Ruler of Scoundrels (Chronicles of a Cutpurse Book 2)

by Carrie Summers

  Probably due to years of experience watching card players for tells, Sapphire seems to know that Myrrh is hiding something. Her eyes hold a faintly suspicious glint.

  “That’s not really Marian’s style. She’s too independent. Regardless, no, I didn’t see them talking or anything…”

  She trails off, perhaps hoping that Myrrh will fill the silence. Instead, Myrrh pulls out a chair and sinks into it, propping a heel on a neighboring seat. “It was just a stray suspicion. You’ll send him in, though, right?”

  “As soon as he arrives,” Sapphire says as she lays a hand on the door latch.

  Myrrh grimaces at the clamor that intrudes when the woman opens the door.

  After it swings shut, she tilts her head back, closes her eyes, and begins to wait.

  ***

  When Rattle steps through the door, Myrrh settles her face into an expression of wary gratitude. As usual, his mood is completely unreadable. He stalks silently to the table and sits.

  “I owe you my thanks,” Myrrh says. “Noble surprised us.”

  Rattle inclines his head. “He was a wily old crook. You did well, considering.”

  “Yet if you hadn’t been there, I would have lost people.”

  “Most likely.”

  The door cracks open, and a serving girl pokes her head in. Rattle waves her off.

  “You’ve been visiting Nab without telling me,” Myrrh says. Part of her agreement with Glint was to act as if nothing has changed. Regardless of this man’s help in the battle against the Slivers boss, she would still defend the boy.

  Myrrh can’t be sure, but when Rattle blinks, she thinks she spots a hint of agitation. She needs to be careful here. Treat him like a coiled viper.

  “I realize that you feel responsible for the boy, but you’re not his mother. As I believe I mentioned, I’m interested in serving Ghost syndicate as something of a mentor and strategist. I have been instructing Nab in a particular set of tricks.”

  “He showed me. Something called misdirection. Where did you learn it?”

  She watches keenly, interested to see if there’s any shiftiness in his eyes. Will he tell her the truth about Skorry and the night blades?

  “From a group of thieves in the Port Cities.”

  “I thought you were freelance.”

  He nods. “But I’ve formed acquaintances from time to time. Often, I’ve benefited greatly from the relationship.”

  “These tricks…how do they work? Nab nearly had me walking out the door against my will.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches. “Why don’t we get back to discussing my future in your organization.”

  Myrrh slides a foot along the floor as she straightens her leg and leans back in her chair. With an elbow propped on the chair arm, she fixes him with a considering stare. Out in the common room, another loud cheer goes up.

  “My issue with you instructing Nab is that it shows you don’t respect my authority.”

  “I thought the syndicate was run by a council of equals.”

  “Not anymore. I make the final decisions now.”

  “And if I were to join, and a low-level Ghost member were to ask me to teach them some of my tricks, you’d insist I seek your approval first?”

  “This isn’t about any low-level member. It’s about a boy I look out for. You knew about our relationship yet chose to seek him out without my knowledge.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Because you arranged your meetings with him to keep me ignorant.”

  Rattle leans forward and lays his forearms on the table. His foot taps the floorboards, sending little vibrations into Myrrh’s boots. “What if I told you I was trying to protect him. There’s a dangerous…situation happening in Ostgard right now.”

  “Which is?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m working on filling in some of the details. I swear to you, Myrrh, I’ll bring you everything I find once I have the evidence. But for now, I can only say that it’s a grave threat.”

  Myrrh sighs. The argument about Nab has probably dispelled any fears about what she might have learned from Glint—even if he didn’t tell her anything new—and she needs to get to the next part of the plan. “I don’t like secrecy.”

  “My apologies. It’s in our nature, though, don’t you agree?”

  She shrugs a single shoulder as if reluctant but willing to drop the subject. For now. “I meet with the remaining members of my former council once daily. In a back room at Rikson’s Roost. For now, I’m willing to invite you to those meetings. It’s the best you’ll get in terms of leadership until you provide more assurance of your loyalty.”

