Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  “You will want to watch how you address me, Mr. Asher.”

  Asher snorted. His beast flapped its wings, the ruffling of feathers wafting through the room. “In Safrona or Duskhaven, maybe. But you’re in my city, Prince. You can bring as many fancy Kinetics as your dear brother-in-law lets you. It doesn’t change the fact that these are my streets.”

  Only the oldest daughter of the queen of Briel had claim to the Brillish throne, but everyone knew Efrain was the only Althea child without claim to any throne. His younger sister was married to mad old Tolliver Shadowwood, king of Edale. Ryia poked her head down, sneaking a peek into the room. The men stood a pace apart, Asher tall and bony, Efrain distinctly round. Efrain stepped back, pouring himself a glass of wine so dark it looked almost black. He took a seat, waving the wine at Asher.

  “Care for a glass? Finest from Doreur. Rich, cut with the sweetest plums of the spring harvest.”

  Asher gave Efrain a pitying look as he settled into the chair beside him. “I’m afraid I don’t partake.”

  “Shame,” Efrain said, swishing the glass from side to side the way only the most pompous of shits ever did.

  “I’m surprised dear Tolliver approves of you supporting Doreur’s vineyards,” Asher said lightly. “I suppose it’s the Gildesh in you that makes you partial?”

  Efrain’s head snapped up, looking like a child caught stealing sweets. He cleared his throat, pointedly setting his wineglass down. “On to business. You’ve ensured the cooperation of the Harpies as instructed, I hope?”

  Asher’s lips twitched. He reached his left hand into his pocket. Or rather, what remained of his left hand. Two lonely fingers and a thumb. The rest belonged to the Needle Guard now. A perfect illustration of the difference between Asher and Clem. Asher was a bold, reckless man. Clem… well, he still had all ten fingers.

  Asher pulled a wriggling green shape from the pocket. A grasshopper. He held it out to the bird.

  “Here, Sybaris.”

  Efrain wrinkled his nose as the bird ripped into the insect, tearing it in two with a sudden peck. Asher gave a haunting smile, rubbing his palms together.

  “I have taken the Harpies under my wing. As requested. Though I don’t see why it was necessary.”

  “We’ll be needing their ships.”

  What?

  Asher seemed similarly confused. He let out a braying laugh that was surely as deadly as Clem’s smile.

  “Ships? Are we going after the Ophidian?”

  Ryia almost laughed herself. The Ophidian: mythical sea creature, sinker of ships, devourer of souls, all that bullshit. An old legend like the one about the gigantic ice bears the Boreans believed used to haunt the northern reaches of the Völgnich Mountains. Stories left over from the days before the Adept servants were servants at all, when magic was something to be feared, not bought and chained. Those days were long gone now.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Asher,” Efrain said, stone-faced. “Did my brother-in-law’s men not tell you? Our target is a good deal more dangerous than that. But a lot easier to find.”

  Asher scratched his bird’s chin. “Is that so? Where exactly might that be?”

  “The Guildmaster’s island.”

  Ryia nearly lost her grip on the splintery old wood. A shock of rage flooded through her at the mention of the bastard who had made her life a living hell for nearly a decade. The man who had witnessed her second birth, figuratively speaking… and who seemed pretty fucking determined to witness her death as well. For a moment she was drowning in memories of smothering darkness, surrounded by suffocating smoke and blistering flame, head spinning as the scent of danger seared her nostrils for the first time.…

  Asher’s derisive chuckle pulled her back to the present. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Guildmaster’s island, Mr. Asher. The Guildmaster has something my dear brother-in-law is very interested in.” Efrain leaned back in his chair. “You understand the political sensitivity of the matter. This agreement cannot be traced back to Edale, which is why he is offering you such generous paym—”

  “To risk ending up in a cell beneath the Guildmaster’s manor? Or losing my head? My entire operation? Two hundred thousand crescents is far from generous,” Asher said flatly. “Tell Shadowwood I refuse. And tell him to lay off the dormire’s blood while he’s at it. Clearly the rumors are right—it’s addling his brain.” He moved to stand.

