“Take this and wager on Felice’s match tomorrow.”
Although Squall reached out and took the coin, he appeared unimpressed. He looked at Felice. “Who are you playing?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Don’t you check the boards to see who it is so you can prepare yourself or something?”
Felice shook her head. “No. Waste of time.”
“That confident, are you?”
“Yes.”
Her answer seemed to give both Squall and Whisper pause. The big man ceased munching on his pastry, his third, while Squall gave her an appraising look.
“And if you lose?”
“She won’t,” Avigdor said confidently.
“Not for a few rounds, anyway,” added Felice. “Back to business, then. Where was this warehouse they’ve stored the alchemicals?”
“Red Tombs,” Squall replied. “Close to the river there.”
“Rat Town…” mused Felice. “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the district spoken of today.”
Squall’s hand fidgeted with the hilt of his sword. “The warehouse is owned by a business named the Company of One Hundred Associates. It has wide, wrought-iron gates for receiving and dispatching goods, a main entrance, and a side door for the workers and servants.”
Felice decided it couldn’t be a coincidence. The alchemical shipment arriving in the city when it shouldn’t have been needed, plus Hedgehog and his friends getting scared away from the sewers underneath a warehouse in Rat Town. It had to be the same place.
Finally, she felt like she was getting somewhere. The answers would be within her grasp soon. Although, if Marius was correct, Felice might be caught in a web she wasn’t expected to extricate herself from.
People have thought that before, and here I still am. Though a little the worse for wear.
Time. She needed more time. There were practice locks in her home she had to work on picking, as well as a compendium of rare herbs and poisons she wanted to memorize—she adored knowledge, and it was surprising how often obscure facts came in handy. Felice suppressed a groan of weariness and ran a hand over her tired eyes. She couldn’t get out of her Dominion matches tomorrow without forfeiting, but if she turned up tired from a lack of sleep, she’d take longer to win, and she’d waste more time.
“All right,” she said resignedly. “Here’s what we’ll do. We need a sample of the alchemicals. They might be poison, which is my best guess. I’ll come along—”
Avigdor hissed a warning through his teeth, stopping when Felice held up a hand.
“That’s too direct!” he said. “Don’t put yourself in danger, Felice. Perhaps your contact Marius has access to records—”
“No,” Felice said. She tugged on her red coat against the chill of the night and picked up her knives. “If he’s found out, they might kill him. And he’s not a bridge I can afford to burn. We’ll make it a quick in-and-out job. I might be able to identify the goods without us taking anything from the shipment. That way, no one will be the wiser.”
~ ~ ~
As it turned out, the warehouse was deserted. Through the iron gates was a lone watchman, a fat elderly man who sat on a stool and had one boot off, rubbing his foot. There was a rain barrel against a wall, next to a trough for watering horses.
There really should be more guards, Felice thought. But perhaps they have no idea they’ve aroused suspicions. No. Better to plan ahead than be taken unawares. She sent Squall and Whisper to surveil each side of the building, but they reported nothing untoward when they returned. It didn’t allay her uneasiness, but there was nothing left to do but enter the warehouse through a little-used door.
Squall beckoned Felice to follow as he and Whisper sidled through the shadows. She almost lost them in the darkness, so stealthily did they move. A trick she should work on herself when she had time.
Whisper chalked something on the door, and the lock clicked open. Felice grunted, slightly annoyed she wouldn’t be able to practice her lock-picking skills, but also glad she’d confirmed her suspicions about Whisper being a sorcerer.
He wiped the chalk away, removing any sign of his method.
Inside, she had them lead her to the place where the shipment had been stored. All the crates were gone, but there was a smell like vinegar, only much stronger and biting. A virulent acid of some sort. The fumes made her nose itch, and she sneezed, muffling the sound in the crook of her arm.
It occurred to Felice that this had to be from the alchemicals in the shipment. But again, any acid could have been made here in the city, so they obviously didn’t want anyone to stumble onto their plan. Whatever that was.
Acid could be used for many applications, such as cleaning and pickling, as well as manufacturing dyes and paints, and if her memory served, some swordsmiths used it to etch blades. She didn’t think they’d be pickling any vegetables with it, of that she was certain.
Something pale caught her eye over by one wall. She investigated closer and found a white powdery substance on the floor. Felice rubbed some between her fingers and sniffed it. It was almost odorless, but there was a faint hint of garlic.
“Slake said some fool would come,” said a reedy voice.
It came from somewhere above and to her right.
Felice scanned the darkness and spotted a thin man standing on a raised platform accessible by a wooden ladder. More of a boy than a man, his thinness was a gangly sort, and he didn’t look old enough to shave.
Expendable, then, and didn’t realize it. Probably thought he’d been given a test.
“Your master might as well give himself up,” Felice said. “We’re on his trail now, and we’ll find him soon enough.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of Squall drawing his blade before he and Whisper practically disappeared into the shadows.
The boy barked a laugh, more false bravado than amusement. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with. Leave, and you might live!” He hefted something in one hand. A glass sphere of some sort. A sorcerous globe?
His arm jerked toward her, and the globe flew from his hand.
