“What?”
“A flat area is—never mind.”
“I turned it, so the plane thing is along that wall now,” Akstyr said. “We should be able to walk by if we stay by this wall.”
“Should?” Books asked.
“We can. I’m sure of it.”
Books and Sespian looked to Sicarius. For advice, an order, or because they wanted him to go first and be the one incinerated if it came to that? Whatever the reason, it made Akstyr scowl and stick his fists on his hips.
Sicarius closed his eyes for a moment, sensing the ward instead of seeing it. Yes, Akstyr had succeeded in moving it. Thinking of the bodies in the tunnel behind them, he realized he should have made that suggestion earlier.
“It is safe.” Sicarius led the others through the tunnel and toward another secret doorway that would let them out into the night. They’d gone perhaps half of the distance, when a startled wail came from behind him.
“Blood-thirsty butchering ancestors, what happened to my hair?”
• • •
Sicarius wondered at Amaranthe’s choice of a meeting place. The alley behind Curi’s Bakery? The establishment was frequented by enforcers with no less than three different patrol routes crossing through the intersection out front. Normally, it wouldn’t matter this late at night, but these weren’t normal times. With the university only a few blocks away, this was a likely area for dissent to arise, and pairs of uniformed men trod the streets, enforcing the curfew. In addition, squads of soldiers marched through from time to time, ensuring civilians were inside where they should be, and subdued.
To avoid the patrols, Sicarius led Akstyr, Books, and Sespian across the rooftops for the last half mile. Though the gangs weren’t traditionally active in that part of the city, Akstyr stuck close and kept his complaints to himself when they were shimmying up drainpipes and ducking under clotheslines. Despite the unique route, they startled a few thieves and other miscreants seeking refuge from the enforcers. Most were young, but youths could send messages to bosses as easily as adults. Sicarius suspected it would soon be common knowledge that Amaranthe’s team was back in the city.
They reached Curi’s Bakery, hopping across a four-foot gap between it and the next building, to land on the flat roof. Sicarius jogged to the back corner so he could check the alley for the others. The delays in the Imperial Barracks had caused him to miss the midnight meeting point by twenty minutes.
Nothing stirred in the narrow back passages. He would have expected Amaranthe to wait, but perhaps she’d left a message somewhere with directions to the new hideout. He was on the verge of checking when two figures turned off the street and into the alley. Though darkness hid their features, he recognized them by height, build, and gait, Basilard with the stocky form and short steps—along with occasional glances at weeds growing from crevices—and Sergeant Yara with longer legs and steps influenced by broader hips.
“I can barely understand your signs in the daylight,” Yara whispered, “but if you’re wondering where everyone is, I’m with you.”
Basilard’s response was indiscernible from the rooftop.
Sicarius was of a mind to wait a moment before revealing himself, and make sure nobody followed the pair into the alley, but Sespian had joined him at the edge of the rooftop and he waved and whispered, “We’re up here. Some of us anyway.”
Keeping a hand on the gutter, Sespian swung down from the two-story building, landing softly on a large square trash bin, then hopping into the street. Not for the first time, Sicarius noted the boy’s natural agility. He could become a talented fighter if he ever pursued the training with any enthusiasm.
Books and Akstyr joined Sicarius at the edge of the roof.
“No sign of Amaranthe?” Books asked.
“I will check the area to see if they were here or left a message,” Sicarius said.
Books and Akstyr dropped down to the street, taking the same route as Sespian. They also made it look effortless. Neither had natural athletic aptitude, but they’d grown far more capable at physical feats in the last year. Sicarius noted his own satisfaction in regard to how the men’s training had come along. The feeling surprised him, and he decided it must have to do with his own growth as an instructor or perhaps the mere achievement of creating a more capable team to help with Sespian and Amaranthe’s goals.
