Conspiracy

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Why did you want me here?” Yara asked as soon as she joined them. “It’s obvious that you don’t have any interest in working within the boundaries of the law, or even the dictates of humanity.”

  Amaranthe and Maldynado stood in the shadows of a mercantile store that had closed for the day. A kerosene streetlamp burned at an intersection, its illumination dim compared to the gas lamps that lined the streets in Stumps.

  “This—” Amaranthe lifted the papers, “—wasn’t done with my knowledge or approval. As for why I wanted you here, the emperor needs help, and I thought you cared enough to want to see to his welfare.”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Yara said.

  “And here I thought she’d come to trade terms of endearment with me.” The dim lighting was enough to show off Maldynado’s white teeth when he flashed a smile.

  “I wasted a week’s leave to come,” Yara said without acknowledging him. “The soldiers are on high alert, and nobody will risk kidnapping the emperor now. Not here.”

  “Actually, someone will. I promise you.” Amaranthe withdrew a carefully folded note from her pocket and handed it to Yara. “One of my men won an event in the Games this summer, and Sespian gave that to him at the dinner afterward.”

  Yara walked to the streetlamp to read the note. Amaranthe forced herself to stay put, but it made her nervous to let any distance form between her and that note. Though it wasn’t signed, it was the closest thing to evidence she had in case she ended up having to justify her actions to someone after the mission.

  “Amaranthe Lokdon,” Yara read, “I wish to hire your outfit to kidnap me. I can offer 100,000 ranmyas.” She lowered the note. “You expect me to believe the emperor gave this to you?”

  “No, he gave it to one of my men.” Amaranthe smiled, hoping a smidgeon of humor would lesson Yara’s scowl.

  It didn’t. If anything, the woman’s lips turned further downward.

  Amaranthe coughed and slid the note from Yara’s fingers. She slipped it back into her pocket.

  “This means... you’re the one planning to kidnap him tonight?” Yara asked.

  Amaranthe nodded.

  Yara lifted her eyes toward the sky. “This is worse than sedition, more than a crime. It’s... It’s...”

  “Likely to be a good time?” Maldynado asked. “You don’t have to do anything, you know. You can just come along to watch. It ought to be entertaining, if you can avoid being shot.”

  Amaranthe lifted a finger to her lips, hoping to hush him up. But Yara snorted. Or was that a short laugh? Maybe Maldynado had said the right thing after all.

  “You are invited,” Amaranthe said. “It might put Sespian at ease to have a friendly face. Someone he’s fairly certain is loyal to him. Of course, we’re loyal to him, too, but I don’t think he knows that yet. I must convince him of that.”

  Yara stared at her and shook her head.

  “If you come along,” Amaranthe said, “you can rescue him if you two decide we’re not to be trusted.”

  “Are you insane?” Yara asked. It wasn’t clear whether the comment applied to Amaranthe’s last suggestion or to the scheme as a whole.

  “We debate that frequently,” Maldynado said, “but the boss hasn’t gotten us killed yet, so we haven’t made a ruling.”

  “If you rescue him, or simply make sure he doesn’t come to harm while he’s with us, I’m sure he’ll be grateful,” Amaranthe said. “Maybe you’ll get another promotion out of it, eh?” She said the last as a joke, but it didn’t elicit a smile. She needed to stop trying humor on people scowling so fiercely they were in danger of pulling muscles in their necks.

  “I’ll be lucky to keep my current rank after all this trouble. I’ll admit I got myself into it by pestering my higher ups about those weapons, but having you and your cursed assassin show up on my family’s stoop, and with my enforcer brother there to witness it...” Yara groaned.

  Amaranthe wondered if the week of leave Yara had mentioned might have been someone else’s idea. A superior suggesting she take the time off to figure out if she was truly committed to being an enforcer?

  “We’re on his side, Yara. I swear it.”

  “I don’t believe your intent is to harm the emperor, but what of the men guarding him?”

  For some silly reason, it pleased Amaranthe to hear that Yara believed they weren’t a threat to Sespian himself. “The plan is not to harm them either.”

