Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  13

  RYIA

  Well, that was a mistake. Ryia shook herself as she sprinted through the city, Nash and the others close behind. She should have stayed out of it, let Captain Honor clean up her own damned mess. Of course, maybe it was just a coincidence the way Nash’s eyes had followed the path of that axe, the way Evelyn had squinted at her like she’d shown up dressed as a Borean medev guard. Maybe no one had seen the weapon curve.…

  She unconsciously tapped her belt. Ryia had practiced with these weapons more hours in her life than most people had slept in theirs, but that wasn’t the only reason she never missed her mark. She was connected to these blades in a way few could understand.

  She slid on the cobblestones, skidding to a stop as half a company of guards sprinted past them one alley over. They were heading for the docks. Ryia shared an anxious look with Nash and Tristan, then drew her largest hatchets from the sheaths across her back. Whose idea had it been to leak her location to the Needle Guard?

  Oh, right.

  It had better be worth it. If Clem somehow made it onto that ship…

  “Go on. I’ll take care of these assholes,” she said, turning to chase down the guards.

  Tristan nodded obediently, but Evelyn stepped forward. “You will not draw the blood of a single member of the Needle Guard. Not while I’m around.” She pulled her sword free of its sheath, leveling the blade at Ryia’s heart.

  “You sure you want to do this, Captain? I’ve seen you in action. Not impressed.” Ryia whirled her hatchets around her wrists. “Here’s a tip—the fighting goes a lot easier when you don’t waste time trying to purge everyone of their sins.”

  “It sounds like you’re telling me that having a conscience is a crime.”

  Ryia laughed. “South of the trade docks it is.” She tapped her breast pocket, feeling the stolen scrolls rustle beneath the heavy black fabric. “Look, you’ve got us our maps, so your job is done. Run along now.”

  “You heard your master, pup. If he doesn’t get his prize, I don’t get mine. Besides, the sooner your honorless arse is out of Dresdell, the better in my book. I’m getting you onto your bloody ship.”

  “You sure you’re not just getting sweet on me, Captain?”

  Evelyn didn’t respond, but she looked roughly like someone had just told her to swallow a dock rat whole.

  Ryia patted her shoulder, pushing past her. “It’s all right. It happens all the time—just ask Ivan—”

  Ryia broke off as the familiar smells of brackish water and rotting fish were suddenly replaced by the crushing scent of mildew. Blood and earth and decay. The strongest she had smelled in years. Now? Of all the fucking times—

  “Are you all right?” Tristan asked. She didn’t answer, and he leaned forward. “Ryia, are you okay?”

  She turned left, then right, trying to get a lock on the scent. “Get to the ship,” she said. Then she grabbed hold of the nearest windowsill and clambered up the wall and out of sight.

  Ryia skittered across the rooftops, stopping to crouch behind a gable and sneak a peek toward the trade docks to the north. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the Needle Guard were just more dangerous than she had thought, or maybe her nose was extra sensitive today.…

  Her stomach turned to lead as her eyes found the sloops docked there. Disciples.

  It had been nineteen months since she had seen ships like those. The ships that had dogged her, haunting her steps for the past nine years. If they were already docked, the Disciples were already in the city. Combing the streets. Looking for her.

  Well, that settled it—she had officially overstayed her welcome in this city. She knew what would happen next… a fate she had narrowly escaped a dozen times before. The cunning Disciples would come for her with every ounce of strength they had in those miserable bones of theirs. If she was caught, she wouldn’t be leaving Carrowwick alive. She was dangerous, not just for her skills, but for how she’d obtained them.

  The Guildmaster could hardly let the secret get out that Adept gifts could be stolen, could he?

  They would open her throat and leave her to bleed into the gutter. Then throw her into the Arden, or let her be found by the Saints so she could be buried under a headstone with a name that wasn’t her own. Have her bullshit namestone hung in some tree outside the city. Right—no thanks.

  She poked her head over the edge of the rooftop, peering down at the docks. One thing at a time. Disciples aside, her plan was going perfectly. The Lottery was currently in turmoil, the maps in her pocket, Callum Clem still nowhere to be found. Now all that was left was to get the crew out of Carrowwick, preferably before those Disciple bastards removed her head from her neck.

