Thief's Cunning

by Sarah Ahiers

  And when the sun had started to set, I returned home, changed into my leathers, and made my way back to Jonus Aix’s house.

  Jonus Aix was a bad man. He had hurt women. And girls. But the lawmen hadn’t done anything to stop him, since Jonus Aix was so rich he could pay them off.

  But of course it wasn’t the lawmen he should’ve feared.

  The Saldanas didn’t need huge amounts of wealth, just a fair payment and a fair reason for why someone should die. In this case, though, the families of the women and girls had pooled their money together, begging us in a lengthy letter to put an end to Jonus Aix before he hurt anyone else.

  And the Saldanas were happy to comply.

  Or, at least, I had been happy to comply seven nights ago when I’d thought this job would be either exciting or easy.

  It had turned into neither. And now it was a reason—no, excuse—for why I couldn’t go to Lovero.

  Lovero had answers. Lovero offered freedom, the freedom I couldn’t find here in Yvain, with my Family.

  Lea didn’t trust me to handle things my own way. She wanted me on a tight leash to control me. Control would keep me safe, she’d said more than once. But safe just felt suffocating.

  If I finished this job tonight, Lea would have no excuse to keep me away from Lovero.

  If I removed her excuse, then she would have to allow me to go to Lovero with them.

  She would have no choice.

  The pry bar slipped easily beneath the lip of the window and I leaned on it until the window popped open with a crack. I waited for movement inside the house, but there was none. Jonus had gone to bed like he had every night for the last seven nights. I climbed through the window and closed it quietly behind me.

  We never entered people’s homes. It was something Lea used to do, back when she lived in Lovero, but never here, in Rennes. Murder was legal in Lovero for clippers, but here in Rennes, entering someone’s house just increased the chances of being caught. And the punishment for murder in Rennes was death.

  But I’d be in and out quickly, and Jonus Aix would be dead and I would be on my way to Lovero.

  Bookcases stretched to the ceiling, adorned with worn leather volumes, gold trinkets, and miniatures. My fingers twitched at his wealth so brazenly displayed, but taking anything would be breaking my aunt’s biggest rule. Clippers weren’t thieves. We didn’t steal from the dead, or from the soon-to-be dead. That was not our purpose.

  We were disciples of Safraella, god of murder, death, and resurrection. Every death we granted was in worship to Her. Every coin we left in the mouths of the deceased was a signal to Her that we had killed that person in Her name, and that She should offer them a new, better life.

  And if people heard we were thieves as well as assassins, they’d no longer use our services. The common hired us because we murdered in the name of a god. It gave the grisly work a sort of legitimacy, relieved our clients of their guilt. If we clipped people for other, less than holy reasons, our clients would have to shoulder more guilt. And they didn’t want to carry that weight.

  A desk commanded the center of the room, and I quietly slid to the door. I cracked it open, staring into the darkness of the hallway, looking for any signs of movement.

  My breath sounded loud behind my bone mask, but it was just a trick of the night. No one would hear me. I was proficient.

  I stepped into the hallway and headed right, toward the bedrooms and my destination. Jonus Aix lived alone. There was no one else here.

  Behind me, a muffled thump traveled down the hall. I pressed myself against the wall and scanned the darkness. A gray cat streaked across the doorway to the living room. I released my breath.

  Jonus’s bedroom stood before me, door closed against the cool night air. I eased it open, lifting up on the knob so the hinges wouldn’t squeak.

  A large bed filled the room, complete with a canopy and heavy drapes he’d left open. He lay on his back, snoring slightly.

  I pulled a dagger from my belt and walked to the bed, measuring each footfall carefully. If he woke, I could take him, but better to be safe and end him quickly.

  I exhaled slowly. He mumbled something in his sleep. Maybe he sensed my presence, dreamed of his imminent death.

  I paused, then returned my dagger to my belt and opened a pouch instead. I ran my fingers over the etched corks sealing my poison vials until I found the one I wanted.

