Erk’s eyes went far away for a second, then widened. “The Kadeshis, you mean. From the other night. That explains several things.” Then he shook his head and seemed to be looking inward. “I’m surprised I didn’t notice that. Must have been a very freshly set spark. Well, that, and I’m not really in the business of watching out for that sort of thing anymore.” Finally, he shrugged. “Him or you is always a tougher question, but I’d think someone like yourself could have just faded into the shadows and walked away if you’d chosen.”
He had me there, but if we started talking about all the mistakes I’d made recently, we’d be there all night, so I moved on. “While I’m asking you questions, I’ve another. I met a girl recently, and I was wondering if you might know anything about her. That’s why I stopped in actually.”
“To ask me questions?” He crossed his arms and gave me a very hard look. “If she’s a customer, I don’t know anything more about her than I know about you when someone asks.”
“No, not to ask you questions, but to ask some of your other customers,” I said. “You just happened to sit down first. Besides, it’s not like that. She’s a client of mine, a noble one and she . . . let’s just say I owe her one. I’m not looking for anything confidential, just common city gossip. Besides, I doubt she’s spent much time in the Spinnerfish. Her name is Maylien and she’s related to the Baroness Marchon.”
“Sorry,” said Erk, his expression closing further. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
Which told me that she
had
eaten at the Spinnerfish often enough for Erk to recognize the name. And that meant someone else there could probably give me something useful. I smiled and took another sip of my whiskey.
“Fair enough. That runs my line out,” I said. “What are
you
fishing for tonight? You said the Kadeshis’ being tied to a deathspark explained a lot. Is that it?”
“I’m not fishing, and yes, it’s the Kadeshis. I wanted to warn you about . . .” He turned in his seat and looked toward the door. A moment later it opened and a tall woman came in. She wore a gold and black uniform with a watch captain’s insignia on the shoulders. “Well, that,” Erk said as he slipped the drum-ringer into his jacket and headed toward the newcomer.
“Captain Fei,” said Erk, “as always, I’m delighted to see you come in. Would you like your usual table?”
Fei nodded absently as she scanned the room. She was broad across the shoulders and hips, with the heavy muscles of a jindu master. A thick brown braid hung almost to her waist, plaited flat for ease under a helm. She was too pale to be highborn and had freckles on her cheeks and arms as well as light green eyes that marked her as having a foreigner in her ancestral line, and that all too recently. Her face was round, her features plain but pretty, almost soft, an impression belied by the knife scar that ran down and back from her left cheekbone to the point of her jaw.
I hunched my shoulders a bit and looked down at the table when she glanced my way. In other circumstances, I might have made a point of smiling and meeting her eyes to show my innocence, but not in the Spinnerfish. Here and now, not looking like I had something to hide would have marked me out as different from my fellows, suspicious. I didn’t play it too big because that would have drawn unwanted attention, too. Especially since Fei knew me. She knew everybody in the shadow trades, having worked with all of the heavy players at one time or another and most of the independents, including me.
Captain Kaelin Fei was something of a Tienese institution, the perfect model of a corrupt cop. She had hooks in every major shadow operation in town, and everyone who mattered knew it, including Fei’s boss, the watch commandant, and his boss, the Duchess of Tien. Maybe even King Thauvik himself.
Unlike a regular district captain, Fei had no set area under her watch and no investigatory responsibility. Fei’s only job was maintaining stability in the capital city. It was almost surprising that more places hadn’t invented a Captain Fei since the role she filled went a long way toward making the locals feel safe and secure. The ones who mattered to government anyway. It was Fei’s job to see that shadow wars didn’t spill out of places like the Stumbles and Smuggler’s Rest to trouble the more upright citizens, and to make sure that what crime there was in the better neighborhoods didn’t cause civil unrest. Fei was very good at that job. She was also coming my way.
Fuck.
I ignored her right up until she sat down across from me, at which point I put on a sick smile. “Buy you a drink, Captain?”
