Midnight Thief (19 page)

“Looks like you didn’t need reinforcements,” he said.

“He was drunk. Help me move him.”

Flick took one arm and they dragged Bacchus’s limp body out of view.

Kyra rifled through his pockets. “This one,” she said, holding up one key, “and this one.”

Flick handed her a thin piece of metal and a file. “You take one, and I’ll do the other.”

Kyra laid the key on the ground next to the blank Flick had given her. After comparing the two, she picked up her file. The first stroke of metal on metal shrieked through the quiet alley, and she cringed.

“It’s all right,” said Flick. “It’s not as loud as you think.”

She just hoped the people on the other side of the walls were asleep.

The two of them worked without talking, shaping the pieces as quickly as they could. She was almost done when she noticed that Flick had already finished. He had always been good with keys. A few minutes later, Kyra handed hers to Flick for inspection. He held it up against the original, turning it in all directions. One edge caught his attention and he stroked it with his finger, frowning in concentration as he reached a hand to Kyra. She handed him a file, and he made a few finishing touches before handing it back to her.

“This should work,” he said. “I can put the real ones back on Bacchus.”

Kyra nodded. “Take his coin.” According to Ilona, Bacchus would have no memory of the moments leading to the attack. Hopefully, he would blame it on common thieves.

“You’ll try to get in tonight?” Flick asked, though he knew the plan as well as she did.

“Best to do it tonight, if I can. We don’t know what Bacchus will think when he wakes up. Don’t want him getting suspicious and warning James.”

Flick squeezed her shoulder, eyes dark with worry. “Be careful.”

T W E N T Y - E I G H T

T
here was a leather merchant across the road from the Guildhouse, owned by a man who hadn’t invested in good locks. He slept upstairs at night, and it was trivial for Kyra to slip inside and use his store as a lookout post. She settled herself by the window and kept a mental tag on the snoring from upstairs. The rhythmic sound and the smell of leather were calming, and she latched on to them to still her nerves. Kyra had feigned confidence to reassure Flick, but now she had nothing to distract her from the task that lay before her.

The Guildhouse’s layout was deceptively simple. It masqueraded as a large storehouse for trade caravans and was set back from the road to make room for horses and wagons. All that open space also made it easy for those inside to see anyone approaching. And once Kyra got in, the building’s close quarters and thin walls would make it hard to stay hidden.

There were dim lights in the windows despite the late hour, and Kyra settled herself for a long wait. Just as her feet started to fall asleep, a handful of men left the building. Kyra weighed her options. She doubted the Guildhouse would ever empty completely, so this was as good a chance as any.

She felt like a bright red target as she dashed across the street. There was no way to stay completely hidden—she just had to trust the shadows and her ability to blend in. Kyra skirted the perimeter, past watering troughs and a post for tying horses, staying a good distance away from a door guard who peered off in the opposite direction. Once out of his line of sight, she crept closer and pushed on a darkened window. The glass didn’t budge. She climbed and tried an upper window. That one was locked as well.

Which left the rooftop. Kyra pulled herself onto the shingles and crossed toward the back, where she could look down on the courtyard. She recognized the water basin where she had washed her hands. If she leaned over the edge of the roof, she could see the guard stationed at the back door. Kyra reached into her pouch and took out a pebble, aiming for the fence at the opposite end of the courtyard. Her first pebble fell short, but the second one bounced off the fence with a hollow thud. The guard straightened and looked around. Kyra threw two more stones in quick succession. He drew his knife. As he approached the fence, Kyra lowered herself to the ground. There was a click as she turned the key, but the guard didn’t look back. Once inside, Kyra ducked into a storage room. There she waited, breathing through her tunic to avoid sneezing at the dust, and listened until she was sure there was no one nearby.

Kyra cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. It was dark, with a flickering light coming from around the corner. She could hear distant voices. The cadence and tone of one was clearly recognizable—James. He was meeting with someone in a room up front, which meant his study was probably empty. Kyra drew a shaky breath. She needed to think of James as just another person in the building. Thinking of him in any other way would get her killed.

As Kyra crept down the hallway, the other voices came into focus, and she paused. James was talking to a woman. Since when had there been another woman in the Guild? Kyra paused for a split second in front of James’s study, hand on the doorknob, and then continued down the hallway toward the voices.