  Poison would make his death less suspicious. Sloppy, violent murders always attracted more attention, especially from the lawmen. And though they certainly couldn’t make any connection between the Saldana Family and the crimes committed, it never helped to raise their suspicion.

  I popped the cork and tipped the bottle over Jonus’s lips. The liquid dripped into his mouth. He fidgeted once, briefly, but then settled into a deeper sleep.

  Behind me, the door creaked open.

  I spun. The cat rushed through, tail puffed like it had seen a ghost. Perhaps it had.

  Before I could stop it the cat launched itself in the air, landing on Jonus Aix’s stomach before racing off again.

  Jonus Aix shot up in bed at his rude awakening.

  I held completely still.

  Maybe he wouldn’t notice me, in the dark. Maybe he’d drop back asleep.

  “Dammit, Kela,” Jonus Aix swore. He turned to his left and there I stood, vial clenched in my fingers, face covered by my bone mask, the left side decorated with black drops of water.

  He blinked once, twice. Then his eyes widened.

  Damn.

  He shouted and lunged for me.

  I leaped onto the bed, dodging his grasping hands. My feet twisted in the bedding, slowing me. I reached the other side and dashed to the door.

  Jonus charged. I threw the empty vial at him. The glass shattered on the floor. He stumbled and I darted through the open door.

  I sprinted down the hall.

  Behind me, Jonus burst from the room. The rug beneath his feet slid. He crashed into the wall, but still he chased me.

  I had to give credit: the man was brave, or at least didn’t seem to fear me.

  In the living room Jonus’s cat yowled at the commotion and streaked in front of us. I dodged a chair, leaped over a table, shoving it behind me. A grunt expelled in the air. Jonus tumbled to the ground with a heavy thump.

  I grabbed the knob to the front door and twisted.

  My cloak jerked around my throat. I gasped and clutched the clasp. Behind me, Jonus struggled for a better grip as he tried to get to his feet. I hissed and pulled out a knife.

  His eyes widened, but in a testament to his bravery he only gripped my cloak tighter.

  I sliced at his hand. He let go. The sudden release of weight caused me to fall against the door and it swung open. I tumbled into the street, the cobblestones slick from rain earlier in the evening.

  I kicked out and slammed the door shut. It thumped, and there was a groan, but Jonus didn’t follow me outside. He’d either given up, or dropped dead. Either way, I’d won.

  Another groan echoed down the alley. I blinked. This one hadn’t come from behind Jonus’s door.

  I climbed to my feet, twisting.

  A ghost floated between the buildings.

  Its spectral white form bobbed silently in the night, back turned to me. It appeared to be a man, or what had been a man, once. But it hadn’t noticed me. Yet.

  Forget Lovero and answers and freedom. If the ghost caught me, I’d be dead.

  It turned at the commotion I’d created and saw me. Its mouth opened, showing the empty blackness inside of it.

  I ran.

  four

  THE GHOST SCREAMED, THEN CHASED ME.

  It gained on me, was faster than I could ever be.

  I sprinted right, down a side street. My boots pounded on the cobblestones and splashed in puddles. Left, through another alley.

  The ghost continued to shriek.

  The quick direction changes wouldn’t work forever. The ghost wo
uld never tire. I needed a canal, or a crooked bridge.

  A shadow fell onto me from above. A figure paced me on the roofs. He looked down and I caught a quick glimpse of a bone mask.

  He pointed ahead.

  Before me towered a pile of goods. I doubted it was stable, but it was the best option I had.

  The ghost screeched, its breath practically on my neck. Not that they breathed.

  I jumped onto the crates, climbing upward, fighting against my own legs as my feet sank into half-filled sacks of flour and empty crates.

  A hand grasped my wrist and yanked. I kicked off the pile of goods and was pulled to the roof of the building, safe from the ghost, who couldn’t climb or fly.

  I fell onto my savior in a tangle of legs and cloaks. The ghost groaned from the street below.

  Things hadn’t gone perfectly, but Jonus Aix would drop dead very soon, if he hadn’t already, from the poison I’d dosed him with. The lawmen would think his heart had given out. There would be no suspicion.

