“What say wedon’tkill every flesh-trader we find? At least to start.”
“We’d be hard-pressed to anyway with so many of the damned vermin crawling around these streets.”
I pull at my chin. “So, say we leave some alive to spread the word. Make the slavers second-guess themselves. Make them uneasy.”
“What would be the point of that, lass?”
“Panic.” I smile roguishly at my dhampir. “The Nuhav slavers are the main broodstock exporters to Olhav. The fullbloods won’t take kindly to losing their cattle and breeding mares. They’ll be forced to investigate.”
He matches my smile, catching on. “Diverting their attention away from the uprising we’re planning in Olhav. Brilliant, badger.” He barks a laugh. “I say Master Skar will be proud of how duplicitous you’ve become.”
We step off our reaper’s carriage and heard toward the bright white rooster sign stationed above the murky brothel ahead.
“Let’s not waste time,” I say. “Find the fucker on the list, hopefully locate the other one, and finish it for Cyprilis. I’d like to be back in Olhav before sunrise.”
“You and me both, lass,” Garro mutters.
Vallan grunts, “You’ve been the one doing most the killing, silverblood, ‘wasting time,’ as you call it.”
I squint at the mammoth. “Excuse me? By my count, you’ve killed four, to my two.”
He frowns and scratches his beard. “Not sure that first one died. I tossed him far, not hard.”
Garro lifts a finger. “The man yelling downstairs said his neck broke.”
“Oh.” Vallan shrugs. “I thought he was talking about the one you punched in the throat.”
“Regardless,” I say, feeling oddly satisfied with this morbid conversation, “it’s not a competition. Let’s just do our job.”
We enter the brothel and immediately get hit with the cloying stench of sex and redcloud. A few decrepit drunkards sit at the bar at the end of the room, four of them in an untidy row. Tables are filled with naked women sitting on laps, and crude men getting lulled with sweet words.
Scanning the room through the dim haze, I find the staircase leading upstairs, where I’m sure the master of the manor resides. I nudge my chin in that direction and head over, passingthe bar and the lounging drunks. Glancing over at the barman, who has his back turned as he pours a mug, I step onto the first step—
And stop. One of the men slumped at the bar, shoulders sagging, lost in his cups, looks oddly familiar.
I veer away from the stairs, unable to help myself, and Garro sighs with exasperation. “Lass, what did we just say about . . .”
His words drown away as I approach the man on the stool at the far end of the bar, nursing his mug. My world flips and my mouth falls open. “Rirth?” I croak.
Ridiculously slowly, my old friend-turned-enemy twists his neck at the sound of his name. I wonder how long it took my word to reach his addled mind. He looks pickled, horrible, with a grizzly beard and dull eyes. Not the sharp orbs from the charming, short king I remember in the Grimsons, fighting alongside him at the shadowgalas we partook in to try and earn our freedom. He used to be the talk of the town among the Grimdaughters . . . and Grimsons, once I learned about him and Culiar. The apple of everyone’s eye, and our best fighter.
And nowthis. Hunched over a half-empty cup, stinking of the streets, hooded and looking like he’s lost.
“As I live and breathe,” Rirth says in a raspy scoff. “Just can’t escape the past, can I?”
I feel Vallan and Garroway creeping in behind me as they surely recognize the man from Manor Marquin as a slavefighter. Which means he’s dangerous.
I clench my jaw. “What the fuck are you doing in this brothel?”
He blinks wearily at me, eyes half-lidded. “I could ask the same of you, Sephania Lock.”
There’s no point in lying to Rirth. I lower my voice, though no one else is close enough to pay attention to us. “I’m here killing flesh-traders.”
“Ah.” He chuckles humorlessly, returning to his cup and scoffing. “Still killing your own kind, eh?”
“My kind?” Anger swarms me, itching in my blood. I lean forward and grab his collar, turning him to face me. I have half a mind to slap the drunken rosiness from his cheeks. “I may be morally gray, Rirth, but the people I’m ending are pitch fucking black and deserve everything they have coming to them. I would have thought you’d seen it by now. There’s nogoodversusevilin these damned cities.”
He sits up straighter, seeming to notice me for the first time. My heart sinks because the look on his face doesn’t get friendlier—it gets more cautious, angrier. “You’re right,” Rirth claps back, “the only thing that makes us different than the two fuckers behind you, is wedie. They don’t.” His smile is dark, lost. “We’re all swimming in the same cesspool, huh? Eating shit together. You come to finally finish me off, Seph? Like you killed Cul?”
