“An attempt was made on the king’s life, and it was prevented,” Dayne said. “While it would have been preferable to capture the man alive, it demonstrated how capable the marshals are at the task of protecting their charges. The Tarian Order is looking forward to the partnership with them.”
“Mister Heldrin, you took personal action at this incident,” a young woman stated. Hemmit knew her by reputation—Cairns, from the High Maradaine Gazette. “Just as you did with the incident with Tharek Pell, the rescue of the Scallic Ballots, the atrocity on the Parliament floor.”
“Is there a question?” Dayne asked.
“Do you feel a personal charge to take such action? Do you feel like you, Dayne Heldrin of the Tarian Order, are the one single hero in this city who can save us?”
“Of course not,” Dayne said. “This city—it’s full of so many good people. People who are fighting every day to make it better, make it safer. People who reach out to help their neighbors, people who extend a hand to whoever needs it. This city is full of heroes, both in the light and the shadows. Every part of this city, every alley and neighborhood, has a champion ready to rise up and do what’s right. I’m honored if you count me among them, but I would honor every one of them as well, wherever they’re found.”
Chapter 2
“TWO RASPERS, EXTRA MUSTARD.”
Veranix Calbert looked a little conspicuous ordering sausage sandwiches from a Dentonhill food stand in his University of Maradaine uniform, even if he was just a block from campus. He was the only student in the line, the rest were workers from the chicken house. He was amazed those folks could even eat, given how they stank of chicken filth and blood.
He wasn’t the only student in the square, even if he was the only one in uniform. While he paid for his sausages, he kept his eye on the two he came here to watch. Fourth-years, boy and girl together, both from the social houses. They were dressed like they were trying to fit in with the Dentonhill crowd, but they were too clean, clothes looking like the fashionable idea of working class. They stood out easily, not that anyone here really cared about the two of them.
Anyone except Veranix and his friends.
Veranix watched the pair as they approached a fellow leaning against a lamppost. He kept his attention on them while eating his raspers—dry and overcooked—as they had a brief conversation with the fellow. Things exchanged hands and they left, heading back to the campus gate. Veranix ate the last bit of sausage and started walking, so he’d go right past them. He charged up just a bare hint of magic, drawing the numinic energy around him and channeling it into his hands. As he passed the couple, he sent that energy out. No color, no flash, no sound, just a wash of numinic energy over them. He glanced back at the campus gates, where Delmin Sarren was chatting up one of the cadets on guard duty. Delmin looked up for a moment and nodded. Delmin wasn’t a very good practical mage, but he was an excellent magical tracker. This was a new trick the two of them had been practicing: Veranix “tagging” someone magically, and Delmin tracking them afterward. Delmin had these two in his sights, and he’d find where they went, where they lived, and then he’d use his authority as prefect to bust them for trafficking effitte onto campus.
Veranix often leaned toward using force to stop the effitte trade, but not against students on campus. Delmin insisted that they be dealt with through the proper system, until it proved corrupt.
Force was what he had in mind for the fellow who sold them the effitte. Now he had identified the dealer, the next step was Mila.
Mila Kendish, new first-year at U of M, street girl from the west side of town, was pretty damn incredible. She had disguised herself as one of the chicken house workers, unrecognizable as a student or even as herself, and was walking past the lamppost. She didn’t even slow down, and to Veranix’s eye, never touched the seller. Despite that, she gave Veranix a quick nod. She had grabbed the fellow’s effitte stash.
The girl had hands like magic, and quite the devious mind, since she had come up with this plan. Veranix knew she had learned her craft with the Rynax brothers, a pair of real schemers from the west side who worked elaborate heists.
As quickly as she had brushed by the dealer, she was out of sight.
Someone else came up to the dealer, and after their brief exchange, he was looking put out. He checked his coat pockets, and then again, and looked all around him. Veranix pretended not to make too much note of him as the dealer, swearing a hot streak, stormed off down the road.
Veranix followed, but not as Veranix Calbert, magic student at the University of Maradaine.
He slipped into an alley, and with a magically powered bound, leaped up to the top of the roof while shedding the illusion of his uniform.
Now he was the Thorn—crimson flowing cloak and hood, shading magic hiding his face. Fighting staff and a quiver of arrows on his back, magical rope at his belt, and his brand-new bow in his hand.
He was excited to try the new bow, finally.
From the rooftop he stalked after the dealer until he went down another alley. He knocked on one basement door and then went in.
Veranix dropped down to the ground, and drawing two arrows—normal ones, not the gifts from Verci Rynax—he kicked the door open and went in.
A small storeroom, and four guys, including the one he had followed, standing among crates of effitte.
Perfect.
“Gentlemen,” he said as he drew back the pair of arrows. “I’m the Thorn. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
He loosed the arrows, and allowed a smile to come to his face. He was going to enjoy knocking these dealers about, and destroying the poison they were selling. He’d keep doing that until it, and the entire empire of drugs and death Willem Fenmere was running, were wiped out of the city.
