Westkings Heist: The Complete Series

by Beth Alvarez

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to real people or events is entirely coincidental.

  TO STEAL THE WORLD

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez

  First Edition: January 2020

  NEVER LOST

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez

  First Edition: December 2020

  TO STEAL THE CROWN

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez

  First Edition: February 2020

  DON’T STEAL FROM DEMONS

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez

  First Edition: December 2020

  TO STEAL THE QUEEN

  Copyright © 2020 by Beth Alvarez

  First Edition: June 2020

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Omnibus First Edition: December 2020

  Cover art by Jose Alvarez

  ISBN: 978-1-952145-11-7

  Westkings Heist

  The Complete Series

  Beth Alvarez

  Contents

  To Steal the World

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  Never Lost

  10. Chapter 1

  To Steal the Crown

  11. Chapter 1

  12. Chapter 2

  13. Chapter 3

  14. Chapter 4

  15. Chapter 5

  16. Chapter 6

  17. Chapter 7

  18. Chapter 8

  19. Chapter 9

  Don’t Steal from Demons

  20. Chapter 1

  To Steal the Queen

  21. Chapter 1

  22. Chapter 2

  23. Chapter 3

  24. Chapter 4

  25. Chapter 5

  26. Chapter 6

  27. Chapter 7

  28. Chapter 8

  29. Chapter 9

  30. Chapter 10

  31. Chapter 11

  32. Chapter 12

  33. Chapter 13

  34. Chapter 14

  35. Chapter 15

  36. Chapter 16

  37. Chapter 17

  38. Chapter 18

  Author’s note

  About the Author

  Books by Beth Alvarez

  To Steal the World

  The First Heist

  Chapter 1

  A thin plume of gray-blue smoke coiled above Tahl’s upturned palm. No matter how many times he tried to summon fire, he never got farther than smoke. The rest of his power—his Gift, everyone called it—hovered just beyond his reach. It didn’t stop him from trying, but he wondered sometimes whether the mages called such feeble magic a Gift as mockery instead of compliment.

  He blew the wisps of smoke into the morning air and curled his slim fingers into the palm of his hand. It didn’t matter; he’d given up on magecraft the first month after he’d been admitted to the academy. Or rather, they’d given up on him. Still, the ability to conjure fire struck him as useful, especially in his profession. Now and then, everyone needed a distraction to save their hide.

  The smoke he’d managed disappeared overhead, swallowed by the thick plumes that billowed from the bakery’s chimney. The cool, shadowy sides of chimneys were Tahl’s favorite places to practice. Not only did they disguise his pathetic power, but they provided a comfortable shelter and an interesting view. The city below hummed with life, but it wasn’t the city that interested him.

  A man paused at the mouth of a narrow alley some distance away. To everyone else, he was all but invisible, his furtive glances into the wider streets easy to mistake for mindfulness. He stepped back into the alley as a cart rumbled past. Then he slid across the cobblestones, as casually as every other pedestrian, and vanished around the corner.

  Tahl slid to the far side of the chimney and waited for the man to emerge on the other side. He had watched the man for days. His target walked with a comfortable confidence among the crowds. If he’d known Tahl had figured him out, perhaps he would have run.

  The bakery’s aged wooden shakes creaked as Tahl slipped to the roof’s edge—not the edge that hung over the capital’s main street, but the back edge, where firewood sat stacked to the eaves. One of the baker’s apprentices crossed the yard with a sack of flour on his shoulder to accompany the white powder that frosted his dark clothes. Most of the capital’s wealthy wore bright, garish colors. The working class appeared drab by comparison. Tahl’s own wardrobe varied, depending on who he needed to be. Today, he could have been a baker’s apprentice, dressed in dark browns that let him blend in with the city’s roofs. Some of the roofs, that was; the garden district, where the wealthiest lived, favored clay tiles in a deep red-gold. To the north, those tiles glowed in the morning light, a beacon to guide him to his planned rendezvous.

  The apprentice disappeared into the bakery and Tahl thrust himself from the edge of the roof. His toes hit the bare earth and he sprang forward into a roll to defer the impact. He popped to his feet and dusted his clothes as he darted out the back gate. The first roll of the day was always the most pleasant, but the acrobatics were best saved for later. If things went sour, he’d need them.

  Orrad, the capital city, had been his home for a handful of years, but the streets sometimes still felt like a maze. Tahl was more comfortable on the rooftops, but he avoided them during the day. He was no one, unnoticed, unthreatening, and he intended to keep it that way. Aside from taking a morning perch to practice his smoke and get a view of the city, he kept his feet on the ground, which was far more likely to keep his head attached to his shoulders. Atoras, the ruler of the southernmost Westkings Empire, was known for his ruthlessness and ill temper. The practice of docking a caught thief’s fingers that was utilized in the east was gracious and merciful in comparison to the penalties Tahl had seen enacted on his fellows here.

