Among Thieves

Chapter Twenty

Our eyes met over the dying Arm. There were anger and murder and dark resolve in Fowler’s face, but none of those inclinations seemed directed at me. Seeing her like that, knife in hand, standing over another man’s body, reminded me of why I’d found her so damn alluring in the first place. Nevertheless, I let my right hand begin drifting toward my dagger.

Someone saw the body, saw the knife, and screamed. Someone else joined in. People began running and shoving and pointing.

Damn Lighters-just like them to ruin the moment.

I glanced away from Fowler in time to see Matthias get his throat slit from behind by one of Fowler’s people. The woman winked at me and then slipped back into the crowd without a ripple.

Someone grabbed my arm. It was Fowler.

“Come on!” she said, pulling. I didn’t move. She swore. “Nicco’s got at least two more Arms farther up the street, and I don’t like our chances against them in a fair fight.” I stopped resisting and fell in behind her.

Fowler led me down Echelon Way to an alley called Chipper’s Gap. Scratch was loitering at the entrance. He knocked over a stack of barrels as we passed, blocking off the alley mouth.

We turned into a doorway before the alley ended and followed a short flight of stairs down, cut back along a hallway, then ran up another set of steps. We came out among the leather hides and laces of Petrus the cobbler’s back room. Then through another door, down more steps, and so on, weaving through a maze of connected cellars, gardens, and closely constructed upper stories until we paused inside a recessed archway at street level, four blocks away.

“I take it,” I said, my hands on my knees, my thigh aching, and my breath coming in gasps, “that I’m no longer one of Nicco’s favorite people.”

“You think?” said Fowler. She was leaning against the opposite wall, head back. “Did your finely honed instincts tell you that, or was it my people saving your sorry ass that tipped you off?”

“A little of both,” I said, “but I appreciate the ass-saving more.”

“Damn well better,” she said. There was a strange catch in her voice, and I looked up to find her staring at me across the narrow space. “How long, Drothe?” she said.

“How long what?”

“How long have you been working for Kells?”

I froze. It was the last thing I had expected her, expected anyone, to say. Kells? How the hell had she connected me to Kells?

I blinked and tried to look more insulted than surprised. “What?” I stood up straight. “Where did you hear that?”

“Never mind,” she said. “Just tell me. How long?”

“I don’t-”

“How long?”

I glanced toward the street out of habit, then back down the hallway behind us.

Fowler tensed, likely wondering if I was going to run, or maybe remove a suddenly inconvenient witness. I shook my head to reassure her. She’d just saved my life and put her whole crew at risk in the process; I wasn’t about to dust her. She was Fowler.

Besides, she knew, which meant other people did, too.

“How did you find out?” I said.

Fowler slapped me. Hard. “You just told me now, you son of a bitch!” she yelled.

I had stepped right into that one. Dumb. “All right, clever girl,” I said. “Congratulations. You got me. Now, tell me how you knew to ask.”

“Tell me how long, first.”

“I’m the one who just had two Arms sent after him by Nicco,” I said. “It’s my turn to ask a question, so be patient and wait your turn.”

I watched her jaw work for a moment before she gave a grudging nod.

“It’s been coming from inside Nicco’s organization,” she said. “I only heard because of… Well, we’ll get to that in a minute. But word is he’s decided you’re a liability.”

“I doubt he used the word ‘liability,’ ” I said. “Liability” wasn’t nearly colorful enough for what Nicco would be feeling when it came to me and Kells.

“Probably a safe bet,” said Fowler. “Anyhow, from what I hear, some people are having a hard time believing you’d turn-cloak like that. Others are calling you a ‘Long Nose’ without batting an eye.” Fowler paused to give me a caustic look. “But either way, Nicco’s cut you loose, so it’s open season on your ass. Good thing you weren’t the kind to make enemies when you were under Nicco, right?”

“Yeah, good thing,” I said drily. I’d been a Nose; part of my job, by default, was making enemies. “Any idea how the story got started? From inside, I mean?”