Pignuts. Acid.
Felice threw herself to the side, landing hard on the wooden floor. Pain shivered up her arms and legs, and her knife hilt dug into her side. She rolled and covered her head.
Glass cracked, and liquid splattered her pants and shirt. Immediately, fumes choked her nose, and her skin stung as the acid spattered her hands and ate through the cloth. Boots hammered on wood as Squall or Whisper pounded up the ladder to the boy.
Felice frantically tugged her arms from her coat and yanked her pants off. Sitting on the floor, she balled her pants up and scrubbed acid from her skin, trying to ignore the beginnings of pain through clenched teeth. Blood smeared across the cloth.
Felice lifted her gaze. “Stop!” she shouted, both at the boy and the two mercenaries. “Don’t kill him—”
A thud sounded as something fell from a height onto the floor. Felice felt the vibration through the timbers. Bloody ancestors. She staggered to her feet.
A pile of clothes and twisted limbs lay at the bottom of the raised section. A number of stab wounds marked the boy’s clothes. He must have been dead, or else he would have screamed as he fell. Squall was on the platform, looking down at his handiwork.
The situation had gone to shit faster than the drop of an apple.
Her skin still stung. Felice staggered outside into the warehouse’s courtyard and splashed her arms and legs with water from the rain barrel.
A whistle sounded behind her. The fat guardsman summoning the city watch.
Felice ignored him and ran back inside. “Let’s go!” she yelled. They wouldn’t get much more out of this warehouse. If Slake had left a fool to mock them, then he would have also swept the place clean of clues. Better to cut their losses and run than spend the night, or longer, in a cell.
By the bloody ancestors, her skin hurt.
Her pants were covered
with smudges of crimson, but they had at least stopped smoking, as had her coat. Felice realized she was standing in her underclothes and a shirt in front of two grown men. It didn’t bother her; she wasn’t the modest type, but it might make them uncomfortable. She quickly picked up her ruined coat and smoothed her hair down. A few long black strands came away in her fingers, from where the acid had corroded them. Luckily her face was untouched, though it was already pockmarked from a childhood illness.
Whisper and Squall approached, and the swordsman at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Sorry,” Squall said. “He had a few more of those spheres, so I had to run him through.”
Felice had the feeling he would have run him through no matter what. “It’s unlikely he would have known anything of value. However, I like to be thorough. If you want to continue in my employ, I suggest you remember that fact.”
Squall opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word, Whisper spoke.
“We understand, Mistress Shyrise.” He gave the smaller swordsman a weighty look.
So Whisper does call the shots. And he’s decided their best course is to stay with me.
“Mistress Shyrise…er…” Squall looked away, not able to meet her eyes. “Your skin…”
The acid no longer burned now that she’d washed it off, but the burn marks still stung cruelly.
“Not now,” she said. “It’ll heal.” With not too many scars, hopefully. “We’ll see a physiker on the way back. Let’s go before the city watch arrives. Just let me grab a sample of this powder first.”
She quickly brushed some of the powder onto a piece of paper from her pocket, then folded it multiple times so it wouldn’t leak.
They darted out the side door and into the night.
~ ~ ~
Felice slid her key into the lock and let them into her office. “By the ancestors!” she cursed. It was as dark as a tomb inside.
She scratched around for a lamp, found one, and lit it. Her skin stung like she’d been bitten by a swarm of ants, and the ointment the physiker had given her did little to ease the pain. He said it was supposed to act quickly, but bloody ancestors, the acid spots hurt. She had another jar of ointment in her pocket to assist with healing, this one for tomorrow and the day after, and probably for a lot longer.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to banish the pain from her mind, only partially succeeding. As she stood there trembling, Squall and Whisper checked the rooms and peeked out the windows for any signs they’d been followed or that trouble was brewing.
Pastry crumbs littered Avigdor’s desk, but she was too rattled for the mess to annoy her.
Squall came over and, at Felice’s inquiring look, shook his head.
“The young man was put there to taunt us,” she said. “And to show us how little value this Slake places on human life.”
“Perhaps,” added Whisper, to her surprise, “it was also to show us how ruthless he is.”
She nodded approvingly. The same thought had occurred to her. “Yes. But what could they make with so much acid? If, indeed, that was all that was in the shipment.” Those were the questions she needed answers to. But as with an opponent’s hidden strategies in Dominion, something niggled at her. If they didn’t want someone to know about the acid, then it stood to reason they feared someone would guess their purpose if they knew about it. Perhaps an alchemist could shed some light.
A knock on the door echoed loudly around the room. Squall’s blade appeared in his hand as if by sorcery. Whisper moved closer to the door, placing his back against the wall beside the lock.
Squall nodded to Whisper, and the big man threw the door open.
A disheveled boy stood there. He held an envelope in one hand while the other was deep in his pants pocket, scratching something Felice didn’t care to think about. He stared at Squall’s naked blade and backed up a step.
“Miss Shyrise?” he said in a querulous voice.
Felice stepped forward. “Maybe. Who are you?”
The boy held out the envelope. “This here’s for you. The man said you’d pay me a silver ducat.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I doubt it. Perhaps you meant a copper?”
