Among Thieves

Chapter Fourteen

“We’ve got trouble,” I told my boss. “Big trouble.”

“I suspected as much,” said Kells. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come.”

We were in Kells’s study, a small tidy place in a small tidy building. The floors and walls and furniture were polished wood, accented by several fine tapestries. But what really grabbed your attention was the stone: marble and granite, soapstone and pumice. It was everywhere, in every shape-statues, vases, balls, and bowls, even the finely wrought fireplace-all of it done by Kells, apprentice stonemason turned crime lord.

“There’s a war brewing in Ten Ways,” I said.

Kells nodded but otherwise didn’t react. He still looked more like a laborer than a crime lord. With his bald pate, heavy white mustache and brows, and sleeves rolled up past his thick forearms, he seemed more inclined to haggle over prices than order someone’s death. I’d seen him do both, and more-the man had vaulted garden walls I could barely scramble over-but mostly, he was content to sit back, look simpler than he was, and spin his webs.

“You know?” I said.

“I can read the signs as well as the next man.”

“And?”

“The next move is Nicco’s.” Kells ran his hand over the granite owl set in the mantel. It had been carved to appear as if it were flying out of the stone of the fireplace itself. If I looked closely, I knew, I would be able to make out individual feathers. “If Nicco wants to keep pushing in Ten Ways,” said Kells, “that’s his choice. But I’m not going to sit by and take it, and neither are some of the other Uprights. Blue Cloak Rhys is almost ready to go after Nicco on his own; same for Shy Meg. They both want me to wade in, and frankly, I’m tempted.” Kells brushed his hand off on his shirt and glared. “If he sends even one more crew into my territory, I-”

“Wait a moment,” I said. “You’re saying Nicco’s been moving against you in Ten Ways?”

“For more than two months,” he said. “Nicco’s been working through intermediaries, but the trail always leads back to him.” Kells’s bushy brows drew together. “Why? What have you heard?”

“The same thing you’re saying, only from Nicco’s end-that you’ve been using locals to muscle in on some of his action, as well as other parts of the cordon.” Even Rambles had sounded as if he thought Kells was behind the push against Nicco. Nor, I realized, had Ironius dissuaded him from that notion.

Ironius. And his Gray Prince. Shit.

“Has Nicco been moving against me?” said Kells.

“Until recently? No. Now, though…”

Kells flexed his fingers, made a fist, then let it go. “We’re being played, aren’t we?”

“Like a tin whistle,” I said. “You and the whole damn cordon.”

“Why?”

I grinned wryly. “Because Kin wars make people nervous,” I said, remembering what Ironius had said. “Because sometimes, they even make them desperate.”

“How desperate?”

“Desperate enough to consider the unthinkable.”

“The unthinkable,” muttered Kells. Then he looked at me and seemed to see me for the first time. “Sit,” he said. “You look ready to fall over.”

I did as he said, turning the chair around so I could lean forward onto its back. It felt wonderful. Kells stepped out of the room briefly, then came back in to take up his place before the fireplace again. “Food and wine are on the way,” he said. “In the meantime.. .” He handed me a cup of water.

“The unthinkable,” repeated Kells as I drank. “I take it you mean more than forming simple alliances, like the one I was just talking about?”

“That may be part of it,” I said. “But I think there’s more.”

“Such as?”

“What happens if you and Nicco go to war in Ten Ways?”

I could almost hear the pieces clicking together in his head: War leading to instability leading to a power vacuum leading to opportunity.

“A new Upright Man takes control of Ten Ways and kicks us all out,” he said. “He just has to wait until everyone else is reeling, then step in and do a cleanup.”

“She,” I said. “She has to wait and clean up. Except there’s more to it than that.”

Kells raised an eyebrow. “You mean make a push into our territories afterward? This woman doesn’t think small, does she?”

“You have no idea,” I said. I set my cup down and met Kells’s eyes over the back of the chair. “She’s eyeing all of Ildrecca. The whole thing.”

“You mean like Isidore?” said Kells. He snorted. “Well, in that case, I don’t think we have anything to-”

“It’s a Prince,” I said. “There’s a Gray Prince’s hand over all of this: Ten Ways, Ildrecca, the whole thing. At least, I think there is.”

Kells put his own hand out toward the owl, missed, and would have stumbled into the fireplace if he hadn’t caught the edge of the opening with his other hand. As he straightened up, he ran that hand over his mustache, leaving a smudge of soot in the thick whiteness.

“That… changes things,” he said. There was the slightest quaver in his voice. Kells pulled the chair from behind his desk over to the fireplace and sat down across from me.

“Do you have any idea which Prince?” he asked.

