Ruler of Scoundrels (Chronicles of a Cutpurse Book 2)

by Carrie Summers

  She sighs as his eyes wander back to the fog-draped night outside the window. It’s getting harder and harder to pretend at these conversations. Laying her palms flat on the table, she leans forward.

  “I need you, Hawk. Whatever this is, I need you to come back. Warrell and the council are loyal, but they’re not experienced. Not like you.”

  Myrrh clenches her jaw to keep her emotions from spilling over. Sometimes, when she’s near to sleep and feeling philosophical, she wonders if she would even have dared form the Ghost syndicate if she’d known Hawk would be so…broken. She’d counted on having him on her side.

  On the journey back from Craghold, the Scythe told her that Hawk had been defiant on the march from Ostgard to the prison. Whatever had happened to the aging thief had occurred during his time there. But the fortress held only a tiny staff who adjusted the dust cloths covering the furniture and swept the leaves from the courtyard each autumn. Only a handful of soldiers kept watch over the wall. They hadn’t even needed to guard the prison; Hawk was the only person within, and an escape would have brought him straight into the inner bailey where he’d have immediately fallen under arrows shot from the wall.

  Glint has no more ideas than the Scythe regarding Hawk’s change. She wonders if she should press him to think harder. Could it be something about Craghold itself that ruined her mentor’s mind? But Glint was just a young boy when the Maire brought their family from the mountains to Ostgard. It seems hopeless to think he might suddenly remember a critical detail.

  She reaches across the table and touches the back of Hawk’s hand. He doesn’t respond, not even to pull away.

  “There’s another concern. Across the city, thieves are turning up dead with no explanation. I’m heading out after this to look for a missing syndicate member. I don’t suppose you want to come...?” She gives a silent and sad laugh.

  Hawk’s gaze follows a barge on a downriver run. Too fast. The captain has men on both the sails and the oars. Two strong bargemen grasp the tiller, their straining muscles visible even from the inn’s windows. A nighttime run through the city. If the barge is fast enough, the tariff takers won’t be able to sling grapples onto its deck. The method is much faster than using the smuggling route through Carp’s Refuge, but far riskier. With the narrow passages under the city’s bridges added to the threat of the Shield Watch and tariff takers, few vessels attempt it.

  At least, few attempted it a month ago, back when the Maire still controlled the city. Now, the old order is breaking down.

  Myrrh raps the tabletop with her knuckles as she stands. “Well, good to see you, Hawk. Come back to us, okay?”

  As she walks to the door, he reaches forward and tugs the curtain closed again.

  Chapter Five

  MYRRH AND IVY step off the last crooked cobblestones at the edge of Rat Town and into the squelching mud that passes for streets in the Spills. The smell of things rotting in the bog beyond the swath of stilt houses sweeps Myrrh back to a different time. She can almost hear the pattering of rain on the shingled roof of the squat she once shared with Nab and Hawk. If she closes her eyes, the drizzle falling from low clouds overhead is instead the fine mist that often penetrated their shack’s siding when the wind and rain kicked up.

  Back then, all she had to worry about was finding her next job. Stealing enough copper pieces to feed herself when the major gigs were scarce. Plus a little extra to put food in Nab’s belly.

  But there were hungry nights. Times when she shivered far from shelter while Shields marched through Rat Town during one of their purges. Cracking skulls before they asked questions. Uncaring if they left lifeless bodies in their wake.

  Myrrh might feel her responsibilities like a lead cloak over her shoulders, but things are better for the people of Rat Town now. She hopes, anyway.

  As Myrrh and Ivy tromp deeper into the eerie forest of stilt houses, the long legs of the buildings at angles that won’t hold up their burdens for long, she remembers other things. Earlier times before Hawk took her into his care. A specific memory makes her wince, the hard crack of a stick against her knuckles when she was caught picking pockets. Back then, she was just a little urchin with big eyes peering from a mop of dark hair. Not even the hard-faced barge captains or cunning sellers of knickknacks could conscience turning her in to the Shield Watch when her wrist was no thicker than a broomstick in their grips. So they’d hurt her, no doubt thinking the punishment would teach her not to steal. A child like her should not dare look under the Maire’s law for the opportunities that might lurk beneath.

