He looked from one to the other and both studied him silently.
After a moment, Orien said to Elantria, “I get it. He’s quite sincere, isn’t he?”
“And on his own, he’d be chewed up and spat out,” she said wryly.
“But you like his idealism,” he suggested.
“No. It’s tiresome.”
“You do.”
“Excuse me,” Ben interrupted. He tired of being talked about as if he weren’t there and understood why she didn’t like it.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes?”
“Could we move on?” he asked. “If you wanted me to be useful, tell me how.”
“I wanted you to recover first,” she pointed out. “We established yesterday that you won’t be ready to steal for some time.” She explained Ben’s condition to Orien in a quick aside.
The elf leaned back in his chair with an interested expression. His plate was empty now and he must have wolfed his food. “And yet,” he pointed out to them both, “he managed to help deal with the assassins. He can think on his feet and he’s coordinated enough to do some things.”
Elantria gave him a scathing look. “And that means we should throw him into the middle of a job?”
“Possibly.” Orien gave her a meaningful nod. “Tell him about the next one.”
The two of them stared at each other for a moment before she sighed and frowned in thought. Her fingers moved, almost as if she were tracing a calculation through her head.
Finally, she said, “The house you followed me to the other day—Jorys.”
Ben went rigid. “You knew?”
“Good grief—of course, I knew.” She shook her head.
Orien laughed quietly and said with remarkable aplomb, “We also knew you were listening to us earlier.”
He sighed and wished he didn’t feel quite so idiotic.
“The fact that you’re abysmal at sneaking around doesn’t motivate well for you to be involved in jobs yet,” Elantria told him bluntly.
“Okay, fair.” Ben rubbed his face. “Can I at least hear about it, though?”
“I might as well tell you. Otherwise, you’ll go upstairs and simply sneak back, and that’s too much effort.” She waved a hand to indicate resignation. “I’ve posed as the leader of a security service and have negotiated to guard Jorys’s house. He only allows the people he’s used for years into his vault to guard it, but he’s willing to hire new bodyguards for himself. He doesn’t know me by sight so I’ve been able to deal with him.”
“I wondered about that,” he admitted. “It seemed like you were fairly well-known.”
“In very particular circles,” she said. “Other groups that operate for or against the elven nobles, things like that. I’m branching out now and working against people who aren’t part of that world. The city is big, Ben, and there are whole neighborhoods under the sway of a single merchant. Like…”
“Warlords,” he said quietly.
“Yes. Rather like that. They keep the people in their area safe enough. But they take protection fees and abuse their labor. It might be better than they had under the nobles, but it’s more that the people don’t expect anything better.”
“You are a revolutionary,” he said slowly.
Orien crowed with laughter.
“I am not.” Elantria jabbed a finger at him. “I don’t harbor any illusions about what I can and cannot achieve. I don’t want a war that will hurt our citizens. I only want to keep the damage the warlords do from being too much to bear. They don’t know when to stop.”
Ben gave her a small smile. Elantria had been born into a world that few others could claim—the bastard but beloved child of an ancient noble family. She had seen the things the nobles believed were their due, and she had seen the things the poorer humans endured. Her circumstances meant that she understood the randomness of who got what. Her grandparents had wanted her to live a noble life because they loved her and either didn’t see or didn’t care that it flew in the face of her worldview.
But Elantria had cared.
He knew, however, that the more he insisted on it, the more her walls would come up. For now, he would leave it alone.
“What’s the job?” he asked.
“Enter the vault, take a specific amount of money, and redistribute it in his neighborhood,” she said. “Not directly, of course—he’d merely ask for it back and they can’t exactly refuse him. But there are ways to make sure their lives are a little easier for a while.” She shrugged. “He’s a piece of shit, that one, so don’t feel bad for him. He’s trafficking some of them.”
The bottom dropped out of his stomach.
“Artisans and so on,” Elantria explained, unaware of his suspicions about who was getting trafficked. “Goldsmiths, alchemists, that kind of thing. He sells their labor to the remaining nobles. They can never leave, and all that they worked to achieve? All the security they were trying to bring their families? It’s now his.”
“It would be better,” he said quietly, “if he weren’t there anymore.”
She stared at him. “I assassinate people very rarely,” she said. “I do it only when there is no other choice. We will bring him around on this point rather than simply kill him.”
“How many people will he hurt and kill while you wait for him to see the light?” Ben demanded.
“My city. My rules.” She was not playing around now. “Ben, I have watched the fallout of power vacuums and assassinations. I will not harm these people. I want any allies I can find who wish to make life less grim for the people of this city, but you’re not an ally to me if you want to charge in and cause chaos.”
He didn’t agree, not even in the slightest. His memories of the fae dying by the score as the mercenary army assaulted the castle remained fresh and raw. He had seen the slaves in the shadows of Heffog.
