“No swag worth taking, no,” replied a man.
They couldn’t have been more than five paces from the grate, by the sound of it.
“And the book?”
“No sign of it.”
The woman swore-proficiently.
“All the payoffs,” she said, “All the damn planning, and we miss it by minutes!” Someone kicked something.
“It wasn’t a total loss,” observed the man. Gravel being ground under a boulder, that voice.
I looked at Degan. He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from moving even that much. I could tell by the set of his jaw that he was clenching his teeth.
“Finding out the book isn’t here is not the same as finding it,” the woman said.
“Maybe,” said the man. “Maybe not. It depends on who got away with it.”
The woman grunted. “My money’s on Larrios.”
Degan’s hand tightened on my shoulder. I leaned toward the glow that marked the grate.
“And the other two?” said the man again.
“Hard to say,” said the woman. I realized suddenly that she had the smallest of lisps-hardly there, but alluring in its own way. “From what you told me, they weren’t there to see Larrios-otherwise, they wouldn’t have grabbed him. Does anyone know who they were?”
The man’s voice turned carefully neutral as he said, “One might have been a degan.”
There was a pause. I could imagine the woman staring at the man, waiting for him to continue.
“And?” she said at last.
“I don’t know-I wasn’t there, remember? Urios says he saw the degan’s sword. He says the other one was small, dark, and moved like a thief.”
“A degan and a thief,” said the woman thoughtfully. I felt a sudden chill go down my spine. There was something about the way she said it… as if she could sense us below her in the tunnels. The owner of that voice seemed too confident, too knowing for my liking.
The man cleared his throat. “About Fedim…”
“Yes,” said the woman. “Any number of people are going to be upset about that. And it’s going to play hell with my timetable.” She fell silent for a long moment. “Clean it up,” she said finally. “Dump the body somewhere and spread enough hawks around to keep people from getting too curious. I don’t want us associated with it.”
“For how long? It’s only a matter of time before tongues begin to wag.”
“For as long as we can afford it. In the meantime, find Larrios.”
I heard footsteps beginning to move away. A soft jingling, like the music of tiny bells, or loose jewelry, accompanied them.
“What about the degan and the other one?” said the man, his voice pitched to carry a short distance.
The jingling stopped. “Let me worry about them,” said the woman, her voice farther away from us. “You just get me Larrios and that book.”
Her footsteps began again, and now I could hear the man moving away from us as well. Soon, the only sounds we heard were the distant drips and squeaks of the sewer behind us.
“How did you know?” I asked as I moved forward to inspect the grate. It was set solidly in the ceiling.
“Know what?” said Degan.
“Don’t insult me.”
He moved up next to me. “I didn’t ‘know’ anything. I suspected.”
I drew my boot dagger and began working at the mortar around the grate. “Like hell,” I said. “You don’t almost shove me through a wall on a hunch.”
“You don’t know how close I’ve come to shoving you through one for less.”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
There must have been enough light seeping in, since Degan pulled a small knife from his belt and began working beside me.
“I figured there would be people looking for us,” he said after a moment. “After all, they knew we were in the sewers and had enough men to cover a good-sized area.”
Mortar dust was falling onto my face. I looked down, shaking my head to get rid of it.
“But when we first heard them,” I said, “you couldn’t have known they were talking about what happened at Fedim’s place.”
“Seemed possible. You yourself said there was no swag in the shop.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
Degan paused to wipe some mortar from his own face, then kept scraping.
I regarded him for a long moment. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
He pushed on the grate. “I think this end is coming loose-how about yours?”
“Degan-” I began.
“I thought I recognized one of the voices,” he said.
“And?” I prompted.
“And I was right.”
“And?”
“And I can’t tell you any more.”
I lowered my arm. “What do you mean, you can’t tell me any more?”
Degan lowered his own knife and looked at me in the light of the sewer grate. “I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” I said.
“Can’t,” said Degan. “If it were just about friendship, I’d tell you, but…” He turned back to the grate and resumed scraping.
I stared at him for a long moment there in that small patch of starlight.
“It’s about being a degan, isn’t it?” I said.
Degan kept working.
I swallowed. “It’s about the fucking Oath, isn’t it?”
The scraping stopped. Degan lowered his head. He didn’t have to say anything after that.
“Well, hell,” I said.
Chapter Nine
When we climbed out of the sewer, the street was empty. No trace remained of the man or the woman we had overheard. Above, a narrow strip of sky stood black against the copper-amber tint my night vision lent the roofs. The moon was still up, so it wasn’t too late yet.
Degan took a deep breath. “Who knew Ten Ways could smell so sweet?” he said.
I didn’t reply. I was too busy trying to make sense of what had just happened in the tunnel.
The Oath-Degan had brought up the Oath with me, which meant something had changed down there-something stemming from the conversation we had overheard, something about him and me and Ten Ways. And he wasn’t telling-couldn’t, according to him, because he was a degan, not that he could tell me why that made a difference all of a sudden, either.
