Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  “Ryia doesn’t eat meat,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” Evelyn leaned back from the sword she’d been sharpening.

  “What’s the problem, Captain?” Ryia asked.

  “The famed Butcher of Carrowwick doesn’t eat meat.”

  Ryia looked nonplussed. “I don’t see your point.”

  “You maim people for a living.”

  “Allegedly.” Ryia winked, flicking an axe into the air and catching it behind her back.

  Evelyn shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

  “One of my best traits, I think. Don’t you, Tristan?”

  Tristan nodded like a damned fool, and Ryia waved a hand toward him.

  “See? Tristan agrees. But really, are we going to stop for supplies? Even if I was willing to munch on dead cows with you animals, I don’t think there’s enough here to last us a month. You’d think we didn’t plan this at all.”

  Nash chewed on her lip as she tacked south across the eye of the wind. “We’re already moving at the speed of a Duskhaven snail in this wind. If we want to make it to the auction in time, you’re going to have to make do with whatever food is left on this bucket.”

  “Then I hope you won’t need me for whatever plan you manage to cook up, because I’m going to starve to death.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Is she always this dramatic?”

  “Sometimes even more so,” Tristan said. He leapt back as Ryia aimed a lazy slap at his arm.

  At that moment, the hatch swung open, landing with a bang on the deck.

  “What is this?” Ivan asked, poking his head out of the hold. The bag Cal had packed and left by the door of the row house dangled from his hand.

  “Hell if I know,” Nash said. “I’d say ask Cal, but…”

  Ivan pursed his lips, pulling a firework from the bag. “Where are my supplies?” No one answered, and he surged onto the deck. “My wax? My tools? My fabrics?”

  Nash scrubbed the back of her neck with one callused hand. “Do we really need all that?”

  “Only if you plan to survive this job.”

  After a long moment of silence, Nash sighed. “Fine. Rest up a bit, folks. We’ll be there by sunup.”

  “ ‘There’? Where is ‘there’?” Evelyn scratched an eyebrow, visibly agitated. “Has everyone forgotten we’re on a stolen ship? We don’t have the papers to dock anywhere.”

  “That’s not going to matter,” said Santi, Nash’s longest-standing crewman.

  “How in Adalina’s name is that not going to matter?”

  Nash just shook her head, tacking port toward the coastline. “Clearly you’ve never been to Golden Port.”

  * * *

  NASH WAS no stranger to the city of Golden Port. Just the opposite, actually. Her stomach turned as the sun peeked over the horizon. They had sailed through the night, and she could now see the city’s harbor in the distance, cast in shadow. She had been born and bred in this festering pit, the slum-riddled town that straddled the border between Dresdell and Gildemar. There were too many memories tied up in those streets. Too much Claudia, not enough Nash.

  She counted out five coppers, slapping them into the dock agent’s palm. The mousey little man squinted from the coppers to the ship and raked his eyes over the crew. Nash stood tall at the lead, Ryia cracking her knuckles just behind her. Both Evelyn and Tristan looked as though they might be sick. Ivan looked handsome but bored.

  “Your papers?”

  “Taken by the wind.” Nash slipped the man an extra coin.

  “Tragic. Happens all the time,” the man said, pocketing the coppers and stepping aside.

  Evelyn looked beyond appalled. She opened her mouth, seemingly to tell the docking agent off for letting them in illegally, but Nash grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the man. “Come on, you lot. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Which way’s food?” Ryia asked, a hand roaming absently over her stomach. Now that Nash thought about it, this was by far the longest she had seen the Butcher go without eating.

  She pointed toward Shepherd Street with her chin. The Butcher took off without another word. Evelyn bolted after her, muttering, “Someone’s got to make sure she doesn’t kill anyone.”

  Tristan wasn’t far behind, clinging to Ryia like a shadow.

  After they disappeared into the throng, Ivan cleared his throat. “I take it you know where to find what I need?”

  Of course she did. The one part of this damned city she had managed to avoid for the past ten years. Skuller’s Lane.

