Her eyes adjusted to the light of three lanterns in the room. It seemed cozy, with two plush sofas, each long enough to seat three people, on either side of a table in the middle of the room that had two glasses resting on it, the remnants of the others she’d seen here through the curtain. One of the glasses had a smear of red around the rim.
Sam grinned to herself. She’d never be caught dead smearing that paste on her lips like so many of the highborn women were wont to do.
At the door, she paused once more, listening. Here, she watched the floor for any shadows that would indicate movement on the other side of the door. If anything moved, she’d head back and hide behind the curtain, or even leave the house altogether. The longer she was here, the less comfortable she felt with what Marin told her and the more she wanted to know what Marin had sent her here to get.
Sam pulled the sketch of the floorplan from her pocket and unfolded it. She saw the room she was in, and saw where Marin had marked where she should find the item, but that meant going down a short hall until she reached a stairway. From there, she needed to go up two flights to the upper level where there was apparently one massive room. That much she believed. Only these rich highborn types would waste space like that.
She stuffed the map back into her pocket.
Taking a deep breath, Sam pulled the door open a crack. The hall on the other side was a little longer than it appeared on the map, but a wide stairway stretched up at the end of it just as shown on the map.
Sam crept forward, keeping her cloak wrapped around her, ready to turn and run at the first sign of a problem. It was times like these when she wished she had a weapon of some sort, but weapons—if caught—posed more problems than she was willing to risk. It was better to run, and pray that she wasn’t caught, than to risk having something with her that would result in her being imprisoned for longer.
At the stairs, she paused, listening. Was there a scraping above her?
No. Nothing was there other than the soft creaking of the building, almost as if it settled. Many of these older homes along the canal did settle, and they often had a strange groaning sound to them, as if they were alive.
She took the stairs two at a time, her feet padding across the wood, barely making any sound. That was one benefit to her size.
When she’d gone up two flights, she found the door indicated on the map.
Testing the handle, she found it locked. Strange. Why would they leave it locked in a place like this? Anyone who got to this point in the house would normally have to be invited in. The only person not invited in would be those like her.
Bypassing locks was one of the first skills she’d mastered when she’d taken to running the canals. There were plenty of doors where she had to get past, often times needing to use this skill so that she didn’t get caught, so she didn’t think this door would pose any real challenges to her.
Sam pulled a slender rod from her pocket and slipped it into the lock. This was actually one of her favorite parts of sneaking around the way she did. There was a certain satisfaction to pressing on the barriers meant to keep her out, and finding the right way to put just the needed amount of pressure on the lock so that she could feel the lock click. And then she would be in.
This lock proved a little more challenging than most. There seemed to be a few different tumblers, and she had to contort the rod in such a way that she could hold the others in place while triggering them. Sam counted as she did. Could there really be ten tumblers?
When the last fell into place, the lock popped open, and Sam pumped her fist. Tray wouldn’t believe her, and she wished there was some way to bring the lock with her to prove what she’d done. He wouldn’t be able to get past a lock that complicated! Not yet, at least. Then again, he might never work to become skilled at locks, preferring brute force as a way in.
Whatever was on this side would have to be incredibly valuable.
Maybe there really were gems. If she found other items of value here, she would have no choice but to take them, right? She’d give Marin whatever it was she was supposed to deliver, but the others could be for her. Selling them might be a little tricky, especially since Bastan controlled the smugglers able to get gems and other valuables out of the city, but she’d find a way.
When she pushed the door open, she found… nothing.
That wasn’t true. In the massive room, there were rows of shelves, and books stacked along them, almost like this was some sort of highborn library. One table in the middle of the room had blank sheets of paper. The texture to them told her that they were well made, and likely valuable, but there wasn’t a market for anything like that.
Sam scanned the shelves. Where were the valuables? Why had Marin sent her here?
This… this wasn’t anything like what she’d been hoping to find.
As she looked at the shelves, she wondered if maybe there was a hidden room of some kind. These highborns often had rooms like that, and if she could only find it, then she’d surely find what Marin believed was here.
Other than a narrow door along the wall that the map showed led to the roof, there was nothing. The size of the room matched what showed on the map. There was no indication there might be some hidden area they’d walled off.
A library?
What in Kyza’s name had Marin been thinking?
The table in the middle of the room. Wasn’t that what Marin had said? There was only paper on it.
This had to be some sort of joke.
Well, she could play a joke too.
Grabbing a pen that lay next to the blank pages, she dipped it in the inkwell. She wrote in a flowing script on the top page, spelling out Marin’s name in full.
As she wrote, the ink faded, then disappeared completely.
Sam studied the pen. Had the ink been watered down?
She tried again, dipping the pen into the ink. This time, she pulled it out and studied it, staring at the deep black color. She tapped it on the back of her hand, and the ink didn’t fade at all, leaving a smudge that remained, and grew larger.
