As they prepared to leave, Carth debated whether or not she should talk with Jenna and Alayna, before deciding that they would be needed to keep an eye on Linsay. If the Collector came after Linsay, Carth would need to have somebody able to defend her and keep her from getting captured.
15
The merchant lived on a well-to-do street. There were other houses that were incredibly nice, but his was among the nicest, and Carth immediately identified it by the number of guards patrolling outside. Did he anticipate her attempting anything? Or was this simply his way of being prepared? It was the kind of preparation she expected from the Collector, so she was not entirely surprised to see him with a similar set of protections.
His estate was not nearly as expansive as the one in which she had assumed the Collector had lived, and perhaps he did reside there, though when she and the others had broken in, it had been empty with no sign of him—or anything that seemed as if it belonged to him.
Carth wrapped layer of shadows around her, using only enough to keep them concealed but not so much as to draw attention to their presence. Talia kept her back to the wall and scanned the streets.
“You have quite a bit of experience sneaking around like this.” Carth watched her and the steady way that she surveyed everything around her. Talia was keeping a close eye, and Carth suspected she wouldn’t be easily surprised.
“That’s what he’s paid me for,” Talia said. “He needed someone able to move quietly and get various tasks accomplished.”
“What kind of tasks did he ask of you?”
Talia shrugged. “You saw me in one of them. There are various items that he collects, wanting to gather them so that he can use them in whatever way he needs.”
“Have you been able to determine what exactly he’s after? Is there a tendency to what he asks of you?”
Talia frowned. “Not that I’ve been able to tell. He requests things of all different kinds, though different people have different assignments. The artifact that you intercepted me acquiring was just one such thing. There are others like it, most of the time from competing merchants, though not always.”
“Always artifacts?” Carth asked.
Talia nodded. “At least for me. I don’t know what he’s asked of others, but with me, he requires that I gather him strange things that have come through the city. Most are odd, like that gold statue. There were probably a dozen other items in that shop that would have been as valuable or more, but that’s what he wanted.”
Movement caught Carth’s attention and she pulled them along the street. “How long do you think it’ll be before he realizes that you’re not helping him?” Carth asked.
“I don’t know. It might be that he already knows.”
Since Talia had rescued them from the cell, Carth had suspected that. What would he do to Talia? Would he exact some sort of revenge, or would he not care? Carth doubted it was the latter, suspecting that the Collector would be the kind of person who would be angry that Talia had defied him, but still wasn’t certain whether all of this—including Talia and her assistance—was part of his overall plan.
“I’m going to jump the fence,” Carth said. There was another set of guards down the street, and between them and the pair they had moved away from, Carth wasn’t certain whether they would be able to keep ahead of them. She feared that they had already drawn enough attention and it might not be possible to maneuver so that she didn’t draw any more. They needed to get into the building, and from there, she needed to find Rhain.
Who was not the Collector.
She still tried to work through how that made sense, and struggled with it. The Collector had led her to believe that this man was him, wanting to pit Carth against him—at least to create the question in Carth’s mind. And it had worked. She had believed him to be the Collector and was still surprised that he was not.
“Can you take another with you?” Talia asked.
“At least one.”
“You didn’t bring the others with you,” Talia said.
“I didn’t. I wasn’t certain what the Collector might intend with Linsay, and I didn’t want to risk him getting to her before we managed to find out what he might know,” she said, nodding to the manor house.
Talia nodded and reached out to Carth, who took it and pulled on the shadows, using them to help her jump over the wall.
She landed on the other side in a roll and came up looking around, scanning for signs of anyone else who might be watching. There was no sign of guards here, at least not where she and Talia had landed.
Talia had a pair of knives gripped in her hand and her muscles were tensed, as if she were prepared to throw them at a moment’s notice.
Carth smiled. Talia was incredibly capable. If she could sway her and convince her to work on her behalf, she was the kind of person who could be useful in Carth’s network. She was exactly the kind of person Carth had always searched for.
“There should be more guards here,” Talia whispered.
Carth crept forward slowly, eyes searching the grounds. “I would have expected the same, especially if what you’ve told me about him is true.”
“It is true. Which is why I am uncomfortable with this,” she said.
She didn’t know Talia as well as others she had worked with on jobs like this, but she suspected that Talia’s discomfort was not something to be taken lightly.
“What would you have us do?” Carth asked.
“You’re asking me?”
Carth shrugged. “This is your city. You know it better than I do.”
Talia glanced around the grounds. “If he’s here, it may be that he’s fortified inside. I don’t know if he knows that you’re coming, but I would have expected him to have more patrols, especially knowing that you had broken out of the constable’s cells.”
“Then we enter through a way that he would not expect.”
Talia glanced at her, frowning. “What way is that?”
Carth nodded to the roofline. The second-story windows didn’t have any light shining in them, and Carth detected no movement. She paused and used a pulse of the flame to detect how many people might be inside. As she did, she came up empty.
