Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  He set about making another. Ivan had used wax to make fake scars many times before, but this was a unique challenge. The Butcher’s face would be half wax by the time he was done.

  As the last wax scar lay drying on the tabletop, Ivan reached for his ink pots. A dab of crimson, two of yellow. A pinch of blue for bruising. The door creaked open. He pushed the hair out of his eyes with his wrists, looking up. Callum Clem.

  “Are the disguises complete?”

  Ivan lay a particularly gruesome-looking bit of wax on the desk “Nearly.”

  He was struck by a sudden coldness as Clem leaned over his shoulder. It was almost like leaping into the waters of the Höllefluss back in Boreas. A gentle, creeping freeze spread from the tips of his toes to the tips of his ears, nearly unnoticeable until it was already too late. Clem’s coldness intensified as the man took a step closer. It was the exact opposite of the warmth he had felt aboard that stolen cog, working a job with that team. And he was about to throw half of them to the wölfen all on the bet that Callum Clem would be a trustworthy ally.…

  He shook himself. Ridiculous. He did not have time for warmth. Clem may not be the friendliest man in Thamorr, but Ivan needed him to rescue Kasimir. And if that meant Ryia and Evelyn drew the short straw here, well… that was something Ivan would have to live with.

  Clem nodded slowly. “Good. Very good.” He crossed the room and grabbed a decanter from the end table, pouring a mouthful of rich red wine into a goblet. Clem examined the glass, holding it up to the dancing light of his chandelier before tilting it back and swallowing the wine in a single gulp.

  Ivan watched him carefully. Clem did not generally drink alcohol. He was in a good mood. A very good mood. He could see it, glinting in his cobalt eyes. That hidden sparkle that might be considered attractive in another man. In Clem, it stirred dread.

  Perhaps that is because what is good for Callum Clem is usually bad for everyone else, said a little voice inside his head.

  Foolish. Ivan pushed the voice away. He had chosen his side. Not only that, but he had convinced Nash to come with him. If they could not trust Clem, then there had been no point in coming back to Carrowwick at all. No, if Clem’s plan was going well, it meant he was one step closer to the Quill—one step closer to taking control of Thamorr, if what the Butcher said was true.

  Once he had learned of the Quill’s power, Ivan knew he could not trade it to the Borean king. With Declan Day’s creation in their grasp, the Tovolkovs would never be dethroned. Even if he did manage to free Kasimir, his brother would skin him alive for what he had done. Kasimir’s resistance was hanging on by a thread as it was, but if the Tovolkovs could find all the future Adept born in Thamorr? There was no chance Kasimir’s movement could ever succeed. His brother would rather die in a cell than live in that world. But if Ivan had his way, his brother would still breathe free air again. He could not trade the Quill, but he could guide it into the hands of an ally. One who could help him free Kasimir another way.

  The Guildmaster had a reputation for being power hungry, but he had chosen to share the power the Quill gave him. He could have kept all the Adept for himself, but instead he sold them to the people of the kingdoms, allowing the mainland kings and nobles and merchants to go about their business—within reason. And so under the Guildmaster’s reign the kings and queens of Thamorr still held some true power.

  It had never been Clem’s way to have a second-in-command, let alone to allow others to rise as his equals. If Clem had the Quill he would rule Thamorr, and if Clem ruled Thamorr, it was a sure bet that no one else would rule anything inside it. The king of Boreas would fall, certain as the sun fell from the sky each night. Ivan was confident that Clem would have no interest in Kasimir’s crimes. Once the Borean king was dethroned, Kasimir could be freed.

  He painted in silence for several long moments, pausing only when Clem cleared his throat, feeling the hem of the garment hanging over the back of Ivan’s chair.

  “Is there a problem?” Ivan asked, setting his brush aside.

  Clem rolled the hem between his fingers. The ripples sewn into the sleeves clattered together quietly. “I just hope she will be able to draw the eye.…”

  “You are wondering if the Butcher will be able to draw attention?” Ivan picked up his brush again. He dabbed a dot of brown coloring onto the last piece of wax, matching the Butcher’s skin tone. “Has she ever been able to stop herself in the past?”

  Clem’s lips hardened into a thin line. “My dear smuggler has taught you how to joke, I see.”