“I’m working on it,” I said.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “From the beginning.”

So I did-everything, that is, except my Oath with Degan. I wasn’t sure yet where my duty to Kells left off and the Oath began. Given a little time, and plenty of sleep, I probably could have reasoned it out, but I wasn’t trusting my judgment on the finer points right now. Kells didn’t push in any case-he was too busy working through the ramifications of everything else I told him.

“It fits,” he said. “Damn it, but it fits. Nicco and I are the perfect foils for this. He’s been itching to come after me for years, and I’m sure as hell not about to back down if he pushes the matter. There’s too much history for either of us to step away. And while we pound away at each other, whoever is behind this can sit back and gather their strength.” He shook his head. “Damn sneaky, conniving Princes.”

“There’s one thing that bothers me, though,” I said.

Kells chuckled. “I wish my list were that short, but all right, my ‘optimistic’ Long Nose-what’s your one thorn?”

“The empire,” I said. “Do you honestly think Markino is going to keep his hand, and his troops, out of this if the war gets as big as we think it will?”

Kells sat back and stroked his mustache, spreading the dark spot wider within it. “I think,” he said slowly, “that whoever hatched this has already factored in the empire in some way. I can’t see how-I certainly wouldn’t want to try to play the emperor, especially Markino. He’s getting older, which means he’s liable to be a bit less

… understanding.”

I snorted. That was putting it mildly. As each incarnation of the emperor got older, he went a little bit crazy. Paranoia, mania, and unusual obsessions weren’t uncommon in the final years of the imperial life, but they were usually mild and kept within the Imperial cordon-or so the popular stories went. However, if Markino got wind of the Kin trying to play him, and he was in a vindictive, obsessive mood

… I shuddered.

“The point is,” said Kells, “you don’t go to these lengths and forget about something like that. No, we may not see how the empire fits in, but I expect it has its place as well.”

“We can’t let it get to that point,” I said. “We need to keep the war in Ten Ways from happening.”

“Possibly,” said Kells.

“ ‘Possibly’?” I said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Kin war. Gray Prince. Targeting you-targeting us!”

Kells stared at me coolly. “I heard you, Drothe, but I think you need to remember something: I’m not Nicco. I don’t jump at the first hint of smoke. Something like this can run in any number of directions, and I don’t want to end up going down a blind alley because I didn’t stop to think first.

“Yes, keeping this war from happening would be the best course of action, but it may not be possible. We’re talking about Nicco here. He may not listen to reason, and he certainly won’t listen to it from me. If he decides I’m behind what’s happening in Ten Ways, he’ll see it as a personal attack and come at me with both fists cocked. And I won’t back down from him, even if this is all a setup. I still have my organization and my people to think about.”

“So you’ll do what the Prince wants?” I said.

“I may not have a choice.” Kells grinned. “But that doesn’t mean I have to follow the script she prepared.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Are you telling me that you’re thinking about taking on a Gray Prince?” There was a hell of a lot of difference between my going up against one and Kells’s doing it. With luck, I might escape notice, but Kells didn’t have that kind of option. He was too big to miss.

Kells’s finger ran through his mustache again, highlighting the grin. “Tempting, isn’t it? Taking on one of them at their own game? Proving you cannot only stand against them, but maybe even with them? It has its appeal.”

“You become a Gray Prince?” I said. Was that even possible? I’d never thought about it, but they had to come from somewhere.

“What, you don’t think I’d look good in the shadows?” he said. Then he sighed, and the sparkle dimmed in his eyes. “No, you’re right. It’s too risky to try, especially like this. The risks are too great to do it on the fly, but I can use what we know to manipulate things, to make sure Nicco is the more tempting target for the Prince. I might even be able to arrange it so I end up with a share of Nicco’s territory myself-possibly a healthy share.”

“So you don’t want to take on a Gray Prince,” I said drily. “You just want to manipulate one.”

Kells’s grin widened. “More or less.”

“And if you can’t?”

Kells laughed. “Hell, I haven’t even figured out how to con her yet, and you want to know what I’ll do if the plan falls apart. Give me some time, Drothe! ” He leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “But I do agree with you-even if we can’t stop this war, we can’t let it get out of hand, either. If it gets big enough to draw in the empire, like you fear…” He waved his hand. “Poof! Everything, on our level at least, goes up in smoke. The best we could hope for would be to hunker down and hope the White Sashes pass us by.”

“That doesn’t sound very promising,” I said.

“Last resorts never are.”

