“You know who I am,” she said. “Don’t act like you don’t.”
“The infamous Miss Bessie,” he said. “The way these boys spoke, I didn’t expect a child.”
“You’re the one they all follow,” Mila said. She needed something more in here, something with drama. Keep their eyes on her while Tarvis slipped through the shadows. “But you’re just a petty nothing, so I can’t see why they mentioned you with such hushed voices.”
“Kill her, boys. Leave her body in the middle of the street as a message.”
“Yeah, let’s—aah!” One of the gang boys cried out, because he had earned Tarvis’s knife in his leg. Tarvis stabbed him a couple more times.
“How do you like that trick?” Tarvis yelled.
“Hey, he’s—” the second gang boy started, but Mila leaped on him, wrapping her rope around his neck. Third gang boy tried to stab Mila, but she twisted herself behind the second. The third one ended up stabbing the second by accident. Mila spun the second around so he landed on the first, still howling in pain. She got her hands tangled up in the process, and couldn’t get her rope free of his neck before the third was on her.
Fortunately, he had lost his knife in the chest of the second one, and instead pummeled her with punches to the head and chest. Mila took a few hits before she was able to get her arms up, block and dodge.
He jumped at her, wrapping his arms around her body to crush her. “You’re gonna die now, missy!”
“Not by you,” she hissed. Her arms were held tight, but she had enough leverage to grab her knife off her hip and drive it into his. He squealed and let go.
Mila dropped him with a boot to his tenders.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Tarvis had his boy down. Everyone but Treggin was taken care of. Just the sauce atop the pie remained.
She turned her gaze to Treggin, trying to make her eyes look like Asti’s did when he was fully wild.
“You were saying something about a message?” Knife out, she stalked over to him.
He chuckled and twisted his hands. The air twisted with him, and he seemed to make a great blade out of what looked like a broken reflection of the world. “I was.”
He swung the blade at her, which she blocked with the knife as best she could, sparks flying everywhere. Asti had never taught her anything for a fight like this. She backed up, away from Treggin and his sword of twisted air. He kept coming to her.
“You thought I would be easy?” he mocked. “Did you have any idea?”
She dove out of the way of another thrust of his magical blade, putting her far too close to the three gang boys on the ground, at least one of whom was dead. He had her rope around his neck. She feinted toward him, grabbing the rope and untwisting it so she could put it to use as quickly as possible.
Treggin was laughing at her. “I don’t think that will help you, missy.”
“You’d be surprised who I’ve killed with a rope,” she said. She got it loose, but he managed to get a thrust in, hitting her in the shoulder with his strange broken-mirror blade. It only brushed her, but the pain was an explosion of ice throughout her body. Mila screamed and backed away.
“You think you can stand up to me?”
Mila tried to remember, what did Asti say about mages? They needed to concentrate, stay focused.
She had an idea.
She pushed through the pain—she had never experienced anything like what she was feeling in her arm—and whipped out the rope. With a perfect shot, she wrapped it around the bottom his legs.
“You think—” he started, before he realized he was tangled. Mila yanked with everything she was worth, despite her shoulder feeling like it was being eaten by a bear, pulling him off his feet.
He cracked his head on the cobblestone, and the blade vanished.
Hands grabbed her arm. That Crease Knocker that Tarvis had stabbed was trying to grope her, pull her down. He must still have had some fight in him, and Tarvis was running down the street. She responded with her fist in the Knocker’s face, again and again, until he let go and dropped back down.
She turned back, but Treggin was gone.
But I’ve got your face now.
She coiled up her rope and stumbled her way down the street to catch up with Tarvis. Blood was dripping off her arm, her head. They must have gotten more of a piece of her than she realized. Maybe she should get herself looked at. She knew she must be a fright.
But that was all right. These streets were hers now.
Her world started to spin, and she couldn’t keep to her feet. “Tarvis!”
She couldn’t quite see if the boy heard her.
“Tarvis!” She wasn’t even sure if the word escaped her lips as she dropped to the street.
* * *
Raych was out in the back alley, sweeping the last of the crumbs from the kitchen floor, when the bakery doors were kicked in.
“Hoo-oo!” a boy’s voice called. “Where are you, baker lady?”
“She’s here, she’s here!”
“We’re coming to settle up!”
Three voices. At least three of them. There might be more. They were still in the storefront, so they couldn’t see back into the kitchens, to the back alley door.
She couldn’t just run, as much as she wanted to. Saints, she had every urge to just run down the alley to the street and find a constable or a neighbor or by Acser himself, even Asti.
But she couldn’t run. Lian and Corsi were upstairs. Lian wanted to take a nap with the boy, and if Lian still slept like she had as a girl, that racket didn’t rouse her.
Verci had always joked that the bakery, which used to belong to the Old Lady, Missus Holt, was the safest building in all North Seleth. But that was only if someone knew its secrets, and in the past two months Raych had barely learned any of them. She only knew the crashdown room in the apartment upstairs. A very safe place she could hide with Lian and Corsi, if she just could get up there.
