Among Thieves

by M. J. Kuhn

  “And why in the hells would you want to do that?”

  “Now that I know what that Quill can do, I can’t exactly let Clem sell it to the craziest son of a bitch in the world, can I?”

  Of course the captain would have an honorable reason for helping her.

  “So you want to team up with the most wanted criminal in Thamorr? A risky plan.” Ryia gave a hollow laugh, walking her fingers absently over the axes lining her belt. “What if it fails?”

  “Then we run,” Evelyn said. “If you really are the most wanted criminal in Thamorr, I figure you should be pretty good at that.”

  “We?” The word fell oddly on her ears. Would the captain really want to come with her? “You sure you’re ready for life on the run? Not as glamorous as those stupid Edalish poems make it seem.”

  Evelyn studied her own bare middle finger. “No, you’re right. I’ve got so much waiting for me back in Carrowwick.”

  Ryia stared at her blankly. Sarcasm was a new color on the captain. She had to admit, she didn’t hate it. Surprising even herself, she held out a hand. A shiver spanned her shoulder blades as Evelyn grabbed it, giving a firm shake. “Welcome to the team.”

  33

  TRISTAN

  The two weeks Tristan spent in the smugglers’ compartment of Lord Niall Wilson’s ship were the most unpleasant of his life. The stuffy heat and constant odor of feces wasn’t even the worst of it. No, the worst was the guilt pummeling his brain like a battering ram every second of the night and day. He hadn’t had a choice; he knew that. Wyatt Asher and the Kestrel Crowns had backed him up against the wall.

  The instant he was alone, Rafferty had dragged him halfway across the island and reminded him of what the Crowns knew. Reminded him that he needed to cooperate, and if he didn’t… well, then she would alert the Shadow Wardens that the boy they had been chasing for months was sitting right under their noses. Tristan would have been shipped back to Edale that very night, so he had agreed to the Crowns’ terms. Agreed to sell out the Saints. To sell out Ryia.

  He kneaded his temples, balancing the stolen relic of Declan Day on one kneecap as a fresh wave of anguish washed over him. If she had just looked angry when he had looked back at that tower he might have been able to stomach it. But instead her expression had been… hollow. She would never forgive him.

  Thwack.

  The dull thud of metal biting into wood shook him from his torpor. He turned, irritated, toward his companion.

  Tana Rafferty.

  She sat crouched in the shadows, round face wide in an oddly childlike smile, dark hair piled on top of her head. She pulled a small, silver object from her belt. Circular, lined with blades. A Gildesh throwing star. It snapped through the fetid darkness, embedding itself in the rotting wood. She threw another. Then another. And another.

  Tristan finally snapped as she reached for her belt yet again. “Can you cut that out?”

  “Look who’s found his voice again.” She threw a sixth star.

  “At least one of us is keeping quiet,” Tristan griped.

  The deckhands on this ship might be friendly with Wyatt Asher, but Tristan doubted Lord Niall Wilson had any idea that two highly sought-after criminals were stowed away beneath his feet. Rafferty would surely give them away if she kept chucking those cursed throwing stars around.…

  Of course, it wasn’t just the threat of discovery that was annoying him. If he was being honest with himself, Rafferty’s bored habit of engaging in target practice reminded him a little too much of Ryia. Another wave of guilt crashed down.

  You didn’t have a choice, he intoned silently. Even Ryia would understand that, right?

  Tana Rafferty laughed, the sound of fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. “Settle down, Mr. Beckett. We’re almost there. If the bastard tried to throw us overboard, we could probably swim for it at this point.”

  Tristan flipped the Quill around in his fingers. It was heavy. Much heavier than it ought to be. “If I have to swim with this thing in my pocket, I think I’ll drown,” he said, fiddling with the engraved edges.

  “How terrible that would be,” Rafferty said drily.

  “Ha-ha,” Tristan said. “Don’t forget you owe me a cut. You would never have gotten within a bowshot of this without me.” He shook the Quill. It sloshed way too loudly for such a little thing, the ink moving in a strangely sluggish way as it flowed around inside the chamber.

