THE NOTE WAS SIMPLE, a warning in Hadrian’s neat and tidy scrawl brought to her by one of the urchins shortly after the fifth morning bell.
Take shelter. Bane came here seeking you, and he’s furious. I told him nothing and chased him off. Your share is ready. May smuggle you to Clovera for a time until we know his intentions.
Her heart stopped, and sensation in her fingers and toes ceased. Cold swept over her as she imagined the sorcerer appearing at her door with a squad of city guard behind him. But what proof did he have?
Hadrian wouldn’t have warned her to go into hiding if Xavier had contacted the authorities to report a theft. The guard would want him to prove it, and even then, they’d be bribed into ignoring the complaint.
How had he recognized her?
Rosalia bolted into Mira’s room and shook her awake.
At first, she resisted with a few swats, making grumpy noises and tugging the blanket over her head until Rosalia tore it away. “For the love of Arcadian, what is it?”
“My cover has been blown. Bane knows I broke into his shop last night, and he’s searching for me. Hadrian wants to send me to Clovera.”
Irritation bled away, Mira’s eyes growing wide and the color fading from her face. “Bane? That’s who you got it from?”
Rosalia nodded, miserable. Her stomach twisted into a dozen knots, legs barely steady enough to hold her upright. “Now I wish I hadn’t.”
Her friend tossed the blankets from her legs and slid out of bed onto her feet. “Bonare once told me only the most powerful wizards can control a dragon, and that they’re so rare, if the guild knew of one now, they’d bend over backwards to kiss ass and have him as a teacher—as a leader probably.”
If Mira wanted to ease her worries, she was doing a piss poor job of it. Rosalia groaned. “Not helping.”
“Sorry, love. It’s just… controlling a dragon is a whole different level of magical skill.”
“Why didn’t you say that last night when I came in from fleeing for my life?” Rosalia asked hoarsely, voice barely cooperating.
“I thought you’d know I was joking. I may be greedy, but I’m not foolish enough to go one-on-one with a dragon. What will you do?”
“I’m leaving for the theater. There are armed guards at least, and I can hide out in Frederico’s suite until I make a plan. There’s nowhere safer in all the city unless I wiggle my way into the royal family. And it’s a little too late and a few years past losing my virginity to present myself to the harem committee.”
Mira’s nose wrinkled. “Ew.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Anyway, do you know that he means to cause you harm? What if he only wants his item back?”
“An item I no longer have.”
“Point. What do you need me to do to help?”
“Nothing now. Hadrian has my share of the profit, but I won’t be able to go to the Salted Pearl to get it.”
“Don’t worry about the money. Go and dance your ass off. I’ll get the gold and bring it to your performance tonight. We’ll smuggle you out of the city for a time until we know his intentions.”
“My performance? Aren’t you to be on stage too?”
“My understudy will take my role. I need to pack your belongings.”
“Dammit, I don’t want to leave.”
Mira set her jaw. “But you must. He’s a sorcerer, and, if I’ve learned anything from my relationship with Bonare, they’re unmatched when it comes to holding a grudge. You won’t be safe here in Enimura, and he won’t go to the authorities, because he’ll want to handle it himself. Otherwise, he’d have gone to the watch already and reported it instead of seeking you in person.”
Cold apprehension sank to the bottom of her stomach and gripped her guts with terror. A few tears welled to her eyes. Hundreds of heists. A thousand burglaries over a lifetime, and she’d never felt crushed between a rock and a hard place before. Was this how her victims felt when they realized their prized possessions were gone forever?
In Xavier, she’d finally met her match, and now a single question remained—would he be so driven by vengeance that he’d track her to the theater?
“I’VE HAD the guards escort him from the theater,” Frederico announced when he swept into the dressing room. Less than an hour remained before the show, and if not for Frederico, she’d still have a plain face. He’d applied her makeup himself, sympathizing with her anxiety and asking nothing about what she’d done.