Fowler shook her head. “None. Like I said, I was lucky to find out it was going around when I did. If he hadn’t broken into your place in the…”

“Wait,” I said. “Nicco broke into my place?”

Fowler looked up and down the street from the doorway. “I’d rather not talk about this here, in his territory, especially after what I just did to two of his people. Let’s get out of here first, all right?”

I didn’t argue. We headed out into the street. Fowler took us on a roundabout route, full of sudden turns and double-backs. Eventually, we ended up on a quiet side street in Rustwater cordon, just outside Nicco’s territory.

“So, how long?” she asked again.

“I thought we were still on my turn,” I said.

“Just answer the damn question, will you?”

I took a deep breath. “I’ve belonged to Kells since the beginning.”

A brief silence, then, “You fuck.”

It was about what I had expected. It’s one thing to talk about the idea of a Long Nose, but quite another to find out someone you know has been lying to you from the day you met him. It’s not personal, the lie, but people have a hard time seeing it that way. All they know is that you’ve been keeping something big from them for years. And with Fowler, it ran even deeper. Our occasional bedroom romps aside, she’d lost people keeping me alive. She’d put her life and reputation and crew on the line for me; in exchange, I’d hid who I was and what I did from her.

“Do you want out?” I said.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” Fowler swore and kicked at a stone on the street. “Dammit, Drothe, why’d you have to be a cross-cove?”

“I’m not a cross-cove,” I said. “I came into Nicco’s organization working for Kells, and I never turned on him. It only looks dirty from the outside. I’m straight-it’s just the work that’s crooked.”

Fowler didn’t seem convinced, but then she’s never been one to appreciate a finely split hair. “I don’t think Nicco’s going to take it quite so philosophically,” she said.

“We’ve already established that,” I said.

“And I don’t think you will, either, once I fill in a few details.”

I glanced at her sidelong but kept walking. “Go on.”

“The place wasn’t exactly empty when Nicco came looking for you,” said Fowler. “The apothecary was there.”

“Eppyris?” I stopped in the middle of the street. “I thought he’d gotten Cosima and the girls out.”

“The woman and the girls, yes,” said Fowler. “But he stayed on.”

“And when Nicco came?”

“He and his boys worked him over,” she said.

There was more. I could feel it, hanging in the air between us.

“And?” I said.

Fowler cleared her throat. “When they were done,” she said, “Nicco made him open the door to your rooms.”

The door to my rooms. Oh. Oh shit.

“By the time I got to him,” continued Fowler, “he was closer to dead than alive. We managed to get a carver in to sew him up and stop the worst bleeding.”

“How bad?” I said.

“Between the beating and your… and the traps. Crippled at least, maybe blind. I found out from a neighbor where the wife and daughters were. I had Scratch and Rook take him there after the carver was done.”

“Will he live?”

Fowler shrugged.

I tried to imagine Eppyris without his apothecary shop, Cosima and the girls without him. It came all too easily. I pushed the images aside.

“How did Nicco get so close?” I said.

“What?” said Fowler.

“How did Nicco get so close to my place?” I said, my voice rising. “Where the hell were you and your people when all this was happening?”

“Don’t,” said Fowler. “Don’t you dare! Yesterday, as far as I knew, you were still working for Nicco. If I’d known what was going to happen, I would have dusted the big bastard myself. But he was your boss-I didn’t have any reason to stop him! We didn’t know it had happened until they came out, wiping the blood off their hands.”

“And you just let them walk?” I said.

“He was your fucking boss!” she said. “Maybe, just maybe, if I’d known you didn’t actually work for him, and that you wouldn’t cut my throat for cutting his, I might have stepped in. But I didn’t know that, so I stayed put.”

“So you let Nicco just-”

“Damn it, Drothe!” said Fowler. “You weren’t home. My job is to protect you, not everyone who walks in and out of the damn front door!”

