Among Thieves totk-1

by Douglas Hulick

  “This isn’t my concern,” I said, standing up a bit too quickly. My vision flickered for half a heartbeat, then stabilized. I had my sister, Kells, and myself to worry about, not the empire. “I’m a member of the Kin-I’m in no position to oppose the emperor, let alone save the entire fucking thing. Let it fend for itself.”

  “Is that so?” said Solitude archly. She sat down and settled back into her chair. “I don’t think so. You didn’t sit on that journal just to save your ass, Drothe. If all you wanted was that, you could have given it to Kells or Nicco or Shadow or even me before this. It would have been easy, especially for you. But you didn’t.”

  “We all make mistakes,” I said.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a mistake for you. Do you know why? Because, at some level, I think you want to be a player. You knew the journal was important, and you knew you could use it to make yourself important, too. Well, guess what, Drothe-it worked. You’re in it, whether you like the final stakes or not. And I’m here to tell you it’s too late to wash your hands and walk away.”

  “Watch me.” I headed for the door, expecting Solitude to call out for Iron. Instead, I heard her sigh.

  Then she said it. “Hypocrite.”

  That stopped me, although I didn’t turn around. “What?”

  “I’ve heard a lot of things about you, Drothe,” said Solitude. “A lot of words used to describe you: tough, dangerous, relentless, clever. I’ve heard some less than pleasant ones, too. But there’s one word I keep coming across that I almost never hear in relation to other Kin.”

  “You’d better not be getting ready to say ‘honest,’ ” I said. “Even I won’t buy that one.”

  “Not honest,” she said. “Honorable.” Solitude chuckled. “People actually call you honorable, Drothe.”

  Now I did turn around.

  Solitude had her radiant smile on. “Imagine someone using that word to describe one of us, the ‘gutter crawlers.’ I’ve heard nobles, soldiers, priests-even merchants, Angels help me-called honorable, but rarely a Darker, and never a Nose.”

  She stood. I watched her as she came across the floor, bits of marble crunching softly beneath her shoes.

  “When someone chooses a word like that for a man like you,” she said softly, “I have to wonder whether it’s smoke or whether it’s true. Are you honorable, Drothe? Are you loyal, not just to your boss, not just to your friends, but to the Kin? Because that’s what it’s about now. If you want to survive, if you want to hold on to the chips you have in the journal and make us take you seriously, then you have to admit that it’s about more than what’s in it for you. It’s about all the Kin, be it keeping them alive, taking control of them, or even keeping the empire from wiping them out. The picture is bigger than you now; bigger than a single organization. I don’t think you’d be here if you weren’t interested in that. If it were just about you, the journal would have been sold or bartered a long time ago.”

  Solitude took a final step, bringing herself so close, we almost touched. She smelled of vanilla and cedarwood and summer wine. “What do you think?” she said.

  I stared down into those green eyes and understood the stories about how she supposedly recruited all of her operatives on her own. She was good-damn good. And she was right.

  I’d been-hell, still was-willing to go to the emperor to save the Kin. Even if it meant betraying Kells, being cast out, being hunted. It was what needed to be done.

  But that didn’t mean I had to give the journal to her, pretty speeches and green eyes aside.

  “Even if you’re right,” I said, “and I’m willing to take one for the Kin, I don’t see how giving you the journal accomplishes anything. If I want to keep the empire from wiping us out, I’m better off going directly to them. If the journal has everything in it you say it has, I ought to be able to cut a nice deal for both me and the Kin with the emperor. Giving it to you doesn’t get either of those things.”

  Solitude nodded slowly. “Good,” she said. “You see it.”

  “See what?” I said.

  “The threat the empire poses.”

  “It’s hard to miss when they surround an entire cordon and try to kill every Kin in it.”