A shrug of the boy’s shoulders, and he sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. “All right. Worth a try. Ducat first.”
She handed him a copper coin and took the envelope. He scurried off quickly, disappearing down a side street.
Felice closed the door and gently placed the envelope on her desk.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Squall.
She gave Whisper an inquiring look, and the big man shook his head. No sorcery, then. But the envelope had felt odd, slightly lumpy and too heavy to contain only paper. Moving to her desk drawers, she took out a letter opener and a spoon. Carefully, she used the spoon to hold the envelope down while she sliced it open, then inserted the spoon and twisted. With the two sides of the envelope separated, she peered inside.
There was a letter, but there were also a few gold ducats. Felice paused, then looked closer. The residue was faint, but the coins were dusted with a dark green powder. More of the substance had collected at the bottom of the envelope. She snorted.
“Something wrong?” Squall said.
If they wanted to do away with her, they’d have to do better than that. “There are gold ducats inside that have been coated with a poison. At least, that’s my best guess.” Yet one more reason to visit an alchemist, and she knew just the fellow.
As carefully as she could, she slid another piece of paper under the envelope then wrapped it up, along with the spoon and letter opener. They were contaminated now as well. Just to be sure, she enclosed them in another layer.
Felice looked up to find Squall and Whisper still, as if frozen.
“It’s not going to kill anyone,” she said. “Come on. We’ve an alchemist to see.”
“Mistress Shyrise,” Squall said, “perhaps you should change?”
She looked down at her rumpled, holey, and bloodstained shirt, and her creased and perforated pants. “There’s no time. And perhaps I’ll start a fashion trend.”
~ ~ ~
“I’d like to keep some of the powder,” Felice told the alchemist, Columele.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” he said.
“Just to study. I have an interest in herbs and poisons.”
Columele gave her a disapproving look, but he carefully tipped some of the powder from the envelope into a glass vial, which he sealed with a cork.
Felice pocketed the vial, then watched as the alchemist placed the envelope into a glass container and poured in a yellow solution, which looked like urine. She hoped it wasn’t.
“Now,” Columele said brightly, “that shouldn’t take too long. Then the ducats are yours.”
“I wasn’t worried about the coins,” Felice said. “Only about getting poisoned.”
“Yes. Quite. Well, you can examine the letter, just don’t touch it.”
He’d placed the paper inside an open cupboard attached to the wall. A flue protruded from a hole in the top, which the alchemist said was supposed to draw up the foul vapors of his experiments. Four stones held down the letter’s corners, displaying penmanship in an elegant hand.
He kept glancing at Felice’s shirt, through which he could probably see her underclothes and some skin. Really.
“Acid burns?” Columele said. “Sting and itch a fair bit, don’t they. I can’t help but wonder—”
“That’s the other thing I need you to investigate. I want to know what type of acid did this.” She really wanted to read the letter, but first things first.
Columele cut around some of the holes in her shirt, then placed the material into a beaker. Taking a vial, he dripped a few drops of solution onto the cloth, then added a splash of another liquid. He swirled the container, and the solution turned a dull orange.
“Ah,” the alchemist said. “A simple acid made from
salt and a leavening agent.”
“It doesn’t sound too dangerous,” Felice said. “But we know it is. What could it be used for?”
“It’s incredibly useful. It can remove rust from steel, in tanning leather, to produce other alchemical compounds—”
“But what could you do with a great deal of it? And I mean a lot.”
Columele rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Dissolve things? It scorched through your clothes fairly easily, and your flesh…er…you can see what happens if you get some on you. Those wounds will blister and scar. If you’d been drenched with it instead of just a few drops, then you probably would have died. You certainly wouldn’t be standing here talking to me. If it didn’t kill you, then your wounds would probably become infected.”
And then death wouldn’t be far away… “A weapon, then…” Felice said.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Whisper. “That’s no way to die,” he said.
“There are many ways to be killed,” Squall said. “This one just requires more pain.”
Columele’s face paled, and his hands clutched his stomach. “No one would do that,” he mumbled queasily. “Surely not.”
Felice rubbed her tired eyes. “With the amount they’ve hoarded, the Empire’s citizens will be in danger. They must be targeting a crowd. But not a random one. They’re after someone important. Multiple someones. And it’ll be messy.”
She needed more information, if she was to stop them. Perhaps the letter would offer more clues.
My dearest Felicienne,
If you are reading this, then you are not dead, and my faith in your abilities is justified. I have been observing you with keen interest, since the First Adjudicator saw fit to avail herself of your skills. It has been quite enjoyable watching you rather than my usual adversaries.
Felice stopped reading. So if she passed the “test” and avoided the poison, she’d be alive to read the letter? What an insane scheme. Whoever Slake was, he was extremely well informed and quite possibly deranged. He was now watching her since Constance had dragged her into this mess, and he’d implied he had someone keeping a close eye on Constance. Perhaps that was why she’d enlisted Felice: she couldn’t trust those around her.
At the Sign of the Crow and Moon: A Sorcery Ascendant Prequel Novella Page 5
