by Melanie Card
“Curious,” Celia said. If Solartti didn’t send her the warning...
Ward leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “The Dark Son’s minion?”
She sighed. How could a necromancer be so ignorant about the other dark arts? “An assassin.” She patted his arm and hoped he’d take the hint and stay quiet for the rest of the conversation. “I guess this means the assignment is public knowledge.”
“Hardly,” Solartti said. “I’m just very resourceful.”
“So what do these resources say about it?” She leaned back in her chair, trying to look disinterested.
“My dear, you know you don’t get something for nothing.”
“And who helped you redecorate this house?”
“That doesn’t count.” He picked a long twig from the box of kindling and poked it into the flames.
“Why not?” She knew it wouldn’t count, but she had to ask. Friendship didn’t mean anything between assassins when they wanted something. “I suppose the assignment is yours.”
“No. I wouldn’t have taken it if it was offered to me.” The end of the twig broke off, and he pulled it out and examined the scorched tip. “Which it wasn’t, by the way.”
“So who has it?”
He met her gaze, his expression serious. “I don’t know.”
He could be lying. Probably not, but if he really wanted to hide something she’d have no way of knowing.
“I suppose the next thing to ponder,” she said, hoping if she thought out loud he wouldn’t be able to resist the puzzle and would try to figure it out with her, “is who would be powerful enough, or unafraid enough, to buy an assignment for the Dominus’ daughter?”
Ward coughed but didn’t say anything. So he didn’t know who her father really was. Not a surprise. Had he even figured out her occupation yet?
“That is the question,” Solartti said. “I’d like the answer to that one myself.”
“Have you—” She considered her next words, knowing she’d be accusing Solartti of performing an illegal action against the Guild. “Have you seen the ledger?” If he had, he’d have known the working name, the nom de mort, of the assassin.
“Now why would you assume I’d crept about in the Guild’s records room, risking life and limb, to see who’s after you?”
“Curiosity.”
He snorted. “You know me too well.”
Yes, she did.
“There isn’t one.”
She jerked forward. “Excuse me?”
“There isn’t an entry for you in any of the ledgers. I’ve looked. Besides, if the Master agreed to have you killed, do you think he’d be stupid enough to record it?”
“Then how do you know there is an assignment?”
“You’re, well...” He glanced over her shoulder and Ward shifted from one foot to the other. “You were dead. What do you think the answer is?”
She didn’t respond. Someone had sent her that note, and someone had succeeded in killing her. And if it wasn’t her father—which was still in doubt—then the killer must have some kind of experience, or he wouldn’t have been able to get to her.
“I think I need to see for myself.”
“Well, happy hunting, my dear.” Solartti laughed again. “But you won’t find anything.”
She stood and pushed the chair back against the table. “Since I helped you renovate...”
“You know I can’t do anything.”
“Sure you can.” She flashed a hint of her best seductive smile. “It’s easy.”
“With a dead person, nothing is easy. You should know that by now.”
“Just find out who might have sent the note.” She grabbed Ward’s arm and pulled him to the door. “I really thought I only had one friend in the Guild, but it seems I have a secret admirer.”
“You’re too beautiful to only have one, Celia,” Solartti said, and he blew her a kiss.
EIGHT
Ward let Celia drag him out the door and into the alley beside the house. He’d been right. Celia’s father hadn’t murdered her, or at least it was clear she didn’t know either way. Everything said in that kitchen seemed to be in some kind of code. He wished Celia would tell him the truth.
He jerked out of her grip. “What was that about?”
She didn’t respond.
He crossed his arms.
“We don’t have a lot a time.”
“For what?”
She sighed. “Solartti knows I’m planning on breaking into the Guild’s records room.”
“And what Guild would that be?”
She clamped her hand on his wrist again and yanked, but he refused to move. She had gotten him into this mess. She could at least give him some answers.
“I’ll explain on the way.” She sounded pained, desperate. He could almost believe it was an honest emotion.
“Fine.”
He followed her deeper into the alley, past Solartti’s house, between two stout neighboring buildings, until they came to a high stone wall with a wooden door set in the center. With a click and a creak, Celia opened it just wide enough to pass through. For once, Ward’s slim stature served him well, and he stepped through the crack without having to open the door farther.
“So?” He eased the door shut behind him.
“So, we need to get moving.” They had entered a small garden and she strode across it to a wrought-iron gate on the other side, seemingly oblivious to the heady scent of roses and dense foliage packed in deep beds along the walls.
He crossed the small square of cobblestones, taking a moment to imagine how the garden would look in sunlight. He hoped it would clear his head and reveal some way to get Celia to divulge her information.
Inspiration did not find him.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Why are we running?”
“We’re not running.”
Now she was arguing semantics. “Fine. What’s the hurry?”
“As I said before, Solartti knows I’m planning on breaking into the Guild’s records room. Which means right now he’s on his way to the Master.”
