The Book of Maladies Boxset

by D. K. Holmberg

  “It might be perfectly safe, but I’m tired of being a lowborn.”

  Bastan shot her a hard look. “Do you really think that such classification matters at all?”

  “It matters when you are lowborn. It matters when you don’t have anything.”

  “You have much more than you realize.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as a brother who cares for you. A place that you can always go that is safe. A… friend… who wants nothing but the best for you.”

  “Which friend is that?”

  Bastan glared at her. “I didn’t think I had to explain myself anymore than that, but perhaps you are denser than I realized.”

  Sam shook her head, laughing. “You know I’m just kidding you, Bastan. But I don’t intend to stay in Caster forever. It might be home to you, but that’s because you run the entire section. I don’t have that same advantage, or tie to anyone here . Eventually I…”

  She what? What did she want for herself? Sam wasn’t even sure that she knew. She wanted to get out of Caster, but from there? What would she do? Where would she go?

  She would buy her way to another section.

  It had happened before. There were plenty of stories of that in the city, people making enough money and moving on, finally moving from lowborn to highborn status. Sam was determined to be one of those people, and all it took was enough money. She was willing to take jobs from Bastan in order to accumulate the wealth needed for her to finally get away. And when she did, she was not going to be a thief anymore. She was finally going to be something else, though at this point, she wasn’t entirely certain what that might be. Maybe a Kaver. Or maybe she would be something else entirely.

  “I will offer you the standard fee for this assignment,” Bastan said.

  “What’s the standard fee? You forget, I’ve been working on your behalf or so long, that I don’t even know what my time and effort is worth.”

  “I will give you the same offer as before.” When Sam started to protest, Bastan raised his hands. “Before you object, realize that is enough to feed you for many months outside of Caster.”

  Sam swallowed. He was right. Inside of Caster, all she had to do was go to Bastan’s tavern, where she was always allowed to eat whatever she needed. Bastan never asked for payment.

  Maybe he was nicer to her than she gave him credit for.

  “Fine. I’ll do this. When do you want it done?”

  “There’s no timeline.”

  “No timeline, but there’s some urgency. There’s always an urgency with you, Bastan.”

  Bastan flashed a smile. “Samara, you know me so well. Yes, I suspect many of the items currently stored there will begin moving out within the week. If you get in and out within the next couple of days, you should be fine. If you wait much longer than that, it might be too late for you to do anything.”

  “And by that, you mean it might be too late for you to acquire whatever it is you’re after.”

  Bastan shrugged. “Is there a difference?”

  Sam chuckled. “I’ll do it. Since I can’t seem to figure out whatever it is Marin is after, I might as well take this job for you.”

  And since Alec was gone, off at the university, what else was Sam going to do? She was a thief, at least until she could buy her way out of Caster. She might have the ability to be a Kaver, but for now, she was nothing more than a thief.

  18

  The Warehouse

  The last time Sam had taken a job for Bastan, she had failed him. She was determined not to have the same thing happen this time. But as she crouched on the roof of the building across from the warehouse, she had an uneasy feeling. She worried that, regardless of how prepared she might be, she might still fail.

  Nothing moved. It hadn’t been hard to find the warehouse. Bastan was right in that the warehouse was marked exactly as he’d described, and thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anyone moving in or out. But it was that fact that bothered her. Shouldn’t someone be keeping watch over the warehouse?

  She kept her canal staff strapped to her belt. She didn’t want to draw any additional attention to herself by using it. The staff was easy to spot, at least when assembled, and it might limit her ability to sneak. In the end, she was faster without it this time.

  Besides that, Sam didn’t need the staff in order to be an effective thief.

  Satisfied that no one was going into the building, Sam crawled down from the rooftop, and dropped onto the street. She remained crouched in the shadows, her cloak wrapped around her, and she watched again for movement. Still, she saw no sign of anyone.

  She crept forward and crossed the street, using the darkness of night to remain hidden for as long as she could.

  No one moved.

  It wasn’t as if it was all that dark. The night was calm, and there came the occasional sound of birds overhead, and a few streets away, the sounds of people making their way along the streets, occasionally shouting, drifted to her.

  Here, there was nothing. It was silent.

  She reached the door and checked to see if it was locked. When she saw that it was, she pulled out the lock-pick set Bastan long ago had given her and made quick work of unlocking it. Sam turned the handle and stepped inside. She crouched down, keeping her cloak wrapped around her. She needn’t have bothered.

  On the other side of the door, rows of crates greeted her. There was some light, but it came from a distant source that she couldn’t quite see. Sam locked the door behind her and started making her way along the rows of crates, winding around as she navigated the warehouse.

