“You should probably turn right around, go across the street, and seek out Ziafiata herself. Nothing makes her angrier than men trying to deal with me instead of her. I assure you, I have nothing to do with the Abrusse crime family. I just do as she says. She’s quite magnificent in that way.”
Haid smirked. “You and I, sir, seem to have a lot in common.”
Chevolere chuckled. “Yes, perhaps.”
“Were you burned with acid or badly scarred in a duel?”
Chevolere nodded. “Yes.”
Which wasn’t an answer.
“If I feel the need to hide my malformity, you can be well assured I don’t wish to speak of it.”
“Fine,” said Haid. “I don’t have your take yet, as it happens. That’s not why I’m here.”
“No?” Chevolere smiled. “I’m intrigued.” He gestured to an empty table in the corner. “Shall we?”
“Thank you,” said Haid.
They settled down.
“So, are you sure I shouldn’t send for Ziafiata?” said Chevolere. “If this has anything to do with her, she should be included.”
“You’re very loyal to her,” said Haid.
“Well, obviously,” said Chevolere. “You act as though you’re surprised, but you said we had a lot in common. Where is your wife? Would she be pleased to know you haven’t included her?”
“This isn’t quite her domain,” said Haid. “She tolerates my obsession with this heist, and she even cooperates and helps me, but she only does it because she thinks I hate myself and that this will cure me.”
“Cure you of hating yourself?”
“Yes, because it will mean I’ve accomplished my best work.”
“Why would she think such a thing?”
“I may have given her reason to think so.”
“Do you hate yourself?”
Haid only smiled. “We’re getting far into the weeds. I’m here because I understand you sell iubilia.”
Chevolere leaned back in his chair, surveying Haid. “I do.”
“Good,” said Haid, placing both of his hands on the table. He took a deep breath. And then he began to speak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CADON HAD RUSHED through lunch and he wished he’d eaten more. He thought he would be all right, because he and Pairce had eaten an enormous breakfast, one delivered to their rooms by the staff at the inn, consisting of pastries and salted meats and coffee and dried fruit.
They had to eat lunch early so that they could be in position—here, at this side door to Madigain’s house—during the tournament, which was commencing at half past noon. But he hadn’t been hungry early, so they’d pushed lunch back and then had to rush through it, and now he didn’t feel as if he’d had enough.
He was complaining of this to Pairce.
“It’s a good thing,” she said. “You’ll be lighter on your feet without a heavy meal sitting in your gut.”
“But I need energy to move,” he said.
Pairce glanced at the door to their right. They were waiting for Tristanne to come and open the door and let them in, but she wasn’t there yet. “You’ll be fine.”
He just blew out air, irritated.
“You will,” said Pairce. “You and I have practiced for months now. This is going to go well. Don’t worry.”
“Who’s worried?” he said. He still sounded irritated, and he was fairly sure this was because he was hungry. Well, not hungry exactly, but not full either. He grimaced. He turned to the left, and he saw two musqueteers approaching on their rounds. His eyes widened.
Pairce turned and saw them too. Immediately, she reached up and pulled his face down to kiss her. She backed into the wall of the building, tugging him with her, and he was suddenly distracted by her lips and soft body.
Behind them, a musqueteer cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”
Cadon and Pairce kept kissing.
“Uh, you can’t just do that here,” said the musqueteer.
Cadon broke away from Pairce and drew himself up to his full height. He advanced on the musqueteer and his compatriot.
Both of them backed up.
“Well,” said one, “how about, er, as soon as you’re quite finished, going elsewhere?”
Cadon sneered at them.
“Just don’t do anything indecent!” cried the other musqueteer. The two men gave Cadon a wide berth and continued their rounds around the building.
Cadon went back to kissing Pairce.
They kissed as the musqueteers kept walking.
They kissed until the men were out of sight, and then they could have stopped, but Cadon didn’t want to, so he kept kissing her until the door opened.
“Blazes.” Tristanne’s clothes were wet. Her hair was pasted wetly to her forehead. “This is what you two are over here doing while I’ve been in the water?” The water-facing side of the building was the only side without guards, after all. So, that had been Haid’s plan, for Tristanne to swim close and then use her grappling hook to climb all the way up to a window, crawl inside, and then come down here to unlock this door for Pairce and Cadon.
“Yes, and if you’d been here a few moments earlier, we wouldn’t have had to start doing this, because we would have missed the musqueteers on their rounds,” said Pairce.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Tristanne. “I’m sorry that I didn’t scale a wall fast enough for you.”
“Just let us in,” said Cadon.
“Oh, of course,” said Tristanne, moving aside and giving them a gesture of exaggerated flourish. “Do come in, both of you.”
SEFONI GAZED AT Madigain across the shanj board as the announcer droned through a litany of things he was saying about their match that day. Madigain’s eyes were bright and eager, and he seemed ready to take her on.
Sefoni, however, had slept fitfully after Haid had wakened her when he came in. She didn’t know what time that had been, but she thought it must have been late, and she had never properly gotten back to sleep afterward.