  She looked down at her crew. Tristan took the rear while Evelyn prowled up front, fluid as a jungle cat. Between them were Nash and Ivan, the respective brawn and brains of the team. They tumbled to a clumsy stop a stone’s throw from the Seasnake’s Revenge, halted by two burly guards.

  “Is that Evelyn fuckin’ Linley? Hangin’ around with this dock scum?” the guard on the left chortled. “Oh, Patrick’ll love this.”

  His companion added, “Didn’t take you long to find your proper place, did it?”

  Evelyn’s jaw set firmly, but her hand didn’t even twitch toward her sword. She looked from side to side instead, searching for an escape route.

  Ryia rolled her eyes, pulling two smaller throwing axes from her belt. “We have to do everything, don’t we?” she remarked to the weapons, flying them toward the guards.

  Reaching out with her stolen Kinetic power, Ryia guided one toward the front man’s spine, and pulled the second around to lodge itself in the other man’s face. She grimaced as it drove home. Retrieving an axe from a skull was always disgusting work.

  Tristan jumped back as both men flopped, lifeless, to the dock. Ryia forced a cocky grin, waving down at them. Evelyn glared up at her, then turned in a huff as Nash dragged the group toward her ship, casting its imposing shadow over the docks a few steps away.

  Ryia hopped off the edge of the roof, hooking her fingers around the gutters and dropping to the ground some fifteen feet below. “Don’t worry about it—I’ll get them,” she called after her teammates, wiping the gory bits clean and returning the axes to her belt.

  Her comrades sprinted up the gangplanks and onto the Seasnake’s Revenge. Still not a Disciple in sight. If her luck could hold just a few minutes longer…

  Then her nose caught fire. The vile stench of danger was so immediate, so potent that her knees almost gave out. Ryia pulled the two long-handled hatchets from her back again, spinning and raising them in an X above her head just in time to catch the scimitar as it whistled toward her skull. The force of the blow was inhuman. Her arms shook but didn’t buckle. Without her Adept abilities she would never have been strong enough to hold it or fast enough to block it in the first place. There was a reason everyone in Thamorr bowed to the Guildmaster and his Disciples; because it was certain death to face one.

  At least, it was supposed to be.

  “Grayson, we meet at last,” the Disciple said softly.

  Ryia stared up at the man holding the blade. At the swirling robes of vivid blue, the cruel eyes, the shaven head tattooed with a tangle of elaborate symbols.

  “That’s not my name,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  Something curdled in her stomach as the Disciple studied her. Something she hadn’t felt since the last time she’d been face-to-face with one of these bald motherfuckers. Fear. All the Adept were tough in a fight, but the Disciples were all stronger than any mindless branded servant on the mainland. She gritted her teeth as the man smirked down at her. At least she would have no qualms about killing him, if she got the chance. The brainwashed Adept hadn’t chosen their lives, but this asshole had certainly chosen his. Chosen to help the Guildmaster find and enslave the other Adept. Chosen to help the Guildmaster hunt her down.

  Fear spiked in her again as her nose seared once more, this time the
stench coming from her left. Shit. She ducked into a ball, rolling out from underneath the Disciple’s blade, frantically leaping back. A second Disciple appeared on the docks beside her, his own blade moving so fast that it was nothing but a blur of polished steel. She stumbled back, falling solidly on her tailbone as the sword swung down. It missed her by less than an inch, connecting firmly with the splintering dock.

  Ryia struggled to her feet again, eyes flicking toward the Revenge. She spun her hatchets, the steel bits singing as they cut through the thick summer air. She had an important decision to make. Fight or run…

  To get to the ship, and to salvage the mission, she needed to fight.… Her stomach clenched as both Disciples took a dreamlike step forward. Their tattoos seemed to swim in the humid air as they took another step, blades at the ready.

  She had to fight.

  On second thought… fuck that.

  The Disciples swung in unison, blades reflecting the light of the setting sun as they moved to cut her to pieces. But it was too late—Ryia was already gone. She was nothing more than a jet-black blur against the horizon as she turned from the Seasnake’s Revenge and ran for her life.

  14

  EVELYN

  “Turn here!” Nash shouted.

