Westkings Heist: The Complete Series

by Beth Alvarez

  Tahl scaled the remainder of the building with ease, not as fast as before, but with renewed strength and certainty. But don’t get too confident, he reminded himself. This isn’t over yet.

  The key in his pocket thumped against his leg as he sprinted across the roof and leaped to the next. Each touch of the iron stirred his ire anew. Such a simple task, it was almost insulting. No wonder he’d missed it. He’d been so focused on impressing the guildmaster that he’d overlooked the menial effort they expected thieves to put forth in order to join.

  But if that was all they expected, Lord Eseri should have been impressed. He should have quaked in his boots. Tahl couldn’t help the small, angry voice that lodged itself in his head. Do you regret it yet, Bahar? Do you see what I’m doing? After tonight, you won’t have any boots left.

  Few places bore security like Orrad’s bank. For any other reason, Tahl would have balked at the idea of infiltrating the place. It was a challenge, no doubt, but hardly worth the payoff. Until now.

  Any job can be worth the effort when the stakes are personal. A new flood of strength poured through him and he took the last leap, from the last residential rooftop to the bank’s peaked portico. He landed with a crack. His feet slid and he dropped to his knees to dig his fingers into the roof tiles.

  For an instant, everything was still. Then the soft melody of wooden chimes rose into the night air. Tahl turned his head.

  A long line of green-robed priestesses, at least fifty strong, snaked down the wide avenue that led past the bank and northward, toward the palace. He couldn’t help but stare. He’d never seen priestesses out at night, and never so many at once. Below, the guards who had filled the plaza now flanked the street to watch the priestesses pass. Even those at the bank’s door turned away from their post to watch the procession. Their chimes wafted, sweet and haunting, and curiosity clawed at Tahl’s heart like a starving beast. But he couldn’t indulge it. Instead, he gave a silent prayer of thanks for the distraction and fought his way to the rooftop.

  Unlike the museum, the bank bore no rooftop access doors. Tahl didn’t need one. He climbed just until the peak sheltered him from view of the priestesses and guards, then slid his worst dagger from its sheath on his leg. The blade was mostly dull and already chipped; it earned another gouge in its edge when he drove it under a roof tile and wrenched it upward. The tile cracked and fell to pieces, exposing the vulnerability beneath.

  Wood. If only he’d been capable of starting a fire.

  Tahl bit back that frustration and forced himself to focus. There was a weak place in the roof; he’d seen it when it had been patched following a storm, late last summer. He fractured several more tiles and put the pieces aside, wedging them in other tiles so they wouldn’t fall. After three more, the seam in the wood repair came into view.

  His dagger just fit between the boards. Tahl wiggled it under and heaved against it, prying the board up a bit at a time. Eventually, it popped free, its squawk of protest lost beneath the priestesses’ chimes. The second board came free easier. He dislodged a third and dropped into the attic feet first.

  Dust swarmed the air around him and the need to cough tightened his throat. He fought it back, tears welling in his eyes. A few hard swallows helped the feeling subside, but the tears left tracks down his face that caught the dust and stained his skin.

  Faint moonlight streamed in through the hole in the roof. Weak as it was, it was enough to illuminate the access hatch some short distance away. He stalked across the joists to open it. Below, a ladder descended into a tiny, lightless room he could only assume was a closet.

  Tahl tiptoed down the rungs and let his hands explore the walls. A ridge and crack beneath his fingertips revealed the shape of a door. No hinges on this side; the closet was too small for the door to open inward. His palm flattened against the surface and he searched a moment before his thumb bumped against the handle. Locked. No surprise.

  This time, he had no need for haste. He leaned close to the door, listened as his picks ticked against the pins inside the lock. Unlike those he’d dealt with at the museum, this was sophisticated. Only the best for Orrad’s wealthiest.