I opened my mouth, hesitated, closed it again. Raging at her wouldn’t solve anything. I was the one who had promised to keep Eppyris and Cosima and the girls safe, not Fowler. Me. And after all my promises and precautions and bravado, I still hadn’t kept the Kin away. I hadn’t kept Nicco away.

But I would handle that. Someway, somehow, I’d pay that bastard back. Revenge couldn’t help Eppyris, and I knew it would supply no comfort to Cosima, but it was something Nicco and I understood. He had come after me because, in his eyes, I had betrayed him; I’d go after him not only to protect myself, but because he’d bloodied someone under my protection, in my own home. It was street justice, simple math that any Kin understood, and it needed to be settled. Instead of just dusting me, Nicco had gone out of his way to humiliate and insult me. If I ever wanted to be able to hold my head up among the Kin again, I had to address that fact-personally.

I started walking again. All of a sudden, the shaded silence of the side street seemed oppressive. I needed people around me.

“Is anyone watching Eppyris and his family?” I said. I wouldn’t put it past Nicco to track them down, just to hurt me more.

“I have Rook hanging around their street,” said Fowler.

“Put three more on them,” I said, turning onto Tumble Downs. It was the main thoroughfare in Rustwater cordon, and we hit it right near the central square. There were people and traffic and shop fronts all around us, and I suddenly felt better for it. “And yourself,” I added. “I want them well guarded.”

“That doesn’t leave anyone to cover you,” said Fowler, slipping closer to me so we wouldn’t get separated by the crowd.

“I can handle myself.”

“Right,” said Fowler, “because that’s been working so well for you up until now.”

“With the number of Kin I have after me at this point,” I said, “I may be better off without a slew of people trailing after… Holy Angels!”

“What?” snapped Fowler, her hand immediately going to her knife.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I stopped in the middle of the street and stared, ignoring the traffic that split and flowed and cursed its way around me. There had been a gap in the people a moment ago-a gap that had let me see a face. I stood and waited.

The gap came again. Yes. There.

I immediately began pushing my way through the throng.

“Drothe?” said Fowler from behind me, sounding more annoyed than anxious.

I ignored her. My whole attention was fixed on the tall, thin man standing in the open air of a street-side barber’s stall. He had just gotten out of one of the wooden chairs. He was busy wiping his face with a towel to remove the last of the shaving soap.

“Baldezar,” I whispered to myself, invoking the name to make it true. “Angels, let him be dumb enough to be standing there in the open.”

As if in answer to my prayer, the man turned, a coin glinting in his hand as he reached to pay the woman who had shaved him. It was the Jarkman.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I quickened my pace, my hand going to the dagger on my belt as I dodged through the press around me. Behind, I could hear Fowler calling my name again. She sounded farther away.

Not far enough, though, as it turned out. As Fowler shouted out my name a third time, Baldezar’s head snapped up and swung toward the street. I tried to duck behind a passing cart but wasn’t fast enough. Baldezar’s eyes grew wide as they lighted on me, and then he was off, sprinting down the street.

Idiot, I thought as I rushed after him. Idiot me for not giving Fowler a sign to keep quiet; idiot him for leaving the barbershop. There are very few places we Kin will not happily kill one another, but a barber’s place of business is one of them. It’s as close as our kind comes to giving sanctuary. The truce between the Kin and the Sisterhood of Barbers had been in force for almost one hundred and eighty years-ever since the Seven Months of the Razor, just after Isidore’s death-and I wasn’t about to break it for Baldezar, no matter how badly I wanted him. If he had stayed in the shop, I couldn’t have touched him, but as soon as he hit the street…

I cursed almost continually as I dodged and shoved my way through the press of bodies. I could make out the back of Baldezar’s head now and then, bobbing above the crowd even as mine stayed well below it.

