Dance of Thieves

  I laughed. “Yes, so was I. The girl tripped and was crying over a scraped knee, but Kazi was able to captivate her with a shiny coin she magically found hiding in her ear. The tears were forgotten.” I thought about how Kazi didn’t hesitate, how she shed her tough exterior, and knelt down to eye level with the girl. Kindness was a default for Kazi, even if she wouldn’t admit it, especially when it came to children.

  “Well, Nash and Lydia both think she’s better than a holiday trifle. All I heard this morning was Kazi this and Kazi that. When we popped in to the tailor today, she juggled brass thimbles for them and gave them a lesson on how to do it too. Get ready for some broken dishes at home.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “And speaking of dishes, you hired a cook? What were you thinking? Aunt Dolise was grumbling around this morning. That’s her domain, you know?”

  “The Patrei can’t hire a cook? We needed another one. She’s always grumbling about that too. There are a lot of people to feed at Tor’s Watch, not just the family. I happened to be there just as the guards at the gate were turning a cook away this morning—a vagabond woman looking for work, along with her husband. They’ll start tomorrow at Riverbend. Aunt Dolise will still have her kitchen, but some extra help too, when she needs it.” What I didn’t tell Priya was that I asked the woman if she knew how to make sage cakes—the vagabond food that Kazi had said could bring her to her knees. When the woman said it was her specialty, I hired her on the spot. Her husband too. She said he was handy with a knife in the kitchen.

  “Well, you should have run it by Aunt Dolise first,” Priya complained. “Being Patrei doesn’t win you any kind of points with her, and there are two kinds of people you don’t want on your bad side—those who guard your back, and those who fill your stomach”

  “I’ll smooth it over with her.”

  Priya shot me a smirk. “Sure you will.” Priya knew Aunt Dolise turned to a pat of butter when any of us boys wandered into the kitchen looking for something to eat.

  “The dressmaker was impressed with Kazi too,” she said. “Good job on whatever you did today to keep her in line. It worked.”

  I frowned. “She’s not a trained dog, Priya. She doesn’t jump at my bidding.”

  “Everyone in this town jumps at your bidding now, Jase. Get used to it. The important thing is, after seeing her walk so compliantly beside you, everyone we passed thinks we’ve now achieved the upper hand with Venda.”

  “Maybe not everyone,” I said.

  “You saw Rybart and Truko?” Mason asked.

  I nodded. “And I didn’t like that they were walking together.”

  “I saw them talking to Paxton too,” Priya said. “When did they all get so cozy?”

  It was a question that didn’t need answering. We knew. They became cozy the day our father died. They might all hate each other in the end, but for now they’d use whomever they could to oust the Ballengers.

  “I don’t like that they’re still here,” Priya added. “Paying respects is one thing. Don’t they have businesses to run?”

  “I think that’s exactly what they’re doing,” I answered. “Attending to a new kind of business. Getting rid of us.”

  “At least we have the Rahtan in custody. We don’t have to worry about them anymore,” Mason said.

  “Technically, we don’t have them in custody,” I reminded him. “They’re guests. Remember that.”

  Mason raised a dubious brow. I had him place guards in the tembris skywalks above the inn. They weren’t exactly tails, but they were watching for suspicious activity. As long as Wren and Synové did nothing suspicious, we had no problems.

  “What did you think of them?” I asked. Mason had escorted and questioned them along the way to the inn.

  Mason snorted. “They’re a strange pair. Wren, the skinny one, didn’t have much to say, but Samuel and Aram were way too preoccupied with her scowls. We need to get those boys out more often. And the other one—” Mason shook his head. “She never stops talking, but not a word she said amounted to anything important, even when I asked her questions.” He leaned forward, a mystified expression on his face. “She talked about my shirt. She knew everything about how the fabric was woven and where the buttons were made—and then she played a game guessing my height the whole way there. I think she was trying to make me smile. I didn’t like any of it. Like I said, an odd pair of soldiers, but I doubt they had anything to do with the fires. I’m guessing they were just hiding out because Kazi disappeared. And now of course, they’re eager to hang around and see the settlement rebuilt. They mentioned that several times too.”