I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. It was midday and damn bright out. I was so fatigued that even though my night vision was dormant, the light still hurt. I added it to the list of all my other current aches and pains-pains I had managed to almost forget while sitting with Kells, but that had come back with a vengeance now that I was up and moving. Well, barely moving. As I walked, I consoled myself with visions of painkilling powders and drug-deepened sleep. I’d earned them.

Kells and I had kept at it for another couple of hours, chewing over concerns and possibilities, discarding more ideas than we kept-just like old times. I never realized how much I missed that until the rare occasions I got to see him.

Kells was the one who had brought me up within the Kin, who had spotted me in Ten Ways and decided that I could be more than a Draw Latch. He had pointed me toward Wide Nosing by asking careful questions, requesting the odd favor, and steering bits of information my way early in my career. I hadn’t known it then, of course, but, over the years, I’ve caught enough hints here and there to piece it together: Kells had been grooming me. And not just as a Wide Nose-he’d seen Long Nose potential.

That was why I had never officially worked for him back then, even though I had asked-repeatedly. If I’d been visibly attached to him, Nicco would never have taken me. Better I appeared “independent,” Kells had said. And I had listened, because he had helped me out of Ten Ways and had taught me to Nose, and because he had one of the best criminal minds I had ever encountered. But mainly I’d listened because he had stood by me and believed in me when no one else would.

And so we had hacked and kicked and spun ideas around each other in his office until he had told me to get out. I didn’t doubt that Kells had the beginnings of a plan already, but he wasn’t about to share it with me, which was smart. The less I knew, the less I could spill-always a wise policy with Long Noses.

As for me, my assignment was more or less what I had already been doing: try to keep Nicco from going to war in Ten Ways. I rated my chances at better than even, given what I had on Rambles, but I knew better than to assume it would be easy. As long as Nicco thought Kells was involved, his first inclination would be to wade in swinging; I needed to convince him that Rambles and Ironius were a better target for his anger.

I was cutting through an alley three blocks west of Ten Ways, running likely scenarios through my foggy head, when a voice came to me out of the shadows.

“You’re looking for Larrios.” It was a rich voice, smooth as fine cognac. I instinctively dropped into a crouch, a knife in each hand. The alley walls were too close for rapier work. I scanned the shadows for the source of the voice, but there was enough sunlight seeping in from above to foil my night vision.

The voice sounded vaguely familiar.

“Rumor has it,” I said. I’d put the word out two days back but hadn’t expected to hear anything so soon. Larrios had struck me as the kind of Kin who could vanish when he needed to.

A figure stirred in the gloom ahead of me, seeming to materialize from the shadows. He was tall, and that was about all I could say of him. The full gray-black cloak and hood he wore hid any other features he had.

“You’d better be paying more than last time,” he said.

“Last time?” I said.

He was five paces away when his gloved hand slipped out of the cloak and casually flipped something toward me. A hint of sunlight caught metal, glinting dully as the coin spun through the air. The copper owl chinked as it bounced once, twice, then rolled across two cobbles to come to rest in a slimed-over puddle of… something, at my feet.

The man chuckled, and my memory stirred at the sound. This was the cove that had directed Degan and me to Silent Eliza our first night back inside Ten Ways.

“If you can take me to Larrios,” I said, “the pay’ll be better. Much.”

The cowl dipped once in acknowledgment.

“Provided,” I added, “Larrios is in one piece when I get him. Finding him dustmans does me no good.”

“That’s your problem,” he said. “I can help you find him. I can’t promise what shape he’ll be in.”

“You know where he is?”

“Essentially.”

I frowned. “That’s vague. Vague lowers the price.”

Shoulders shrugged beneath the cloak. “Give me a day and I’ll have more details.”

“What kind of details?”

“The kind you’ll be happy to pay for.”

I slipped my knives home and crossed my arms before me. “You’re an arrogant bastard, you know that?”

I could hear the smile in his voice as he answered, “I can afford to be. Can you?”

“I’m the one with the hawks,” I reminded him as he turned away.

“Hawks don’t make a Kin deep-file.”

“Neither does friendship with the shadows.”

He chuckled again. “Don’t be too sure,” he said as he slipped into the dark edges of the alley. When I moved forward, he was gone.

I was still rolling the cloaked Kin’s copper owl through my fingers when I turned onto Echelon Way.

Larrios. If he could get me Larrios, I could get some answers about the relic and the book. Hell, Larrios might even know something about the damn scrap of paper. At this point, I’d be surprised if he didn’t. Too many paths were crossing over the book and the relic-Athel’s, Larrios’s, the Gray Prince’s and Iron Degan’s, not to mention Nicco’s business and mine both touching on Fedim-to be coincidence. And even though it was a tenuous bridge, the scrap of paper in my ahrami pouch seemed to connect them all-Athel to the relic to Fedim to Larrios to the ambushers to the book, all the while bringing me along for the ride.

