I lean over the table, staring Fast Draw right in the eye from underneath the shadow of my hood. “If I find out you’re not being straight with us, I’ll hunt you down, squeeze every drop of water out of your body, and toss your pulverized remains into the street.”
“Ever hear of overkill?” Orion sighs.
I don’t take my eyes off Fast Draw. “Booker here is a good guy. Tries to do right by people.” I slap my hand down on the table for emphasis, and Fast Draw nearly startles out of his chair. “I’m not burdened by things like that. We clear?”
“Clear,” Fast Draw croaks out and then snatches up his payment and bolts with a speed that is frankly impressive.
I watch Orion stow his device in his pack, trying to read the shadow of a frown creasing his brows.
“Hey, O, I…” I have to stop and clear my throat at least twice before I can get the rest out. “I’m sorry. About the skeleton key. I didn’t know what it was.”
Orion gives me a lopsided grin, shrugging. “It’s fine, V. At least I know where it is now. Maybe I can steal it back from him or something later. Come on, we need to gear up and get going if we’re going to get to South Parish by sundown.”
An hour later, Orion and I are back out on the streets, headed for the Shipyards.
Situated on the southern edge of Covenant, it’s a place with a name that’s only gotten more ironic over the years. Some of the first airships on Trinity were built there, a long time ago, welded together in enormous warehouses poised at the edge of the Crater—a gaping, bottomless pit almost two miles across that cuts right through the alloy down into the Elysian Depths. Back in those peak days, the Shipyards buzzed with activity, drawing an influx of people and paper. But then some skyliners developed hovering docking platforms and started building ships way up in the air where they’d never have to know the indignity of touching the ground. The flow of cash shifted, and the Shipyards graduallybecame a place not where things were made, but where they were discarded. In and around all the old warehouses and facilities are cluttered with scraps and junk and communities of people making the best out of a place that commerce and the Heraldic Ministry would rather forget.
Orion leads me past clusters of residences built into half-tumbled buildings and storefronts that never seem to do just one thing, selling everything from food and clothes to knockoff apothecary remedies and used furniture. I wipe at my chapped lips, resisting the urge to reach for my canteen just yet. Even with the sun dropping below the horizon, the heat is heavy enough to steal your breath, robbing us of the relief dusters used to at least get in the evenings and at night.
I haven’t been in this part of Covenant since we buried Papa, a memory that grips my body with tension, makes my movements awkward and stiff. A lot of dusters around here bury our dead in the Crater. We’re supposed to go all the way out to the Elysian Depths north of town to offer their bodies back to the Heralds, but when you don’t have the cash for that, you make do with the Shipyards and the Crater.
Orion’s steps are loping and steady as he twists his way along the streets, nodding at the yarders who make a living digging through the scraps at the Shipyards and selling what they can. He could just be any other guy out for an evening stroll.
He keeps touching his vest, though. Right over that same inner pocket. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen him do that since we set out.
Orion finally stops in a precariously narrow, shadowed alley, waving for me to stop behind him. He takes a small mirror out ofhis pocket and angles it so he can look around the corner, down the street, to where the Gentleman’s Rack sits, half a block from the edge of the Crater.
The Gentleman’s Rack is a billiards hall and card room that serves as the gaudiest, fanciest gambling den in Covenant. In the Shipyards’ heyday, it was considered high-end, and these days it still draws a good amount of paper from dusters looking to escape for a little while and skyliners who want to experience thedangerousthrill of mingling with the riffraff on the ground. The Gold Towners who run it don’t really care who’s handing over their paper, as long as it keeps making them a shipload of cash.
I watch Orion carefully, tapping my fingers impatiently on Wrath’s hilt, waiting for any signal that might mean,Yes, Val, they’re here, go. But all I see is the small crinkle of a frown cross his face.
“What?” I step up next to him so I can see the mirror, too. The dark edge of the Crater flashes in the reflection, and I look quickly away again, pushing back on the memories that hang around that place. “You look like something’s wrong. Are they not there?”
“Oh, I think they’re here.” He taps a finger on the mirror’s surface. “I just don’t think it’s only the Gold Town Gang who’s got them.”
I take a deep breath and look back at the reflection, seeing now what he’s talking about. There’s a slim figure standing on top of the Gentleman’s Rack, a man wearing basic duster gear and squinting into the growing darkness.
“That’s a warden,” Orion mutters, pulling the mirror back and tucking it into his vest.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “How can you even tell from this far away?”
“Look at his hair. He’s tried to fluff it up a little bit, but he’s got an indent all around his head from his hat. His stance, too. He’s cocking his left hip out, but his gun and holster are on his right-hand side. Which means it’s probably not his usual holster. He just took it off someone else.”
Wardens. It doesn’t take a lot to connect the dots. Walking into that shadow session already proved that Gold Towners are in good with the law, and Kilpatrick wasn’t the only boss I sent to the Depths that day. “They teamed up. Brought in the wardens as backup against the Butcher.”
I scan the surrounding streets and buildings, looking for other out-of-place figures like our friend on the roof. I spot one person very obviously loitering at a trinket stall keeping their eyes on the billiard hall’s front doors and three others on different rooftops a little farther down a branching road. Five total. Probably five times as many inside, I’d guess, at least.
Orion sighs and leans up against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “We need to take a step back and make a plan this time, V. This can’t be a straight hack-and-slash job like back at the Clock Tower.”
Before I can respond, a faint sound catches my ear—the soft scuff of a boot against smooth alloy—coming from the alley behind us. I react instantly, whipping around, darting up and over the stray crates and trash bins, and dropping down onto the person crouched behind them. They grunt as I pin them flat against the alloy, flipping them over onto their back and pressing Toothpick’s sharp point against their neck.
It’s Dani. Again.
Pinned under my knives. Again.
She quirks an eyebrow, her mouth curling. “Just can’t stay off of me, huh?”
I’m suddenly aware of how heavily I’m straddling her hips and how close my face is bent to hers. I pull back a little bit with a sneer. “What areyoudoing here?”