  “Is everyone on your team aware of that plan?” Yara eyed the darkness around them, probably wondering if Sicarius was lurking nearby. “It doesn’t sound like you have a lot of control over certain members.” She stabbed a finger at the newspapers.

  “Yes, we’re agreed on how to handle this.”

  “What are you going to do with the emperor after you get him?” Yara asked.

  “Whatever he wishes us to do.” A cold breeze drifted down the street, slipping beneath the skirt of Amaranthe’s purloined dress and reminding her that she needed to change back into her work clothes and return the disguise before the emperor’s train came in. “We must leave shortly, so I need your answer. Are you in?”

  “I’d be addled to join you when you lured me down here under false pretenses. I’d be even more addled if I believed half of what you’re telling me.”

  Maldynado leaned close to Amaranthe and whispered, “That’s a yes, right?”

  Yara’s eyes narrowed. “If I do join you, do you mind if I attempt to collect on this shrub’s bounty when everything else is finished?” She pointed at Maldynado.

  “Not at all,” Amaranthe said.

  “How can you say that, boss?” Maldynado pressed his hand to his chest. “Your lack of support wounds me.”

  “You need practice staying on your toes.” Amaranthe waved toward the street. “Let’s get to work.” Though she strode off with a confident air, she was more relieved than she would admit when Yara walked after her and Maldynado.

  Amaranthe crossed the tracks again and used the cover of the warehouses to skirt the train station. Instead of approaching from the rear, as they had before, she came in from the front. She paused at the last loading dock to consider the blocky form of a brick water tower with an articulating arm that could be lowered to fill the holding tanks of an engine idling beneath it. In front of the tower, a two-story coal shed abutted the railway with a chute angled over the tracks. Lamps illuminated the entire area, and Amaranthe’s stomach sank when she realized the well-lit door at the base of the water tower faced the station. Anyone on the boardwalk outside could see it if they looked in that direction. She might need to rethink that part of her plan. When she’d concocted it, she hadn’t imagined soldiers swarming about the station like ants on an abandoned pastry from Curi’s Bakery.

  A hand caught Amaranthe’s arm, surprising her from her thoughts. Before the others noticed, Sicarius drew her into the shadows of an alley between the last two warehouses before the water tower. Basilard joined Maldynado and Yara.

  “Basilard and I will take the water tower,” Sicarius told Amaranthe, not acknowledging the fact that Yara had joined them. “Your team can do the coal.”

  Sometime in the last hour, he and Basilard had acquired army uniforms. They both had distinctive faces, and, thanks to all the wanted posters around the empire, Sicarius’s was particularly well known, so neither would pass for army men up close, but they might be able to slip into the water tower without anyone thinking anything of it.

  “Agreed.” Amaranthe pointed deeper into the alley. “A word?”

  The others had noticed Sicarius, so she lifted a hand to keep them from following, and joined him a dozen paces away.

  “The soldiers are waiting for a train that will take them to the capital,” Amaranthe said. “It seems someone murdered a bunch of prominent citizens, and reinforcements are being called in to protect Stumps and aid with the hunt of the killer.”

  A moment passed before Sicarius said, “Understood.”

  The
single word gave away nothing of his thoughts, so Amaranthe tried to read the pause. Maybe it meant he regretted his actions, or at least realized he’d acted rashly and that there might be inconvenient consequences. Somehow she doubted she’d get him to admit it, even if that were the case.

  “Do you think it’s odd,” Amaranthe asked, “that soldiers would be called in to deal with an assassin? I know they’ve hunted you before, but those were special missions, out in the wilds, weren’t they? Crimes in cities are almost always relegated to enforcers.”

  “Yes,” Sicarius said.

  “You’re answering both questions there, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have I mentioned how much I appreciate your garrulousness?” Amaranthe asked.

  “No.”

  “Good.” She touched his arm to make sure he knew she was joking, though something in the back of her mind—her father’s spirit perhaps—told her she shouldn’t be joking, touching, or even talking to someone capable of tearing through the city, killing dozens of people in a twenty-four-hour span. “I had an instructor in school, Ms. Worgavic, who had this saying, ‘In every crisis lies opportunity.’”