  Soft chimes rose above the noise of the crowds and Tahl lingered at the edge of the street. His mark was somewhere farther ahead, but the people parted for an entourage of priestesses and crowded the sides of the wide avenue.

  The quintet of women walked single file. Their bare feet made no sound on the cobblestones, but the soft, melodious sound of the wooden chimes that hung from their wrists announced their presence to anyone who could hear. Tahl turned his head to watch; he still found the priestesses a curious sight. On the southern coast, where he’d grown up, the Children of Brant were all but unknown. But Orrad was home to the largest temple in the Westkings, and their influence over the city was undeniable. Some thieves—namely those pushed into the profession by necessity—took issue with the Creator, but Tahl had never devoted much thought toward Brant or his disciples. He was curious, more than anything. No matter how many times he saw the priestesses in the city, he never could figure out how they knew where they were going with those translucent, pale green silk scarves over their heads.

  Then the priestesses passed, and the crowds closed behind them. Tahl joined them, pushing through the bustle like everyone else. The procession had stalled him, but he knew his mark’s route by heart.

  Most marks weren’t worth following for weeks on end, but this one was different. Special. And if Tahl was right, this one was the first key to changing his fortune.

&n
bsp; Not far up the main road, Tahl darted into a gap between buildings. The winding trail was meant for rainwater drainage, rather than people, but he was slim enough to fit without trouble. His shoulders brushed the rough stone walls and he shifted to angle his right shoulder forward, so his dominant hand would lead. He’d never encountered trouble in the streets; it wasn’t uncommon for the working class to take whatever shortcuts through the city they could find, and there was no reason for anyone to believe him anything else. Still, he wasn’t foolish enough to put himself at a disadvantage, should he encounter one of the city’s less amicable inhabitants in the alleys.

  Tahl emerged not far from the garden district, its walls a stark white above the gray stone homes of the lower class. Though inhabited by the city’s elite and walled off to protect it, the garden district was open to the public. Tall bronze gates stood open at the cardinal points to allow access to the district, and while the north and south gates hosted guardhouses, there were not always sentries at the gates. Tahl had memorized the guard rotations—as had his mark, he was sure. When Tahl crossed into the garden district, the south gate was empty.

  The cloying scent of morning flowers greeted him the moment the gardens themselves came into view. Trees dressed in white and pink blossoms clustered around the central fountain. Their petals coated the water and clogged the thing until nothing more than a trickle spilled from the basins in the tree-shaped statue’s branches. Spring pollen coated everything and made it hard to cover one’s tracks, but it had rained the night before, and most of the road was clear. The rain was why Tahl had chosen today to move.

  It was Somnday; the end of the week and the day of rest for those who could afford time off. The one day of the week Tahl was certain there would be no one at work in the gardens that sprawled around the tall, white stone houses. He ducked behind the thirteenth house from the south gate, where the gardens were shady and thorny flowering vines crept up the stone toward the third floor of the house. He’d studied those vines elsewhere in the city, memorized how far apart the thorns were spaced.

  Tahl drew a breath and climbed.

  The railing on the balcony above was clean, washed by the rain the night before. He left no handprints. Across the balcony, doors with fine glass panes waited. Inside, the curtains over the doors were drawn, a unique challenge to overcome. Tahl slipped his thinnest knife from his left sleeve and crouched beside the doors to listen. He couldn’t risk standing; Somnday or not, the garden district would have traffic, and he couldn’t let himself be spotted by neighbors.

  Thin as it was, his knife almost didn’t fit in the crack beside the door. His mark was no fool; the doors were barred, instead of latched. Not a hindrance to anyone who wished to enter by force, as Tahl could have wrapped his fist and smashed one of the thin panes of glass to grant all the access he needed. Petty burglars might have taken the easy route, regardless of whether or not the noise would alert the house’s occupants to the crime. Most nobles were weak and fearful and wouldn’t confront a burglar on their own. With this mark, the barred door meant caution, not fear.

  The knife caught the end of the wooden bar and Tahl wiggled it upward. It was hard, heavy work and several times, the tip of the knife threatened to slip from its place, wedged in the grain of the wood. Persistent, he slid the end of the bar upward. The glass was a boon; it let him see exactly where his knife was. The bar lifted over the edge of its bracket and he eased the knife forward. The bar shifted and teetered, then balanced atop its iron bracket.

  Tahl held his breath. He thrust open the other door and caught the bar before it fell. The curtains rippled and he froze until they stilled. Beyond, the room was quiet.