  The crates were enormous, large enough that as she moved past them, she couldn’t even see over them. She looked around, trying to get up and over the crates, but didn’t think there was an easy way to do so without running the risk of making too much noise. It was possible that there was no one even in the warehouse, especially with what she’d seen from the street, but if there were people here, she would need to move as silently as possible.

  It left her meandering around the crates.

  How had Bastan even known there would be anything in here?

  Could he have come before? She wouldn’t put it past him. It was exactly the sort of thing Bastan would do. She could easily imagine him scoping out the warehouse before finally deciding that he would send her in.

  Unless he had been watching the movement of crates in and out of the warehouse.

  Sam reached the end of one row and hesitated. From here, she needed to be careful, and be certain no one was on the other side of the crates before going around them.

  There was no easy way.

  Sam pulled her canal staff from her belt and assembled the two ends, and then shimmied to the top of it. She wobbled before steadying herself, leaning against the crates nearest her for balance.

  She saw no sign of anything around the corner. She climbed onto the top of the crate and crouched there. Now that she was up here, she had a better vantage of the warehouse. She saw the rows of crates spreading out in front of her. There had to be at least a half-dozen rows.

  What was in them all?

  And who would have such wealth to keep it all here?

  That seemed to be a better question, though it seemed to be one that Bastan didn’t care about. All he wanted was some box, and she was determined to succeed in getting it and taking it to him, unlike the last assignment he’d given her.

  She crawled along the tops of the crates. Being elevated, and thus out of sight, she could flatten herself down on top of the crates if there was any movement below.

  She searched everywhere for a box with the symbol that Bastan had shown her. It wasn’t anywhere along this row, and she scrambled down, making her way to the next row, and then back up, preferring the safety of her elevated position. As she made her way along this row, she still didn’t see anything.

  Then came a flash of light.

  Sam dropped down on the crate.

  She pulled her canal staff to
her side, dragging it as quietly as she could. The flash of light had been brief, but she thought it had come from the direction of the entrance and was likely light from outside as someone opened the door.

  She needed to get closer to see if someone had, indeed, come into the warehouse. And if so, find out what they were doing.

  If someone had entered, were they after the same thing she was? She refused to run the risk of someone getting ahead of her and missing out on the opportunity to grab the box for Bastan.

  Kyza, but there weren’t any good options here.

  The most important thing was finding the box. Once she did that, then she could try to sneak out, though if there were other people in the room, getting out wouldn’t necessarily be easy.

  Sam stayed on top of the row of crates and crawled forward.

  She took even greater care to remain silent. When she reached the end of the row, she crawled down, using her staff to lower herself slowly to the ground. When she touched the ground, she cautiously moved forward, deciding that it was better to stay down rather than risk making noise climbing up and down the crates.

  She hurried to the next row, weaving around. Why had they set it up like this? It seemed almost as if it was purposefully designed to form a maze, though maybe there was another way in from a direction she hadn’t yet reached.

  When she turned the corner again, there were no more crates.

  Now, there were rows of tables. On the tables, she saw smaller boxes, and most of them had markings on them, though she didn’t see any with the marking that Bastan had wanted her to find.

  Sam hesitated, listening for sounds of movement, but she didn’t hear anyone behind her. That didn’t mean that whoever had followed her into the warehouse wasn’t here somewhere, it only meant that she didn’t hear them.

  Could they be even quieter than she was?

  She was a skilled thief and had plenty of practice maintaining silence as she walked, having long ago learned to sneak into places where she shouldn’t, but there were others who were equally skilled. She knew that.

  Sam scanned the rows of tables. All she needed was to find the box that Bastan wanted. Nothing more. As she walked, she couldn’t help but feel like there was too much kept in storage here. How much valuable merchandise did the merchant keep stored, and why not distribute it other places?

  She couldn’t think like that. It didn’t matter, not for the job she needed to do. All she needed was to find what Bastan asked of her. She didn’t need to worry about the wealth some people in the city managed to hoard. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, anyway. She was a thief, though, and could take some of it. Maybe even balance things out a little.

  When she passed another row of tables, this one containing strange-looking sculptures, she paused. For a moment, she considered grabbing one, but decided against it. If there was any value to them, Bastan would have asked her to grab them, and since he hadn’t, it meant they weren’t worth stealing. Besides, anything she took, she would have to move somehow. The only way she had of moving things around the city was through Bastan.

  As she continued around the rows of tables, a sound came from someplace behind her. It was near enough that she hesitated, listening to see whether she would get pinched or not. This wouldn’t be a good place for her to get caught, especially since there wouldn’t be any way for her to get word to Bastan about what happened. She trusted that he would come after her if he knew, but if he didn’t?

  It was better to simply not get caught.

  Sam hurried forward. As she passed another row of tables, she saw the symbol she had been instructed to find.

