Part One
Chapter one
On a Knife’s Edge
EverynightIwentout looking for coin, but also for calm.Picking locks made my mind go truly quiet, the only time I felt in control.Precision was my anchor.Danger reminded me I was still alive.
As I walked down the darkened alley, my fingers instinctively went to the locket around my neck, the metal worn smooth where I had rubbed it a thousand times, all to find a little peace.
From the outside, the Charred Snake seemed similar to countless other taverns in the sprawling Wharf District of Analon: siding in desperate need of repair, cracked windows, and the stink of booze, bile, and piss wafting through the air.A typical rowdy tavern bustling with life.Teon, a large man with a bushy brown beard and a steely demeanor, guarded the door.As I approached, he waved me in.
“Garrick’s expecting you,” he said in a gravelly voice, gesturing toward the door in the back of the tavern.
I nodded with a tight smile, then entered.
Sailors and fishermen with mugs of ale, cider, and other spirits were everywhere, sitting at long tables in front of a roaring fire in various stages of drunkenness.Despite it being early summer, the night air still had a chill.
Several women and men catcalled as I wove through the crowd.Something about my slender build, dark hair, and sun-warmed skin seemed to invite it.But I ignored them all and continued on my way.I wasn’t immune to flattery, but I wanted a man who did more than sit around in a tavern getting drunk.
“Little fun for a silver?”one man slurred while reaching for my crotch.
I swatted his hand away as I passed.“Fresh out of coin.”
“No,” the man said with a drunken smile, chin resting on his mug of ale.“I mean I’ll giveyoua silver.”
I held back a laugh.At least he was close to my age, and he wasn’t half bad-looking—he had pretty eyes, anyway.Losing myself to temptation had an appeal, but it might loosen what held me steady, and I wasn’t sure I could regain my control.
“Another time,” I said.
He made an exaggerated frown fueled by too much ale, but his disappointment melted away when a man set a new tankard in front of him.
I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the rest of their lewd remarks.At the back door, I knocked three times in quick succession, followed by two slower knocks.A booming voice came from inside.“Come in!”
The small back room had few furnishings except for a large wooden desk in the middle, where my friend Garrick sat in a chair that creaked under the weight of his substantial frame.
“Ah, Cassian!”he said with a grin that pulled at the scar on his cheek, pale against his dark skin.“How’s my best man?Ready to celebrate, I see!”
I sighed.“Do you have a job for me or not?”
He laughed.“Cas,” he scolded playfully, “if you don’t get drunk and sack up with some lad on your twenty-first birthday, then when in all the hells will you?”
I shook my head and waved him off.“Let’s get on with it.”
“Very well,” Garrick grumbled as he rooted through the papers on his desk.“You’ll like this one.Nasty bloke.Practically begging to be separated from his coin.”
“Nastier the better.”Of course, I took the jobs for the coin, but a large part of the appeal was exacting vengeance on those who had earned it.And if I had a personal connection to them, so much the better.
Garrick smiled as he found what he was looking for.“Aha!Thank dust.”He handed me a parchment with a rough sketch of a floor plan and some notes scrawled in the margins.“Here’s what we got from the kitchen maid.”
I scanned the map and the notes, locking them in my memory.The home was three stories tall and obnoxiously large, but straightforward paths led to the safe from various windows.“And you’re sure this is accurate?”
“The maid has no love for this family, that’s for damn sure.They threw her out on the streets last month for slapping The Butcher across the face when he tried to get under her skirt,” he said.
The Butcher.The name hit me like a punch.This connection was almosttoopersonal.
Garrick continued, “Poor lass barely escaped with her life.But I would have paid gold to see the look on Orlik’s face!”
Orlik “The Butcher” Leonom was the king’s top lieutenant, well known throughout the land for carrying out the Crown’s cruel edicts with ruthless efficiency.And I had personal experience with that.
