When she came up behind him, she didn’t waste time or effort. No tackling; no forcing him into a wall; no trying to trip him—Fowler simply drew her long knife and hamstrung the scribe with one smooth slash.
He went down on the pavement, hard and screaming.
I immediately picked up my pace again. The street we were on was narrow, with little traffic and few doors opening on it. What doors I did see were large, solid, ornate, and set into high walls. There was money here. That meant blood wasn’t usually spilled on these paving stones, and when it was, the Watch didn’t waste time getting here. This needed to be kept short.
Fowler was kneeling next to Baldezar as I hobbled up. He was doubled up on the cobbles, grabbing at his left leg and gasping through clenched teeth. There was blood coming out of his nose where it had smashed into the street, and he had a deep scrape on his chin and along the right side of his jaw. He had, however, stopped screaming. I chalked that last bit up to Fowler’s threatening worse if he didn’t shut up.
“This is all he had on him,” said Fowler as she stood up. She handed me a knife and a small pouch of money, then glanced back down at Baldezar. “I hope you didn’t need him whole.”
“Just talkative,” I said. I moved so Baldezar could see me standing over him. I liked to think it wasn’t solely pain and blood loss that made him go pale.
“Go watch for Rags,” I told Fowler.
“But—”
“Go.”
Fowler muttered and cursed, but she went. As she did, I noticed at least three different heads poking out of windows set high in the walls. They vanished quickly.
“All right,” I said, “I don’t have time to do this how I’d like, so I’ll give you a choice: Cooperate and I’ll leave you for the Watch to find. Be difficult, and they’ll trip over your corpse. Decide.”
Baldezar opened his mouth, coughed, and turned his head to spit. Blood-tinted mucus came out, along with a tooth. “Drothe,” he said, the side of his face still lying on the paving stones, “you have to understand, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just—”
“Corpse it is,” I said as I drew my rapier.
“No, wait!” Baldezar held out a bloody hand. “What do you want to know?”
I showed my teeth in a manner too nasty to be called a smile. “Smart man,” I said. “Start with the Blades and the forged letter from Baroness Sephada.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“Of course not.” I drew my rapier back for the thrust.
“No, listen!” Baldezar pushed himself up on his elbow. “When you came to my shop, I thought you were there for the letter I was copying for the baroness. When you showed me Athel’s cipher instead, I panicked. I didn’t know how you’d gotten ahold of it, if Athel was alive or dead, or how you were involved.” Baldezar glowered. “All I
did
know was that you were toying with me, trying to make me nervous so I’d talk. I’m not stupid.”
I forced my face to remain impassive even as what he was telling me sank in. Stupid? Baldezar had been too clever by half. He’d read more into our conversation than I’d had an inkling about. He’d been in on what was happening from the beginning, and I’d missed it completely! If anyone was stupid here, it was me.
“Then you came in with the forged letter,” said Baldezar, interpreting my silence as agreement, “and I thought I was dead. I still don’t know why you let me live, but I knew better than to give you a third chance. I was in over my head, so I ran.”
“What about Lyconnis?” I said. “Were you just going to leave him for me in case I decided he was involved?”
Baldezar looked away and said nothing.
“The proud and mighty guild master,” I said, “watching over his charges with courage and diligence.”
Baldezar stayed silent.
“So what happened after I left your shop the first time?” I said.
“I went to see Ironius. He wasn’t happy at the news.”
I chuckled. “I’ll bet.” Ironius must have figured my visit meant I knew what was going on in Ten Ways—especially with Baldezar leaping to conclusions for him. And if
I
knew, then it followed that Nicco knew, too—or would, once I told him. Except I never had.
“So whose idea was it to put the Blade on me?” I said. “Yours?”
“No!” said Baldezar. “No. The plan was to lure you away and grab you. It wasn’t until Fedim turned up dead and the book vanished that the decision was made to kill you.”
He was lying, of course. Whether Ironius had wanted to talk to me or not, I would have ended up dustmans in the end. Sylos’s message had confirmed as much. Besides, I couldn’t see Baldezar forging Christiana’s letter unless he thought I wasn’t coming back from the appointment.
A sharp whistle interrupted my musings. I looked over my shoulder to see Fowler trotting toward us.
“Rags,” she called out. “Five blocks and closing.”
“How—” I began, but let the question go. This was Fowler; if anyone could recruit and organize a team of street urchins and beggars to watch our blinds on a moment’s notice, it was her.
“Tell me when they’re two blocks away,” I shouted back.
Fowler nodded and went back the way she’d come.
I turned back to Baldezar. He was smiling. I showed my teeth again.
“Don’t get cocky,” I said. “There’s still plenty of time for you to die.”
It had all been premised on a mistake. Baldezar had panicked and leapt to the wrong conclusion, and then fed that conclusion to Ironius. They had sent Tamas, whom I had killed, which made things look even worse. From that point on, everything I had done—showing up at Fedim’s shop, my growing interest in Ten Ways, turning up in Rambles’s attic, the death of the second Blade—reinforced their initial conclusions. To them, I must have seemed one step ahead, always turning up or slipping away at the worst possible time, when in reality I was stumbling from one clue to another without knowing it.
And all because I hadn’t been straight with Baldezar about why I was interested in Athel’s slip of paper.
I couldn’t help myself; I began to laugh. It was too ridiculous not to. I looked down and saw Baldezar’s panic-stricken face, heard him babbling about it being a misunderstanding, and laughed even harder. Angels, but it hurt!
