Chapter 22

CHAPTER

22

The door to Nessa’s study stood ajar. Matti rapped his knuckles on it before stepping inside.

“— exotic mouthfuls of bliss, well worth it for culinary adventurers, ” said Nessa. “Matti! Matti, dear one, you must listen to this, nothing will make me laugh harder this week.”

Matti smiled. His mother was lying on the couch tucked beneath the window, which looked out onto the uneven seam of chimneys and roof flourishes that was the Rose Quarter viewed from this height. The evening sky was the fierce blue-grey of gathering rain, with a few early stars struggling to wink through the gaps in the clouds. Nessa’s head was in Tomas’s lap, her plait spilling down to kiss the floor. She was half covered by the newspaper as she held it above herself for ease of reading.

“What is it?” Matti asked.

Nessa dissolved into chuckles and her tent of newspaper collapsed.

Tomas looked fondly down at his wife. “One of the food writers for the Gazette thinks he is the first man in the world to discover japetas.”

“Adventurers! One month, perhaps two, and every eating house in the city will be making them with too much oil and charging ten silver,” said Nessa. She sat up, patting down her hair. “Lucastian has left?”

Matti nodded. “And I have packing to finish. I’ve come to say—I thought I might not see you before we leave tomorrow, Dad, if I sleep in. I know you’re meeting with the city quartermaster before the council sitting.”

His parents exchanged identical looks midway between politeness and disbelief.

“I might sleep in,” Matti said weakly. He obeyed his mother’s patting of the couch cushion, and came to sit with them. Nessa swept all the papers onto the floor and took Matti’s hand in one of hers.

“Perhaps it would be better to do the goodbyes now,” said Tomas, “so we’re not trying to shout them from opposite ends of the house in the morning. You’ve got everything you need? Everything on that list of yours?”

Luca had thrown the list out the window earlier that afternoon, declaring it a lesson in spontaneity. Matti had tossed him a bronze and told him that he was spontaneously paying Luca to go down to the street and fetch it back. The flood of aroused pink in Luca’s cheeks had been well worth the ten minutes Luca spent complaining about it afterwards.

Rather than explain this, Matti simply nodded.

“Goodbyes, but not for long. You’ll come back for Spindle Day, of course,” said Nessa.

It was like a muscle tensing in Matti’s mind, readying itself to make arrangements, to shift things around and calculate schedules and travel times and even start list-making about everything that would need to be organised for the foremost business day in Huna’s calendar.

Matti inhaled. Exhaled. “No,” he said. It felt like a new flavour on his tongue.

“No?” said Tomas.

“No. I don’t know if I’ll be back in Glassport then. I don’t want to promise that I will.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t heard you say that enough,” said Tomas, after a moment. “What you want, and don’t want.”

Matti looked down at his mother’s hand, at her fingers linked through his. She’d painted her nails gold for the wedding. The paint was beginning to chip at the tips. “It’s getting easier,” he said. “People keep asking me now.”

“Hm,” said Nessa. “I will tell you a story.”

Matti looked up at her, startled. Nessa glanced at Tomas, eyes sparkling as though she were about to dip a biscuit’s worth of gossip into coffee.

“In Manisi I studied history, at the university. Two brothers and three sisters already there, becoming brilliant in their fields. I was to be brilliant also.”

“You are brilliant,” said Tomas.

“Hush!” Nessa rounded on him. “Is this your story?”

“Isn’t it about to be?”

Nessa turned a magnificent shoulder on her husband and looked back at Matti. “A young girl buried in her books, and a man from the south swoops in and turns her world up-to-down, shoes-to-ribbons, saying he will show her something new.” Her gaze softened. “And I went. I went because my heart told me that I would regret it if I did not.”

Matti didn’t know what to say. He said, “I’m glad you did?”

“Oh, well! So many days I have given serious thought to regretting it!” said Nessa mockingly. “I could have been Vice Chancellor by now!” But she was laughing, leaning back against Tomas, and Tomas was laughing as well. He kissed the side of her head. “No,” she said. “I was right. I knew what I wanted.”

