“Please,” she said as they turned toward the body. “I can’t be friends with someone who only calls me ‘Your Highness.’ And I really need a friend right now.”
It was impossible. Her reputation would be harmed. He would lose his job and any hope of saving up enough money to relocate his mother and himself before his father returned from Balavata. He couldn’t bear to tell the princess any of that. Instead, he said, “I’d be comfortable with calling you Princess Arianna.”
“That’s not much of an improvement, but I’ll take it.” She smiled wearily at him, though it slipped from her face the moment she looked at Daan’s body. “Thank you for letting me fall apart and then helping me put myself back together.” She squared her shoulders. “Carrying him is out of the question. What should we haul him in?”
He was grateful to retreat from the dangerous ground of courting a friendship with the princess and focus on the details of making it look like Teague’s man had left the palace after delivering his message.
“We need a wagon and some blankets. Something that doesn’t look like it came from the palace,” he said.
“I know just the thing. Follow me.”
Moments later, they had tossed fresh dirt over the bloody ground, wrapped the collector in two coarse gray blankets the princess had taken from the grooms’ quarters, and were driving a nondescript horse and a wagon that was covered in dirt from hauling rocks and soil out of the south meadow. The princess had also wrapped herself in another blanket, throwing part of it over her head like a hood to keep from being recognized by anyone who might still be out on the streets.
As the palace disappeared in the distance, and Kosim Thalas spread before them with its pastel clay buildings stacked close together and its network of canals gleaming beneath the moonlight, Sebastian focused on the task in front of him—find a convincing place to dump Daan’s body and keep the princess from landing on the list of those Alistair Teague wanted dead.
FIFTEEN
SHE HADN’T MEANT to kill him.
Ari gripped the edges of the wagon bench as the vehicle creaked and swayed and tried to stop remembering the heft of the cudgel. The sickening crunch as it slammed into the man’s head and the smell that thickened in the air as he died.
She tried to stop, but the sounds were a splinter in her thoughts that she couldn’t help touching.
As Sebastian guided the wagon through the quieter side streets of Kosim Thalas, the body in the back jostled against the side of the wagon with every bump in the cobblestoned road, and the memory of the cudgel’s impact on the man’s skull played over and over in Ari’s mind.
She was going to be sick again if she didn’t stop.
Hastily scrambling for something else to think about, she said, “You seem to know a lot more about Alistair Teague’s business structure than I do.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Nothing except that he sends thugs to the market on Thursdays,” she said, and he raised a brow at her. “All right, yes. I can see how it would be easy to know more than I do, but still. You recognized his employee by sight and knew his name.”
“Where I come from, everyone knows who works for Teague.”
“Where do you come from?” she asked and wished for some water or mint to swish around in her mouth because, stars knew, revisiting her dinner the hard way had left a terrible taste on her tongue.
He was silent for a moment as mist shrouded the beach to the south and gulls swooped across the sky, their bodies lithe bits of shadow that fleetingly blocked the stars. She was getting used to the rhythm of Sebastian’s conversation. If he thought she was expecting something from him as the princess, he would answer promptly. If she was asking something personal, he would take his time—sometimes answering, sometimes not.
Finally, in a voice as emotionless as the road beneath them, he said, “I grew up in east Kosim Thalas.”
She was also learning to listen for the things he didn’t say, because usually that was where the real Sebastian hid. And she was learning that when he sounded like nothing mattered to him, whatever he was saying meant a great deal.
“Was that difficult?” she asked and then wanted to smack herself on the forehead. What a stupid question. Everyone knew that east Kosim Thalas was the holding ground for the destitute or the despicable. That it would be difficult to grow up there was obvious.
He was quiet, and she couldn’t bear to force him to think about the answer.
“Of course it was difficult. That was careless of me to ask. Let’s talk about Teague. What does he do in east Kosim Thalas?”
They turned onto a narrow road that hugged a gentle swell of land as it headed east.
“Teague runs a criminal empire throughout Súndraille that is headquartered in Kosim Thalas. Crime doesn’t happen in this city without his permission, though he has enough underlings in place that it’s rare to actually see the man himself,” Sebastian said. “He’s been in business for decades. Maybe for a century. He has his hand in a lot of things, but for the past six months he’s mostly been manufacturing a drug called apodrasi and selling it here and in Balavata. There were rumors once that he might be selling in Llorenyae as well, but I doubt it. He won’t have anything to do with that place.”
“Llorenyae.” Ari sat straighter. “I wonder why he doesn’t live there anymore. Something must have happened if he won’t even do business with them. Maybe it’s something Thad can use against him.”
The street curved, wrapping around the hill. The homes and shops that were clustered together inside the city limits spread out here, and there wasn’t any torchlight to be seen.
Sebastian’s voice was quiet. “The king isn’t the first person to try desperate measures to get out of paying Teague. Somehow, Teague always wins.”
“Not this time,” Ari said grimly. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and I’m going to find a way to stop him from coming after my brother.”
“If you poke a snake with a stick, it will bite you, Your—Princess Arianna.”
“Then I’ll have to be very careful.” Especially since Cleo would pay the price if Ari got caught.
Sebastian made a humming noise in his throat, and twitched the reins against the horse’s back to make him move faster as the wagon crested the hill. A rock-strewn pasture met the left side of the road, and a large block of a building was on the right about two hundred paces ahead. There were torches lit beside the building’s door and all along its perimeter, and Ari caught movement along its roof.
“Where are we?” she whispered.