“They wanted to know where you were, that’s what. I told them I didn’t know, and they left. Look, did you join in a rebellion orsomething? Is that what you’re up to? You were such a hard worker until now, why would you do such a thing?”
“I haven’t.”
There was no resistance movement in Arland. Or at least, there wasn’t anymore. The only Intelligence business Cain could think of involved his parents. He did not know what his parents had done to have been executed for treason all those years ago. All he knew was that they were dead, and that Arland was a distant memory. His life was built from scratch right here in the Capital, in this oil shop and around the market square. He had neither love nor hate for the Empire. It was just a place where he ended up, safer than where he had been. It was the place where Fienna was. Had been. But the Ministry of Intelligence would not care. He put the third jar outside and went back in the shop.
“It’s that Fienna’s doing, isn’t it? What’s that little wench got you mixed up in?”
Cain could hear the undercurrent of panic in Agatha’s words. But she had good reason to be afraid. Ever since the whole world fell under the reign of the Empire, the Ministry of Intelligence’s mission had been to keep the prefects under surveillance and punish even the smallest sign of disorder or rebellion. They never brought in just one suspect for questioning; if their agents were looking for Cain, it meant Agatha was not wholly safe either. But somehow, Cain found it hard to concentrate on the very real danger to his person, the danger of the Ministry taking an interest in him.
“Nothing.” He lifted the fourth jar and turned to the door.
“Wake up, you fool! Or you’ll end up just like her!”
The feeling of weight on his chest that he had been fightingsince he learned of Fienna’s death suddenly gripped his heart like a vise. Cain threw the jar he was holding. It shattered, spilling oil and pottery fragments everywhere, and causing his boss to gasp and step away from him to back behind the counter. The rancid scent of spoiled oil filled the shop. Cain gave Agatha a cold stare, then opened the door and left the shop.
His head was swimming with two thoughts, and two thoughts only.Why did Fienna die? Who killed her?If he didn’t get answers fast, he was going to lose his mind.
Outside the shop, the market square was brimming with colorful tents, full carts and teetering wheelbarrows, and itinerant peddlers from all over the world, their words coming and going in standard Imperial, accented Imperial, and the occasional provincial languages. The smell of sweat, perfume, and cheap food assaulted his nose. As his anxiety threatened to boil over, Cain made his way through the square toward the port, trying to shed every useless memory as he went: the fear on old Agatha’s face, the sound of the jar shattering, the smell of oil, the clamor of the square—they faded to nothing. All of his inner focus centered on Gladdis, the Kamori merchant. And on Fienna, drenched with river water, her long braids glistening, so slick in his trembling hands with slime and scum.
Lukan had said Gladdis had a house on the docks. Since she had other bases of operations all over the Imperial heartland, as well as in her homeland Kamori, and since she went back and forth regularly between the Capital and the three provinces of Lontaria, there was little chance he would find her if he went to her house now. But if the man in the velvet trousers was indeed working for Gladdis, Cain knew he would find him there.
Cain could smell a hint of the ocean in the wind. The sun rose over a bell tower in the distance. Once he made a turn at that tower, he’d be at the place Lukan had told him about. The streets were as crowded as the market, but his pace quickened, and he suppressed the urge to break into a run. The answers were ahead. He was sure of it.
When he had first met Fienna, Cain was starving and in tears, ignorant of the language of the Imperial heartland. To a twelve-year-old boy, a seventeen-year-old girl might as well be an adult. Fienna talked to him in Arlandais, brought him an orange and bread and soup, found him a place to sleep. She taught him the language of the Capital and helped him make friends.
From behind, someone was cursing at him; come to think of it, he did feel like he had bumped into something just now. He couldn’t even remember what the color of the man’s tunic was. Cain did not slow his pace.