  They walked in silence through the crowded streets. Within three blocks Nash had broken the wrists of three pickpockets, and Ivan had neatly sidestepped two puddles that looked suspiciously like blood. Nash looked over at him as they passed a tavern that was far too rowdy for this time of the morning.

  “You all right?”

  “No,” Ivan said flatly, surprising her. “With Callum in prison…”

  “That silver tongue of his has gotten him out of tighter binds than this,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him. “He’ll be okay.”

  “What does that matter if he is a thousand miles away?” Ivan asked. “He was the one with the plan, Nash. Have you forgotten?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten,” Nash said. That was the whole reason they were in this damned city at all.

  “If we arrive on that island without a plan, we will be dead before we reach the shadow of the Guildmaster’s bell tower.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s arguing with that,” Nash said.

  “What exactly are you arguing, then?”

  “We might not have Cal Clem, but we still have some serious brains on this crew. And some strong fighters. Not to mention a badass ship captain and, er, whatever Tristan is good for.” Nash grinned as Ivan suppressed a smile. “Don’t get me wrong—there is at least an eighty percent chance that we are totally fucked. But a twenty percent chance of success? That’s a hell of a lot better than most card games, and thousands of bastards still play those.”

  “Yes, and they lose.”

  “Only the ones who play fair.”

  Ivan stared at her for a few steps. Then: “Do you actually know where we are going?”

  “Of course I do.”

  And there it was. Skuller’s Lane. Ten years and not a damned thing had changed. How was that even possible? It was almost as though the street was her own personal nightmare, kept in pristine condition.

  Nash pointed Ivan toward the seedy shops and stalls lining the street, averting her eyes from the second-floor apartment halfway down the lane. “Knock yourself out.”

  She leaned against a half wall of crumbling brick as Ivan chatted amiably with a pair of vendors a few yards away, undoubtedly charming them into selling sealing wax for half price or less. Hopefully, he would get what he needed quickly so they could all get the hell out of this place. Even at the best of times, dry land felt like a prison. But this alley was a hundred times worse. She couldn’t feel the wind or smell the salt of the sea. It felt like she was locked in a coffin being lowered into the ground.

  Her fingers found the leather strap around her neck and tugged it from beneath her shirt. She fidgeted with the small disc of granite, running her eyes over the elaborate carven whorls. They were starting to fade after years spent at sea.

  “Is that a namestone?”

  “What?” Nash jumped, tucking the necklace back into her shirt. “No, it’s nothing.” She turned to face Ivan, reaching for one of the bags in his arms, eager to change the subject. It was small, full of what looked like tiny black beads. “What’s all this?” She read the label. “Trän vun Yavol. Some kind of Borean sweet?”

  Ivan pulled the bag away with delicate fingers. “You will not want to eat those.”

  “Why not?”

  “They are worth more than your ship.”

  He tucked the sealing wax and face paints into his satchel along with the pouch of mysterious capsules. Nash’s stomach leapt
at Ivan’s closeness as he reached out, pulling the necklace back out by its strap.

  “What do they mean? The carvings?” he asked, examining the circular, looping scrawl.

  Nash cleared her throat. “They’re names.”

  “Your gods, yes?”

  “They don’t worship gods in Briel. They follow the ghosts of their ancestors. Which are kept”—she tapped the stone gently, pulling it from Ivan’s hands—“in here.”

  “I did not know you were Brillish.”

  “I’m not,” she said quickly, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “My ma is. Was.”

  Was. Nash still remembered how she’d found her mother, sprawled on the floor of the bedroom. The Gildesh Whisper. Such a nice name for such a horrible sickness. A brutally quick, bloody death. It spread through Golden Port like wildfire every few years, carried on the filthy backs of rats and pigeons. She suddenly felt like her skin was crawling, a hundred rats skittering over her flesh.…

  She shook her head, looking at the packages peeking out from the top of Ivan’s satchel. Fabric. Sealing wax. His mysterious little capsules. “Got everything? We should find the Butcher before she starts a riot. Or worse.”