If I hadn’t known him better… but I did. I didn’t understand what had changed, or why, but I did know this much: If whatever he knew would make the difference between my living and dying, Degan would tell me. I had to believe in that, had to believe in him; otherwise, there wasn’t much point. You have to be able to trust someone-at least one person-with your life if it’s going to be at all worth living. Degan had earned that trust from me over and over again, just as I had earned it from him.
The only thing Degan had said about the Oath was that, even if I’d wanted to give it to him, he wouldn’t accept it. That was fine by me, since I hadn’t wanted to give it in the first place-not over a dead Dealer and an ambush in Ten Ways. If I were going to put our friendship to that kind of a test, it would have to be for stakes a hell of a lot bigger than those.
I followed Degan’s example and took a deep breath of the night’s offerings-not bad at all.
“So,” I said, thinking back over the conversation we had overheard. “Any ideas about this book they seem to be looking for? Or can’t you talk about that, either?”
“No, and yes I can,” said Degan. “Whatever it is, someone wants it pretty bad-bad enough to send a dozen Cutters after Fedim.”
“Or worry about someone showing up to take it away from him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Degan pursed his lips. “Do you think whoever killed Fedim was there for the same reason as everyone else?”
“You mean, did whoever it was show up, not find what he wanted, and then dust Fedim out of frustration? Maybe. But it’s not the best way to track something down. Still, there’re
plenty of Kin out there who cut first and think later.” I shook my head. “I had thought Fedim’s getting dusted was a message from whoever had been leaning on him. Now, I’m not so sure. There are too many paths crossing here, which reminds me…”
I reached back behind my belt and drew out the case I had found in Fedim’s escape shaft. A little longer than my hand and about as wide, it was a rectangular box with a curved top and a flat bottom.
“What’s that?”
“Something I found at Fedim’s.”
“You think it’s the swag Larrios was looking for?”
“I think it’s whatever Larrios was planning to trade the book for.”
“He had the book?”
“He had something in his satchel, and he sure as hell didn’t want to share it. It might have been the book, might not.” I waggled the case in the air. “Either way, I’m betting this was his payoff.”
Degan looked at the case, then at me. “Well?”
I placed my hand on the hasp and brought it closer to my face. Degan leaned in beside me. The case was covered with filth and sewage, but I could make out traces of rosewood around the edges and a bit of ivory inlay in the cover.
“No,” I said suddenly, lowering the case and tucking it back behind me. “No, I think this should wait until we’re out of Ten Ways. They may still be looking for us, after all.”
Degan straightened and looked down at me. “This is because of the Oath, isn’t it? You’re getting me back for the Oath.”
I began walking away down the street, mainly so he couldn’t see my grin. “Never!”
“Uh-huh. Well, you’d just better hope we don’t meet another dozen Cutters.”
We headed out of Ten Ways, watching our blinds all the while. If anyone was looking for us, they didn’t find us. As for the local talent, I suspect our looking, and smelling, like a pair of Dredgers kept them from bothering us. No one rolls sewer crawlers.
By the time we were back in Nicco’s territory, we had discovered that not only did the Kin avoid us-Lighters and even the city watch quickly found someplace else to be when we came into range.
“That’s one way to avoid the Rags,” I said, indicating the retreating red sashes of another Watch patrol.
“Nah. Too easy to track you by smell.” Degan scratched absently at his pants leg. Like mine, his clothes were beginning to dry out, making them stiff and itchy.
“Moriarty’s?” he suggested.
“Do we have a choice?”
Degan chuckled. “I’ll meet you there.”
We parted company. I headed home to get a clean change of clothes to wear after the bathhouse did its work.
A long evening at Moriarty’s-the idea hung before me like an illicit fantasy as I turned onto Echelon Way. A hot bath to wash away the filth; a cold one to shock the system back to some semblance of normalcy; and then a warm tub to enjoy the feeling of being human again. And after that, maybe one of Moriarty’s girls…
Yes. Yes, that would work just fine. There would be time enough afterward to wade back into Ten Ways, to cross palms and crack heads. Time enough to gather rumors and run down Kin-including Larrios.
But right now, all I wanted was to get clean.
The apothecary’s shop was dark when I arrived, both above and below. I paused in the arch that led to the stairway, looking around the street and along the roofs. No one. Good. If I couldn’t see the people I paid to watch my place, no one with normal vision was going to spot them, either.
My laundry was still at the foot of the stairs. True to her word, Cosima had left it. I stuffed a stray shirtsleeve into the basket and crept softly up the stairs, avoiding the three steps I intentionally left squeaky.
In the end, it was the laundry that saved my life.
I was on the top step when the assassin came at me, slipping around the banister and thrusting hard before I could react. It was a good move; my back was to open space, my footing uneven, with no place for me to retreat. Plus, I had my hands full. All I could do was stare as he pushed the stiletto into my chest-or, rather, into the basket of laundry I was holding in front of my chest.
I heard the wicker of the basket crack and start to give way. I felt the weight of his body behind the blow, pushing the steel into the basket, the basket into me, me into the open air behind. The dispassion on his face told me he was a deep-file Blade-not hating, not caring, just killing.