  The abuse never worked, of course, but what they never realized was how easy it would actually have been to turn her around. A barge captain could have offered a copper piece if she would just scurry to the dumpling cart and bring a fresh package of steaming food back while he finished his business with the dockmaster. Myrrh wouldn’t even have pinched one of the dumplings from the paper wrapping, no matter how much her stomach ached at the gingery smell. Because that chance to earn a copper would have meant someone thought her efforts were worthwhile. It would have proved that with enough effort, she could make something of herself.

  But anyway, those days are long past. Now Myrrh is worth something. A whole syndicate of thieves depends on her and the council she gathered. As she slops through the mud beside Ivy, she takes a deep breath and straightens her spine. With the blessing of the Queen of Nines, Cobalt is just off carousing in another district. Or maybe he hopped a barge downriver to see what fortune might bring in one of the stopovers between Ostgard and the Port Cities. People leave the city all the time to seek better prospects. Of course, most come back, shoulders slumped and lips sealed over whatever failures greeted them in other towns.

  Myrrh can hope that’s the worst that might befall Cobalt, anyway.

  She glances at the woman beside her. Aside from her operation with Mink, Glint’s expert assassin who was paired with Myrrh during the bid to unseat the Porcelain Hand syndicate, she hasn’t had much chance to work with a female thief.

  “How often have you and Cobalt run jobs together,” she asks, careful to speak as if the man is still alive.

  Ivy glances toward the sky as if calculating the time, then seems to think better of it when the drizzle hits her eyes. She grimaces as she swipes the water from her face. “A year or two, I figure. Sometime before the last Rhemmsfest was our first time on a score. He stood sentry while I held up a cart leaving the Yards.”

  Myrrh raises an eyebrow. The Yards are across the River Ost. Not Slivers territory, which means she or Cobalt must have a contact within the syndicate controlling the Yards and Smeltertown beyond. Blackfold. Nasty people. Given what Ivy mentioned about Cobalt working part-time in the smelters, seems likely he was the contact. Which also makes her wonder…could his disappearance be as simple as having left to join the rival organization?

  “Anything special about him?” If he didn’t just leave and his body is slowly rotting somewhere, it seems strange to her that there’d be no relationship between him and the other victims. What point would there be in eliminating random targets?

  “Not sure what to say to that. He was just a regular grubber. Fairly competent, but not someone you’d expect to wind up as a syndicate boss someday. Mostly I liked working with him because we both have kids.”

  Myrrh can’t hide her surprise as her footsteps slow. “You have children?” She’s never thought of her fellow thieves as parent material. Why bring a kid into such a miserable life? But she supposes it must happen. Clearly it happens, judging by what Ivy just said.

  The older woman smirks. “Don’t be so sure you won’t have your own someday.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  Ivy snorts. “Anyway, yes, I have a boy and a girl. Every copper I take goes to making sure they don’t end up like me.”

  “Where?”

  “Where do they live, you mean?”

  Myrrh nods.

  “Rat Town,
same as you and me. But they work running errands for shops. When Rachel is old enough, she’ll have an apprenticeship with a seamstress. Theo…well, I’m hoping to get him in with a hostler. He does better with animals than people. Coarse, that boy.”

  Even though this talk of children makes Myrrh’s skin crawl—Nab is more than enough responsibility for her, and he doesn’t even want her to look after him—she’s glad to know that life is almost normal for some Ghost members. Someday, she hopes everyone in the syndicate can feel confident having children if they want them.

  “There,” Ivy says. “Cobalt sometimes hangs a hammock under that house.” She points to a small shack, the single room surrounded by a balcony just wide enough to walk on. A crooked ladder climbs from the muck to the platform.

  There’s no hammock swinging beneath the home.

  “Do you know the people that live above?”

  Ivy shakes her head.

  “I’ll go up, then.”

