Assassin's Heart (10 page)

“Safraella.”

He tilted his head. “I don't understand.”

I examined his face before I dropped my gaze to the coin. If he was faking his confusion, then he would make any stage player envious of his skills.

“That coin belongs to Safraella. It is a bribe, to request that She resurrect someone quickly. The coins are placed on dead bodies by clippers. If you are not a child of Safraella, you should not have taken the coin. You could draw Her ire, or the ire of one of Her disciples. It would be best for you to make that coin a gift at Her church.”

He examined the coin between his fingers. “And this stamp, this Family crest, if you could just tell me which Family this coin belongs to and how to reach them, then maybe I can converse with them. Lovero may be a country of murder and death, but here in Rennes, our laws and gods are different.”

“I can't, I'm sorry.”

“You do realize it is illegal to impede a lawful investigation, yes? I could bring you to jail for refusing to answer my question.”

“I'm sorry, Captain Lefevre, you misunderstand. It's not that I won't help you, it's that I can't. That coin is stamped with the Saldana Family crest, but there are no Saldanas left.”

He stared at my eyes. I let him see the truth in them, showed him that in this, at least, I was not a liar. He scowled. “Well, isn't that awfully convenient.”

“Hmm.” I thought of Brother Sebastien and how he'd dispatched the Addamos. “I would say it's awfully inconvenient for you and your investigation.”

He closed the coin in his fist. “The Saldanas made their home in the city of Ravenna, right? They share territory with the Da Vias, if I recall.”

It was clear he knew more about the Families than he'd let on. He'd been testing me. Or trying to catch me in a lie.

Lefevre snapped his finger. “I know. I'll send a letter to the Da Vias, perhaps. Ask them about this coin. I'm sure they'll help.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, desperately trying not to give anything away. If he really did send a letter to the Da Vias, they would know I was hiding in Yvain.

I smiled. “The Da Vias are not known for their love of the common. I do not think they would help you, even if they could. Now, if you would be so kind as to point me to the main street?”

He stepped in front of me, so close his warm breath
brushed across my face. It would have been easy to slip my knife between his ribs.

“I think you're hiding something from me, little girl. And until I find out, you won't be able to shake me. As a lawman I see terrible accidents all the time.”

I clenched my jaw.

“People slip and fall into canals, never to come up. It happens every day.” He flicked a lock of my hair and stepped away, his smile like a knife slash in his face. The smile I realized, too late, was his own mask.

I'd underestimated him. He was not a man to toy with.

“You can find your own way home,” he said. “I hope you're fast enough to outrun the ghosts.” He walked out of the alley, whistling once again until he was gone from sight.

I took a deep breath and released it. No one had ever threatened me before. The lawmen in Lovero would never dream of wielding their power like that over people, because they could never be sure someone they had wronged wouldn't hire a clipper to seek vengeance. Lefevre was the first person to show me what a man could do if his power wasn't held in check.

I could only hope his threat to send a letter to the Da Vias was a bluff.

I pocketed my dagger. I needed to locate my uncle and leave this city before I found any more trouble.

THE WIND LIFTED THE CORNER OF MY CLOAK AND I
jerked it under control, shifting my weight. I'd been sitting on the rooftop of this damn inn since late afternoon and nothing even remotely interesting had happened in this dull city. I could have taken a longer nap and missed nothing.

Below me in a square, women washed their laundry in a fountain. The women in Yvain wore long skirts and short-sleeved blouses with shawls around their shoulders. I'd had to leave my hair uncovered, and more than once my long bangs had flopped into my face.

Stupid Yvain with its outdated fashions. I tugged the cloak around my shoulders, and my injured arm flared in pain. I should've been home in Ravenna, listening to music and revelers instead of watching the common go about their chores. I missed the smell of the sea and lantern oil. Yvain smelled of rotting fish and canals, and the common seemed
to think putting flowers everywhere could somehow disguise the stink.

Thinking about Ravenna made my chest ache. I needed to find my uncle and go home where I belonged. Ravenna was all I'd ever known and I missed it, like another piece of my life had been stolen from me.