  Priya huffed out a disapproving sigh. “Are you really going to do that?”

  “We gave our word,” I said. “And I’ve already ordered the supplies.”

  “It will—”

  “It will be a compromise, Priya. And it’s going to cost us very little in comparison to what we gain. Laying out a single copper for trespassers wasn’t high on my list of things I wanted to do, either—until Gunner shot off his big mouth and said the queen was coming. What choice did I have? At least now there is some measure of truth to our claim, and with the letter Kazi wrote, the queen may actually come. It’s what our father wanted. If it takes rebuilding a few shacks far from our territory, I will swallow the gall in my throat and do it—and so will you and everyone else.”

  “But what right do we have to move them, Jase? The king may have something to say about that.”

  “The king can go yatter to his chickens as far I’m concerned,” I answered. “He’ll never know they’ve been moved, and we’ll have our land back.”

  It was true, what Kazi said, that we had no defined borders. It was a hard thing to explain to an outsider. It had to do with comfort, and what felt intrusive, and too close. As far as you can see. We knew we didn’t own the land all the way to the horizon.

  “So what was with that kiss? I’m pretty sure that even Paxton had to have his jaw rehinged after that display. Kazi told me you didn’t care a rat’s whisker for her.”

  My fingers tightened on my mug. “When did she tell you that?”

  “Last night.”

  After lying to her about where we were going, threatening to throw her off the horse, and then her suspecting I had harmed her friends—I suppose those were all grounds to believe I didn’t care about her—and I had failed miserably at conveying how I really felt, or maybe I just kept hoping my feelings would go away. Instead, they only grew larger, like a rock in my path that I couldn’t maneuver around. That rock was the size of a mountain now, and I couldn’t get past it.

  Priya looked down and shook her head. “Oh damn, Jase. She’s got you by the throat.”

  “I’m the Patrei, remember?” I answered, trying to sound more sure than I was. “No one has me by anything.”

  She didn’t look convinced.

  The barkeep came and set down the new round of ales Priya ordered.

  When he left, she reached out and squeezed my hand. “I love you, brother. You know I’m behind you in whatever you do. Just be careful.”

  Mason cleared his throat and tapped the spoon on the table. Priya reached out and squeezed his hand too, but much more violently than she had mine. “I love you too, brother,” she said to him. “But if you make any more clatter with that spoon, I’ll dig both of your eyes out with it.”

  Mason deliberately dropped the spoon on the floor to irritate her, and they began wrestling like they were twelve years old again. The ales suffered the brunt of the tussle, all three sliding from the table. Some habits didn’t die and I was glad. Mason finally called surrender when Priya dug her nails into his ear.

  “All right, I’ve had all the fun I can stand here,” she said, letting go and giving the fallen ales a cursory glance. “We should get home anyway. There’s a party in the garden tonight with our new special guests. Let’s see if these Vendans know how to dance.”

  I already knew.

  Kazi was an expert dancer—but not the kind
Priya was talking about.

  Mason rubbed his ear and stood. “I’m taking those other two back to the house now. They can cool their heels there until the party starts. I’m not making another trip down here in a few hours.”

  “Be careful, Mason. Last time I said I was going to make a Rahtan cool her heels, it cost me more than I bargained for.”

  “Those two?” Mason answered. “I’m not worried.”

  That’s what I had said too.

  “Coming?” Priya asked, gathering some packages she had purchased.

  “I’ll be along. I have a late meeting at the arena.”

  Priya rolled her eyes. “The ambassador?”

  I nodded.

  “Give him hell, Jase. I’m tired of that asshole.”

  The asshole who was responsible for a good portion of our revenue. I smiled. “I’ll be sure and give him your regards.”

