by B N Miles
Spycraft Academy
B. N. Miles
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About BN Miles
Copyright © 2021 by BN Miles
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1
The house was completely dark, its owner long gone for a visit to his country estate. Some of the dockworkers in a quell sector were talking about it yesterday as the man's fine ship glided from the lake to the capital river. The question was, why did he leave the capital in the middle of autumn?
He had no family to speak of besides a wife he'd put in the ground twenty years before. No siblings. Dead parents. Dead aunts and uncles. The cousins he had were either too distant for him to feasibly know or he was feuding with them.
Sam knew all of this because he knew mostly everybody's business. It was important to sniff around where he shouldn't because it presented him with opportunities such as the one currently in front of him.
The man had no family, and yet he was leaving right before the social season for the capital’s upper class—when the last colored leaf fell to the ground. Most of the noblemen and rich merchants would be at the play halls, out dancing, or at a dinner at least every other evening. This one just left, though. Presumably more north, where the grand country estates hugged the coast of the Shadow Sea. Now, why would a rich widower in his forties turn down the opportunity to mingle with young, pretty noblewomen? Given his stranglehold on the sugar trade in the city, he could have his pick of the flower patch, so to speak.
Very, very odd indeed.
Sam tightened his cloak against the cool wind that swept from the city streets to the sheltered garden alcove, rustling the sweet leaf bush he crouched in. Varin didn't get very cold in the autumn, not like in the Northern states. The capital, Roslav, was smack-dab in the middle of the state, and the warm East Sea kept them protected from the brutal northern winds that came down from the Gilded Mountains in the Zanrun Despotate.
In saying that, Sam's cloak was thin, so it was still pretty damn cold. Couldn't be helped. Heavy clothing meant knocking things over on a sharp turn. He'd gone fifteen years without landing himself in jail, he wasn't about to break his streak.
"I still don't like this," Mattie whispered beside him.
He didn't either. All of the neighboring houses were vacant, their owners gone for the evening. The only guards around patrolled the streets, but there were none patrolling near this one. This would be an easy, fat score. Too easy. Almost felt like a set-up.
If they got caught here, they wouldn't just lose hands, but the possible profit outweighed the risk of beheading. And besides, who would go out of their way to set up two vagabonds like them?
"I dislike passing this up much more," Sam whispered back, glancing at his partner. It was just Mattie and him tonight. The others were busy on a job near the outskirts.
Mattie chewed her bottom lip, took a deep inhale, then nodded before moving forward on quiet feet.
To hide her movements, Sam coaxed the shadows out. He lifted his hand and cupped the air, focusing on the drooping blackness of the bush. A tug in his belly, a tingle in his veins, and then the microscopic forces of the air coalesced in his palm before shooting through the tiny path he'd cut through the wind. It grabbed at the shadows, forcing them to stretch and circle around Mattie's slim frame.
It took only seconds and a minuscule amount of his energy, and Mattie was now practically invisible.
Silently, she moved from the bush and into the open, his shadows blacking out her body until not even a silhouette remained. She darted toward the back door of the house, just a short sprint, and when she was in the safety of the stone awning, Sam pulled back on his shadows.
Mattie was so well-hidden in the threshold that even Sam couldn't see her, so he wrapped his phantom cloak around his body before following her path at a quick run. When he molded himself to the door, he kept the sheet of blackness against them both while Mattie worked.
She gripped two thin lockpicks between her fingers like needles and worked quickly, manipulating the mechanism until it clicked three times. She grabbed the gilded iron handle and pushed the door open, holding out her hand as she did so. Her talent couldn't be seen, not like Sam's shadow magic, but it was apparent when the iron door hinges didn't creak.
A welcoming warmth fanned from inside and they froze in the doorway, like a fire had been lit earlier in the day.
"Sam?" Mattie whispered.
His eyes darted from the sheet-covered furniture to the dead hearth. Since there were no guards, it should have been just as cold inside as it was outside, but it wasn't. Somebody had been here no later than supper, but none of the cinders burned.
"The kitchen probably," he whispered, casting his eyes about the room more carefully. He stepped inside the threshold and held his hand up for Mattie to wait. He had a hunch, but he wanted to make sure he was right before letting her come in. He was the one who would engage with whoever was here, to fall on a knife if he had to, so that Mattie could escape. As the leader of the crew, that was his job.
It had been his job since they were kids.
Sam paced the whole room but didn't find any evidence of what he was looking for. He almost told Mattie to leave, but then he stopped and squinted at the bookshelf. Every hardbacked leather title was the same size and color. Sam highly doubted that the merchant read any of them. One of the spines stuck out further than the others, not by much, but enough to snag his attention.
