Before Amaranthe, Maldynado, and their prisoners had taken more than two steps toward the door, another soldier stomped into view, this one rounding the paper roll by the wall. Amaranthe and Maldynado flattened themselves to the side of the press, yanking their prisoners with them. She kept the pistol pressed to her man’s ribs to ensure silence.
The soldier pulled the wheelbarrow inside, then stuck his head outside. “Evik, Rudev, what are you doing out there?”
Amaranthe’s man inhaled and tensed, as if to shout and try to escape. She stood on tiptoes to clasp her hand across his mouth as she dug the pistol in deeper. “Nobody will hear the shot over the sound of the presses,” she growled in his ear. A lie, of course, but maybe it would give him something to think about for a few seconds. In that time, the fellow at the door stepped outside. He waved to someone, and lights flashed out there before the door closed, blocking the view. Another lorry driving up?
Maldynado looked over his shoulder at her, a question in his eyes. What now? He must have seen the lights too.
There weren’t any other doors within sight that they could escape through. Amaranthe eyed the stairs and finally nodded that way. They could go up to the loft, leave these two tied, and escape through that vent in the attic.
Still pressing the pistol into her captive’s ribs, Amaranthe guided him toward the stairs. They had to halt twice to duck behind machines. The two men who’d been carrying empty boxes earlier walked toward the door, their boxes full of pamphlets now.
Amaranthe and the others reached the staircase leading down without being seen. She was on the verge of releasing the breath she was holding when the back door opened again, letting more soldiers in. There were shadows around the stairs, but not that many shadows. Further, her captive took that moment to test her again. Maybe he’d figured out that she wouldn’t shoot after all.
He pretended to trip. She saw the ruse for what it was and adjusted her weight, pulling back to keep him up and on his feet.
“Someone’s looking this way,” Maldynado blurted and went for the closest set of stairs, the one leading down.
Still struggling to keep her captive on his feet without shooting him, Amaranthe almost tumbled down the stairs after him. If not for Maldynado, pushing his man down at a more measured pace, she would have ended up somersaulting down the hard stone steps, her limbs entangled with those of her prisoner. His broad back acted as a nicely meaty barrier, though, stopping their progress, and she found her balance. Her soldier had a harder time righting himself, and his foot slipped off a step. He lurched to the side, smacking his head on the stone wall. Amaranthe failed to feel sympathetic toward him.
“Anyone coming?” Maldynado whispered at the bottom, all four of them crowding onto the tight, musty landing, hemmed in by looming stone walls and an old but solid oak door.
“Not yet.”
The two soldiers were muttering something to each other. Amaranthe, fearing her threats with the pistol weren’t proving effective, caught one of his arms with her free hand, digging her thumb into a pressure point in his wrist and twisting the limb behind his back until he sucked in a pained gasp of air. He stopped muttering. One of Sicarius’s comments drifted through the back of her mind: the promise of pain is often more effective than the application of pain, for the mind conjures fears greater than reality. Sure, that worked for a scary-looking fellow dressed in black with a reputation darker than an eclipse, but for her? It was ever a struggle to convince men that she’d go through with her threats, hence her preference for avoiding the taking of prisoners. But they could hardly let these men go now. They’d charge right up the stairs, and, judging by the numbers of orders shouted above, there were more soldiers than ever up there. At least nobody had come over to peer down the staircase at them. Yet.
“Why’d you dart over to that press?” Amaranthe asked.
“Sorry about that,” Maldynado said. “Seeing Mancrest and that woman surprised me. What are we going to do with these two? They’ve seen our faces.”
Amaranthe was more interested in finding out more about “Mancrest and that woman,” but she could ask him for details once they escaped the building. Maldynado’s point was pertinent. She didn’t want Forge, or anyone else, knowing her team was back in town already.
“If we can get out, we could take them with us,” she said. “Tie them up back at our hideout for a few days so they can’t blab.” Having to guard prisoners would reduce the number of team members she could employ in the field, but maybe, given a little time, she could convince the soldiers to throw in their lot with Sespian. They were young. They might be influenceable.