That couldn’t be right. She didn’t believe that there was no one in the house, which meant that they had somehow concealed their presence from her. When this was all over, Carth would have to determine how they were able to do that and whether there was anything she could do to counter it so that it didn’t happen again.
She guided Talia to the edge of the manor house and gathered the shadows before jumping.
It was a controlled jump, enough that she used it to reach the rooftop, and she held on to it, crawling along until she reached the window, where she tossed Talia inside. Carth pushed off and rolled through the window, landing on a wood-plank floor.
“What is it?” Talia asked, studying Carth.
“I should have muffled your landing. I didn’t think about the fact that we would be so noisy.”
Talia laughed softly. “Speak for yourself. I came in quietly.”
Carth looked around the room, surprised that it appeared to be a library. Shelves covered the walls, and books were crammed into every inch of space. It wasn’t the sort of place that she would expect of a merchant.
“He’s quite well read,” Carth said.
“He imagines himself something of a scholar. I think that’s what drew the Collector to him.”
“And he’s only been here for a short while?”
“In Keyall? He’s been here a few years, long enough for him to acquire significant wealth.”
That was on the long end of Carth’s activity. She had been sailing for a few years, building her network and consolidating strength for that time. Could she have drawn the attention of the Collector that long ago? She wasn’t certain. It was possible that she had, especially as she had not objected to causing conflict where she thought it necessary. She had pushed through, attacking when she felt the situ
ation warranted it, in places such as Asador and Cort.
“What did he first gain his trading wealth?” Carth asked.
Talia glanced around. “He liked to traffic in silks and ceramics, thinking that he could generate excitement with exotic items.” She glanced over at Carth, smiling. “He tried to convince people that some of his wares came out of the west, though we haven’t had trade out of the west in many years and even when we did, it was uncommon and those ships would charge exorbitant amounts of money for their cargo.”
“Much like what he was trying to make happen,” Carth said.
Talia shrugged. “They were hoping to draw out the Collector, but I suspect he was on to their plan from the beginning.”
“And maybe he was the reason they did it,” Carth said.
“Why do you say that?”
Carth shrugged. “I suspect the Collector doesn’t have many things happen that he has not planned for.”
“Do you think he planned for you?” Talia asked.
It was a good question, and it was one that Carth didn’t have a good answer to. Had the Collector planned for her? Could he have known that she would come here? If she believed that Linsay had been working for the Collector, she had to believe that he had guided Carth here.
“Let’s move on,” Carth said, stepping out of the room.
The room let out into a wide hallway. Another row of shelves stuffed with books lined the hallway. Carth scanned the shelves, marveling at the age that some of these books seem to be. “It’s more than fancying himself as a scholar,” Carth said. “What he has here is enough to make him the equivalent of any scholar.” Talia frowned and said nothing.
What would Boiyn do with a library like this? With the knowledge that was accumulated here, she wondered whether there might be things that he might learn from the merchant about mixing his elixirs.
Carth paused at the next door, listening. She sent a pulse of her flame magic through the room but detected no one. She was no longer certain whether she could rely on that and cracked the door open just enough that she could look inside. It was much like the room they had entered through. Shelves covered the walls, taking up the entirety of the room. Two chairs with a table between them were positioned in the middle. A tray rested on the table, and there were two glasses with a bottle of wine set on the tray.
Someone had been here recently, though they might not be there now.
They moved on, passing from room to room along the hall, and Carth found them all to be the same.
“Are you sure that this is the merchant’s home?” Carth asked.
Talia nodded. “As I said, he fancies himself a scholar.”
This was something more than scholarship, though what? Carth could almost believe that it was the Collector’s home and wished that she had time to see if he might have any books on Tsatsun. If it was the Collector, she fully expected him to have acquired histories of the game. It would explain how he had grown so skilled in it.
They reached the end of the hall, where a set of stairs led down. Carth followed the stairs, moving silently on shadow-muted steps. At the bottom, she hesitated and looked around. The stairs opened up into a large room. It was empty and Carth frowned as she searched for signs of someone—anyone—but came up with nothing.
“Where would they be?” she asked. There were guards patrolling outside.
“Maybe he was summoned away. He does serve the tribunal, so it’s possible that he was called on some tribunal business, which would take him away for a while.”
That didn’t seem to be the case. If this was something to do with the tribunal, Carth would expect that there would be others of his house still here. One of the tables was lit by a softly glowing lantern. For someone to have left the lantern—especially in the home of a man who so clearly valued all the books he could accumulate—meant that they had left in a hurry.
But why?
Unless they knew that she was coming?
If they knew she was coming, where would they have gone? And how would they have known that she was coming? The only person that she talked to was Talia.
Carth turned slowly, focusing on the other woman. “You tipped them off.”
“I didn’t. I don’t know where they went, but I didn’t tip them off. I want to be done with the Collector as much as you do.”