  Rattle gives a slow nod.

  “And,” she continues, “I need something from you tomorrow. It’s a job for someone with, as you say, resources.”

  “Go on.”

  “An hour after sunrise, one of the city councilmen will be sending a cart of inner-kingdom crystal to the north end of First Docks. I’d like you to retrieve one of the crates.”

  “Interesting that a councilman would choose to ship from First Docks…”

  “You say interesting. I say opportunity. He’s new, and from what I gather, he’s been spending lavishly on entertainment to curry favor with his peers. Tariffs at First Docks are three-quarters what it costs to ship from the city center.”

  “I see. Any reason you wish for a crate of this crystal?”

  Myrrh curls her lips into an amused smile. “Blown-glass goblets are rather unrefined for the boss of a syndicate, don’t you think? After my hard work over the last weeks, I think I deserve better glasses and tumblers to enjoy the fine liquors I intend to procure.”

  “I see.” He stands and graces her with a slight bow. “I’ll see you at Rikson’s Roost tomorrow evening. You’ll have your crystal then.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE RISING SUN breaks through ragged clouds and pierces the thick smog over Smeltertown. As Myrrh and Nab slip through the streets of Rat Town, skirting building walls and remaining in shadow when they can, a few birds swoop in and land on rooftops. They warble and caw, the only residents of the district alive at this unseemly hour of day.

  “Rattle’s gonna be mad at me,” Nab whines.

  Myrrh stops short and grabs the boy’s arm. “Listen to me. I know you don’t like to hear my opinion on things, but you do respect Glint’s. He’ll repeat the whole story to you later if you want. Maybe we’ll find that Rattle is innocent in all of this, but we have to be sure. Thieves are being murdered. It could be any of us next.”

  Nab rolls his eyes. “You already said all that. Anyway, what happens if he finds us going through his stuff?”

  “He won’t. Glint has a plan for that.”

  The boy sighs and kicks at the cobblestones, still slick from last night’s rain. “You better be right about his.”

  He leads off, ducking into an alley that gets progressively narrower and more crooked as it plunges between rows of leaning buildings. Where the corridor dead-ends, he stops, rolls his eyes again, and gestures at what looks like a cellar door.

  Despite Rattle’s assurance that he’d hold up Glint’s cart of crystal just a few minutes from now, Myrrh needs to be careful. Creeping close, she listens for sounds from within. She hears nothing and crouches, putting her ear to the splintered wood. Still nothing.

  With a careful finger, she rotates the wooden latch around the rusty nail that pegs it to one of the doors. The wood squeals, loud in the narrow confines. Still nothing happens.

  When she digs fingertips under the door and pulls, the hatch lifts away with another loud squeak. Beneath, there’s another door, much more solid and fastened with a padlock. Given that it’s locked from the outside, she can put aside her worry that Rattle might still be home. She levers the false hatch all the way open and lets it fall against the building with a hollow bang.

  The padlock’s tricky. After a few minutes of working with he
r lock picks—Nab shuffling in obvious irritation the whole time—she gives up and pulls out a small hacksaw. Rattle will definitely know someone has been here now, but it can’t be helped. She sends Nab to the closest bend in the alley to keep watch and starts sawing at the hasp. After maybe a quarter of an hour, the metal finally parts, and she calls Nab back.

  The boy sighs. “He really is going to hate me for this.”

  Ignoring him, Myrrh pulls the lock free and drops it on the ground. She grabs a handle that’s bolted to the heavy hardwood and heaves.

  A short staircase leads down into darkness and silence. Feeling along the wall, Myrrh locates a lantern. With a quick strike from her flint, she pulls a small flame from the wick then starts down the stairs.

  Rattle’s den is not what she expected. The sturdy door is the nicest part of the place. Otherwise, it’s just a bare, subterranean hovel. Only the simple cot, the crooked table and three-legged stool, and the iron-bound leather trunk distinguish it from the root cellar it clearly used to be.