  The lock came open when he twisted and the door swung outward in perfect silence. He’d expected to emerge in a hall somewhere, but instead, he stood in a darkened office. The space was meticulously organized, cold and pristine. Orrad’s bankers saved the lavish trappings for their homes, it seemed—and for the first floor, where they needed to impress their clients. Tahl had only seen the interior of the bank once, when he’d still been part of the academy. The exhibition of wealth hadn’t bothered him then. But then, he’d also thought he would remain part of that world.

  He was ready to return. To the prestige, the dignity, the comfort. No one wanted to subsist, but aside from literacy and his feeble magic, he had no socially acceptable skills.

  But that didn’t stop Bahar Eseri from being successful, did it? he mused.

  The office door, too, was locked. Tahl tempered his impatience. He couldn’t just barrel out into the hallway and hope for the best. The upper floors had windows; it stood to reason they would have night guards on patrol. When the lock clicked, he eased the door open, grateful for the superior maintenance that kept the doors moving on soundless hinges. His oils were still in his pocket, but they were useless if all the doors opened outward.

  Tahl peered into the hall from a sliver of an opening. As he’d expected, a guard stood at the far end of the hall, at the top of the stairs that led to the floors below. Right where he needed to be. He stepped back to peer through the crack beside the hinges. Little was visible, but it was enough. He sank backwards and drew the door with him. Easy enough.

  Farther down the hall, more offices waited in tidy rows. He focused on the one he’d seen and closed his eyes. Fire magic seemed harder at night. According to the mages at the academy, it was because the element grew weaker without a source of heat close at hand. Tahl had always thought that foolish. The traces of energy he needed were fewer in the environment, true, but he was a source of heat, and carried everything he needed with him.

  Coils of smoke wound themselves outward from his point of focus. He felt them as they spread and thickened, a low cover that cloaked the floor. He built it upward. Thick, billowing clouds flooded the room down the hall. Fine beads of sweat broke on his brow as Tahl reached the edge of his strength and released the smoke. It spilled outward, flowed under the door and scented the air. His smoke always bore a faint hint of sulphur, acrid and hard to miss.

  The guard sniffed, soft at first, then long and hard. His head swiveled and he jumped from his post to race up the hallway. He fumbled with the lock and thrust the door open. The smoke poured free.

  Tahl held his breath and darted out of the office. Halfway down the stairs, where the air was clear, he allowed himself to suck in a breath. He would let the smoke linger, let the guard search for its source. He wasn’t foolish enough to assume the guard would return to his post when the air cleared.

  More offices and sitting rooms waited on the second floor, but here, expensive vases, tapestries, and potted exotic plants lined the walls. He ducked into the shadow of a plant with broad fronds. Another guard waited at the stairs that led to his destination. Tahl braced himself and searched for strength. Weak as his power was, magic was draining, and he’d already relied on it a great deal. Instead of the offices, he focused on the stairway behind him, churning up clouds of smoke that spilled downward and trailed along the ceiling of the second floor hall.

  It took longer for the second guard to notice, but when he did, he hurried past the plant—and Tahl. “Edren?” the man called, voice thick with concern. Upstairs, a series of coughs answered. The guard swore and took the stairs by twos.

  The plush carpet silenced the soft pad of Tahl’s feet. He bolted down the hall and stalked down the steps to linger at the bottom, just beside the wall. If he remembered right, the guard station was just around the corner. Smoke wouldn’
t work this time. He had nowhere else to hide. He caught his lower lip with his teeth and worried it, the way he did when he needed ideas.

  A quiet snort and grumble gave his answer.

  The guard was sleeping? Tahl caught his breath and bit his tongue to bridle a laugh. And they say Brant doesn’t favor thieves.

  He swung around the corner and ran for the iron grid that barred the way to the vaults. Power hummed here, vibrant even in his dull magic senses. A ward to prevent tampering. New meaning to warded lock, there. He let his hands hover before the bars, let the magic permeate his form. In most civilized countries, mages were bound by law to serve the ruler whose country they inhabited. At worst, they were neutral parties, held by honor to protect society. The northern mages were neutral, but Atoras was a ruthless leader who bound the empire’s mages to his service. Tahl would have been one of them, had he been stronger—any mage of recognizable strength was, and any mage at his level... Well, as far as Tahl knew, there weren’t any. Magic was dangerous, but the academy trained and retained anyone with a teachable Gift.