“And I never found it hard to say,” said Tomas, “that I wanted Nessa, more than I wanted to make a sensible match for the House’s benefit. I knew my parents wouldn’t mind, because it was what I wanted. And I truly am sorry, Matti. That we made you feel otherwise, and that we didn’t notice how hard it was on you.”

“Did not ask,” said Nessa. She pulled her hand away and used it to lift Matti’s chin. Her dark eyes swam with so much affection that for a fleeting moment Matti wanted to curl up, his own head in her skirts, as he hadn’t done since he was very young. “ Ask is what we did not do.”

“I should have—no, Mama, I should have been more honest with you.”

“We’ll consider ourselves well paid,” said Tomas dryly, “given what you and your sister pulled on us at the wedding.”

“So,” said Nessa. “You will be back whenever you are back. Go where your heart is.”

Matti felt a warm knot in his throat. The Jays might be starting to learn, with tentative steps, how to haul their truths out into the open. It didn’t mean he knew the best way to give his parents all the words for how he felt. For how Luca made him feel.

He kissed his mother’s cheek and stood. Tomas stood as well and wrapped Matti in a firm, brief hug.

“Huna smile,” said Tomas to his eldest son. “And may you weave your own fortune.”

“I will,” said Matti. It felt true. “We will.”

Luca asked the coach to stop a few houses away, and walked the rest of the way to Matti’s house on foot. It had rained the previous night and the street smelled of clean wet leaves, a contrast to the inside of the coach, which mostly smelled of daisy-cakes. Dinah had given Luca a whole basket of them for the journey and extracted from him in return a promise to come and visit whenever he returned to Glassport.

Matti was standing at the base of the townhouse’s steps, bent over and rummaging in one of the leather travel bags on the next step up. Luca quieted his steps as he approached.

“Maya,” Matti called through the half-open door of the house, “do you know if— Oof, ” as Luca walked right into him from behind. Matti’s ankle tangled with Luca’s as he turned around, and Luca hissed in pained annoyance as his leg buckled and he fell.

“ Fuck, Matti. My ankle.”

“Sorry, I—” It took Matti only two seconds of gazing at Luca, who was sprawled on the ground, to narrow his eyes. Luca was so proud of him. “You little shit,” said Matti, laughing.

Luca grinned and propped himself up on one elbow. He’d judged it well. His ribs had given him a pang on the way down, but the ground wasn’t all that hard. It was damp and probably none too clean, but Luca was wearing the old brown coat—a kind of fond farewell, before he got home and his mother had it burned.

“Oh, no, you’ve turned my ankle.” He fluttered his lashes. “How am I supposed to find work now? And me new to town and all.”

“Ah, I see. You want me to pay.” Matti’s dimples flashed and he extended a hand. “Come on, get up.”

Luca ignored it and pushed up to a kneeling position. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you while I’m down here? For a bronze, perhaps?” Neat and deadly: “ Sir .”

“Matti?” Maya pushed the door the rest of the way open. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying. Oh.” She levelled a puzzled look at Luca, who sighed and took Matti’s hand, pulling himself to his feet. Matti’s thumb brushed the back of his hand and then dug in, hard, promising to pick the game up again later.

Matti said, “I was going to ask if Mama remembered to send a message to Daz Shana Habi, to meet them at the carding workshop. Shana used to live in eastern Draka. They know libelza better than anyone else we employ.”

“Mama did,” said Maya. “And”—as Matti opened his mouth again—“I’m meeting with one of our Barlow office agents this afternoon, to make sure everything’s ready for when the council lifts the locality restriction. And Sofia has meetings lined up with three fashion houses to discuss the buying patterns they’re seeing as we come into winter. And I’ve sent Roland and Roberta to Lourde House to finalise the loan repayment.” There was a glow to Maya’s cheeks as she ticked these items off on her fingers, and a firmness to her chin that suited her.

She had every reason to look that way. A little more than a week ago, Jay House had acquired the bond price for Sofia’s marriage, the exclusivity contract arranged by the Hartes, and their own lost black libelza, all in a single day. And that was before factoring in their most prominent rival in the Glassport wool market having his reputation shattered by proof of espionage and fraudulent production, and the dramatic firing of a long-term saboteur.