“Thank you, Aral, that would be lovely.” She raised a hand to signal the waitress and ordered a glass of rice wine. “Been a long time since I last saw you in here.”
It was a request for information.
“I like the food well enough, but I’m rarely so much in pocket I can indulge myself.”
“And you are now?”
“I’d say that’s self-evident.”
The captain’s sake arrived, and she took a sip before continuing, “S’funny, you don’t
look
in pocket.” She reached across and touched a stain on my cuff. “Not at all.”
Shit.
I’d forgotten the clothes. I wanted to blame the dungeon and the deathspark, but too many years of booze and easy jobs made a more likely answer. My heart tried to beat faster, but I forced it to stay slow and steady. The captain might not be able to hear the beat, but she’d see the secondary signs if I let myself get too nervous. For a brief moment I regretted having given up efik—a dose of calm would have gone down very nicely just then.
I darted a look around, then lowered my voice, “Don’t tell anyone, but I got rolled last night. In my best clothes no less. Finished up a nice little job and went on a binge. Passed out in the wrong place just like a green fool.”
When a tough question comes too close to the truth, the easiest way to throw off the scent is to give an embarrassing confession to something completely different.
“That was a damned stupid move, especially for a jack of your experience and reputation. Even a drunk. Might be time to cut back on the booze.”
“It is that,” I agreed, and a pressure along my back let me know that Triss thought so, too. When I spoke again, it was as much to him as Fei. “I learned an important lesson last night, and a dangerous one. From here on out I’ll be mastering my drinking instead of letting the drink master me. I really am getting my act back together”—I leaned forward—“and I’d take it as a personal favor if you wouldn’t pass that story along to anyone, Captain.”
She took another sip of her rice wine and gave me a long, considering look. “Your eyes have seen what the bottom looks like. I can see it there, and that didn’t used to be the case.” She nodded. “You’re a smart man, Aral, and a good jack. Every time I’ve given you a job, it’s gotten done without any mess or fuss, which is why you’ve gotten more than one and will likely see my coin again in the future. Don’t let the bottom suck you down again.”
“I don’t intend to.” Triss rubbed my back companionably, and I started to relax.
Mistake.
“Now tell me why you reek of smoke and not from a brazier. The Old Mews is on fire, and you’ve been up that way today, or I’m a fresh-hatched chick. That’s well outside your normal territory. What brought you there?”
“A delivery.” How had she smelled that? I hadn’t washed my clothes, but I wasn’t sitting all that close to her, and there were plenty of stronger scents in the packed tavern. “I can’t say more.”
“Not even for me?” She batted her long eyelashes at me. On her it looked predatory.
“Not even for the Son of Heaven,” I replied. “Where it comes to my hires, I’m a mute, Fei. That’s
to
you and . . .” I drew out the pause, “about you.”
Fei laughed. “You drive a sharp point there, jack. Fair enough. But if I find out you had anything to do with starting that fire, I’ll nail your flayed hide up for display behind the gallows. Nobody does that in my city and lives.”
“Then we’re fine. Emberman’s so far out of my line, you can’t even see the shadow from where I stand. That’s black-work of the worst sort. I don’t kill for money and I’d sooner slit my wrists than take a job that involved fire.”
“Glad to hear you so emphatic,” said Fei, but her eyes narrowed slightly—curious but not suspicious, though I don’t think anyone who hadn’t been trained to read faces would have caught it.
I’d slipped somehow, exposed something I oughtn’t.
I took a sip of my whiskey and leaned back in my chair and tried to decide how to cover whatever it was I’d given away. But I just didn’t know enough. Fei took another drink as well and I could see her weighing things up in her head like a warboard player trying to decide what piece to move next.
“S’funny,” she said eventually.
“What?” I asked after a few seconds of silence told me she wanted me to.
