“What are you doing?” Raisa cried, leaping back to avoid being cut by flying glass.
She heard shouts outside in the corridor, followed by bodies slamming against the locked door. “Your Highness!” someone shouted outside the door, his voice ragged with fear and desperation. Bam! He hit the door again. “Raisa!”
It was Amon.
Han rested his hands on her shoulders again, looking down into her eyes. “Here’s what happened. You set one man aflame with the lamp and he leaped from the window. You clubbed the other two to death with your staff.”
Raisa planted her feet stubbornly, shaking her head. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to—”
“Please,” he said. “Please, please do this. It’s almost the truth, and, believe me, it’s safer this way.”
It’s almost the truth?
The door into the hallway splintered, making them both jump.
“Better let Captain Byrne in before he injures himself,” Han said. He gazed at her a moment longer. “You’re a rum smasher with a staff,” he said. “Good thing. But I’m not going to let this happen again.”
He ghosted through the doorway to his rooms, closing and locking the door behind him.
Raisa ran into the outer chamber as the door gave way and four guards shouldered into the room, swords drawn. One of them was Amon.
They immediately surrounded Raisa, putting her to the inside of a circle bristling with steel. Other bluejacketed guards poured in behind him, fanning out through her suite of rooms.
“It’s over,” Raisa said wearily, swiping a splatter of blood from her face with the back of her hand. “There were three of them. One went through the window. The other two are in the bedroom. Dead.”
“Blood of the demon,” Amon swore, looking around the room, not relaxing his ready stance until he’d verified that there was no one available to kill.
Mick Bricker emerged from Raisa’s bedroom, an awestruck look on his face. “There’s two in there, just like Rebec—like Her Highness says. Both dead.”
Amon cocked his head, looking at Raisa. “You killed three assassins all by yourself?”
Raisa shrugged, avoiding the question. “Do you recognize them?”
Mick shook his head. “Never saw ’em before, but I don’t know everyone that’s in the Guard. There’s too many that are new.”
Raisa slumped quite suddenly into a chair. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering, and Amon took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It smelled like him, which soothed her.
“What happened to Talia and Trey?” she asked. “They were just outside as I came in.”
“They weren’t there,” Amon said. “I was going to ask if you knew what they…” His eyes widened, and he swung around and began barking orders, sending Mick out to look for the missing guards, two others to the guardhouse for reinforcements.
Then he sat down in a chair opposite Raisa. Leaning forward, he began, gently but relentlessly, to question her.
“How did they get in?” he asked. “Tell me everything.”
“I had ordered supper in my room. Someone knocked on the door and said she’d brought it up. When I opened the door, three of them rushed me.”
“Who did you talk to about supper? Who knew you were expecting someone?”
“I told Trey,” Raisa said. “I don’t know who he might have told. Obviously, the kitchen staff. One of them would have gone down and watched Mistress Barkleigh put the tray together. They could have waylaid him on the way back. His duty assignment’s no secret. It wouldn’t have been hard to figure out who the tray was for.”
Amon’s eyes strayed to the tray next to the door.
“There was no food,” Raisa said. “Only knives.”
Mick burst through the door, only to find himself faced with a prickling hedge of blades. When the Gray Wolves saw it was Mick, they dropped the tips of their swords.
Mick raised both hands to ward them off, his face haggard and grim. “Sir. We found them stuffed into a linen closet off one of the side corridors. Trey is dead, and Talia—she’s bad hurt,” he said. “Their throats were cut. Jarat went after the healers, and Magret—the maiden Gray—she’s looking after Talia.”
Raisa pushed to her feet, numb with dread. “Where is Talia?” she demanded, taking a step toward the door. “I want to see her.”
“Your Highness, you’ll do more harm than good out there, while the healers are seeing to her,” Amon said. “And I can’t allow you to go anywhere until we’re sure the corridor is clear.” Gently, he pushed her back down into her chair.