He took his first right, then a quick left. I stayed with him and even began to close the distance. Baldezar might have the longer stride, but I could duck through the gaps in the crowd more easily. I allowed myself a feral smile. All I needed to do was keep pace. He was a scribe-how far could he run?

As it turned out, farther than I would have liked. Maybe it was all the stairs I’d just run with Fowler; maybe I was pushing too hard; or maybe Jelem’s glimmer hadn’t finished its job yet; regardless, by the time Baldezar began to show signs of wearing down, my left leg was stiffening up. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep pace. It only made things worse. Baldezar nearly fell as he turned onto an empty side street, but, try as I might, I couldn’t take advantage of it. He might be weaving and stumbling like a drunk, but it was still better than the old soldier’s limp I was forced to imitate.

That was when Fowler sprinted past me, arms pumping, hat jammed down firmly on her head, hair flying out from beneath it. I don’t know how fast she was running, but, to me at that moment, it looked as if she could have given the wind a good race. I slowed further and admired the fit of her leggings as she closed on Baldezar.

When she came up behind him, she didn’t waste time or effort. No tackling; no forcing him into a wall; no trying to trip him-Fowler simply drew her long knife and hamstrung the scribe with one smooth slash.

He went down on the pavement, hard and screaming.

I immediately picked up my pace again. The street we were on was narrow, with little traffic and few doors opening on it. What doors I did see were large, solid, ornate, and set into high walls. There was money here. That meant blood wasn’t usually spilled on these paving stones, and when it was, the Watch didn’t waste time getting here. This needed to be kept short.

Fowler was kneeling next to Baldezar as I hobbled up. He was doubled up on the cobbles, grabbing at his left leg and gasping through clenched teeth. There was blood coming out of his nose where it had smashed into the street, and he had a deep scrape on his chin and along the right side of his jaw. He had, however, stopped screaming. I chalked that last bit up to Fowler’s threatening worse if he didn’t shut up.

“This is all he had on him,” said Fowler as she stood up. She handed me a knife and a small pouch of money, then glanced back down at Baldezar. “I hope you didn’t need him whole.”

“Just talkative,” I said. I moved so Baldezar could see me standing over him. I liked to think it wasn’t solely pain and blood loss that made him go pale.

“Go watch for Rags,” I told Fowler.

“But-”

“Go.”

Fowler muttered and cursed, but she went. As she did, I noticed at least three different heads poking out of windows set high in the walls. They vanished quickly.

“All right,” I said, “I don’t have time to do this how I’d like, so I’ll give you a choice: Cooperate and I’ll leave you for the Watch to find. Be difficult, and they’ll trip over your corpse. Decide.”

Baldezar opened his mouth, coughed, and turned his head to spit. Blood-tinted mucus came out, along with a tooth. “Drothe,” he said, the side of his face still lying on the paving stones, “you have to understand, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just-”

“Corpse it is,” I said as I drew my rapier.

“No, wait!” Baldezar held out a bloody hand. “What do you want to know?”

I showed my teeth in a manner too nasty to be called a smile. “Smart man,” I said. “Start with the Blades and the forged letter from Baroness Sephada.”

“That wasn’t my idea.”

“Of course not.” I drew my rapier back for the thrust.

“No, listen!” Baldezar pushed himself up on his elbow. “When you came to my shop, I thought you were there for the letter I was copying for the baroness. When you showed me Athel’s cipher instead, I panicked. I didn’t know how you’d gotten ahold of it, if Athel was alive or dead, or how you were involved.” Baldezar glowered. “All I did know was that you were toying with me, trying to make me nervous so I’d talk. I’m not stupid.”

I forced my face to remain impassive even as what he was telling me sank in. Stupid? Baldezar had been too clever by half. He’d read more into our conversation than I’d had an inkling about. He’d been in on what was happening from the beginning, and I’d missed it completely! If anyone was stupid here, it was me.

“Then you came in with the forged letter,” said Baldezar, interpreting my silence as agreement, “and I thought I was dead. I still don’t know why you let me live, but I knew better than to give you a third chance. I was in over my head, so I ran.”

