Chapter 6 Ren Monroe

Her mother's instructions were strange, but she knew the docks better than Ren. The two of them parted ways. Ren aimed for the larger market down in the Lower Quarter. She walked slowly, allowing any Brood spies in the vicinity an opportunity to collect themselves and follow her trail. Perhaps she was guilty of thinking too highly of herself, imagining that the Broods cared enough to waste such resources on her. But with Theo leaving for Nostra, she suspected that she'd be watched even more closely until her new work began. The Broods did not suffer lapses in concentration. She'd need to turn their focus against them.

Ren found the store her mother had noted. A simple apothecary shop. She paused by the windowfront, pretending to admire something, and then entered. Heavy-handed scents pressed forward against her senses. A wall of candles stood directly in front of her, all earthen, natural colors. Plants coiled down from the ceilings. The rest of the space was dominated by great cabinets that Ren knew were full of the powdered substances that guided different types of magic.

Before she could even step fully inside, the clerk gave a hand signal. Ren followed the directions, moving to her right, deeper into the store. In the very back corner, she found a girl waiting. She was a similar height and build to Ren. Her hair was the same color. Only her skin tone was slightly darker—as Ren had paled some during her time at Balmerick. The girl didn't bother speaking. She simply unlatched her cloak and held it out. Ren offered her bright red one in return.

The girl studied Ren for a moment. She turned to a hanging mirror and began adjusting her hair to match. She fastened the cloak, turned back, and nodded.

"Your mother said you should wait a few minutes. I'll lead them up toward Beckers Street."

"Understood. Thank you for your help."

"No need to thank me. I'd do anything for Old Agnes."

Ren nearly laughed. "I wouldn't let her catch you calling her old."

The girl frowned. "Everyone calls her that."

Before Ren could say more, the girl slid past her. She gathered up a prepared satchel, cumbersome and distracting, before backing through the entrance and rushing up the nearest street. If all went to plan, the spies would trail her for a while before they realized she wasn't Ren. Which left the real Ren waiting in that dark corner of the apothecary, alone with her thoughts.

Everyone calls her that.

She wondered when her mother had picked up a nickname: Old Agnes. It felt strange. The idea that her mother might have carved some new identity in the world Ren had abandoned. Another reminder that while Ren maneuvered in the clouds—another world labored on below. She knew she would do well not to forget that. After all, her father had died for this place and these people.

A few customers came and went. Ren slipped quietly back outside. The market was churning to life. Ren had no idea if their ploy had worked, but she felt the slightest burden lift from her shoulders. It was nice to think that Landwin Brood didn't see everything that happened in this city. It breathed hope into what she planned to do next.

She aimed for the docks. The market spaces were welcoming. There were natural paths for customers, intentionally carved out to lure a person deeper into their chaos. Not the docks. This was not the place for a casual stroll. A misstep here would be punished. The bustle existed not as a show—but by design. Pure efficiency. Unwelcome guests earned cold stares or lowered shoulders. As a child, she'd seen more than a handful of people knocked into the water simply for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Ren had learned the dance back then. She sidestepped a pair of haulers heaving massive crates onto an open barge. Around a trio of strong-armed deckhands who were executing timed pulls to bring a boat closer to the docks. Ren noticed a boy, no older than seven, sitting cross-legged on one of the thick pilings, fingers performing nimble work on a fishing net. Ren had sat there, once, though she'd always had her nose buried in a book. Her mother waited at the far end of the docks.

"We'll be aboard the Transient," she whispered. "Their captain owes me a favor. He's agreed to let us stow away. The crew knows to keep their mouths shut. No listing on the official manifest, but the cost is our comfort. There aren't any… suites on these ships."

Ren rolled her eyes. "Very subtle, Mother. Thank you for preparing me for dire conditions."

Her mother feigned looking around. "Oh. Dear. Did you forget to invite your butler?"

"I don't have a butler. Gods, Mother. You act like I want to live up there. As if…"

She trailed off. Her mother didn't know Ren's true goal. She'd never been brave enough to breathe it aloud to anyone else. The point of all this was not gold and luxury. It was about fire and blood. She was not simply advancing through the ranks of their society to secure some vain comfort for herself. The intention was to destroy the people who'd destroyed their family. Without that knowledge, Ren knew it might look as if she'd simply been lured in by the royal houses of Kathor, as if she simply wanted a pampered life.