  “Be careful,” she added as she left some coins on the bar to cover our tab. “Those Candorans are crazy.”

  Give him hell and be careful.

  Walk the razor’s edge.

  That summed up the role of Patrei.

  Winter has come. The walls are frozen.

  The floors are frozen. The beds are frozen.

  There is no wood, no more oil, so we burn ledgers and books instead.

  When those are gone, I will have to go back outside to where the scavengers wait.

  —Greyson Ballenger, 14

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  KAZI

  “Dear gods, Kazi. We’ve got to call a healer. Fikatande dragnos!”

  It wasn’t just surprise I heard in Wren’s voice. It was fear.

  “No. I’ll be fine.” Wren and Synové helped me over to the tub so I wouldn’t get more blood on the floor. “Just help me rewrap it.”

  “Not until it’s clean,” Synové argued. She remembered something about that in our training. The truth was, none of us had ever had a major injury, and that was because what we did, we did well—only others came away injured. The problem was, none of us were sure how to clean it and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The pain was already making it hard for me to focus. It took all my control to keep my hands from shaking, which made no sense because they weren’t injured. I curled my fingers into my palms to keep them still.

  Wren took a closer look and let loose with another long string of curses against the black toothy beasts.

  I had barely made it back to my room when Wren and Synové had arrived for tonight’s dinner party. Mason had delivered them to my door early to await the evening with me, but he hadn’t seen me. I called from the bath chamber for them to come in.

  A shudder of air escaped my throat as I lifted my foot into the tub. I should have worn my boots, but the slippers were quieter.

  It mostly got my ankle, but the bites went to the bone. The puncture wounds burned like hot pokers were stabbing my flesh, and there was a one-inch jagged tear on the inside of my calf. That’s where most of the blood was coming from.

  “What if it punctured an artery?” Synové wailed. “You could bleed to death!”

  “Keep your voice down,” I warned. “If it had punctured anything vital, I’d be dead already. It was a long way back here from the tunnel.” My greatest worry was if I had left a trail of blood behind—evidence of where I’d been.

  It had seemed like the perfect timing to do a little poking around. Jase and the others weren’t back, and the night dogs hadn’t been released yet. I searched Darkcottage first. It had been a simple enough task, because it was so clearly empty—the larder bare, the oven cold, and there were no signs of personal belongings in any of the rooms.

  Riverbend had been fairly easy to navigate too. With so much activity in the gardens, preparing for tonight’s dinner party, the domicile of the Ballenger employees was mostly empty. That left Greycastle. I was nearly spotted as I crept down a hallway, peeking into rooms, but I heard the floor creak just before Uncle Cazwin came around a corner. I slipped into an alcove and he passed without a suspicion. The captain didn’t turn up in any of the rooms there either.

  I made Greyson Tunnel my next target. I had slipped effortlessly through it. There weren’t many workers in it like the first time I had passed, perhaps because they’d been called to the gardens to help with those preparations, and it seemed every passing wagon and dark shadow was conspiring with me to cover my steps. In minutes, I made it to the intersecting tunnel marked with the faded Ballenger crest. I discovered there were three more tunnels that branched off from it that got progressively smaller. I chose the farthest one and walked to the end, using the same logic of searching for valuables in a chest—the best things were always hidden in the bottom.

  Except for the eerie echo of dripping water, I hadn’t heard a sound. And then I rounded a corner. I had peeked first to make sure no one was there. The small dark tunnel only extended another twenty feet and appeared empty, a wide metal door blocking the end. A dim line of light shone at the bottom. I walked forward to investigate and test the lock. I hadn’t seen the black dogs chained in dark alcoves on either side of the door.

  But they saw me.