  Asher had promised him a thousand crescents for his cooperation. Though “cooperation” was a strong word, seeing as the alternative had been for Asher to collect the bounty on his head. He picked at the edge of the Quill, frowning as a piece of carved wood pulled free, revealing a small panel dotted with smudges. Fingerprints? He counted them. One, two, three… seven. Seven distinct prints, most old and faded, one still prominent and clear, all reddish brown in color. Blood? Odd.

  He snapped the panel on the Quill shut again as Rafferty cackled. “Don’t you worry, you’ll get your cut,” she said, bowing sarcastically. “We’ll meet up with Wyatt in the harbor, then you can run off to Boreas or wherever in the hells you’re trying to go.”

  He had no idea where he planned to go, in truth. Anywhere several hundred miles away from Duskhaven would work just fine. He turned back to Rafferty.

  “Fine by me.”

  Rafferty grinned, cracking her knuckles absently. “I’m so glad you agree.” She threw another star across the compartment with a wink. “Otherwise this whole operation would fall apart.”

  “Any plans on how to get us past the docks without getting picked off by the Saints, by the way?” Tristan griped. “Maybe you should work on that instead of your snarky comments.”

  “The Saints? Last I heard Callum Clem was chained to the walls of the Bobbin Fort dungeons. The Saints are deader than the rest of the crew you brought with you to that island.” She drew a finger across her throat.

  “They’re not my crew,” Tristan said, stomach flipping. Was she right? Were they all dead? “And the Saints can burn for all I care.”

  She shrugged, indifferent. “Either way, if they got off that island, I’m Declan Day.”

  Tristan rested his head against the inside of the hull, peering through the inch-wide knothole that had been slowly flooding their compartment with frigid sea water since they’d set sail. The sun glinted off the surface of the Yawning Sea, and above he could feel the quickening pulse of footsteps, hear the call of gulls circling. He smelled the familiar reek of stale beer, urine, and salt water. And there it was. Carrowwick Harbor.

  It looked just as it had the day he left: the steep roofs of the houses, the rows of ships lining the docks, the busied people bustling through the streets and alleys. A pang built inside him as he realized he’d soon be leaving, never to return. Strange that the city that had taken him hostage had somehow come to feel so much like home.

  But no. If the Lottery had somehow felt like home, it was only because of the people he had doomed back on the Guildmaster’s island.

  It was the only way, he reminded himself again. If the others had made it back alive… well, the Saints had no shortage of punishments for traitors. No punishment for Tristan would end with him walking free of Carrowwick. In fact, none of them would end in him walking again at all.

  Or breathing.

  Tristan nervously ran his fingers over the swirling markings carved into the Quill as the ship slipped into its cozy slot on the northern dock. The noises above slowly subsided into silence. Finally, he could escape this horrible box. When the hidden slat of wood above them shifted, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  But it caught in his throat when he saw the face that greeted them.

  Wyatt Asher.

  The Kestrel Crowns’ leader was as tall as a winding willow, his long face haunted by deep shadows beneath sharp, copper eyes. Eyes matched almost exactly by the set inside the head of the tawny-feathered bird perched on his shoulder. It cocked its head, snapping its beak as Asher’s face split into a reptilian
smile.

  “Sybaris wants to know if you’ve brought him anything,” he said.

  Rafferty leapt to her feet, letting Asher pull her from the dank compartment with one spidery hand. “Sorry, Syb. I only brought one rat with me,” she said, looking at Tristan. “He’s not for eating.”

  Very clever.

  Asher’s eyes flicked to him for the first time. He looked him up and down. “So you have.” He tipped his head mockingly. “Honored.”

  Tristan scowled at him, dropping the Quill unceremoniously into Asher’s waiting palm. The Crown’s hand bobbed downward under its surprising weight. The bird shrieked and snapped its beak at him.

  “There,” Tristan said. “You have your prize. Now if you’ll hand over my crescents, I’d like to get out of this cursed city.”

  Asher didn’t respond, just stared at the Quill, running a finger along its carven edges and studying the deep reddish ink covering the nib. Rafferty pulled the scroll of parchment from her pocket and handed it over as well.