"You forget whose daughter I am."

Those words drew a more serious look from her mother. "I could never forget that, but I am glad to know that you haven't forgotten. Come. Let's board."

The Transient was unremarkable. A single bright sail above a deck of long-faded wood. The crew had finished stuffing crates into the hold and now set to the task of unlashing the bone-thick ropes from the docks. The captain—short and round and talkative—greeted them in one breath and berated a lazy deckhand with the next. Ren found herself smiling. He was a lot like her father's friends. The men who'd come over to play cards and laughed long into the night. They were led with little ceremony to a closet. Someone had stuffed a single pillow and a set of tattered blankets inside.

"Oh," her mother said. "Well… this is…"

"What?" Ren asked, goading. "Something wrong, Mother? Is the suite not to your liking?"

That earned a withering look. Ever stubborn, her mother reached down and began fluffing the nearly featherless pillow. She spread out the blanket and sat, reclining as if they were on the verge of enjoying the finest picnic in the world.

"It looks comfortable enough to me. You wanted a ship. I got you a ship."

Ren could only smile at that. She took a seat beside her mother.

"Now that we're comfortable," Ren said. "Tell me all about this Harlow character.…"

As the winds howled against the closed door of their makeshift bedroom, Ren finally told her mother why she needed to visit Ravinia. And that revelation led to the heart of her plans with the Broods. After making sure they could not be overheard by a passing deckhand, Ren started at the beginning. The words fell out of her mouth—somehow made less dangerous by the dark nothing of their makeshift quarters. There was just enough light that Ren could see her mother's face and little else.

"You're being quiet," Ren noted.

"I'm thinking."

Ren would have paced, but there simply wasn't room to pace.

"How will Theo be involved?"

"Right now, he's not involved. He doesn't know about any of this."

"You're bonded. He's going to eventually figure it out."

"Agreed. For now, I'm nursing his distaste. He's wounded. His father humiliated him. I have to build a bridge from that feeling—that experience—to mine."

"Hatred isn't too long a walk from shame."

"I know that, but it can't just be hatred. Anger is a fire, and fires burn out. I don't need Theo to simply be angry at his father. I need him to move a step beyond that. I need him to rationally accept that his family deserves to be destroyed. I need him to choose me over them."

Her mother nodded. "That will take time. Years, maybe."

"Or a single moment."

They'd been speaking quietly in the dark for a while now. Ren wasn't sure how much farther they still had to travel, or even what the weather was like outside. All she could hear was the tossing waves and the hissing wind and the occasional thump-thump of deckhands passing their location.

"Do you remember the Tin'Vori family?"

Ren's mother nodded. "Their estate was near the harbor. We could see their children playing sometimes. From the docks. There were two boys and two girls."

"The oldest one was killed. By the Broods," Ren supplied. "His name was Ware Tin'Vori."

"I remember that. Everyone talked about it for weeks. Your Aunt Sloan claimed she heard the boy shouting as he was dragged through the Lower Quarter—the liar."

"Dahvid is the one who was seen in Ravinia. He's an image-bearer."

"Powerful magic," her mother replied. "But hardly subtle. You can't smuggle an image-bearer into Kathor. He'd be noticed everywhere he went. How can he help you? If he can't even return to the city?"

"I don't know," Ren admitted. "I feel like I have no other options, though. None of the major houses in Kathor will even speak with me."

Her mother nodded. "There were two girls in the family: Ava and Nevelyn. The younger one was a wild thing. We'd spot her climbing all the way to the tops of the trees. Sometimes she'd set things on fire and throw them into the harbor. The other one was more like you. Always reading books. What did the old lady say about them?"

Ren sighed. "She wasn't sure. It's like you said. Dahvid is easy to find. There aren't many image-bearers—even in a free port like Ravinia. But she thought if he was alive, it was possible they were too."

"What's your plan? When you find him?"

Ren did not answer for a time. She didn't actually have a plan. What do you say to someone who has the same hatred in their heart that you do? She couldn't imagine discussing the weather or magical theory with someone like that. It felt like the only thing that could exist between them was a mutual desire for destruction. It was enticing. The thought of having someone who understood. But that would only be true if he'd carefully grown his hatred over the years as she had.

"I suppose I'll ask him to destroy the Broods with me."