CHAPTER
13
A Favor Asked
Shae was beginning to quite like her new home in North Sotto. Tackling the tasks of settling into an apartment made her feel productive and, even if she wasn’t sure what she was going to do next as far as work was concerned, it gave her confidence that she could do this—she could live in Janloon and be near her family but still maintain her independence. She purchased attractive but basic furniture, stocked the apartment with necessities, and got used to cooking for one person again. She began exploring the neighborhood around her building and was pleased to find it contained an assortment of shops selling everything from brand-name handbags to malodorous herbal powders, and a range of eateries from oyster bars to nighttime noodle stands. More upscale than the crowded, unkempt Sotto Village, North Sotto was a gentrifying, trendy district populated by young professionals, artists, and a decent smattering of foreign expats. Shae could wear bold prints and bright skirts from her Espenian wardrobe, and far from looking out of place, appear trendsetting and stylish. This was Janloon at its most cosmopolitan and worldly.
However, even though an innocent visitor to the city might not notice it, it was apparent to Shae that the clan ruled here as strongly as it did anywhere else. She saw white lanterns—real ones or cheap paper cutouts—hanging in windows wherever she went. More than once she passed one or two, occasionally three, of Hilo’s people. Without her jade, she could not Perceive
their auras, but they were easy to spot: tough, hard-bodied young men and sometimes women, well dressed, casually armed with knives or blades, jade almost always on prominent display. Most people hurried past them, not wanting to draw any undue attention. Shae did the same, though for different reasons.
Her neighbors consisted of a twentysomething couple who looked as if they worked in the Financial District (the woman owned a tiny dog with the size and charm of an overfed rat), a single middle-aged woman who was always having her other single middle-aged woman friends over to drink wine and play loud card games, and a college-age young man who moved into the apartment down the hall from Shae’s about two weeks after she arrived. He seemed to come and go frequently, and after they’d nodded to each other several times when passing in the hallways or on the stairs, Shae thought she ought to introduce herself. She was hesitant to do so. Once she said the name Kaul, her pleasant anonymity here would end.
She told herself it was ridiculous to let such a thing prevent her from ever meeting anyone new. When she next saw her neighbor, they happened to be leaving the building at the same time. “I keep seeing you, but I don’t know your name,” she said to him, smiling.
“Ah,” he said, looking slightly abashed. He tipped his shoulders forward and touched his forehead in informal greeting. “I’m Caun Yudenru.”
Shae returned the gesture. “I’m Shae.”
Caun Yu raised his eyebrows. Heat rushed into Shae’s cheeks. She’d meant to give her full name, but somehow only the diminutive personal had escaped her mouth. Gods. He must be thinking her a shameless flirt. Caun was attractive—though he was younger than she and always wore the same black skullcap hat that made him look like a delinquent—but that wasn’t the point. She wasn’t interested in a rebound relationship. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Caun.” Shae backpedaled into formality, secretly cringing at what an odd mess she was making out of a simple encounter. “I will … see you soon, then.”
Somehow, she kept her poise, smiled benignly, and strode down the street without hurrying, as if she’d meant to make a fool of herself all along.
Determined to start making some headway on finding employment, she went to the city library and perused business directories of Janloon, jotting down the names and addresses of companies that interested her into a coil-
bound notebook. After a couple of hours of this, she was struck again, as she had been with the apartment hunt, by how needlessly slow and ineffective the process was. No Peak controlled businesses in many sectors, some through direct ownership but far more through patronage relationships with tribute- paying Lantern Men. A few well-placed phone calls and she could bypass all this legwork. She wondered if adhering to her policy of no help from the family was truly a worthy principle, or if she was just being prideful to the point of idiocy.
She knew what Hilo’s opinion on that would be. Stubbornly, she persisted for another half an hour before closing the books and leaving the library, still not sure if she’d wasted her time or spent it well. On the way home, she bought a typewriter to update her resume. She’d been back in her apartment not more than twenty minutes when there was a knock on her door.
She opened it to find Lan standing in the hallway. “May I come in?” he asked pleasantly.