Tears scalded Raisa’s eyes. Trey Archer was new to the Gray Wolves, and supporting a family of five. And Talia—was it only a half hour ago Raisa had been bantering with her in the corridor?
“Send someone after Pearlie,” Raisa said woodenly.
“It’s already done,” Mick said.
Raisa sat forward, gripping the arms of the chair, seized by a mixture of grief and smoldering anger.
“I’m going to find out who’s responsible for this, and that person will pay,” she swore. “This will not go unrevenged. People need to know that an attack on my guard is an attack on me.”
When she looked up, her entire bluejacketed guard was kneeling in a circle around her, tears streaking down some faces.
“This day and every day, Your Highness,” Mick said, very formally, “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that it is an honor to fight shoulder to shoulder with our Warrior Queen.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y
ALLIES
Han had been away from Ragmarket for less than a year, but it looked different to his eyes—smaller, somehow, the streets narrower, meaner, and more crooked, the houses shabbier.
It was likely the same as before. He was the one who had changed.
People in Ragmarket lived vagabond lives, so it wasn’t surprising that some of the vendors at the market were different. The tenants along Cobble Street had turned over during his absence. There was a vacant lot where the stable had stood, though the blacksmith forge where he’d buried the Waterlow amulet still crouched in the yard, painted over with streetlord symbols.
It was easier to move about than before. He kept a glamour wrapped around him so people naturally stayed out of his way without really noticing him. There was less jostling from slide-handers and canting crews, fewer come-ons from the fancies and second-story aunties. He was just one more shadow in a shadowy part of the city.
Evidence of the Briar Rose Ministry was everywhere—in the banners proclaiming free meals, and temple criers promising free books and healers for the sick. The speakers drew them in with food and medicine and safe shelter. They kept them there with classes for lytlings and grown-ups in trades and the arts, in religion and reading and mathematics.
Despite the warming weather, the river seemed to stink less than before. During one of those interminable palace meetings, Raisa had launched a project to move the flatland refugees away from the river’s edge into tent camps to the east of the city. Under the direction of the army, adults had been put to work digging pit toilets and building permanent houses, in exchange for medical care and a reliable food supply.
Some put their backs into it, tired of idleness and starvation, and recognizing the benefit of what they were doing. Others elected to return home, to take their chances in the flatlands, where the work was easier and food more plentiful, even in wartime.
Either way, they weren’t dumping their scummer into the river anymore.
Han threaded his way confidently through the tangled streets, heading for his old crib. Along the way, he detoured up over roofs and through taverns crowded with evening trade. He slid into doorways, waiting and watching to see if he’d shaken the tails that had followed him from the palace. Next time, he’d have a chat with them, but now he had other priorities.
By the time he reached Pilfer Alley, he was clear of them. The entry was marked with his flash-and-staff gang sign—a warn
ing to stay away.
Han went in through the warehouse, dropping through a trapdoor in the roof onto a catwalk. Using his first month’s stipend from the queen, Han had quietly bought title to the building under an assumed name. Property in Ragmarket was cheap, and he didn’t need a landlord snooping into his business.
Looking three stories down, he saw Dancer, his head bent over his long worktable, wearing the peaked pallor he took on whenever he was in the city. He’d set up a metalworking furnace on the first floor, built of clay tiles and vented all the way to the roof.
Three other people waited for Han on the ground level of the warehouse. Cat, whom he’d expected. And Sarie and Flinn, whom he’d never expected to see again.
Han froze momentarily, torn between relief, delight, and alarm that Cat had brought them here without his approval.
When she heard him overhead, Cat came to her feet, a knife in each hand. Seeing it was Han, she returned her blades to their hiding places and stood waiting, hands on hips, chin up like she was ready to do battle with him.
Han embraced the two former Raggers, tears unexpectedly stinging his eyes. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he said, clearing his throat. “Cat said the demons killed you.”