  And with Jonus Aix dead, Lea didn’t have an excuse to keep me from Lovero.

  I sat up and caught my breath, pushing my mask to the top of my head. “I didn’t need the help.”

  Across from me Emile pushed up his own mask, decorated in black hash marks. He brushed a stray piece of curly hair out of his eyes. “That’s not what it looked like. And by the gods, Allegra, what were you doing?”

  “The ghost wasn’t my fault.” I climbed to my feet. “I couldn’t have known it was there.”

  “You were inside the mark’s house. How dumb can you be?”

  I shook my head. “Seven days I waited for him to leave. I had to make a move.”

  Emile held up his hands, finished with my excuses.

  “What are you doing out here, anyway?” Scorn dripped off my words. “Shouldn’t you be home, packing?”

  Emile stilled, which was something he did when trying to control his natural blush reaction. He always blushed when he was embarrassed. Or worried. Or happy. Or anything, really.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Lea sent you as a spy.”

  Emile lost the fight with his body and his neck blazed red, bright beneath the light of the moon. “Allegra—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “You be quiet. You don’t get to say anything to me about this.”

  “She’s just worried about you.”

  “Worried that I’d do something she didn’t approve of, you mean.”

  “Well, she was right!” Emile’s raised voice echoed in the alleys below us. The ghost moaned in response. Emile stepped closer and dropped his voice to more respectable levels. “You didn’t even think about it. You just crawled right into his house in your usual rash manner.”

  “Oh, I thought about it,” I said. “And I don’t have to justify that to you. Why don’t you go home and pack your things and dream about meeting your precious betrothed, Elena Caffarelli, in a few days.”

  “Don’t you bring her into this.”

  “Why not? She’s going to be part of this Family soon enough.”

  I pulled my mask over my face and headed east.

  “Where are you going?” Emile shouted, yanking his own mask down.

  “Home,” I said over my shoulder. “There’s a conversation waiting for me.”

  “You what?” Lea asked quietly.

  She didn’t yell. She rarely yelled, and anyway it wasn’t the yelling I had to be afraid of, but when her voice was quiet and still and empty of emotion. That was when she was really angry.

  Like right now.

  I’d made it home before Emile and found Lea in the common area of the basement, packing weapons with Marcello. And I’d told her I’d finished my job.

  I didn’t elaborate. But clearly the way I’d said it, or maybe the expression on my face—daring her to question me further—made Marcello shake his head and leave the space entirely.

  “I dropped Jonus Aix,” I answered. “He’s dead.”

  She set down the sword she’d been cleaning. “How?” she asked. “I thought he hadn’t stepped outside his house all week?”

  Emile entered the room then, climbing down the ladder and shoving his mask to the top of his head when he reached the bottom. He saw Lea and me standing with the weapons between us and scowled.

  “Why don’t you ask Emile?” I crossed my arms. “He’s your spy.”

  Lea closed her eyes and sighed. “That’s not the way of things.”

  “Yes, it is.” I could be quiet and still, too. “But it doesn’t matter. I get to go to Lovero now, right?”

  Lea’s eyes snapped open. She glanced quickly at Emile, then back at me. “What?”

  “You said the reason I couldn’t go to Lovero was because my job wasn’t finished. But here we are, and it’s done. I have no constraints holding me back.”

  Lea blinked rapidly. I could practically see her mind racing. Trying to come up with another excuse.

  And I should have been happy. I had proof now that she was keeping me in Yvain for some secret reason.

  But I didn’t feel happy. Instead my chest tightened and I dropped my arms to my sides. I was just tired of all of it. Of being caged by my own family.

  “She went into the mark’s house,” Emile said into the silence.

  My usual response would have been anger at Emile’s betrayal, rage slowly burning through my veins at how easily he played into Lea’s plots. But I couldn’t even find the energy for that, either. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. He was a rule follower when it came to things he thought were Family matters.