  “Do you know what this is?” Asher asked, unrolling the top few inches of the scroll with shaking fingers.

  “No clue,” Tristan said. “But you get paid either way, right?”

  Asher smiled, examining the scroll. “At least that double-crossing snake managed to teach you the value of a crescent,” he said, clearly referring to Clem.

  Tristan craned his neck, sneaking a peek as Asher unrolled the scroll another inch. Was that a map of Thamorr? They had gone all that way for a fancy writing stick and an ordinary map? That made no sense.

  Then he saw the dots.

  Tiny smudges of reddish brown, the same color as the fingerprints on that hidden side panel, moving across the landscape of the map. There was some magic at work here. Some very old magic that showed the location of something. The Adept in Thamorr? Yes, that must be it. Coming from the Guildmaster, what else could it be?

  Tristan straightened, looking away as Asher rolled the map back up, tucking it beneath one arm. The Crowns’ leader then inspected the Quill again, inky hair shadowing his face. He extended a single finger, pulling it away as it marked him with a tiny crimson dot. “Red ink? I had no idea the Guildmaster had such a flair for drama.”

  Tristan stared at the vivid red dot on Asher’s finger, thinking of the slow way the ink had sloshed inside the Quill. Of the way the marks on the map had faded to brown. No ink he had ever seen faded like that.

  “I don’t think it’s ink,” he said, unable to stop himself as his curiosity welled up inside him.

  “Oh?” Asher asked, looking amused. “And what, pray tell, do you think it is?”

  “Blood.”

  Rafferty sniffed Asher’s finger, then looked up. “He’s right. It’s blood.”

  “Blood…” Asher’s eyes lit curiously as he spun his finger to one side, allowing the red droplet to catch a ray of sunlight filtering through the uneven slats of the ship. “Interesting.”

  Tristan frowned, staring at the Quill. He thought back to the Adept he had seen growing up in his father’s house. Each bore a near-identical scar in the crook of their arms, hidden in the folds of the elbow. The scars were deep and twisted, like the kind he had seen on patients in the infirmary after bloodletting. Was the Quill filled with the blood of Adept servants? But why? The Guildmaster was rich beyond measure—surely he could afford to purchase ink. There had to be a reason for it. Perhaps the blood powered the Quill? Gave it the magic it needed to find the Adept? Too many questions, not enough answers.

  Then again, what did he care? With any luck he would never see this Quill or any of the men interested in buying or selling it ever again.

  “Fascinating,” Tristan said drily, forcing his mind to stop racing. “Now, my cut. I’d like to get my hands on it while I still have enough fingers left to spend it.”

  Asher looked up, rubbing his own fingers together to dilute the blood. He stared at Tristan a moment, then snapped his fingers. A group of filthy, broad-shouldered men crowded into the lower deck. Tristan’s heart pounded a steady path up his trachea as he backed up, nearly falling back into the smuggler’s compartment.

  “What in the hells is this?” he asked. But he was pretty sure he already knew.

  Asher smiled as two of the men grabbed Tristan. A third approached with a clanking set of manacles, a fourth with a canvas sack for his head. Tristan thrashed, yanking one arm free. He plunged a shaking hand into his pocket and pulled out a tattered square of parchment, waving it in Asher’s face.

  “We had a deal.”

  Wyatt Asher plucked the letter from his fingers, holding it up to the light for a minute. Then he tore it into four neat pieces, letting them flutter to the deck. Tristan’s head was forced down just in time to see the last piece waft to the damp wood. The piece bearing that horrible name. His name. The one he had tried so hard to leave behind.

  Dennison Shadowwood.

  “Nothing personal, my dear prince. Just business.”

  Tristan flailed against his captors as the manacles clicked into place around his wrists.

  “No need to cause a scene,” Asher said, his voice half-muffled by the thick sack as it was thrust over Tristan’s head.

  Tristan’s voice faltered as the men surrounding him began to walk him forward, step by step. “Where are you taking me?”

  Another question he knew the answer to already. His stomach sank lower than the bottom of the ocean. He had betrayed his crew and left them for dead for nothing.