  Evelyn veered right, sprinting onto the rickety dock that held the smuggler’s beloved caravel. The gleaming ship looked out of place on the southern dock, adorned with three blisteringly white sails, furled tightly against their masts.

  Nash blew past, bounding up the gangplank far more nimbly than Evelyn would have expected from someone of her size. A sweat-soaked Ivan came next, followed by the cocky boy named Tristan. He looked so bloody familiar. She must have arrested him before.

  Evelyn pulled herself onto the deck just in time to see Nash clap the shoulder of an unidentified greasy man. One of Nash’s crewmen, probably. He had a hooked nose and great furry peppered moths for eyebrows.

  “Clem on board?”

  The man’s throat bobbed like a pelican trying to swallow too large a fish. “Over ’ere,” he said.

  Nash wiped a fingerful of sweat from her forehead, leading the rest of them down toward the belly of the ship. Tristan kept peeking over his shoulder, no doubt searching the rooflines for his precious Butcher. He had to realize he was out of his depth there, right? That mercenary would gut him sooner than bed him, no doubt.

  Evelyn jumped at the unmistakable scrape of a sword leaving its scabbard.

  “What the hell, Luc?” Nash said, hands raised as the man pressed a rusty sword against her neck.

  A few of the crew reached for their own belts but froze as half a dozen more men and women popped from the ship’s woodwork, blades already drawn. Who were these people? They definitely weren’t Needle Guard.…

  Tristan’s head snapped back and forth in panic and confusion while Ivan’s nose wrinkled with evident distaste, his hooded eyes registering dim recognition as they slid slowly from face to face. Was this Nash’s crew? Oh. That couldn’t be good.

  “This ship doesn’t just belong to me—it belongs to Callum Clem,” Nash said. “Think about that long and hard before you do anything too stupid.”

  “But what if they do not care about Callum Clem any longer?” asked a new voice. Soft and wheezy, like it was whistling through a hole in the side of a lung.

  Nash started laughing, her neck scraping uncomfortably close to that criminally neglected blade.

  “Really, Luc? Harlow Finn? You fancy yourselves Harpies now? I know you like your trips to the Tail, but for Felice’s sake…”

  “This isn’t about some whorehouse,” Luc grunted.

  “If you say so.” Nash peered around the hold. “What have you done with Clem? He’s not even here, is he?”

  “He did not make it aboard, sadly,” said the whistle-voiced leader of the Harpies. Evelyn’s eyes widened as he lurched into view, his boil-covered face passing inches from her. The mark of the Borean Death. She’d seen it before, but not on many survivors. No wonder he wore the blemishes like medals of honor. “He was… delayed. By a few Needle Guard. As soon as I saw that, well, I knew my chance had finally come.”

  “Fucking hells, Finn, did the Death addle your brain that much?” Nash asked. “This is Callum Clem we’re talking about. He won’t be penned up for good. And if you go through with this, then as soon as he’s back on these streets, anyone sporting a Harpy tattoo is a dead man.”

  Finn patted Nash’s cheek with a gnarled hand. “The Foxhole is gone, my dear sweet Nash. With Clem safely locked in one of Baelbrandt’s cells… I think the Saints are finished. Especially now that I am in possession of all Clem’s favorite pets as well.” He cast his eyes around the hold, lingering on Tristan. “Although we seem to be missing one, by my count. Where is that rabid little dog of his?”

  Evelyn frowned. Where was the Butcher? Beside her, Ivan cleared his throat. He gave her a meaningful look, then wriggled the fingers of his right hand, pinned behind his back.

  “No matter,” Finn said when it was clear the Butcher would not be making an appearance. “Tie them up.”

  Evelyn peered closer at Ivan’s hand as Finn snapped his fingers. There, clutched in Ivan’s grip was a small vial filled with a deep purple liquid. Dormire’s blood.

  Ivan mimed taking a deep breath and holding it. Evelyn gave a minute nod before turning back to face Harlow Finn as his men closed in, rope in hand.

  “Perhaps you are right, Finn,” Ivan interjected. “Perhaps the Saints are finished. Will you not even give us the chance to join your Harpies?”

  Finn’s haggard face lit. He cocked his head to one side, then held up a hand. The rope-wielding Harpies paused. Finn’s sunken eyes appraised Ivan from head to toe.