“You speak the language so well that I sometimes forget you’re not a native, and that despite your looks. Where are you from originally? Your bones are Varyan, but the accent’s too faint for me to be sure, and there’s enough outbreeding between Varya and Dalridia or the Kvanas to blur things.”
“You’re very good, Captain. I’m from Emain Wast, right on the edges of the mageburned lands.”
Which was half a lie. I was Varyan right enough, but I’d been born in Emain Tarn on the shores of the sacred lake and less than a day’s walk from the temple of Namara. Anyone who knew Namara would know that didn’t really matter, that her Blades came from every one of the eleven kingdoms that had survived the great burning. But I didn’t want Fei putting Namara and me in the same thought even in passing, and Emain Wast lay as far away from the temple as you could get in Varya and still be in a city. I didn’t think the captain would buy me as a country boy.
“What were you there, I wonder?”
Fei didn’t sound like she was really talking to me, but I answered anyway, “Shadow jack, same as here. Or maybe just a bit shadier.” I grinned and flicked my eyebrows up, inviting the captain to share in the joke. “Left the place a half step ahead of one of your counterparts in the law.”
“Price on your head?” asked Fei.
I nodded. “Though not big enough to be worth the shipping fee, if you’re thinking about trying to collect on it.”
“But it
is
big enough that you can’t go home.”
“Nor anyplace else in Varya or the Kvanas. It taught me a lesson that’s stuck, too—that there’s good work and bad in the shadows and that I won’t touch the latter ever again.”
“Once burned . . .” she said.
“I don’t think I’ll complete the old saw if you don’t mind. No burning for me. Not then and not now. Let’s just say that I’m cautious about the jobs I’ll take and leave it there. But that’s more than enough talking about me. What brings you down to this end of town? If the question’s not treading on any dangerous ground, that is. If it is, forget I asked.”
Fei rolled her glass between her fingers, warming the sake, which had cooled while we talked. “It’s not dangerous ground at all. Not for you at any rate, unless you’re hiding a mage under those old rags you’re wearing. Actually, there might be some coin for you in this job if you’re interested and not otherwise engaged.”
“Hang on a second.” I pulled my shirt out and looked down the collar. “Nope. Nobody in here but one slightly sooty jack.” I forced a grin. “Figured I’d best check for mages since the odd spot of nightside delivery
does
fall into my line though not usually so big a package as all that, and I’d rather play honest with you where I can.”
Fei snorted, then drank a bit more of her sake. “No. Whoever set this play up runs a couple of cards up from the jack. I’m looking for a king or an ace if it’s really a shadowside job and an earl or a baroness if the sunside royalty is playing.”
My ears pricked at the word “baroness.” “Sounds messy.”
“And political. Someone ghosted a couple of Kadeshi mercenaries about a hundred and fifty yards thataway.” The captain waved vaguely toward the door. “Which circumstance would normally be grounds for celebration in my office. There’s no one like a Kadeshi for making trouble.”
“But . . .” I had to fight to keep the interest out of my voice.
“But these bastards all had deathmarks on the backs of their necks of the magelightning variety. A deathspark’s a tricky and expensive bit of magery even without tying it to three deaths instead of just the one. And that’s saying nothing about how illegal it is. But again, not something I’d normally worry about. My job’s making sure things run smooth and quiet, not enforcing the law.”
“What happened to the killers? Charcoal? That’s how a deathspark works, right?”
“It is and I wish, but no. Whatever party or parties sliced these boys up—a
very
fancy piece of knifework, I might add—has vanished away completely.”
“So where
do
you come in? And, more importantly, where do I? I’m always up for a bit more coin, but . . . Bad boys get marked. Bad boys get killed. Killers go completely bye-bye. That sounds about as smooth and quiet as you could ask for things to run. I’d think you’d want to leave it there.”
“Nothing would make me happier,” said Fei, “but this one’s got its very own set of noises and bumps in the person of a baroness of the royal house and her own pet colonel of the Elite, both of whom want to know what happened and why justice has not yet been served on all involved.”