Inspector Second Class Minox Welling needed more lamp oil.
Whoever designed the archive room at the Inemar Constabulary stationhouse clearly did not expect anyone to be staying in the archives for extended periods. There was almost no natural light. The few windows were small and at the top of the wall—street level in the basement—and were on the north side of the building. It seemed an absurd design for a room devoted to finding and reading written records.
Even more absurd was the limited budget for lamp oil, and despite Captain Cinellan’s promises that he would try to get Minox more, he had almost run out for the month, and today was only the twenty-fifth of Oscan. In addition, his extended time down here had begun on the sixth. Without a significant change in the near future, his coming months would be largely in the dark.
His exile to the archive room—technically to desk duty, but that translated to him being down in the archives much of the day—was to be one hundred days, of which nineteen had passed. And he was already feeling his grip on normality slipping away. He needed the work, to be on the streets, dealing with cases and, hopefully, making the city safer.
But instead he was down here, him and his dangerous magical hand.
Minox decided to solve at least one problem by using his hand as a light source. It wasn’t efficient—the use of magic taxed him, and he couldn’t efficiently use his hand to look through files and as a light source at the same time. If he had received proper training in magic, he might be able to create the light without it having to come from the hand itself. But he remained untrained, Uncircled, and outcast among mages and the Constabulary.
Despite all that, he was determined to make the most of his exile, to use it as an opportunity. The archives were in a frightful state—the chief archivist clerk had passed away six months before, and no one had been hired to take her place. Plus, she had clearly grown negligent in her later years.
Minox had been spending the last nineteen days making some sense and order out of things, organizing the files that represented over twenty years’ worth of investigations, cases, and arrests. He found a letter detailing the proc
ess of sending files to the City Archivist—that must be an astounding library of records, over on the north side of the city—but those protocols had not been followed for some time. He had hoped for some assistance, but no one was available.
His cousin Nyla hadn’t been back to work since her encounter with the killer called Sholiar. And his sister Corrie—
Corrie was gone. Maybe dead. He was holding out hope that she was alive, and that somewhere in these files was the clue that would help him find her.
“Welling, you down here?” That was Inspector First Class Henfir Mirrell, currently the Chief Inspector of the Grand Inspection Unit. A post that was far from deserved, but he had been promoted to it nonetheless.
“The light must make that apparent,” Minox called back.
Mirrell came around the file cabinets to Minox, discomfort plain on his face. Probably from the bright glow emanating from Minox’s left hand.
“Everything all right down here?” Mirrell asked.
“Lamp oil is, apparently, at a premium, but I’m making do,” Minox said. “Do you need me for something?”
“Yeah, something scratching at the back of my head. We busted up that ring that was abducting kids, working out of the docks, right?”
“There was an arrest of a group of abductors, yes,” Minox said. “Let me guess—a new surge in missing children.”
“Yeah,” Mirrell said. “Maybe it’s connected, maybe it’s not. But it’s again mostly focused in Dentonhill, though I’ve sent inquiries to other stationhouses. A few similar reports.” He held up a handful of files.
“Are you asking my opinion?”
“Well, I think they could be more connected with the old cases, not sure. There’s some fanciful stories, of course.”
“A great giant taking children?” Minox asked.
Recognition flashed over Mirrell’s face. “Yeah.”
So there was something connected. “I’ll look it over, see what I can determine.”
“Good,” Mirrell said. “And if you figure something out, I’ll send Kellman and Tricky out to run it down.”
Minox scoffed reflexively at that. Of course, he would be asked to do the deduction work, even stuck in here. Others would actually be in the field.
“Sorry,” Mirrell said. “I know you and Tricky are still at odds. Just let me know what you find.”
“Always,” Minox said, taking the files to the archivist desk he had claimed.
Mirrell believed that Minox and Inspector Rainey were at odds. That was their current subterfuge, a ruse for them to privately investigate the corruption in the Constabulary and the city, by giving the appearance of division.
Unfortunately, over the past nineteen days, that investigation hadn’t progressed much. Minox had largely been sorting through files, earmarking the ones that could apply to such corruption, or to cases he had considered unresolved. Inspector Rainey had had her own problems to deal with.
Satrine Rainey was an Inspector Second Class, and she shouldn’t have to deal with an altercation in a corner grocer like she was a fresh-from-cadethood footpatrol officer. Of course, she never had been a cadet or served as footpatrol, having started her Constabulary career late in life as an inspector, so perhaps this was some act of balance. A test the saints or sinners were putting on her to teach her humility.
Satrine was not interested in having divine humility thrust upon her.
She ran to the corner of Jent and Tannen on the summons of a winded and terrified page. He had found her all the way in Hashrow, on the north side of the city, where she and Inspector Kellman had been working another crime scene that was beneath their skills. Old man, killed in an alley over the coins in his pocket. The only reason why they had been called out at all was because the man had been a retired inspector, but there was no reason to believe there was a case there.
