by M. J. Kuhn
“Captain Linley?”
“If you thought that title still belonged to me, you would never have come looking for me here.”
His smile widened. A street dog baring its teeth for a fight. “A fair point.”
Without waiting for an invitation, he prowled into the room. The man sniffed the air, obviously unoffended by the odor. He seemed to revel in it, if anything, eyeing the puddles of sick and empty bottles with satisfaction.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked. Evelyn hadn’t told anyone where she planned to go. Hadn’t known herself until she’d stumbled down Leech Alley a few days ago, drunk and bleeding from a tavern fight she could hardly remember.
“The same way I knew you had been dismissed from the guard. Turned away from your family’s estate?” He tutted softly. “To cast out their own flesh and blood…”
She narrowed her eyes. “Answer the question.”
The man spread his arms. “This is my city, Captain. As her ruler, it is my job to know everything that happens within her walls.”
A seed of deeply planted loyalty bloomed in Evelyn’s chest. “Duncan Baelbrandt the Second is the ruler of this city.”
“But of course he is.”
Evelyn pushed her hair back again, trying to convince it to stay behind her shoulders. It didn’t listen. “Are you going to tell me what you want, or should I be reaching for my sword?”
“What I want?” The man lifted a hand to his breast as though shocked. “It hardly matters what I want, Captain. Not to you, at least. No, I’ve come here to discuss what you want.”
“That’s none of your business.”
He reached into his pocket, removing a small scroll. “I’d like to make it my business.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she unrolled the parchment, catching sight of the seal at the bottom of the page. Purple wax. A Dresdellan galleon, fitted with sails of lace. The Baelbrandt family crest. And the writing above… unmistakably the hand of King Duncan’s scribe. She had grown up surrounded by his whorls of ink, the way his letters leaned slightly to the right, the tiny loops on the Gs and Ys. Sparing a suspicious glare for her visitor, she began to read:
By order of the King of Dresdell, Duncan Baelbrandt the Second, His Majesty and Lord of the Bobbin Fort, the criminal known as the Butcher of Carrowwick is called for arrest. Any Guard or citizen who manages to succeed in his capture will be rewarded with a Valiership. In the name of Felice and Adalina, and the Duality of the Heavens.
“It would seem our beloved king wants the Butcher quite badly. Something I think you and he have in common.”
Evelyn glared at the man through red-rimmed eyes. She rolled the parchment, wagging it in the man’s face.
“Where did you get this?”
“The voices of kings carry all the way down to the gutter, Captain,” he said. His pleasant smile plagued her spine with a thousand spiders. “I’ve brought it here to show you that you can still get what you want. So you believe me when I tell you I can give it to you.”
Her heart stuttered. “And why would you do that?” She studied him carefully with her chestnut eyes. “I know all about you.”
“Hardly.”
“The Butcher is your barking dog, Clem.” She watched his angular face for signs of surprise. There were none. But he did nothing to deny it.
“Dog? No. I prefer to think of the Butcher as my sharpest sword. Undoubtedly useful… but even the best blades can be sold. Traded for something better when the time comes.”
“Traded?” she repeated slowly. “What do you want?”
Clem lifted a hand, scratching his thin beard. “Your assistance, Captain. In return, the Butcher is yours.”
“Explain.”
“Guidance,” Clem said, crossing the room and examining a cracked vase in the corner with apparent interest. He waved his fingers with a flourish. “Information.”
Evelyn’s freckled fingers tightened, crushing the scroll. She might be beaten, she might be an outcast, a failure, a burgeoning gutter rat, but she was no traitor. She would never sell Dresdell’s secrets—especially not to a weasel like Callum Clem.
“I’m not giving you shit on the Needle Guard. Or the fort. Or the royal family. I might be disgraced, but I still have some sense of honor.” She thrust the ruined scroll back into his face. “You’ll have to find another drunken mess to play turncoat, I’m afraid.”
Clem laughed, the sound of ice scraping against the hull of a ship. “You misunderstand, Captain. I have no interest in such things.” He strode back to the door.
