“Who’s there,” Aris calls. Though I recognize his voice immediately, it’s much scratchier and slower than I remember.
“Me,” I reply.
“Come in, then.”
I’m shocked by what I find when I step inside. My old mentor, once tough and feared by so many, is weak and emaciated. His bones peek through his skin; his face is stained with dirt. He sits on a stool by another fireplace, hunched over, with his arms resting on his knees. He seems to be folded over, like he can’t support his own weight. There’s a cot in the corner, stuffed with moldy straw. On the far side of the room, a dusty threadbare rug where I used to sleep with one eye open in case the rats bit.
“Gineth.” He nods.
“The one and only,” I confirm with as much fake cheer as I can muster. Then I notice there’s another man in the room, sitting in a rickety chair. His face is scarred, and he’s wearing a straw hat and a long brown robe knotted with a belt with wide-hanging sleeves, and on his hand, a silver ring featuring a small black stone.
Aris looks over at me, then addresses him. “All right, I’ll do it.”
The stranger nods brusquely before departing.
“Sit down.” Aris turns to me and motions to the chair the man had been sitting in.
When I do, he wastes no time or small talk getting to the point. “What brings you here? Last I heard, you were off to the good life with one of the estate boys.” Word gets around in the Sleeve. Who knows how many people saw me in Rollo’s carriage that night. They assumed he had picked up an Ophir mistress. The Laconians despise us officially, but unofficially, and behind closed doors, anything goes, of course. There are even Laconians who are rumored to be half-Ophir, but no one would ever dare question the high houses.
“You know what they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Ah.” Aris raises his bushy gray eyebrows. The only part of him that hasn’t shrunk. “Trouble in paradise.”
“You could say that. How are things going with you?” I try not to look around the room when I say this. It’s clear things aren’t going well.
Aris sighs. “Business isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Too many crackdowns. The Blackcoats are not as easy to bribe these days. Or as willing to look away as they used to be.”
“I need a place to stay tonight,” I say. “Is that all right?”
He’s silent for a few seconds. He stares down at the floor. Just when I begin to wonder if he’s falling asleep, his head snaps back up. “I suppose I can offer you shelter. But in return, I need you to come back to work.”
I should be thrilled by this, except I know what he’s getting at, and I swore I would never do that again. Still, I ask. “What kind of work, exactly?”
“Funny thing, your timing.” He smiles for the first time since I arrived, though it’s a faint one, almost wistful. “It’s a big job. Only problem is, I’ve no crew. The boys all left me when I couldn’t drum up enough work. I thought I was going to have to turn it down until you walked in.”
“I told you when I left that I don’t do that anymore.” My voice is colder than I’d intended. There’s a beat of silence in the room. “And I just need a place for the night.”
His smile vanishes. “That’s the only work I’ve got.”
“A pity.”
“Sure is.”
“It’s one night, Aris.”
“It’s one job, Gin.”
That’s it, then. Take or leave it. Even this dilapidated shack is better than nothing. And what harm can one last job do? One lousy job and after I can come back here and sleep. A place where I won’t be robbed or beaten—or worse. But Aris can’t give me that for nothing. He’s desperate, too.
Aris raised me when my mother died a decade ago. Taught me everything he knew, for good or ill. Together we were a good team, but it was a hard life. Hiding from the Blackcoats, stealing everything we owned or ate, always one step ahead of being rounded up and sent to the black cells. We did other things, too, night work that is too unsavory to think about, work I want to forget. I was this close to cutting the strings on Madame Verona’s ample purse when I heard about a job in her kitchen instead. That was it, I turned my back on Aris, on our old life and ways. Promised myself I would never go back to stealing for something to eat or a place to sleep. And yet here I am.
“Gotta warn you, I’m a little rusty, though. Not sure I’m as good as I used to be,” I tell him.
The old man grins. “I know my best girl is capable. I have to say, it’s great to have you back. A welcome surprise. A very welcome surprise indeed. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FOUREBAN
Vergel pushes his toes into gaps in the wall and scales the rotted face of the building while I keep watch from below. The night air is still and humid. Drops of water fall from the edge of the roof, making tinyplinks when they hit the shallow puddles below. From a block or so away, a cat screeches and another hisses in return. There’s a brief commotion, two starving animals fighting over the same discarded bit of rotted fish, and then the clatter of metal knocking to the ground. I wait for someone to shout at them, but no one does. So far, so good. We’re alone.