  Solitude shook her head. “I’m not talking about Ten Ways, Drothe, nor even about what they did to Isidore. I’m talking about the emperor going mad-about the three incarnations going to war and dragging every aspect of the empire down with them. Including the Kin. You don’t think we’ll choose sides? You don’t think that Gray Princes and Upright Men won’t make deals with one emperor or another to benefit themselves? In a war that will be fought not just in the fields and forests, but in the streets of the empire, you don’t think the various incarnations of Stephen Dorminikos will be able to overlook their distaste of us long enough to see the excellent tools we would make? Tools he could use and then discard, because after all, we’re only Kin?

  “No. This isn’t about any threat to the Kin right now, Drothe-this is about what will happen to the Kin down the road. Fifty, one hundred, two hundred years from now. It’s about the Kin surviving as an organization, as a way of life. If the empire falls, it will take the Kin with it. You can’t have darkness without light, and you can’t have the Kin without the empire. The great irony is, if we want to keep the empire, and therefore the Kin, alive, we have to kill the emperor to do it.”

  I was right; I hadn’t liked where this was going. I swallowed and took another step back. Solitude followed me.

  “Why should I care about what happens to the Kin in a hundred years?” I said.

  “Why should you care about what happens to them now?” she replied. “You could have walked away anytime if you wanted to. But you didn’t. Because you’re Kin. Because you’re honorable. Because you care enough to see the bigger picture. That’s why.”

  I stood there, not saying anything, my mind racing and blank at the same instant. There were so many things going through my head, I couldn’t grasp any single thought on its own-except for one.

  Solitude was right. Damn her, but she was right.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I looked Solitude in the eye. She was smiling. It made her eyes sparkle. Solitude was right. Maybe about the cause, maybe about the emperor-or maybe not. I needed to weigh that some more.

  But she was definitely right about me.

  I couldn’t walk away, because there was too much at stake-too much that might, just might, fit together like she had said. History, I knew, was full of unlikely crap like that.

  Dammit.

  But just because she was right, and just because I knew I was going to help her, didn’t mean I had to like it-or that I was going to make it easy for her.

  “Being honorable’s one thing,” I said, “but bright and shiny feelings don’t give me pull on the street or keep Blades off my blinds. If I give you that journal, I’ll end up betraying Kells, snubbing Shadow, and risk pissing off the emperor. I’m going to need something besides a happy ending for the Kin to make it worth my while.”

  Solitude’s shoulders drooped. “Money, Drothe? I had hoped for more than that from you. But if you-”

  “I never said anything about hawks.”

  A small spark in her eyes. “A job, then?”

  “I’m done working for other people,” I said. “Too many compromises. And I don’t want to be an Upright Man, either.” After working for Kells and Nicco, I knew I didn’t want those kinds of problems.

  “Then what?” said Solitude. “You can’t tell me you want to go back to being a Wide Nose.”

  I walked over to the wall of curtains. I pushed them open slightly. As I’d thought, there was a wall of glass panes and doors on the other side.

  The sunlight burned my eyes, but I looked out on the garden beyond the glass, anyhow. No one had been in to tend it, leaving it to become a bed of vivid green, cut through with a chaos of yellows, reds, blues, whites, and oranges. I suddenly wanted to punch out one of the windows, to banish the dust and c
loseness of the room with the smells of earth and growth and moisture.

  I let the curtain fall back instead.

  “I want you to cover my back,” I said, not turning toward her. “I want the same protection you give your people, but without the strings. I want to know I have an organization behind me if I need it, but I don’t want to be beholden to it. I want people to know that if they cross me, they cross you, but that when I talk, it comes solely from me.”

  I heard a gasp. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” said Solitude. “No one has that kind of arrangement with me. Or anyone else, for that matter. No one!”

  “If it makes it easier, I’ll still work for you sometimes,” I said. “I just won’t belong to you. Every dodge will be its own thing, a separate arrangement between you and me. Outside that, I’ll be able to work with your people, but only if you agree, and they won’t use me unless I give the nod.”