He grabbed the book on the middle shelf and pulled it out. Fine gold print decorated the cover, Gibron's Encyclopedia of Vintage Furniture. The pages were wedged with a thick bookmarker sticking out of the top. He opened the book carefully and flipped to the marked page: 'XII Chapter, I Section: Studies and Dens.'
Sam cocked an eyebrow and pushed the book back into place. His gut churned. Half excitement, half dread. It was ridiculous to think that somebody had purposefully positioned that there, but a long-forgotten and almost child-like thrill ran through him all the same. 'If wishes were fishes,' his mother used to say, 'then we would still be hungry because we don't have time for daydreaming, Sam. Get your behind up and get to work.'
Ironically, the dockworkers found her naked and floating face-down in the water before he turned seven, hundreds of little bonefish nibbling on her like she was a delicate snack. He used to think that she died with so many wishes that all the fish had to eat them out of her.
Sam gave the room one last look and then saw what
he'd been looking for. A side table tucked near the corridor archway was completely bare of anything except for a slightly darkened ring where a vase once was. Whoever had been inside wasn't a guard or a servant, it was somebody who had the same idea as them and got to the place early. It was shitty, but it happened. Likely, the thief had already filched the valuables, but they could see if anything was overlooked.
Slim pickings were better than none.
Sam gestured for Mattie to come inside. There were no grand adventures or secret spies here. This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was how they didn't starve during the winter.
Mattie cautiously stepped inside and shut the door without a sound.
Sam held up three fingers and she nodded—she would stay three long steps behind him in case the thief was still around. They might be willing to negotiate a trade or simply agree to leave them alone while they snuck around, but then again, they might slit their throats. Hard to tell with criminals, but it wasn't anything they hadn't dealt with before.
He slipped into the main corridor soundlessly, his steps measured and no louder than a distant whisper. Mattie followed behind him. They wound through the first floor, Sam ducking his head inside every open door and bypassing every closed one. If their friend wasn't in any open room by the time they made it through the whole house, they'd double back and be mindful of the squeaking hinges.
When they made it to the second floor, there was still no sign of another thief. The kitchen was colder than the front room so the heat didn't come from there. Sam glanced around an open archway to check the room in the middle of the hall. It was empty and dark just like the rest of them. Sam almost walked past it, but he froze when a faint warmth radiated from inside...like an old fire.
The faint outline of two lounges pointed at a fireplace and a large desk sat in the corner. Books covered the entire far wall. It was a spacious room. A study.
The book came unbidden to his mind and he bristled. Why would anybody read a book about upholstery, especially when the person in question sold sugar, not textiles or furniture?
Sam took a breath. It was stupid and unlikely that it meant anything at all, but his curiosity clawed against his gut and he took a step inside. It would only take a moment, just long enough for him to prove to himself that he was being ridiculous; the merchant wasn't involved in a mystery or conspiracy.
He took a step inside, then another, and another. Mattie's footsteps tapped gently behind him as she followed him. Halfway to the desk, the tapping of her feet stopped abruptly. Sam whirled around and studied her shadowed expression. Her big blue eyes looked like too-large sapphires set in their sockets and her shoulders were a straight line of tension. He frowned and mouthed 'what?' but she wasn't looking at him.
"I must say—"
Sam twisted around and his rusted dagger was in his hand within a second. He looked wildly about the room, but the disembodied voice had no origin, like an echo.
"I was impressed when you decided to step into the room rather than pass it up like the others. You must have seen my clue." A shadow in the corner shifted and Sam shifted with it. "I thought to myself, 'such a clever young man.' But then I thought you weren't so clever when you didn't even notice me among your little friends, shadow boy."
The dark figure stepped forward. The dim moonlight pierced him through the window, lighting his features just enough for Sam to see the shape of his face, but not the character of it. "It's alright, I wouldn't expect somebody so young to be perfect. That's something you'll be working on at school, of course."
Sam's dagger was cold and hard in his palm.
"Oh, come now, no need for weapons, children." His grin was stark white against the black of the room. "I have come in good faith."
"Who are you?" Mattie spat from behind Sam.
The man inclined his head at her, "Lebert Yaxley, at your service. I'm a recruiter for the Varin School for Outstanding Young Adults. You've both caught our attention, and I must congratulate you on passing the final assignment of the entrance exam."
"I don't understand," Sam said. He didn't dare look back at Mattie to gauge her thoughts. One second was all it took to get stabbed in the neck.
