“Whoa,” Nab says, waving a hand in front of his face. He jumps sideways, whirls in the air, and lands in a semblance of a combat stance. Punching the air, he makes small sound effects as if felling a few dozen opponents.
Myrrh rolls her eyes and snaps out a hand to still him. Her glimmer-honed reflexes make the motion whip-quick. The pain comes just as fast, and she sucks air through her teeth. “Don’t make me regret giving you the dose.”
Nab shakes her hand off and struts to the support post of the awning. He leans against it and tucks a hand in his pocket like he’s master of the underworld. She sighs.
Now that they’re clear of the warehouse’s immediate vicinity, she needs to get oriented and figure out somewhere to hide and lay in wait. Myrrh wants to be in place long before Silver returns. If she plans this right, for once she’ll have the drop on the woman rather than the other way around.
Chapter Twelve
AFTER CREEPING A zigzag course through the streets to learn the area around Silver’s warehouse, Myrrh spots the ideal perch. A rickety staircase climbs the side of a two-story warehouse and reaches a landing where someone has stacked empty shipping crates. Height and concealment—if Myrrh were a Nightblade follower of Skorry, she might guess that she’d been granted the gambler’s luck cantrip. Instead, the grubber in her wonders if this is just another layer of setup. Maybe she’s being stupid to think she can gain an advantage on the other woman.
But since it would be even stupider to choose a worse hiding spot due to pessimism, she nudges Nab up the ladder and follows once he gains the landing.
The boy shivers in the rain but tries to hide it. His hands are crammed into the folds of his woolen tunic. He doesn’t complain when she sheds her cloak and lays it over two stacks of crates that meet at their corners, forming a makeshift tent.
Tucked beneath it, she presses as close as she thinks he’ll allow, lending her body heat to the shelter. After a moment, his shivers calm, and he jams a hand into his small satchel.
Myrrh can’t help laughing when he pulls out a handful of what looks like it might have been a sweet roll before the rain got to it. Now it’s closer to porridge. Nab shrugs and starts licking the paste off his hand.
Judging by the color of the light—a judgment made somewhat more difficult by the glimmer-sight brightening shadows to daylight—it’s past midnight. Myrrh sent Silver to Rikson’s Roost to gather allies. If that were the woman’s only destination, she’d be back long before dawn, but Silver also said she wanted to survey the boundary of Maire’s Quarter to see if she can glean information on Glint. So it could be near daybreak before she arrives.
The thought of Glint’s name brings a pang to Myrrh’s chest. The criers were summoning people to the Neck’s market square to hear Emmerst formalize the accusations against him. Was Glint there, dragged in front of the population to be accused? Did he have to listen to their angry shouts?
She shakes her head. Better not to think about that right now.
Across the street, nearly concealed by a pile of broken plank siding that looks to have been stripped from a demolished building, Myrrh spies motion. She lays a hand on Nab’s arm, stilling him. The boy looks up from the mess on his hands, pastry goo on his chin.
She points.
Nab nods, looks at his hands, and shrugs. Sighing, she gestures for him to finish cleaning them off.
It looks like a person is moving down below, the rounded dome of their head sticking up above the planks. But whoever it is seems to be crouching in the shadow of a building’s eaves, almost as if they are also hiding out in the rain on this dark night. She peers harder, willing the glimmer to allow her vision to pierce solid wood, which of course it can’t.
Another flicker of movement catches her eye, this time from atop a building that stands between them and Silver’s warehouse.
And another, a rogue-like figure slipping through a shoulder-width aisle between buildings.
Sixes.
“You see them?” Nab breathes.
She nods, noticing three more shadows as they take up additional stations along the street leading to Silver’s hideout. Myrrh’s pulse speeds when she hears the telltale squeak of the warehouse door. Arne coughs as he steps into the street, grumbling to himself. As the guard draws near the shadowy figure closest to him, the hidden man shrinks back against the wall, ducking into the rough shadows. To Myrrh, the movement is accentuated by the glimmer, the shine of the man’s eyes and his moon-pale face as clear as if dawn light filled the street.