She’d questioned him about where he’d been, and he’d said that she didn’t need to worry about that, that everything was well in hand.
Sefoni didn’t like that, and it was distracting her. She should have pressed him, forced him to explain everything, but she had been preoccupied with thinking about the match. She had to stretch this one out, so that everyone had time to complete whatever they needed to complete.
She’d had to do this before, when they’d stolen the bracelet. She’d had to distract Madigain by playing shanj with him while the others went to work. That time, he’d seen right through her attempt to draw out the game. He wouldn’t underestimate her this time.
She was a little nervous.
Not about her shanj-playing skills, not exactly, but about all the pressure riding on her for this.
She glanced up at the display case in the middle of the room, at the tiara encased in it. No, best not to look overlong at that. She turned back to the shanj board.
She suddenly realized that the announcer had stopped speaking.
It was time to play.
Madigain had won the coin toss earlier so he would play cream. It was his turn first.
He immediately did something so incredibly stupid that Sefoni knew he’d done it on purpose. He moved an infantryman in such a way that he left his regx completely open to an attack by one of Sefoni’s charioteers.
Sefoni could take his regx and win the game right now.
Madigain lifted his chin, looking at her, challenging her.
Damn it.
He had given her this opportunity, and if she didn’t take it, he would know that she was trying to draw the game out. He was probably doing this because he wanted confirmation that more was going on than just the shanj tournament.
Sefoni wanted to look to Haid for guidance, but if she did that, it would also signal to Madigain that more was at stake.
She looked at the clock which stood against the far wall.
There w
as no way that Tristanne was into the vault by now. She needed time.
Sefoni sighed.
And moved a cavalryman in the entirely opposite direction, ignoring Madigain’s vulnerable regx.
Madigain made a little humming noise, satisfied for some reason.
Blazes. Sefoni glowered at him.
TRISTANNE HIT THE floor, flattening herself against it as Pairce’s knives whizzed over her head.
The knives knocked the daggers out of each of the men's hands who were closest to Madigain’s vault.
The hallway leading up to the vault was lined with men. All of them were huge and muscular—not quite as huge as Cadon, but not puny either. They were all armed with various weapons, like spears and axes and broadswords. They stood at attention on either side of the hallway. There had to be fifteen of them.
Now, all the men turned in the direction of Pairce, who was standing in the doorway with knives in her fists. They roared.
Tristanne crawled underneath their roars, heading for the vault as Pairce sent more knives through the air to take down the men who were guarding the vault.
One man got a knife to the shoulder, and he cried out, clutching the wound.
Tristanne sprang to her feet and kicked him, knocking him to the side.
Cadon streaked down the hallway—Tristanne hadn’t known the man could move so quickly—and wrapped a forearm around the other man’s neck. He punched with his other arm as he squeezed the other man until he passed out.
Tristanne grinned at him. “Thank you.” She planted herself in front of the door to the vault. It was tall and forbidding, made of bronze and silver. There was an intimidating lock on the front of the door.
“This vault’s lock was created by a man named Vilirus Biancce,” Tristanne said to the passed-out guard that Cadon had dropped to the floor.
Behind her, knives flew through the air and men grunted and shouted as they fought.
Tristanne ignored all that. “Biancce is widely considered to be the best at making complicated, unassailable locks. I’m not sure that one of his locks has ever been picked before, but I’m here to be the first.” She smiled down at the man’s inert form. “Too bad you’re not going to witness it.”
She shrugged and got out her lock picks.
“Well, Biancce lock, nice to meet you. Prepare to be penetrated.”
HAID WINCED.
IT was bad enough that Madigain had resisted every single one of Sefoni’s attempts to draw out the game, but now he could see what it was that Madigain was doing to Sefoni. He was setting her up for an offensive strategy.
The Lily Maneuver.
Blazes, he’d told her not to use that strategy too much. He’d told her that Madigain was watching everything.
And now, Madigain seemed to know what Sefoni was going to do before she did it. Haid realized he’d had men watching every single one of Sefoni’s games, noting her every move. Madigain must have studied those games, must have set them up on his board and played them all. And when it came to something like the Lily Maneuver, there were only a finite number of moves that Sefoni could even make.
Blazes!
Get out of it Sefoni, he urged internally. Don’t let him do it to you.
But Haid could see it was too far gone for that. Sefoni had no choice but to use the Lily Maneuver. There was nowhere else for her pieces to go.
Haid muttered a string of curses under his breath.
Sefoni was responding. She began to follow the dictates of the Lily Maneuver.
And Madigain responded as well, countering her moves as she made them.
Sefoni sat up straight, and Haid could see her shock in her posture.
This was going badly for her.
Flames take us, he thought.
He didn’t want her to lose. She wouldn’t be losing if; Madigain hadn’t done this underhanded trick, urging her into this position.
She made an attempt to break out of the pattern she was using, but it was just another pattern that she’d done before. Haid recognized it.