  They were silent devils, knowing exactly what they were doing, waiting for me to step into range, and then they lunged. I kicked them off fast but not before the damage was done. I was lucky they only got my leg. As soon as I was out of their reach, I ripped off my shirt and wrapped my ankle, carefully wiping the drips of blood from the floor as they snarled and lunged at the end of their chains. If someone had been alerted by the noise, they’d be there in seconds. In those first few frantic moments, I felt no pain, but I knew it was bad. I knew I was in trouble. My fingertips tingled wildly like needles were shooting from them. All I could think in that shocked moment was, I had to get back before someone discovered me.

  Synové poured water over my ankle in an effort to clean it. A groan trembled between my clenched teeth. “I’m sorry, Kaz,” she cried as she dabbed it. “Damn, there’s another gash back here that you didn’t see.”

  I didn’t need to see that one too. There were more than a dozen puncture marks dotted around my ankle like a macabre lace stocking.

  “Wrap it,” I said between gritted teeth. “Just wrap it. That’s enough cleaning.”

  They both tried to convince me again that a healer was necessary. “And how will I explain how I got these? Tell Jase I was just taking a quick sneak around?” I drew a deep breath and told Wren to go down to the kitchen.

  Her gaze was fixed on the bloody water trickling down the tub toward the drain. “I don’t know the way!”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t get far before someone stops you—say you have a terrible headache and need something for pain. Ask for serpent’s claw, capsain—anything. I need to be back on my feet before the party.” If the captain was indeed holed up at Tor’s Watch, we were hoping he would be among the guests.

  “There’s one other thing,” I said, grabbing Wren’s arm before she left. “The man who tailed me today? He hasn’t always worked for the Ballengers. He used to be a Previzi driver.”

  Wren shook her head. “Are you sure? I didn’t recognize him.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, and told them he was the driver who had brought the tiger to the jehendra all those years ago. “I think he recognized me too.”

  “That’s impossible,” Synové said. “No one even knew you stole it.”

  Wren blew out a worried sigh. “But she did have a reputation. She was always suspect.”

  “But she has breasts now! Hips! She doesn’t even look the same.”

  I kept telling myself that too. I had changed. I had meat on me now. My cheeks were no longer hollow caves. I was barely the same person at all. But his eyes had been anchored onto mine, and in that moment I had seen something flicker in his memory. “If he’s here at Tor’s Watch, or at the party tonight, avoid him. And if he says anything, tell him I was a barrow runner for Sanctum Hall. Steer him in that direction. Deny anything else.”

/>   Wren nodded and left. While she was gone, Synové carefully wrapped my leg. Just the pressure of the cloth pressing against the wounds made the throb worse.

  “They need sewing, Kazi,” Synové said apologetically. I didn’t answer. Sewing was out of the question. A one inch tear could heal without being sewn up. Her eyes became watery. “I had a dream the night you disappeared. I saw you tumbling in water and you were drowning, but I never saw this. These damn dreams! They’re worthless.” She wiped angrily at her lashes.

  I reached out and grabbed her hand. “I did tumble in water, Syn. And I did almost drown. Your dreams were right.”

  Her brow shot up. “Was it him who saved you?”

  “Yes. More than once. He protected me against a bear, and he carried me across blistering sand. Have you had any other dreams?”

  She bit her lip, hesitant. “I dreamed you were chained in a prison cell.”

  “That’s not so surprising. I have been before. Sometimes dreams are only dreams, Synové. You were worried about me.”

  “But in my dream you were soaked in blood. I wasn’t sure if you were alive.”

  “I promise, I have no intention of spending time in a prison cell ever again. It was only a dream.” I hoped.

  Wren returned with a tiny vial of crystals. It looked like simple salt. I sniffed skeptically, but there was no scent. She said Mason had intercepted her at the end of a hallway just as I had predicted. He led her to the kitchen and then searched through a storage room for the crystals. He poured some from a large canister into the vial for her. “He called it birchwings and said to mix it with water and drink it to ease pain.”

  Synové snorted. “Mason? I should have gone for the medicine.”