Dance of Thieves

by Mary E. Pearson

  “I was doing exactly what my father asked me to do—ensuring that there are many more generations of Ballengers to come. Our legacy will continue.”

  A rumble of approving titters flitted through the crowd, and my cheeks warmed. Apparently no one but me thought the comment unsuitable for a funeral. I reached behind Jase’s back and jabbed him with my thumb. He pulled me closer. “And as you can see, I made sure that all the preparations were well taken care of too.”

  Paxton scrutinized me, beginning at my exposed ankles. He spotted the suspicious scabs where the shackles had rubbed and cut into my flesh, his imagination probably racing in tawdry directions. His gaze rose slowly, taking in my sleeves that did not quite reach to my wrists, my tight bodice with the missing button, and then my face and disheveled hair. I met his ogling with an icy stare.

  A man standing behind him leaned forward and whispered something. Paxton smiled.

  “So you’re warming your sheets with a Rahtan, no less. Is this the one who burst into town and you had that unfortunate incident with?”

  “Only a misunderstanding,” Jase said. “It’s been cleared up.”

  But now everyone was eyeing me anew, recalling what they had heard, or where they had seen me before, remembering the Vendan clothes they had seen me storm into town with, and the weapons I had worn at my side. Paxton’s doubtful insinuation had its desired chilling effect.

  Gunner shifted nervously, noting the whispers, and stepped forward. “Of course, Rahtan! She brought word that the Queen of Venda is coming here to formally recognize the authority of the Ballengers and their territory.”

  Paxton blanched, shaken off balance by this news—just as the rest of us were. Jase stared at Gunner like he had gone mad. A pleased rumble ran through the crowd.

  “Coming here? To you? That is quite a development.” Paxton’s tone conveyed his genuine surprise, but he didn’t seem as pleased by this news as the rest of the crowd.

  Quite a development, I silently agreed, but said nothing. Paxton watched me, searching for confirmation. I gave him nothing. I wasn’t going to sink into this quagmire the Ballengers were creating and make the queen look like a fickle liar when she didn’t come. His focus suddenly dropped to Jase’s hand still curled around my waist, and his brows shot up.

  “The signet ring? You’ve lost it already?” His tone was condescending, as though he were shaming a careless child. Heat flared at my temples.

  Jase withdrew his hand from my side and rubbed his knuckle where the ring should have been. He had told me it had been in his family for generations, gold added, reworked, and repaired as it wore away, but always the same ring. Once it was put on, it never came off. Until now. Paxton was publicly chipping away at Jase’s credibility bit by bit, first making note of his absence, then missing the wrapping ceremony, and now recklessly misplacing his ring, which symbolized his rule like a crown on a king. Or Paxton was outright digging to expose where Jase had been. Could he know? For my purposes, it was too soon for things to unravel. I still needed to get back to Tor’s Watch and didn’t need to get in the middle of a personal play for power, or take on some new unknown thug who wanted to displace the Ballengers.

  “The ring is—” Jase began, I knew searching for a plausible explanation.

  “Jase!” I said, shaking my head, as if something had just dawned on me. “I forgot to give it back to you.” I looked back at Paxton and explained, “It’s a bit large on him, but he didn’t want to have it refitted until after the funeral. He handed it to me this morning as he bathed.” I smiled at Jase. “I’ll get it for you.” I turned for privacy sake, facing his mother as I hiked up the front of my dress, then reached down into my grimy pocket, searching for it among the crumbled remains of wish stalks. His mother’s gaze was hard, disbelieving, wondering what I was up to, but a glimmer of hope resided in her blue irises too. My fingers circled around the ring, and I nodded to her. I turned and held out the ring to Jase. “You’ll have to call on the jewelsmith soon,” I said. He looked at me like I had just pulled a Candok bear out of my ear. How? When? But those answers would have to wait. He leaned forward, and gently kissed my cheek as if we were happy lovers, then slid the ring back onto his finger, his gaze still considering me.

