Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  Evelyn peered anxiously through the hatch at the masts now converging from every direction. “Remind me again why we didn’t do this out at sea with only the gulls for company?”

  Ivan turned Ryia’s head to catch the light. “The Adept are given a serum as children so they cannot grow hair.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Evelyn said.

  “Well then, would it not look odd if she had hair sprouting like reeds? No. A fresh shave.” He held up his brush. “Besides, you try painting this design while Nash hits every verdammte wave in the Luminous Sea.”

  “Sorry, Ivan, next time I’ll make sure to dodge ’em,” Nash said.

  Ryia took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pressing walls of the tiny space. “Make sure the tail curves up. And the top part bends over backward.”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow, never lifting the brush from Ryia’s skull. “Which one of us is the expert forger?”

  Ryia’s eyes widened as Ivan reached for the lit candle beside them.

  “If you singe off my eyebrow, I will castrate you.”

  “I would like to see you try.”

  Ryia’s retort was lost in a hiss of pain as the first dollop of hot wax hit her skin. Ivan swirled the half-dried wax around Ryia’s left cheek. He followed with the red ink. A drop here, a drop there… then stepped back to examine his handiwork.

  “Fahlerlos,” he said, eyes glimmering with the smile his lips never seemed to form naturally. Flawless.

  “I think ‘terrifying’ is the word you’re looking for,” Tristan said, looking queasy.

  Ryia examined her reflection as Ivan held up a small mirror. Both words fit just fine.

  The freshly stitched robes. The sea serpent brand on her left cheek. Her shaven head, marked with a swirling black K.

  She adjusted the robes to make sure the hatchets lashed to her back were well-concealed. Hiding in plain sight. That was a game two could play, Guildmaster.

  “All right, next comes the docking inspection,” Evelyn said, looking about as uncomfortable in her dress and pointed shoes as a horse would in the same outfit. “Time to see if your so-called forger is as good as he claims to be.”

  Ivan pulled an ornate envelope from the pocket of his cobalt-blue jacket. “The execution is perfect, this I guarantee. As long as your memory has not failed you…”

  “My memory is fine,” Evelyn shot back, raised voice ricocheting around the narrow hold.

  “Then we’ve got nothing to worry about,” Nash chimed in. “Ivan’s been drawing up false letters for Clem since—ow!” The smuggler cut her sentence short as Ryia elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Not in front of the snitch,” she said, looking pointedly at Evelyn’s family ring, still circling her middle finger, cool metal sparkling in the sunlight streaming down through the open hatch.

  Evelyn pursed her lips at the jibe. “If you’re wrong, you lot won’t make it five steps off the dock without an arrow in your skull.”

  “I like how it’s ‘we’ when everything’s going all right and ‘you lot’ when it’s about to go to shit,” Ryia observed. “Anyone else notice that?”

  Evelyn shot her a glare that could freeze hot wax. “Adept servants aren’t supposed to talk. Maybe you should practice.”

  “I’m at a disadvantage there, Captain,” Ryia said smoothly, ignoring the shiver running down her spine. “Pretty sure they cut out the tongues of the true Adept.”

  A lie. Across the hold, Nash winced, lifting a hand absently to her jaw.

  “Maybe that can be arranged,” Evelyn said.

  “For Felice’s sake, give it a rest,” Nash said, climbing out of the hatch. The structured Borean jacket and leggings made her look at least ten years older than she was. The auburn-colored wig just made her look ridiculous. She gestured to her costume. “I didn’t spend every crescent I got from that prick Bardley on this shit so we can fail this job before it even starts.”

  Evelyn shouldered past Ryia, pulling herself up the ladder. “Get away from the bloody helm, Nash. I’ve told you five times.” She grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stand here. Ivan here…”

  She positioned every member of the crew carefully. When she got to Ryia she grabbed her by the collar, dragging her into place beside Nash. Evelyn’s vivid brown eyes burst with contempt as they bored into Ryia’s.

  “You don’t move. Your face doesn’t move. You don’t scratch an itch. You don’t make any of your little comments. You don’t say a damned word.”