“They should be dead,” Cat said. “But they got away, and decided it was best to disappear for a while. They took ship with a pirate and crossed the Indio and back.”
“Those pirates cut your tongues out?” Han said, raising an eyebrow. “Good you got Cat to speak for you.”
“Pirating didn’t agree with me,” Flinn said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Money was good, and I got to see Carthis, but turns out I get seasick something awful.”
He looked good—though still small, he was taller than before, bronzed from the sun and muscular from hauling sails around.
So much better than dead.
Sarie Dobbs had acquired an impressive tattoo of a dragon during her overseas adventure. It stretched from her wrist to her shoulder, curling around her arm. “I wanted to bring a real dragon back, but my captain wouldn’t go for it,” she explained, extending her arm. “She was afraid it’d set the ship on fire.”
Han had heard there were dragons in Carthis, but he wasn’t sure if Sarie was joking or not. Though they shouldn’t have been there, he was just so glad to see them it was hard to speak his mind. A weight of guilt slid off his shoulders, a small piece of the load that he’d been carrying around.
“Cat says you’re a jinxflinger,” Sarie said, appraising him with narrowed eyes. “I always knew there was something flash about you and those cuffs.” She touched her wrists.
“Are you back in the game, then?” Han asked Sarie and Flinn. “You two going to form your own crew, or go with somebody else?”
Sarie and Flinn both looked at Cat, then back at Han, shifting uncomfortably.
“I told them they could join with us,” Cat said.
Han scowled at Cat. “That wasn’t your call to make,” he said.
Cat’s face clouded up, promising the storm to follow. “You were the one said I should recruit some help.”
“Not Sarie and Flinn. I don’t want them put at risk again on my account. Plus, you shouldn’t have brought them here. Nobody can know where I’m staying. It’s not safe.” He turned to Sarie and Flinn. “I have a crew, but they keep their distance and work through Cat. Cat and Dancer are already in it. You’re not.”
Now Sarie scowled back. “You think we’re not, after they done Sweets and Jonas and Jed? Sweets was just a lytling. I know you lost your family, but we got scores to settle too.”
“It’s not just scores for me,” Han said. “I’m in this for other reasons. Reasons that got nothing to do with you.”
Sarie and Flinn looked at each other, then back at Han.
“You always had plans,” Sarie said. “Bigger than Ragmarket, bigger than Southbridge, bigger than any other streetlord. We want shares. We want to help.”
“You don’t want shares in this. It’s a lack-witted, harebrained scheme. A fool’s quest. A lost cause before I even start.” It never ceased to amaze Han how people were so keen to throw away their lives by joining up with him.
Though maybe if he told them he meant to marry a queen, they’d realize how lack-witted he really was. And stay away.
“Then why you doing it, then?” Sarie asked, all suspicious.
“It’s just something I got to do. I don’t have a choice,” Han said. “You do.”
Sarie’s eyes narrowed, her face pinking up the way it did when she got angry.
She doesn’t believe me, Han thought. She thinks I want to keep her out of my crew.
“Look,” Flinn said. “Hear me out. We was all in Cat’s crib the day the demons come. Me and Sarie and Flinn and Sweets, Jonas, and Jed. Sarie and I was in the back room, and when we heard them smash their way in, we slid into the stash space under the floor.”
Flinn looked up at Han, his eyes dark and haunted. “The demons tortured them. They kept asking where you was. We lay under there and heard the others screaming and screaming until they died, but they never give us up. We never even tried to help them. We ran instead. Now every time I close my eyes I see Sweets and I hear him screaming. That’s why we come back. We couldn’t get away from it, no matter how far away we ran.”
“It’s not your fault,” Han said. “There’s nothing you could have done against wizards.”
“Maybe,” Flinn said. “But blades is quicker than jinxes. You would’ve tried. We could’ve tried. And you can fight wizards, being one yourself. We want in. We can be the blades, and the runners, and the pairs of eyes.”