  Myrrh swings onto the ladder and scampers up. When she raps on the doorframe, a man with a gaunt face and a thin halo of hair answers, pulling back the curtain that serves as a door. He shakes his head when she asks about Cobalt. No sign of the man.

  Back down in the mud, she gestures for Ivy to lead on. According to the other thief, Cobalt’s second squat isn’t far.

  “What about his children? He doesn’t live with them?”

  Ivy shakes her head. “They live downriver. On the outskirts of a town called Frent, I think. The mother raises vegetables. Cobalt visits sometimes.”

  “So maybe that’s where he’s gone.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Myrrh doesn’t want to acknowledge the faint odor she smells as they draw near the second shack. It’s not the olive-green stench of rotting plants—that’s ever-present in the Spills. This smells like spoiled meat.

  And it gets stronger as they approach.

  Ivy’s troubled gaze reflects the expression Myrrh feels on her own face. There’s little doubt about what they’ll find in the small shanty atop the stilt platform. Myrrh starts for the ladder. Ivy lays a restraining hand on her forearm.

  “Have you ever seen someone…someone who’s been gone for a while?” she asks.

  Myrrh shakes her head, lips pressed together.

  “Maybe it should be me that goes up then. I helped when the yellow pox went through Rat Town. Probably before you were born.”

  Myrrh wants to take the easy route, but she can’t. She needs to be up there to look for clues about what happened to Cobalt if his situation is as mysterious as Lavi’s was.

  “If it was some form of sickness, better you stay down here,” Myrrh says. “Because of your kids and all.”

  The tightness around the woman’s eyes eases as she hands over the lantern. Whether or not she’s witnessed something like this, she’s clearly not eager to see it again.

  Balancing awkwardly with the lantern in one hand, her other hand gripping the rungs, Myrrh makes her way up the ladder. The smell gets worse the higher she goes, almost as if it collects in a pillow atop the platform and spills over the edges. She coughs and hurries as best she can, desperate to get her tunic pulled up over her nose and mouth before the stench makes her retch.

  Myrrh doesn’t know enough to judge how long he’s been dead. Days, most likely. Cobalt’s body leans against the wall, legs outstretched, hands in his lap. The flesh is bloated, clothes tight over his trunk and legs. His head lolls forward. Dark spots mar his skin where decay has begun, but she sees no obvious sign of disease. There’s definitely no blood.

  Her jaw clenches as she moves closer, a surge of bile rising in her throat. She tries not to see the wriggling of maggots and instead focuses on the scene as a whole. Cobalt’s bedroll is neatly folded and stacked in the corner opposite his body. Beside it, a plate holds a dry crust of bread and a wedge of moldy cheese. A lantern stands next to his leg, the wick black, the oil reservoir dry. It’s almost as if he abandoned his evening meal then fell asleep with the lamp burning, and after all these days, the lantern’s fuel has finally run out.

  There’s nothing else in the room. Closing her eyes to summon her courage, Myrrh sets down her lantern and edges toward the body. With delicate fingertips, she plucks at his cloak, pulling it back from the stretched wool tunic. She runs her hands along the cloak’s oiled leather, feeling for pockets, for some sort of clue. Stuffed like a sausage inside the woolen thief’s garb, the body presses hard enough against the fabric to show her there are no telltale lumps of hidden pockets there either.

  There’s nothing. No reason for him to have died. Just like Glint said about Lavi.

  Myrrh turns for the door and picks up her lantern, wondering if she’ll ever get the smell of death out of her nose. That’s when she spots it, the faint shine of metal above the door. A small charm has been tacked to the door frame. She reaches up and pries it free. The trinket drops into her palm, sharp edges pressing into her calluses. It’s a symbol she’s never seen before, a diamond pierced by crossed daggers.

  Rogues and cutpurses are superstitious. It’s easy to see that by traveling the thieves’ paths that crisscross the city, the ways marked by the sign of the Queen of Nines scratched into wood or drawn in charcoal on stone. It’s no surprise that Cobalt would place a charm above his door. Still, the unfamiliar symbol makes her think it’s a lead to pursue.