  “I’ve never seen an Adept before, so that’s helpful, thanks.”

  Evelyn’s eyes narrowed, and Ryia immediately regretted saying anything at all. She could tell the captain was thinking back to the docks in Carrowwick. Back to the Disciples that should have taken her down. Remembering that there was really only one answer to the question of how she was still drawing breath. No normal person could hope to best a single Kinetic, let alone two of them… let alone Disciples.…

  But she said nothing, just turned away and took her place beside Tristan as The Hardship drew steadily closer to the Guildmaster’s harbor.

  “You wreck my ship and you’re dead,” Nash murmured to the crewman at the helm.

  “It’s not your ship,” Tristan protested.

  “What do you mean it’s not my ship?”

  “We all stole it together—it’s our ship.”

  “On the list of suspicious behaviors that will out you as thieves, where do you think bragging about theft is?” Evelyn hissed.

  A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of Ryia’s naked skull as the ship slipped past the skeletal masts of those already tied to the docks. This was it. The first real hurdle.

  The auction was two days long. One full day to case the island, to set up the last few metaphorical dominos, and one day to actually pull off the job itself. There would be plenty of chances for them to get caught, but this was the first. The first test of the ramshackle plan they had thrown together in the absence of the brilliant Callum Clem.

  Any misstep and they’d be marched down to the infamous cells beneath the Guildmaster’s manor, where they would be questioned, tortured, and eventually killed. That was a comforting thought.…

  “What now?” she asked through the side of her mouth as Nash’s crew secured The Hardship.

  The only response she got was an anxious shh from Tristan and a glare from Evelyn. A moment later two near-identical Disciples boarded the ship.

  Near identical. They were all near identical: all bald, tattooed, and wearing the same damned blue robes. Really, it was lucky none of them were given names; the Guildmaster would have had a bitch of a time keeping them straight.

  Ryia gave her eyes a dull cast, staring straight ahead at nothing. Her heart was still racing. Stupid thing. She held her breath as the Disciples stopped just in front of her, not releasing it until their eyes slid over her with cold disinterest.

  They didn’t recognize her.

  Of course they didn’t recognize her. It was beyond paranoid to think they would have. Not counting the Guildmaster, there were only five Disciples who had gotten close enough to see Ryia’s face in the past nine years. Five Disciples who were now just five rotting corpses scattered around Thamorr.

  The Disciple on the left clapped twice. “Search the ship. Come on, hurry up, we have dozens of these to check.”

  “Sorry, master,” came the somber, many-voiced reply.

  A flurry of blue robes streamed from the docks onto the ship. Adept in training. Their heads were shaven but uninked, their faces still wary and expressive, not dead and emotionless like the purchased Adept living as slaves on the mainland. So these hadn’t been fully brainwashed. Not yet.

  When, she wondered, did they lose that last glowing ember of free will?

  They flitted over the decks and beneath the hatch, searching for contraband. Ryia felt Evelyn tighten beside her, but there was no need to worry. The only incriminating materials on board were the black beads Ivan had bought back in Golden Port, a
nd those were tucked safely inside his trousers. She seriously doubted they would think to check there.

  The Adept-in-training emerged empty-handed from the cargo hold.

  “Nothing?” asked the Disciple on the right.

  “Nothing, master,” answered one of the young ones.

  The Disciple on the left nodded, then turned to Ivan. He held out a hand and coughed expectantly.

  Ivan shared a confused look with Nash as the Disciple sighed in irritation, snapping his fingers impatiently. They had never been around Disciples before, clearly. Had never seen an Adept express a human emotion before. Did they think they were all born as mindless zombies? They had to know the Guildmaster had his own free will—how else would he rule? And who did they think took over as the next Guildmaster when the last one died? One of the Disciples—always. Ryia didn’t know the process, exactly, but she could only assume it was some kind of fucked-up gladiator-style battle for the title. If the Disciples were just as brainwashed as the poor saps that got sold to mainland masters, how could any of them step up and take on the mantle of Guildmaster? No. Some of them had to stay clearheaded. And impatient, from the looks of these two.