“What about Lyconnis?” I said. “Were you just going to leave him for me in case I decided he was involved?”

Baldezar looked away and said nothing.

“The proud and mighty guild master,” I said, “watching over his charges with courage and diligence.”

Baldezar stayed silent.

“So what happened after I left your shop the first time?” I said.

“I went to see Ironius. He wasn’t happy at the news.”

I chuckled. “I’ll bet.” Ironius must have figured my visit meant I knew what was going on in Ten Ways-especially with Baldezar leaping to conclusions for him. And if I knew, then it followed that Nicco knew, too-or would, once I told him. Except I never had.

“So whose idea was it to put the Blade on me?” I said. “Yours?”

“No!” said Baldezar. “No. The plan was to lure you away and grab you. It wasn’t until Fedim turned up dead and the book vanished that the decision was made to kill you.”

He was lying, of course. Whether Ironius had wanted to talk to me or not, I would have ended up dustmans in the end. Sylos’s message had confirmed as much. Besides, I couldn’t see Baldezar forging Christiana’s letter unless he thought I wasn’t coming back from the appointment.

A sharp whistle interrupted my musings. I looked over my shoulder to see Fowler trotting toward us.

“Rags,” she called out. “Five blocks and closing.”

“How-” I began, but let the question go. This was Fowler; if anyone could recruit and organize a team of street urchins and beggars to watch our blinds on a moment’s notice, it was her.

“Tell me when they’re two blocks away,” I shouted back.

Fowler nodded and went back the way she’d come.

I turned back to Baldezar. He was smiling. I showed my teeth again.

“Don’t get cocky,” I said. “There’s still plenty of time for you to die.”

It had all been premised on a mistake. Baldezar had panicked and leapt to the wrong conclusion, and then fed that conclusion to Ironius. They had sent Tamas, whom I had killed, which made things look even worse. From that point on, everything I had done-showing up at Fedim’s shop, my growing interest in Ten Ways, turning up in Rambles’s attic, the death of the second Blade-reinforced their initial conclusions. To them, I must have seemed one step ahead, always turning up or slipping away at the worst possible time, when in reality I was stumbling from one clue to another without knowing it.

And all because I hadn’t been straight with Baldezar about why I was interested in Athel’s slip of paper.

I couldn’t help myself; I began to laugh. It was too ridiculous not to. I looked down and saw Baldezar’s panic-stricken face, heard him babbling about it being a misunderstanding, and laughed even harder. Angels, but it hurt!

I dropped to one knee, gasping. The laughter finally trickled away, leaving an ache in my side to keep the one in my leg company. I felt drained, but strangely relaxed.

Baldezar was staring at me. Fear had been replaced by understanding on his face, and that was quickly giving way to disgust.

“You didn’t know any of this before I told you, did you?” he said. “Not one part.”

“No,” I said.

He blinked. “You mean I…”

“Made it worse?” I said. He flinched, and I have to admit I enjoyed that. “I doubt you could have fouled up more if you tried.” I levered myself to my feet, grunting at the effort. “Ironius is going to have a ball with you when he realizes what you’ve done.”

“Ironius?”

“And his Prince.”

Baldezar’s face paled. “Prince? As in, Gray Prince?”

I smiled. “See, you didn’t know everything after all.”

“Drothe!” Baldezar’s words came out quickly, tumbling over one another in his haste to get them out. “I didn’t know there was a Prince involved,” he said. “I swear it! Please, you have to-”

Another whistle. We both looked down the street.

Fowler was running toward us. “Rags a little less than three blocks away and coming fast!” she yelled. “Must be at least a half dozen of them.”

I turned back to Baldezar. “They won’t bother you if you tell them we jumped you.” I grinned. “Good luck with Ironius and the Prince.”

“Wait!” he yelled. “Take me with you! I can tell you about the book.”