Sam wrote out Marin’s name on the page. Like before, the ink faded quickly, then disappeared, leaving nothing behind, no evidence that she’d been there.
As she stared at it, she heard the sound of footsteps below, the steady thumping of boots on stairs.
Kyza!
She’d taken too long.
She hurried to the door and shut it, twisting the lock into place. Now she had to find a place to hide, or get out. She found neither.
A key slipped into the lock.
Kyza!
Sam scanned the room again, and her gaze fell on the narrow door in the far wall. She didn’t have much choice.
She raced toward it, deciding to grab a few pages of the paper along the way. She stuffed them into her pocket, then hurried to the door. This one was locked from this side. She thumbed open the lock and stepped through the door just as the door into the library opened across the room.
Leaning on the door, she breathed out, studying this side.
Another stairway, this one leading up.
Sam heard voices on the other side of the door. They seemed to be coming closer.
Swearing under her breath, she climbed the stairs as quietly as possible. If she was caught, she’d blame Marin. It was possible this was some sort of plan she’d had all along. First, the difficulty reaching the stupid house, and finding nothing of value—at all—inside the room she’d sent her to. Now she’d get caught! All these years spent thieving throughout the city only to get caught in the library of some highborn house. At least she could get caught with something interesting.
Her mind started working through the different penalties she might face. Entering a highborn home was bad enough. That might get her a few months in the cells. Then there was the map she had on her. That might add a few more. Taking the pages—even though they were blank—meant that she’d stolen from one of the highborns. That would add a few years. Enough time tha
t she’d not see Tray until he was old enough to have gotten married. Enough time for her to worry that he’d do something stupid and try to break her out.
There was another door at the top of the stairs.
At the sound of the door at the bottom of the stairs opening, she pushed this one open.
As she suspected, it let out onto the roof.
Sam stood in place a moment, transfixed.
The moon shone brightly in the cloudless sky. Sam closed the door, pushing it as silently as she could. She hurried to the edge of the roof. From here, she might be able to climb down, depending on how smooth the side of the home was. She hadn’t thought to scope that out, but she’d scaled plenty of walls in her time.
The door opened behind her, and she threw herself over the edge.
Sam clung with her fingers holding on to nothing more than the lip of brick.
She wouldn’t be able to stay here for long, but she wouldn’t need to.
She hugged the wall and looked over her shoulder, searching for Tray. He should be there, still standing guard for her, ready to race over and help. If she made it down, she might even take his help.
He wasn’t there.
For a moment, she wondered if maybe the person who’d come up the stairs might have been Tray, but then she heard voices.
“There’s no one here.” It was a deep voice with a strange accent.
“You heard the warning the same as I did.”
The first person sighed. “That’s all it was. A warning. You knew the risk with this assignment.”
“They shouldn’t have found us so soon. Or so easily.”
“They shouldn’t be in the city,” the first man said softly.
“We shouldn’t have taken it from them so openly. We’ve had a decade of calm.”
“With this, we can finally be rid of them. So much was risked for this.”
“Out of necessity.”
Sam felt her arms burning, but her curiosity was piqued. What were they talking about?
“There was someone on a nearby roof.”
“One of them?”
“No, but possibly a sympathizer. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve been sent to the city.”
“Then we find out what he was after.”
“If he talks.”
“If he talks,” the other agreed. “Though there are ways of coaxing even the most reluctant into talking.”
Sam’s heart hammered so loudly, she thought they might hear it.
If what she’d heard was correct, Tray had been caught.
Her fingers started slipping, and she dug in with her toes, trying to grip the side of the building. Even they started to slip. If she didn’t find a safe way down, she wouldn’t have to worry about the noise. She’d need to worry more about dying.
As the grip in her fingers gave out, she thought of something she could try.
Sam kicked off the side of the building. If she could get enough of an arc, she might be able to reach the water. If she did, it wouldn’t be pleasant. This high up, the impact on the water would hurt. And she had to hope the canal was deep enough to keep her from hitting bottom, possibly injuring her further.
She hit the water with a loud splash.
There wasn’t anything she could do to prevent that.
The water enveloped her, and she sank. She tucked her knees into her chest, but still crashed into the bottom of the canal. When she did, the impact pushed all the air out of her lungs.
Kyza.
She couldn’t pop up here. They’d see her. And if they’d grabbed Tray already, she had to worry about what might happen if she appeared from the water. Sam was a decent swimmer, but she preferred jumping across the canals, especially given what swam in here.
That thought got her moving.
She pushed off the bottom of the canal and swam as long as she could below the surface. When she couldn’t hold her breath any more, she surfaced, taking only enough time to fill her lungs, and then she dived again.