“What exactly is it you’re looking for, then?”
His hand on the doorframe, Clem looked over his shoulder. “Just an invitation to a rather exclusive party.”
Evelyn blinked, confused.
Clem turned the knob. “I must be going, Captain, really—as I’m sure you know, I’m a busy man.” He cast a final look around the dingy room. “But if you tire of… this… I trust you know where the Miscreants’ Temple is? Nine in the morning. Tomorrow.”
Without another word he was gone, leaving Evelyn alone in the fetid darkness, the king’s scroll clutched in one hand, a half-empty bottle of stervod in the other.
10
TRISTAN
Tristan woke to find a small pool of sweat in the hollow of his chest. He sat up, pushing his lank curls out of his eyes and stretching his stiff joints. He winced as his knee painfully popped. The straw mats on the attic floor of the Miscreants’ Temple were not exactly Edalish featherbeds, but he supposed it was better than sleeping in the gutter.
Across the attic, a few other Saints too lowly to have a room at the row house were already chattering, undressing after a long night’s work.
“You know what would go with this ale?” Roland said wistfully, sloshing a half-full mug. “A nice bowl of tuna and mint stew.” He sighed, pulling his tattered begging costume off over a belly that Tristan’s mother would have said looked like it didn’t need any more stew.
“If you’re so homesick for Linway, why don’tcha just go back?” mocked Cameron. He was a twitchy boy, maybe two or three years younger than Tristan, his face perpetually smeared with dirt.
“Fuck off, Cam.” Roland pulled a half-soiled shirt over his shaggy head, eyes falling on Tristan. “Ah, the Saint of Soaps is finally awake.” He thudded across the room, thrusting the lukewarm mug into his hands. “Morning pickup?”
Tristan looked down at the cup with a curled lip. Ale. No doubt already sour with the heat. Not to mention that it was no later than nine o’clock in the blessed morning.
Only vagrants and Gildeshmen find their cups before noon, Father’s voice sneered in his head.
Tristan upended the cup, pouring a large gulp of ale down his throat. Definitely sour. It was an effort not to retch.
Cameron frowned. “Saint of Soaps?”
Roland flopped a beefy arm across Tristan’s shoulders. “That’s right—you weren’t around when this one washed up on our docks. Showed up on a ship of freebooters out of Stornburg. Filthy sons of bitches. Stank up the Temple for a week, but not this one. This one was clean as the day he popped out of his mam’s hole.”
Tristan thought about pointing out that babies were actually pretty disgusting when they came out of their mothers but decided against it.
Roland dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “Tried to cheat Clem outta near two hundred crescents.”
Cameron’s mouth opened into a perfect O. “And he’s still alive?” He stared at Tristan as though he was expecting him to topple over dead at any moment. But of course, Cameron had been raised on these streets. Grown up hearing of the terrors of the ruthless Callum Clem and his Saints of the Wharf. If Tristan had as well, he wouldn’t have tried to cheat the man.
Or at least he would have been more careful about it.
Tristan forced a smile, ducking out from Roland’s arm. “I’m still alive.”
“But how? Why?” Cameron still
looked like someone had just told him Boreas was a made-up land filled with mythical creatures.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Tristan said. “Because I’m the best there is.”
Roland scoffed. “If you was the best there was, you wouldn’ta been caught.”
“What does that make you, Roland?” Tristan teased, wagging his hands in front of the man’s face, flaunting all ten fingers. Roland only had seven left. Made him awful slow with the cards.
“Now you fuck off,” he grumbled with a laugh, settling on the nearest cot. “I—”
But he stopped short as a tawny head poked itself into the rafters. Nolan. “Clem’s pulling together a meeting in the back room,” he said, his voice a wheedling rasp.
Tristan blankly stared at him. “So what, you want us to clear out?”
He had only seen the back room of the Temple once—the time he had nearly lost his head. That was more than enough for him. When it wasn’t being used to interrogate cheats or shake down crooked merchants, it was reserved for Clem’s inner circle, the highest ranking Saints.