  Nash turned, heading back the way they had come. After several steps, she could still feel the weight of Ivan’s gaze. She looked over her shoulder at him. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. Was that a blush she saw as he turned away? He was silent for a few steps as they wove through the crowds back toward the harbor. Then: “I heard they hung namestones. After…”

  He wasn’t wrong. The forests in Briel were full of the stones, dangling from the branches of the trees, clattering together in the wind. The traders called them the whispers of the dead. She had always meant to hang Ma’s stone, she had just never managed to find the right place.

  Nash was saved the trouble of answering the question by a familiar drawl.

  “Can we get moving, already?” The Butcher leaned against a tailor shop stoop, munching on a golden apple. “Whose idea was it to stop in this pisshole anyways?”

  The look Evelyn gave her could have poisoned a scorpion.

  Dread settled over Nash like a heavy blanket as she led the group back to their stolen ship. It would be fourteen days before their feet hit solid ground again, and that would be on the Guildmaster’s island. They had only two weeks to come up with a plan that would keep them alive. A plan as good as Callum Clem’s. Nash’s guts turned to stone. If they didn’t think of something spectacular… they were all going to die.

  16

  RYIA

  Ryia’s belly dropped and twisted alongside the crashing waves as the cog bobbed through the Yawning Sea. She had booked passage on her fair share of vessels in the past nine years, but those had been skiffs and small boats sailing up and down the rivers of Edale and across the ice lakes of Boreas. The open ocean? That was an entirely new beast.

  And, if that wasn’t enough, there was also the heat. Dresdellan summers might be miserable, but they were nothing compared to the suffocating air of the southern sea. She supposed she should be grateful they had managed to make it this far south at all. It had been dicey for several days. So dicey that Ryia had almost started to regret her decision to leave Clem behind. Almost.

  They had been chased out of Golden Port by Captain Brodeur’s flagship pirate vessel. Nash had to take a detour around the archipelago off the coast of Gildemar to give them the slip. Then came the storms. Three solid days of surging waves, whipping winds, and driving rains that had soaked them all to the core. Nash said they should be thankful for the change in the wind. They may be wet and bedraggled and heading for certain death, but at least now they would make it to the auction in time.

  All in all, it had been a terrible journey so far. So terrible that Ryia joked they should name their ship The Hardship. No one seemed to appreciate her humor.

  “And just like that, the hand is mine,” said Tristan, tossing a pair of tens onto the pile of cards on the overturned crate in front of him with one hand and taking a bite of the carrot held in the other. “Pay up.”

  A round of grumblings greeted him as the rest of the crew dug into their pockets, tossing random odds and ends onto the crate. They’d spent all their coin back in Golden Port, but a win was a win, so each gave what they had. Nash threw down a pair of wine corks. Ivan added a broken pencil. Ryia tossed a rusty lockpick onto the pile. Tristan might be the most junior member of their crew, but he was a lucky son of a bitch when it came to Bobbin Draw.

  Maybe it was foolish to waste time with card games when they didn’t have more than the ghost of a plan, but there was only so long a person could stare at a pile of maps and blueprints, waiting for inspiration to strike. They still had eight days. Eight days to figure out where the Guildmaster kept his magical Quill hidden, how to steal it, and how to escape the island with their lives intact.

  “So,” Evelyn said as she clumsily shuffled the worn playing cards, dealing another hand. “What’s so bloody special about this Quill anyways?”

  “It’s worth a damned fortune, that’s what’s so special about it,” Nash said, scooping up her cards and examining them.

  “I know that,” Evelyn said. “But aren’t any of you curious as to why?”

  Ryia picked up her own cards, steeling her expression. Maybe she should have let the Harpies snuff the captain out back at the Carrowwick Fair. The rest of the team was made up of thieves and con men—people used to thinking in terms of gold and nothing else. But if Linley kept calling their attention to the mystery of the Quill, they were bound to figure it out eventually. And if they discovered what it did… who knew what they would want to do with the thing then.