Arne is oblivious as he stomps past. He scans the street ahead as if searching for her and Nab.
As the guard passes the first man’s hiding place, putting his back to the hidden rogue, Myrrh cringes. She grips her dagger tight even though she could do nothing to defend Arne, not against six attackers. But as his heavy footsteps take him farther along the street, out of range of the man’s leap, she exhales.
These people are waiting for someone—by their positioning, she guesses they’re waiting for someone associated with Silver’s warehouse. But they don’t appear to be after Arne, nor does he seem aware of their presence. So is it Silver they’re after? Or is it Myrrh?
***
Even though the other rogues seem unaware of Myrrh’s presence, the situation still feels like a standoff. Myrrh’s knees ache from crouching, and Nab looks like being forced to hold still is the worst tragedy of his short life. After a while, he starts working his fingers through the misdirection cantrip, his hands hidden by the crates. Myrrh’s careful not to look in case he might capture her attention. But his practicing makes her wonder whether she would have better success with the trick if she devoted more time to mastering it.
Not that she’d ever admit to Nab that she might be learning something from him.
The night drags on, and eventually predawn pales the sky to the east.
When Silver appears at the end of the street, followed by a slight figure that Myrrh can’t identify as male or female, everyone hiding along the avenue stiffens. So…seems Silver is the guest of honor at this little party.
Which leaves Myrrh with a decision. If they’ve come to harm the woman—a situation that seems likely given that they haven’t jumped out to hug her—should Myrrh warn her? Help her even? Even with the glimmer-sight, she hasn’t been able to pick out any familiar faces from the shadows. The skulks are probably Haven, but she has no way to know whether they belong to the faction that’s supporting the Shields or the group that has sided with Ghost Syndicate.
Nab looks at her expectantly, as if waiting for a cue.
Silver and her mysterious companion step onto the street.
Sixes. This would be easier if the woman would just notice the ambush. Silver’s footfalls slap against the cobblestones, while those of her companion scrape the street, the rasping of hard leather against rock. They’ve advanced maybe twenty paces when the shadow on the rooftop opposite Myrrh slowly expands, the man standing to full height. Myrrh spots the hard angles of a crossbow, hears the barely audible click as the mechanism is armed.
She balls her fist, pounds it lightly against her thigh, and leans out from the shelter of the crates. Rain spatters the top of her head as she leaves the makeshift tent formed by her cloak.
“Silver,” she calls, “ambush.”
At once, the street erupts with motion. Men and women leap from their hiding spots. The crossbow on the opposite rooftop releases with a faint twang and a hiss as the bolt streaks down.
Silver’s hands blur, and a heartbeat later, she vanishes in a collection of shadows. The bolt sparks when it hits the street just half a pace in front of where the woman stood. Her companion hunches and scurries toward the wall of a warehouse, uttering something in a voice that sounds like a crow’s knife-on-whetstone grumbling.
Another crossbow shot glances off a cobblestone just behind the slight figure’s heels.
A wet gasp snares Myrrh’s attention, and she sw
allows a flood of metal-tasting saliva as the first of the ambushers falls, clasping at the dark slit in her throat. Blood, black in the dimness, spills down the attacker’s chest as she takes a single step forward, then topples.
The next attacker falls moments later, equally dead.
A thunk rips a shout from Myrrh’s throat as a crossbow bolt strikes the crate just a hand’s width from her face. She shoves back into the shelter of the stack and drags a hand over her rain-wet hair to squeeze the water away from her eyes.
“We need to help her,” Nab says.
“We already did. Any more will just interfere.” Myrrh swallows the uncomfortable taste in her mouth. She does not doubt that Silver will survive this while the Haven ambushers will not. There’s no point in attempting to convince the woman to take a prisoner or extend mercy to those trying to flee. It was Myrrh’s choice to warn Silver of the attack, so the deaths are as much on her as they are on the Nightblade woman.
