too, even an illimec-drawn carriage would've stood out.

  I did try to dress casual in deference to my surroundings. I didn't even have any spell neckces on my person. That didn't make a difference, of course, but it'd be too impolite not to attempt it.

  A short woman stood not too far away, at my left. She smiled at me. "To them, we're such a drag."

  "Naturally." As usual, my voice came out too cold and curt. Unwelcoming.

  The woman turned to look at the children. If she minded my response, she didn't let it show. I'd seen her many times at the school, but couldn't quite pce her name, or which one of Suri's teammates was her kid.

  "Of course," she went on, "when we were their age, we couldn't wait to shake our parents off."

  My mouth went dry. No, when I was Suri's age, I would never have rejected an adult's attention. I couldn't make Atanasio Umbra look at me twice.

  My silence stretched out, tense like a violin string. Too tense. So tense it snapped. It was too te for me to reply, so I simply looked into the distance. It looked as if I'd gotten tired of listening to her and was trying to find Suri in the crowd.

  Always the same. I should stop caring already.

  ámbar Manukian was looking at the children too, as I expected. After the first few months, we'd managed to find an unspoken bance. We stayed in opposite ends of the street and pretended the other person wasn't there. So that's what I did.

  Manukian was pale even in the summer, like me. She had average height and striking blue eyes and, also like me, a nearly uncontrolble fall of bck curls. Suri had been mistaken for her child a couple of times, unsurprisingly, as she resembled ámbar Manukian more than her own children.

  As for the children themselves, any attempts to keep them away from each other would inevitably lead to the opposite outcome, so we let them follow their inclinations. They got along fine but weren't particurly close. The best we could've hoped for.

  Nothing else for me to do. I walked Menthe into the proper ne and drove back the way I'd came.

  Soon, though, I turned left a few blocks before I should've turned right. Now that I didn't have a child with me, I could drive faster, though not as fast as I would've liked to. The streets were still crowded.

  Even so, the wind hammered me and the nd vanished past me like a dream. When I raced, Vanth Umbra didn't exist anywhere in the world. Just a dark stain on the ground, like a drop of pitch moving faster than quicksilver. I vanished, too, into the path. I had to, or I risked losing my focus and my control and my life.

  Almost as soon as you entered the East Quarter, you felt its age. Light globe holders far taller than the current standard, wrought iron heavy with age, reaching up with asymmetrical arms. Architecture had imitated the organic in those days, which was much better than the current standard. Perhaps paradoxically, that architecture had also leaned heavily on stoneworks and materials of equal solidity, with heavier and rger construction works than the contemporary ones.

  So old was the East Quarter that a few of the older buildings even belied a resembnce with Umbra Manor. These weren't residential houses, though, but the university district.

  Not stopping at any of them, I drove into a side street, toward the functional brick apartments occupied by students and uni staff, and beyond them, as houses lowered themselves and raised their prices. Finally, I came to a halt.

  The old Bariskol pce fell just short of a mansion. The gardens had a definite overgrown look to them; the east side, facing the sun at this time of day, had been almost taken over by creepers. Three storeys, a coach house that had never been restored to its proper use.

  I dismounted and left Menthe behind without bothering to check my surroundings. If you want to deter thieves, you should make it btantly clear you're not concerned about them. It's better if, like me, you truly aren't concerned. But even a bluff is better than broadcasting your fear.

  A tall iron fence surrounded the Bariskol pce. I climbed it with a good run and swung myself over the top, nding on a crouch.

  A few startled pigeons flew into the nearest tree. I went around the house, to the back garden hidden from the streets. The creepers were abuzz with bumblebees and scented with the st flowers of the warm season. Many more pigeons cooed loudly, making a point of ignoring me. They pecked at crumbs, but nobody was feeding them anymore.

  The house had opened its windows to the summer morning's air and light; in defiance of the bright, quiet day, they were barred. The inside looked almost impenetrably dark. A faint aged smell wafted out, not unlike piles of old books or ancient clothes that haven't been exposed to sunlight in years. Abandoned, but not quite decayed.

  "I know you're listening." A bluff. "That suits me, as I don't care about your excuses. You've been intruding in Azul Mamani's dreams." I had a decent idea of what had happened, but again, bluffing was better than daring a guess and having it proved wrong. "Do that again and I'll kill you."

  That wasn't a bluff.

  After a moment of pause for the sake of endowing my words with gravity, I turned around and retraced my steps, jumping the fence once more. A couple of children were creeping toward Menthe; I gred at them and they ran as if the gates of the Underworld had opened behind them.

  As per my pocket watch, it was too early to pick Suri up, but too te to return home. I went to wait for her at school. Anyway, if an emergency came up, I would know. But emergencies aren't all that common, not ones that require my presence.

