Read Online The Shattered City by Tansy Rayner Roberts - Free Book Online

from the baker’s roof to her own. She stared at it. Not Livilla, she was certain. There was nothing of the Lord about this creature. But neither was it an ordinary wolf.
    Velody reached out, pushing her animor against him. ‘Change.’
    He stepped back once, twice, his paws scrabbling for a hold on the tiles.
    â€˜Change,’ Velody said again, and gave him a harder shove with her animor.
    He shaped himself all at once, and sprawled on the roof: it was Seonard, the younger of Livilla’s boys, all scowl and too-long hair. ‘You oughtn’t of done that,’ he muttered.
    â€˜It’s my roof,’ she said calmly.
    â€˜Don’t care about me,’ he said, scratching the back of his head. ‘You oughtn’t of treated my Lord like that.’
    â€˜Did Livilla send you to me?’ But she knew the answer to that already, from the shifty expression on his face. ‘Your Lord swore fealty to me, Seonard. I deserve her loyalty, just as she deserves yours.’
    â€˜You’re just some demme,’ he protested.
    â€˜Your Lord is “some demme” too.’
    That made him angrier. ‘Wash yer mouth out! She’s a lady!’
    Oh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.
    â€˜What do you want from me?’ Velody asked him.
    The boy gave a shrug that seemed to encompass the whole world within it.
    â€˜I have no problem with Lord Livilla, as long as she holds to her oath,’ Velody offered as a compromise that might allow him to retreat with some dignity. She had no wish to fight this boy and send him home bleeding to his mistress.
    Seonard shrugged again, and made no sign of moving. He was worse than Crane for brooding silences.
    â€˜How long have you been in the Creature Court?’ Velody asked finally. If she was to share the roof with him, she might as well get some useful information out of it.
    Seonard lifted one shoulder, no longer bothering to even shrug properly. ‘Couple a years.’
    She had so many questions, though no reason to think he would answer them. Why would a child choose this life? Had it chosen him? Why Livilla, of all of them? Why did he think she was the one who could best offer him protection? This close, she wasn’t even sure if he was old enough for his man’s robe.
    â€˜Do you like it?’ Velody asked instead, feeling ridiculous, like one of the formal patrons who had sometimes visited the Apprentice House, displaying as much knowledge about seams and hems as could fit on the head of a pin, but always being terribly polite about it.
    To her surprise, Seonard gave her a wicked grin. ‘Course I do. Nothing better, is there?’
    â€˜Nothing?’
    â€˜We’re fighting the sky, aye? No one else gets to do that, only us, and we’re rubies at it! Like chasing bolts of warlight across the sky, bam, wham, and bloodstars … you know they make this popping sound if you wrap animor around them, like in your hand? And iceblades, ha, if you blast them just right, they shatter into patterns. It’s rubies, isn’t it?’
    Velody just stared at him. He looked so fiercely excited, like a child with a heap of Saturnalia parcels in front of him, and a mouth full of sugared raisins. ‘Best job in the world,’ she repeated.
    Seonard nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye, course it is.’ He paused, and when he spoke again it was in such a low mutter that she almost missed it. ‘Wanted to say thanks.’
    â€˜To me?’
    â€˜You could have turfed my Lord out on her ear. Any other Power and Majesty would have done it, I reckon. You let her keep her pride when you didn’t hafta.’
    â€˜I don’t have anything against Livilla,’ said Velody, which was almost entirely true. ‘We’re all on the same side.’
    â€˜Reckon we are,’ said Seonard, as if he hadn’t thought of it that way before. ‘Aye, I’m off then.’ He sat up straight.