“I doubt that,” Carth said.
She hurried through the room and noted something as she stepped across the wooden floor.
There was a hollowness beneath her.
She was aware of it through her connection to the shadows as much as anything. It seemed as if, when she used her shadows to mute her footsteps, there was a sense of the shadows stretching far below her, much farther than they should.
Carth stopped in the middle of the room, looking around.
She looked up at Talia. “He knew that I was coming. And he hid somewhere. I know that he’s beneath me here. It’s time for you to stop playing both sides, Talia. You need to decide who you want to side with. I can protect you, but only if you’re working with me and not working against me.”
Talia looked around, licking her lips. “You don’t understand what it’s like living in the city with them. They’re everywhere. He seems to know everything. I want to help you, really I do, but I don’t know that I can. If I do anything, he’s going to know, and he’s going to use it…”
“You said he? Who is it that you are concerned about protecting?” Carth asked.
“It’s no one,” Talia said.
Carth could tell from her reaction that she wasn’t telling the entire truth. Maybe there was no one that Talia was trying to protect. Maybe she was only trying to play both sides until she knew who would come out on top.
And was that so wrong? Carth couldn’t blame her for wanting to protect herself, and she couldn’t blame her for trying to find a way to work both angles. If she thought that she could work with Carth and against her, maybe she thought that she could manipulate the Collector.
“How much of what you told me is true?” Carth asked.
Talia shook her head. “I haven’t lied to you, Carth.”
“So you have never met the Collector?”
“I haven’t. All of my assignments have come from here.”
“And what was your last assignment?”
Talia watched her for a moment, and Carth started to smile.
“It was me, wasn’t it? I was your last assignment.”
16
Talia stared at Carth, not even blinking. “You were the assignment,” she said. “I was tasked with getting close to you, and you made it difficult at first, but the more that you were in the city, the easier it was for me to figure out what you would do.”
“You think you know what I will do?” Carth asked.
She looked around the room. It was empty, but there was a sense that others had been here. In addition to the still-lit lantern, there was food on a table near the corner. Embers glowed in the hearth, and the room had a slight warmth to it.
She tipped her head, focusing beneath her, but heard nothing—and more importantly, felt nothing.
“You think that you can counter the Collector. You’re not the first person who has done that, but you might be the first person he fears.”
Carth smiled to herself. “I intend to make him do more than fear me.”
“What do you think you’re going to do? There’s no one here.”
“What I intend to do is find my way beneath me, and then I will grab the merchant and force him to help.”
Talia watched, saying nothing.
If nothing else, Carth was impressed by the fact that both Talia and Linsay were so tight-lipped when it came to the Collector. Could she have misevaluated him? Could he have engendered real loyalty? She didn’t think so, but maybe he had. And if he had, it could be that there was a reason. When people served out of fear, they weren’t loyal.
Carth searched the room. There was no sign of a door that would lead d
own, though she suspected something of a trapdoor rather than a formal staircase. As she wandered the room, she found nothing. There was no sign of anything—or anyone—here.
Could there be a different way in?
She trailed her hand along the wall, tapping as she went. She came across a section that was hollow and felt along it, searching for a way in. There was a crack, and she knew that she was close.
Carth continued to search and found the narrowest of openings. She pried her fingers in and popped the door open. Darkness greeted her.
“Do you still want me to think that there’s nothing here?”
Talia stared at her, saying nothing.
Carth stepped into the room and found a narrow staircase that wound down into the darkness.
“You can come with me,” she told Talia.
Talia appeared in the opening of the door and stared at Carth. “I’m not willing to let you attack me in the darkness.”
Carth chuckled. “I have no intention of attacking you. You’re connected to the Collector and I need you.”
“That’s it?”
Carth shrugged. “That’s not it, but I’m not sure that you would believe me if I told you that I still intend to rescue you from the Collector. I don’t know that I’ve given you reason to believe that.”
Talia frowned. Carth started down, drawing away the shadows as she went, using them to lessen the darkness. The stairs were narrow and she had to place each foot carefully to avoid slipping. She couldn’t see the bottom of the stair and didn’t know how far she risked falling if she wasn’t careful.
Talia followed more sure-footedly.
“How deep does this go?” Carth asked.
“Why do you think that I know?”
Carth glanced over shoulders and could see only the faintest outline of Talia’s face. “You’ve been here before. You don’t hesitate on the steps the same way that I do, which tells me that you are familiar with this place.”
Carth continued to move carefully, taking each step one at a time. Were there more lights, she might be willing to hurry, not certain whether there was a reason for haste, but not liking the fact that she was gone as long as she was and descending as deeply as she was. Would she get to a point where she couldn’t escape if it came to that? The tribunal had already proven that they knew how to hold her, and the entire city was set on the same cliff edge, which had whatever natural resistance to her magic.
Shadow Games (The Collector Chronicles Book 2) Page 11