The Perfect Assassin

by K A Doore

  Tell me who killed Yanniq and we’ll be even, thought Amastan. Out loud he said, “I just wanted to make sure you could clear your first debt. If you’re possessed by a jaani on your way home, I won’t get tea tomorrow.”

  Yufit’s eyes quirked with a half smile. “Well, aren’t you practical.”

  Amastan wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. He didn’t care. Yufit had a charm—he would be safe until Amastan saw him again.

  “Take care, Yufit,” said Amastan.

  This time, he forced himself to walk away. He didn’t glance back to see if Yufit was watching him go. And now he needed to get home even faster. He felt naked without his charm. But even though he was unprotected, he breathed more easily knowing that at least Yufit would be. Now he just needed answers.

  9

  If Barag noticed that Amastan was distracted, he graciously didn’t say anything. He gave Amastan just enough direction to get started, then left him alone to translate a heap of scrolls.

  Slowly, Amastan stopped wondering if Yufit had made it home all right, if the jaani had attacked anyone else, if this season would end sooner than the stormsayers predicted, and focused, instead, on meticulously transcribing the scrolls. It helped that they detailed the excruciatingly dry minutiae of dozens of drum chief Circles during the formation of the militia. Amastan wouldn’t have been surprised if the scrolls included what the drum chiefs’d had for breakfast.

  The change in light was so gradual Amastan didn’t at first notice. One moment, the room was filled with bright afternoon light. The next, Barag was chasing away shadows with torchlight. Amastan blinked dry, scratchy eyes and stretched out his aching fingers. Then he all but jumped from his chair. Sunset. It was sunset. How had it gotten so late?

  His answer lay in the pile of scrolls filled with his tight, careful script on the table. Amastan hastily rerolled the scrolls he’d been working on and laid them next to the pile in a neat line. Barag glanced over from the shelves where he stood at the top of a ladder, leaning precariously forward on tiptoe.

  “See you tomorrow,” called Barag.

  Amastan waved at his back and hurried for the door, worry stuck in his throat. The door opened before he got there and Amastan almost ran into Usem.

  “Careful, little cousin,” said Usem, putting his hand on Amastan’s arm and steering him to the side. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Amastan heard a snort from behind Usem. Thana slipped past, flashing Amastan a smile and an open palm. Then she greeted Barag with a tight hug before disappearing up the stairs.

  “Tea, Usem?” asked Barag.

  Usem turned, stepped out of the doorway, and let go of the door. Amastan didn’t wait to hear his response. He slipped outside before the door could shut. He was late. Would Yufit wait for him? He had bet everything on this lead—if he lost Yufit just because he was late …

  The crowd grew denser as he navigated his way across platforms and neighborhoods to the edge of Ghadid. Now that the sun had fallen and its searing heat subsided, merchants began setting up their stalls and shouting their wares. This late in the season they mostly sold fabric, leather, metal tools, and dried herbs. Amastan paused long enough at a charm maker’s stall to exchange a half baat for a new leather pouch, stuffed with herbs and words.

  With the soft leather at his neck, the worry tightening his throat loosened.

  Yufit was leaning against a wall, his silver tagel and long, slender form giving him away. He stared across the platform’s center, arms crossed over his chest. He turned as Amastan approached, straightening and dropping his arms as his eyes warmed with a smile.

  “Asaf,” said Yufit. “I’m glad you came.”

  Amastan smiled back. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Yufit waved away his apology. “No worry. I’m the one in your debt, remember?”

  “All the more reason I shouldn’t squander it,” said Amastan. He glanced across the open space to the tea shop and felt a flush of self-consciousness. Like Idir’s inn, the tea shop was a place for people to meet. Unlike Idir’s inn, the clientele tended older. Through the open doorway, Amastan could see several men clustered together over a board and its pieces, their bare hands as wrinkled and dark as old leather.

  When Amastan glanced back at Yufit, the other man was watching him with a smirk. Amastan’s ears warmed and he wished he was back in the safety of his own room. It was too late to change his mind now.

  “Shall we?” asked Yufit with a lavish gesture toward the shop.