  Ivan pulled the invitation from his jacket pocket, and the Disciple grabbed it with gloved fingers. He turned his head, and Ryia saw the S tattooed amid the intricate swirls of ink covering his skull. A Senser. She’d have to keep her murderous thoughts at bay, then. Always a challenge.

  The entire crew held its breath as the Disciple looked over the invitation. Anxiety melted into sagging relief as he handed the envelope back to Ivan.

  “Welcome to the Guildmaster’s island,” the Disciple said. He didn’t sound very welcoming. Then he turned abruptly, descending back onto the dock.

  Ryia shared a look with the others as the Disciples and their young charges disappeared up the gangplank to the next ship on the docks. They had done the impossible. They had made it onto the island.

  * * *

  AFTER MORE than two weeks trapped on that bobbing cork, the cobblestone path felt unnaturally hard under Ryia’s feet. She might have sighed with relief if she wasn’t currently dressed as her worst fear, walking straight toward the man she had been running from for nine long years.

  The paths leading across the island were lined with vendors. Old men watched painted young women, holding out strings of jewels Ryia imagined would be one hell of a nuisance while scaling a wall. Sniveling noble children surrounded carts full of cakes and tarts. Their party was pushed aside as a troupe of dancers streamed from a ship waving the Edalish flag, heading for the arena. The performers’ dresses were made almost entirely of feathers. Evelyn eyed them with a wrinkled nose.

  The clothing became more and more ridiculous the closer they drew to the arena. Massive lace skirts, tights and velvet pants, doublets even Callum Clem wouldn’t be caught dead in. The crowds were so thick, Ryia felt like she couldn’t breathe. What a way to go, smothered by silk and body odor.

  Finally the archway to the arena came into view. The twin pillars were made to look like Adept servants—one a bulky Kinetic, the other a wiry Senser—kneeling with their eyes to the ground. Their carved stone backs supported a massive carving of Thamorr. The unified kingdoms, borne on the backs of the Adept. Subtle.

  The arena was massive. Even larger than the ones built for those ridiculous prancing show horses in Gildemar. It looked like half of a giant fruit bowl, smooth stone steps leading down to a base tiled in an elaborate mosaic in the same pattern tattooed on the Disciples’ heads. The seats on the steps were already nearly full despite the crowds still surging through the archway, and at the bottom of the pit, some very familiar faces were arranged haughtily in the first row beside the auction stage.

  In the first set of thrones, sipping tall goblets of clear liquor beneath a black-and-red banner featuring a snarling bear, sat four Boreans: the Tovolkovs. King Andrei, far on the left, reminded Ryia powerfully of a potato, albeit a potato someone had obviously tried to carve into a man.

  Thankfully the children seemed to have taken after their mother, Queen Isabeth. She was taller than her husband by far. Slender as an adder and about as friendly, if the rumors were true. Despite the heat, the lot of them were dressed head to toe in furs. A status symbol in Boreas, but the morons would drown in their sweat before midday this far south.

  Beside that dreary lot was the pompous-looking egret of Gildemar, the golden sigil suspended on a vivid teal background. All the people seated beneath it were plump and ruddy cheeked, aside from the queen Irisa, sister to old Potato Face. No matter what chains she wore, Ryia thanked the goddesses she hadn’t been born noble. Imagine having to use your genitals to form a political alliance. Worse than torture.

  The lace-sailed ship of Dresdell was next, positioned over King Duncan Baelbrandt and his party. Evelyn fidgeted at the sight of the purple-clad guards beside them. If it weren’t for Ryia—for what she had done to Efrain Althea—Evelyn would be dressed all in purple, standing there beside her king right now. Ryia’s stomach dropped, cheeks heating as a pang of something shot through her. Guilt? Impossible. She was immune to the emotion.

  Next came a foursome seated beneath a bright orange banner bearing a storm-gray scorpion. Ryia couldn’t help but stare at the woman seated in the left-hand chair. She had never seen this woman before, but she knew who she was. Queen Calandra Althea. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, all radiating with quiet, calm power.