But he needed Elantria’s trust if he wanted to do something about it. He bit his tongue and nodded. “Your city…your rules. So what’s the job tomorrow? And can I help?”
“Probably not yet.”
“Let him try,” Orien suggested. “It’s not like you need him to unlock the vault. It’ll be a good opportunity to test if he can follow orders.”
She sighed. “I’ll consider it. And now, since Ben will not leave while we speak about it, we should probably discuss tomorrow.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next afternoon, Ben was dressed in a guard uniform and bounced nervously at the entrance to Elantria’s house. He’d been given light armor and weapons, mostly for show, but they were good to have in case things went south.
Things would not go south, she had told him. She said it so fiercely that he almost believed she could will things into existence.
Orien was the next one to come downstairs. Every indicator of elven haughtiness was back on display—except for the wink he gave him.
“Are you noble?” he asked the elf curiously.
“Elantria said you had a habit of asking prying questions,” Orien commented.
“I’m sorry.” He frowned. “Are these things so unusual to ask here?”
“One does not generally ask professional thieves about their backstory, no.” He looked amused. “For your information, however, no. I am of very lowly birth within the elven lineages. I simply happen to look very…” He waved at his face.
“That must be strange,” he said.
“Somewhat.” Orien shrugged. “Remember, this is the only face I’ve ever had. I was ten when I realized that people treated me very differently than my friends and siblings. I spent a few years trying to hide my appearance, then I learned to use it.” He gave his irreverent smile. “My most successful con is usually the elven noble and the merchant.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“There’s no time to explain now.” The elf chuckled. “Let’s say you’ll earn some advice from me over the course of the next few jobs we pull together. But I did want to say before Elantria got here…” He ste
pped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, his expression serious. “Follow orders tonight. I mean it.”
Ben remained silent. He was afraid his face looked guilty and he didn’t want Orien to see anything further that might raise his suspicions.
“You’re new here,” the elf said, “and you’re an idealist. I get the sense you came from a very sheltered upbringing.”
Ben snorted. “I’ve shoveled shit for a living. I took care of giant bears that hated me. I haven’t had a soft life.”
“There are different ways to be sheltered,” Orien said seriously, “and one of them is not to understand that by pressing too hard for justice, you can hurt people even more. I know you want to make changes, Ben, but trust me. Elantria does too, and she knows how to go about it.” He paused. “Also, she’ll toss you out on your ear if you fuck the job up, so there’s that.”
He shrugged. “Okay. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“I should hope so,” Elantria said. She came down the stairs and looked critically at him. “You wear weapons well. Remember that someone with the best training feels no need to flaunt it. Walk around and look watchful but as if you hardly remember you have weapons on. Relax your shoulders more…there, that’s good. Stay light on your feet.”
She and Orien took a few moments to make small adjustments to his posture and walk. Only when they were satisfied did they leave. They walked quickly through the streets to the sound of yelling and clashing weapons, which made him look around for the source of the noise.
“We had to draw off the people watching the house,” the elf explained in a low tone. “The Regents might have interfered with this job if they knew it was happening today.”
With the feeling that he was way out of his depth, he nodded and continued.
“Keep your shoulders loose,” Orien murmured. “You’re looking tense again.”
He forced his shoulders down and walked with all the ease he could muster. This was merely another day, he told himself. He was a good bodyguard and he had no doubts about his ability to protect Jorys.
They arrived at the merchant’s ostentatious house with the streets already bustling and the guards outside tracking them from two blocks away. Elantria had told them that their arrival was expected and they would be brought in to introduce themselves to their employer.
They would spend the bulk of day getting the man accustomed to their presence, being silent shadows out of the corner of his vision until he forgot they were there. Elantria sometimes worked very long cons in which she gained someone’s trust over the course of months, but today’s mission would not require that. It was, at most, a two-day job. Two of their number would guard Jorys and one would be downstairs with the servants. They would use the shift-change as the moment to seize some of the contents from the vault.
It wasn’t that simple, of course. Slipping into the secure area would require all Elantria’s skill in deception and in incapacitating other guards. They would have to move quickly to get the goods to the back entrance of the house and disappear into the night.
At the door, they were greeted by a tall man who looked like he might have traces of elven blood—and potentially orcish blood as well. Ben decided immediately to not get on this man’s bad side. He wore armor with a crest in the center of his chest and was shown extreme deference by all the other guards and servants. He and Elantria seemed to know each other, although they weren’t particularly friendly.
Their guide led them through the house to a study and let them in via a side door. She and Orien slipped in quietly, but Ben froze in horror as he entered the room behind them.
His gaze locked on what he saw immediately was a slave auction.
Humans, elves, and dwarves stood in the middle of the floor with various looks of blank despair. All of them wore metal collars around their necks. Some appeared to be artisans, as Elantria had mentioned. Others were some of the most beautiful people he had ever seen. While many looked strong, a good number merely looked mousey and frightened.