“Our interest is in the livestock and supplies,” a lightly accented woman’s voice said as Kyra stopped a few steps from the door. “The city raids are an unnecessary risk.”

“I understand,” said James. “But mayhap I can convince your people to join us on one last raid of the city.”

“We have armor and medicine, enough to last a while. What more could you offer us?” said another man.

“Supplies for the winter, for one. Ranged weapons for another. There’s no reason for you to rely solely on your cats’ claws.”

“And why are you so eager to have us attack the city?” asked the woman.

“Our city is flawed. It’s a place where the wealthy live their lives and the poor exist to serve them. I would change that.”

“You use interesting methods to accomplish your ends.” There was a hint of amusement in the woman’s voice. “Burning the city to make it better.”

“You can’t change a river’s course with a shovel. You need an earthquake, and earthquakes have a cost. The last attack weakened their defenses. The north gate is destroyed, and the Red Shields will be busy for weeks with repairs. If we strike before they have a chance to recover, we could breach the Palace.”

“The Palace? That’s your goal?”

“The compound and the Council members who live within.”

“That will be dangerous.”

“I can make it worth your risk. The spoils from the raid should outfit you for years. Shall we say, another raid in a month?”

It took all Kyra’s strength to stay outwardly calm, keep her breathing steady so she wouldn’t give herself away. It was one thing to know that James was helping the barbarians, something else altogether to hear him negotiating with them, brushing aside the death of innocents as if they were mere inconveniences. She wanted to run into the room and tear him apart. Instead, she hugged her shoulders to suppress her sudden trembling and gathered herself to turn back. If she did what she came to do, James would cease to be a problem.

The voices faded behind her as she slipped into the study and closed the door. Kyra leaned against it for a few breaths, willing her heartbeat to steady. She could do this.

She checked her pouch for Malikel’s poisons. They would work if she had nothing better, but clearberry juice was quick and deadly, her best option for catching James by surprise. James’s poison chest was below his desk. The padlock gave way with some work. Inside, there were dozens of small vials. Kyra picked each up one by one, holding the labels to the moonlight. Vial after vial was labeled with the same blue symbol. Blueflower extract. It was a slow-acting poison, usually left on clothing. In constant contact with the victims, it would leach into their bloodstreams, weakening them until they succumbed to illness or infection. It was too slow to be of use to her. James would no doubt recognize the poison’s effect before it became life-threatening. But what was he doing with so many flasks of this? She counted ten vials, enough for over a hundred victims. Was he trying to poison the Council?

At the bottom of the box, she found a bottle of lizard-skin venom—too unstable to leave in food. And finally, a vial of clearberry. Kyra palmed it and set about looking for some way to use it, something that only James would touch. Her eyes fell onto a cup on his desk. She added three drops of poison to the water inside. Then, she poured some onto a parchment and used it to spread the juice around the cup’s edges. That would do.

A voice from the corridor made her jump. As footsteps sounded, Kyra snapped the box shut and ran to the window. It refused to budge. The steps drew closer, slowing and stopping on the other side of the door. Kyra abandoned her attempts to escape and vaulted back over the desk, ducking behind as the doorknob turned. Candlelight spilled under the desk, and she shrank back. Someone stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The silence that followed was long and thick.

“That was stupid, Kyra.” There was no mistaking the voice, dispassionate, with a cold, hard edge.

Kyra swallowed, steeled herself, and rose. James stood just inside the door. The flickering lamp cast his face in moving shadows. As Kyra stood frozen, he placed the lamp on a stand and stepped closer, reaching casually for his knife.

“It didn’t take long for you to switch your allegiance, did it?”

Cold rage, or fear, lodged in her chest. “I owe you no allegiance.”

“That so? After all I’ve taught you?”

He stepped forward. She took another step back. “What are you doing with the Demon Riders?”

“If my suspicions are right, you already heard the answer.”

So she’d made noise in the corridor. It was a bad time to make a mistake. “You’re not who I thought you were,” she said.

“No. I am who I’ve always been. It’s you who continues to be naïve. You think we can keep on with our raids, give handouts for the rest of our lives. But that wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Have you seen the fire?” she asked. “Have you counted the bodies?”