  It was small, and had she not been craning her neck, looking behind her to search for signs of whoever might be following her, she wasn’t sure she would have seen it, but now that she had, she couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

  The box was small, too.

  That was good. Otherwise, she would’ve had to figure out how to carry the crate out of here and find a way of moving it without getting caught.

  Sam grabbed the box and stuffed it under her arm.

  She couldn’t go back the way she’d come. If she did, she would run into whoever was following her. If she went forward, she ran the risk that there wasn’t any other way out.

  That was the risk she had to take.

  Sam hurried forward, clutching the box to her, and continued to weave around the maze of tables and crates. There had to be another way out, didn’t there?

  When she reached the back of the warehouse, she saw that she was trapped. There were no doors.

  She looked back. There was the occasional sound of footsteps, and it came often enough that she knew she was followed.

  There was one thing she could try, but she would have to move quickly—and moving quickly risked making noise.

  She scurried forward, reaching a row of crates, and quickly climbed on top of them. There was a little scraping as her canal staff rushed along the wooden crate, and Sam swore under her breath as it happened, wishing that she could be quieter.

  She threw herself flat on the crate and looked out.

  She would wait.

  Moments passed before she saw any movement.

  At first, she wasn’t sure what she would see. In this section, she expected guards, or at least men like Bastan hired, men who would keep the warehouse secure. It surprised her when she saw men more formally dressed, and they reminded her of those that had attacked Bastan’s tavern.

  She frowned. What was this about?

  Those men had been from the palace. She still didn’t know why they were after Bastan. Could it be because Bastan was after something that they pursued?

  It troubled her.

  She looked over at the box she’d taken. It was sealed tight, and if she broke it open, Bastan would question why she had, and would likely choose not to pay her.

  No. She didn’t want to do that.

  The men wandered through the warehouse, as if they were looking for something. At first, she thought they were looking for her, but maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were looking for this box.

  When they turned away, Sam waited, holding her breath, and then climbed down, and simply trailed behind them as they headed toward the only door to the warehouse and back outside. When she was back out on the street, she saw the men disappearing into the crowd. As much as she wanted to follow, she didn’t think she should. It was better that she return to Bastan, and present him with his prize. Then she could find answers.

  19

  An Apprenticeship

  “Where’s my gold?” Sam asked.

  Bastan looked at the box and said nothing.

  “You said you’d pay in gold coins.” She needed that money to buy her way out of this section. The longer she was here, the more certain of that she was.

  “I did. I don’t intend to stiff you, Samara.”

  Sam glanced around his office and noticed yet another painting. This one was strange, with smears of dark colors, almost a burnt orange, in a shape she didn’t recognize.

  How many paintings could he want? There always seemed to be something new with Bastan, and though she didn’t understand, at least he hadn’t asked her to be the one to find it this time.

  Bastan reached into a drawer at his desk and pulled out a small coin purse. He withdrew three gold coins and stacked them on the table. “You get the third if you can honestly tell me you took nothing else from the warehouse.”

  Sam glared at him. “Why would I have taken anything else?”

  “I will know if you aren’t being honest with me, Samara.”

  “And why would I need to lie to you about this?” she said.

  Bastan grunted. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  He ran his hands along the side of the box. Sam had taken time to examine it on the long walk back to Caster. She had made certain that no one was following her as she went, and when she was content that she wasn’t followed, she took a moment to see whether or not she
could break into the box, and whether she could determine what was inside that was so valuable to Bastan.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to figure out a way that would go undetected by Bastan. Whatever it was that he valued inside the box remained a mystery. It was sealed up tight. Not only was it nailed together, but there was some way the wood came together that created a seal, making it almost impossible for her to pry open without destroying it entirely. Until she knew what was inside, she wasn’t willing to risk that.

  Bastan, on the other hand, might.

  “What’s in it?”

  “It is of little matter,” he said.

  “What’s in the rest of the warehouse?” she asked.

  He looked up and chuckled. “That annoys you, doesn’t it? Seeing all of those crates, wondering how much wealth might be present there, and thinking that someone has something more than you?”

  Sam glared at him. “That’s not what I was saying.” She threw herself down in the chair across the table from him, looking at Bastan. Behind him hung a painting with the canals depicted on it. As she’d discovered when she’d snuck into his office a few days before, there was something behind the painting, though she doubted it was the easar paper. Maybe that really was gone. Sold. Had she only known what he hid back there, she would have kept it for herself.

  “That’s always what you’re saying, Samara. You’re always worried about what other people have, and you rarely take the time to be thankful for everything that you have.”

  That wasn’t her reason… at least, not all of it. The highborns thought so little of others that they didn’t even care about the dangers they brought to the city. “And you would think that I have so much?”