She was alive.
She felt the weight of dozens of eyes and lifted her head. People all around stared at her, gaping, hands pressed to mouths and chests. She hid the amarinth in her coat. Looked up at three grafters staring at her from beneath the clock face of the six-story tower.
A long, deep breath filled her lungs.
Thank you.
Finding her feet, Sandis ran.
Forty seconds later, the amarinth stopped spinning.
Chapter 6
Rone was going to bald early if he didn’t stop trying to pull out his hair.
He’d searched everywhere. Scoured. Even followed the men from the tavern, but they’d led him on a wild-goose chase. Where had she gone? Where had his amarinth gone?
God’s tower, if she sold it . . . he didn’t know what he’d do. Other than pull out his hair.
And the city, thanks to its utter lack of courtesy, went about its usual business. As if he hadn’t just lost the most precious thing he’d ever owned and his employment alongside it.
His shoulder ached, as if saying, Good one. Too bad you can’t get rid of me, too.
Rone grumbled and massaged the tight muscles there as he trudged up to the property manager’s office. His means of living was, temporarily, lost, but the rent was still due on both of the flats he paid for—his and his mother’s. At least he still had money in his pockets. More than most. Just not enough to get him and his mother across the border.
He’d figure this out. One way or another, he’d figure this out.
Dropping his hand from his shoulder, he rolled his neck, wincing when it pulled on his old injury. He stepped up to the window and fetched his wallet from his pocket, counting bills.
“Hello, Rone,” the old man inside the window said. He turned away for a moment, then looked back so quickly his head might have flown off his neck. “Rone? What are you doing here?”
Rone looked up. Blew a wavy bit of hair off his forehead. “Check your calendar, Tus.”
“I know it’s the end of the month. But are you sure you want to keep an empty flat? I don’t double up on leases.”
Rone’s hand paused midway to his money stack, the next bill wrinkling between his fingers. The blood drained from his face and neck. “Tus. What do you mean, an empty flat?”
He’d visited his mother two days ago.
Tus’s face fell. “You haven’t heard.”
“Tell me.”
He frowned. “I thought you would have. Unlike her, really. She was carted off to Gerech a couple days ago.”
Rone’s eyes widened. The bills dropped from his hand, and his fingers shot out to grab Tus’s collar. Rone leaned in as close as the windowsill would let him. “What the hell do you mean, Gerech? Who told you? Why?”
Gerech. Also known as Dresberg Prison. Also known as the jail with the highest rollover rate in the country, thanks to too many criminals and not enough cells. That didn’t mean the jailers let people go, of course. Most of them left in coffins.
“Sh-She was accused of theft,” Tus said, shaking, and Rone forced his fingers to open. Tus swallowed and rubbed his collar. “Stole a Noscon headpiece right from the Renad household.”
Rone’s body turned to stone. “What?”
Tus kept going as if he hadn’t heard. “I don’t know how she managed to do it. Security up there is pretty good, I hear. But Ernst isn’t a forgiving man, and . . . well, you know how it goes with rich folk. They’ll spend a fortune to make someone suffer for stealing a penny—”
“A Noscon headpiece,” Rone whispered.
“That’s what I said. Makes no sense. She must have known she wouldn’t be able to sell it without the theft being traced back to her.”
They had blamed his mother. Arrested her right after his visit, if Tus’s timeline was right.
Damn the Celestial to fiery hell. He’d been two-timed. But why? And why had they set up his mother? The blasted woman felt guilt over killing spiders. No one should even know about her connection to him. He’d always been so careful.
Rone slammed a short stack of bills on the sill. “Keep it open. I’ll be back.”
He needed to find the bastard who’d hired him. Didn’t matter that he didn’t have the amarinth. The man responsible for this was going to wish he’d never set eyes on him. Rone clung to that anger, that push to fight. Because if he didn’t, the guilt would devour him alive.
Marald Helg. That was the name of the man who’d hired him to steal the headpiece. It was very possibly a fake name, but then again, Rone used an alias as well. All his past and future employers knew and would know him as Engel Verlad. His true surname, Comf, was far too telling.
But this Helg guy had figured it out. How else would he have known who his mother was?
The more Rone thought about it, the more he realized he should have detected something was wrong. The ease of the mission. The lack of motivation for wanting the headpiece. The client’s home—though it was a large flat with two floors, which denoted wealth, it had been nearly empty. There were marks on the walls where pictures or other ornamentation had once hung. A lack of furniture. Was he moving, or had he sold his belongings? Rone hoped for the latter. He might not find the man if he had moved.
Now that he thought about it, there’d been something off about the client. The glint in Helg’s eye. His tone of voice. He’d looked at Rone differently than others. Like he hated having to hire him.
Rone gritted his teeth until they squeaked from the pressure. He was going to fix this. One way or another, he was going to fix this. His mother was a strong woman. If anyone could make it there . . .
Gerech. His stomach rolled, and not because he’d just leapt a six-foot gap between roofs. Rone had a feeling Gerech Prison wouldn’t take an exchange, even if Rone offered up himself. The guilt hardened into a leaden ball in his stomach. A leaden ball with teeth.
The buildings began to distance themselves from one another, so Rone picked his way down to the street. Hitched a ride on a passing cart. If he found the flat empty, he would figure out a way to get his man. Engel Verlad was known for doing the impossible. Or the near impossible, anyway. And when he found Marald Helg, he would hang him off the clock tower until the man sang for mercy and turned himself in as the true thief.
Even that might not be enough to free his mother.
To make matters worse, it started to rain.
Rone cursed and dropped from the cart, then crossed the street to the nearest eave, as did many others. Bodies pressed up against one another to get out of the downpour, while other, more prepared denizens pulled out umbrellas or newspapers to shield themselves. It was one thing to get wet; it was another to get wet within the first ten minutes of a storm. The drops passed through layer after layer of smoke and pollution before hitting the ground, turning into falling sludge. The only bright side was that after a hearty rainstorm, the air had a semblance of freshness for a day or two. If the rainstorm wasn’t hearty, everything just got dirtier.
Rone groaned and rested his head against the wall behind him. The building was a small laundry for those who could actually afford to pay others to launder their clothes. Rone had come by a few times during his busier months. His mom didn’t like him “wasting” money on such things. “I can do it if you’re too busy. I don’t mind.”