“Did the fire take more than what the Palace would have taken eventually? Lives lost when folk can’t buy medicine and food. Homes lost because the fatpurses forever grab for more.” He narrowed his eyes. “But you’re not here on behalf of the city. You’re here because the fire started at The Drunken Dog. Because you want revenge.”

Just the mention of the fire brought a wave of images—images she needed to ignore if she wanted to stay alive. She should change the topic or refuse to say anything, but she wanted—needed—to know more. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

“You almost had me fooled,” said James. “It was just a few things.…A switch in the guard schedules, something not quite right in the way they announced your death. I wasn’t sure, so I had to flush you out. I needed a fire, and this helped me choose the starting point.” He paused. “I didn’t expect it to work quite so well, so soon.”

She knew she shouldn’t have asked, but it was too late. Rage swept through her. “You killed Bella just to check if I was alive?”

“I gave you a task, and I made you a promise.” James’s face was hard as he took another step closer. “You failed at your task, and I kept my promise. You shouldn’t be surprised. Did you think I would do nothing while you led the Palace to us? Or did you think you could protect your friends by moving them to the other side of the wall? All it takes is a word from me and you’ll return tomorrow morning to find your girls dead. Killed in their sleep, if they’re lucky.”

Kyra’s knife was in her hand and out of its sheath before he finished talking. With a ragged cry, she launched herself at James, slashing wildly. There was a brief flicker of triumph on James’s face as he stepped aside, wrenching her knife arm behind her and twisting her down. She landed face-first on the ground. Two sharp kicks to the ribs knocked any remaining breath out of her. She curled onto her side, and James closed in, kicking her useless limbs out of the way as he plunged his dagger into her stomach.

She screamed, only to cut off as she choked on her own blood. The pain was unbearable, growing unimaginably worse when he twisted his knife. As she convulsed around the blade, James took her head in his arms, cradling her like a child.

“You could have gone far,” he whispered. Was that a tinge of regret in his eyes? She couldn’t see through the fog.

Suddenly, James tensed, laid her head down, and walked away, leaving Kyra gasping on the floor. She heard footsteps.

“I’m sorry for this,” James said. “This was Guild business, one of ours who betrayed us. I’ve dealt with it.”

“We would like to take her with us,” a man said.

“I can’t allow that. Even if you were able to save her, she’s a danger to us.”

“You misunderstand,” a woman’s voice interrupted. “We want the fresh body for our cats.”

There was some more discussion. Then new hands were lifting her and she cried out in pain and confusion. A pair of amber eyes looked down at her and murmured something in a strange language. All the fight left her, and Kyra lay still as the strangers carried her out of the room.

Tristam rubbed his arms, both to stay warm and to rein in his nerves as he kept his post on the roof. He had a decent vantage point from here, though no direct view of the Guildhouse.

He heard a scuffling sound and turned to see Flick climbing up the ladder.

“She’s got the keys,” said Flick. “Should be there now.”

Tristam nodded, though he kept his eye on the road. “We really should be closer to the Guild.” Kyra had been adamant that everyone stay away.

Flick snorted. “Might as well bring in trumpets to announce our presence.”

Tristam let the insult go unanswered. Kyra’s friend had been trying his patience all evening, but he had more pressing things to do than take his bait. He hunched his shoulders against the breeze and listened for signs of anything amiss.

“You likely won’t see her coming unless she wants you to,” said Flick after a while.

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I’ve waited on her plenty, back before she was the Palace’s errand girl.”

Tristam shot him an annoyed look. “It was her choice to do this.”

“It was a false choice. You had her by the throat.”

Flick was wrong about that. Kyra
had
been forced to go into the forest—and Tristam still felt guilty when he thought of the way he’d coerced her—but this job was personal for her. Flick would have seen it too, if he hadn’t been so eager to hate the Palace. Tristam didn’t know whether Kyra wanted revenge or redemption, but she’d wanted it.

“You might not believe me,” said Tristam, “but I really don’t wish her harm. I like her.”

“Do you?” If Tristam had meant to win Flick’s trust by that comment, the warning in Flick’s voice signaled clearly that the effort had backfired.

“I mean that I respect her abilities. What she’s accomplished,” said Tristam.

Flick shot him a sideways glance. “Better be what you meant.”