Better than let her die.
Which she would have, had that fight gone on a moment longer, and damn her elven laws.
“Ellina,” he said. He moved closer and pretended not to notice her flinch away. A quick glance downstream confirmed his suspicion: each end of the river was blocked by a tall metal grate where the city wall crossed the water. They could not escape that way. But: “There’s a ladder not far from here. Near your hideout. We just have to make it there.”
“We cannot go back there. We were seen.”
“The whorehouse next door, then.”
She wanted to refuse. He could see that refusal in her every fiber. But he saw the quality of her gaze, the way it changed from firm denial to something more reluctant. And then, finally, she gave a tight-lipped nod that he took for ayes.
Venick wanted to be gentle. It was important, suddenly, that he did not frighten her more, that she understood what he was doing as he moved closer, as he wrapped a strong arm across her body and carefully, so carefully, pulled them back into the water. He watched Ellina’s face, measuring her reaction.Trust me, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He thought the words instead.Trust me.
And he saw it. He saw the way her shoulders relaxed, how her eyes lost their glazy fear. Her breath tickled his neck. Her hair ribboned along the water’s surface. And there, like he promised, a ladder that brought them to safety.
EIGHT
Venick entered the brothel soaking wet. His slopping footsteps left smears on the hardwood, shining patterns in the dim light. Just water. Not blood. Not a cut reopened and bleeding again.
Believe that.
He refused to look at it. He refused to look at his chest where the elf had sliced him, either. He looked instead into the dim room, through the plume of perfume and smoke that stung his nose and eyes and throat. It was made to be hazy on purpose, he thought. The smoke was bad for guests, but it was safer for the mistress to be able to appraise him first, to size him up, check for weapons, note the quality of his clothing, glean whatever she could from that.
Which she did now, shifting shadow-smooth towards him from across the room. She was his mother’s age. His mother’s height. But she had light skin, light hair, a white smile that was anything but motherly. She took in his threadbare clothing drenched in water and blood and did not like what she saw. Venick was prepared for that. “I can pay,” he said, and pushed Ellina’s coins into her hand. She glanced at the money. Her smile changed.
Next came the women. They were mostly flatlanders with fair eyes and silky hair, but a few were small and dark, from the coast, Venick thought, or the mountains. They were all human. All half-clothed, too, in golden chains and sheer fabric that hid nothing.
Venick cleared his throat and remembered Ellina’s words, muttered hastily as they’d darted through alleys to get here.Pick the youngest. The shyest. Someone who looks easily frightened.As if they were discussing which deer to fell, the weakest link. Only, none of these women looked easily frightened. And they were all young.
He pointed at the one he thought most modest and tried to look anywhere else, which got the girls giggling.
“He’s shy,” the mistress tutted. “Aza will fix that.”
The woman named Aza stepped forward. She had long black hair woven in thick coastal-style braids and a smile that looked almost genuine. Her bracelets clinked as she reached for his hand. Venick jerked away without thinking.
Idiot.
Aza gave him a curious look, her eyes lingering on his blood-stained tunic. “You have had a—stressfulday,” she decided after a breath. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes. Come, I will help you.”
This time Venick forced himself steady, forced himself to relax as she slid slender fingers through his. Her skin was velvety smooth, impossibly so. Or had he simply forgotten what a woman’s skin felt like? He thought of Ellina, of her hands on him in the forest, then again in the river. He tried to remember whatherskin was like.
Enough, Venick.
But he couldn’t quite help the burn that crept into his cheeks as Aza led him up the stairs and into a private room. Couldn’t quite help his nervousness, either, as she started to undress. She watched him with dark eyes, flashing a lazy smile that had him wondering how he ever thought her modest.
“No,” Venick managed as she reached a hand for his belt. “I’m not—I don’t—”
Ellina chose that moment to appear. She came through the window, the loose glass panes shuddering in their sockets as she forced it open. Aza and Venick both jumped as Ellina stepped inside, surveying the room and the whore and Venick’s half-undone belt in one swift glance. Venick swallowed and stayed silent, feeling as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t, and never mind that this was the plan all along.
“Say nothing,” Ellina ordered Aza. Her hand fell to the weapon at her belt. “If you scream, I will—”
Too late. Aza opened her mouth and sucked in a lungful of air. She would have rattled the walls with that scream had she managed to get it out. She didn’t. Ellina was there in an instant, dagger out, ramming the hilt into the girl’s temple. The scream was cut short, breaking into something that sounded more like a shriek of delight, and no shortage of those around here. She crumpled to the floor where she lay motionless.
Venick might have thought her dead, had Ellina been another elf. Shewouldbe dead, had Ellina been another elf. But Ellina was not another elf, and so Venick caught the shallow rise and fall of Aza’s chest and knew she lived.
It was uncertain how much time they had, then, before she woke and screamed for real. Venick had paid the mistress handsomely, more than enough to cover the room for the night. They would be safe to hide here until nightfall, assuming Aza stayed unconscious. If shedidwake, though, and if shedidscream, the mistress would surely come to investigate, and then they would have to kill them both, or run.
Venick wondered how far Ellina’s charity would stretch if it came to that.