Sicarius headed off to scout the streets and alleys around the bakery. At first, he was merely looking to see if Amaranthe and the others were on their way, but then he dropped to ground level, sniffing the air for the familiar scent of her shampoo, and searching the streets for signs that she’d been there. Her training had come a long way, as well, and he doubted she would have inadvertently stumbled into a squad of enforcers or soldiers, but Forge represented a unique threat, with its access to superior technology, and now they must worry about Nurians as well.
Snippets of the rest of the team’s conversation floated to Sicarius’s ears as he searched.
“…slagging cut my hair off. With that ugly black knife of his.” Akstyr’s petulant grousing rose above all the others.
“It’ll grow back,” Yara said. “Maybe you should cut off the rest of it for a disguise. Aren’t the gangs hunting you?”
“Oh, huh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“If we could discuss a more important matter,” Books said, “did you locate a suitable hideout?”
“Yes,” Yara said. “There’s a molasses factory near the waterfront that’s for sale. It doesn’t look like anybody’s been around for a month or two. Basilard said there’s some winter weather coming in, so we figure there won’t be a lot of people browsing around for new business endeavors.”
“Molasses?” Sespian asked. “Sounds… sticky.”
“I understand this team wields brooms as well as swords,” Yara said.
“Only because Amaranthe has a knack for talking people into doing things,” Books said.
Still searching, Sicarius drifted out of ear range at that point. He hadn’t seen anyone walking around, aside from a pair of yawning enforcers, but he hadn’t seen sign of Amaranthe and the others either. It didn’t seem that they’d been ensnared upon arriving; they’d simply never shown up. That implied trouble at the Gazette, or perhaps they’d gone to Deret Mancrest’s residence. If the man had attempted to trap Amaranthe again, Sicarius vowed to deal with him in, as she would say, an assassinly way. On this point, he didn’t care if she approved or not.
On his way back to tell the others of his suspicions, Sicarius’s route took him past the front of the bakery. The trays behind the large windows were empty, though etchings in the glass illustrated a wide variety of sweets available during the day. A sign beside the door, the writing visible thanks to the corner gas lamp, suggested patrons inquire about bulk orders as well as day-old pastries. Knowing of Amaranthe’s fondness for such things, Sicarius wondered if she might have led the others inside to wait—and perhaps sample some of those “day-old” sweets? Sicarius slipped out his toolkit and went around to a side door where his back wouldn’t be to the street as he worked on the lock. The others were still discussing the merits and demerits of a molasses factory as a hideout.
The streetlight’s influence didn’t reach the alley, so Sicarius had to find the door lock by feel. Scratches marred the metal around the hole, suggesting others had attempted to pick it before. Perhaps Amaranthe had gone inside. Or perhaps hungry university students had attempted infiltrations in the past.
Either way, it wouldn’t take long to check. The lock proved simple by his standards, and he entered through the side door a couple of minutes later. He tested the air with his nose again, searching for the team members’ familiar scents, but the heady smells of cinnamon, cloves, and maple overpowered lesser odors.
The light from the corner streetlamp provided enough illumination for Sicarius to glide through the interior, skirting counters and tables up front and cupboards and baking racks in the back, without making a sou
nd. There wasn’t anybody else in the building. A pointless diversion.
Sicarius headed for the door again, though a raised glass-covered tray next to a cash register caught his eyes. It contained a tidy arrangement of pastries, including a couple he thought might be of the “Emperor’s Buns” variety. Though he could not condone the eating of sweets, he knew Amaranthe liked them. She’d risked exposing herself on that riverboat to acquire pastries from the kitchens—and gone to great lengths to try to hide those pastries from him. With good cause. Such food was hardly appropriate to one seeking to regain mental and physical stability. Sicarius took a step toward the door but paused again. Such treats did bring inexplicable pleasure to Amaranthe.
Hoping he wasn’t setting a precedent, he selected a pair of tongs, opened the lid, chose a pastry that looked like it might survive time spent in a pocket, and deposited it in one of the paper bags next to the register. Though he could only guess at prices, he left a couple of ranmya coins on the counter.