“No dumbass, you’re supposed to go to it.” When Tristan didn’t respond, Nolan rolled his eyes. “Go ahead, take your time. Clem’s a patient man.” He disappeared back down the creaking ladder.
“See how many fingers you’ve got after this,” grunted the Roland-shaped lump of blankets beside him.
* * *
THE DOOR to the back room was simple. A slab of unadorned wood, stained flat black and set with a tiny brass knob. Most wouldn’t even give it a second glance—Tristan certainly hadn’t on his first trip to the gambling house. Not until he was being hauled through it, at least. Dragged inside and thrown to the floor in a bloody mess at Callum Clem’s feet.
What did Clem want this time? His head spun as he recalled his close call with the Shadow Wardens the day before. Tristan had been so careful when he told Clem about them… about how they were looking for Asher. So careful not to show his hand, not to give away the original suspicion that they may have been there for Tristan. This had to be about something else… but what?
Before he had the chance to second-guess himself, Tristan reached out, knocking twice. He winced as the door creaked open, steeling himself to meet the gaze of Callum Clem… but for the second time in near as many days, he found himself greeted by the towering form of Nash the smuggler.
“You’re just in time,” she said.
Tristan edged past her into the room. The door shut behind him. “In time for what?”
“Who the fuck knows.”
Enlightening.
“Do not be such an arsch, Nash,” said another familiar voice. Tristan looked across the low-lit room to see Ivan lounging on a stuffed chair.
Nash flashed him a hollow grin, her unnaturally sharp canines standing out against the dark golden hue of her cheeks. “Not all of us take a death sentence as well as you, Mr. Rezkoye.”
“It is not a death sentence,” Ivan said flatly. “It is a job.”
A job. Tristan rubbed his palms together nervously. “Who’s the mark?”
The silence that followed was so tense Tristan could feel the dead air vibrating against his eardrums.
Then: “The seventh Guildmaster of Thamorr.”
Tristan’s eyes grew wide. So that was what the Crowns were after. It had to be.
“Good luck with that,” he said, taking a seat diagonal from Ivan.
The Borean fixed him with a stare. “You had better hope we have good luck. You are coming with us, yunger.”
“I’m—what?” he stammered.
Nash leaned against the wall, seemingly determined to stay as far away from Ivan as possible. “What did you think you were called here for?”
Tristan’s nerves gave way to a smile. “You expect me to believe Clem thinks the Guildmaster will be fooled by my card tricks?”
Nash shrugged. “Maybe he just thinks your prissy ass will help us blend in at the auction.”
Tristan’s forced smile slid from his cheeks, his mouth running dry.
This was a death sentence. The Guildmaster’s island was a breeding ground of Adept, crawling with wards and the dangerous, sharp-minded Disciples who taught them—and that was just on a regular day. For the auction, they also had to worry about the brainwashed, branded Adept servants that would be brought from the mainland, accompanying their masters. And if those unnatural beasts weren’t enough, there were always the guests themselves.…
To sum up, he’d be trapped on a two-square-mile island with a few hundred of the deadliest creatures in existence, and all the men who had spent the last few months scouring Thamorr for him.
“How does Clem expect to get into the auction?” He chose his next words carefully. “I’ve heard that island is teeming with Sensers.”
In his memories, Tristan could see them. Standing beside every king and queen. Roaming up and down the smooth steps, slipping between neatly placed chairs. Their shaven heads glowing in the southern sunlight…
“And Kinetics,” Ivan added. “There are bound to be. But when have you ever seen Clem reveal his plans?”
“Not even to you?” Tristan asked, looking at Nash.
Before she had a chance to respond, the door banged open. One of Clem’s bruisers, a massive Saint by the name of Brendan, shouldered his way inside. His stringy black hair hung into his eyes as he dragged a shadowed form in by the wrist.
Ivan rose fluidly to his feet. “For Gott’s sake, let her go, Brendan.” He pulled a measuring tape seemingly out of nowhere. “She is not some ship rat you caught cheating dice. She was invited here.”
