by Bridget Zinn
Unless they weren’t children at all. One smiled up at her, and Kyra saw that his eyes weren’t just dark—they were completely black, with no whites.
Kyra threw herself to the ground, and when the boy creature lost his hold, she slapped her palm against her holster and blew her Doze potion into his face. Some sleep certainly wouldn’t hurt him. Whatever he was.
He stared, long eyelashes framing his black eyes. Then he reached for her arm once more. Kyra dodged him and tried blowing again, but it had no effect.
This had never happened before. Doze was effective on all kinds of human creatures. What were these children that they weren’t affected?
The boy took Kyra’s arm again, and he and his sister yanked her through a stand of dead pines, onto a muddy path that bordered a foul-smelling swamp. Up ahead was a giant mound of earth.
A hidden entrance led to a tunnel. Torches lined the walls, and the shadows cast by Kyra’s tiny captors stretched like those of gigantic monsters. It was only a trick of the light, but it sent a shiver right through Kyra. Their touch left her strangely weak.
At the end of the tunnel, a large sulfurous cavern bustled with activity. Hammers clanged, men grunted at their work, and wheelbarrows loaded with metal scraps went to a huge red glowing vat and came away empty. There were trolls lifting giant crates, and goblins sharpening weapons. At the center of it all, shouting at a group of oversized thugs and ratty-looking thieves, was the unmistakable hulking form of Arlo Abbaduto. His gigantic head was completely hairless, leaving nothing to distract from his misshapen nose and freakish protruding eyes.
Great. Yes, she’d wanted to meet with Arlo—King of Criminals, Master of Thieves, Ruler of Wrongdoers, and so forth—but not this way, not frog-marched in by two evil little munchkins, their tiny fingers clamped down so hard Kyra could feel her arms bruising.
As she was led past a group of gnarled old women, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Witches. One caught Kyra’s eye and stared hard until Kyra felt she was drowning in the hag’s milky gray gaze.
Kyra’s vision clouded, and in her mind’s eye was a kitchen garden festering with rot. Tomatoes sagged on withered stems, coneflowers bowed under the weight of blight, and desiccated herbs blew away in a hot dead breeze.
Kyra squeezed her eyes shut and shook away the images. She kept her eyes averted until the witches were far behind her. It wouldn’t do to reveal too much here, in the lair of the king of thieves.
When Kyra and the munchkins came into his line of sight, Arlo fell quiet.
Recognition spread across his round face.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “What have we here? Is the Princess Killer herself deigning to grace us with her presence?”
The men around them scuttled off.
Kyra’s cheeks warmed. She jerked her arms from her tiny captors, feeling a surge of renewed vigor as their fingers broke away from her. “I didn’t kill the princess.”
“But you tried. And you were so close.” Arlo put his pudgy fingers an inch apart to illustrate his point. “Rumor has it you were her best friend too? Beautiful.” He slowly blinked his bulbous eyes. “How low the mighty have fallen, Master Potioner.” He mock-bowed to her, unfurling his fat arm with a flourish.
The Master Trio of Potioners had been together less than a year when Arlo had visited. He came in person, a rare honor. He’d wanted some particularly sensitive poisons, and he was willing to pay handsomely.
They’d turned him down cold. They’d been so proud. Hal in his velvet cloak, his shiny riding boots propped up on the table; Ned with his hands crossed in satisfaction over his fat belly; and Kyra… It killed her to remember the haughty look she’d given the King of Criminals, and the disdainful way she’d said, “Why would we help the likes of you?” as though he were a piece of garbage in the street.
That was the first time she’d met him. The second time, she behaved even worse.
She didn’t want to think about that. She shook herself out of the memory and said, “Look, I came here to do business with you.”
“You did?” He looked pointedly at the children on either side of her. “It looks to me like you came here as a prisoner.”
One of her freaky little captors opened his mouth, large dark eyes glittering. “We brought you another slave, Your Majesty. Don’t you think she’ll clean up nice?” His voice was far deeper and fuller than Kyra would have expected. It sounded magnified, like many low voices at once.