Jorys inspected them one by one. He looked like an aging athlete, a man who had once prided himself on his athletic abilities and who now tried to stave off his decline into age and decadence. His clothes were rich and decorated with gold and jewels, but he had what looked like an uncomfortable chair, and there was no fire in the grate or wine at the table.
He seemed like the type of man who told you ad nauseum about his self-control and how no one needed luxuries while subsisting almost entirely on those same luxuries.
His immediate dislike only deepened when he saw the absolute lack of respect Jorys showed for the slaves. The man inspected them impersonally. His eyes raked them with no compassion, he looked at their hands and their teeth, and ordered one or two of them to strip. Ben suspected it was only to show them that he was in charge.
Eventually, he pointed to a few of them. “These,” he said to a clerk. “Those three for outstanding contracts, that one on reserve. The rest can go to the market.”
One of those who had not been selected uttered a little cry. Jorys gave him a hard-eyed look.
“I can’t leave,” the man protested. He was dwarven with an elaborately braided beard. “I’ve told you, contact Berghold. I’m not a citizen of Heffog and may not be taken as a slave—”
The merchant made a gesture. A guard stepped forward and hauled the protestor away. The dwarf began to yell and horror dawned in his eyes. He had believed until that moment that he might somehow get out of this. Finally, he had realized he would not.
The other slaves were guided away. Any who resisted were struck with staves or fists. A few of them had clenched their jaws and tried not to resist and make it worse for themselves. Ben watched them go while his blood pressure rose. His hands were clamped behind his back as he tried to fight the urge to run after them. He wanted to haul every one of them out of this place.
A swift kick to his ankle reminded him of where he was. Elantria stepped forward to speak to Jorys, all smiles and quiet competence, while her two companions waited in the shadows.
The man looked at them only casually and shrugged. He and Elantria exchanged a few more words before she nodded to Orien to take his break first. The elf would take a roundabout path to the kitchens, he knew, although not conspicuously so, and he would begin to chart not only the lower part of the house but also the movement of the servants and guards.
That had always been the plan, but Ben had the distinct impression that she was also keeping him close so he didn’t run off and do something like free the slaves. She was worried.
Well, she should be worried. He wanted to throw up at the thought of the people being hauled off to the slave market at that very moment. She said she was realistic about what she could achieve and that she wanted slow results, but every day the system didn’t change, she consigned people to death and slavery.
Ben made his way through the day quietly and without much incident. Jorys was well guarded, so no one would try to break into his house to murder him. It meant that all he needed to do was drift around after him and not fidget too much.
He was given a brief break to eat dinner, seated on a stool in the corner of the kitchen, and it was only a couple of hours later that Orien came to join him. “He wants to discuss our trial run.”
That was the signal. It meant that Elantria or Orien had successfully cracked the vault and incapacitated the guards inside and that they needed help to get the gold out to the waiting carriage.
Even after the absolute horror show of a day—he had spent most of it fantasizing about brutal ways to kill Jorys—he had to admit he was excited at helping with a heist. It was unexpectedly fun to find himself in the middle of one, especially since he’d always enjoyed heist movies.
He simply hadn’t ever expected to think, while in the midst of stealing countless riches, that the world might be better served by him assassinating the person he attempted to rob.
Orien led him to the vault and Ben took a heavy chest of gold coin
s and hurried up the stairs to the waiting carriage. This part of the house seemed to be entirely deserted, but his co-conspirators were both insistent that he move silently.
A few minutes later, he realized why. As he returned inside from the carriage and headed to the vault, he looked down a corridor to see none other than Jorys. The merchant was seated at his desk, working.
And he was completely ignorant of the fact that, if he turned, he would have a clear line of sight to the people robbing him.
The sheer balls it took to plan the heist this way distracted Ben for a moment, but close on the heels of his admiration came another emotion—hatred. Jorys was there and, it seemed, unattended. There was no reason to choose between robbing him and assassinating him.
He saw Orien gesture out of the corner of his eye and motion for him to hurry, but he wasn’t paying attention anymore.
His focus fixed on his target, he ran toward Jorys as he drew his dagger.
Chapter Fifteen
He had something of a head start. Elantria and Orien were still a flight of stairs away, coming out of the vault.
If he were honest, however, Ben would have to admit that he hadn’t thought about that. He merely ran and no longer even tried to be quiet. This was purely reflexive, and he hadn’t chosen his moment or hoped to prevent them from interfering.
His survival instinct tried to remind him that he didn’t even know if there was another guard in the room. There probably was.
In moments, he pushed through the door and there was nothing to be done except face what awaited him. He surged into Jorys’s study with his dagger drawn and it was damned clear what his intention was. The merchant turned in his seat, but Ben wasn’t looking at him.
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