  Somewhere below, on the second floor, was where he needed to be. Despite that certainty, he did not know where he was going. He closed the door and eased the bar back into place before he dared to peer out from behind the curtain. A fine bedroom lay on the other side. Foolish, he thought; the least defensible place in the house. But it was empty, and Tahl crossed to the door with haste. Not long, now. His mark would be crossing the garden, reaching the front door.

  He put a hand to his pocket and waited until he was sure the hall beyond was empty to remove and uncork the tiny glass vial. The oil inside was sweet-scented, but thin; it penetrated hinges faster than anything else he’d tried. When he drew the door open a moment later, it was silent.

  The hall beyond the bedroom ran north and south with tall windows at either end. He cut south without hesitation. He didn’t have time to think, only to act. A flight of stairs waited around the corner. He stepped out and recoiled. A maid balanced linens in one arm, watching her skirts as she scaled the stairs. Tahl sprinted north instead, the soft toes of his doeskin boots silent on the thick carpet. Another stairway, this one empty. He ducked around the corner and tip-toed down the steps.

  The office waited on the other side of the house. Tahl slipped through the parlor in the corner and into the wide office, a shadow in the morning light. Loud footsteps on the stairs below announced his mark’s arrival, and when the office door swung open, Tahl stood before the tall eastern windows, gazing at the garden fountain beyond.

  The nobleman froze. “Who are you? How did you get in here?” he demanded. “Nella! Nella, what is this?”

  “Bahar Eseri,” Tahl said as he turned from the garden. “Chief of the southern empire’s thieves guild.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he closed the door before his maid could respond. “What do you want?”

  Tahl’s eyes narrowed. “I want in.”

  Chapter 2

  “In?” Bahar stared as if he hadn’t heard. Then, suddenly, he burst into laughter. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, boy. Now, you’ve got one chance to tell me the truth about what you’re after and how you got into my house. Did Nella let you in? I told her I wouldn’t see guests.”

  “Your maid doesn’t know I’m here.” Tahl paced away from the windows. “I thought you’d prefer to keep it that way, since you keep all your business secret.”

  The nobleman scoffed. “Whatever you think you know about my business, you’re wrong.” He stalked to his desk and unstoppered a cut glass decanter.

  “What you do during the day, perhaps.” Tahl shrugged. “You manage an import company focused on goods brought in from the northern empires. A substantial portion of your business is legitimate, which provides a comfortable front and convenient cover for the portions that are not, as the stolen goods that move through your distribution facilities can be classified as bookkeeping errors.”

  The corners of Bahar’s mouth twitched downward.

  “You inherited the company from your father at a young age,” Tahl continued, “after he was killed in an accident in a warehouse. A considerable amount of your family fortune went to the families of the others killed in the incident, after Emperor Atoras found working conditions unsafe and ordered you pay reparations. Given how comfortable you were in a lavish lifestyle, you sought alternative means to bolster your income. You began to falsify numbers when you were sixteen, and began to operate as a fence when you were seventeen.”

  “Ridiculous.” Bahar filled his snifter halfway. “Such accusations could get a man killed.”

  “Yet you haven’t stopped me.”

  The nobleman sipped his dark red liquor.

  Tahl inched closer. “Founding the guild was your idea. With your trade connections, a network of informants was easy to establish. You organized your clients and contacts over the course of several years. By the time you were twenty-five, you’d become the leader of a group no one could pin down. A ghost who couldn’t be found guilty, because your trade company helped evidence disappear, and no one in their right mind would blame one of Orrad’s social elite for the aggressive theft that plagues the city.”

  Swallow by swallow, Bahar drained his glass. He slammed it back onto his desk. “You’re creative, I’ll give you that. I enjoyed your story. I’m sure the guards will enjoy it just as muc
h.”

  He lunged over the desk and caught Tahl by the shirt. His hands were like vicegrips, his curled fingers strong as steel. Tahl ducked under his arm and swiped an elbow down onto Bahar’s back. The nobleman crashed to the floor and Tahl danced backwards.

  “You need me,” Tahl said over the man’s angry roar.

  “Need you?” Bahar bellowed. “Why would I need you?”

  Tahl raised a hand and rolled a gold signet ring between his fingers. “Because you don’t have anyone like me.”

  Bahar’s chest heaved as he stared at the ring. He resisted, unwilling to remove his eyes from Tahl, but the need for certainty won. His gaze fell to his hand and the pale indentation on his finger where the ring had been.

  “Like I said.” Tahl flicked the ring toward him with a shrug. “You need me.”

  The signet ring bounced off Bahar’s fingers and pinged against the desk. His eyes followed it as it rolled across the floor. “I could have your head, boy.”

  “You could,” Tahl agreed. “But you won’t. Because no one’s ever been able to find you before, and you know how valuable that makes me.”

  The nobleman’s eyes narrowed. He rested a hand against the edge of his desk and bent to pick up his ring. “You have a strange method of convincing people to cooperate.”