  She squints, looking around the room as she descends the short flight of stairs to the floor. Rough planks have been laid underfoot to cover the bare earth, but dust finds its way through the cracks and coats the toes of her boots.

  “Are you sure this is the right place, Nab?” she asks.

  “Do I look like an idiot who can’t remember his way around Rat Town?”

  Shaking her head, Myrrh hurries to the trunk. If Rattle has any more etch or other, more sinister compounds from Haava, they’ll likely be inside. She flips a metal hook out of its housing and raises the lid. Inside are sets of folded clothing and a few promising-looking boxes.

  “I knew you kept half the rubies, but I didn’t expect you to come for the rest of my riches. I suppose I can thank my thief’s intuition for the impulse to forget your cart of crystal and return here. Or perhaps it’s the trip you took into Maire’s Quarter yesterday that tipped me off.”

  “I told you, Myrrh!” Nab yells as they both whirl.

  Somehow, Rattle has descended half the stairs without making so much as a rustle. He stands with hands at his sides, his single eye burning as he stares at her. At either side of his belt, oiled blades are halfway out of their sheaths, the edges shining in the lamplight.

  Myrrh frantically casts about for a distraction. “If you were more forthcoming, I wouldn’t have to search your lair for the truth. What are the trinkets you’ve been nailing to people’s doorjambs?”

  A strange expression crosses Rattle’s face. For an instant, he stands motionless, and then he raises a hand.

  She looks away too late. The moment Rattle makes a peculiar gesture with his fingers followed by an odd humming sound, her body freezes.

  Myrrh can’t move.

  She can’t speak.

  Nab is a blur of color at the edge of her vision, but she can see enough to tell he’s paralyzed as well.

  “I haven’t had a chance to teach Nab this cantrip yet,” Rattle says. “It takes rather a lot of training. But he does know the basics of the next one. A brief misdirection is one use of the ability to render a mark suggestible. The power to command takes more practice.”

  His hands come up before her face. Rattle begins a gesture.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I’M NOT GOING to kill you,” Rattle says as Myrrh comes back to awareness.

  She’s in another dark room, heavy beams overhead, smooth but unpainted planks on the wall. A single candle burns on a small table. There are just two chairs, hers and Rattle’s.

  A gag swallows her shout.

  “Nab’s fine. I explained the confusion and set him down in front of a dish of baked cinnamon apples.”

  She shakes her head, breath searing her nostrils as she pants.

  “Seriously, Myrrh. I don’t know what Dominic told you, but I mean you no harm. I quite respect your accomplishments.”

  Myrrh strains against her bonds. Her ankles are tied to the chair legs, the rope hard against her flesh, but she can almost get leverage with her toes. The bonds on her wrists are so tight she’s lost feeling in her fingers.

  “Oh, wait. You don’t know him as Dominic, do you? Glint. Isn’t that what he goes by now?”

  Standing, Rattle stalks across the room, hands clasped behind his back. When he reaches the wall, he turns to face her again. “I didn’t wish to bind you like this. But I believe it’s the only way I will convince you to listen. After your visit to Dominic’s home yesterday, I have no doubt your head has been filled with lies.”

  Lacking any other option to express her disgust, Myrrh narrows her eyes at the man.

  “Glint told you about our feud. And since he’s ever so charming, he managed to convince you that I’m here to wrest your syndicate from you. Perhaps he told you I’ll rob you of everything you hold dear. Including, no doubt, your virtue.”

  The man sighs, shaking his head as he continues pacing. When he’s not looking, Myrrh cranes her neck to try to get more information on where she’s being held. There’s a single door on the wall in front of her. No light leaks from beneath. Behind, there’s the edge of something that might be a shuttered window. She can’t turn her head far enough to see.

