Free The Blood Debt by Sean Williams

me.’

    ‘No, really. I have no idea.’

    ‘It must be something pretty important. Flying over the Divide is scary enough; going down into it takes a special kind of crazy.’

    ‘She’s not crazy,’ he bristled.

    ‘To most people, she’d have to be. You think the Wall is there for aesthetic reasons?’

    The liquor was already making him feel dizzy. He could smell it over the stink of smoke and heavily spiced vegetables. It was coming out of the woodwork.

    ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’ he asked.

    ‘No. I’m trying to get me drunk.’ The contents of a third glass disappeared down her impervious gullet. ‘And I’m curious about your mother. Surveyors come through Laure every now and again. They’re a quiet lot, for the most part. They do their thing and we do ours. Some of us — not me, of course — call them Ruin Rats because they’re always scrabbling around in the dirt.’

    Skender’s taste buds were sufficiently numb to make a third hit bearable. ‘That’s not very nice.’

    ‘You know what people are like.’ Chu rested her elbows on the table and her chin in both palms. ‘Scumbags for the most part, and those who aren’t are complete bastards.’

    ‘I’m sensing some negativity, here.’

    She sighed. ‘Seagulls are rats of the sky. Isn’t that what they say? Give someone a wing and that doesn’t make them better.’

    ‘And taking the wing off someone doesn’t make them worse,’ he said, hoping he was keeping up.

    ‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘I’ll drink to that.’ She poured them another round, spilling a substantial portion on the rough wooden tabletop. She didn’t seem to notice. ‘Not everyone agrees.’

    Her head tilted back, exposing a long, elegantly muscled throat. Skender caught himself staring, and covered it up by drinking from his own glass.

    ‘Is your father a Surveyor?’ she asked him.

    ‘No. He’s a teacher, like his father before him.’

    ‘Well, good for them. A teacher and a Surveyor. Some people might think that odd. Some people might say that like should stick with like, or else you’re asking for disaster.’

    Skender thought of his parents and their separate lifestyles. ‘Some people might be right.’

    ‘Some people are arseholes, as well as scumbags and bastards.’ Chu’s sudden vitriol made him blink. ‘You shouldn’t try to defend him.’

    ‘Who?’

    ‘Don’t play the innocent. He knew what he was doing. It became clear once I’d lost my wing that I wasn’t good enough for him any more. And why is that? I was good enough before, wasn’t I?’ She sniffed. ‘He’s just an idiot. A rat of the sky. I’m better off without him.’

    For a second, Skender was hopelessly confused. Then the mental clouds parted. ‘Oh, I get it. “Some people” is someone specific.’

    ‘And he could be very specific, when he wanted to be. Here I was thinking he helped me out because he liked me.’ She blinked down into her empty glass. ‘God, I’m such an idiot.’

    Skender stared at the crown of her head, at the whorls and flows of her rich dark hair and the paler skin beneath. He wanted to reach out and take her hand, or at least touch it, but the world was swaying alarmingly around him and he couldn’t trust himself not to poke her in the eye by accident. He felt as dizzy as he had after his Blood Tithe had been taken. ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot.’

    ‘Yes, but you’re drunk. You’d say anything right now.’

    ‘That’s not true!’

    ‘Then you aren’t drunk enough.’’ She looked up and reached for the bottle. ‘Hey, this is almost empty. Let’s get another one.’

    She turned around to hail the waiter.

    ‘I drink,’ he protested, ‘that I’ve had enough to think.’

    ‘Really?’ Her laughter was pure and unrestrained.

    ‘I mean —’

    A hand came down onto his shoulder, startling him, and a rough voice spoke in his ear.

    ‘The Magister will see you now, Mage.’

    ‘I’m not