  Ivan painted in silence for a moment, then paused. “I know the Butcher is strong, but… a pit fight? Against a real Kinetic?” The plan was risky at best. Of course, infiltrating the most secure building in the Lottery to steal the prize of a lifetime from Wyatt Asher was risky in itself. More than risky, perhaps. Seicherende. Certain death.

  “Yes?” Clem asked. “You are concerned. No need to worry.”

  “There is more to the plan, then?” Ivan asked, feeling more relieved than he cared to admit. “An escape route for the others?”

  “No,” Clem said quietly. “But you, Nash, and I will be long gone before you ever have to see if she is alive or dead. Does that soothe you?”

  Ivan gave one curt nod, though he felt far from soothed.

  “Good,” said Clem. The Snake tilted his head to one side. “Have you completed the other project I set you?”

  Ivan’s stomach twisted. He pointed toward the corner of the room with his chin. To the sheet draped over the small tea table set there. Clem stalked across the chamber, the orange glow of the chandelier throwing his shadow long against the wall. It was some of the fastest work Ivan had ever done, requiring every skill in his arsenal. Clem lifted the sheet gingerly, peering at the object that lay beneath.

  He turned back toward Ivan wearing his most reptilian smile.

  “Any adjustments?” Ivan asked, reaching for the tattered black robe Clem had just been inspecting.

  “No, it should do nicely. For a fool like Wyatt Asher, at the very least.”

  “Good.” He stitched in silence for a few moments, adding a patch here, tugging a few threads loose there, adding a slick of reddish brown ink to the hem, blurring it to make it look like blood.

  With every motion he worked to silence the guilty voice buzzing in the back of his head, fighting for attention.

  The Butcher and captain risked their lives for this job, it said. How does this make you any better than Tristan?

  But that was ridiculous. The Butcher had nearly gotten all of them killed with her secrets on that island. Who could say what secrets she still kept? Now that the ex-captain was so clearly mooning after her, she was lost as well. Lottery alliances were not made to last. The only tie that mattered any longer was that of blood, and his only surviving blood was trapped beneath the Reclaimed Castle in Oryol, drowning in darkness. Ivan would save his brother if he could, no matter the cost to these Carrowwick gutter rats.

  Ivan jumped as the door banged open again. The Butcher of Carrowwick strode in. She looked distinctly naked without hatchets dangling from every inch of her torso. Her face lit in an ambitious smile, but Ivan could tell she felt it. The insistent pull of fear that threatened to take them all this night. Her hands were nervous, tapping along her legs, subconsciously searching for a weapon to grasp.

  “All right, Ivan, darling, you have two hours to make me gorgeous,” she said, running her fingers over the wax wounds dotting the desktop. She held up the most gruesome with a smirk. “Try not to fall in love with me.”

  Ivan glanced at Clem, unease still curdling in the pit of his stomach. But it was too late for doubts. The wheels were already in motion.

  37

  RYIA

  “Would you relax?” Ryia muttered, pulling her baggy hood farther over her face as she and Evelyn cut through the alleys, making their way toward the Catacombs.

  “Relax?” Evelyn asked, looking around for the thousandth time. “Se
ems like a bloody stupid thing to do in a place like this. Bound to be a knife up every sleeve.”

  She wasn’t wrong. The Shanty. That was what the locals called it. The only part of the Lottery so shitty none of the syndicates had bothered to claim it. The type of place where you would find your purse cut if you were lucky, your throat cut if you weren’t.

  “Every sleeve but ours,” Ryia corrected.

  That was probably a first.

  Then again, she did have something tucked up her sleeves. She fiddled with the tiny spheres sewn into the hem of her robe. Trän vun Yavol. Tears of the underworld. A coward’s weapon, Evelyn had called them. Maybe, but Ryia would rather be a coward with a head than a hero without one. Honorable types never survived long enough to hear the songs sung about them.

  Clem had called them “more expensive than your life is worth,” so she would have to tread carefully. For now, at least. By the end of the night she would be dead or leaving Carrowwick for good. Either way, she wouldn’t have to care what Clem thought of anything anymore.