“Above, Silver,” Silver’s companion croaks. “The archer is moving.”
Wood creaks and the landing trembles beneath Myrrh and Nab as someone—presumably Silver—starts up the stairs. A couple of breaths later, shadows shift as the woman, still nearly invisible, reaches the landing.
“Remind me to get you a ranged weapon,” Silver says with a hint of disdain as the shadows flow up the wall behind Myrrh and disappear onto the roof. The hiss of more shots soon follows, this time originating from the rooftop above Myrrh’s head. A startled yelp echoes in the night, followed by the heavy, wet thud of a body falling a long distance to the street.
Stillness follows. The croaking of bullfrogs in the bog swells to fill the silence.
Silver reappears on the landing. “Come on,” she says. “This location is blown.”
“Obviously,” Myrrh responds. “Who’s your friend?”
“We can talk about it once we’re off the streets.”
Dragging sounds from the street bring Myrrh upright. Her knees ache as she stands and pulls the cloak tent off the crates, once again settling it over her shoulders. Down below, Silver’s companion is moving the bodies out of the middle of the street and into the shadows of buildings.
“We agreed you would head into Rat Town and gather my leadership. Instead, you’ve returned with someone I don’t know.”
“As I said, I’ll explain once we’re hidden.”
A startled shout announces Arne’s arrival, the guard having returned from his circuit through the nearby streets. Silver’s companion hurries toward the man and speaks to him in that disconcerting rasp, the words too soft for Myrrh to make out.
“Mistress?” he asks, looking up at their position when the companion points to them. “Is that right? You want everything moved?”
Silver rematerializes on the landing. “As many of the goods as you can relocate before the first Shield patrol,” she calls down, cupping her hand to direct her voice. “Start with the weapons and the crates along the south wall. If the situation somehow escapes detection today, we’ll continue moving things after dark. You can recruit help, I assume?”
The man shows his palms. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Huffing, Silver steps onto the staircase. She looks back at Myrrh and Nab. “Coming?”
Nab starts forward, but Myrrh lays a restraining hand on him. “No. Not without information. I’ve had enough of your secrets.”
The woman groans. “This again?”
“Yes, this again.”
“Obviously, you see that I have an operation here. Surely you can understand why I’d avoid disclosing my business dealings to someone who might, under other circumstances, be a rival.”
Myrrh rolls her eyes, not bothering to hide the expression. “Conducting business in In Betweens makes you a rival for Haven, not me. But that’s not the point. Where are my friends?”
Silver fixes her with a flat stare. “From what I was able to discover, the woman who runs the gambling establishment—”
“Her name is Sapphire.”
“Sapphire has been taken in by the Shields for illegal gaming. Your mentor—Hawk, I believe—was corralled with many of the Rat Town denizens and herded to a holding pen in Smeltertown. As for the leadership of your syndicate, I was told that they haven’t been seen. The hope is that they’ve gone deeper underground. The fear is that they’ve been quietly removed from the city, likely on a corpse wagon.”
Myrrh can’t hide her shock. All that in just a single day? “How do I know that’s the truth?”
Silver shrugs. “One option is you decide to trust me. Otherwise, you have no way to know.”
“Who is your friend?”
“That I will explain. But it will take time. Shall we go? I have a fallback location where we can regroup. On the way, you can stop and visit Glint.”
“Wait, what?”
“Did I forget to mention that? I managed to locate him. You’ll have the best chance at seeing him if we get there before dawn.”
Chapter Thirteen
EVEN UP CLOSE, even with the glimmer-sight, it’s impossible to know whether Silver’s companion is male or female or neither. In place of ordinary clothing, supple leather strips wind around and around the person’s limbs, overlapping and crisscrossing and somehow managing to conceal any hint of breasts or a bulge in the groin. Smooth skin—uncannily smooth—scarcely folds when the person speaks; it reminds Myrrh of the rubber sheets that some barges carry up the River Ost, a strange substance that Hawk told her comes from taps inserted into trees to make them bleed.
