“Love what you’re doing with the place.”
“Thanks.” If I screamed, Reynald would come running, but it would be too late.
“What have you done with the corpses?”
Had the Shears seen us dump the bodies? I needed to say just the right thing . . . “I could tell you, but I have to charge.”
Ha! Oh wait, he wouldn’t get that either.
Solentine looked at me. “You’re a mystery, Maggie.”
And he already knew my name.
“You speak like a native of Kair Toren, but nobody remembers you. You have no friends, no lovers, no parents, or employers. Nobody recalls you entering the city. You simply appeared as if by magic.”
You have no idea how right you are.
I smiled. It seemed better than some half-baked witty comeback.
“I gather you’ve decided to stay?” he said.
“For a while.”
“Good. I enjoy mysteries.”
He tossed me a small purse. I caught it. It was light. Cheapskate.
“Your payment. We’re even.”
“Then our business is concluded.”
Solentine smiled. The hair on the back of my neck stood right up.
“Oh no. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of each other in the future. Close the window after I leave, Maggie. There’s no end of unsavory characters out there.”
He leaped out into the darkness.
Okay. That was the second-coolest thing I had ever seen in real life. Everard riding in was the first. And as soon as my hands stopped shaking, I would shut that damn window.
I pulled the strings of the purse open. Judging by the size and weight, he’d paid me less than ten nomas. You’d think the life of his agent would be worth more. Oh well. Every little bit helped.
I emptied the purse onto the desk. Six gold coins clinked and shone in the lantern’s light. A small fortune. Solentine, you beautiful bastard.
Things were looking up.
PART II
BARREL OFSALT
CHAPTER11
Clover’s brunch was a religious experience. She’d made eggs and folded crepes that had some sort of cottage-like cheese in them and served them with smoked fish, green jam, fragrant tea, and slices of salted meat that looked but didn’t taste like ham. The jam was sweet, tart, and refreshing, and I could’ve eaten my weight in that smoked fish.
I dipped a slice of freshly baked bread into my perfect over-easy egg, took a bite, and savored it.
Mmmm.
We sat in the kitchen around one end of a huge wooden table. Clover and I had scrubbed this space to within an inch of its life. In fact, we’d scrubbed so hard, we had probably made the room bigger by rubbing a layer off the walls and the floor, but we both wanted to eradicate any trace of the slavers. We didn’t discuss it, we just did it in silent agreement.