  Added to the scraping of Rattle’s footfalls against the floorboards, a rhythmic clanging presses through the walls. Are they in Smeltertown? And did he really force her to walk here under her own power? The only people in the area are probably workers half-deaf from the constant din of the ore crushers. Which makes hope of rescue rather thin. If he’s telling the truth about Nab being somewhere nearby, maybe the boy will come to his senses and get help.

  Seeming to tire of his pacing, Rattle grabs his chair again, spins it around, and sits facing her with his forearms folded over the chair back. Today, in place of his missing eye, he’s wearing a sphere that’s either green glass or polished emerald.

  “I should be honest about one thing, Myrrh. I did follow Dominic here. He…” Rattle runs a hand over his hair, ending with a squeeze of the tail that’s tied at the nape of his neck. “Dominic wounded me. We were friends once, but when I made the mistake of conducting creative business with him, the same sort of maneuver any of the ruthless Port City traders would have made, he took it rather personally. And he struck back in a very personal fashion. Of course, things escalated. Though I kept my attacks to his enterprise, never to his personal dealings, he had no such integrity.”

  As Rattle heaves a deep sigh, Myrrh works her right foot against the ropes binding her to the chair. It might be her imagination, but the knot seems a little looser.

  “But you don’t really need to hear my side. Not right now, anyway, because there’s a much bigger issue that we must discuss.”

  Myrrh makes a sound against her gag as if to show they’re not discussing anything. She’s listening to his power-tripping monologue.

  He smirks, an uncustomary display of emotion. “Yes, I’m aware that the conversation is rather one-sided right now. Rest assured, you’ll have your say. Anyway, you mentioned the trinkets. I must say, it took me off guard. Are you also aware there have been a smattering of seemingly inexplicable killings in the city?”

  He cocks his head as if waiting.

  “A gag doesn’t keep you from nodding, you know.”

  Myrrh glares. She’s not going to give this man the satisfaction of seeing her do anything at his command.

  “Wait”—he abruptly sits up straight—“I thought Nab was being overly dramatic when he mentioned your concern that I was a killer. You don’t really think…?”

  She has to give him credit. The man is a good actor. He seems genuinely stunned, blinking slowly as if coming to terms with this new information.

  After a moment, he drops his hands to his sides. “It was the trinkets. That’s the reason you mentioned them…. No wonder you were so concerned about my interactions with Nab. You probably saw that I gave him a protection sigil.”

  As he speaks, a ti
ny slice of Myrrh’s mind starts to wonder if there’s a bit of truth to his act. But she keeps her face even as the man presses fingers to his forehead. He takes another deep breath.

  “Well, I was going to tell you anyway. I just didn’t think I’d be defending myself as the potential killer. Myrrh, I came because of my rivalry with Glint. I heard through mutual associates that he’d managed to claw his way up to a rather prominent position in Ostgard. After what he did to me, I couldn’t rest easy without striking back.

  “That’s why I came. But within just a few days in the city, I realized I had more to do here than exact vengeance on an old rival. Have you ever heard of the trickster god, Skorry?”

  Despite herself, Myrrh nods. If nothing else, the longer she keeps him talking, the greater the chance someone will come to her rescue. When Rattle doesn’t try to hold up Glint’s cartload of crystal, Glint will know something went wrong. The question is, will he have any chance of finding her?

  “Those protection charms are pleas to Skorry for luck and protection. Nothing more sinister, unless you consider that some people believe the protection infallible. They get cocky. In retrospect, that ought to have given me pause before I gave one to Nab. But he was shadowed—I saw it the first time I met the boy. Short of keeping him within a few paces of me, the charm was the best thing I could do for him.”

  Through her gag, Myrrh tries to ask what he means by shadowed. It comes out as a muffled aaagh.

  Rattle fixes her with a judging look. “If I take that off so we can converse like normal people, will you swear not to yell? We’re too close to the smelter furnaces and ore crushers for anyone to hear, but I’d rather get this explanation done quickly so we can move forward.”

  Myrrh flares her nostrils, but then nods. Rattle leans forward, and with a quick slice of his blade, frees the rag from her head. She spits it out and grimaces.