Yes, I definitely wanted that dark Kin to find Larrios.

I was still two doors away when I noticed Cosima standing in front of the building, shaking out a rug. She saw me at the same time, but, rather than say hello or even flash me a smile, she turned and stalked into their apartments and slammed the door.

What the…?

Wait-what was she still doing here?

I walked up to the door and knocked. No answer.

“Cosima?” I said.

“I’m not leaving,” she said from the other side of the door. “You can’t make me leave.”

“I’m not here to make you do anything,” I said. “I thought Eppyris was sending you and the girls to stay with family for a while?”

“Renna and Sophia are with my mother.”

“But you’re still here,” I observed.

“As long as Eppyris stays, I stay.”

I sighed and laid my forehead against the door. “He’s only looking out for your safety,” I said. “Considering what happened the other night, he may be right.”

There was a pause on the other side of the door. “Do you think he’s right?”

I took a long, thoughtful breath. “I think a husband is right to worry about his wife and family.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I’m qualified to give.”

The door swung open, causing me to stumble forward two steps and almost into Cosima’s arms. She laid a hand on my chest, stopping me.

“You’re the one that man was trying to kill,” said Cosima. “If anyone’s qualified to talk about it, you are.”

“The only thing he’s qualified to talk about,” said a dour voice behind me, “is his own life.” I turned to find Eppyris standing in the stairwell, his leather apothecary’s apron tied around his chest. The side door to his shop stood open behind him. “Our lives are our own concern,” he said. “Not his.”

I bit back my words even as I stared Eppyris in the eye. They lived in my building-that made them my concern. Everything that happened under this roof was my business. Admitting otherwise was the same as admitting I couldn’t protect my own interests, that I couldn’t keep other Kin at bay.

Except Eppyris didn’t see it that way. And I understood why.

“Do whatever you feel you need to do,” I said to them. “Stay or go. Either way, you’re safe.”

I turned my back and stalked up the stairs. Behind me, I heard a pair of doors close. I didn’t look back to see who had gone where.

Fowler Jess was waiting at the top of the stairs, seated on the floor beside my door.

“That went well,” she said.

“Go to hell.” I looked her up and down. Fowler’s hair was sticking out at all angles from beneath her cap, which, judging by the grime on it, had slipped off her head more than once. The knuckles of one hand showed fresh scrapes, and I noticed a small tear in her new leggings.

“What’s been running you ragged?” I asked as I put the key in the lock, turned it left half a turn, then right the same amount. It was unlocked now, but I still needed to give the key another full rotation to disarm the tension spring in the lock housing; otherwise, I’d get a handful of barbed spikes when I went to turn the door handle.

“Sylos.”

I paused as I took the key out of the lock. “He was the one standing watch out front the other night, wasn’t he? When Tamas came.”

“Yes.”

“And what did he have to say for himself?”

“Not much,” said Fowler. “Considering he ran as soon as he saw me coming.”

I heard the sound of my key bouncing off the floor, but I didn’t remember letting go of it. “It was him? I said. “He’s the one who let Tamas pass?”

Fowler nodded.

“I want to see him,” I said. “Now.”

“Yeah, well, good luck on that,” she said, plucking my key up from the floor. “He took a slip off a roof. Went down four stories in Square Hills as fast as you can say ‘splat.’ ” She slapped her hand on the floorboards for emphasis.

“Damn it, Fowler, I needed him breathing!”

“You needed him breathing?” Fowler jumped to her feet so fast I had to step back to keep from being hit in the jaw by her head. “Do you know what that bastard did, Drothe? I found three of my people dustmans after I left you the other night. Three! I don’t know if he did the deed himself or left them to that Blade, but, either way, he crossed me and mine far worse than he did you. So don’t talk to me about how much you ‘needed’ him alive-I wanted that bastard so bad it hurt.”

I was about to argue the point when I noticed Fowler’s eyes. They weren’t hard or intense or raging as I had expected; they were wide, and filled with anguish. She’d lost three people-I’d only lost my peace of mind.

“Sorry,” I said. “I haven’t run with a crew for a long time. I.. . forgot.”

Fowler nodded.

“Did he say anything?” I asked.

“You mean before or after he jumped out the window of the boardinghouse?” She shook her head. “No, he wasn’t too talkative. And while I’m sure you could get a confession out of someone while chasing him across a roof, I’m not quite up to it.”

“What about the body?”