Han wavered. He did need allies. He could use the help. He had a job for Cat that would take her away from Dancer. He needed somebody to gather information and keep an eye on the doings in Ragmarket.
But once again he’d be putting his friends in danger in order to advance his own schemes.
“I hear you’re working for the Princess Raisa,” Sarie said, changing strategies. “Cat says the Rebecca that sprung us from Southbridge Guardhouse was the Princess Raisa in disguise. I don’t forget them that help me.”
“Anyway, me and Sarie already decided, before we knew you was still alive,” Flinn said. “We plan to get a crew together and hush the High Wizard and as many others as we can manage.”
“None is what you can manage,” Han muttered. “Don’t you get it? You’re outmatched. The only ones’ll be down on the bricks is you.”
“Then give us a job we can manage,” Sarie said, leaning forward so her nose was inches from Han’s.
The thing was, Han understood. In Ragmarket or Southbridge, you needed a crew and a gang lord with a plan and a reputation to survive. No matter what he or she asked of you, it was better than being on your own.
After a brief charged silence, Dancer spoke.
“This might help,” he said. He held up a beaten copper pendant, inscribed with Han’s Demon King gang sign—a vertical line with a zigzag across. “It’s a talisman, similar to the ones the Demonai wear. It will make them less noticeable to charmcasters, and less vulnerable to charms. It should protect them from anything other than a direct hit. I can make one for each of you.”
“All right,” Han said, giving in. “I’ll tell you the same as I told Cat—you can’t be having side jobs if you pledge to me. If you decide to leave, you tell me first and keep shut after. Until then, you do as I say. You can’t be picking and choosing the jobs you do. My street name is the Demon King. You use that name even when you think you’re free of snitches. You tell nobody where this place is; you don’t come here without good reason. You’ll meet up with the rest of the crew elsewhere.”
“How will we get in touch with you?” Sarie asked.
“You go through Cat, or leave messages under the sign at the market. I’ll do the same. You’ll have a place to sleep and plenty to eat and some jingle in your pockets, but nobody’s getting rich on shares. If you can’t live with that, walk away
now.”
They didn’t. Instead, they went down on their knees and spoke the oath, using blood and spit to finish it.
“What do you want us to do?” Sarie asked, as soon as she was on her feet again.
“You know Ragmarket and everybody that lives here,” Han said. “Somebody’s trying to murder the princess—the Briar Rose—and he’s likely to be hiring again, since he just lost three assassins.”
Their eyes went big. “Blood of the demon!” Flinn said. “Who’d want to kill her? Folk in Ragmarket and Southbridge talk like the Briar Rose is a saint.”
“Them that are hiring are unlikely to be from our neighborhood,” Han said dryly. “But they may hire here, all the same. It’ll help that people like her. Talk to them you know are in the business. See if you can find out who’s looking for shoulder-tappers and bravos. They’ll be looking for quality and willing to pay a rum price.”
Flinn and Sarie nodded.
“But be sharp on it and keep it on the hush. We’re likely up against the same as did Velvet and the others.”
“That’s it?” Sarie looked disappointed.
“One thing more,” Han said. “See what folks are saying about some dead charmcasters got their throats cut and been left in Ragmarket. See if anybody’s put the word out they’re buying amulets.” He nodded toward Dancer. “And mind you, watch Dancer’s back. He’s gifted, and there’s some that might have reason to hush him.”
“I’ve got Dancer’s back,” Cat said, putting her hands on his shoulders.
Sarie and Flinn stared at the two of them, as if unwilling to accept the evidence of their eyes. “You’re walking out with a copperhead?” Sarie said finally.
“You got a problem with that?” Cat said, eyes narrowed.
They shook their heads.
Dancer set his work aside and rubbed his eyes. “The way I see it, the sooner we get all this settled, the sooner I can leave the city.”
Cat scowled. “Just give it time. You’ll like it once you get used to it.”
The Seven Realms- The Complete Series Page 125