  “I don’t have too many men working my… establishments. But I daresay you might be able to earn me some crescents.”

  “I can make you a very rich man,” Ivan said, flashing a calculated, dazzling smile.

  Finn took another step closer. The idiot.

  Ivan opened his hand behind his back, letting the vial tumble through the air. It shattered on the splintered wood at his feet.

  In small measures the illegal Brillish drug had a mild calming effect. The no-good layabouts who breathed it from their cheesecloth sacks were always recognizable by their red-rimmed eyes and drooping jaws. In larger doses, the drug was a bit more potent.

  Finn gasped as a cloud of noxious, purple gas mushroomed through the hold. Then he dropped like a stone, senseless.

  Holding her breath, Evelyn drew her sword. She slashed out blindly, warding off any Harpies who may have managed to escape the noxious cloud as she yanked Tristan away by his collar. Through the haze, she saw Nash duck out of Luc’s hold, treating him to a quick rabbit punch to the nose before allowing Ivan to drag her out behind him. They exploded from the hatch, vaulting over the rail and landing with near ankle-breaking force on the dock.

  “This way,” Nash said, pushing herself to the front of the pack.

  “We’re just going to leave the ship behind?” Evelyn asked, perplexed.

  “In case ye didn’t notice it, it’s got a bit’ve a Harpy infestation,” said the man next to her—one of the few members of Nash’s crew who had not joined Luc’s mutiny.

  “So… the mission is scrapped?” Evelyn tripped over her own feet, struggling to keep up as they tore over the docks, knocking passersby out of the way, desperate to get out of sight of the Revenge before Finn’s men could shake off the effects of the dormire’s blood and give chase.

  “I didn’t say that.…” Nash’s signature sharpened canines flashed as the smuggler shot her a massive grin. It didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Then where are we going?” Evelyn asked, peering over her shoulder at the rooftops behind them. She half expected to see the telltale swirl of the Butcher’s black cloak catching the wind. Nothing. Where had that maniac run off to, anyway?

  “Best not to tell you, Captain,” Nash said. “I have a feeling you’
re not going to like it.…” She turned to her four remaining crewmen mid-step. “Let’s head toward Buttoner’s Road.”

  They chuckled appreciatively. Clearly they knew what Nash meant to do, even if Evelyn didn’t. One of them said, “About time.”

  Nash cut through the alleys running parallel to the docks. She held out a hand to stop them in the shadows of a street sign reading BUTTONER’S ROAD. They paused, looking back out at the docks as a few scattered Needle Guard rushed past. As soon as they were out of sight, Nash waved them forward, sprinting toward a tiny cog bobbing by itself on a lonely dock at the mouth of the Arden River.

  “You have another ship?” Tristan asked through panting breaths.

  “… Not exactly.”

  “Not yet,” corrected the crewman who had spoken before.

  “You’re going to steal a ship?” Evelyn exclaimed.

  The crewman gave a toothless grin. “ ’Ow d’you think she got the las’ one?”

  Evelyn replied, “There is no way I’m letting you sods steal a ship. Besides, these docks are crawling with the king’s men, in case you hadn’t—”

  “What about Ryia?” Tristan asked.

  Nash swung herself onto the ship, pulling at the ropes and gesturing for her limited crew to do the same. “If she hasn’t already been poked full of holes by the Needle Guard, she’ll track us down. Hopefully before we shove off. Like a damned bloodhound, that one. Now take this line, would you? We can’t exactly hang around here all day.…”

  “I’m not helping you commit a class-one crime,” Evelyn said, folding her arms.

  “I think we’ll manage without you,” Nash called down from the deck. “You coming, Beckett?”

  Tristan hesitated, then trudged reluctantly on board, grabbing the line that Nash offered him. But there was no need for the poor, lovesick boy to worry.

  There, silhouetted against the tangle of salt-blasted buildings a few docks away, was the Butcher. Evelyn looked to the others. No one else seemed to have noticed her yet. She pelted toward them, terror etched across her scarred face. Not so fearless confronting the Needle Guard after all, eh? Evelyn smirked. But the smug expression withered and died as she caught sight of what was actually chasing the Butcher.