“What about it?” said Fowler. “There were some hawks, a handful of golden falcons-at least they paid him well-and a bit of personal swag. Oh, and a pilgrim’s token.” Fowler snorted. “A lot of good that did him.”

“Wait,” I said. “A pilgrim’s token? What kind?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Do I look like I’d go on pilgrimage?” She reached into the small pouch on her belt, rummaged around, and brought out a lead lozenge. “Here.”

I took it. It was the same. The same as the token I had found on Athel-round, triple-stamped, old.

“Paper,” I said, not looking away from the token. “Were there any bits of paper on Sylos’s body?”

More rummaging, and then her hand was before me, two balled-up, filthy scraps of paper in her palm. I gently picked up one of the wads and unfolded it. It had the same collection of marks I’d come to know so well from playing with Athel’s strip.

“What the hell is it?” said Fowler, craning her head so much, she almost blocked my view.

“I’m not sure,” I said. I removed Athel’s scrap from my ahrami pouch and held it next to the one she had found on Sylos. The markings were different, but the size and overall pattern were the same. “I found this on someone who crossed me on a different dodge. He had a pilgrim’s token, too.”

“What’s the connection?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

I’d been toying with the idea that instead of Christiana, it could have been one of her court rivals behind Tamas’s attempt-one noble trying to remove another’s tool. It certainly would have explained the livery and the forged letter, as well as the money needed to lay hands on a piece of portable glimmer. Except now, it didn’t fit. Sylos didn’t have any connection with the relic; he didn’t have any reason to have the same kind of slip on him as Athel.

Yet here they were.

I stared at the papers, trying to see the line that had to run through all of this. Athel led to Fedim led to Larrios led to Ironius and the Gray Prince. From there, the trail split, with one leading into Ten Ways, and the other following Larrios’s book. On the other side of things, it looked as though things went from Sylos to the forgery to Tamas, with Christiana being used as an “in” against me.

Nothing overlapped, except the papers themselves.

I was starting to regret the moment of mercy I’d shown Athel in the warehouse.

“Damn you, Athel,” I grumbled as I tucked away the slips and the token and reached out for the doorknob. “Why the hell couldn’t you have given me more than a damn na-”

“Drothe!”

Fowler’s yell came the same instant she launched herself into me, sending us both tumbling to the ground. A fraction of a second later, I heard the solid thunk of something driving itself deep into my door.

“You moron!” she yelled into my ear, still on top of me.

“Ow,” I said, feeling her on me, me on the floor, and all my bruises between the two.

“Damn straight, ‘Ow’!” she said, climbing off. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” I said as I came up off the floor more slowly. “That’s the problem. Too tired to think.”

Sticking out of the door at chest level, its head buried so deep I couldn’t see it, was a short crossbow bolt. It had come from the shadows above the stairwell behind us. I had positioned the firing mechanism more than a year ago and run a trip wire through the wall to the door. When I’d started to open the door without first releasing the tension on the wire, I’d set it off.

Stupid, stupid mistake.

“Damn it, Drothe!” said Fowler. “If you think I’m going to lose people just so you can dust yourself with your own fucking trap, you can find another Oak! If I hadn’t been here, you’d be pinned to that door like some firstnight Eriff. Angels! I’ve told you before that you don’t need to be so damn paranoid, but will you listen? No. And now-”

I didn’t bother pointing out that if she hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have been distracted by thoughts of Athel and Sylos and pieces of paper. Instead, I held up a placating hand and said, “Fowler, you’re right. Thank you. I owe you. More than ever. But right now, will you please just lock the inside floorboard for me? I don’t trust myself at this point.”

“You, either, huh?”

“Fowler…”

“All right, all right.” She took a few deep breaths to get her own hands to stop shaking. Then she knelt, cracked the door open, and reached inside to turn the small handle on the wall that locked down the loose floorboard just past the entry. Stepping on the board without locking it would get us both a face full of quick lime from the air bladder installed underneath it.

“When’s the last time you slept, anyhow?” she said as she stood up.

“A day? Two?” I said. “I don’t even remember at this point.”

“Well then,” she said, pushing open the door. “I suggest you… Fuck.”

Even if it had been an invitation, I doubt I would have been able to take her up on it just then. Inspiring as she could be in bed, I just didn’t have it in me at the moment. But as it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about coming up with an answer. The catch in her voice and way she froze in the doorway told me more than I needed to know.

I reached out without thinking, ready to pull her back and slam the door shut against whatever was waiting for us inside. Then I saw what she saw, and I froze as well.

There was a woman in my bedroom-a dead woman; a dead floating woman, held a foot off the floor by nothing I could see.

“We’ve got trouble,” said Fowler Jess. “Big trouble.”