Just as he was about to turn a corner, someone grabbed his left arm with a grip so strong he could not easily shake it off. He turned and saw a skinny giant, at least two heads taller than himself, latching on to him and not letting him go. The giant’s face was dead serious. Was he the man he had bumped into just now? Cain’s eyes grew wide. He couldn’t remember. But how could he have not noticed such a tall man passing right by him?
Like an errant child caught by an angry parent, Cain was dragged into an alley by the bell tower. Cain pretended to resist as he discreetly took in his surroundings. A stout man in gray was urgently trying to cross the busy street, his eyes fixed in their direction. The main street was filled with carts on their way to market, but the alley was narrow and shaded. Neither the stout man northe skinny giant had been among the group that assaulted him the other night, but there was a chance they were part of the same gang.
First things first. He had to do something about this giant if he was ever to have a chance of escape. Without hesitating, Cain drew his dagger and sliced along the giant’s forearm in one motion. Blood gushed, and the giant yelled out. Cain swiftly kicked him in the shin, then stomped on the giant’s sandaled foot, and when he bent over in agony, Cain delivered a perfectly timed blow to the chin with his left palm. As the giant staggered, Cain plunged his dagger in and out of his foot—the giant was unlikely to come after him now. Cain raced down the alley, glancing back briefly to see that the stout man was still impeded from crossing the street by the river of carts and people.
Cain turned a corner at full sprint. While he knew every little alley and dead end around his market square, he didn’t know much about this dockside neighborhood other than the main streets. He could only hope that if he kept running and tried to lose himself in the maze, the people pursuing him would not be able to follow him either.
He was getting out of breath. Finally, he collapsed against a dirty wall, his mouth and throat burning. A drunk with a large bushy beard was sitting against the same wall a stone’s throw away, cradling a wine bottle that didn’t even have a label. Judging by the worn-out bottoms of his sandals, he was not a fake vagrant.
Only then did Cain notice that his vision was blurry. His spectacles were gone. He didn’t know at what point he’d dropped them. When he bumped into someone? When he fought the giant? Or while he was running for his life?
Cain sighed in frustration. At least he was almost sure the two just now were of a different pack than the five from the previous night. He hadn’t been anywhere since the assault except Lukan’s tavern. Last night’s gang was probably hoping their threat had worked, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to have people out on a busy street to watch for whether he was coming for them or not. The giant’s mannerisms were completely different from those of the ex-legionary woman from the night before. So there was one final option, and that was what they had to be.
He leaped to his feet. Why the Ministry of Intelligence were looking for him and how they knew it was Gladdis’s place he was headed to, he didn’t know. But what he did know for sure was that he was in trouble.
Slow, determined footsteps rang from the end of the alley. It was the giant from before, blocking the narrow alley as he approached. His clothes were bloodied but he didn’t move as if he’d been injured. The foot Cain had sunk his dagger into seemed to support the man’s large frame with no pain or trouble, even though the sandal was soaked in blood. Cain sprang toward the other direction, half expecting the stout man in gray to be there, but instead there was the woman in the black stola with the brooch who had sat next to him in the tavern the night before. She was looking at him intently, one of her delicate hands holding up Cain’s spectacles.
Cain took the bloody dagger from his inner pocket and tossed it onto the ground, holding up his hands in surrender.
A sack covering his head, Cain was pushed into a chair as his arms were tied behind his back with rough hands. Despite his lack ofvision, he took in his surroundings as best he could. A room with a chair. Echoes from a high ceiling, with windows mounted near the top of the wall betraying the noise of the street. A basement. There were maybe three other people there, judging by what he could hear.
Finally, someone spoke.
“My name is Septima.”
He assumed this was the woman in the black stola. Soft clicking sounds, as if she was playing with his spectacles, folding and unfolding the legs. He shrugged to show he was listening.
“We work for Intelligence.”
This he had already guessed. What he didn’t know was why Ministry agents, of all people, had captured him. This particular office of the Empire was tasked with surveilling prefects and rooting out rebels, neither of which Cain had anything to do with.