He looked vaguely familiar.
As I tipped backward, my feet scrambling for ground that wasn’t there, a sweet, lingering scent came to me through the odor of sewage. Perfume-I knew that perfume!
And that face…
My sister’s messenger.
“Tamas,” I said as my laundry flew up in the air and I went down.
In the brief instant I was airborne, I had enough time to feel a dark, cold fury settle upon me. Christiana-again. Then I hit the steps, and anger was replaced by pain.
I half rolled, half slid down the stairs. Sharp edges, hollow thuds, bright bursts of agony. I think I went head over heels at least once. I know I yelled and tasted blood on the way down.
The ride ended with me in a heap at the bottom of the steps, Tamas still standing at the top. Clothing lay scattered on the stairs between us.
I saw the assassin put his foot on the first step.
Time to go, Drothe. I needed to get out of there-get onto the street and into the night where I could lose him.
I pushed myself up off the floor. The world tilted. A sharp throbbing singled itself out from the rest of my new aches; one of the steps had introduced itself to the back of my head on the way down.
I staggered out onto the street and let myself drift right. I needed to go right, I realized, but why? Something was there… something important.
There were voices coming from Eppyris’s now. Crying, yelling. A faint light flared behind the shutters. Oh no, Eppyris, don’t bring a light out here. I need to see to get away, damn it.
I put a hand on my rapier, drew it. The steel gleamed bloody gold in my eyes. I put the tip to the ground and used it as a feeble cane.
Despite the blood, my mouth felt dry. I tried to spit. I failed.
To the right. Keep going right.
More voices now. Thuds inside the building. Stay inside, apothecary! I opened my mouth to yell a warning, barely managed a thick squawk.
“You missed your appointment,” said a voice from the stairwell. Tamas. “That’s not polite, Nose.”
I blinked. Appointment? Oh, right-Christiana’s letter. I had forgotten her request to meet with me tonight. Nothing like getting a man to show up for his own assassination.
“Frankly, I didn’t expect you to put rolling in a dung heap before seeing a baroness,” said Tamas. “Still, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”
He sounded close. No more running, then, if you could even call it that. I turned, straightened, and edged farther to what had been my right. I’d remembered why I wanted to go there now. I may not have gotten close enough, but this would have to do.
I extended my rapier on a line with him, held out straight, pointed at his eyes. The tip of the sword wavered more than I would have liked.
Tamas had just stepped out of the archway at the bottom of the stairs. His movements were fluid, his manner relaxed. All traces of the nervous, uncertain messenger were gone. The slightest hint of a sneer hung about his lips. He had a broad, double-edged blade, halfway between a long dagger and a short sword, in his left hand. In his right, he held a four-foot length of rope. The rope was broken up by a regular series of knots, and each knot looked to have a small piece of cloth or paper tied into it. He swung the rope in a lazy circle at his side.
I was in trouble.
He came on and I slid back, maintaining my guard before me. I could see better in the dark, but he hadn’t just fallen down a flight of stairs. I would have called us even for that, except for the piece of knotted magic he was swinging in his right hand.
I heard
a door open in the shop, saw a light shine into the stairwell. Eppyris called my name.
“Back inside!” I yelled. “Lock the door!”
The light vanished as the door slammed.
Tamas flicked his eyes toward the shop, back to me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve only been paid to clean you.”
I edged another step away, drew the dagger at my belt with my left hand. Getting close, now.
“She didn’t pay you enough,” I said.
Tamas smiled, then shrugged. The cord moved faster. Then he did, too.
He closed quickly, thrusting with his sword. I dropped my own point and turned my rapier through a downward arc, catching his blade and driving the attack off to my right. At the same time, I stepped forward with my left foot to fill the opening I had just created. With my body blocking his right arm and my rapier engaging his left, I was hoping to use my dagger to carve his guts at my leisure.
It was a good plan. Unfortunately, Tamas didn’t cooperate. As soon as I moved in, he stepped back and away to my right, out of dagger range. At the same time, he lashed out with the rope. There was no time for me to get out of the way, so I put my dagger out to try to catch the attack. I missed.
The cord caught me along the left arm and swung around to connect with my back. I heard three soft pops, felt three sharp points of pain where the rope hit.
It was as bad as I’d feared-there were runes tied into the knots.
I leapt back, flicking a cut at his face with my sword to keep him from following. He blocked the feint, then smiled. Three of the knots on his rope were smoking and glowing like embers.
I realized I had been only half wrong when I suspected him of being a Mouth up in my rooms. The only problem was, this was worse. He didn’t have to say a thing to make the magic work-all he had to do was hit me.
I switched to a more traditional guard, right hand before me, weight back, rapier held just above waist level. I turned my body sideways and let my left arm drop down behind me, ready to throw the dagger underhand across my body.
Or so I wanted him to think. Truth be told, my left arm was already beginning to feel numb from the runes. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to keep hold of the dagger, let alone throw it.
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