Lian had no idea about any of that. She had no chance if those boys went upstairs. She had to get to Lian and the baby first.
There was a hidden staircase from the apartment to the alley. She knew how to get to it from the apartment, but had no clue how to open the door from out here, hidden in the brickwork. Maybe there wasn’t a way. Verci had never come up that way.
Raych found herself trembling, her breath quickening. Her heart was like a hummingbird.
She tried to quiet her breath. What would Verci do? She couldn’t fight, not with just a broom, or even with the knife on the counter a few feet away.
The knife was just a few feet away. The staircase was a bit farther the other way. She could still move now, get to the stairs. Or get the knife, then the stairs. That’s what Verci would want her to do. Get upstairs, get Lian and Corsi, and hide in the crashdown until morning.
The boys were knocking over shelves out in the front. Now was her moment, if she could get her feet to move.
She took two steps in, mouse quiet, like Verci liked to say. Even still, the floorboard creaked as she stepped. It was probably almost inaudible, but to her, it was like a clatter of pans.
“Come on, baker lady. Let’s settle some accounts.”
She stretched her hand to the counter, slowly wrapping her fingers around the handle of the knife.
“Come out, come out . . .”
One of the boys came through into the kitchen. He grinned wickedly as their eyes met.
“Got her!”
He lunged at her, and she scrambled back to the alley door. She lost grip on her knife, it clattered to the floor as the boy grabbed hold of the front of her apron. She was half out the doorway, so she flailed to grab hold of the door and slam it against him. That loosened his hold, and she was able to pull herself away from him, out to the alley. She started to run to the street.
> They were chasing her outside, which meant they weren’t going upstairs. That could save Corsi and Lian, if nothing else.
“Baker lady!” the boy taunted. “You can’t get away!”
She was almost out of the alley when two other boys emerged in front of her. She tried to stop and turn away, but slipped and crashed into one of them.
He grabbed her by the hair, and yanked her up.
“She didn’t want to pay. Didn’t want to play.”
The other boy slapped her across the face.
“Let’s take her back inside,” he said.
She kicked at the one who was holding her by the hair, but it did no damn good. He dragged her back down the alley.
“You nearly let her get away,” the slapper said to the first boy, still in the alley doorway.
“Knew you boys were coming,” he said.
“Help!” Raych screamed. “Help!”
“No good’ll come of that,” the slapper said. “Folks here are learning who owns Junk Street.”
“Help!” she screamed again. Someone must be nearby, someone would help her.
The hair-dragger brought her over to the first boy, and they each grabbed an arm and held her up on her feet, so she could look at the slapper right in his ugly face.
“See, this whole neighborhood is going to change,” the slapper said. “You belong to us and ours.”
“Like blazes,” she said. Every ounce of her body was filled with terror, but she had to fight, had to defy them.
“Well,” he said, pulling a knife out of his belt. “You’re going to learn.”
They dragged her back inside, and despite her kicking and thrashing, hauled her up on the dough table. The leader—the one who slapped her clearly was—stood over her, caressing her face with the flat of her knife.
“You’re going to say it,” he said. “You’re going to say these streets belong to us.”
“To who?” Raych snarled.
“To the—”
The rest of his speech was impeded by the crossbow bolt buried in his throat. The other two boys gasped and turned, and one of them earned a shot in the chest. He and the leader fell on the floor, while the third let go of Raych and charged in at his attacker.
Raych heard a scuffle, flesh hitting flesh, and the third boy grunted. Then there was a twang, and he dropped to the ground.
A moment later, the face of Helene Kesser came into Raych’s vision.
“Are you hurt?” Helene asked. “Can you walk?”
Raych wrapped her arms around Helene’s neck, never before so happy to see this woman.
* * *
Carriage job, no prep or plan. Just Asti, all alone. One lockwagon, slowly working its way toward Keller Cove, with one driver and two footpatrol sticks on the runners, keeping watch.
Three dead sticks would be easy right now, but would bring a hammer of Keller Cove Constabulary onto North Seleth, a manhunt for Kennith and anyone else working for him. But leaving the three of them alive would leave three witnesses, and the same result.
Brute force, as easy as it would be, would have too many consequences. For Ken, for the rest of the crew, for the whole neighborhood.
He needed to get Ken out without them knowing he did.
The lockwagon was heading toward Bridget Street Bridge over the creek. That was something he could use, if he could get ahead of it. A choke point—he just needed to stop the carriage, distract the sticks, and crack open the lockwagon and pull Ken out.
Alone, with just a kerchief around his face and two knives at his belt.
The rage from before had washed away the effects of Almer’s medication, and purpose had focused him. Right now his head was in a cool, clear place, seeing the job in front of him and what he needed to do. Even the beast was quiet for once.
“If I had someone else to be a distraction, that would be something,” he muttered.
Someone else.
Those rutting gang boys were heading toward Saint Bridget’s.
He ran back toward the alley they were in, scooping up a stray brick from the ground as he went.