  Which means there have to be more unteachable mages out there. Mages like me. Mages who bore just enough skill to be dangerous. Tahl’s eyes narrowed as he singled out the edge of the ward. Some of them felt like bubbles. With the right kind of prick, they would burst.

  Imagine, he thought as he focused his power into a single, sharp point. Enough mages like me, and we could undermine the entire empire.

  He pushed.

  The ward warped and flexed under the needle of his magic. He didn’t know if it would alert the mage who created the ward in the first place, but it didn’t matter. The mages lived outside the academy, and the academy was too far away for them to change anything. His power pressed further and the ward burst. Magic fizzed in the air, like the tingle of bubbles popping against his skin. It dissipated as he slid his favorite pick into the grid’s lock.

  Without the magic to protect it, a lock was all it was. Like any other. The real difficulty lay beyond, in the individual vaults the bank so proudly displayed.

  The grid door popped open and Tahl slid inside. Beside the door, a book of names hung on a peg in the wall. He lifted the cover and spared a glance for its pages. The bankers wouldn’t have been foolish enough to mark which vault belonged to which patron, but a symbol followed each surname. Lord Eseri’s name sported a simple circumflex.

  Tahl tilted his head. The others were a little clearer; crude depictions of animals, a wagon’s wheel, a crown. A crown would be too easy. Everyone knows Atoras is the fourth emperor. He glanced at the fourth vault, then back to the book. The tiny chevron mark seemed obvious, yet he drew a blank. Was it supposed to be an arrow? He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. Nothing. Just a plain plastered ceiling. Unless it means farther up. The offices? The roof?

  The roof.

  He spun and ran for the numbered vaults. A roof. A house. Number thirteen. He skidded to a stop in front of it and pressed his chest and cheek against the vault door. No wards. More tentatively, his fingertips went to the strange, rounded lock in the center. He’d never seen anything like it, but with how the bank bragged about their security, he wasn’t surprised. But a lock was a lock. It wouldn’t keep him out.

  No wards protected the lock, either. The mechanism moved. A slim silver ring pushed forward and back on a wide knob, spun freely from side to side, but didn’t come off the front. There were no keyholes to be seen. Tahl closed his eyes and listened as he moved the pieces.

  Something inside rattled. That was different. He flattened his free hand against the vault door and explored with more than just his hearing. Calling his magic forth again pushed him to the brink of exhaustion, but he needed it. Maybe he didn’t have strength or power, but he had ideas, and those were worth something more. When he turned the dial, the metal creaked.

  Friction.

  Heat.

  For an instant, the lock’s inner workings illuminated in the extra senses that came with his Gift.

  The knob under his hand was composed of more rings, stacked atop one another. Each of the five rings turned individually, moved some part of the lock. He pushed and twisted, manipulated one ring at a time until the last one dropped into place. Abruptly, the knob came loose and pushed inward until it was flush with the vault’s door. The door clanked, groaned, and finally slid open.

  Beyond, it was too dark to see. Tahl padded inside, his footsteps muted by something soft on the floor. Leave it to nobles to put fine rugs inside strongrooms. He retrieved a handful of inch-sticks from his pocket. To anyone else, they were useless without flint, but Tahl’s smoke—and feeble heat—were enough to make them ignite. It sparked and hissed and he winced against the flare of light. The tiny flame didn’t travel far, but it was enough. The little light glinted off the treasures organized inside. Gem-studded weapons and gilded armor decorated racks in the corners. Pieces of artwork sat propped against the walls. On the far end of the vault, barrels—entire barrels—of coins from numerous countries sat, waiting for a man who would never spend them.

  Tahl shook his head. The inch-stick singed his fingers and he shook it out before he lit another. In the center of the vault, he knelt and drew a small, folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  “Bardan! Everything all right?” The words echoed through the empty bank. Outside the vaults, the sleeping guard snorted and choked as he jerked awake.