  Wondering.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JASE

  I closed the heavy double doors behind me, secured the bolt against interruptions, and turned to face my family. Everyone was present except for Lydia and Nash, who were too young to hear most of what I had to say. The family had maintained our charade all the way back to Tor’s Watch, even through the front entrance and into the hall. When Gunner began to ask questions, I shut him down and said, “Family meeting room. We’ll speak there.”

  As soon as I turned, Jalaine ran to hug me, and my mother came forward and slapped my face in the way only she could. “Straza! What have I told you a hundred times!” And then she held me too. I looked over her shoulder at my brothers and sisters, who patiently waited for answers.

  When she finally let go, everyone took a seat at the long table filling the center of the room, and I told them everything about where I had been and what I had done. Almost everything. I didn’t include some of the parts with Kazi.

  “How did she get your ring?” Mason asked. “Do you think she was working with the labor hunters?”

  “No. She stumbled into them, the same as me. And ran for her life the same as me.”

  “It could have been a trick,” Samuel offered.

  I told them no again, it was no trick, but I still couldn’t figure out how she got the ring either. I had seen the hunter dump all the goods they had taken from us into a box beneath the wagon seat. When we escaped, there was no time to dig through it. “I’m not sure how she got it, but I’ll be asking.”

  “Can she be trusted?” Aram asked.

  Titus laughed. “Of course she can’t be. Not if Jase had to post two men outside her room.”

  For now, she was in my room while guest quarters were prepared for her. I had posted Drake and Charus at the end of the hall so as not to be obvious. I still had made it clear to everyone at Tor’s Watch what the limits to her wandering were. There were some places no one went but the family.

  “She can be trusted in some ways,” I answered. “But she is Vendan, and she did come here to investigate treaty violations. We’ll have to be careful.”

  “Violations,” Gunner grumbled. A seething rumble echoed from the others.

  “So, just what happened out there between you two?” Priya asked.

  “We were chained at the ankles. We had to work together to—”

  “Don’t be coy, Jase. You know what I mean.”

  Titus chimed in, “There were a hundred other things you could have said to Paxton to explain your absence. Why imply that you were holed up with her?”

  “Because that excuse could not be refuted,” my mother said. “No witnesses.”

  “Nor delicately discussed in depth,” Mason added. “It did end Paxton’s interrogation.”

  “He could have said he was sick,” Samuel said.

  My mother shook her head. “No. The healer would have been summoned, and the last thing we want to suggest is that another Patrei is in poor health.”

  Everyone jumped in with their own opinion on why it was or wasn’t a good excuse. Priya finally held her hand up to stop the discussion. “Jase, you still haven’t answered me. What happened between you two? You think I didn’t see how you looked at her?”

  I didn’t remember looking at her in any particular way, only with a long moment of trepidation when I stretched out my hand, wondering if she would take it. I had taken a calculated risk that she would help me again, just like she had in that alley the first day we met, that she would choose me over wolves like Paxton, just as she had chosen me over labor hunters. She could have walked away that day, as the hunter had ordered. Instead she drew her sword. She may have hated me, but she hated some people more, and maybe I hoped th
at after all we had been through I wasn’t just the lesser of two evils. Maybe I gambled that she would choose me because she wanted to. “If you imagine you saw me looking at her in any way, it’s only because we managed to stay alive together.”

  Jalaine pouted like she was disappointed, but her eyes were lit with a smile. “So, you weren’t really making little Ballengers?”

  Aram and Samuel snickered.

  Mason shrugged. “I was convinced.”

  I shot them a frigid stare to let it go.

  “Well, we need her now,” Priya said. “She’s going to have to write a letter to the queen and actually tell her to come now that Gunner—”

  “No,” I said. “We’re not going down this path again. After Father—”

  “We have one of the queen’s premier guards in custody,” Gunner argued. “She’ll come! We are through being snubbed by the kingdoms.”