The shadow shook free of Brendan’s grip, stalking into the room like a wary cat. Tristan could practically see the woman’s hackles rising as she turned in a circle, taking in each of their faces. She was tall and wiry, muscles built for speed rather than power, a controlled braid of bright red hair piled on top of her head. Her face was dotted with freckles. Spots of Adalina, Father would have said, voice dripping with disdain. The marks of hard work done outside.
She spied Tristan, her nose scrunching up in vague recognition. Like she had seen his face before but couldn’t quite place it. He looked away.
“Lift your arms, Captain,” Ivan said.
“It’s not ‘Captain’ anymore,” the woman said. Her voice was rough, as though she either used it far too much or not at all.
“Evelyn, then,” Ivan amended, winding the measuring tape around her waist, then her hips.
“What are you measuring for? A bloody casket?”
Nash grinned. “I like this one already.”
Evelyn turned, studying Nash like the smuggler was something unpleasant she had just stepped in. The door flew open again.
“All right,” griped a voice Tristan would recognize anywhere.
Ryia looked more disheveled than he had ever seen her, her hair a wispy black cloud around her narrow face, cloak hanging haphazardly off one shoulder, Brillish namestone dangling loose on its leather strap.
She wagged a hatchet at them, the razor-sharp bit flashing in the lamplight as she spun it lazily around her thumb. “Who wants to tell me what dear Clem found important enough to interrupt my leisure time?”
“What does a scut like you do for leisure, I wonder,” spat Evelyn. Her lips were drawn back in distaste, her spine so rigid it looked likely to snap as her eyes darted from Ryia to her hatchet and back again.
Ryia cocked her head to one side, running her tongue over her teeth as she looked Evelyn up and down. “I can show you if you’d like,” she said with a wink. She shot an appreciative look at Nash, pointing at Evelyn with her chin. “Who in the hells is this?”
Nash picked absently at her fingernails. “How should I know?”
“She is our ticket into the auction.”
Tristan stiffened at the new voice. As always, it reminded him of leather-soled boots treading on the soil of a graveyard. Quieter than a breath of wind, more threatening than steel being drawn. Everyone prese
nt turned as Callum Clem swept into the room.
“What?” Evelyn burst out.
Ryia snorted. “That instills confidence.”
“You never said anything about going to the auction,” Evelyn said.
“No one is going anywhere just yet.” Clem settled on the hard wooden chair beside Tristan, lacing his fingers together and draping them over his knee. “I have just spoken with our dear friend Efrain Althea and made the appropriate arrangements.”
Evelyn’s face scrunched up in evident surprise. “Such as?”
“The kind that get us paid,” Clem said.
“By whom?” Evelyn asked.
Clem paused, and for a moment Tristan was certain he was going to lie. But then he replied, “Tolliver Shadowwood.”
“The Mad King of Edale—how did you lot get involved with that filthy warmonger?” Evelyn said.
Tristan suppressed a wince. King Tolliver had a bit of a reputation in Thamorr these days. Perhaps that was because he insisted King Descartes Devereaux had kidnapped and murdered his eldest son, Dennison Shadowwood… despite there being less than a single shred of evidence. Aside from the missing son, of course. Rumor had it Tolliver had killed his own son in order to ignite a war with Devereaux’s kingdom, Gildemar. Take over their gold mines. But rumors were rarely truth.
“That is not your concern,” Clem said smoothly, his calm demeanor a thin veil hiding the brimming impatience and energy beneath.
“If it affects the kingdom of Dresdell, it is my concern.”
Clem smiled, his hidden madness threatening to peek through. “If that is the case, then it truly is not your concern. This matter is between Tolliver Shadowwood and the Guildmaster. Are you satisfied?” He waited a moment. Evelyn said nothing. “All right then. Now, before we can begin our plans, I need to confirm some suspicions I have, and for that I need some information. Maps, to be specific. Blueprints. You know what I am referring to, I’m sure. And where they’re kept?” Clem’s grin widened as Evelyn stubbornly buttoned her lips. “I thought so.”