Those two boys were still hooting and hollering in the alley. They had grabbed someone else—Asti couldn’t see who it was—and were busy taking turns kicking and pissing on him.
Asti pulled down the kerchief and hauled the brick at them, hitting one of them square in the back. Not bad enough to injure him—Asti needed these bastards alive and moving—but it should damn well hurt.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Forget someone?”
“Oh, pal, we gonna pike you!” They tore down the alley at him.
Asti was off like a crossbow bolt, toward the creek bridge. Let them have a sense of where he was going, just enough so when he lost them, they’d keep heading to the bridge.
Losing them was child’s play. He dashed into an alley, scurried up the backstairs to the rooftop, then raced across it to shimmy down the drainpipe and drop in the creek bed.
Bastard street boys served as a distraction, but it wouldn’t stop the lockwagon. For that, he would need brute force.
Asti crept his way over, hoping he wasn’t too late. Thank the saints he wasn’t, and that lockwagons were easy to spot in the night, with their green-and-red tinted lamps hanging on each side. It was just approaching the bridge. Creek bed was all but dry—it had been hot as blazes without a proper rain for weeks. He scooped up a sizable rock and hurled it at the lockwagon wheel spokes.
It hit with a decidedly satisfying crunch. Asti slipped under the bridge to hear the wheel collapse.
“Saints and blazes!” one of the sticks yelled.
“Blazes happened!”
“Wheel went out!”
Then the gang boys came running up, keeping up their hoot and holler the whole time. “Where is you? You’re going to get a thumping!”
“Who’s thumping?” one of the sticks called. “Oy, you boys trying something?”
“Rutting sticks!”
“Show you a thumping!”
Two sets of feet went running into the street. A third dropped down onto the planks of the bridge, walking over to the broken wheel on the right side.
Asti scrambled up the left side of the bridge to the lockwagon door, which was easy enough to open. Asti was surprised by that. Seemed “lockwagon” was just a name. Kennith was there, ironed at wrists and ankles.
“They pinched you good, hmm?”
Kennith’s eyes went wide. “Are you crazy?”
“Quite,” Asti said, grabbing Kennith by the front of his shirt. He wasn’t going to be able to run, but that was all right. Asti didn’t need him to go very far. “Hold on.”
“To?”
Asti pulled Kennith out of the carriage and threw him off the bridge into the creek bed. Then he slammed the wagon door shut and dropped down.
“Saints and sinners,” Kennith moaned, lying on the dusty creek bed. “You could have killed me.”
Asti pulled Kennith up to his feet, half-carrying him, which was awkward, since Ken had about half a foot of height on Asti. He dragged him into a sewer tunnel that emptied into the creek.
“What are we—”
“Shh,” Asti said. “Can you walk?”
“I can shuffle.”
“Go in the tunnel for a piece. I’ll stick by here in case they follow us.”
“How far? Why?”
“Go!”
Kennith went off into the darkness. Asti crouched down, knives drawn, ready to cut open anyone who dared come in there.
He could hear the lockwagon driver complaining about fixing or changing out the wheel. The two footpatrol had beat the stuffing out of the gang boys.
A bit more scuffle, and they brought the two boys over to the lockwagon.
“Where did he go?”
“I
thought you—”
“We need to—”
“Rutting blazes. Let’s just haul these boys in and deal with finding the chomie later. It’s not like he’s gonna fight.”
“This wheel still—”
Asti had heard enough. Better to put distance between him and the legitimate law. He caught up to Kennith shortly. Kennith clearly couldn’t move very well in the irons, and had fallen over, lying in the fetid waste of the sewer tunnel.
Asti sat down next to him, pulling him up to a sitting position.
“I don’t know about you, Ken, but I’ve had a lousy past couple days.”
Kennith burst out laughing, and then quickly bit his lip to stifle it when he heard it echo through the sewer tunnel. Finally he said, “Asti, that . . . that was stupid. What if—”
“I don’t worry much about ‘what if,’ Ken.” Asti checked out the irons on Ken’s wrists. Unlike the lockwagon door, they were serious, beyond Asti’s ability to crack open.
“But you can’t risk yourself to—”
“You’re on my crew, Kennith.”
“But that doesn’t—”
“Ken,” Asti said sharply. “You’re on my crew. Nobody does anything to my crew.”
Kennith smiled. “Now how do I get out of these?” He held up his ironed hands. “And how do we get out of the sewer?”
“We’ll get to that,” Asti said, leading Kennith a bit deeper into the sewer tunnel. He quickly found what he was looking for. Pushing one of the loose masonry stones, he added, “Luckily, we have a way out of here.” A part of the masonry opened up, revealing a passageway.
“Is this the Old Lady’s?”
“It’s one of her exits from her old office,” Asti said. “Right below the bakery.”
“And then?”
“And then, we figure out what went wrong tonight, and we set about making it right.”
Chapter 21
HELENE PACED AROUND THE bakery kitchen, knowing full well that no amount of walking and wishing would get rid of the three dead bodies.
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