  “All right,” Evelyn said, stopping at the corner of Keel Alley and Flaxen Row. She peered around the boarded-up shop beside them toward the Catacombs. “Just a few minutes until last toll. Let’s see what our Borean friend has given us to work with.”

  Ryia lifted a hand to her hood, pulling it off. Evelyn’s face paled, thin lips parting into a comical O as she looked her up and down. Ryia didn’t blame her. She had seen Ivan’s work back in the Temple. There was no other word for it—she looked gruesome.

  When she had posed as an Adept on the island the costume had been relatively simple. A black robe, shaven head, and a fake tattoo. For a true, lawfully acquired Kinetic that had been enough. But if she was going to be believable as a pit-fought Kinetic, things needed to be taken a few steps further.

  In addition to shaving her head bald again, Ivan had worked her face into a tangled mess of scars. Several layers of brands marred her left cheek, and deep fingernail scratches cut down the length of her right. Her throat was scored with scratches that looked as though they should have been deep enough to spill every drop of blood in her. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Ivan had forced her left eye shut, gluing it in place with a mangled chunk of wax that made it look like the eyeball had been gouged from her skull. It really was a masterpiece, if a little inconvenient. She had hardly recognized herself in the mirror.

  “You look bloody terrible.”

  “Does that mean I don’t usually?” Ryia asked wryly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “No, I—” A blush crept up Evelyn’s long, thin neck. She looked around as the bells began to ring out over the city. “Come on, we need to go. Unless you’re interested in having Clem rip out our entrails and eat them.”

  Ryia fell in step beside her. “He’s a man, not a street dog.”

  “Right. And you’re as gentle as a daisy.” Evelyn shook out her shoulders, falling into a confident swagger as she stepped onto Flaxen Row.

  They stopped at the side entrance to the Catacombs. Evelyn looked up at the heavy, late-summer clouds as she banged on the knotted wooden door. The mournful notes of the day’s last toll began to peal out from the temple as the door popped open, revealing a stout woman with stringy yellow hair. Selwyn. A little slow in the head, but brutal as a cave bear when it came to a fight. Ryia should know—she had caught Selwyn spying in the Foxhole last winter. Her gaze stumbled over the gaping hole where the woman’s right ear had once been.

  That may have been her hatchet’s doing.

  “What’re you here for?”

  Evelyn pursed her lips. “What the hell does it look like I’m here for?”

  Selwyn cackled, looking Ryia up and down. She resisted the urge to hold her breath. That cranky bitch had lost an ear because of her. That wasn’t the kind of thing a person forgot. Shit. Their whole elaborate scheme was going to be brought down by the Crowns’ chief guttersnipe.

  Selwyn’s eyes flicked over her face, gaze lingering on the wax-covered eye.

  “… Ugly fucker.”

  Relief rumbled through Ryia’s chest like a crack of thunder. Ivan’s disguise had saved the day—they were inside. Of course, that was less than half the battle. The real challenge would be getting out.

  Ryia had never been to the Catacombs for a fight before, but she could tell this wasn’t an average night. The club was bursting at the seams. There were dozens of sailors and dockhands, seedy merchants and whores, but the place was crammed mostly with Kestrel Crowns. Two of every three people wore the kestrel-skull tattoo somewhere on their body.

  “Looks like Clem was right,” Evelyn breathed, taking in the Crowns’ show of force with obvious discomfort. It would make getting out alive nearly impossible, but it did mean one thing.

  The Quill was here.

  Every inch of the scheme had been plotted to death, from Ivan’s disguises to Nash’s spot by the back door, to the Trän vun Yavol stuffed into the seams of Ryia’s robes. But at its heart, the whole plan had been built on a guess. The guess that Wyatt Asher would be bold enough to insist that the king of Edale come to him.

  “If it isn’t my most demanding customer,” droned a voice as they approached the pit. Matthieu. He lounged on a padded chair, looking bored. Ryia stood still as a painting as he looked her over. “This your fighter? For fuck’s sake, it looks like you ran it through a damned mill.”

  It. Ryia resisted the urge to grind her teeth.

  “Take a good look at those scars,” Evelyn said, raising her voice so the other owners could hear. “Every fighter to lay a hand on this one is breathing soil now.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Matthieu said, clearly unimpressed. “Prizefighters to the left box. You take your seat up there.” He waved a hand toward the row of cushioned seats just beside the pit.