  Amastan swallowed, reminded himself that he was doing this to save the family, rolled his shoulders back, and marched across the open space to the tea shop’s door, forcing Yufit to hurry after him. A man as wrinkled as his patrons greeted them in a voice that whistled and spat, and an old woman, her eyes nestled in lines, guided them to the back of the room, the farthest from the door and the day’s heat.

  Without a word, she left them to settle into a pile of cushions. As Yufit grabbed and pulled more cushions over to their area, Amastan glanced around the room. Aside from the lively game going on toward the front, they were the only ones in the shop. Not too surprising, considering how close to the end of season they were. Very few people had the baats left to spend on someone else’s tea.

  The thought reminded him of his own circumstances, and as Yufit twisted to get one of the cushions just so, Amastan brushed his hand across his coin pouch. It was just as light as he’d been expecting, unfortunately. He shouldn’t be wasting his baats on tea. He’d better make sure it wasn’t a waste, then.

  The old woman drifted by, leaving two glasses of delicate amber liquid and a jar of sand-brown sugar on the floor between them. Yufit held the jar out to Amastan, who took a scoop and scattered it across the top of his tea. The sugar dissolved in caramel swirls and gratifying eddies. Yufit dumped two spoonfuls into his tea, then settled into his cushions as if they’d been made just for him. He peered at Amastan over the rim of his glass, silent and appraising.

  The tea was too hot to drink just yet, but Amastan tried anyway, if only to avoid that intense stare and gather his thoughts. He’d trained in how to read a man’s eyes, how to use a knife, how to scale a building, and how to pretend he was a slave or a servant or a merchant. At one point, he’d even learned how to gather information about his mark. But all of that left his mind now, leaving him nothing but cobwebs and dust. How was he supposed to ask about Yanniq without seeming suspicious?

  The tea burnt his mouth. Amastan tried not to wince, but Yufit caught him while blowing across his glass. Yufit snorted and his tea rippled.

  “I know you’re thirsty, but it pays to wait.”

  Amastan set his glass down. It was safer that way. “Sorry, sa.”

  “Didn’t we agree to drop the sa?”

  “Sorry, s—” Amastan barely caught himself and Yufit laughed.

  “How old are you, Asaf?”

  Amastan frowned. “Nineteen seasons.”

  “I thought so.”

  That made Amastan snort. “Unless I’m mistaken, you’re only a few seasons older than me.”

  Yufit raised his eyebrows. “And how do you know that?”

  Amastan turned his glass in his hands for a moment before deciding on honesty. “The skin around your eyes is not as sun-worn as Yanniq’s other servants. Only the tips of your fingers are calloused. The color of your tagel is only slightly faded and there are just a few stains—I’d expect more if you’d been scribing for longer. The way you carry yourself is effortless, the kind of strength that comes from youth or hard work. And you wear no rings, which means you aren’t married and you haven’t established yourself.”

  Yufit blinked several times before he was able to answer. “You’ve been paying very close attention to me, haven’t you? Why?”

  Amastan looked at the ground. It needed to be swept; it was sprinkled with sand and dust. “I pay attention to everyone. I’ve always noticed things like that. The little things, that everyone else thinks are insignificant. They
usually are.”

  “Oh.” Yufit sounded disappointed. “And here I thought I was special. Instead it sounds like you are.”

  “No.” Amastan couldn’t lift his gaze up, not yet. “I’m not special. It might sound useful, but it’s distracting. Sometimes, I don’t notice the obvious because I’m too busy noticing all the details.”

  “Still,” said Yufit. “That must be a very useful skill to have as a historian.”

  “It is,” agreed Amastan. Finally he looked up, but Yufit was staring into his tea. Amastan silently chastised himself. He was supposed to be finding more information out about Yanniq, not telling Yufit all about himself. “So, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Twenty-two seasons old.”

  Yufit laughed and his eyes softened just a little. “Almost exactly.”

  “How did you end up working for a drum chief?”

