Lorzok’s pleased smile at making the connection was eclipsed by the offended face Saeldian made. They pressed their lips tight on whatever they wanted to say. Something to defend their honor?Ha!Saeldian, with honor. What an imagination Kell had!
Saeldian’s offended expression found its way to their voice. “Reminisce later. Good day, Saer Briona. Best of luck, Kell.” Saeldian tossed their napkin on the table. “Release us.”
Jubilee studied a key cradled in her hand. Kell recognized it as a key for quickened barrel tumblers. The turning plate was shaped like a gold dragon…a bank vault key?
“We’ll find something else,” Saeldian said. “It’s just gold. We’ll figure it out.”
What kind of employer paid so much gold that they had to putit in a vault? The Zhentarim, apparently. What did they want so badly that they would bring him and Saeldian Charmhand together for a job? That was the question, and Kell didn’t care to hear the answer. But Jubilee looked at the vault key a moment longer before she closed her eyes and let it land on the table.
“If you’re sure.”
Once, Kell would have walked away from a vault full of gold out of loyalty to Saeldian Charmhand. Ten years ago, he would have trusted Saeldian over the word of a hundred experts, and he couldn’t stand to watch someone making that same mistake.
Kell wouldn’t let himself. He couldn’t help it. “Wait.”
Jubilee turned her attention to Kell. She was the color of a forget-me-not, with black hair that shone violet. She had a handsome face—angular in that way that meant a bit of makeup and a costume change would let her impersonate a man if she needed to. Perhaps that’s what she’d been doing, in the silk shirt and many-pocketed attire of a well-to-do artisan who needed to keep a variety of small things on their person to do their work uninterrupted. Everyone from cabinetmakers to cooks to tailors wore a vest like that.
Combined with Saeldian’s glamorous, alluring attire, Kell would bet ten dragons they’d been in the middle of a scam when they were invited to hear this offer. Jubilee had been Saeldian’s sentinel, watching for the moment she needed to protect them.
Jubilee probably took it as seriously as he had.
Kell leaned closer. “You don’t know me, Jubilee. But get Saeldian Charmhand out of your life. Don’t wait until they’re done with you.”
Jubilee sniffed. “Youdon’t knowme,Kell.” The tiefling turned to Saeldian. “Is it true? What the orc said.”
Saeldian looked exactly the way they had ten years ago when they were forced into an admission, down to the charming, rueful smile. “Not totally. I did leave abruptly, but I didn’t drop Kell in the hands of the Zhentarim.” Saeldian glanced at him and said, “I didn’t have a clue about that last part, not that he’ll believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either.”
The muralist who had painted the rippling sea anddawn-to-midnight horizon on the dining room’s walls had hidden faces and animals in the clouds, and Kell counted running horses until the tiefling spoke again.
“Then whatdidyou do?”
Saeldian’s dining chair creaked. They had shifted their weight the way they did when they were itching to vanish. “I just left! Like I said. I didn’t even take my share of the score.”
“That much is true,” Kell said. “You made sure every gem was right there so you couldn’t be implicated.”
“I didn’t—” Saeldian took a breath. “Saer Briona. You said this job was nearly impossible. If you try to put us together, we’ll never pull it off.”
Briona shook her head like she had honest regrets. “I need you both.”
Jubilee asked, “Why?”
Briona looked between the two of them before she answered. “They’re uniquely suited to the assignment.”
Kell groaned. “Oh no. I’m out. I quit.”
Saeldian kept talking. “Kell doesn’t trust me.”
Jubilee leaned closer. “But why doesn’t he trust you? What did you two do that—that I can’t?”
Saeldian turned to their partner and shook their head. “I wanted to leave this behind me. We were thieves. We were very good thieves. Then I had to leave, and I didn’t tell him I was leaving, but I guess something happened after I left.”
“Conveniently,” Kell muttered.
Saeldian glanced at him before continuing to answer Jubilee. “This is the first I knew of Kell Redsong’s whereabouts after I got out of Baldur’s Gate. I thought he’d be fine.”
“You thought I’d befine?”
Saeldian apologized with a shrug and wide eyes. “I only took the armor. The rest of the take was yours.”