“We don’t have a hideout yet,” Maldynado pointed out.
“I’m sure we do.” Amaranthe trusted the others had found something. “We just don’t know where it is yet.”
“How is that-”
“Discuss later. Is that door unlocked, by chance?”
Before he could answer, two people walked into view. No, they stopped within view. Ugh.
Amaranthe tightened the arm hold on her soldier in case the urge to call out revisited him. He sucked in a pained breath and rose to his tiptoes. Maldynado’s prisoner made a similar hiss.
The people who had stopped up above weren’t soldiers. It was a man and a woman. The man, a gray-haired fellow in a black and gray suit of immaculate cut, leaned his back against the wrought iron railing at the top of the stairwell. His face wasn’t visible, though he seemed to be talking and pointing to his comrade. The woman… she was facing the man, her arm linked with one of his, so Amaranthe could see more of her features. She sucked in a breath almost as sharp as the one her prisoner had made, for she recognized the short, buxom woman with the spectacles perched low on her nose. Ms. Worgavic. Amaranthe’s old teacher and one of the Forge founders, Worgavic had been the one to allow-no, order-her interrogation.
Anger surged into her chest, a hard tight ball of emotion that dug in behind her breastbone. She forgot about her prisoner. Her hand tightened so hard around the pistol that her fingers ached. She lifted it, no longer aiming it at her captive but at the woman leaning against the railing above.
Had Maldynado not grabbed her arm, pulling it down, she would have fired. The couple pushed away from the railing, disappearing from sight, and it was too late. The door must have opened again, for a cold draft wafted down the stairs, startling some of the thoughtless fury out of her system when it hit her cheeks.
“What were you doing?” Maldynado let go of her arm, but his whisper was harsh. “I thought we weren’t letting anyone know we were here. If you’d shot Mancrest, that woman probably would have gotten away. Not to mention everyone left up there would have heard you fire.” He jabbed his hand upward.
“Mancrest?” Amaranthe stared at him. What was he talking about? That hadn’t been Deret.
Despite her and Maldynado’s distraction, the prisoners were being still. Maybe because she was waving her pistol around with a crazed look on her face.
“Lord Colonel Armott Mancrest, retired. Deret’s father.” Maldynado peered into her eyes. “You didn’t recognize him? Why were you going to shoot him then?”
“Not him, her. That was one of the Forge founders. The one who-” Amaranthe’s voice cracked and she looked away. She was still clenching the pistol like a carpenter bent on smashing an irritating nail into oblivion. Calm down, girl, she told herself. We’re past this.
“Tortured you?” Maldynado asked, all the harshness gone from his tone.
Not trusting her voice, Amaranthe nodded. Her prisoner peered back over her shoulder at her.
“Blast it,” she said, “let’s get these two tied up, so they can’t…” What? Hear about this? “Escape,” she finished.
Maldynado started removing belts and shirts to obey her order. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… Cursed ancestors, I should have helped you shoot the hag.”
“Don’t worry about it. It probably wouldn’t have fixed anything.” Besides, she didn’t wan
t to become an assassin herself. That was no way to create a better Turgonia. Instincts, angry vengeful instincts, had been guiding her hand.
Maldynado finished tying up the men and lifted an arm, offering a hug if she needed it.
Amaranthe waved a hand. She appreciated the gesture, but said, “I’m fine.”
She was relieved it had been Maldynado here with her instead of Sicarius. That fit of rage… that had been a moment of weakness. She didn’t want Sicarius seeing her like that. Not when she was working hard to make him believe she was all right. And she was all right. She would be. She just needed to finish with this mess and take a vacation.
And remember how to sleep through the night, the voice in her head added.
A shadow fell across the stairwell above-someone moving past the railing.
“We better get out of here before someone looks down the steps,” Amaranthe said.
“Up or in?” Maldynado asked. “And with or without them?”