  I turned to face her. “I’m also going to need backing. Nicco’s closed down or taken over my sources of money in his territory, and I haven’t had my hands in any action on Kells’s side of town for years. I have a few outside interests here and there, but not enough to let me operate on my own. I need more. We can work out the details after Ten Ways is settled, but know I’m going to need a cut of something down the line.”

  “You… ” began Solitude.

  “Have Ioclaudia’s journal,” I said. “The one thing you need to save the empire.” The sparkle was gone from Solitude’s eyes now, replaced by a much harder and colder light.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Is the cost of being honorable getting too high for you?”

  Every line of her body went taught with indignation. How dare you speak to me like that? it said. But she stayed silent. And I knew that, at least for the moment, I had her.

  I gestured at the empty chair amid the shards of broken marble. “Have a seat,” I said. “There’s more.”

  “How’s the fit?” said Iron Degan.

  “Not bad,” I said, adjusting the hang of the doublet for the third time in as many blocks. “I think the last owner had narrower shoulders, though.”

  “Be glad we found you anything at all,” he said. “Yours isn’t the most common cut in the city, lad.”

  A new suit of clothes had been the last, and easiest, of my demands. Even so, Solitude had been fed up with me by then-she had told her people to find something for me as quickly as possible before practically throwing me out the door. “Quickly” had translated into secondhand drapes: a pair of dark breeches; patched stockings that had once been either yellow or white but were neither now; a worn linen shirt; and a doublet and slashed overcoat, both in a faded burgundy. Nothing fit quite right, and there were a couple of inhabitants left in the coat, but it was still a damn sight better than Nestor’s hastily altered hand-me-downs.

  On the upside, I still had my own boots, as well as a couple of replacement daggers and a surprisingly nice rapier they had managed to scare up in the house itself.

  “Over here,” I said, pointing to a blue and white striped canopy off to my right. Smoke flowed out from beneath it, carrying the smell of fish and oil and peppers.

  “You hid the book there?” said Iron incredulously.

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t eaten since last night. I’m hungry.”

  We were on the edge of Stone Arch cordon, still a good way from Fifth Angel Square. Iron looked around, taking in the late-afternoon crowds with one sharp glance. We were in Nicco’s territory.

  “Could half use a bite myself,” said Iron, running his tongue over his lips. “Just stick close.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. Iron was acting as both my backup and my handler. Solitude didn’t want anything happening to me before I got the book, or me doing anything unexpected once I retrieved it.

  Solitude had given ground on my demands grudgingly. Protection for Christiana had been surprisingly easy to arrange, although Solitude had wondered why I was so worried about shielding a baroness. She had been careful to point out that no one could guarantee protection from a Gray Prince, especially Shadow. I had learned this firsthand, of course, compliments of Task, but I had appreciated the honesty nonetheless.

  My own protection from Shadow was a far dicier thing. Surrounding me with Arms wasn’t tenable and likely wouldn’t have done any good, anyhow. The best Solitude could do was let Shadow know I was under her wing now, and that any move against me would be a move against her. Since they were essentially on the verge of war already, I wasn’t sure this would help, but there weren’t a lot of other options.

  There was a small line in front of the street vendor’s stall, but we ignored it and moved to the front. A few Lighters muttered complaints, but a sharp look from Iron was enough to silence them.

  The man bent over the charcoal grill was small, with the sandy skin and dusty hair of the steppes tribes. He was a blur of activity, turning hand-sized fish over the fire, chopping onions, mincing herbs, and pouring young olive oil into a hot pan, all while singing softly under his breath.

  “Hello, Rall’ad,” I said. “What’s the catch today?”

  Rall’ad’s hands froze in midreach, one near the fire, the other over the cutting board on the table beside him. He looked up at me, his face pale.

  “Please leave,” he whispered in heavily accented Imperial.

  I grimaced. Nicco-had to be. Word of my disfavor was all over the street, making even former Ears like Rall’ad eager to forget they knew me. Not that I blamed him-he had a wife and eight children to worry about. But I was hungry.