  My mother nodded in agreement. “And now the citizens are expecting it. Did you hear the murmurs from the crowd?”

  Mason sighed as if reluctant to concur. “It’s spread to the whole town by now, Jase. Getting her to come might help the leagues back off.”

  “And they were all there today,” Priya said, “supposedly paying their respects, but mostly licking their chops.”

  Make her come. It was my father’s last request. That’s what they were all thinking about. Him. What he wanted. What he never got.

  When we had gotten word of the new treaties, my father wasn’t concerned at first—our world had nothing to do with the outside one. We didn’t care about them and what they did. We had always been isolated. But when heavily guarded settlement caravans began crossing our territory en route to other places, he took note. I told my father he needed to go to Venda and speak with the queen like every other kingdom. We are not a kingdom! he had raged. We’re a dynasty! We were here long before Venda, and we bend a knee to no one. She will come to us. And he sent a letter telling her to come to Tor’s Watch. There was no reply. It was a mistake, because now it was an insult that made him look weak. It was an insult he never forgot. Neither had the rest of my family.

  Making the queen come here was as much about restored pride as making the leagues back off, but it could lead to other problems—bigger ones.

  “We can’t take the queen’s guard hostage. If she came at all, it would be with an angry army behind her. Is that really what we want?”

  “Not if the letter is worded carefully, commending us,” Gunner argued.

  Titus snorted. “Which I’m sure he’s already written.”

  “No,” I answered. “We don’t need a queen’s acknowledgment to be legitimate or to control those encroaching on our territory. There are challenges every time there’s a shift in power or a weakness is perceived. We’ll show our strength as we always have.”

  “Then what do we tell people when they ask when the queen’s coming?” Priya asked.

  I shook my head, blowing out a long, angry breath. “You should have kept quiet, Gunner! Why’d you have to go shoot off your mouth?”

  Gunner pounded his fist on the table and stood. “Because she’s Rahtan! The town’s been buzzing about how she threw you up against a wall and brought you to your knees! They saw it with their own eyes! A Patrei on his knees with a knife at his throat! You think dismissing that as a mere misunderstanding is going to erase their doubts? And believe me, they have them! They needed something big to hold on to, and I gave it to them!”

  Our angry gazes remained locked, the silence long and stifling.

  Arguments around the table were not unusual. That was one of the reasons we held meetings behind closed doors, so our differences were aired in privacy, but once we walked out we were a unified front. That was one of the things that kept us strong.

  “What about Beaufort?” Aram asked. “He’s made big promises. Is he ever going to cough up the goods?”

  “It’s a long-term investment,” Gunner told him. “Father knew Beaufort couldn’t produce for us overnight. He’s getting close.”

  “It’s been almost a year,” Priya said, “as he and his friends drink up our goodwill and wine. I don’t like it. Playing with the Ancients’ magic is like playing with fire.”

  “But it will secure our position with every kingdom on the continent—not just the leagues,” I reminded her.

  “And it will keep us and our interests safe,” Mason added. “Trade could triple.”

  Jalaine grunted. “If he ever follows through.”

  “He will,” my mother said firmly. There was more that we hoped to achieve than just security. But these were only more promises. Sometimes I thought that was all my father was trying to give her when he gave Beaufort sanctuary. Hope.

  “Until then,” she went on, “we need to do something now, Jase. We can’t wait for promises to be fulfilled. The wolves have left their calling cards. Six suspicious fires in as many nights.”

  “Could it be the Rahtan who were with her?” Mason asked.

  I got Tiago’s hidden message loud and clear and knew when he claimed he had them in custody that they were still on the loose. The fact that two Rahtan had gone into hiding was suspicious and made speaking in front of the third one more risky. Where were they hiding and why? I didn’t like it. But my gut told me that destroying homes and businesses with fires was not a Rahtan tactic, and scaring the citizenry was definitely the wolves’ approach. “I don’t think it’s the Rahtan who did it, but we need to find them. They’re around somewhere, maybe even hunkered down at that Vendan settlement. I know enough about them already to know they wouldn’t run off too far with one of their own missing. Samuel, Aram, take a crew out to the settlement tomorrow and sniff around.”