This was an emergency that had required her, so she had whistle-galloped back to Inemar, until her horse had given out on her at Promenade. She had run the rest of the way while Kellman dealt with the exhausted horses.
She got to the grocer shop, finding a small crowd formed around the place. They gave a wide berth to the door and the patrolmen.
“What do we have?” Satrine asked the two patrol officers who were outside the grocer, both of them with their crossbows up and their fingers on the trigger. “And put those down.”
“But—”
“You’re likely to fire by accident and hurt a bystander,” she said.
They lowered their weapons. “Fight broke out between the proprietor and a customer. We think they’re both armed. Another customer had run out and called us, and when we tried to come in, the customer shouted they’d shoot anyone but you.”
“Any stick besides the ‘dirty spec Tricky Rainey,’” the other officer said. “Not my words, ma’am.”
“Not the worst I’ve been called this month,” Satrine said. “So the proprietor and the customer are in there? No one else?”
“As far as we know,” one said.
“All right,” Satrine said, pulling out her crossbow. “Call for a Yellowshield. Someone will probably need them in a minute.”
She checked her crossbow—loaded with a blunt-tip. She might need to incapacitate someone, but she didn’t want to go further than that.
“This is Inspector Rainey!” she called out. “Coming in!”
“Trini, you tell this rutting posk to get off my neck!”
“This old lady—”
The proprietor and the customer were both on the floor in the back, like they had wrestled each other into a lock and now had blades at each other’s throats. Satrine was tempted to let them finish the job, but that wouldn’t be fair to the grocer.
“Mom, drop the damned knife.”
“He tried to kill me!”
“She tried to rob my store!”
“Those rutting kids were—”
“Mother!” Satrine shouted. “Drop the knife or by every saint I will shoot you with this crossbow and iron you and drag you down to the stationhouse. Are you going to make me do that?”
Her mother let go of the knife.
“Sir, now disentangle yourself from her and step away.”
The grocer pulled himself off of Satrine’s mother and scurried behind his counter. “You take her out of here.”
“I will,” Satrine said. “Get up, Mother.”
Berana Hace, once Berana Carthas, got to her feet, looking like she wanted to slap Satrine. She was gray and drawn, but still looked like she could scrap like she used to. Satrine was perfectly eager to give her a scrap right back, but her mother didn’t start anything this time.
“What did you take?”
“Nothing! It was those kids!”
“You told them to take it,” the grocer said.
“I did not,” she said. “Like I’d bother.”
“What does she owe you?” Satrine asked.
“Twelve ticks,” he said.
“Pay the man, Mother.”
“I ain’t got that.”
“What happened to the money I gave you?”
“Spent it.”
Satrine sighed. She had gotten a raise with the promotion to Inspector Second Class, and with her mother released from Quarrygate around the same time, brand-new expenses.
“I don’t even—” Satrine pulled three five-tick coins out of her pocket and put them on the counter. “Keep the change and keep this to yourself.”
“She can’t come in here anymore,” the grocer said.
Satrine grabbed her mother by the arm and dragged her out.
“We done?” one of the patrolmen asked.
“Handled,” Satrine said. “Back on your beat.”
The patrolmen, thankfully, didn’t argue.
“And you,” she said to her mother.
“You go back to Phillen’s apartment and you stay there.”
“I’m not doing what you tell me—”
“You stay there, or I will iron you up and drag you in,” Satrine said. “I’ll come by day after tomorrow and take you to church.”
“I ain’t going to church.”
“You and I will go to weekly service at Saint Limarre’s,” Satrine said. “Don’t make me waste time hunting you down, because Phillen will get every page in Inemar to All-Eyes you.”
“Rutting blazes,” her mother said. “What did I do to deserve two rotten children who are both rutting sticks?”
Satrine could provide her with a list, but held her tongue. Her mother stomped off down the street toward Phillen’s place.
“Everything all right?” Inspector Kellman asked, looking harried as he guided two spent horses to her.
“Fine as can be expected,” she said. Kellman had been more than accommodating about the new situation with her mother since they had partnered up. He was a dull block compared to Welling—just about anyone would be—but he was decent enough. There were worse fates than partnering with him.
Like whatever happened to Corrie.
“We got something?” she asked, noticing he was holding a new page note.
“Some window-cracking on the east side.”
At least it wasn’t another murder. The last thing Satrine needed was for today to be any more gruesome.
“All right, Kellman. Let’s get to work.”
“Let’s get to work!” Verci Rynax called out to his brother as he came down the back stairway from the apartments to the workshop in the back of the Rynax Gadgeterium. He actually hoped Asti was in the shop. Asti was supposed to be out front, taking care of customers, while Verci was building and repairing in the back.
That’s how it was supposed to be. But Asti would still slip out for extended periods to “check on something” or “keep an eye on a situation.” The neighborhood was relatively calm, no one was trying to kill or muscle them, at least not today, and they weren’t directly planning to go at anyone in the near future. Right now, it was legitimate business for two reformed thieves.
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