  Despite what they both knew, Myrrh still sees the hope in Ivy’s eyes when she descends the ladder. She shakes her head. Ivy drops her gaze.

  “I’ll leave a report for the corpse wagon,” the woman says. “And I’ll try to find a way to send word to the family.”

  Myrrh takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We’ll get word through the syndicate, too. Plan a time to raise glasses in his honor.”

  “He deserves that,” Ivy says. “Poor sixing fool…never hurt anyone.”

  Chapter Six

  IT’S A LONG and somber trudge back to Rikson’s Roost. As Myrrh and Ivy near the doorway, Ivy hesitates.

  “You suspected something had happened to him,” the woman says.

  Myrrh glances at a dirty streetlamp and the sickly glow it casts over nearby cobblestones. Once, the deep shadows in Rat Town wrapped her tight and hid her from the Shield Watch. Now, with Noble’s threats and a mystery killer on the loose, she wishes someone bothered to clean the lanterns occasionally.

  She shivers in the damp night air. “A contact of mine warned me there have been mysterious deaths in the city. Similar circumstances to Cobalt’s.”

  “You didn’t actually tell me what his circumstances were.”

  Myrrh shrugs. “It’s almost as if there were no special circumstances. I could see no reason for his death. No injuries. He looked healthy.”

  Ivy is hiding her grief well, but Myrrh spies a shadow of it behind the woman’s eyes. “He was. No older than me. It’s hard for me to think about his kids learning what happened.”

  “Between this and the threat from Noble’s crew, I think Ghost members should work in pairs. Especially at night.”

  “Yeah. Grim times, I guess. Almost makes me miss the Maire and the vague attempt by the Shield Watch to keep order.”

  Myrrh looks away so the other woman can’t read her face. Aside from Warrell, the other council members don’t know her part in the Maire’s exile.

  “Speaking of working in pairs, I have an appointment of sorts at The Queen’s Dice. Come with me?”

  Ivy casts a longing glance at the warm light spilling from the door of the Roost. No doubt she’s thinking of the tankard that was about to fall into her hand.

  “The ale there’s not as good as what they have at Rikson’s, but I’ll buy the first round.”

  Ivy smirks. “It’s a deal, I suppose.”

  ***

  Inside Sapphire’s gambling house, Ivy waves a pair of fingers when she spots a table full of smugglers Myrrh recognizes from her time in Carp’s Refuge.

>   Ivy casts Myrrh a questioning look. “So what’s the job?”

  “Not a job so much as an introduction. Someone’s been here looking for me. A stranger. No idea what his intents are.”

  “Should we meet him together?”

  “Hmm. Let me think.” Myrrh steps up to the bar and waits for the bartender to acknowledge her. “Two ales, please.”

  When he turns his back to tap the foamy drinks from the keg, Myrrh runs her gaze over the room. She has at least a passing familiarity to everyone inside, which means the stranger hasn’t arrived yet. He told Sapphire he’d be here at midnight. They probably have at least half an hour to wait.

  She slides a mug toward Ivy when the bartender delivers them. “I think we’ll learn more if you watch from a different table while I talk to him. Keep an eye out for anyone who is paying outsized interest to our conversation.”

  “Drinks are on the house for coming through on tonight’s security,” the bartender says, swiping his towel over the counter before heading off to serve another customer.

  “Then I’ll take the opportunity to catch up with some old friends,” Ivy says. She strides across the room and pulls up a chair at the smugglers’ table. The dealer acknowledges her with a curt nod, sliding a pair of cards in front of her on the next deal. Faces go blank as everyone peeks at their hands and the first round of betting begins.

  A piper plays a quiet tune in the corner, providing music for a pair of buxom dancers who aren’t wearing quite enough clothing. Myrrh’s eyes wander to the floorboards where the pool of blood stood last night. The outline is almost invisible, no doubt thanks to lye and a lot of effort on Becky’s part. Filled with gamblers and serving girls and hangers-on, The Queen’s Dice could be a different establishment from the one she visited last night. She turns back to the bar and begins to nurse her ale.