  “Yellow salt skimmers today, eh?” I said, glancing into the bucket of gutted and cleaned fish. “Give us two…” Iron tapped my shoulder and held up three fingers, pointing to himself. “Make that four of your best.”

  Rall’ad ducked his head in acknowledgment and dropped a small handful of red chilies into the oil in the pan. They immediately began to sizzle and spit.

  Solitude and I had done our own bit of dancing over Nicco. Not surprisingly, I wanted him dustmans, both for what he had done to Eppyris and to get him off my blinds once and for all. Solitude had flat out refused. He was her main leverage in Ten Ways. Losing him would throw the cordon, and her plans, into chaos-or so she said. She had offered to talk to him instead, to make it clear I was off-limits.

  I had laughed. Gray Prince or no, Nicco wasn’t about to let Solitude get between him and his vengeance. She thought otherwise, though, and it had ended there. I got the feeling that she didn’t much relish the idea of getting between Nicco and me, and that if there was going to be any resolution on the matter, it was up to me to find it-as long as it didn’t interfere with her plans, of course.

  Rall’ad tossed the pan a few times, then added a handful of chopped onions to the heated dance. The aroma burned my eyes and made my mouth water at the same time.

  “If I’m seen talking to you, it could mean my death,” Rall’ad hissed. He gave the pan two more quick tosses, then set it aside on the table. He picked up a bowl containing a mixture of chopped mint, parsley, garlic, and couscous. “Nicco has eyes everywhere.”

  “I know,” I said. “I used to be one, remember?” The cook blanched. “Don’t worry. If anything, Nicco will thank you for telling him I’m headed toward Five Pillars after this.”

  “And are you?” he said.

  I smiled. “Careful you don’t burn my fish.”

  “Never,” said the Ear.

  The worst sticking point between Solitude and me had been Kells. I wanted him left alone, or at least left alive, and his organization intact; Solitude, though, had rightly pointed out she was at war with him, thank you very much, and she couldn’t just walk away. Besides, he was in league with Shadow, and how was that supposed to work?

  Given how the war in Ten Ways was going, and given that Kells wasn’t going to be able to deliver the journal after all, I didn’t see his arrangement with Shadow lasting very long. I had said as much to Solitude, and also noted that Ke
lls would be a wonderful counterbalance to the heavy-handed ally she had in Nicco. She had seemed intrigued by this notion, and while she hadn’t promised to take my former boss on immediately, she had agreed it was worth considering.

  It wasn’t the arrangement I had hoped for, but it held out some hope for Kells. Not that it would do me any good; in his eyes, I would now be a cross-cove. He wouldn’t know about the reasons or bargains or choices behind any of this-he would only know that instead of taking the journal to him, I had traded it for my life. He would only feel the stab in the back.

  I wished there was some way I could explain away that disappointment, to make him understand why I was doing this, but any explanation would end up coming after the fact. It would come off as an excuse-and in a way, it was. Kells was one of the few Kin I looked up to, and my work for him one of the things I could hold up with pride. I’d stayed true in the midst of the enemy, even when it would have been easier to let go and just work for Nicco. To have made it through all of that, to have gone back to him with my head up, only to give him the cross now, even for the best reasons-it was almost too hard to swallow.

  Almost.

  Rall’ad pulled a fish off the grill, turned it on its back, and squeezed its stomach cavity open, forming a small bowl within the fish. Two spoonfuls of peppers and onions went inside, along with a handful of the herbed couscous.

  Three more followed quickly. All were put on a trencher and handed over to us. No money changed hands, even though I tried to slip Rall’ad some hawks.

  “It will only make it worse,” he said. “Just eat and leave. Please.”

  I took my one, leaving Iron his three on the trencher, and we stood off to one side, scooping the fillings and flaky meat out with our fingers. The mint and the herbs cooled the bite of the peppers, letting the natural saltiness of the skimmer come through. Normally, I would have savored it; this time, I simply ate.