Huna threw her coins, and sometimes they fell in your hand, one by shining one.

Matti frowned. “I left the last of my notes on your desk, but send a message immediately if there’s anything you still have questions about. I can always—”

“Matti,” said Maya. “Do you think we’re going to collapse in a heap without you? Is that it?”

“Of course I don’t think that, but…” Matti shot a look at Luca. He was transparently afraid that he was doing to his sister what Perse had done to Luca: acted on his heart and thereby dumped the unwanted responsibility in his younger sibling’s lap.

Maya said, “Mama and Dad are hardly decrepit. They’re not going anywhere, and I’m planning to be a lot better than you were at demanding help. This isn’t something I have to carry on my own. And I have plans .” Glee entered her voice. “So many plans. We could be doing a lot more with colours, and with weaving techniques. I won’t believe that every twill pattern that will ever exist has been discovered already. Black libelza will take a tighter worsted weave and create a smoother nap. Just you wait. Sofia and I are going to make Jay the only name in wool.”

Matti kissed his thumb and flicked Maya’s ear. “I believe you.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” said Maya, scornful. She returned the gesture and her tone softened. “You did it, Matti. You saved our House. Now go and enjoy your life for a while.”

“Excuse me,” said Luca. “ Who saved your House?”

“Oh, I quite forgot.” Maya looked at him. “Sofia and I deserve some of the credit. Thank you for reminding me.”

“What have I done?” Sofia appeared in the doorway. She was wearing trousers and boots, which made her look a bit like her taller sister, though the blouse atop them frothed with lace at the wrists and her tunic was an intricate pattern of diamonds in shades of pink. “Hello, Luca. Are you leaving?”

“As soon as I can drag Matti away,” said Luca. “I’m beginning to suspect I might have to do it at the point of a sword.”

Sofia came and hugged Matti around the waist, and he smiled. “I’m glad it was you,” he said.

“I’m glad it wasn’t you,” said Sofia. She frowned thoughtfully up at him. “Though I might need to prevail upon Luca to lend you back to me when your parents start asking me about grandchildren.”

“I—you— what, ” said Matti, horror stretching his voice thin.

“It’s not unheard of,” Sofia pointed out.

Maya said, “We can always leave the grandchildren to Marko and Merri, when they’re older.”

Sofia’s eyebrows lowered like thoughtful storm clouds. “I don’t know. That’s a lot of pressure to put on them.”

Luca couldn’t resist. “It’s true, Matti. I think I have to agree. This is your duty .”

There was a long, flavourful silence before Matti’s face snapped into a glare. He directed it at each of them in turn. Maya was stifling laughter behind her hand.

“I hate all of you,” Matti said.

Luca took his hand. “I hate you, too, Mattinesh. And now I’m stealing you.”

Matti bade a final farewell to Maya, and she and Sofia disappeared back into the house. Matti stood with Luca’s hand in his, rubbing the knuckles gently, not looking inclined to drop it and pick up his bags.

“You know,” said Matti, “I’ve reconsidered.”

“Oh?” Luca’s heart gave no more than a little spasm. Matti was smiling faintly.

“That black libelza shipment already belonged to Jay House. You still owe me interest on that money you swindled out of me for your watch.”

“And nobody will ever know exactly how much,” said Luca. “How sad.”

“Luca.”

“How about I just start giving you things, and you let me know when it feels like enough.”

“Things?” said Matti. “Like what?”

Luca slid his free hand around Matti’s neck. Matti bent before Luca could apply more than the tiniest amount of pressure, easy as adjusting a stance, and Matti’s mouth was warm and familiar. Luca tried to kiss promises into it, as Matti pulled him close. All of this. All of me.

“That’s a start,” said Matti, when he pulled away. His smile looked unthinking, effortless. It grabbed gladly at Luca’s heart. “What else?”

Rain smell or no, the city and the weather had no sense of the dramatic. The sun was neither setting nor rising, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t have been visible past the buildings that rose up around them.

Still, Luca looked in the direction that he guessed was their destination: Cienne, eventually, but so many roads and diversions and possibilities before they reached it.

“I thought I’d start with the world,” Luca said, “and then see how you felt after that.”