Before he reached the door leading to the alley, a faint noise drifted to his ears. Footsteps. Not from inside, but from the sidewalk in front of the building. Suspecting a pair of enforcers on patrol, he crouched behind the counter. A single slender figure in black came into view. Wraps covered the person’s hair and face, leaving only eyes visible, but he had the impression of a woman beneath the clothing. She looked both ways down the street, then pressed her face against the window, peering into the bakery.
Sicarius had long ago learned how many shadows it took to hide him—and his short blond hair, which he usually left uncovered—so he didn’t bother lowering his head. He knew she couldn’t see him. After taking a long look, the woman left the window and headed for the alley where the side door was located.
She would see him if she strode through the entrance that was two feet from his side. He’d locked the door after entering—one didn’t leave sign of trespass, even if one was still inside the building—but if this person had a key, she could be in momentarily.
He’d already committed the layout to memory, so he took a few steps into the half of the open room dedicated to baking and scaled a sturdy rack mounted to a wall. He climbed into the rafters, finding a spot between two parallel beams. Scratches sounded at the doorknob. Lock picks. Interesting. Feet and hands pressed against opposing beams, the shadows cloaking his body, Sicarius found a position that he could hold for hours—though he hoped she proved a more apt lock picker than that.
A few minutes passed with nothing except the soft scrapes of metal tools probing within the doorknob. He couldn’t hear the rest of the team from inside, but while he waited motionless in the rafters, he thought of Amaranthe. It had to be an hour after midnight by now. It was time to find her.
He was of a mind to hop down, open the door, and confront—or perhaps stalk past and ignore—the other intruder. That was when the lock thunked. The door eased open, and the woman’s head poked inside. Sicarius had left himself a clean line of sight to the entrance, and he could have hurled a throwing knife, even from the precarious position in the rafters, but the woman hadn’t done anything to prove herself an enemy yet.
Once she believed the building was empty, she hustled inside, heading straight for an office in the rear. She didn’t bump any of the racks or counters in the dark, so Sicarius surmised she’d been there before, perhaps at night. He remembered the scratches around the lock.
The office door was open. The woman stepped inside only for a moment, then slipped out again, weaving back through the kitchen and toward the exit. Having no reason to suspect her errand had anything to do with him, Sicarius let her go. The lock thunked again, and she was gone.
After waiting a few moments, he dropped to the floor. On the chance it was relevant, he headed for the office to see what the woman had done. Though shuttered, the wall window let in an iota of light, enough for him to see an envelope on the desk. It might have been there all along, but the woman hadn’t been inside long enough to do more than grab something or drop something off, and she hadn’t left with anything noticeable.
After taking note of its exact position on the desk, so he could return it to the appropriate spot, Sicarius picked it up and explored it with his fingers. A wax seal secured the flap, so he couldn’t break it without revealing that the contents had been read. He probed the pattern with his fingers. The elegant calligraphy style of the single letter gave him trouble at first, but he eventually identified it by touch. An F. His mind went straight to Forge. Was the owner of the bakery a member of the organization?
He thought about breaking the seal to see what was inside, but there wasn’t enough light to read by anyway. He held the envelope to his nose. The scent of the wax, freshly pressed, was the most prominent odor, but something else underlay it, something very old and distantly familiar, a unique mix of staleness and antiseptic cleanliness and—
Sicarius lowered his hand, almost dropping the letter. It was the smell of those strange alien tunnels he’d been sent to almost twenty years prior. He’d been little more than a boy, but the week he’d spent up there in the Northern Frontier was indelibly imprinted on his mind. He doubted this letter had come from there, but that aircraft Amaranthe had been in had the same scent. The smell of it had been in her hair, along with the dirt and blood, when he’d retrieved her.
He eyed the letter. This meant the craft was no longer in the wetlands, hundreds of miles to the south. It was here.
Curi, Sicarius decided, wasn’t going to get her mail. He tucked the envelope into his pocket. He’d wait to read it until he could share it with Amaranthe.