  “You believe Forge is using my attack to bring the soldiers to the city for a scheme of its own?”

  “The idea entered my mind, yes.”

  He glanced toward the alley entrance. None of the others were in sight. “My only concern is getting Sespian to safety.”

  Amaranthe tried not to feel irritation at the statement. It wasn’t news. Sicarius had never claimed to have an interest in helping humanity or saving the empire or anything of that ilk. In fact, he’d told her quite frankly that he didn’t. That he’d been letting her use him this last year only because they shared the goal of keeping Sespian safe. That Amaranthe had other goals too... She supposed that didn’t matter much to him. Though she knew it shouldn’t, the reminder stung.

  “I understand that’s your main concern, but—” Amaranthe lowered her voice, “—I thought you hoped to become the type of person the emperor might wish to get to know.”

  “That... cannot be the priority.”

  “Oh, Sicarius.” She knew he was the last person in the world who would want sympathy—and maybe she was crazy to feel such emotions for him, knowing what he’d done in his life and of the questionable choices he continued to make—but it made her heart heavy to think of him never having a relationship with his son. “We’ll see what we can do about you getting a chance to deal with both concerns. But, in the meantime, I don’t want any more glares from you in regard to who I chose to add to my list of allies. It’d be premature for smugness on my part, but I don’t believe any of our complications thus far—” she waved toward the soldier-filled boardwalk, “—are a result of anything I’ve done.”

  “Really,” Sicarius said dryly.

  “Really.” Amaranthe smiled. “I know, I can hardly believe it either.”

  Footfalls sounded at the head of the alley. Yara was striding toward them with Basilard and Maldynado hustling after her. Maldynado gripped her shoulder and said, “Wait until they’re done.”

  Yara jerked away. “Unhand me, or I’ll collect on your bounty right now.”

  Maldynado lifted both hands skyward.

  “It’s all right,” Amaranthe said. “We’re done.”

  Yara stalked up to Sicarius. “Who’d you kill for those uniforms?”

  Sicarius regarded Yara with as much warmth as one might give a cockroach. A particularly invasive and pesky cockroach. “No one.” Sicarius jerked a thumb toward two inert forms farther back in the alley.

  “We brought a number of gags, and I had a special wrist- and ankle-tying bands made,” Amaranthe said. The latter had come from Ms. Sarevic and were clever for their compactness and efficiency. “I told you the truth. We’re hoping not to injure anyone tonight.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Yara muttered.

  Amaranthe checked her pocket watch. “We better get started in a moment, but first, Yara, join me over here for a moment, please.”

  Amaranthe knelt at the end of a loading dock and rummaged in her rucksack. She pulled out a mask and a canister of the knockout concoction Sarevic had made. When Yara joined her, Amaranthe held out the items.

  “You should take these. You can use the canister to make those around you sleepy, maybe even pass out.” Amaranthe wished she’d tested them, but they were among the most expensive items Sarevic had made, and she couldn’t waste them. Besides, she couldn’t imagine a stupider way to die than by testing these on her men, causing everyone to lose consciousness, and then having a soldier stumble across their hideout and kill them all. That wasn’t the way she wanted to make the front page of a newspaper. “The mask will protect you from its effects.”

  At first, Yara didn’t make a move to touch the items. Amaranthe could understand her reluctance. If she was captured and had the tools of guerilla kidnappers on her, there’d be no way for her to claim innocence. Honestly, that was part of the reason Amaranthe wanted Yara to take the items. It’d force her to commit. She also didn’t want Yara getting killed or dropping unconscious in the middle of the emperor’s car. That’d leave Amaranthe and the others with two bodies to tote outside.

  “You’ve tested the mask?” Yara finally asked.

  “Ah, sort of. We tested its ability to block out noxious fumes.”

  A few feet away, Maldynado snickered.

  “Let me guess who supplied them,” Yara grumbled.

