Pike grinned behind the shadow of his hood, then gasped in false surprise. "Wait, Red? Is that you?"
Anger boiled in my stomach, pushing away my fear. It wasn't surprising that Pike and his boys thought of me as Red. Trapis was probably the only man in Tarbean that had known my real name, and red is just about the first thing people think when they see me. I had met Pike my first day in they city, before my hair had turned dark with soot and smoke. But Red was Ben's name for me. It was a name I loved, a name I had locked away with every other memory of my childhood I hated and cherished. On Pike's lips, it was profane.
"You shouldn't have come here," I said coldly.
Pike just smiled wider. "Don't know what you're talking about. We just came to get some country air. Didn't we, boys?"
I stiffened as four more cloaked figures stepped around the table.
Simmon stared blankly at the men surrounding us. "Kvothe? What's going on?"
Fela chewed her lip and cast her gaze around the balcony. For a moment, I thought she was going to run. Then I realized she wasn't looking for an escape. She was looking for a source of sympathetic power. My heart swelled painfully. Bless her.
"Kvothe?" Simmon repeated, his voice growing wilder as one of Pike's boys drew a knife from his sleeve and smiled crookedly, tongue between his teeth. I didn't blame Simmon for being afraid. These boys had the scarred, hungry look of true-bred Watersiders, street children that had survived the years of cold and starvation and fear and come out the other side with dead hearts and dull knives. The leering boy had the shock-white teeth of a denner addict. Sim was right to be afraid.
But my own fear felt shallow, unreal. I realized it was nothing more than an echo of my past, and dismissed it. In many ways, I was the same as the boys surrounding me. I too had survived Tarbean. But I was no Waterside boy with a makeshift blade and a vengeful heart. I was a sympathist, a namer. I had trained with the Adem and called down lightning like Taborlin the Great.
Still, I had my own reason to be afraid. I had put Fela and Sim in danger.
I stared Pike down. "This is between us. Let them go."
"Oh, I don't think so. This is better sport." Pike grinned wider and leaned forward, caressing Fela's cheek. She froze, staring at me with wild eyes. I shook my head. Don't move. "You're a mighty pretty lady," Pike murmured. He stroked her throat possessively.
He leaned in close, practically kissing her, and whispered just loud enough that I could hear. "I'm gonna make a penny whore out of you tonight, bitch."
Sim threw himself at Pike with a shout. The boy behind him took a single step forward, seized Sim's arms, and wrenched them behind his back. Sim fell to his knees, twisting in the older boy's grip. There was a loud snap as his shoulder dislocated and he sagged in the boy's arms, groaning.
The efficiency of it surprised me. These weren't just street ruffians with a bone to pick. They were trained thugs, enforcers for the dock gangs that sustained every brothel keeper and sweet-seller Waterside. In Tarbean we called them breakers, and steered clear.
"You've come up in the world," I said flatly.
Pike looked me over. "Not doin' too bad yourself. I like that cloak." His tone told me he looked forward to picking it off my corpse.
My stomach soured at the thought of Pike wearing my beautiful shaed. I leaned forward in my chair. "Think about what you're doing. Far as your boss knows, I'm not worth the shit on his boots. It must have been no trouble getting permission to hunt me down." I pointed at Simmon. "But he's the son of a duke. You do anything to him, and the whole University will come down on you like Taborlin the Great. You want to bring on that kind of heat, just for a little revenge?"
Pike blinked at me. "A little revenge?" he said incredulously.
"Now, don't get me wrong," I continued earnestly. "I'd love to watch some half-prick ganger bend you over a table like a teenage whore. It's just that—"
Pike's brain caught up with my tongue. "You—" Pike spluttered. "You think … A little revenge?" He pushed Fela away and stumbled towards me, dragging me out of my chair with two fists buried in my cloak. "You. Set. Me. On. Fire," he breathed. He stared down at me with wild eyes.
I smiled, my teeth bared and my eyes hard. I considered jamming my fingers into the hollow of his throat, but it wasn't the time or place and we both knew it. A little drunken late-night tussle wasn't unheard of, even in a well-kept establishment like the Eolian, but five corpses would see me hanged for sure.
"You know how hard it is to get decent work," Pike hissed, "looking like this?"
He pulled back his hood, exposing what remained of his face to the dim light of our balcony. The skin from his collar to his cheeks was a raw, twisted mass of translucent tissue. His left eye socket sagged grotesquely. I wanted to put a knife in it.
"You deserved what you got."
"You set me on fire," he roared.
My brittle self-control shattered. Towering, all-consuming rage crashed through my chest. "You broke my father's lute!" I cried, tearing away from him. "You put me on the street." I gasped for breath. "Three years of sleeping on rooftops. Of begging for pennies and stealing rags and digging half-spoiled food out of the gutter. Three years of cold and fleas and city guards with clubs. Three. God-damned. Years."
I drew close, my voice a hoarse whisper. "You thrice-cursed whoreson. You came here to kill me? You should have stayed in Tarbean, Pike. Because now I am going to kill you. You hear me? I am going to kill you."
Pike's damaged face twisted further. He pulled a knife from a belt sheath beneath his cloak and pointed it at my gut. "Brave words for a dead man." He gestured, and two of the boys grabbed Fela by the shoulders. Her face was an unreadable mask, but I heard her stifle a sob when the third boy yanked Simmon to his feet. His arm hung loosely at his side, and he wasn't standing on his own. I wasn't entirely certain he was conscious.
"What are you going to do?" I snapped. "March us through this place at knifepoint? You think nobody will notice?"
Pike smiled. "Oh, no, I thought I'd take a leaf out of your book. Nat?"
The sweet-eater jumped, his gaze unfocused. "What? Oh, right." He pulled a stick from the bag at his side and tied a rag around it, his fingers twitching with the manic energy of an addict riding a dangerous high. A torch? What good would that do? Then he pulled a bottle out of his cloak, and I understood. Dreg.
"No," I whispered, horror blossoming in my chest. "Don't do this."
The sweet-eater blinked guiltily at me.
Looking into those vapid eyes, my heart grew cold. I knew him. His name was Nathan. We'd shared bread before, in Trapis's basement. His brother had been badly hurt when I left Tarbean. An infection in his leg. I wondered if Trapis had managed to save him.
"Please don't do this. Nathan. Please."
He cocked his head when I spoke his name. The bottle of dreg danced at the end of his fingers, suspended over the balcony.
Pike brandished his blade at the younger boy. "Come on, you denner freak! What are you waiting for?" Fear flashed across Nat's face, and I watched in mute horror as he shook the entire bottle of dreg onto the cushioned seats below. The balcony was built of old, dry wood, coated in layers of resin. Blackened body of God, it was going to go up like bone-tar in warm air.
Pike grabbed the torch and tossed it over the balcony.
Empty as the Eolian was, it took a minute for anyone to notice the fire. I tracked its spread by the sound of screams and stampeding feet, rather than by sight. As the Eolian's few remaining patrons ran for the main staircase and the gaping front doors, Pike and his boys pushed us towards the smaller staircase at the opposite side of the building, through the shattered remains of a ground-level window I hadn't even know was there. In spite of everything, I was impressed. I hadn't thought Pike capable of this level of planning.
Panicked shouts echoed from Imre's main square to our small recess at the back of the building. I prayed Deoch and Stanchion could stop the fire. My heart sank further as I realized the true extent of the catastrophe Pike had orchestrated. My lute.