“Oh,” Arlo said, “my little friends, you’ve brought me something far better than just a mere slave. This one’s talents are…extensive.”
Kyra was not going to become a slave. No way.
While the children bowed to Arlo, acknowledging his praise, she shoved the boy face-first into the ground and leapfrogged over him onto one of the wooden crates. Her back to the wall, she pulled a throwing needle and aimed it directly at Arlo’s heart. “They might be immune to my poison, but you aren’t.”
The child creature she’d pushed stood up and glared, seeming to grow bigger as his eyes bored into her.
Arlo put his hands up in front of him. “Settle down.” He jerked his head at the kids. “You two, scram.”
With one last scowl at Kyra, they left, the boy rubbing his face with his hand.
“I don’t want to fight you,” Arlo said.
Kyra watched him, the needle still raised. “Are you going to help me?”
“Why,” he asked, lids half lowered, “should I do that?”
“You know how deadly my poisons are.” She stared him down. “Would you like to test my aim?”
“What exactly is it that you want?” the King of Criminals said.
“I need to find someone, and I know you have…ways of finding people.” Kyra jumped down from the box, keeping her needle at the ready.
“Why would someone as exalted as a Master Potioner need the aid of a lowly king of thieves? I was under the impression that I was beneath your notice. Surely a potioner of your standing has her own ways of finding people.”
The last thing Kyra wanted was to admit the shortcomings of potions work. People generally had the idea that potioners could do just about anything, but their magic was limited. Only one known potion could be used to track people, and it had to be applied directly to the subject beforehand. Not the most useful of charms.
Kyra lowered her throwing arm as a sign of trust. She was quick enough to nail Arlo before he could attack her. Even with her arm down. “I don’t have any other options.”
Kyra wished she didn’t sound quite so desperate. Hell, she wished she wasn’t so desperate. But after Kyra’s failed assassination attempt on the princess’s sixteenth birthday, Ariana had completely disappeared. Kyra had spent the last three months hunting for the princess but had learned very little.
All the while, Kyra had been evading capture, living on the fringes of towns, using glamours, confusion potions, and all manner of deceit to disguise herself.
Because if the authorities caught her, she would hang.
Arlo seemed to enjoy having Kyra at his mercy. A hideous grin spread across his wide face. If anything, it made him uglier.
“And what”—his monstrous eyes swept across her body—“do you have to offer me in return?”
“I don’t have access to a potions lab the way I used to.”
“I know,” Arlo said. “That wasn’t what I had in mind at all. Though I’m sure we could find some raw materials for you to tinker with.”
“I have money,” Kyra said, reaching for her satchel.
“So do I.” Arlo grinned wider, his lips parting and revealing masses of mossy teeth.
“But do you have any of these?” She pulled out a pouch and loosened the drawstring. An eerie green glowed from within.
“Potioners’ coins.” Arlo’s voice sounded impressed despite himself.
Kyra shook one into his huge hand. He held it up to his eye. “These could come in handy.”
Kyra didn’t doub
t they would be useful for someone as crooked as Arlo. Potioners’ coins looked like regular coins to the naked eye, but no matter where they were spent, they always ended up back in their owner’s pockets.
“And you’ll change their owner imprint to me?”
“Of course.”
“I just might have something for you, then.” Arlo gestured for Kyra to follow. He led her deep into the cavern. She walked behind him, keeping her guard up through the dark halls. The air grew more and more noxious, until Kyra felt like she was trapped in an unshoveled barn.
She saw the shadowy movement of animals she couldn’t identify.
“Here.” Arlo opened an iron gate near the end of the cavern.
Inside was one small pink pig. About the size of a house cat.
“Are you kidding me?” Kyra liked animals just about as much as she liked children.
“It’s a Katzenheim pig. Best hunter we’ve got. She’ll find the person you’re looking for.”