She was so nonplussed that she didn’t say anything, merely held the door open for him to enter. He stepped into her apartment, leaving his two bodyguards waiting outside, and closed the door behind him. For a moment, he glanced curiously around the main room. Shae felt a pang of deep embarrassment. How meager this place must appear to him, how cheap and unworthy a residence for a member of the Kaul family. She crossed her arms and sat down on her stiff new sofa, feeling defensive even though he hadn’t yet said a word. If Hilo were here instead of Lan, he would be walking around, touching things. “It’s nice,” Hilo would say, shrugging and smiling like someone amused by a child who has thrown a fit and was now insisting on sleeping outside. “You like this place, Shae? So long as you like it, I guess.”
Lan said, “Do you have anything to drink? It’s still hot outside.” He started toward the small kitchen, but Shae jumped up and said, “I’m sorry, let me get it. I should’ve offered, but you … surprised me.” She hurried past him into the kitchen, which really only fit one person comfortably anyway, and took a pitcher of chilled spiced tea from the fridge. She poured him a full glass, hastily arranged some sesame crackers and roasted nuts onto a plate, and brought them back out to the front room.
Lan took the glass from her with a smile that seemed almost apologetic, as if he had not meant to put her to any trouble, then motioned her back to the
sofa and sat down next to her, shifting on the overly firm new cushions.
“Is … everything all right?” Shae asked. She could not understand why Lan would come to her instead of summoning her to the Kaul house.
Lan said sternly, “Do I need an excuse to come see my little sister?”
When she froze at the apparent rebuke, he winked at her to show he was teasing, and the gesture was both so much like Lan at his most relaxed, and also so at odds with the earnest air of command he possessed as Pillar that Shae laughed.
Lan drained half his glass, then turned to her with a more serious expression. “I am here for a reason, Shae.” He chose his words before speaking. “I’ve been having doubts about whether Doru is telling me everything I need to know. You can’t find a more seasoned Weather Man, and you know how close he is to Grandda. But there are things he’s said, small things, that make me think that I can’t count on him completely.”
Shae made a face; she despised Doru. “You should replace him.”
He turned his characteristically straight gaze on her. “I respect your decision not to be a part of the clan business. I don’t like the idea of you walking around the city without jade, but I’m not going to stop you either.
Whatever it is you decide to do, I’ll support you. I’ve told you that before, and it hasn’t changed.”
“But,” Shae added. Her shoulders sagged. It was only a matter of time … “I need someone I trust, someone who knows the business, to go up to the mines and take a look around. Go through their books, check to see that everything’s in order, and make sure it matches official KJA records. As a favor to me.”
Shae didn’t answer right away. Now she understood why he’d come to her apartment on the pretense of a visit instead of having this conversation in the house where Doru might notice and wonder. “Is that all?” she asked.
He furrowed his brow, as if suspecting sarcasm. “It’s weeks of work.”
“I know, but this is all you’re asking for, nothing else after that?”
“No,” he said. “This is all. I won’t pull you into the clan business by stealthy degrees, Shae, if that’s what you’re suspecting of me.” There was a slight harshness in his voice that made Shae drop her eyes in guilt. By suspecting Lan’s intentions, she’d affronted his pride after he’d already stooped to coming here and asking his younger sister for help.
Years ago, her involvement with the Espenians had begun with a few
small, simple requests, that had led to slightly larger requests, that had led to a file folder with her name on it and nearly ruined her relationship with her grandfather. Shae had not forgotten that a single step in one direction might portend an irrevocable change in one’s path.
But this was her brother asking, not Jerald or any of his smiling superiors.
As Pillar, Lan could demand her allegiance; he could ask her to kneel and reaffirm her oaths, and could cut her out of the family if she refused. He had not done that. She did not think he would consider it even if she said no to his request. She’d always taken Lan for granted, and she was reminded of that now.
A sudden trip south into the interior of the island would delay her admittedly vague job-hunting plans, but it wasn’t as if she was under any deadline. “I’ll go, Lan,” she said. “As a favor to you.”