Calm was obviously getting him nowhere, and he was tired of always feeling at a disadvantage. Sure, this was Celia’s world and not his. She wouldn’t be this confident performing a necropsy or stealing bodies from a cemetery. Still, she had picked the lock to Solartti’s house pretty fast. All right, she might be fine with the body stealing. But she kept referring to things as if he would know everything about them, like the Master—whoever he was—and the Guild. Being nice wasn’t working. It was time to find a bit of the confident Ward he had somehow forgotten.
“It’s easy enough to send you back across the veil.”
Actually, he had no idea how easy it’d be to remove a Jam de’U or when the spell would end, but she threw her weight against him before he could think of anything better to say, slamming him onto the gate. It shuddered with the impact, echoing in the quiet garden and the street beyond. “Was that a threat?”
She pressed her forearm against his throat, not hard enough to restrict his breathing, but enough to remind him she could—and would—without a second thought.
He struggled to calm his racing heart. “If you want me to help, you need to be more forthcoming. Remember, I’m just a country necromancer, obviously ignorant of your big city ways.”
She shoved him away from the gate and flipped the latch open. “I doubt that.” She pulled up her hood and stepped into the street. “You certainly knew who the Dominus was.”
“Not who, but definitely what.” He rubbed his throat and followed her. “Who hasn’t heard of the Prince of the Criminal Underworld, Master of the Gentilica?”
“Fine.” She grabbed his arm, picking up the pace. “This is not to be repeated.”
He nodded.
“My father is Brawenal’s Dominus. And I am a member of the Assassins’ Guild, affectionately referred to as ‘The Guild.’ Do you follow me so far?”
“So you’re the daughter of
the Dominus, but that wasn’t enough—you had to become an assassin as well?” He swallowed. He really shouldn’t have threatened her. If she didn’t need him—and that was potentially in doubt—he’d likely be dead.
“It’s a family tradition. Mother to daughter.” She turned down another alley. “The Master runs the Guild. And that’s who Solartti’s talking to right now.”
“Again, you said we could trust him.”
“As much as you can trust anyone in the Guild, or the Gentilica.”
That seemed like a strange concept, although not so far-fetched as he’d once thought. Really, how much could a person trust someone who killed for a living? Or extorted money, bribed officials, ran prostitution rings, and whatever else the Gentilica was involved in? He supposed he couldn’t trust anyone in the Physician’s Union, either. If they ever discovered he continued to practice illegal surgeries, they would turn him over to the Quayestri in a heartbeat.
He snorted, and the goddess-eye brand on the back of his neck began to itch. He’d been turned over to the Quayestri once before, several years ago. Thank the Goddess all he’d gotten was the brand.
They left the alley in silence, stepping into the street in front of the wall of the fifth ring, the west gate twenty feet away. Four thick columns of obsidian carved from the frozen lava flow at the Bay of Veknormai rose on either side of the wall, a symbol of the defeat of Prince Meir the Third by the Susadian army.
Ward shied away from the pillars as they passed through the gate. The curse on the obsidian had supposedly been broken but he wasn’t going to tempt his fate any further. He couldn’t imagine how his current situation could get worse, but he was sure it could.
Past the pillars, the road took a sharp turn and narrowed, with second-, third-, and fourth-story balconies of the buildings on either side stretching above his head and sheltering most of the road. The short, stout houses and even the few thin wood ones were gone, replaced by a maze of buildings built so close he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. He caught glimpses of garden courtyards and public fountains beyond narrow archways, either built into a wall or created by neighboring balconies that butted against each other. Then they were in the shadows of another alley, this one twice as wide as any of the others Ward had traversed.
Celia stopped halfway down, beside a door wide enough to admit two men walking abreast. She unsheathed the dagger at her hip and offered him the hilt. “Do you know how to use this?”
“Of course.” It wasn’t a complete lie. He knew what would kill a man, where to strike, what to sever. He’d just never done it before, and his Oath as a physician prevented him from killing.
“We don’t have a lot of time. I want you to stay where I put you. Don’t make a sound unless you see someone coming. And then you should do that quietly.”
He nodded.
“Very quietly.”
He bit his lip and nodded again.
She eased the door open, glanced around, and stepped inside.
Following her, Ward tried to mimic her careful cat-like movements, but his footsteps still crunched with every step.
Celia didn’t seem to notice. Thank the Goddess.
He eased the door closed, pressed his back against it, and peered into the gloom. It was dim, but periodic puddles of moonlight from windows just under the rafters at least two stories up provided enough light for Ward to make out basic forms. To his right and across from him was a stable. The beams, with hooks containing tack, looked like malformed soldiers standing guard. From the infrequent shuffles and snorts, the stalls were occupied.
So this was the Assassins’ Guild’s records room. A stable.
Beside him sat a low partition and beyond were various sizes of carriages, from hand-drawn, to single-horse, to pair, and even one for a team of six.
No. Not a stable, a taxi service.
He supposed the best illegal business was fronted by a mundane legal one, even if an import and export venture might serve the business better. Less livestock to care for.
Celia stepped around a barrel and headed to the left. Ward followed. This half of the building seemed more like a warehouse, filled with towering rows of barrels, piles of sacks, and bales of hay. She crouched at a door in the back wall and the soft scritch of a bolt sliding out of place followed. The door swung open with a creak.