Children played in the water of the fountain or ran through the streets, hitting one another with rags and sticks.

Don't think about Emile and how he'll never get a chance to play games like this.
How he'd never get a chance to dance with a girl at a masquerade or steal a kiss under the colored lights, their masquerade masks lifted, their lips pressed together.

I blinked, my throat tight. There was no use crying about it, wishing for things to be different. What was done was done. I could only worry about the future now, and how I could best make the Da Vias pay.

As the sun sank, the women gathered their laundry and children.

“Hurry now, before the ghosts take you,” one woman said to her dawdling daughter. Once darkness spilled across the streets, Yvain seemed as empty as the dead plains.

I sighed and picked at the hem on my cloak. My shoulder ached and itched. I stifled a yawn under my mask. If my uncle had been in Ravenna, I could've found him immediately. Rafeo would've known what to do. Rafeo would've found Marcello by now.

Below me a man stumbled out of the inn despite the late
Yvain hour. He tripped and laughed uproariously. I frowned. I'd never alter my state of mind so much. Someone could be watching from the shadows, knife in hand and poison in their pouches.

On a rooftop across the street a shadow moved. I stilled my body, sinking deeper into myself. My spine pressed against the chimney of the inn as my cloak obscured my outline. I waited.

The shadow moved again and revealed itself to be not a shadow but a person, hiding in a hooded cloak similar to mine.

My uncle, Marcello Saldana.

He crouched on the edge of his building. The moonlight reflected brightly off the silver buckles on his boots and the weapons on his belt.

I frowned. Sloppy. Amateur mistakes. The cloak was to prevent accidental reflections and no clipper would ever leave the shadows if they had a choice.

Marcello watched the drunken man below. For a moment I recalled a similar night when I'd watched my own “drunk” stumble in the streets while Val snuck up on me.

Val. My heart clenched at the memory of his hazel eyes, his bright smile, the feel of his breath on my skin. But there was no Val here. And this time I was the hunter.

My uncle jumped off the building in a brazen move. He was either crazy or idiotic, and I scrambled from my post to peer down into the street.

Marcello landed directly on his target, slipping his knife
into the man's neck. The mark barely had time to react before he was dead on the ground, my uncle standing over him.

I quietly slid off the roof. No need to give away my advantage. Marcello nudged the dead man with a boot and grunted in satisfaction. He flicked his cloak over his shoulder and returned his knife to his belt. He froze at the prick of my dagger against his windpipe.

“So sloppy,” I whispered, loud enough to be heard through the mask.

Tension rippled across his body. He was taller than me by quite a bit, taller even than Val, but I'd spent enough time sparring with Val to handle someone with height on me.

His left hand twitched, and he moved it slowly toward his belt. A lefty then.

I tapped his wrist with a second dagger. “I wouldn't try it.”

He opened his palm and raised his hand.

“Who are you?” His voice rasped as he tried to disguise his anger.

“I am death,” I whispered. “I am Safraella, come to collect what I am owed.”

He tried to turn his head.

“Ah, ah.” I pressed my dagger into his skin. His hood slipped, and the corner of his face caught the moonlight.

He wore no bone mask.

He wasn't a true clipper then. He wasn't my uncle. Just someone playing at murder.

Heaviness spread through my limbs. This had been my
only lead. And now it was nothing.

I used my foot and shoved the false clipper in the back of his knees. He stumbled away from me. I wasn't threatened by this fool.

He got his feet under him and pulled out his own knives. His eyes widened as he took in my leathers and the bone mask hiding my face.

My own eyes widened behind my mask. It was the boy from the market, who had stolen the fruit for me.

“You're a clipper.” His mouth tilted in a crooked smile. He looked down at the knives in my hand, then returned his own knives to his belt. He held his hands before him, weaponless. Dumb, to trust me. Still, I relaxed my stance.

“You could teach me,” he said.

I wasn't a nursemaid. I was a clipper. I didn't have time to teach anyone anything. I needed to find my uncle, and though I'd missed my mark with this false clipper, I was willing to bet he knew where my uncle was. “I won't be teaching anyone anything.”