Kyra looked down at the little creature. It had perked up at the sound of their voices and lifted its head to look at them in what Kyra could only describe as a hopeful way. It wasn’t that she’d never heard of Katzenheim pigs, but more as the punch line to a joke than as an actual practical means to finding someone. The idea of trusting her mission to a pig seemed borderline insane. Before Kyra could open her mouth to protest, Arlo had placed the pig’s leash in her hand and started down the hall.
“Hey!” she shouted after him, then scurried to follow when he didn’t turn back. The pig trotted amiably beside her.
Kyra caught up to Arlo as he turned off into a giant storeroom piled high with what Kyra could only guess were stolen objects. There were crystal vases, fine china, women’s lacy shawls, jewels tumbling out of cases, a stuffed stag’s head with one marble eye popped out, bolts of silk and satin, oil lamps with half-burned wicks, and more—too much more to see at a glance.
“This really wasn’t what I had in mind,” Kyra said to the back of Arlo’s oversized head.
He grunted and kept going.
She stepped closer to one of the shelves to get a better look at the bust of what appeared to be a military general, but jerked back when she realized it wasn’t a statue. It was a real head.
If she needed to be reminded of who she was dealing with, Mr. Dead Frozen Head had done it. She wasn’t just working with a criminal—she was working with a monstrous one.
Kyra shook herself.
Leaving there with a pig was starting to seem like an almost sensible idea.
“How is this pig supposed to find who I’m looking for?” she couldn’t help asking Arlo as he poked around on the shelves in front of her.
“That is what this is for.” He pulled a tiny basket down from a shelf. “You put an object belonging to the person into the basket, put it around the pig’s neck, and you’ll have no problem finding whomever you’re looking for.”
He pulled a small scarf out of a bin, lifted the lid of the basket, and shoved the material inside. “Lucky for you, I just happen to have something belonging to whomever.” He winked at her. “Always happy to help damage the kingdom.”
“I’m not—”
“Give Her Highness my best. Or not.” Arlo’s thunderous laugh echoed throughout the cavern.
KYRA LEANED BACK INTO the crook of the tree trunk, her long hair catching on the bark as she settled in. Darkness surrounded her and stars peeked through the silhouette of the upper branches of the tree.
Before laying out her bedroll, she’d placed potion wards in a perimeter around the tree to alert her to anyone approaching. Making a concealment charm from scratch would have been too much work for a one-night stay.
She knew it didn’t offer much protection, but it felt good to have a large tree against her back. The pig certainly wasn’t going to be much use in a fight.
The pig.
It was the most ridiculous thing in the entire world: Kyra, would-be assassin and master potioner, had resorted to hunting down her prey—her best friend the princess—with a piglet.
But she had no choice. The princess had to die.
Didn’t she?
A twist of doubt swirled through Kyra. What if she was wrong?
The pig tucked itself up next to her, grunting contentedly. Kyra had fed it a chunk of her stale bread as she’d laid out her bedroll, then taken a handful for herself before wrapping it up. Another mouth to feed. Kyra had a hard enough time getting food for herself!
She pushed the pig away, along with her doubts about her mission. It had been a long day and she felt bruised inside by her encounter with Ned and Hal. Gently, she lifted the necklace out of her shirt—and gasped.
It glowed in the dark. Like a tiny oblong moon dangling from a chain.
Well! That might be useful.
She reached into her satchel, pulled out the soft velvet of her potions bag, and picked through a handful of the glass vials, the necklace lighting up the tiny print on the labels. There was the cloaking potion in its special misting bottle; her signature sleeping potion, Doze, which she used to tip her needles; a tracking potion—which was almost completely useless; and a couple of glamours for use as disguises. Each went back into the bag with a gentle clink.
Aha. The potion she was looking for: 07 211, otherwise known as Peccant Pentothal. One of the strongest poisons in the world.
Perfect for taking out the princess.
Kyra carefully shook the vial of phosphorescent blue liquid next to her ear. A little under half full. She slipped the bottle back into the bag and tied it closed. Questions rumbled through her head.