  “We already did that. We turned up nothing.”

  “Do it again. The first time, they were expecting a visit. This time they won’t be. We also have to find out who paid labor hunters up front to come stir trouble.”

  “Think it was Paxton?” Priya asked, her tone filled with distaste. He had always been sickeningly sweet to her, and it made her dislike him all the more. I suspected that he saw Priya and marriage as a way back into the Ballenger family—and its power.

  “Could be,” I answered, not sure myself, but I knew Paxton hated labor hunters too, and I wasn’t sure even he would stoop that low.

  “Or it could be a love letter from any of the leagues,” Jalaine said. “They’ve seen the arena prospering and are hungry for a bigger piece of it. I hear them grumbling when they come into the office looking for their cuts. Truko’s hawker practically ignites every time.”

  I looked at Mason. “Find out. However you have to do it, whoever you have to strong-arm or bribe, find out who paid off the hunters. Concentrate on Truko and his crew. Check with Zane too—see if he’s seen any unusual activity.” Zane had a sharp eye for faces and logged all deliveries at the arena. “As for the fires, Titus, post more guards on every incoming artery—day and night—and tell the magistrates that all new faces are suspect.”

  “And how do we address doubts?” Gunner asked. He wouldn’t let it go. But then he had heard the buzzing and I hadn’t. Gunner might be more impulsive than me, but he did have a good ear.

  “I’ll make myself more visible this next week. The Patrei is not cowering on his knees for anyone. I’ll make a show of confidence and strength. We all will. Uncles, aunts, everyone. Tell them. Everyone walks the streets of Hell’s Mouth this week. The Ballengers still run this town and keep it safe.”

  “What about her?”

  The very Rahtan who took me down, walking the streets of Hell’s Mouth with me? It could blow up in my face, but it could also reinforce my claim that it was a mere misunderstanding. And if any leagues were skulking, it would be a clear message that a great power was not moving in on us, but instead, recognizing our authority. Given a few weeks, doubts and fears would be calmed and everyone would forget about the queen coming.

  “She’ll walk too. With me.”

  My m
other told me not to cry. She told me not to forget kindness.

  She told me to be strong. She told me to believe in tomorrow.

  Every day I try to remember what else she told me.

  Something about shoes; something about birthdays and baths; something about whistling and roses. I cannot remember what she said.

  I was only eight when she died. I hope the things I’ve forgotten don’t matter.

  —Miandre, 13

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  KAZI

  I soaked in a tub of luxurious hot water. The bath chamber was excessively large, as was the tub. Sweet lavender oils swirled on top in a shimmering bubbled tapestry. My toes wiggled beneath the surface, reveling in the decadent silky oils slipping between them. Oleez had lit a candle in the corner and left me a plate of cheese, flatbread, and berries to nibble on while she scouted out some other clothes for me to wear. If this was being in custody, I was all for it.

  There was no reason I couldn’t soak up the Ballenger hospitality while I went about my work. Jase asked Oleez to escort me here while he went directly to a meeting with his family. I was sure after his absence they had a lot to catch up on—including me. His family had walked behind us on our return to Tor’s Watch, and I felt their eyes on my back with every step. They were as protective of him as he was of them. Jase was quiet the whole way, but his hand rested on the small of my back because no doubt Paxton and others watched as we departed. As soon as we were through the gates of Tor’s Watch, his hand fell and he gave orders for me to be escorted elsewhere. He didn’t say good-bye, and I had to silently applaud him on how well he massaged appearances. But it wasn’t appearances when he embraced Lydia and Nash. Something about that moment circled back through my head again and again. The tenderness. That was real. Some parts of Jase were—