This time, she was able to control the swim better. She flipped her legs and tried not to think about the things swimming along next to her in the water. There were some of the canal carp, and some bass, as well as other fish that weren’t harmful, but there were the larger creatures, those that lurked along the bottom of the canal, like the eels. Kyza knew they were rumored to jump out of the water and grab people walking along the edge of the canals before carrying them back below the surface. That wasn’t how she wanted to go out.
When she thought she’d swum long enough—and far enough—she popped her head back out of the water. She’d been staying close to the edge, and was about to crawl up the side, but as she began to reach up, she heard voices.
Sam dipped her head below the surface of the water.
She held her breath as long as she could, trying to maintain her position. She didn’t want to drift too far down the canal. If she wasn’t careful, she could end up in some section of the city she might not know. She needed to escape the canal and see if there was anything she could do to help Tray. Maybe he was fine and the men she’d overheard hadn’t done anything to him, but if they had, she would find out, and she would do whatever it took to get him free.
With lungs burning, she poked her head up for some air. A barge moved in the distance, slowly coming toward her. It wouldn’t do for one of the barge captains to find someone swimming in the canal. That might draw as much attention to her as anything else that she’d done. Besides, the stupid captains talked, and they’d find out what happened soon enough. She either needed to get herself out of the water—which she wanted to do before one of the eels started getting a sense of her—or hold her position beneath the surface until the barge had passed. She didn’t like the prospect of staying in the water.
Sam grabbed one of the stones that formed the walls of the canal. Before pulling herself from the water, she looked up and down the row of buildings situated here. She didn’t see anything that moved. At this time of night, there shouldn’t be anyone else out. If they were, they’d likely be working some nefarious job, just like she was doing.
Something touched her foot.
Sam fought the urge to kick. If it was one of the eels, kicking would only draw its attention more. No… it was better to remain calm, but that was hard to do when something as big as her torso might be near enough to clamp on to her. She could all too easily imagine that double row of sharp teeth catching her leg and clamping down…
Sam swung herself over the edge of the canal, witnesses be damned.
The water where she’d been swimming splashed slightly, just enough for her to believe there was something there, and then settled. Sam prepared to jump and run, anything to get away from the edge of the canal, but the water stopped moving.
Her breathing began to slow.
That had been close.
Too close.
Damn Marin and this assignment. There hadn’t been anything in the damn highborn house, certainly nothing of value like she’d been led to believe. Finding nothing, she had wasted her whole night, risked capture, and ended up taking a swim in the canal. She hated swimming. Not as much as Tray, but then, she hadn’t nearly drowned the same way he had.
Had Marin sent her to get caught? That seemed unlikely, but what other reason was there for sending her into the highborn house?
Sam started along the row of buildings, drawing her cloak around her for concealment within the shadows. Now that she was wet, it wouldn’t work quite as well, especially not with the water dripping down the sides and leaving a wet trail behind her, but she needed the warmth as much as she needed the cover from the night.
When she reached a side street, and one of the bridges leading over the canal, she ran across and raced along the street until she neared where she’d left Tray. The building here was taller than she remembered, and without the canal staff, which she’d left across the canal, she’d have to work a lot harder to get up, but years of climbing had giving her a good
grip and strong enough muscles to make the climb. When she reached the top of the roof, it was empty.
Could he really have been pinched?
Sam didn’t like to think of the possibility. It would be her fault if he had. Her brother wouldn’t have been here if not for her.
Crouching on the roof, she stared across the canal, watching for movement inside the home. There was nothing. Even the lantern light that she’d seen before was extinguished.
What was going on here?
She was tempted to go back for her staff, but that risked her getting caught too. Better to come back in the daylight, when she wouldn’t be quite as conspicuous. Then she’d only have to deal with the strange glances from others as she carried it along the street. A good thing it came apart, making the two halves easier to conceal.
Sam studied the home again, watching for any sign of movement. There was none.
Kyza. She’d failed Marin, and Tray had been caught. Sam didn’t know which of those would end up being worse for her.
3
The Master Thief
The back room of the Sornum was too nice for the rest of the tavern. Oiled paneling created a nice separation, and a few paintings hung on the walls, each worth probably as much as the tavern itself, though long ago stolen from some highborn. Bastan kept them well-maintained, and even employed a man to make certain the soot and smoke from the rest of the tavern didn’t contaminate the paint. Now he perched in his ornately carved chair, gilded with streaks of gold across the top of the back making it appear like some sort of poor man’s throne, staring at a painting Sam had never seen before propped against the wall.
Maybe it was one he’d painted himself. He had a talent for forgery, and though he’d never painted originals before, she wouldn’t put it past him to do so.
“Where’s your brother?” he asked without pulling his gaze off the painting.
She’d given up wondering how he always knew. He’d always been able to tell when she came and went, even without looking. That talent was what had made him such a skilled thief in his time.
The Book of Maladies Boxset Page 3