“I am, and I know how I’ll show my skill.” Bounties were plentiful, and I’d the perfect one to turn over as an invitation. Assassins dealt in death, didn’t they? “I need you to distract Grell’s guards.”
“No. Lords, Sal.” He plopped down on the bed next to me, raking a hand through his dark hair. “He kills for looking at him wrong. Whatever you’re planning, he’ll kill you for it.”
Not if I killed him first.
“Might kill us all if the mood strikes him,” I said. Grell was responsible for a list of corpses longer than I was tall, and it grew as fast as the children who never had a chance. He killed for skimming, skipping, lying, or anything else that tickled his fancy. He was the one who started kidnapping nobles—I’d found out by accident, and he’d kill me if he knew. Grell and his partners would get us all dragged to the noose eventually.
“He’s been running kidnappings on rich folks.”
Rath tensed. “Nothing new.”
“He cut a deal with some crew down south, but they’re killing their marks.” Rath would’ve run if he’d already heard. Hanging for thievery was one thing, but no one decent wanted to be associated with greedy killers. “Moment the wrong rich person dies, Grell won’t be able to pay off the guards. They’ll come for him, and he’ll turn us over to save himself.”
Just like the old Erlend lords had. The Erlends had led the shadows through Nacea to slow them down and let the Erlend army escape while Nacea was slaughtered. My people were left as nothing more than stains on the earth where sharp, shapeless claws had flayed them apart. Grell would use us to slow the soldiers so he could escape. We’d all be dead and gone like Nacea.
The only way to stop a slaughter was to stop those who started it, the ones who would do it again—like Our Queen had with the shadows, like Rodolfo da Abreu with their creators, and like I would with Grell and the Erlend lords who’d orchestrated Nacea’s ruin to save their own skins.
Rath slumped, fingers gripping my hand. “He’ll get us all killed.”
“No, he won’t. I’m turning him in.” His hand, at least, but Rath didn’t need to know that. Couldn’t risk him snitching on me either. “You run this place right—no killing and no ransoms—and I get my shot at Opal. Everybody in town already loves you. You ran circles around Grell when you were ten.”
“You’ve never cared about being anybody but Sal.” He shook his head. “Opal has to kill people for no reason other than Our Queen’s say-so.”
“That’s enough for me.” I twisted my head away so he wouldn’t see my flush. Our Queen was my hero, and rightly so because she’d sucked all the magic from the land. The shadows were nothing without it. Magic bound them to the earth, trapping them here long after their bodies were gone and their minds broken. The moment Our Queen rid this land of magic, the shadows fell apart. I owed her thousands of lives. My life. “She saved me. I’ll do anything she asks so long as it keeps her on the throne.”
And I’d enjoy a few of the kills if they were the right ones.
Rath had grown up too far south to see the shadows, but he went fidgety whenever we talked about them. Even their rumors bred a lifetime of fear—monsters quick as the wind and sharp as knives desperately trying to rebuild the bodies stolen from them. Their flayed victims still haunted my dreams.
“It’ll be justice,” I said softly. Anyone who’d killed so many and could live with that, thinking they were fit to lead the people they’d sacrifice so quickly, didn’t have a place in this world. “Doesn’t mean I’ll torture them. Just kill them.”
“Just kill them.” Rath laughed and made the sign of the Triad, hand lingering over his heart. “You even sleep last night?”
“Napped a bit.”
He sighed. “A distraction all you need?”
“Enough for his guards to leave.” Grell always barricaded himself in his room and ran the numbers after a job came in. He never let his guards inside, but he stationed them at the door in the hallway. He’d be alone all day. “Long enough for me to get inside.”
“Fine, but you owe me.” He dragged me off the bed and squeezed my shoulder. “Go. I’ll have them gone by the time you get there.”
Lady bless him.
The hallway outside Grell’s room was empty and silent by the time I got there. I rapped on the door. My chest ached with each deep, steadying breath, and I shifted. Something about what I was about to do writhed in my chest and tightened my throat. Grell had a bounty on his head—dead or alive. He had it coming.
“In.” Grell’s rumbling voice rolled through the cracks in the door.
Grell lounged at his desk in a haze of smoke. I clicked the door shut and locked it behind me. With his eye pressed to a jeweler’s scope and focused on a jasper ring, Grell didn’t notice. I edged forward and ducked my head, and he eventually glanced up at me. The bag of knucklebones on his desk rattled when he moved.
Waiting was fine. We were nuisances, and he was gracious enough to see us. Grell loved power plays. Me playing along meant I wasn’t here to surprise him.
I was starting to wonder if I should’ve gone with surprise instead but too late now.
“What’s this about?” He hacked into a handkerchief. He’d been like me once—small, underfed, overworked—but he’d used the years of robberies and money to his advantage.
His giant frame was all muscle and show. Street fighting had built his empire and his temper, but it ruined his left shoulder, right knee, and ribs. They’d snap with a good hit if the easy way failed.
“Rath’s crossed you.” I pinched myself to keep my lies focused. “He’s going to try to buy his way out.”
Grell lurched to his feet and leaned against his desk, towering over me with all his scars and muscles.
“And you want what for ratting him out?” Grell spread his arms in the least welcoming embrace I’d ever seen. “Doesn’t breed confidence keeping you around.”
“I don’t want to run with him anymore.” I fidgeted in fake fear and shuffled forward, pointing to the map of Kursk on the wall. Grell followed. “If he’s planning on splitting, he’ll muck us up. I’m not getting hanged because he’s thinking about leaving.”
“One job.” Grell leaned over my shoulder, exhaled sweet blue smoke, and tapped the map with a crooked finger. “Then you go back to your lot, and I replace Rath.”
“Thanks.” I yanked the pin with my name on it from the wall. It was heavy and thick, with a point sharp enough to pierce thin wood.
“No reward for snitching.” He tore Rath’s pin from the wall and tossed it aside. “Get out.”
I buried my pin in Grell’s neck. He flailed and clawed at his throat. I spun, my back hitting the wall. He reared, face pulled up in a wild, openmouthed sneer, and swung for my face. I caught it in the forearm and the hit shook my bones. His fingers curled around my arm.
Shit.
He flung me across the room. I skidded over his desk, knocking papers and jewels to the floor and cracking my head on the ink blotter. I blinked away the black and pulled my knees to my chest. Grell gurgled.
Lady bless, I’d messed up. He’d a pin in his neck, wasn’t down, and was spitting angry. I yanked the knife from my boot.