The Virtu by Katherine Addison

Author:Katherine Addison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

That night, I didn’t dream about Keeper or Ginevra for a change. I dreamed about Porphyria Levant.

Porphyria Levant was a blood-witch, the woman who taught Brinvillier Strych everything he knew. I don’t remember much of that dream—just remember coming awake and laying there, staring up at the ceiling and breathing like I’d been in a fight. And thinking about Porphyria Levant. Remembering that old story about her and Silas Altamont and the obligation d’âme and what she’d used it to make him do.

Please, let me stop or I’m going to go out and slit my wrists.

Silas, I forbid you to kill yourself.

And after a while I figured out what the dream was trying to tell me.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and all the next day I was watching Felix like a first-time pickpocket watching the mark. Felix noticed—of course Felix noticed, and of course it pissed him off, but Kethe I couldn’t help it. Because things were lining up in my head.

If I went back to the Lower City, I was going to end up dead. I could feel it, the way sometimes I’d felt when a job was going to go bad and known not to take it. Couldn’t explain it, couldn’t argue with it. Sometimes I just knew. And that was the way I knew this. The Lower City would kill me. Someone with a grudge would come after me, or give me to the Dogs, or I’d go to Keeper, or I’d starve to death or kill myself or just plain die.

I hated myself for it. Hated myself for being so fucking weak. Hated myself for having got into this situation where somehow there wasn’t nothing I could do that wasn’t stupid. But there was only one choice that didn’t seem to lead straight to the Ivorene—or worse, if the Dogs got me, the Boneprince. And that was Felix and that old story about Porphyria Levant and Silas Altamont. The moral of which was, don’t do exactly what I was thinking about doing.

Everybody was looking at me squiggle-eyed by the end of the day, and I didn’t blame them. I hadn’t been able to eat, hadn’t been able to put two words together in a row, hadn’t been able to quit watching Felix. I felt like a rope, stretched too tight and starting to fray.

I went upstairs early. Way early. Because I’d caught myself just about to buy a second glass of gin, and I hate the stuff. And then I sat there on the edge of the bed me and Felix were going to be sharing and clamped my hands together and tried to quit shaking. I didn’t figure there was much else I could hope for, but I wanted to start this conversation with Felix not shaking like a virgin on her wedding night.

Oh, bad bad comparison. Because we hadn’t talked about that weird thing that had happened in the river, and I didn’t want to be Silas to Felix’s Porphyria. And, fuck, that was an even worse comparison.

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