  “Do not forget, Mr. Asher, you and your Crowns owe me.”

  “Yes, well, an iron coin can only buy you so much.”

  Efrain swirled the wine in his glass again. “Have it your own way. My brother-in-law is a generous man. I’m sure with some negotiating, I can get him to agree to raise that figure. Perhaps… double it.”

  Four hundred thousand crescents. That could buy an estate, a fleet of ships, an island off the coast of Boreas.

  But Asher just laughed. “Have him triple it. He could promise me every crescent in the Shadow Keep’s treasury, for all I care. A dead man has no use for gold.”

  Across the room, Efrain began to sweat. He pulled out a roll of parchment with near-dripping hands.

  “Now, let’s not be hasty, Mr. Asher.” He unrolled it, flinching as the bird shrieked again. “This is all my king requires. An artifact of Declan Day.”

  “And what does your dear Tolliver want with some dusty old relic from him of all people?”

  Declan Day, the world’s most famous traitor. The man who ended the Seven Decades’ War—the drawn-out fighting between those with Adept powers and those without—that had rocked Thamorr three centuries ago. He was a born Adept. The most powerful Senser in history. And instead of fighting with his fellows, he had joined with the ungifted, used his power to hunt down his own kind, and fit them for shackles and collars. Named himself the first Guildmaster of Thamorr. The Adept had been servants to the ungifted ever since.

  “It’s not my job to know what he wants with it, Mr. Asher. It’s my job to procure it for him. Are your Crowns up to the task, or are they not?”

  Asher moistened his lips thoughtfully as he stared down at the parchment. In the light, Ryia just barely made out a sketch of something on the other side of the paper. She could almost feel the gears turning in his head as he weighed his options: his life against a fortune and a madman’s errand.

  After a long silence, Asher set the scroll down on the desk just beside the window. Ryia pressed herself farther still into the shadows. “I’ll have no use for a crown if I have no head to wear it on, Prince of Nothing,” he said, storming across the room and wrenching the door open.

  Efrain winced at the mocking title and chased after him. “I’d beg you to reconsider. I will be in the city until the end of Juna. If you would…”

  The rest of the sentence was lost as the door snapped shut.

  The lock clicked, and Ryia swung her legs down, landing on the sill. She was irritated with her hands for shaking as they grabbed hold of the scroll Asher had so carelessly tossed aside. An artifact of Declan Day, something to be stolen from the Guildmaster’s island. Something King Tolliver Shadowwood wanted…

  Her breath caught as she unrolled the scroll. A sketch, scrawled in charcoal. Not the original, just a copy, from the looks of it. Traced from some older document. There were at least two more copies of the sketch strewn on the desktop beside Efrain Althea’s other belongings, now that she looked closer. The drawing featured a small device, about the size and shape of a writing stick. It stood on its point, hovering over a rough outline that was unmistakably the continent of Thamorr… a map. All around the drawing of the strange, ancient device were captions and notes in a looping language Ryia couldn’t read. Old Dresdellan, if this really was Declan Day’s work.

  Efrain may not have told Asher what this device was for… not that Asher would have cared beyond what the thing was worth, but Ryia had a sickening feeling she knew what it did. For centuries, it had been a mystery how Declan Day had managed to root out all the Adept during the war. How h
e had captured them all. How, even now, the Guildmaster and his Disciples managed to find every Adept infant in the kingdoms long before any sign of power showed itself in them… but there had always been rumors.

  Rumors that the Guildmaster could sniff out every magically gifted human in all of Thamorr. Rumors that made no sense, given the actual nature of a Senser’s powers… not to mention the fact that the current Guildmaster was a Kinetic. But they were rumors that Ryia had known for a long time must be true. How else would he have tracked her down in that goddess-forsaken corner of Boreas? Or that tiny village in the deserts of Briel? She had lived as a mercenary, a highwayman, a fucking weaver, for Felice’s sake… but it had never seemed to matter how quiet she stayed or how far she ran. He always found her.

  An artifact of Declan Day.

