“So, he’s a thief?” Kaya said not impressed.
“Look, let’s wait for Palrig to get here. I don’t like this either, but I’d rather explain it in one go.”
Her head was killing her, and Kaya was not helping.
Kaya sighed and stalked around the office. Raisa had offered her to sit, but she didn’t. She wasn’t entirely surprised. Kaya liked to be on her toes and be aware of the situation. She was a twig of a woman, with skin dark enough to hide her in the night along the rooftops.
She had been stalking Tetrides on Raisa’s behalf as well. The only thing she could ever report, though, was where he slept, that he ate in the same tavern, then would leave it to sulk in the alley watching them.
He hadn’t done anything until now. Until Raisa provoked him.
She couldn’t help but wonder that if she’d left him alone, he would have eventually gone. She doubted it. When she felt something was off, it usually was, and Tetrides felt outright wrong.
She couldn’t blame Kaya for being confused and frustrated either. She had been one of the first to see through Arus.
Eventually, Palrig entered the office, looking concerned and just as confused. Raisa had asked him to come almost an hour ago, but he was clearing up details with a client who wanted to become a widow.
“Tetrides is now a part of the Ragged Wolves,” Raisa said the moment he closed the door.
The shock on Palrig’s face was almost comical. “Hold up, what?”
Raisa recounted everything then. Catching Tetrides off guard in the alley, his plea to join them, and his blackmail if she denied him. Anger rose at the account again, but she kept it at bay.
“Oh, of course,” Kaya scoffed. “It’s a family matter.”
“What does that mean?” Raisa demanded.
“You didn’t want to get mixed into politics for our safety and integrity, right?” Kaya asked, with irritation clear in her eyes.
“Right,” Raisa forced herself to answer calmly, though her head ached.
“But now your family—”
“Tetrides is not family.”
“Your daughter’s uncle is here, that is family,” Kaya bit back. “It’s affecting our integrity, and possibly our safety too.”
“I don’t like this anymore than you do,” Raisa tried, silently begging for Kaya to understand.
“And yet you let this man into the Ragged Wolves because of some blackmail? We’re assassins, Raisa. Why haven’t we just taken him out yet?”
“She has a point,” Palrig added.
“I’m not going to murder someone for wanting to see his niece,” Raisa defended. “We are better than that. The Wolves never killed for personal gain.”
“But we have for protection,” Kaya countered. “Just like you and Callas.”
“You know what he was doing,” Raisa growled, “and you sided with me then.”
Callas, the previous leader, had started using their outposts and colleagues to move large quantities of wildwood and other opioids. He’d claimed it was just to help out a friend in the business now and then, while gaining some coin on the side.
Things got worse after a friend of theirs was killed, supposedly by accident, for losing his pack of wildwood while being mugged.
Raisa knew that if they got too deep into the drug trade, they would all end up like that.
So, while Callas was high on his own share, she’d taken his head. It wasn’t even hard; he never moved from his chair.
And Kaya had been there, watching the door for intruders as Raisa killed their leader.
They all had to lay low for a while, but over time, the Ragged Wolves flourished into the business she created.
“I did,” Kaya said, “because Callas was a danger to us, and so is this Tetrides.”
“I don’t think he is,” Raisa confessed. “You’ve been watching him, and he’s never moved from that alley. I do not want him talking to Drivas at all, not without me there.”
“How are you going to prevent that with him living here?” Kaya asked, still mad.
“He’s not here yet,” Raisa said. “I told him we don’t have the space. After a few days of gaining his trust, as his boss, I’ll send him to a new outpost. Kression would be a good fit for him.”
Palamedes could keep an eye on him if he returned home.
“I’ve got it figured out, Kaya,” Raisa continued trying to calm her. “I don’t like this, but we only need to work with him for a little while.”
Kaya huffed again and crossed her arms.
“If you would just tell Drivas about her father, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” she said.
“But it’s a mess I can clean up,” Raisa said. “For Drivas’s own safety I can’t let her become like Arus.”
“I agree,” Palrig chimed in then.
“Of course, you do,” Kaya said throwing a hand up at him, “but hiding this from the girl is doing more harm than good.”
“Drivas is a curious girl,” Palrig said. “If we tell her about Arus, she’ll want to know more, and maybe want to talk to Tetrides about him. She’s smart, so she won’t just run off, but she’ll research her father where she can, which may include leaving.”
Raisa’s headache didn’t ease, but she was able to breathe for a moment with Palrig at her back.
“And it’s wrong for her to know anything about him?” Kaya spat. “I hardly know my father, but it doesn’t bother me.”
“Drivas is different,” Raisa said. “You knew your father wasn’t a good person after he just left your mother alone and pregnant. Drivas doesn’t know how bad Arus was, or that he never knew she existed.”
“I’d argue that’s slightly better, because having your father know you exist, even if you weren’t born yet, and still leave isn’t great.”