He was becoming far too familiar with the sounds of breaking and entering.
He knelt beside her, and she grabbed his shoulder, pressing her lips to his ear. “This is the only door to the records room.”
Her breath sent waves of heat washing over him. Logically, he knew an attraction between them was impossible, but his body insisted otherwise. Why did she have to be so alluring? And so... dead?
“There’s a stable boy. His cot is by the front door. Stand here, out of the light.” She didn’t wait for him to acknowledge the instruction, which was good since he probably couldn’t speak without making a complete fool of himself. Instead, he sucked in a slow, silent breath, trying to get his blood to flow through all parts of his body and not just the one pressing uncomfortably against the front of his pants. Now was not the time to let his body control him. He needed to concentrate. Besides, beautiful as she was, she wouldn’t have any reservations about killing him.
Behind him came the sigh of papers being turned, the only indication Celia was doing anything. How long would she take? She had said they didn’t have a lot of time, that Solartti would go to the Master. It didn’t look like anyone was coming.
He strained to hear anything outside on the street. There were no sounds beyond the walls or within, save for a few whickers. The noise in the records room had stopped. Please let her have found what she was looking for so they could leave. He squeezed the dagger’s hilt between his fingers. The quiet was unnerving. No sound outside. No sound before him, save for the horses. And now nothing behind him.
Should he check to see if she was all right? If she was fine, however, she would scold him for not keeping watch. But what if something had happened to his spell and she was dead again? Would he hear her fall to the floor? Not if she was sitting in a chair, or leaning over a table.
He glanced about the warehouse. Nothing.
Maybe he should peek in. Just to see.
He leaned into the doorway. She stood with her back to him, holding up a large book in the moonlight.
“Are they here?” she asked without glancing at him.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Something whizzed by his ear and embedded into the wood beside him with a thunk. He jerked backward. A thick crossbow bolt vibrated an inch from his head.
“I’d say they’re here.”
NINE
Another crossbow bolt slammed in the wood by Ward’s head. He dropped to his knees and scrambled into the records room, pressing his back to the wall, his sharp gasps forced past the lump in his throat.
Celia closed the book, slipped it on the shelf beside a row of other, identical books, and shut the false front, revealing a plain paneled wall. She eased to the door and knelt beside him. “Did you see how many there are?”
He shook his head, not trusting his voice. He’d been in trouble before, but the held-at-sword-point-and-arrested kind. Never the kind where people shot arrows at him.
She poked her head around the edge of the doorframe. Two more bolts hit the wall. All the muscles in Ward’s body contracted.
“They seem serious,” he said, hoping bravado would counterbalance his shaking.
She sat back on her heels. “If they are, they’re not very good shots.”
He swallowed. They seemed fine to him, but he supposed now wasn’t the time to start a debate. It would be better if he asked Celia about her escape plan, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear that, either.
She glanced out the door again. This time there was no answering crossbow fire.
“They’ve taken cover. Which means
they’re waiting for us to make a run for it.” She flashed him a huge grin. “I think we should oblige them.”
“Excuse me?” Had he heard wrong? Had she just said they should make a run for it?
“Just outside this door, to the left, is a pile of sacks.”
He didn’t recall any sacks. Of course, if asked at that moment what he wore, he wasn’t sure he could say.
“I’ll bet they’ve placed a man there. I’m sure they’ll count on me betting on that, so they’re hoping I’ll risk the open area to the right. The barrels over there are bigger, but farther away.”
“Bigger is good.”
“Sure, and the run to them will make us bigger targets.”
“But there’s a man over the other way.”
“Yes.” She lunged out the door and to the left.
Two more bolts slammed into the wall behind her.
How did he get into this again?
Another bolt hit the wall. Someone screamed. Was it Celia? Ward jumped to his feet and followed, bent over, arms covering his head. He could feel the archers sizing him up along the length of their crossbows.
A bolt whizzed past him, and he dove for the space between the wall and the sacks, sliding to the edge of a pool of blood. A man, his neck a gaping wound, stared at him. Ward scrambled back, hands sticky.
Somehow, she’d stolen the man’s dagger and slit his throat in a matter of seconds. This was the art passed down from mother to daughter in her family? If it had been something like needlepoint, they wouldn’t be in this situation at all.
Celia grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him into a crouch. “There’s a side door that way.” She pointed along the path between the wall and a long row of barrels. “It’ll be guarded. Do you still have that dagger?”
Ward held it up, his hand trembling. He didn’t know who was more surprised—Celia or himself.
“Are you having fun yet, necromancer?”
“Fun?” His voice cracked. “You’re mad.”
“Yes. I’m told it runs in the family.” She squeezed his shoulder, her eyes bright with either excitement or insanity—Ward couldn’t decide which. She crawled toward the door beneath the cover of the barrels. Forearm over forearm and legs spread, lying low to the floor, she skimmed the tiles with her belly. She reached the edge of the barrels in four quick pounds of Ward’s heart, and peeked around the corner. Then she dashed the last two feet to the door, threw it open, and flew out, her bloody dagger held tight against the length of her forearm.