  Evelyn snapped her fingers, pointing toward the enclosure to the left of the pit. Ryia turned, loping inside like a horse into its pen. Her eyes locked on an Adept in the opposite box, his hollow stare pouring into her core.

  His neck was pulled back, an axe blade buried in his throat, the blood caught in a small silver cup.

  “Drink,” her father hissed. “Adept from birth… must be in the blood.”

  She blinked, and the vision faded.

  Matthieu bounced into the center of the pit. Either he had just injected a near-lethal dose of vitalité, or he was as good an actor as Ivan was. He beamed out at the crowd, a different man from the one who had pointed Evelyn to her cushion.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!”

  The crowd snickered appreciatively at the titles.

  “Our first fight is about to begin. Prepare your bets!” He bowed in a flourish as the room settled into a dull roar.

  “First up, all the way from the snowy peaks outside Oryol, the dirtiest fur trader in all of Boreas, Deniskov Illarion!”

  Deniskov Illarion stood, his boyish face locked in a grimace as his Kinetic shuffled into the pit. A massive woman, a few inches taller than Nash and twice as broad. Ryia wondered where she’d been born. With that bald head and branded face it was hard to tell. Briel? Maybe Gildemar, with those blue-green eyes. Not that it mattered anymore.

  “Yes, yes. Strong-looking brute, isn’t it?” Matthieu chortled. “Which means the only fitting opponent would be… Mehri fija di Vaseli!” he boomed. “From the heart of the Rena desert.”

  The boy beside Ryia stirred, moving into the pit like a sleepwalker. He was as skinny as a damned alley cat. Ryia’s stomach turned. He was about to be pummeled into jelly.

  But at the sound of the whistle the boy sprang to life. Or at least, his body did. He bent back like a stalk of wheat in a prairie wind as the other Kinetic swung a fist forward. He dove sideways, barely avoiding her second fist as it hurtled toward him like a crossbow bolt.

  Ryia had been a part of her fair share of fights—all right, more than her fair share—but this? This bothered her. There was a difference between choosing to figh
t and being pushed into a ring with an invisible collar around your neck. Watching the fights on the Guildmaster’s island had been difficult enough… this was pure savagery.

  She allowed her gaze to flit up to Evelyn. Something erupted in Ryia’s chest as she studied her, lounging on her padded seat. Her posture was relaxed, her face a careful mask, but her eyes radiated emotion like heat from Clem’s damned fireplace.

  Disgust. Disgust that morphed into raw sorrow as her eyes locked on Ryia’s.

  Three more pairs of fighters were unleashed upon one another after the reedy boy finally fell to Deniskov Illarion’s massive Kinetic. Three more corpses bled out on the ground, staining the pit’s floor with thick crimson. But still, no sign of Ivan’s signal. Was something wrong? Where was Shadowwood?

  Ryia had no doubt she had the skills to unseat whatever champion this hellhole had given birth to. She stared at her hands, resisting the urge to clench her fists. The real question was whether or not she would be able to bring herself to do it.

  Ivan had to give the signal before she was called.

  “Next up, from the shit-stained slums of Golden Port, the fighter of Roisin McGillvery!”

  Shit.

  She forced herself to stand, struggling to keep her left eye shut beneath its wax covering as she walked numbly into the pit.

  “Nasty-looking one, eh?” the announcer said gleefully. “I wouldn’t bet against it if I were you… or would I?” He grinned, throwing his arm out wide.

  Ryia’s eyes flicked over the crowd again. Where in the hells was the signal?

  “Because the opponent might just be twice as nasty!” the announcer hollered. “Belonging to Aedin fija di Sarwell of Briel, the reigning champion of this pit for over one month’s time! It’s a record, it’s true!”

  Ryia’s face went numb as she looked at her challenger. Small, slight. Bronze skin, slender fingers, long, bruised neck. Aside from the hollow, hazel eyes she could be looking in a damned mirror.

  Come on, come on, she thought, half listening as the announcer called out the odds. She was dimly aware that they were not in her favor. He gave a sweeping bow, false smile dripping from his cheeks as he exited the pit.