“Do you have a name?” Myrrh asks in a whisper as they creep along the border where In Betweens meets West Fifth, one of the districts of Ostgard that Myrrh has rarely visited. The posh mansions and wrought iron fences seem untouchable for people of her ilk, criminals from the slums. Sure, now that she’s boss of a thieves’ syndicate, Myrrh’s safe houses have the same expensive sort of wall hangings and decorative vases that adorn these upscale dwellings. But the outsides of Ghost’s various hideouts are ramshackle by necessity, and the furnishings inside still feel false, like she’s an imposter.
“No name,” the person responds in the strange rasping voice. “We’ll talk later.”
As they reach the River Ost and turn downstream, slipping along the waterfront like eels through oil, the gray light of dawn filters through the falling rain. Silver glances toward the east and hurries their pace. For once, Myrrh feels no need to argue. They can’t be outdoors and off the thieves’ paths when the sunlight comes, and they can’t use the paths through Haven’s district. She quickens her step and keeps pace, nudging Nab from behind.
The glimmer-sight starts to fade as they wind between waterfront food stands with shutters locked for the night. A barge slips past on the Ost, heading downstream with the spotter still pointing a lantern toward the dark water ahead of the vessel’s snub nose. In the rear of the boat, the cherry of a cigar shines through the murk.
Myrrh stops short when she realizes they’ve reached the border of Rat Town. Silver’s fallback hideout is in Ghost Syndicate territory? The woman notices her reaction and shrugs. “Chaos creates opportunity. I paid a fleeing member of the syndicate you ousted for information on a suitable location. You’ve had plenty of work to do consolidating control of the district…makes it easy to conduct business unnoticed. Perhaps we can formalize an agreement later—I’d enjoy keeping a presence in this part of the city.”
The words aren’t an apology, but they’re at least respectful of Myrrh’s position. “We can discuss it,” Myrrh says in a tone that makes no promises.
“We should part ways here. My companion can take the boy to safety—they can help each other in fact, assuming he knows the hidden paths. We can join them after you see Glint.”
Myrrh hides her alarm at the thought of being separated from Nab. “I prefer to stay together.”
For once, Nab doesn’t seem keen to argue. He sidles away from the unsettling person, ey
es wide.
Silver sighs. “Would it help to know our destinations? My safe house is just across from the dock master’s offices. Basement level.”
Myrrh grimaces at the thought, thinking of the bilge pumps in those waterfront establishments and the sour-faced people hired by businesses to work their pedals. This far downstream, the river’s stench is barely tolerable for people who work above ground. Below street level where constant seepage brings river water through building foundations, it can be eye-wateringly bad.
Silver smirks. “Indeed. I do hope that if we come to an arrangement, you might allow me the luxury of a first- or second-story office.”
“And our destination?” Myrrh asks.
The woman gestures downstream toward the shadowy span of Second Bridge. Just starting to emerge from the fog, its towering pillars look huge in the haze.
“They have him in the Neck?” A piece of neutral territory, Second Bridge connects Rat Town to the market and trade district named for the narrow neck of land where the river nearly doubles back on itself. The bridge itself is a favorite spot for Myrrh, a place where merchants catering to both rich and poor set up lively businesses and stalls—there are surgeons and tattooists, dealers in exotic birds and sellers of meats of questionable origins.
“On the bridge itself. It will be easier to show you than explain.”
Myrrh glances at Nab, who shrugs. “It’s fine, I guess. I know how to find the dock master’s.”
“The Mouth wishes him no harm,” Silver says.
“The…what?”
“Skorry’s Mouth. It takes longer to explain than the time we have available. But on my thief’s honor, you can trust that your friend will be safe. Provided we don’t run into trouble ourselves, you’ll be reunited by sunup. But we need to go, Myrrh.” Silver, counter to her usual coldness, speaks almost gently. It’s probably just a deceiver’s ploy to put Myrrh at ease, but for all Myrrh’s efforts to resist, the ploy works.
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