When she tried to explain, tried to beg him to let her stay for a few hours after the show, he’d shushed her and said she had a home with him for as long as needed.
Bless this man.
“I can’t perform like this, Frederico. I can’t.”
“You will, and you can. If this is to be your final performance in Enimura for a while, let it be the best and the greatest. Let it be the talk of the city for years to come.” He quieted after a moment and fixed her with a long gaze, paternal warmth in the quiet smile on his face. “This thing you took from Bane, it must be quite expensive, wasn’t it?”
“The grandmaster kept ten percent. Of the remaining twenty-seven thousand, Hadrian and Mira each took a quarter. The rest is my commission.”
Frederico held a hand to his chest. “Gods. Why did you ever waste your time with my theater when you were able to make enough money to buy your own in a single night?”
Rosalia didn’t answer at first. She turned her face and glanced at the window, dwindling rays of sunlight turning the stained glass molten with color. “I don’t know... I...” She raised both hands and let them fall in her lap again. “I suppose it was nice for a time to pretend to be normal. To be any other girl.”
“Then why not let the stealing go? Was it the money? I would have paid you many times more, Rosalia. You are the best. Never tell Mira this, but in my thirty years of theatrical work, I have never watched a girl shine as you do beneath the light. When you dance, you come alive, as if you are a star given flesh and form.”
She wet her mouth with a glass of water on her makeup table, suddenly parched. “I enjoy dancing.”
“But the theater is not where your heart truly lies.”
She considered it. Had she successfully absconded with The Scholar’s Truth and fenced it, would she have settled in some quiet fishing village with her thousands laundered into bank notes? Would she have created a new identity across the sea, claiming a title of nobility?
Or would she have merely vaulted her riches and continued what she knew best? Rosalia sighed heavily. “No, it isn’t.”
Her gray-haired friend rubbed his head. “I understand. The Master of Fate teaches us that, does he not? We each have a true passion, a destiny awaiting us above all other desires.”
“If only mine were legal,” she muttered bitterly.
“One day, this talent of yours will be useful to you for matters beyond personal gain. You wait.” He removed a flask from his belt and pressed it into her hands. “Here. A sip for your nerves.”
She unscrewed the top and drank the strong liquor despite her words to Adriano the previous evening. Initially, she grimaced at the taste until it rolled over her tongue and transformed from its natural licorice-flavor, becoming sweeter than ripe cherries. She savored the transformative wine and sighed. The flavor was different for everyone, a true drink to savor. The final notes became a hint of succulent berries and chocolate.
“Now, what shall I tell the other gentleman caller?” Frederico asked.
“Other gentleman caller?”
“Yes. The large one who sometimes visits you.”
“Shit. I told Adriano I’d speak to him before the show.”
“Should we permit him entrance? He’s waited quite patiently.”
“Yes.”
Frederico squeezed her shoulder and left the room. Minutes later, knuckles rapped against the door, and Adriano’s muffled voice reached her. “Rosalia?”
“Come in.”
The door opened and shut behind him
. He approached without speaking, handsome as ever in his uniform, the pristine white of the king’s navy. He wore his sword on his hip and all the ribbons denoting him as an officer.
She’d been so proud of him when the admiral promoted him three years ago, and they’d celebrated the night away, drinking until the sun rose, because he’d had only a few days before it was time to ship out again.
And for a while, their relationship had made sense. She didn’t like to be smothered. He was always at sea. But there came a day when she’d wanted more. More had meant a partner who wasn’t gone for three or four months at a time, a partner who supported all of her ventures.
“I didn’t think you’d let me in,” Adriano spoke up first.
“A few unforeseen events happened since we spoke last night.”
A deep furrow formed between his brow. “I see. This still a good time to discuss us?”
Us? He said it as if there was something between them besides friendship.
“There hasn’t been an us in over a year, Adriano.”
“I’ve been to sea for six months,” he gritted out. “A year ago, you asked for space, and I gave it to you, but I hadn’t realized it would be the end of our relationship. You loved me once.”