“Kaya,” Raisa said softly, “I don’t want my daughter knowing how bad her father was, or how he treated me. Along with how I still cared about him enough to visit before he died and get knocked up at the time. I’m not ashamed of having her, but there is still shame with Arus that I don’t want her to know about.”
She sat then, pressing a finger to her throbbing temple. It was as if the words themselves exhausted her.
Kaya watched her and didn’t reply. At least the anger slipped away.
Raisa stood again, restless under her gaze.
“I’m going to find Drivas,” she said leaving the office, “just to … I don’t know, just spend time with her. Please, let me know if Tetrides shows up. He does want to meet her, but I’m going to be there when he does.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Pen
Philomenae’s daughter wouldn’t leave Pen’s thoughts.
After they dealt with the Lion’s Den, she insisted on finding that house and the girl. Mellas made it sound like the girl was utterly alone now, and she was when they found her after some searching with guards who knew the area.
The girl inside the single room under an apothecary shop was scared but eventually let Pen hold her. She couldn’t have been more than five, with the same silky black hair as her mother’s.
The owner of the shop, an older woman with iron hair, confirmed that the girl and Philomenae didn’t have other family. The woman didn’t seem worried about the child, and if anything, she seemed glad that the kid was leaving.
When Pen carried her from the house, something else stood out as well. A black cat sat in the alley watching them. Cats usually stare, but this one had the same intelligence Phaos had in hawk form.
It broke Pen’s heart, but they left her at an orphanage run by priestesses of Emera and Sophronia.
Pen wanted to take her home, to at least make sure she was fed, but Palamedes said the temple and orphanage were the best idea.
It seemed to be as well. Once Pen set the girl down, she immediately went to play with the other kids. She looked happy, but Pen dreaded the moment she realized her mom wasn’t coming to get her. The cat appeared again, darting through the iron gate to f
ollow the girl.
The only thing that helped her turn away was Palamedes’s reassurances that the girl would be fine and of her own need for vengeance.
She didn’t know any of the Fang’s victims personally, but he was leaving so much blood and pain in his wake.
“Pen?”
“Hm? … What?”
Lifting her head away from her hands after staring at the list of locations, the kink in her neck made her grimace. They had everything spread out on the table in the main room, except the map. That was nailed to the wall by the hearth, where there was enough room to nail other things around it.
She sat at the table now and was reading over the list of locations the women were found in, as well as where they lived. Given the soreness of her neck, though, she had been staring at it for way too long.
“I thought you were dozing off for a second,” Palamedes said across the table.
“No, I’m up, just thinking about that little girl.”
He sat back, relaxing a touch, but concern lined his eyes.
“Makes sense,” he said. “You’re a mother, right?”
“I was,” she gave.
Her words were bitter, but she knew she’d always be a mother. That sliver would never die, and she was actually glad. It hurt, but it kept her conscious during the undying years.
“Have you come up with anything new?” Pen asked standing to wake up a little more.
“Maybe you should get some sleep,” Palamedes suggested. “We’ve both been working our asses off just thinking about all this, you even more so. I just got here.”
“I’m fine,” Pen said. “Have you found anything?”
He sighed and said, “No, but I have been thinking about that owner, Thyestes. He doesn’t value his people, and two have already been affected by these deaths.”
“You think he’s the Fang?”
“Well, my first thought was Mellas,” he said. “His hair even looks like the one you found, but so does Thyestes’s. His was tied back, so we don’t really know how long it is, though.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “and he does not care about women in general.”
“I wonder if we could use you as bait?” he said suddenly.
“Excuse me?”
“You could take him in a fight,” Palamedes defended. “You’d completely throw him to the ground. What if we egg him on and see if we can lure him out? See if he really goes after you.”
“I don’t want some maniac, who’s biting people, on my ass,” Pen barked.
He almost cracked but he held back a laugh.
“What?”
“I don’t think he’ll be biting your ass,” he chuckled.
“That’s not what I—” she stopped, and her own laugher bubbled up. “Gods, it did sound like that.”
Palamedes laughed then, and Pen joined him for the moment.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Pen said when it faded, “when there are more connections to him. There are still the other women to consider that had nothing to do with the Lion’s Den.”
“That’s true,” he said.
Palamedes stood, joining her at the map.
“Have you thought of anything?” he asked.
“No, but I think we should focus on Carras and Rella. There still isn’t much information on them.”
Palamedes nodded.
Pen glanced back to the map, staring at the point where Philomenae’s house was. There wasn’t a mark on it since she didn’t die there, but her black X was between it and the Den.
The cluster of X’s didn’t make any sense that she could see, even with the new victim on it. If there were more markings, there might be a pattern. She needed more clues, more locations.
An idea struck her then, and she snatched the list of women’s homes off the table.
“What are you doing?” Palamedes asked.
“I’m marking down where the women lived too. It might help make a pattern,” Pen explained grabbing the charcoal.
They switched to the charcoal because the ink and quill was expensive to upkeep, and the quill broke completely when chasing her stalker anyway.