  Time’s up. Tahl left the paper on the floor and lay the iron key from the fountain atop it. He stood and his eyes caught on a set of scales beside the barrels of coin. They were garish beyond belief, cast in gold with silver inlays and gems at the peak of the fulcrum. A grin twisted his mouth. He shook out the second flame and snatched the scale from its shelf.

  “The gate!” a guard roared beyond the open grid door.

  Tahl jumped out of the thirteenth vault and slammed its door closed as he reached for his magic. The floor seemed to rock beneath his feet.

  One last time, come on. Just once more.

  He seized the threads of energy within himself. Everything in his head spun, upsetting his balance. He staggered against the row of gleaming metal doors.

  Come on...!

  The faint glimmer of power he retained grew brighter with his determination. It flickered, flared, and finally answered his call. Triumph poured through him as smoke spilled from his hands to fill the bank’s first floor with curling clouds of gray-blue.

  Chapter 8

  Though he was not normally a pessimist, Bahar Eseri did not think it unreasonable to label last night a disaster. The city had been teeming with guards ever since, and he still hadn’t gotten an answer as to when they would disappear. It had brought his business to a screeching halt. The delays would cost him thousands of pims—more than most men earned in a lifetime.

  He clenched his fists at his sides as he stalked down the corridor to his underground office. The cheerful warmth of the springtime air hadn’t touched his headquarters, the stone tunnels as cold and dank as ever. He supposed it didn’t matter. What did matter was pulling the shattered pieces of his schedule back together.

  Thieves would always exist outside the guild. They always had. But Orrad was his domain, and to say he was displeased did not quite capture Bahar’s feelings. He wasn’t angry, but annoyance prickled down his spine like the crawling feet of the camel crickets that infested the back halls of the guild headquarters.

  He knew who it was. He’d known the moment one of his guild’s officers sent a page to alert him to the attempted thievery in the museum. It took a fool to go after the temple. That the artifacts had been the target told him everything he needed to know. Bahar had long ago ordered that the temples be avoided. He did not fear curses, but Brant’s disciples were numerous, and together they had enough power to crush the guild with a thought.

  Still, it wasn’t the target that bothered him. It was that the attempt had been bungled. The thief had escaped, but he’d cast undue attention on the guild. Within
the span of an hour, everything ground to a halt, his best thieves abandoning their assignments for fear of the increased guard presence across the city. Bahar shouldered open the door to his office and grunted at the darkness. Everyone knew he expected the lamps in his office to be lit.

  “Light,” he barked over his shoulder.

  Someone scrambled from a hall nearby with a lantern in hand. His steward. Good. The small man ducked ahead and moved from lantern to lantern to light the wicks. The warm, golden light did nothing to chase away the chill.

  Bahar turned his head away until his eyes adjusted. The mask that hid his face from the guild rubbed uncomfortably when he twisted, but he ignored it. “Has he been apprehended?”

  “No, Guildmaster, I don’t believe so.”

  Another displeased grunt. Until someone caught the boy, the guild’s people would be reluctant to work. Bahar rounded his desk and paused. A striking gold-and-silver set of scales like that he used in his personal strongroom sat beside his logbooks. He fingered the brightly colored gems at its top. “What is this?”

  The steward licked his lips. “I’m not certain, sir. A gift from one of the initiates, perhaps?”

  Bahar frowned.

  “Excuse me, Guildmaster?” a journeyman asked from the door.

  “Never a moment’s peace,” Bahar muttered. “What?”

  The journeyman thief straightened. “A messenger was sent to your home, sir, bearing a message from the bank. They say it is urgent and you must come immediately.”

  A chill ran through him and Bahar glanced back toward the scales. No; he shook the idea from his head. It was coincidence.

  “Very well,” he said as he abandoned his desk. “Continue collecting information on the status of our members. I want everyone working within Orrad accounted for by nightfall.”

  “Yes, sir.” The journeyman bobbed his head and disappeared around the corner.

  The steward adjusted his spectacles and peered at the scales. “What do you wish me to do in your absence, sir?”