Les tightened his jaw but then finally nodded. I knew he’d just been trying to delay things. I pulled my hand out from under his. He closed the grate quietly behind me.
My sour mood—tinged with the despair I was trying not to acknowledge—followed me out of the tunnel. It was late afternoon, but the Yvanese continued with their shopping at the markets, using every moment of daylight available to them. I slid into the crowd, heading back to my safe house, lost in my thoughts. People packed the market. More than once I had to bite back a vicious barb, or an equally vicious elbow aimed at a person who’d gotten too close. People spoke quickly, conversation limited by daylight. Cart vendors called out their wares, telling people if they couldn’t pay now, they could pay later with interest. Debts were accepted everywhere.
I’d failed with Marcello. Again. And I knew I wasn’t going to get a third try. All I had now was Les. He would have to get the information from Marcello, which meant I had to keep training him, keep in his good graces, remind him that Marcello was holding him back and it was in his best interests to help me.
Even if it wasn’t. Even if helping me could get him killed.
My stomach rumbled, the tea I’d drunk with Marcello doing nothing to ease my hunger pains. Before me stood a vendor with more of those meat pies Les had introduced me to. I had money now. But I couldn’t just spend it on anything. If I used a small bit to buy one pie, I could eat half now, and half later.
The stall owner held up his fingers for a price, and I reached for my coin pouch.
It was gone.
I felt around my belt, but it was nowhere to be found. I twisted to search the crowd behind me.
To my left, someone whistled a familiar tune. I turned. Captain Lefevre. He smiled when I made eye contact.
“Ah, Miss Lea. Have you lost something?”
I swallowed. He could have been following me the whole time. But I hadn’t done anything to give myself away. Unless he’d seen me crawl out of Marcello and Les’s tunnel. But I would have noticed that. . . .
“I seem to have lost my money purse.” I patted my hip. “You don’t think it was stolen, do you?” He had to realize I was faking my na?veté, but if other people in the crowd were listening or watching, I wanted to be clear on how I presented myself in case he publicly accused me of anything.
“Perhaps this is it?” From his fingers swung my money pouch.
“Yes!” I smiled sweetly and reached for it, but he turned to face the stall owner.
“How much does she owe you?” he asked. The stall keeper held up one finger.
“That’s quite all right, Captain Lefevre,” I said. “I can pay the fine gentleman.”
Lefevre smiled at me again, his sickly sweet grin. He dumped my coins into the palm of his hand. He poked through them, examining each one closely, before he finally removed a coin and handed it to the stall keeper, who pocketed the money and passed me the meat pie.
Lefevre dumped the money into my pouch and cinched it. He held it out to me. I reached for it, but he clasped my hand with his own.
“You must be more careful with your coins, Miss Lea. You never know when they’ll draw someone’s attention. Someone who’s looking for you, maybe.”
He stroked my palm with his thumb, tracing the healing burn. I jerked my hand away, yanking the pouch with me. Lefevre smiled even more brightly.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind, Captain Lefevre.”
I slipped away from him, determined that he wouldn’t catch me unaware again.
Les’s hands shook as he tried to pour a concoction from a bottle into a vial. The harder he tried to still his fingers, the more they shook.
The moon shone down on us as it made its way toward the horizon. The canal waters sparkled with its light, creating starbursts in the streets. Something I’d never see in Ravenna.
Finally I grabbed his hands and took the bottle away from him.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll spill it,” I snapped. “Some poisons only require skin contact, and if you spill those, you’ll be dead.”
Les sighed and jerked his hair tie off before running his hands through his hair. “I’m no good at this. I don’t have the patience for mixing poisons.”
I poured the poison carefully into the vial, then stoppered it with a cork. I passed it to Les. “Mark the top with a symbol. It should be unique to you, so no one else can use it.”
He pocketed the vial before tying his hair back once more. “How do you have so many recipes and antidotes memorized?”
“Because I’ve been doing this for over ten years. But you don’t need to be a master poisoner to use poisons. These ones are easy to craft and simple to use. You could coat your cutter with one, and a shallow cut would become a mortal wound. Poisons are versatile and have more uses than just dosing someone’s food for a quiet kill.”
Les shook his head slowly. “I’ll never be the kind of clipper you are.”