“I’ve never uttered the words love in my life without referring to muffins from Madame Maxmila’s bakery.” She opened the small package with her peacock feather earrings and slipped them into her earlobes. “We are two different people. You’re a man of the military.”
“And you’re a thief,” he said bitterly, spitting it out. “You could give it all up. Is it worth so much heartache? So much strife and danger? Look at what you have here.”
A tiny spasm of guilt trembled behind her ribs. Rosalia swallowed and glanced away, breaking eye contact between them. How could she possibly tell her oldest friend, the only person she’d known since her first day in the city as a child, that she was leaving for an undetermined amount of time?
She closed her eyes. “I don’t even have this anymore, Adriano. Tonight will be my final performance. Last night, my heist went sideways. I thought all was safe, but he confronted Hadrian. Knows my name. It’s only a matter of time before he knows where I live as well.”
When she risked a glance up at Adriano, she saw his face had gone ashen. Gray. He stared at her. “Who is he?”
“Xavier Bane.”
“The sorcerer mechanic.”
“Yes. And we all know the will of sorcerers. I’m safe for now while I’m inside this building, and Frederico has barred him from entering the theater, but it’s only a matter of time before these walls become my prison, rather than a shield.”
“So, what will you do?” he asked, voice softer.
“Mira and Hadrian are arranging a transport for me to leave the city. I’ll be smuggled out. Start a new life elsewhere.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“If you desert the navy, you’ll lose everything you’ve worked to achieve. You’ll be branded a traitor to the crown.”
“Rosalia—”
“I won’t let you do it. I don’t want you to do it. This is my mistake and my problem.”
Adriano clenched his jaw. “I see. What if I pull a favor or two and arrange for Bane to have a few problems. I have pals in the watch.”
“Who will accept bribes as necessary from our wealthy merchant to turn the other way while he murders me. He can’t bribe an entire theater, and respect for Frederico seems to keep him at bay for now, but I have no doubt that the moment he catches me unaware, I’ll go up like a tinder twig in a bonfire.” A wan smile curved her mouth.
Adriano knelt in front of her and took both of her hands. His touch was rough, fingers calloused from years of working aboard ships. An officer’s life hadn’t changed it. “Don’t joke like that.”
“If I don’t, I’ll go mad.” Gently, she withdrew her hands. “I have to go on stage soon.”
“When will you leave?”
Her teeth skated over her lower lip. “Tonight possibly. Depends on how quickly they can accomplish it.”
One of the other girls knocked on the door. “Rosalia? Curtain rises in five.”
“I have to go.”
Adriano rose and brushed a hand down his pants. “I’ll be in the naval officers’ box.”
“I know.” She tilted her face up to him and smiled. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”
“No maybes about it, sweetheart. We will.”
He hugged her, and for a moment, for one blissful and sweet moment, she felt safe in his arms, until she remembered the merciless vengeance of mages and knew Adriano would go to his death for her. Better to leave and spare him that.
10
BURNED
A THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE spilled through the curtains. It had been the best and most difficult dance of her life, an act of absolute perfection despite fearing she hadn’t practiced enough over the days since receiving the job for the mirror.
Adriano had given his word and watched every moment.
Afterward, once she’d taken a bow on the stage and hurried into her dressing room to fret and pace in peace, Frederico knocked.
“Come in.”
The older man stepped inside, looking weathered and stressed, his mouth pressed into a joyless line and eyes creased heavily with more crow’s feet than she remembered. He held a wrapped bundle in his arms, and she could guess at its contents. Her leathers. “I do not want to give these to you, and I do not want to watch you leave, but I must if you’re to be safe.”
Rosalia blinked a few times to clear her vision. “Frederico...”
“You are like a daughter to me, Rosalia. There were times I told myself perhaps in another life, you could have been. I swear to you that I will smooth this over with Xavier. Whatever it is, whatever reason you believe you are in danger, I will fix it.”