  Lea looked at me then, her eyes heavy with emotions I couldn’t read. Disappointment, though. That was definitely in the mixture.

  “How could you be so unsafe?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. I used poison. His death won’t be suspicious.”

  “No.” Lea shook her head. “Keeping this Family safe is what matters! Entering a mark’s home always leaves evidence, no matter how careful you are. And evidence will stir up the lawmen, and the last thing we need is them investigating his death and poking around.”

  “You weren’t ever going to let me go to Lovero,” I said, “whether I had a job to complete or not.”

  There was another moment of silence, broken only when Les entered the room from the ladder. He paused at the tension and glanced around. “What’s going on?”

  From behind the hearth, Marcello snorted. “Oh, Allegra crawled into some mark’s home and it will probably lead to us being discovered by the lawmen and we’ll die. Just another day in the Saldana Family.”

  “What?” Les held my gaze and then turned to Lea.

  “I asked Emile to check in on you,” Lea said to me, “because I was worried you were getting too bored on the Aix job. And when you get bored, you do something rash. Case in point.”

  “It wasn’t rash,” I said. “I planned it out carefully before I went inside.”

  Liar.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lea said. “Going into homes is a last resort only. And something we discuss as a Family. Not something you decide on a whim.”

  “Well, I did decide. And it was fine,” I said. “He was asleep and I dosed him with poison and now he’s dead. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nothing changed. Nothing ever changes. Not for me, anyway. You go on to Lovero and I’ll go up to my room like I always do.”

  I turned away from Lea. Just looking at her made me want to cry, and I refused to cry in front of her.

  “Wait,” Les said.

  I stopped and turned back around.

  “The job’s completely done?” he asked.

  Something warm flickered in my chest. Hope, maybe. And if it really was just about getting the job done in time, and not some other sort of reason, then maybe Lea and Les weren’t keeping secrets from me. Maybe I’d been too paranoid.

  “Yes,” I said. “Clean and quiet.”

  Not truly, but they would never know otherwise.

  Lea shook her head. “Alessio, no,”
she said. “She went into his home. Alone. Unplanned. We’re not going to reward that.”

  Les faced her and they exchanged an entire conversation through their expressions. They’d been together so long and been through so much that they didn’t even need to use words.

  My shoulders sagged. It wouldn’t work, then. Lea was the head of the Family. She made all the final decisions.

  “No,” Lea said, shaking her head.

  “Leaving town now,” Les argued, “is actually safer for all of us. If the lawmen come with questions, we won’t be here to answer them.”

  I blinked. Les was on my side, arguing for me!

  “She was rash and dangerous!”

  Les dropped his voice, speaking quietly to Lea, but I was so close I could hear him anyway. “She could be more rash and dangerous while we’re gone.”

  I scrunched my nose. I had to remember that he probably didn’t mean it. That he was using my character faults in support of me going with them.

  Lea sighed and shook her head.

  Les faced me once more. “Pack your things, kuch nov. You’re coming to Lovero with us in the morning.”

  five

  THE HILLS OF THE DEAD PLAINS BLURRED TOGETHER, IF one traveled them long enough.

  After Les said I could go to Lovero, I’d gone to my room, packed my things, then tried to catch a few hours of sleep before sunup. My sleep had been restless, though. My excitement kept me awake, and when I finally drifted off, my dreams were filled with the same monsters behind the fog from the night before.

  But then we’d left Faraday, Beatricia, and Marcello to run the shop, collected our horses and a cart, and left Yvain and Rennes behind us.

  Lovero was a large country to the south of Rennes. Even its smallest cities were still larger than tiny Yvain, and I couldn’t wait to reach it.

  I let my stallion, Night, stretch his legs over the hills of the dead plains. The sun warmed my neck and the breeze smelled of the grasses he trampled beneath his hooves. We shared excitement: His was the call of the empty plains, urging him to run, run, run. Mine was Lovero, somewhere over the southern hills. Soon I would be in a new place, with new people, new cultures and foods and sights. And maybe I would finally belong, somewhere.