  “Not really,” Tristan said, examining his cards again, then sliding a wine-soaked cork into the pot at the center of their crate-table.

  “Perhaps we should care,” Ivan said thoughtfully, placing a broken paintbrush next to Tristan’s cork. “Perhaps if we knew what was important about this relic, it would help us figure out where the Guildmaster has hidden it.”

  “Exactly,” Evelyn said, pointing at the disguise master. “We should take a break from staring at the same three ruddy maps all day and try to puzzle out why anyone would want to steal it.”

  Even Nash looked interested now. Shit. This conversation was getting out of control fast.

  “Maybe it’s made of something really rare,” the smuggler mused.

  “Something so rare that a few ounces of it would be worth four hundred thousand crescents?” Ivan said, sounding unconvinced.

  “Could be,” Nash said defensively, tapping one finger on the edge of her cards. “What’s rarer than gold?”

  “I doubt this Quill is important just because it’s worth a lot of gold,” Evelyn said. “Tolliver Shadowwood is a bloody king—he already has enough wealth to last three lifetimes at least.” She chewed on her lip, putting her cards facedown on the crate and steepling her slender fingers. “It has to be worth more than crescents. It has to be worth…”

  “Power?” Tristan unexpectedly piped up. He flushed immediately, busying himself with his cards.

  “Exactly,” Evelyn said, picking her cards back up and slamming a bet of a broken button onto the makeshift table.

  “And what’s a bigger power move than cheeking the fucking Guildmaster of Thamorr?” Ryia asked, forcing her tone to stay casual. “He’d be a legend for pulling the wool over the eyes of a man like that.”

  “Except that he does not want credit for the theft,” Ivan pointed out. “He came all the way to Dresdell to hire his thieves and be sure his tracks were covered.”

  “And for good reason,” Evelyn said. “The Guildmaster will use his Disciples to beat into a pulp whoever steals this ruddy thing.”

  It was a good point, as much as Ryia hated to admit it. If whoever stole the Quill intended to use it to locate all the new, unbranded Adept, they would have to wait, what, at least ten years before the first babies started showing real signs
of magic? Until then, they would just be running a very dangerous nursery. Something prickled in the back of her skull at the thought—was she wrong about what the Quill was used for? Or was Tolliver Shadowwood just a fucking idiot?

  Across the makeshift table, the others were still bickering back and forth about the value of the Quill. Ryia let out a bark of laughter to cut through the chatter.

  “You want to know what’s so important about that Quill?” she said. “The fact that it’s important to the Guildmaster. That’s it. Maybe it’s made of ophidian bone, maybe it’s the pen Declan Day used to sign the treaty to end the Seven Decades’ War—who gives half a shit?” She looked at her own cards again, then folded without betting. “Shadowwood’s planning on using that Quill as a hostage—I’d bet my boots on it. Looking to trade it back to the Guildmaster for something he wants. Some extra Adept or something, or—”

  “Gildemar,” Tristan said. “To destroy them for kidnapping his son, I mean.”

  Ryia threw a hand out toward him. “Or Gildemar. Look, if we get too distracted trying to understand how these fucking nobles think, we’re never going to figure out where the damn thing is.”

  There was a long pause, then Nash said, “The Butcher’s right. We know it’s important, and we know we can make a shipload of gold off the thing. What else is there to know?”

  “Well, there is one more thing to know,” Tristan said. Dread crept up Ryia’s chest… but the boy just dropped a pair of sevens on the crate. “That I am the champion of Bobbin Draw.”

  The energy around the table lightened as the rest of them threw down their cards in defeat.

  Ryia always knew she liked that little con man.

  “Wait—” Evelyn said, throwing out a hand as Tristan moved to gather his paltry winnings. She fanned the pile of cards out on the table. “Why are there five sevens in this deck?” She pointed an accusatory finger at Tristan. “You’ve been cheating!”

  There was a long pause, and everyone but Evelyn burst out laughing, the conversation about the Quill seemingly already forgotten.