“We should use a different color,” Palamedes added intrigued by the idea. “Keep them separate that way.”
“Charcoal doesn’t come in any other colors, and I don’t exactly have paints … Actually—”
“What?”
Pen pulled her left sleeve down. The scratches had almost healed over again, and the small scabs were back. She could break them open, but they would start to scar. Her palms already had enough scar tissue.
Plucking her knife from the table, they had been using as a paperweight, Pen cut into the pad of her right finger.
“What are you doing?” Palamedes asked stunned.
As an answer, Pen drew just enough blood to make a nub as long as the charcoal. Hardening a shell on the outside, she left the tip pointed like a quill and constantly wet.
“Huh,” he said. “I never considered that being used for anything other than violence.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“I mean, that’s all I’ve seen you do with it,” he defended.
Pen poked him with the end of the new crimson quill before turning to the map again.
With the list in hand, she marked off where the women lived, nearly doubling the X’s. She also added arrows from where each one lived to where she was found. The cluster thickened but no pattern jumped out. Sighing in frustration, she melted the quill back into her hand.
Palamedes watched, brushing off the drop of blood she left on his shoulder.
“That doesn’t say much,” he said.
“No, shit!” she barked pacing away.
“Wait.” He was still staring at the map, but his brow was creased.
Pen turned back, trying to not tear her hair out.
“I saw this tool once in the docks back home,” he explained growing excited. “It was this odd triangle mechanism that would change angles. I saw sailors using it to measure out distances on maps like this. It wasn’t an exact triangle, though; one end was open. I bet if you hold one of the points into this map, you could draw a perfect circle.”
“If we do that to every mark, then something in the middle might connect them all,” Pen said astonished.
“Can you do that?” he asked. “Make that tool, I mean? I don’t know what it’s called.”
“I’ve seen it too. Get the map on the table.”
Palamedes moved the map while Pen drew from her finger again.
She didn’t know what it was called either, or how it exactly worked, but she’d seen it on several ships. There were small components she didn’t know about that helped change the angle, but she made do with keeping the blood soft enough to move. One tip she formed into a quill again.
With the map on the table now and Palamedes at her shoulder, Pen placed one point of the tool over Rella’s house. Spinning it around, she made a wide circle around it. The next circle around where Rella was found intersected with it, but Carras’s home circle didn’t touch either. Pen’s heart dropped.
“Make them a touch wider,” Palamedes suggested.
Sighing in frustration, she did, keeping her hand and tool steady.
It took a few tries, and the map became a mess, but one spot did come to light. The larger circles encompassed multiple X’s, but there was one section they all overlapped.
The Lion’s Den was in that section. It wasn’t perfectly in the center but on the edge of it.
“There has to be a connection there,” Pen said in earnest, circling the Den in blood.
Chapter Thirty Six
Raisa
“And that’s basically how things work,” Raisa told Tetrides in the fletcher’s shop. Palrig stood off to the side cleaning a bow for display. “Once we get the messages from the hidden drop-offs, which Kaya or I usually get, it comes back here, and we start studying the person in question.”
“The person you kill?” Tetrides asked. “What�
��s the point? Why not just take them out?”
“Because we decide if they’re really a danger to anyone, or if it’s just a spoiled kid wanting his inheritance a little early.”
“Okay, fair enough, I guess.”
“You don’t approve?” Raisa asked. “Arus didn’t either.”
“It just seems like a lot of work for a little coin just to kill someone, but I’m sure I’ll learn the nuances of it soon enough. So, what about the others here?” he asked. “Do we all live here?”
“That’s right, though there are other outposts. There’s a training room downstairs if you need it,” Raisa said keeping things professional. “We don’t have room for another sleeping chamber, but I’ve been thinking about expanding anyway.”
“Did Arus live here?” he asked.
“No, he died before we bought this place.”
Tetrides nodded, looking content but bored.
“Let me show you the training room,” Palrig offered setting the bow down. “Shop’s basically closed up for the day. We can try a few fighting stances. See where your skills lie.”
Raisa could have kissed Palrig for taking Tetrides off her hands. After a full day of showing him around the house, shop, and a few drop-offs, she was exhausted. Mainly from just keeping him occupied and away from Drivas.
Kaya was keeping an eye on her, probably drilling her on the best hiding spots in the city.
“In a moment, but absolutely,” Tetrides said grinning. “I may not be great at sneaking around, but I can provide muscle in a fight. I could even learn some stalking techniques.”
Raisa even hated how he phrased it, like they were sleazy ingrates stalking through the alleys.
“First, though,” he continued, “I’d like to meet young Drivas. You’ve been keeping my niece from me all day. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“You agree to keep your mouth shut about Arus around her?” Raisa demanded, knowing he was bound to say something.
“I’m a man of my word,” he said placing a hand over his heart theatrically. “I will not breathe a word of Arus to Drivas.”
Grief of the Undying (The Ichorian Epics Book 3) Page 20