  Tristan thought he could feel the smile creeping up Asher’s face, even though he couldn’t see it.

  “To see your father, Your Highness.”

  34

  NASH

  It had been years since Nash had spent enough time on dry land for anywhere to really feel like “home.” Believing she didn’t call anywhere home was easy enough, and it made setting sail much simpler. After all, it was awfully hard to miss something she didn’t have. But now, standing in front of the burnt-out shell that used to be the Saints’ row house, Nash had to admit she was homesick.

  “What in Yavol’s realm happened here?” Ivan asked, prodding a charred scrap of wood with the toe of his boot.

  “Needle Guard?” Nash guessed. She should have expected this; the last time she had been here, the place had been crawling with guards. But still, she felt numb.

  “Clem?” Evelyn asked, her voice oddly small.

  Nash didn’t respond. Last they had heard, Cal had been arrested, and they had been gone over a month. In all likelihood, Callum Clem had been hanged for his crimes by the king of Dresdell. The row house was already a pile of used kindling, and when they had shoved off from the southern dock it had been crawling with Harpies. The rest of the Saints were probably gone.

  Then again, “in all likelihood” never seemed to apply to Cal. Nash put even odds on him being dead or alive, at the moment. They would find out soon enough.

  “Well. What now?” Ryia asked.

  There was a long pause, then: “The Miscreants’ Temple would seem to be a natural choice,” Ivan said, naming the Saints’ infamous gambling hall.

  Ryia tapped a finger along the axes lining her belt. “If it’s still standing, I’ll meet you there.”

  Evelyn started. “Where in the hells are you going in the meantime?”

  “To see if I can catch any sign of our good friend Mr. Beckett.” With that, the Butcher scaled the abandoned shop across the street and was gone.

  “Nash, Evelyn,” Ivan said, turning down the alley that would lead them to the Temple. Nash took one last look at what was left of the Saints’ beloved row house, then followed.

  * * *

  DESPITE RYIA’S dark implication, the Temple looked just the way they had left it some five weeks ago. Dingy, rotting, and lopsided, but still standing. Nash hesitated. It looked the same as always from here, but if Cal really was gone, they could fling that door open to find it full to the brim with Kestrel Crowns or worse.

  “Oh, for Adalina’
s sake. Do I have to do everything?” Evelyn marched forward, rapping on the door with one hand, the other hovering over her sword.

  They shared several long, silent breaths. Then the door creaked open.

  Nash’s face broke into a wide smile as Roland, the Saints’ slowest card man, answered the door.

  “Nash, Ivan! How the hell are ya?” he asked. Unnaturally friendly son of a bitch.

  “Confused, Roland,” said Nash. “What in Felice’s darkest hell is going on?”

  Roland scratched his cheek with the three fingers left on his right hand. “Tonight? Nobleman’s Luck tourney, I think—”

  Nash rolled her eyes. “Not the schedule, you ass.” She laughed incredulously. “The row house?”

  Roland’s smile faltered. “Ah, you’ve been gone that long, eh? Yeah, we lost the house. Terrible. Clem was in a mood for weeks.”

  Nash shared a look with Ivan, then with Evelyn.

  “Callum is… here? In the Lottery?” Ivan asked carefully.

  Roland nodded slowly, as though worried Ivan had lost his mind. “Where else would he be?”

  So, Cal hadn’t just escaped, he had done it so quickly the rest of the Saints didn’t even know anything had happened to him. Nash knew they shouldn’t have been worried.

  Her burgeoning smile fell as her eyes met Ivan’s.

  “He will not be happy,” he said, pushing past Roland and into the bustling interior of the Temple.

  “Which is different from usual how, exactly?” Evelyn asked, looking somehow both relieved and horrified.

  “You haven’t seen the man angry yet.” Nash shot her a look. “What you’re about to see will probably make the Callum Clem you met last month look like a cuddly little kitten.”

  “Where is he?” Ivan asked, looking back at Roland.

  The rotund man gestured toward the back room of the Temple, the place where the scheme for this whole bullshit adventure had been hatched in the first place. “You sure you wanna go in there?”