  She and her Gildeshman husband were flanked on either side by the children they had not managed to marry off yet: the crown princess on the left, Ryia’s old friend Efrain Althea seated on the right. She almost lost her composure when she saw the jeweled glove covering his right hand, hiding his missing finger.

  The last party, seated beneath a banner of a silver willow tree on a grass-green backdrop, looked as though someone had just pissed in their wine. She wasn’t surprised; it was the party from Edale, after all. Tolliver Shadowwood sat on the left. He reminded Ryia of Clem. Calm and collected, his eyes flitting over every inch of the arena, watching and calculating. It was hard to believe this was the man foolish enough to think he would be able to hide the stolen Quill from the Guildmaster and his Disciples long enough to grow his own army from literal infants. Once again, Ryia was struck by the odd feeling that she was missing something about the Quill. She pushed the thought aside.

  The woman seated beside Shadowwood was at least fifteen years his junior. She looked oddly familiar, but maybe that was just because she was the spitting image of her mother, Queen Calandra of Briel. Skin the color of mahogany, dark hair coiled into a bun at the crown of her head. The only sign of her Gildesh father was in her eyes—so pale a blue they looked sharp, like glinting shards of glass.

  The chair beside her was empty, the other two chairs filled with squirming children. The empty seat, of course, would be for Dennison Shadowwood. So dramatic. Did they think he was just going to turn up and take his chair? If no one had tried to ransom the missing crown prince yet, it was because he was already dead.

  “Quit schwindlin,” Ivan hissed a few steps away.

  She turned her head slightly to see Tristan clench his fists at his sides, staring stubbornly at the ground. He was grinding his teeth. And sweating like a Borean in Sandport. What was his problem? Aside from the obvious.

  A hush fell over the crowd. The thick air snared in Ryia’s throat as she saw… him. He swept across the stage, his rotten eyes combing the crowd, and his worm lips curled into a superior sneer. She could almost feel the heat of the flames, hear the rattle and clank of brittle chains splintering. The raw memory of charred flesh and blood swirled in her nostrils. Her fingers twitched, longing to reach for the hatchets hidden beneath her robes. She fought to keep her face still, her eyes dead as hatred pulsed through every inch of her.

  The seventh Guildmaster of Thamorr had arrived.

  19

  IVAN

  Ivan knew the most dangerous part of the job had yet to begin, bu
t he could not help but feel relieved as his feet finally left the deck of that verdammte ship. Nash always said a ship was the purest form of freedom. How was it freedom to be restricted to twenty paces each way for weeks on end?

  Perhaps he was still sour from his first sea voyage. Three years ago, stowed away behind sacks of leeks and crates of stervod on the first ship he found sailing south from Boreas.

  Ivan shook the thought from his head, holding his shoulders back as he cast a cool eye around the arena. Evelyn had warned there would be a number of Adept here, but Ivan had never imagined this many. Dozens of bald, tattooed Disciples encircled the pit, blue cloaks swirling in the wind. They seemed even more dangerous after what Ivan had seen back in the harbor… now that he knew the Guildmaster’s soldiers all had thoughts and minds of their own. Every noble, merchant, and child seemed to be accompanied by his own Adept servants as well, brought from the mainland. These Kinetics and Sensers were the more familiar breed—stone-faced and branded, padding obediently at their masters’ heels, all of them purchased at this very event in some year past.

  The Kinetics received most of the attention, but anyone with a brain knew the Sensers were the greater threat. The old stories said they could read minds and see into the future. The Butcher had brayed like a donkey when Evelyn had said as much. She insisted the Sensers would take no notice of them as long as no one decided to start lopping off heads. Ivan was not sure how Ryia would know something like that, but she had snuck in and out of the Bobbin Fort half a hundred times and come out with all her limbs attached, so she could not be completely clueless.

  So far, it appeared she was right. Dozens of Sensers within a stone’s throw of where they sat and not a single alarm had been raised. Hopefully, Ivan’s team was just as conveniently oblivious to his machinations when the time came. His stomach clenched with guilt at the thought, but the guilt was pointless. The choice between Kasimir’s life and the lives of a few of Clem’s dock rats should be an easy one. “Should” being the operative word there, unfortunately. He tucked the thought away.