“Up and out, ideally.” Amaranthe didn’t want to be trapped in the basement, though there were more sounds of activity than ever coming from above.
“What are all those spirits-licked people doing here after hours?” Maldynado growled.
“Picking up their seditious pamphlets probably. If I’d known the newspaper office would be such a hotbed of activity, I’d have brought Sicarius.”
“I’m not manly enough for you?”
“You’re fine. I’m just worried that we missed a good chance for spying. I could have sent Sicarius off after those two.”
“He probably would have stuck daggers in their backs.”
Amaranthe bit her lip to keep from asking what would be wrong with that. It bothered her to think that her experience under Pike’s knife had changed her, but she kept thinking that it’d be much easier for their side if they simply ended Forge, Ravido, and their key allies the most efficient way possible. Was it worth turning oneself into a monster if it made the world a better place for everyone else? Or, once one chose the path to monsterhood, could one still accurately assess what qualified as a “better place” anymore? She feared this last year as an outlaw had already tainted her judgment.
She considered their captives. It’d be hard to escape back up the stairs, forcing them every step. Perhaps it was time to leave them and hope for-
“Can’t find Evik and Rudev anywhere,” someone called out upstairs. “We may need to search the building, sir.”
“Uh oh,” Maldynado said.
“About that doorknob…” Amaranthe said.
Lights jittered up above-people entering the room with extra lamps.
“It’s unlocked,” Maldynado said.
Finally, a bit of luck. Amaranthe stepped past him and eased the door open. Darkness waited inside, so she didn’t think they’d have to worry about being jumped by soldiers, but she crept into the basement warily regardless.
A few steps inside, she bumped into something and decided to stop and light a lantern. She was about to tell Maldynado to close the door so their flame wouldn’t be seen when someone spoke from the depths of the shadows.
“It’s not mealtime,” a man said. “I can only surmise you’ve come to your senses and are here to unlock me.”
• • •
“Job’s the same, pay’s the same, don’t really make a difference,” one maid said, snapping the sheets in the air before lowering them onto the bed.
“I know,” a second maid said, the rasping of a straw broom accompanying her words, “but I liked young Emperor Sespian. He never ordered you around like you were some raw soldier to be broken in. He always said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when he asked for something.”
“Piles of good that did him. He’s deader than that roach you stomped on earlier, and I don’t think the new regime will appreciate you waxing fondly on the old.”
“Marblecrest isn’t the new regime, not officially, and I won’t call him emperor no matter what he’s demanding.” Another firm snapping of the sheets accompanied the statement. “Just because him and his troops showed up at the door less than an hour after the papers announced Sespian’s death doesn’t mean he’s the rightful emperor. I don’t even figure he’s the rightful landlord here. Are you sure about our pay being the same? Because we haven’t seen any money yet.”
“Bite your tongue, Naniva, or some owl will swoop down and tear it out. Or at least lower your voice. Door’s open. Never know who could be about listening.”
Outside in the hall, Sicarius twitched an eyebrow. He otherwise remained motionless, braced in a corner above the wall molding, his short hair brushing the ceiling. He couldn’t see into the room the maids were tending, but he tracked their movements with his ears, even as he watched other maids and butlers coming and going below him, building fires in stoves for room occupants who would be heading to bed soon. He’d listened to a half dozen servants’ conversations so far, enough to verify that Lord General Marblecrest had moved into the Imperial Barracks with hundreds of troops. Marblecrest had tried to wrest control of Fort Urgot out on the northern side of the lake as well, but the commander there, General Ridgecrest, hadn’t been cowed by his threats. Ridgecrest had refused to back a new candidate for the throne until the Company of Lords had met with the satrap governors to decide on the official successor.
Sicarius took special note of the information; Ridgecrest and his troops might be available to the right man. The only other pertinent information he’d gathered, more through a lack of mentions or sightings than via positive confirmation, was that the Forge people were not staying in the Barracks.