  What if this ability was not a power of the Guildmaster’s, but of this device? She studied the drawing again. A magical writing stick, filling the map beneath it with the location of every Adept in Thamorr? This was what he had used to locate her again and again. Ryia flushed with anger. She had been kept on the run for almost a decade by a pen? But that had to be it—what else would the king be willing to shell out four hundred thousand crescents to a piece of shit like Wyatt Asher for? He didn’t just want this crumbling old relic—he wanted the Guildmaster’s power. Not his magic, but his reach. After all, whoever controlled the Adept controlled Thamorr, that much had been true for over three hundred years.

  Ryia didn’t give two shits about controlling Thamorr. She wanted only one thing. Freedom. It was the only thing she had wanted for as long as she could remember. She had done a thousand terrible things to win it temporarily over the past nine years. She had stolen, lied, and killed more times than she cared to count. But now here it was, real freedom. A permanent escape from her life on the run from the Guildmaster and his Disciples—and the chance to completely fuck over the man who had destroyed her life for all these years—but she would have to go right into the viper’s nest to get it.

  She weighed the risks, then tucked the scroll down the front of her shirt. Her mind raced as she shuffled the papers around on the desk to disguise the missing copy. Clem would be interested in this job. She had no doubt he would be just as interested in showing up Wyatt Asher as he would be in the chance to earn four hundred thousand crescents. If the king of Edale wanted this device—this Quill—she didn’t think he’d be overly picky about which criminal syndicate managed to steal it for him. Besides, Efrain Althea owed them a favor. If the Saints got the job done, the payout would be theirs to claim…

  Or, at least, that was what she would tell Clem.

  But there would be no payout. Not for the Crowns. Not for the Saints. Not for Tolliver Shadowwood.

  She pulled herself back onto the roof before Efrain could return to his chamber, then paused, staring up at the night sky. She would have to run again when this was over, but this would be the last time. Her eyes glinted in the starlight as fear and vigor rushed through her veins in equal parts. It was settled, then. She would help the Saints find this Quill. She would help them steal it.

  But then she was going to destroy it.

  8

  IVAN

  Ivan had spent the past three years in Carrowwick. All this time and he still could not understand why the air felt like it was sweating. Smothering him like a knitted blanket, coating him until his long hair felt soaked enough to wring out. He resisted the urge to try as he cut east along Threader’s Lane, making his way back to the Saints’ row house.

  He had given Cameron the note for the Butcher nearly an hour ago and had finally managed to shake the smuggler not long after that. He liked Nash just fine, but he could not have shown up to the Carrowwick Fair with a shadow. After dark was the only time the best supplies were offered—and only to those proven not to be Needle Guard in disguise. Sealing wax in the colors of every noble house in Thamorr, rare poisons crafted from flowers that only grew in the vast deserts of Briel, every type of illegal weapon from slender pirate swords to Gildesh throwing stars.

  His forgery kit had been running low for weeks now. But not anymore. His trip to the Fair had been particularly fruitful tonight. He patted the front of his coat, feeling the lumps of wax tucked there. Cornflower blue—the color of the Darcrewe family. Clem’s favorite to impersonate in writing. Wealthy enough to carry some weight with the merchants, not important enough to raise any unwanted questions. Now all that was left to do was head back home to the row house.

  Scuff.

  Ivan paused as the sound slipped past the lull of waves sloshing against the seawall beside Threader’s Lane. Feet on stone. The Saints of the Wharf knew better than to lurk around in the shadows like cockroaches. Could one of the Crowns have grown bold enough to follow him here? The Saints had fallen far in recent weeks, but surely not so much that their own front doorstep was no longer safe.…

  The lane was a dead end, but still…

  He pursed his lips, eyes darting up and down the narrow street.

  Eleven.

  Eleven possible escape routes. Twelve, if he felt like tossing himself into the river. Hopefully it would not come to that. The foot scuffed again, and Ivan turned on his heel, whirling around to challenge his less-than-stealthy visitor… but there was no one there.

  Cough.