But she wasn’t going to find any answers tonight. Tonight she just needed to get some sleep. A thorough bath wouldn’t hurt either, but she couldn’t do anything about that at the moment.
Kyra slipped the necklace back under her shirt to hide the light. There were people hunting for her, after all. No need to draw their attention.
She slumped farther down into her bedroll, pushing thoughts of being hunted and the dark creatures of the world to the back of her mind. Kyra wasn’t just tired. She was completely exhausted. The pig wormed its way back over and was resting against her leg.
Kyra discovered she was actually too tired to push it away.
At least it didn’t smell.
Kyra woke up the next morning with the feeling that something was wrong. She was stiff and cold and there was a weight on her chest that didn’t belong there. It felt warm and…alive. Her eyes flew open, expecting to see that a soul-sucking succubus had somehow made it through her defenses.
But it was just a tiny pig.
The pig. Right.
Kyra rubbed her eyes and sat up, dislodging the pig as she did so.
She grabbed her pack and opened the top.
Her spare clothes were identical to the ones she was wearing. Her standard black outfit was practical and low-key. Perfect for the road. The spare set had several good wears before needing a wash.
But underthings were a whole different story. She was down to one last clean pair.
Worse, this last pair of clean underthings was a complete joke. Not only were they the most ridiculous, feminine, beribboned bit of foolishness that ever existed, but they’d been a gift from Princess Ariana.
Ariana had specially commissioned them for Kyra’s sixteenth birthday the fall before, and she’d embroidered them herself. In none-too-neat stitching, the word KITTY—Ariana’s nickname for Kyra—was written across the left bosom of the waist-length shift. On the right was a horrible image of a cat. It appeared to be winking. Or suffering some sort of nervous facial tic. And the lower half was almost worse—cut off high on the thigh and festooned with ruffles all across the bottom.
By the time Ariana turned fifteen, it was undeniably clear that she was no longer ill. She bloomed with health, and her temper had taken a sharp turn for the better. Ariana had grown to be a large-boned gangly teen with a splash of freckles across her face, her neat ringlets replaced by a
wild mane of frizz that suited her perfectly. A girl who didn’t eat her tea biscuits daintily, but instead crushed them up into crumbs to feed the birds on her parapet.
It wasn’t ladylike. So the queen brought in a group of well-bred girls to be her ladies-in-waiting and insisted Ari learn a feminine craft.
Ariana chose embroidery.
The princess made the most of it, but she fit into her sewing circle about as easily as a hunting dog. Ariana was no lap puppy, and Kyra could never suppress a grin at the sight of tomboyish Ari with her ladies—the polished fine-boned girls of the kingdom with their pretty silk dresses and artfully arranged hair.
As different (and often shocking) as Ariana was, Kyra could tell that most of the ladies-in-waiting were fond of the princess. It was difficult not to get caught up in her infectious laughter.
And how she had laughed when Kyra opened her birthday gift on the first of November, shortly after Kyra had announced her engagement.
Kyra could feel the look of horror crossing her face and had quickly popped the top back on the box. Lowering her voice, she’d whispered, “Ariana! You must be stopped. I’m serious. Someone needs to lock you away with the other crazy people.”
Ariana wiped tears of glee off her cheeks. “You know you love it, and he’s going to love it even more.” She erupted with another gale of laughter.
Kyra put her hand over Ariana’s. “It’s weird—we’d both sworn we’d never do anything so stupid as get married, but, Ari, it feels right. It really does. And it isn’t going to be for ages, really—not till next year.”
The light still sparkled in the princess’s eyes, but she looked unusually serious when she replied. “Just because I’m not going to ever get married doesn’t mean that you can’t. We’ll still be best friends, right?”
“Right.”
They’d been so, so wrong.
How had this underwear ended up in her pack?
Kyra’s subconscious must have been out to punish her.
Granted, she’d been in a bit of a rush, what with all the soldiers in the realm hunting her down. She had a vague memory of grabbing a drawer and dumping its entire contents into her pack.