  I sat on Menthe and looked at them from the street. They were too busy to pay me any attention, and Suri herself was somewhere among the crowd. I found her after careful observation. She was dribbling a ball while a short girl tried to steal it away from her. I'd seen that short girl quite a few times before, though I made a point of not talking to Suri's friends if I could help it. As far as I could remember, she was called Justina Something-or-other.

  As I watched, Justina managed to send the ball bouncing away and went chasing after it. Suri took that chance to stretch, and in doing so she caught a glimpse of me from the corner of her eye. She turned to me and grinned. When Justina returned, Suri recovered the ball and made a run the hoop. Too te, Justina Something-or-other chased after her. Suri skidded to a stop and shot. My breath caught as the ball rose; it bounced off the rim. Suri caught it and shot again. It went in. My breath resumed.

  Suri turned to wave her arms at me. Justina picked the ball up and hit Suri with it, from the back, befitting a traitor.

  The coach blew his whistle. The girls hurried back to their former positions.

  "My apologies," I shouted. It didn't sound the least bit apologetic, but then, that was expected from me. "I'll stay out of your way."

  I walked Menthe to the corner, to a triangle of trees and flower beds that was one of the few remarkable things in this part of the street. The coach had followed me, so I turned to him. Unfortunately, I stared too directly, and he flinched, hurrying to bow awkwardly, as if he needed to ask my forgiveness.

  I should stop caring about that, too.

  "May I help you?" I asked.

  "I, well." He ran his hand through his hair. It's never a relief knowing the other person feels as awkward as I do. I missed Azul and his growing willingness to say what he thought. "Your Illustrious Highness doesn't remember me, right? That was a stupid thing to ask. It was so long ago. I'm sorry."

  "Wait." The coach didn't look familiar in the slightest, nor particurly remarkable; half a head shorter than me, freckled under his tan. Unexpectedly, the basketball connection sparked an association. "Did you attempt to recruit me for the basketball team when we were teens?"

  His face lit up. "Yeah, that was me!"

  "It was in the summer, too. That charity event with the school competitions—we didn't go to the same school, of course."

  "I can't believe you—Your Illustrious Highness remembered."

  I couldn't believe he'd care.

  "It was an eventful day for me. Probably more than it was for you."

  "Oh? What happened?"

  He only showed a vague, polite curiosity, but I couldn't think of anything other than the truth. "I met my first lover."

  "Oh." He looked away, probably worrying about stepping somewhere he shouldn't.

  "I trust Suri hasn't caused you any trouble."

  "Oh, not at all."

  Naturally, even if she did, he wouldn't admit to it. I tried to impress on her that she shouldn't abuse her position in society, but I always doubted I'd gotten it right. At least I could rest easy knowing I wasn't alone in this.

  "Do you need a donation?" I asked. Money is the fastest way to ease an awkward situation.

  "Well—not now. I mean, I might—there's always something new coming up, old equipment to repce and all, and I can't think of anything right now but I think the music department might—I wouldn't want to ask anything out of Your Illustrious Highness before I'm sure—"

  I waved an interruption. "I knew this'd happen when I signed my sibling up in a public school. Don't concern yourself about it. It's not as if I did it because I couldn't afford tuition. I'll send you fifty nureals. If you need more, you know how to contact me."

  "Many thanks." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if he was ashamed of extracting money out of me. Though you couldn't accuse him of doing so.

  Time to change the subject again. Money wouldn't work this time. I probably should've cut the conversation short right then and there, but the coach looked upset and I didn't want to leave him like that.

  "Why didn't I sign her up in a private school? Because I wanted her to grow up away from court. It'd be cruel to drop her in the midst of children destined to inherit power. She's my kid sibling, but she's not my heir. She should have a normal childhood."

  "Oh." He sounded relieved. I suppose he might as well be. It's not too good for regur people to brush with court, either. "Well, she's a normal child. In a good way."

  I nodded. "That's good to hear."

  "Well. Yeah. Oh!" The coach looked over his shoulder, at the clock tower. "Sorry, I should be wrapping things up."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "It was nice talking to Your Illustrious Highness again." He bowed stiffly once more and left.

  This is why I disliked talking to people. It felt like wading through hip-deep mosses. Bringing Suri to a public school invited more situations like this one—but I'd keep her away from court as long as I lived.

  We were back home before lunch. Suri ran to her room, making far more noise than you'd expect from a child. I'd been just as tall as her, but I could've sworn I hadn't been anywhere near as noisy.

  Berganza was by my side before I could see him arrive. He'd brought me a tray with a gss of chilled water, a pen, and the morning reports. What I wanted was news from Azul—knowing he was doing fine. I only heard about him when he wasn't, and I hated it.