Reminded of her missing state, he jogged out of the bakery. Once outside again, with the door relocked behind him, he strode toward the others. It was time to check the Gazette.
A few steps before he reached the group, the sound of low voices drifted to his ears. Enforcers? Or the rest of the team? The voices were coming from the street on the other side of the bakery, a block away. Sicarius glided past Yara, Books, and the others without them noticing and eased around the corner.
Amaranthe led the approaching group; he’d recognize her gait at any distance. Thanks to the feminine curves that the military fatigues and weapon-laden belt didn’t quite hide, there was a touch of hip sway to her determined stride. Further bundled in a parka with the fur-lined hood pulled around her face, she spoke with the man beside her as they walked. Even without the swordstick and the confident but lopsided gait, Sicarius would have known it to be Mancrest. He refused to acknowledge any residual jealousy that stirred at seeing them together; he’d made his interests clear to Amaranthe and offered himself as a mate. When she decided she wished such a thing—not, he reluctantly admitted, guaranteed to be soon, thanks to Pike—he trusted she’d choose him.
Maldynado strolled behind them, a pistol pointed at a pair of men in army fatigues. One of the prisoners walked with a pronounced limp and had his arm slung over the other.
After the group passed the streetlight, Sicarius stepped out of the shadows, falling into place at Amaranthe’s side. Deret flinched, fumbling his grip on his swordstick. It clattered to the street, and the group paused while he muttering curses and retrieved it. Normally Sicarius thought little of it when his appearance startled people, other than that they should be more aware of their surroundings, but he admitted a modicum of satisfaction at the aristocrat’s stumble.
Amaranthe merely arched an eyebrow at him, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Perhaps she did. That often seemed to be the case.
The group had not entirely moved out of the streetlamp’s influence, and Sicarius made a point of examining her soot-stained clothing, dirty hands, and the numerous strands of hair that had escaped her usually perfect bun. When compared to Mancrest, whose ripped garments were coated in blood as well as soot, she appeared only moderately disheveled, but the group had clearly seen action.
Sicarius heard the soft footsteps and rustling clothing of Books and the others a couple of second
s before Amaranthe’s gaze shifted in that direction. At first, she simply nodded toward them as they approached, but her eyes widened when Akstyr came into the light, revealing the freshly hacked locks atop his head.
This time, the eyebrow she arched at Sicarius rose even higher. “Trouble?”
“No.” The mild altercation at the Barracks hardly qualified as thus. Sicarius brushed some of the soot off the pale fur trim of her hood. “You?”
Amaranthe smiled. “No.”
Books looked back and forth between them, shook his head, and walked back into the alley, muttering, “Crazy. Both of them.”
Deeming the alley a more suitable place to catch up, Sicarius also strode in that direction.
“No, no,” Maldynado said, “I can keep taking care of these blokes. No need for anyone to offer to help.”
“Has he been complaining again?” Yara asked Amaranthe.
“No more than usual.”
“That much?”
“I’m not as enamored with this group now that there are two women,” Maldynado announced to no one in particular. “Too much girl talk.”
“Girl talk?” Books asked. “You’re the only one who blathers on about hair, hats, and fashion. The last chat I overheard between Amaranthe and Sergeant Yara involved plans for acquiring troops and munitions.”
“I fail to see your point,” Maldynado said blandly.
They’d reached the alley, and Amaranthe cleared her throat and waved toward the shadows, shadows she probably saw as potentially threatening, though, of course Sicarius had checked the entire area and continued to listen for the approach of others. “Perhaps,” she said, “we can head to our new hideout for further discussion.”
“I didn’t know outlaws discussed hair, hats, and fashion in their hideouts,” Mancrest said. “I’d always been under the impression that more nefarious topics were covered.”
Sicarius didn’t miss the smile Amaranthe gave him. It wasn’t flirtatious, but it was a reminder that both she and Sespian appreciated humor, something that he had a poor grasp on.