A maid pushing a squeaky mop bucket passed below Sicarius without looking up. He’d wait for the talkative two to leave, then return to his comrades. They’d be restless, waiting for him to come back to the furnace room where he’d left them, and he didn’t want to be away from Sespian for long regardless, not with some other potential assassin roaming the Barracks, agenda unknown.
The maids closed the guest room door and trundled away with their linens cart. Sicarius waited for silence to descend upon the hall, then dropped to the marble floor without a sound. He unscrewed a vent cover, wriggled into the warm duct inside, affixed the grate again, and improvised with a curved lock pick to refasten the screws from within.
Traveling through the Barracks’ hypocaust system was neither quick nor efficient, but it allowed him to bypass halls full of soldiers, guests, and guards without notice. He crawled a few dozen meters, then slipped down a vertical shaft, descending three floors to come out in the furnace room in the basement.
Sespian, Books, and Akstyr were still waiting, though hiding. They stepped out from behind the coal bins when Sicarius popped out of the vent. Someone must have come in to stoke the fires while he’d been gone. It didn’t matter, so long as his team hadn’t been noticed.
“Did you run into trouble?” Books asked.
“An opportunity to eavesdrop.” Sicarius brushed the cobwebs and dust off his black clothing, though he knew he’d return to the ducts again shortly. “Ravido has taken the Barracks.”
“Not surprising,” Books said. “I’m sure he moved quickly and without asking permission.”
Sespian scowled. “Did he wait a week after the announcement of my death to move in? Or was he taking over the imperial suite the very next day?”
“The same day,” Sicarius said.
“Lovely,” Sespian said.
“That’s disgusting,” Akstyr said. “He’s probably in your bed right now, sheet wrangling with some serving wench.”
“Ravido is married,” Books said. “Or he was. I wonder if he’s learned of Mari’s death.”
“Do you think being married would matter?” Akstyr asked. “If he’s half as horny as Maldynado…”
Sicarius was on the verge of saying something to end the pointless diversion, but Sespian spoke first.
“I doubt Ravido has time for wrangling anyone right now. Regardless, I hadn’t moved out of my childhood
suite, the last year having been rather fraught and busy.” Sespian scowled again, and Sicarius wondered what wringers the Forge people had mashed him through since Hollowcrest’s death. He had the impression they’d started applying pressure promptly. He’d like more details, but Sespian still didn’t deign to talk to him without Amaranthe in the room, encouraging them to “bond.”
Sespian released the scowl and met Sicarius’s gaze. “I don’t suppose you saw a tan-colored cat with dark brown paws and a mask when you were eavesdropping about, did you?”
“A cat?” Sicarius had been thinking of pains his son had endured in the previous year, and he was worried about… a cat?
Sespian cleared his throat. “Yes, I’ve been worried… I mean, it’s just a pet of course.” His wave of dismissal wasn’t genuine. “But I’m hoping someone’s been feeding him, and that he hasn’t met with… trouble with all those extra soldiers stomping about.”
“I have not seen such a cat,” Sicarius said.
Books patted Sespian on the shoulder, drawing a quick, sad smile.
Sicarius realized that he’d done something wrong-again-in dealing with his son. He should have offered sympathy, or at least the appearance of sympathy. He didn’t know if it was within him to honestly dredge up such an emotion, but the trying might matter to Sespian. Yet Sespian would shy away from a hand pat from him, and that would leave him feeling… awkward. That emotion he could somewhat understand. Unfortunately.
“I will watch for it going forward.” Sicarius pointed to the vent. “Come. I will lead the way to Hollowcrest’s suite.”
“Maybe your cat will be in there, pissing on the old general’s shoes,” Akstyr said.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Sespian chuckled. “He has a feisty streak.”
Halfway through the vent opening, Sicarius paused to stare at him. How could Akstyr’s crude, ill-considered comment evoke laughter. Pleasure?
Sespian caught the stare and shrugged self-consciously. “I may have trained, er, encouraged him to do such things. When I was much younger of course.”
“How much younger?” Books asked, his eyes sly.
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