  “My mother knows Yanniq. She suggested I ask for a position in his household.” Yufit sipped his tea and scrunched his eyes. He leaned forward and dumped more sugar into his glass. “And how did you end up working … wherever you do? Who hires historians in this city?”

  “Mostly I just make copies and keep records,” admitted Amastan. “It’s not very exciting.”

  “But you enjoy it.”

  Amastan shrugged. “Do you enjoy what you do?”

  “No.” Yufit smiled. “But it brought in the baats.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Yufit peered into his glass thoughtfully. He took a sip and scrunched his eyes, and then drank half of his tea. “What does anyone want to do? I don’t know if anyone wants to do what they do. We do what we must, and sometimes we might enjoy doing it in the moment, but the moment never lasts. If we all did what we wanted to do, we’d be like Megar.”

  “A well-respected gear worker?”

  Yufit snorted. “A lecherous, low-class servant.”

  “So … if you didn’t want to work for Yanniq, why were you there?”

  Yufit finished his tea and set the empty glass down with a clink. Then he leaned forward and nailed Amastan to the spot with his intense gaze. “Let me ask you a question instead: at the end of your night, did you want to save a stranger from a jaani?”

  Amastan frowned. “Of course. I didn’t want the jaani to hurt anyone.”

  Yufit shook his head, but his eyes never left Amastan. “That’s not what I asked. If I asked you what you wanted to do after you left Idir’s, what would you say?”

  “I…” started Amastan, then paused as he realized he was reluctant to admit that all he’d wanted to do was go home and sleep and wake up and discover that Yanniq’s murder had been little more than an unsettling dream.

  Thankfully, Yufit made his own assumptions about Amastan’s hesitation. “Exactly. You wouldn’t have answered with ‘fight a jaani.’ But that’s what you did. Why?”

  “Because if I didn’t, you would have been hurt. Possessed. There was no one else around.”

  “Which makes you a better person than most of Ghadid,” said Yufit. “But it also makes my point. You didn’t want to. You did what you felt you must. I didn’t want to work for Yanniq, but I felt that I must. So I did.” He spread his hands as if to say, as simple as that. Then his eyes crinkled with a mischievous grin. “When you asked for tea instead of baats—was that a need or a want?”

  Amastan’s whole face grew hot. He fought the urge to tug his tagel up over his eyes and hide. He needed to stay cool and calm and coy and play this game that he was so terrible at. He’d already fumbled his way into another meeting with Yufit, now he just needed Yufit to trust him enough to talk more about his job and Yanniq.

  He didn’t like flirting. It made him uncomfortable. His sisters had always teased him for being uninterested in other girls, in other boys, but it should have been the other way around. He’d never understood his sisters’ obsessions and crushes. Even when his cousins would talk about the people they were interested in, Amastan hadn’t understood. It all seemed a terribly messy ordeal, and to what end? Touching? Kissing? Sex? He didn’t want any of that. He had his books and his family and his friends. That was all he needed.

  So the irony of his situation wasn’t lost on him. Yufit seemed intrigued, if not interested, and if Amastan was going to get any information out of him, he needed to encourage that interest.

  He needed to—shudder—flirt.

  Amastan looked at his hands. “A little of both.” He cleared his throat. “And coming here—was it a need or a want?”

  Yufit’s smile deepened. “A little of both,” he echoed.

  Amastan swallowed. Careful, he reminded himself. “Why wasn’t working for Yanniq both? I’d think anybody would want to work for him. He’s a drum chief, he has power and money.”

  “He does. Maybe too much of each. No”—Yufit shook his head—“Yanniq wasn’t a good man. He was corrupt and selfish. When he made his decisions for the Circle, he never had the good of Ghadid in mind. He once let murderers walk free and somehow convinced the rest of the drum chiefs to look the other way. Honestly, I’m not surprised he’s dead. It was only a matter of time before someone took the law into their own hands.” He made a spitting sound. “Ghadid is better off without him.”

  “If he hadn’t died, would you have continued working for him?”

  Yufit laughed drily. “Not for long. It’s hard to work for someone you don’t respect.”