Madigain did too, and he countered again, taking more of her pieces.
Blazes.
Oh, Haid realized belatedly. We need more time. He looked up at the clock.
He looked frantically back to the board.
Madigain smoothly took Sefoni’s last remaining calvaryman.
Sefoni attacked with a charioteer.
Madigain took that as well.
Sefoni surveyed the board.
Blazes, he’d done it! He’d gotten himself in position to take her regx. She fingered one of her infantrymen, realizing that she could move this one, but it wouldn’t matter, because Madigain would simply take it. She touched a charioteer and then her advisor and even her regx. Nothing she did would work. She had no way to counter this. It was done.
Her lips parted. Her expression was dull, disbelieving.
She slowly picked up her regx and turned it on its side, admitting defeat.
A slow, sly smile slid over Madigain’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PAIRCE DUCKED CADON’S fist, scooping one of her knives up off the floor.
The air was full of the smell of sweat and blood. It was her and Cadon against more than ten men. She wasn’t even sure how many there were.
The floor was strewn with the men that Cadon had already suffocated—not killing them, just enough to make them lose consciousness.
But more were coming, and her job was to get rid of their weapons.
This was what they had trained for.
She threw her knives, knocking weapons out of their grasps or wounding their hands so that they would drop them.
And then Cadon streaked in and took them down.
Now, Cadon had one burly arm around a man’s neck, putting pressure on him, cutting off his air, and he drove his elbow into the face of another man.
Another man still was coming from behind, ax held high over his head.
Pairce hurled her knife at the ax-wielder, her knife hitting squarely in the midst of his wrist.
The ax-wielder cried out and lost his grip.
The ax fell down on top of his head. He was wounded, bleeding, and swearing.
Cadon whirled and aimed a kick at the man’s chin.
The man’s head cracked against the floor behind him. He went still and motionless.
At the same time, Cadon let go of an unconscious man and turned to seize another one.
Pairce rolled across the hallway to yank two of her knives out of the wall, where they were embedded.
Tristanne let out a whoop. “We are in!”
“Great,” said Pairce through clenched teeth. “Then, a little help here?”
SEFONI FELT AS if everything in the room was too loud.
She was gaping down at the shanj board, and she was still holding her regx piece, which she had turned over, and there was too much noise.
First there had been applause, but now everyone was moving.
Madigain was moving. He was up out of his seat.
But Sefoni couldn’t focus on him.
She was stunned.
This couldn’t have happened.
She didn’t lose.
Madigain didn’t beat her.
The blazing Lily Maneuver. How could she have fallen into that trap? It was the only reason she’d lost. Blazes, Haid had beaten Madigain. She sure as blazes could beat Madigain, but he’d somehow gotten her into that Lily Maneuver, and then it was as if he was reading her mind, as if he knew what she was going to do before she did it.
Haid had warned her not to rely on it too often.
But she’d begun to think of it as sort of her signature, after she’d used it to beat the king, which was the game that had brought her to the attention of Haid, after all, and changed her life entirely, setting her on this course.
It had seemed poetic to use it.
Except…
No.
Madigain couldn’t have beaten her.
Distantly, she could hear Haid’s voice. He was yelling at someone, asking where the blaze he thought he was going.
She turned her head to see that Madigain was trying to evade Haid, who was in his path, both hands up.
Oh!
Blazes.
They didn’t have enough time.
“You must think I’m an idiot, Darain,” Madigain was growling. “You can’t truly think that I believed that this tournament was ever about this game. This was a distraction. Right now, I imagine you’re robbing me blind.”
CADON HOISTED UP the golden trunk.
It was heavy on its own, but it was even heavier having been stuffed full of all of the treasure that they could fit from Madigain’s vault.
Cadon didn’t know where Madigain had gotten half of the items in that vault, but he suspected that Madigain must have swindled them away from others in card games and other sorts of schemes, because they were stamped with family seals and engraved with family names—none of which were Madigain’s own. There were even large portraits in gilded frames, stacked against a wall, portraits of people that were not related to Madigain.
They hadn’t taken any of those things.
Perhaps they could have. Cadon could imagine himself as a redistributor of lost family heirlooms, giving back treasure to grateful wives and daughters whose wayward fathers and husbands had beggared them.
But they didn’t because Haid’s plan was to liquidate the assets in various towns along a meandering path back to Briganne. It would be doubly disrespectful to scatter these heirlooms throughout the known realm.
Cadon was aware that he was more outraged about it than Pairce and Tristanne were. Tristanne, for instance, pointed out that she had amassed all of her money in precisely the same manner. Winning it in games of chance.
Cadon didn’t think badly of Tristanne, of course.
He didn’t need more reasons to hate Madigain, he mused as he carried the heavy golden trunk through the body-strewn hallway.
Some of the men were stirring, emitting low moans and groans.
Cadon stepped over their arms and chests and ankles, Pairce leading the way, Tristanne behind him.
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