I turned back just as Fowler came pounding up beside me.

“Tell me what?” I said.

“Take me with and I’ll tell you.”

I glanced at Fowler. She had her hand on her knees and was breathing heavy. “Are you on smoke?” she said in answer to my look. “I can’t carry him alone, and you’re having trouble fucking walking.” She spit. “No way. We have to go. Now.”

I turned back to Baldezar. “Tell me,” I said, “and none of this gets back to Ironius.”

“I need more.”

“After what you just confessed to, you’re lucky to be getting that much!” I said. “I should dust you and let the Rags clean up the mess.”

Baldezar licked his lips and glanced down the alley, then back to me. “Make me your man,” he said.

“What?” Fowler and I said at the same time.

“Take me under you,” he said in a rush. “Be my boss and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Your boss?” I said. “I’m no Baldober. Hell, I don’t even have an organization!”

“Then start one with me,” said Baldezar. “If you take me on, you have to protect me. You can’t dust me without cause, and I can’t betray you without knowing I’ll be killed in turn.”

I almost laughed at his naivete. “You don’t know much about how the Kin work, do you?”

“I know you,” said Baldezar. “That’s enough.”

I stared at him while Fowler danced from foot to foot. She was staring down the alley.

“Drothe… ” she began.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said. Protection? My protection? I hadn’t even been able to protect Eppyris and his family, and now Baldezar wanted me to watch over him? With what? I didn’t have anything to offer.

Then again, did any Kin? Given the nature of our business, our lives, who were we to pretend to any kind of certainty? At best, we were lucky to fend for ourselves. And yet, that hadn’t stopped me from staying secretly loyal to Kells for years, never mind invoking Nicco’s name as a shield against the people in his organization. I was a Long Nose-if anyone knew about being in deep without any real support, it was me. Still, I had to admit that having that partial sense of protection had helped, and that I missed it now.

I reached my hand out, hesitated, and then finished the gesture. Baldezar took it in an awkward Clasp. And just like that, he was mine.

“We can do the pretty words later,” I said. “Just talk.”

“I don’t know precisely what’s in the book,” Baldezar said, “but I know part of it deals with magic.”

“I know,” I said.

“Imperial magic.”

“Know that, too.”

Baldezar blinked in surprise. “So you know about the emperor, too?”

I let go of his arm. “What about the emperor?”

“From what I gathered, they plan on using the magic against him.”

“Against him?” I said.

“Him, or the empire,” said Baldezar. “It wasn’t clear, but I managed to piece it together from bits of conversation Ironius let slip.”

“Angels fuck me,” muttered Fowler.

I took a step toward Baldezar, half in shock. “What are they-”

Fowler caught my arm. “There’s no time,” she hissed. “Listen!”

I did. I could hear shouts and yelling in the distance. It was getting closer. Rags.

“Damn,” I said. I leaned down and handed Baldezar a small packet from my herb wallet. “Deer berries,” I said. “They’ll numb the pain.”

Baldezar looked at the packet dubiously, then at me. “I don’t think-” he began.

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” I snapped. “I’m not about to waste time poisoning you.”

Baldezar looked at the packet again and nodded.

“Very touching,” said Fowler as she grabbed my arm. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here before we all have a real reason to cry.”

I let her hustle me down the street and around a corner. Behind us, I could hear Baldezar begin shouting for help. He was calling out to the approaching Rags, begging for someone to stop and help him.

“Think they’ll let him live?” Fowler asked as we turned another corner.

“He’s a scribe and a guild master,” I said. “They have no reason not to.”

“What about us?” she said. I didn’t have to ask to know she was referring to the revelation about Ironius’s plans for the journal.

“There’s no ‘us,’ ” I said. “You didn’t hear anything.”

“Drothe…”

“Get your ass back and watch the apothecary’s family until this is over,” I said.

“What about you?”

“I’m a Nose,” I said. “When I hear dangerous things I don’t like, I go see my boss.”