  Just below his line of sight. He looked down. A lochranz. An urchin, no older than ten. He sighed. Scared of a child. Kasimir would have laughed himself into a fit. He winced at the thought.

  “What is it?” The question came out harsher than intended, perhaps. But he already knew the answer when he saw the scroll tucked in the child’s fingers. Of course. One of the Messengers’ Fellowship’s human magpies.

  “I’m looking for Ivan Rezkoye?” the child said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. He held the scroll as though he expected it to burn him.

  “I will take it to him,” Ivan said flatly, reaching out for the tightly rolled parchment.

  The child drew back. “I’m supposed to deliver it directly to—”

  “I do not care what you are supposed to do. You will give the scroll to me. Now.”

  The child flinched as Ivan grabbed the scroll from him. He turned the parchment over in his fingers. Who would be sending him a message by magpie? A foolish question.

  Ivan’s fingers trembled as he ran them over the scroll. It felt like charred flesh beneath his fingertips. Charred flesh and iron bars. The message runner was gone by the time he turned the scroll over in his hand, fingers gently brushing over the dark blue seal, the shape stamped into the wax. A shark’s tooth. The mark of Haisefven. The Shark of the North and his resistance. His dear brother, Kasimir.

  He had waited so long to see that seal. Sent his meager payments winging their way north in secret month after month, waiting to hear back from the Fvene, those still carrying on Kasimir’s movement while he was imprisoned for the crime of challenging Boreas’s tyrant king. Shooting a cautious look over each shoulder, Ivan pried the seal apart, squinting to read in the light of the half-hidden stars.

  Ivan,

  Sav den cilver. Den psen es veseln.

  Den Keunich sajt Haisefven necht friyleben.

  Haisefven echt tuerden am 7 Novebir.

  Gott weich nim; Gott gevt nach.

  His heart battered against his rib cage as he read the words again and again, anticipation melting into dread.

  Den Keunich sajt Haisefven necht friyleben… What did the Fvene mean? The king said Kasimir was not eligible for release? The price of release had been set four years ago, based on the sum of his offenses. Did the throne of Boreas expect them to believe Kasimir had somehow committed another crime while under guard by the medev? There had to be a mistake. He cradled his neck in his left hand.

  Haisefven echt tuerden am 7 Novebir. The line scorched into his vision, searing and smoking until the words were branded there. Tuerden. Dead. Kasimir was set to be executed the seventh of Novebir. Less than six months away.
>
  So it had all been for nothing. All his work with Kasimir, and everything he had done since. Dissolved like snowflakes in the sea. Ivan may have saved his own neck by hiding out in this pizhlache of a city, but if Kasimir was to die anyhow, then what was the point?

  He stuffed the letter into his sleeve, breezing into the row house. But no. The members of Kasimir’s resistance, his Fvene, did not give in. Not until their last breath joined the cold Borean winds. He would not leave his brother to rot in the cells beneath Oryol. He just had to find something the vile Keunich wanted more than gold…

  Preferably something besides his own body strung up on that mountaintop.

  The house foyer was nearly empty, just Nolan and a few others playing dice in the corner. Ivan pulled his dyed hair from its tangled ponytail. It was a good thing there were few people to sense this frantic energy seeping from his skin. He would need to get that under control before Clem arrived. For the leader of the Saints was a shark too, in his own way. Just one ounce of weakness served as a drop of blood in the water. Since the incident with the Foxhole there was no telling how Clem would react to that weakness. Ivan did not have any intention of finding out.

  He stalked to his chambers in the back of the house, pulling up a loose floorboard beneath his bed and stowing the scroll inside. There. He eased the board back into place. Perhaps now that it was shut away, his thoughts would stop flitting around his skull like flies in a glass jar.

  He traded his dirty pirate coat for a handwoven robe. As he walked to the bathing chamber to fill a bowl with fresh water, he felt a shift in the air.

  The entire row house grew silent, the air taut as an Edalish bowstring. He moved to the sitting room and slouched against the windowsill, dipping his hair into the bowl of water. That could only mean one thing. After all, in the symphony of the Saints, Callum Clem was always an unexpected change in key.