  Amastan chewed on Yufit’s words. Took the law into their own hands … Tamella hadn’t even considered the possibility that a cousin could have killed Yanniq. She might swear that a cousin wouldn’t have hidden the body, but Amastan wasn’t so sure. Of course, the contract ban was the other problem. A cousin would’ve had to kill without a contract. One of those conditions could be true, but both were extremely unlikely.

  But that didn’t mean impossible.

  Then again, if Yanniq had let criminals walk free, then their victims could be angry enough to take the law into their own hands. That would solve the contract problem. Still, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that a cousin had been involved. Not yet. If his calculations were right, he’d been walking the sands when Yanniq was murdered, which meant he couldn’t account for any of his cousins.

  He needed to know who these criminals were. That was something he could find himself, somewhere in Barag’s collection.

  Amastan decided to try a different direction. “Now that Yanniq’s dead, do you want to stay there? Or need to? Will ma Yanniq keep you on?”

  Yufit let out a breath. “I … left today.” Amastan waited expectantly. After a moment, Yufit sighed and leaned back, sinking farther into the pillows. “Basil has no need of my services. She has her own scribe. That—and she never liked me much.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Yufit shrugged. “Basil never liked anyone Yanniq spent time with. Never mind that I was only with the household for a month. I wasn’t there long enough to figure out what was going on between the two of them, but Basil clearly didn’t trust her husband.”

  Amastan turned the possibility that Basil was the killer over in his thoughts. Jealousy could drive someone to act both calculated and cruel. If the killer had been someone Yanniq knew, then that would explain why it appeared that he hadn’t fought. Basil could have lured him to the rooftop and killed him without any struggle. Would he have believed that one of his wives was capable of murder?

  “I don’t want to talk about me, though.” Yufit shifted, angling his body toward Amastan along with his eyes. “You’re much more fascinating. What is a historian doing working for Idir? And what is a server doing facing a jaani to save a stranger?”

  “I’m not interesting, I promise,” said Amastan. “I just needed some extra baats. It’s end of season and I … planned poorly.”

  Yufit raised an eyebrow. “Gambled one too many times?”

  “What? No—”

  Yufit put a hand on his arm. “I’m only teasing, Asaf. You need to learn t
o relax. I don’t know much about what historians do, but I’m starting to think it doesn’t involve a lot of downtime. Or fun.”

  Amastan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m relaxed. This is … calming.”

  At that, Yufit laughed. As his mirth receded, he shook his head. “You’re stiff as a mule that’s seen a serpent. You know, sometimes you can just … be. Look at the world. Enjoy the moment. We never know how many moments G-d will grant us, after all, and it’s always far fewer than we’d expect.”

  Even though his ears were burning, Amastan smiled. The accusation wasn’t unfounded; Menna frequently pointed out that he needed to loosen up. But he didn’t have time for fun. Not now. Not yet.

  He needed to know who Yanniq’s enemies were. He was starting to get an idea. Basil was easily jealous and Yanniq had made some poor decisions in the past. If Megar was anything to go by, then not even his own servants had been loyal. But who else? Who had Yanniq been communicating with in his final weeks, his final days?

  “What do you think happened to that jaani?” asked Yufit, interrupting Amastan’s thoughts.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Amastan.

  Yufit picked up his glass, remembered it was empty, and set it down again with a slight frown. His fingers found his throat instead, where they brushed against a small bump beneath the fabric of his wrap: the charm Amastan had given him last night.

  “It must be gone by now.” His gaze slid past Amastan, and it sounded as if he was talking more to himself. “Jaan don’t stay in Ghadid. The winds will have blown it away or the marab will have quieted it.” For a moment, Yufit’s calm cracked and Amastan saw a flash of worry in his eyes. Then he collected himself and straightened. “The marab will have quieted it,” he repeated, louder and with more certainty.

  “I’m sure,” said Amastan, even though he knew better. If it was Yanniq’s jaani—as he suspected—then it had already persisted in the city longer than it should have. He needed to talk to Menna, ask if the marab were aware of it. Make sure they were. But there was one thing he did know. “It must have been a fluke. There won’t be any more jaan.”