  “It was... a group effort. After a meal that involved a couple of cans of beans. Uhm, but anyway, that’s not important.” Amaranthe didn’t want to scare away their new teammate with further details. “I believe the mask works, and it would behoove you to keep it with you.”

  Yara took the items. Amaranthe wanted to give her a few minutes to familiarize herself with them, but Sicarius said, “We should go now.”

  Amaranthe almost said that five more minutes wouldn’t make a difference, but he was right. Books’s estimate was exactly that. An estimate.

  “All right,” Amaranthe said. “You and Basilard know what to do. Maldynado, we have a coal shed to subjugate.”

  “I love it when you say things that make us sound fearsome and formidable,” Maldynado said.

  Amaranthe let Sicarius and Basilard go first. Before he crossed the railway, Sicarius stopped to rest a hand on the train tracks, and Amaranthe decided to wait for him. He glanced back at her and lifted a hand, fingers outstretched. Five minutes. Nerves tangled in her gut. The train was that close?

  Sicarius and Basilard disappeared into the shadows between the lampposts, only reappearing when they had to stop before the well-lit door. Sicarius tried the knob. The door was locked.

  Still hunkered by the corner of the warehouse, Amaranthe nibbled on a pinkie nail. Sicarius slipped a lock-picking kit out of a pocket.

  Maldynado tapped her shoulder. Yes, they had to get on with their own part of the mission. She would trust that Sicarius could slip in before trouble noticed him.

  “Stay close,” Amaranthe told Maldynado and Yara, then led the way toward the coal shed, trying to use its bulk to hide their approach from anyone at the train station.

  Avoiding lampposts and their damning light, Amaranthe walked into the square fronting the refueling area. Here and there, her boots slipped on oil-slick bricks and grime. Incipient frost and damp leaves further complicated the footing. She’d hate to fall on her backside in front of Yara. That’d make it even harder to live up to Maldynado’s suggestion that they were fearsome and formidable.

  She reached the coal shed without any embarrassing falls. She already had her lock-picking kit in hand, but the door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed all the way.

  “Someone inside already,” Amaranthe whispered. She didn’t bother using Basilard’s hand signs since it was dark and Yara wouldn’t be able to understand them anyway.

  Maldynado puffed out his chest and indicated that he would go first. Thou
gh Amaranthe doubted they would run into more than one or two workers tasked to load coal on the arriving train, she didn’t see a point to arguing with him. She pushed the door open and listened. She thought she heard something—a soft scrape perhaps—but the noise did not repeat.

  A new noise from outside reached her ears—the distant chuffing of an approaching train.

  Maldynado stepped past Amaranthe. She followed right behind and paused to listen again while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The earthy scent of coal hung thickly in the air, and dust lingered, tickling her nostrils and coating her tongue. Someone must have been shoveling fuel into the dispensary bin upstairs in preparation for the train’s arrival. But where was that person now? And why wasn’t there any light if someone was in there working?

  A set of stairs rose along the wall next to the door, and Amaranthe pointed for Maldynado to check upstairs while she investigated below. He padded up without a word. Amaranthe waved for Yara to stay by the door and eased into the dark room.

  The only windows in sight were shuttered, so little light crept inside. Searching by feel, Amaranthe passed double doors and piles of coal, some in bins and some free on the floor. A mountain of the stuff buried the entire back half of the first floor.

  She’d completed a circuit around the room and was heading to the stairs when her boot caught against something on the floor. It didn’t feel like coal.

  With one hand on the hilt of her sword, Amaranthe squatted down, her other hand outstretched. She encountered clothing, damp clothing, and caught the familiar scent of blood. The overpowering odor of the coal had masked it.

  “Body over here,” she whispered to Yara.

  “Do you want me to come in?”

  “No, someone better guard the door.”

  Amaranthe drew a kerchief and wiped her hand before backing away. Deciding to risk a light, she shrugged off her rucksack.

  Floorboards creaked above her head. Maldynado walking around, doing his own search. She thought about calling a warning up to him, but she had a feeling they weren’t alone, and she couldn’t risk a loud voice that someone outside might hear.