“I don’t think it can be fixed.”
“I do. Perhaps you should speak with him. He says he only wants to talk. That many people are in danger because of this thing you took from him.”
Could it be true? But what danger could there be in a mirror?
“Anyway, consider it. Mira brought these for you.” He pushed the parcel into her arms, and the neutralizing scent of whale oil and shade dust wafted off the package. The mixture had its own unique odor, a musky smell of tanned leather and the desert after a rare rainstorm.
“Thank goodness.”
“She also said to tell you the preparations are complete.”
“What do they want me to do?”
“Dress and wait here for Hadrian to come retrieve you. Mira is packing your belongings and taking them to the smugglers.”
Trumpets blew outside. Rosalia peered through the window in time to see guards assembling in the streets and marching toward the south.
Then there were alarms screaming from the north end.
Frederico paced by the door. “Those were the blaze sirens. The fire brigade only sounds the alarms when there’s a disaster in the city. Something must have happened.”
“Something’s definitely amiss.”
When an hour passed without sign of her friends, Rosalia made her way into the upper level of the theater and climbed out onto the roof for a look at the city. To the south along the border near the docks, she saw curls of smoke rising toward the darkening sky. Within the next thirty minutes, three more massive fires ignited across the city, and then a patrol of guards swept through the streets. They declared a citywide curfew and banished every civilian to their homes or businesses.
Frederico flagged down a passing runner, but the man shook his head and continued. Messages were closed.
If she wanted to gain any insight into what was happening, she’d have to go out on her own. Making her decision, she finished donning her gear and tossed her cloak around her shoulders. “I’m leaving.”
He sighed. “I suspected you would say as much. Perhaps the confusion and the chaos caused by the fires will be enou
gh to protect you this night.”
Within minutes of taking to the streets, she discovered most of the noise and commotion from the city watch and royal guard came from the Squals—the poor quarters far beyond the wealthy districts. She kept to the shadows and avoided their notice until she made her way toward the warehouses beside the docks. Those rooftops made an ideal spot to conduct surveillance.
After finding the ideal vantage point, she knelt and removed her scope.
A burning husk was all that remained of the Salted Pearl, two stories of beachside tavern reduced to smoky rubble. She stared at it, an iron fist squeezing her heart.
This can’t be right. This can’t be real.
Rosalia swept the scope down the beach, desperately seeking the silhouette of Lacherra or Hadrian among the spectators and positive she’d see the former giving some city watchman a piece of her mind for torching her bar.
Instead, she saw the royal guard patrolling the beach in force and the battered body of Ol’ One-Hand nearby covered in bloody sword lashes.
No, no, no!
Barrels and crates of their belongings had already been removed to the beach and some dockworkers were loading those onto the confiscation carts. Desperate to understand what had happened, she swept the scope down the beach until she saw the telltale arm stripes of a city watch sergeant and read his lips.
“—bloody thieves den left. Are you certain we’ve got the leader? Ah, good. The only good elf is a dead one. Make sure nothing remains for any stragglers that—” He turned aside, the rest of his words lost.
It didn’t matter. A few heartless words had told Rosalia everything she needed to know about the city watch’s recent activities. Grief hit her like a punch to the throat and sent tears flooding down her cheeks, shoulders shuddering and raw sobs escaping her constricted throat. Not Hadrian. If Frederico was a grandfather to her, then Hadrian was the father she’d looked up to and loved with limitless affection, not a leader or a boss.
She wept until she wanted to vomit and her throat ached. Her body shook, and her chest hurt from retching afterward. Wherever she looked, great pillars of dark smoke rose toward the night sky during the city’s campaign against the Thieves Guild, more than a dozen dens reduced to rubble in what had to be the single most organized extermination in the city’s history. And still, there were many more, because she’d memorized most of their locations over the years with exception to a small handful kept in total secrecy. Would the guard find them as well?
All That Glitters: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 1) Page 8