“Oleander,” she rasped. “You’ve gotten rusty, Quicktongue.”
“Try anything and we’ll see just how rusty my skills are with a blade.”
He’d first known of Olyusha as an Affinite working at the Playpen, specializing in poisons and needles tipped with toxins. And though she didn’t know this, he’d used her as a bargaining chip against Bogdan, the affable yet stupid Penmaster of the Playpen, the infamous club where Alaric Kerlan had run shows with indentured Affinites.
That she was here, amid buried corpses showing signs of poisoning…Ramson had an inkling he was very close to sniffing out the truth of what had happened to the Order.
Olyusha hissed, but he felt her swallow against his blade. “Then perhaps we’ll both join the corpses at our feet,” she sneered. “Let me go. I didn’t come here to kill you.”
“So whyareyou here?” Ramson asked pleasantly, digging his blade into her skin in a way that he knew would be uncomfortable but would not cut.
“To warn you. Kerlan wants you dead, and he’s set a high price on your head. The whole Order’s probably out for your blood, Quicktongue.” She paused. “What’s left of them, anyway.”
At that, he glanced up, a thread of caution tightening inside him. The hallways stretched empty in front of and behind them. “And why would you want to warn me? We’re cut from the same cloth, Olyusha, so spare me the ‘out of the goodness of your heart’ act.”
“Because I need you.” The sharpness to her tone became tinged with desperation at her next words: “Bogdan is gone.”
This was news to Ramson. “What do you mean?”
The few times he’d run into Olyusha after her stint at the Playpen, she had been soft-spoken and doe-eyed, clinging to the gold-emblazoned sleeve of Bogdan. The Penmaster had rescued her from a lifetime of performances served under a forced contract—and he’d married her. It was Ramson who had helped cook Kerlan’s books so that Kerlan would never find out.
“He’s missing. That’s why I came here to find you.” Olyusha’s throat bobbed against his blade. “Now, let me go, and I can explain.”
So, therewassomething she needed from him. Ramson shifted tactic in an instant. “A Trade, then,” he said. “You know I never give without taking, Olyusha.”
“Fine,” she said, and he stepped back, pushing her far enough from him so that he was out of range of any needles or sharp, poison-laced objects she might try on him. She straightened, massaging her throat, and he noticed that her hands shook as she swept back her tresses. She suddenly looked small, tucked into her coat, which had lost some of its sheen and was now covered in a layer of gray. Ramson had remembered her dressed in the finest of furs and silks, pearls glittering in her hair as she turned her head and laughed.
Ramson tapped his misericord on the marble floor. It echoed hollowly. “You can start by telling me what happened to the Order,” he said. “What you mean by ‘what’s left of them.’ ”
Olyusha sniffed. “I forget how long you’ve been out of it all, Quicktongue. After Morganya took the throne, Kerlan forced me to kill everyone associated with his trafficking business. He is intent on burying proof that it ever existed, for fear of the Inquisition.” Her eyes flashed. “Then he left with a handful of top-ranking members. He’s decided to refocus his efforts on his new Trade with Bregon.”
The name of Ramson’s birth kingdom sent a shock wave through him, even as his ears perked at the news. “What Trade? And why Bregon?”
“He said it was a new development with Affinites. Besides that, I don’t know. Probably to escape the Imperial Inquisition and the new Empress’s purge on Affinite traffickers.”
Ramson took a moment to digest this information. Morganya had hired Kerlan for a hit job—to kill the Crown Prince, Ana’s brother—before, but since her Coronation, she had turned with zealous fervor against Affinite traffickers. It was likely that Kerlan had caught wind of this two steps ahead, as always, and turned tail and fled. And now he was going to establish a new criminal empire…in Bregon.
That was the part that didn’t make sense. Bregon had never shown interest in its Affinites—magen, they were called—who, in Ramson’s memory, had been largely left alone and unidentified. “And how do you know this?”
“Because,” Olyusha said, “he took Bogdan with him. I haven’t heard from him in weeks.”
Her voice had grown quiet; her large eyes shone wet in the dark. At last, Ramson connected the dots. “You want my help to find him.”
“He promised it would be a quick job. He told me he’d be back within the moon.” Olyusha swallowed. “I think…I think something went wrong.”
He was getting sidetracked—he’d only come here out of an old habit, to find out what had happened to the Order and his former master. Perhaps it was indeed better to let sleeping wolves lie.
Ramson began to turn away. “I’d love to help, Olyusha, really,” he said, “but with Kerlan demanding my head, I think I have better things—”
“He’s in Goldwater Port.” The words froze him, reeled him back. Slowly, Ramson turned to face her again. She was looking at him closely; at his reaction, she continued, “He told Bogdan that he would take it over, rebuild from there. No doubt he’s leveraging the trade routes to Bregon that you’ve established.”
Liquid cold spread through his veins, and suddenly, all the plans he’d been spinning for himself the past few weeks seemed to dissipate into smoke before him. Goldwater Port had been center to any prospects of a future he’d dreamt up for himself.
Only, Kerlan had gotten there first.
He heard Olyusha speaking as though from very far away. “I thought that would get your attention. Here’s my proposal: an alliance to take down Alaric Kerlan together, once and for all. Find him, find Bogdan, and bring my husband home to me. And in return, you’ll have my protection. Someone watching your back from the enemy’s side. Whoever from the Order is looking for you, I’ll get to them first.”
Ramson was silent as he considered, his thoughts already running ahead, weaving situations and possibilities and weighing the pros and cons of it all. He’d wanted to leave Kerlan alone, to let the Order fade away as a part of his past that he’d wished to bury—but it seemed they had come looking for him, instead. And by taking Goldwater Port, Kerlan had seized the most valuable asset between them, backing Ramson into a corner.
