Page 24 of Stealing Tink

Don’t we need them in here if you’re going to explain your plans? I write.

“Why would we need them in here?” he asks. “You’re going in alone.”

What do you mean I’m going in alone? I write furiously onto the parchment.

The Nomad makes a show of dragging the paper toward himself, as if he can’t read it upside down from across the table. “Were you not listening earlier?” he asks.

When I scowl at him, he flashes me a teasing smile—as if he’s enjoying baiting me, and enjoying even more that I know he’s enjoying it.

“I can’t go near the place,” he says. “Remember there’s a bounty on my head here.”

Here? I write. I thought there was a bounty on your head everywhere.

“Yes, well…” He leans back in his chair. “This one is slightly more substantial. Vulcan was rather wealthy, even by noblemen’s standards. I can’t simply walk into Kahlia.”

He put a postmortem bounty on whoever his murderer might be? I write. Sounds like something I should do.

“There’s quite an enormous fund in a bank nearby,” he goes on, “ready for anyone who hands over my head. Besides, this place is a haven for bounty hunters and all other sorts of criminals.” He says criminals as if he’s not one. “I’d be dead the moment I stepped off the ship,” he finishes.

What about Phoenix and Venus? I write. Can’t they go with me?

“Them as well,” he says. “Vulcan’s will stated they were to be killed at the time of his death. I know what you’re thinking—and yes, regardless of whether or not it was one of them who murdered him.” When I raise a brow in question, he adds, “Apparently he wanted them for himself only. Even after he was dead.”

Disgust coats the back of my throat. I’m not sure I want to go anywhere near this man’s place of residence, even if he is dead. He seems like the type of person whose tainted soul would leave behind an odor.

Surely there’s someone you can send with me, I write, feeling somewhat panicky now.

“You don’t strike me as the type to need company. Not with that independent spirit of yours,” he says.

Yes, well, what if I need to talk? I write, annoyed—both that he doesn’t recognize this as a problem and that, even steeped in his ignorance, he’s still managing to point it out.

“Exactly,” he says. “I need to know that you can manage yourself before we try to steal from the Sister.”

I thought that was the whole point of seeing if I could escape your ship, I write.

“Technically, you didn’t escape my ship,” he says. “And therein lies the problem. I said you were the key to getting what I need, not that you required no practice. Besides, I thought you’d be more confident than this.”

He has the gall to almost sound disappointed in me.

Confident. It’s not that I’m weak or constantly doubting myself. I simply know when an idea reeks of failure. And I’m not one to put myself in a situation where I’ll likely get caught.

Still, as I stare down the Nomad, I realize I have little choice.

CHAPTER 12

Vulcan’s manor looks exactly as you’d expect from a man who would name himself after a bird and collect “muses” for himself. It’s the most conspicuous house on the street, and even though it’s currently abandoned, it still gives off an air of superiority. The gloomy, fake sort that would require several layers of paint to hide what’s underneath.

The muses informed me of a place in the backyard garden where Vulcan used to hide the key, in case he ever found himself locked out during a time when he was in between footmen (I got the sense from the muses that the job was difficult to fill, as those who occupied that job tended to die mysteriously). When I questioned how they knew about the key, they replied Vulcan saw no harm in them knowing where the key was, since they were never allowed outside.

It’s night now, and the wrought-iron gates around Vulcan’s backyard are locked. I did plenty of climbing in Neverland, and before that, spent a few years as a slave to a circus master, filling in for the tightrope walker and trapeze artists when they were injured. Climbing a gate isn’t something I’m worried about. Perhaps the Nomad was right to send me on this mission after all.

Though I’d never admit it to him.

I scale the gate with ease, then haul myself over, my feet hardly making a sound as they hit the soft ground on the other side. For as much effort as Vulcan put into his postmortem hit list, it seems he did very little by way of estate planning. Vulcan has only been dead a few weeks, yet the yard is already looking unkempt. It seems that Vulcan’s flora preferences were limited to invasive species.

Inside the foremost overgrown bush is a marble gnome, which is much too muddied for such an expensive material. Then again, I’ve never owned marble, so I wouldn’t know what’s an appropriate use and what is not.

I tip the gnome’s chipped hat, and inside, just like the muses said, is a key, wrought iron like the gate. Let’s just hope it works on the back door. I’d rather not have to explain myself to anyone who might see me if I end up having to enter through the front.