“That's unfortunate.” His eyes flicked to the left. Right. He was stalling.

I pointed my dagger at him. “Don't move.”

Around me flashes of light burst in the night:
pop, pop, pop, pop.

Smoke gushed from four different spots on the street until I could see nothing.

I spun around. He hadn't thrown any smoke bombs. He had to have people with him, helpers.

But there was no one. No sounds, no movement, no attacks from different quarters.

How . . . ?

I charged through the smoke, my mask mostly protecting me from the bitter taste and smell. I dashed left, down an alley, the route I would've chosen had I been him.

I'd picked correctly. The fake clipper stood at the end of the alley, canal at his back, trapped.

His teeth flashed. He was missing his first molar on his right side. “You found me.”

His tone reminded me of Val, all cockiness and self-assurance. Tricking me once was not a cause for so much bravado. If he kept it up, he'd wind up dead.

“It wasn't hard.”

“After meeting you in the market today, and then seeing you here, I think I prefer you without the mask. Much prettier.”

My throat tightened. He knew who I was?

He pointed to his left hand. I glanced at mine and the burn on my palm. I flushed. I'd skipped my gloves because they'd been rubbing painfully against my still-healing palm.

Seventeen years in Lovero and never once had anyone seen my face unless I'd wanted them to. And now, after only a short time in Yvain, some faker had seen me. My parents would've been ashamed. Rafeo and Matteo, too. Not that Rafeo would have said so to my face.

I ground my teeth together. “I can tell you're not a real clipper,” I said.

“How's that?”

“To a real clipper, the bone mask is the most beautiful face of all.”

He blinked. “My name's Alessio, by the way. Les.”

He waited for me to respond, and when I didn't, he continued. “It appears I just keep running into you, Clipper Girl. I think it's a sign from the gods. A sign you are meant to teach me your ways. Invite me into your Family.”

I snorted. I couldn't help it. He seemed so serious, but any Loveran knew you couldn't simply be
invited
into a Family.

His smile collapsed, and I felt a twinge of sympathy.
Why did I even care? He was no one to me.
I needed to focus. The only thing that mattered was making the Da Vias pay.

“You're right,” I said. “I think it
is
a sign from the gods.”

He cocked his head.

“It's a sign you need to tell me where to find your teacher.”

He tensed, his body taut with energy and danger. I tightened my own muscles, prepared to match him. Clearly I'd struck some sort of nerve.

“Are you even sure I have a teacher?”

“You're sloppy. You have no grace about you, and you've displayed, more than once, your ignorance regarding clippers. But you aren't untrained, only unfinished. Someone had to teach you the basics. Maybe someone who didn't want to talk about his former life as a clipper. Someone who felt betrayed and hurt by his Family. Someone named Marcello Saldana.”

He held his breath, studying me. He exhaled. “He never told me he was a Saldana.”

I lowered my knife. I'd done it! I'd found my uncle. “I need to speak with him urgently.”

He shook his head. “No. He doesn't see anyone.”

I pointed my dagger at him, staring him in his eyes. They were dark, and he had surprisingly long lashes. “I could make you tell me.”

He shrugged and raised his arms. “Then what are you waiting for, Clipper Girl?”

I slid my right foot forward, weapons held before me. “Have it your way.”

I dashed at him. His eyes narrowed before he dodged away. I swiped with my left knife. My shoulder erupted in pain, and a few stitches popped. The copper scent of blood seeped into the night air. I hissed, missing my strike.

He pushed himself off the wall and twisted closer to the canal, facing me. He held his own knife in his left hand now, a monstrous cutter almost eighteen inches long and slightly curved. Where in the hells had he hidden such a large weapon?

Blood soaked through my leathers, and he glanced at my shoulder. Concern flashed in his eyes. “You're hurt.”

I used his distraction to strike at his ribs. “Worry about yourself!”

He glared and hooked my ankle with his foot, a move I knew only too well. A wolfish grin spread across his face.

“Wait!” I shouted.

He yanked and I fell, plunging into the dark waves of the canal.