"We've been watching you for sixty days—a customary period for these sorts of things—and my superiors liked what they saw. I am here to formally extend an invitation to you both. A surprising coincidence to find so much talent in the slums."
Sam knew what the Varin School was. Everybody did. While it was only one of the many colleges in the vast Varin Empire, it was the only college that trained its students in the art of espionage. They took only the best of the best, which was necessary considering wars depended on how good their spies and assassins were.
Sam had wanted nothing more than to go there when he was young. Besides joining the military or lucking out with a rich lover, it was the only feasible way to move up the stringent economical castes. He'd dreamed of being as strong and dangerous as Theodorien the South Wind, or as wealthy and suave as the Grinning Gentleman—darlings of the Varin Kingdom in the gilded age, legends of children's stories, and some of the first Varin Graduates. Sam wanted to be them, he wanted respect, confidence, money, food—he wanted to be exceptional enough for a special name. That was when he was a child, though, and he hadn't been one of those in a long time.
He was an adult, this was reality, and his ambitions usually only went so far as a pair of shoes every two months and a roof every night. This man might have fooled Sam ten years prior; he must have thought Sam and Mattie were complete idiots to fall for a lie as ridiculous as what he was spitting out.
The man spread his hands, "Samson Croft, Mattison Terra, do you accept our invitation?"
Hearing his full name coming from this stranger's mouth put his nerves on edge. He said he'd been watching them for sixty days, maybe that part was true. But the rest... Why would he lie about something so specific as the Varin School? He could have said anything else and it would have been more believable. And how did the Varin school recruit their students, anyway?
Tension crowded the room like a thick fog, pushing and squeezing against Sam as if the shadows themselves were cowering away from the faceless man.
"Wait a minute." Mattie put a hand on her hip and her shoulder dropped, her voice cracking through the static in the air with her unimpressed scowl. "Sam, don't tell me you're buying this."
Was he? Maybe so. The man seemed so authentically sinister. He knew their names, he left them a clue.
Sam's brain was trying to catch up with the idea of doing the very thing he stopped hoping for long ago.
"Sam?" Mattie sounded shocked. "You've got to be joking."
Mattie was right, this was too perfectly odd. It was suspicious. But then, why would anybody go out of their way to set them up, much less trick both of them into believing that a prestigious school accepted them, a school that was notorious for recruiting from nobility?
What was the point of it, and how likely was it that somebody from a place like the school would take any special interest in either him or Mattie? They were just slum thieves. Orphans. Children from nobodies who were children from more nobodies.
Sam stared at the man for a moment and wracked his brain for a way to confirm the truth. "I'm not sure," he muttered, never tearing his eyes away from Lebert. "But if he is telling the truth, if he really was watching us, he'd be able to tell us what makes us qualified, in his observations, for any Academy, much less Varin."
Sam couldn't remember ever seeing him, nor anyone else, tailing him. He's sure he would have noticed.
Lebert didn't show any signs of being annoyed that they weren't mindlessly agreeing. Instead, he shrugged. "Shadow and sound magic are both once-in-a-generation talents. You could have been cobblers and we would have wanted you. As for the rest of your qualifiable traits, I'm afraid that you'd be fishing for compliments."
"All the same," Sam crossed his arms, "anybody could have watched me and seen my abilities. If you were watch
ing us that closely, you'd surely have more to say than that."
Lebert paused for a moment before reaching into his coat. Both Sam and Mattie moved back a few inches, but instead of the blade Sam expected, Lebert held out a scroll. Sam hesitated for a moment before he snatched the paper and unrolled it. Mattie shuffled closer and read over his shoulder.
'This letter gives Lebert Yaxley, an agent of the Varin Academy for Outstanding Young Adults, undisputed authority to arrest, restrain, or make formal report of any Varin citizens perpetrating a crime. Perpetrators will be released from custody upon judgement of the accused crime in favor of release. If such a judgement is made in favor of the court, said perpetrator shall be judged guilty of the accused crime and be subject to the sentence of the court.'
On the bottom of the document was a royal wax seal, and three signatures below it. A capital magistrate, Lebert, and . . . the emperor?
Sam looked up sharply and leaned away from Lebert. Surely this was a joke.
Lebert sighed and held out a hand for his scroll. "Essentially, you two have a choice. You may either come with me to the school, or you may go to prison for breaking and entering with the intention of thievery."
That put things into perspective. Sam looked at Mattie, whose eyes were wide and disbelieving. If Lebert had forged that document and they went with him, then they would be vulnerable to whatever tricks he had up his sleeve. If they refused and he wasn't lying, however, there was a very real chance that they could face prison, or worse.