I dropped to one knee, gasping. The laughter finally trickled away, leaving an ache in my side to keep the one in my leg company. I felt drained, but strangely relaxed.
Baldezar was staring at me. Fear had been replaced by understanding on his face, and that was quickly giving way to disgust.
“You didn’t know any of this before I told you, did you?” he said. “Not one part.”
“No,” I said.
He blinked. “You mean I . . .”
“Made it worse?” I said. He flinched, and I have to admit I enjoyed that. “I doubt you could have fouled up more if you tried.” I levered myself to my feet, grunting at the effort. “Ironius is going to have a ball with you when he realizes what you’ve done.”
“Ironius?”
“And his Prince.”
Baldezar’s face paled. “Prince? As in,
Gray Prince
?”
I smiled. “See, you didn’t know everything after all.”
“Drothe!” Baldezar’s words came out quickly, tumbling over one another in his haste to get them out. “I didn’t know there was a Prince involved,” he said. “I swear it! Please, you have to—”
Another whistle. We both looked down the street.
Fowler was running toward us. “Rags a little less than three blocks away and coming fast!” she yelled. “Must be at least a half dozen of them.”
I turned back to Baldezar. “They won’t bother you if you tell them we jumped you.” I grinned. “Good luck with Ironius and the Prince.”
“Wait!” he yelled. “Take me with you! I can tell you about the book.”
I turned back just as Fowler came pounding up beside me.
“Tell me what?” I said.
“Take me with and I’ll tell you.”
I glanced at Fowler. She had her hand on her knees and was breathing heavy. “Are you on smoke?” she said in answer to my look. “I can’t carry him alone, and you’re having trouble fucking walking.” She spit. “No way. We have to go. Now.”
I turned back to Baldezar. “Tell me,” I said, “and none of this gets back to Ironius.”
“I need more.”
“After what you just confessed to, you’re lucky to be getting that much!” I said. “I
should
dust you and let the Rags clean up the mess.”
Baldezar licked his lips and glanced down the alley, then back to me. “Make me your man,” he said.
“What?” Fowler and I said at the same time.
“Take me under you,” he said in a rush. “Be my boss and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Your boss?” I said. “I’m no Baldober. Hell, I don’t even have an organization!”
“Then start one with me,” said Baldezar. “If you take me on, you have to protect me. You can’t dust me without cause, and I can’t betray you without knowing I’ll be killed in turn.”
I almost laughed at his naïveté. “You don’t know much about how the Kin work, do you?”
“I know
you
,” said Baldezar. “That’s enough.”
I stared at him while Fowler danced from foot to foot. She was staring down the alley.
“Drothe . . . ” she began.
“Shut the fuck up,” I said. Protection?
My
protection? I hadn’t even been able to protect Eppyris and his family, and now Baldezar wanted me to watch over
him
? With what? I didn’t have anything to offer.
Then again, did any Kin? Given the nature of our business, our lives, who were we to pretend to any kind of certainty? At best, we were lucky to fend for ourselves. And yet, that hadn’t stopped me from staying secretly loyal to Kells for years, never mind invoking Nicco’s name as a shield against the people in his organization. I was a Long Nose—if anyone knew about being in deep without any real support, it was me. Still, I had to admit that having that partial sense of protection had helped, and that I missed it now.
I reached my hand out, hesitated, and then finished the gesture. Baldezar took it in an awkward Clasp. And just like that, he was mine.
“We can do the pretty words later,” I said. “Just talk.”
“I don’t know precisely what’s in the book,” Baldezar said, “but I know part of it deals with magic.”
“I know,” I said.
“
Imperial
magic.”
“Know that, too.”
Baldezar blinked in surprise. “So you know about the emperor, too?”
I let go of his arm. “What about the emperor?”
“From what I gathered, they plan on using the magic against him.”
“
Against
him?” I said.
“Him, or the empire,” said Baldezar. “It wasn’t clear, but I managed to piece it together from bits of conversation Ironius let slip.”
“Angels fuck me,” muttered Fowler.
I took a step toward Baldezar, half in shock. “What are they—”
Fowler caught my arm. “There’s no
time
,” she hissed. “Listen!”
I did. I could hear shouts and yelling in the distance. It was getting closer. Rags.
“Damn,” I said. I leaned down and handed Baldezar a small packet from my herb wallet. “Deer berries,” I said. “They’ll numb the pain.”
Baldezar looked at the packet dubiously, then at me. “I don’t think—” he began.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” I snapped. “I’m not about to waste time poisoning you.”
Baldezar looked at the packet again and nodded.
“Very touching,” said Fowler as she grabbed my arm. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here before we all have a real reason to cry.”
I let her hustle me down the street and around a corner. Behind us, I could hear Baldezar begin shouting for help. He was calling out to the approaching Rags, begging for someone to stop and help him.
“Think they’ll let him live?” Fowler asked as we turned another corner.
“He’s a scribe and a guild master,” I said. “They have no reason not to.”
“What about us?” she said. I didn’t have to ask to know she was referring to the revelation about Ironius’s plans for the journal.
“There’s no ‘us,’ ” I said. “You didn’t hear anything.”
“Drothe . . .”
“Get your ass back and watch the apothecary’s family until this is over,” I said.
“What about you?”
“I’m a Nose,” I said. “When I hear dangerous things I don’t like, I go see my boss.”
Chapter Twenty-one
K
ells wasn’t at home. More specifically, he wasn’t in Silver Disc cordon, or any of his other territories. He was in Ten Ways, directing the war against Nicco—personally.