Akstyr lunged to his feet and kicked the thug in the stomach. He curled into a ball, but Akstyr kept kicking.
“He’s had enough,” Amaranthe said.
Akstyr showed no sign of hearing her. His face was contorted in rage that seemed to go beyond the fight.
“Akstyr!” This time, she gripped his shoulder.
Panting, he turned toward her.
“Now is the time to run,” she said. “They may have friends.”
Akstyr stared at the bleeding and battered man for a moment, as if he could not believe he had been responsible. Finally, he managed a curt nod, and when Amaranthe ran from the scene, he followed.
They did not slow until they left the gang-run neighborhoods and reached a trolley stop. Amaranthe kept a nervous lookout until they boarded.
“I didn’t think you could fight,” Akstyr said.
“I’ve had the same training all enforcers have,” she said. “Those are the kind of brutes we’re drilled to subdue. Besides, imperial men tend to underestimate women since most of us don’t study combat.”
“So, you were sure you could take care of them?”
“Not really, no.”
Akstyr grinned. “That’s what I thought. I was surprised you…”
“What?”
“Stuck around when they gave you an out. Tuskar wouldn’t have, for the same reason he backed down in his office. He doesn’t start a fight unless he’s sure he can win.”
“That’s how most people are,” Amaranthe said. “It’s called a self-preservation instinct.”
“Yours broken?”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
“Well, uhm,” Akstyr said, “thanks. For staying.”
It was the first time he had thanked her for anything. She kept her show of pleasure to a simple smile. “You’re welcome.”
• • • • •
Amaranthe stepped outside of the cannery with an egg-and-flatbread sandwich for Sicarius. It was his turn on watch, and he stood at the base of the dock, talking to a man dressed in bland civilian clothing. Now who had stumbled onto their hideout?
Both men noticed her well before she reached them. Sicarius held out a staying hand, and the stranger turned his back to her to finish the conversation. She stopped. This wasn’t some random passerby, but someone Sicarius knew. A folded sheet of paper went from the stranger’s hand to Sicarius’s and, after a wary glance at Amaranthe, the man walked away.
Sicarius opened the note to read. Curiosity propelled her forward, and she glimpsed a couple lines of pencil before he turned his back to her. All right, what are we being so secretive about here?
After reading, Sicarius crumpled the note, turned back, and accepted the sandwich.
“News on the creature?” Amaranthe asked.
“No.”
“The emperor? Hollowcrest? Counterfeiting?”
“I need to leave.” Sicarius strode down the dock toward the cannery.
“For how long?” She tried not to feel like an attention-seeking puppy bouncing at his heels as she trailed him inside. “Are you coming back tonight?”
Sicarius did not answer. He walked past Books and tossed the crumpled note into a fire barrel. Amaranthe’s shoulders slumped. He wasn’t going to tell her what it said, and now she had no chance of reading it either.
“You are coming back, right?” she asked as he walked out the door.
Without answering, he was gone.
Amaranthe grabbed the burning paper out of the fire. Heat seared her fingers, but she managed to get it to the nearest counter before dropping it. She blew on the flames, but the note had already transformed into a charred ball. When the fire burned out, she could only stare glumly as smoke wafted from the illegible black remains.
Books slid onto a stool on the opposite side of the counter. “Sicarius isn’t sharing his secret missives with you?”
“This is the first secret missive that I know about. I’d trade my grandfather’s knife to read what it says.” She tapped a finger on the lacquered wood of the counter.
Maldynado’s snores competed with Akstyr’s in the sleeping area; they had both pulled long watch shifts the night before. She supposed she ought to go outside and take over Sicarius’s abandoned post.
“Hm.” Books lowered his chin to the table and squinted at the charred ball. “I wonder if it was written in pen or pencil.”
“It looked like pencil. Secret missives should be erasable, you know.”
“Hm.”
“You said that already,” Amaranthe said. “You don’t by chance know some way to read this?”
“I should not like to make promises, but the grease in pencil lead makes it fairly fire retardant. The words are likely still there. It’s just a matter of seeing them.” Books stood. “Let’s take a look in your cleaning supply closet, shall we?”
“Whatever you say, professor.” Amaranthe followed him to the cubby.
He pulled open the door and gaped.
“What is it?” she asked. “Did you find what you need?”
“It’s spotless in here. You cleaned the cleaning supply closet?”
She blushed. “Possibly.”
“I assume there’s soap in…ah, there. And an atomizer, excellent.” Books tossed Amaranthe a bar of soap, then puffed a rubber ball attached to an empty glass bottle. It hissed a few times. “Shave some soap into this and fill it with water. I’ll find a couple panes of glass.”
Trying not to feel bewildered—and dumb—Amaranthe completed her task and met Books at the counter. He nudged the charred ball onto a dirt-free square of glass and picked up the spray bottle. He shook the soapy water and squirted the ball. Mist dampened the black paper.
Amaranthe leaned forward, not sure what to expect, but barely breathing. Once it was wet, Books eased the crinkled mass apart. Instead of crumbling into ash, the black paper slowly but surely flattened onto the glass.
“The soap makes it stay together?” she asked.
“The glycerol in the soap.” Books laid a second pane of glass on top of the first, sandwiching the black paper between them. “Here, hold it up to a light.”
Amaranthe lit one of their kerosene lamps. After a glance at the door, she picked up the glass by the corners.
One of Maldynado’s chickens squawked. She fumbled and almost dropped the glass.
Books watched her, and she feared a mocking comment about her nerves, but only grimness marked his face. “You realize if he finds out we did this, he’ll kill us,” he said.
“Maybe it’s just a grocery list.” Amaranthe tried a smile, but her mouth felt dry and her lips couldn’t manage the position.
“You read it. I’ll wait outside.”
“And leave me holding the condemning evidence?”
“Precisely,” Books said. “He likes you more than me.”
“Warn me if you see him coming.”
Books waved and stepped outside.
Alone except for the snoring men, Amaranthe hesitated. Should she really be spying on Sicarius? If she wanted him to trust her, shouldn’t she be someone he could trust? But if they were at cross-purposes, ignorance of it could be fatal. She chewed on her lip. The obvious attempt at justifying her actions did not sit well with her conscience. Still, she did not set the note down.
She lifted the glass before the lamp, and the light illuminated the pencil through the black paper.
It was not a grocery list.
The past is forgiven. Your old job awaits. Name your price.
Chapter 18
The ink had dried on the counterfeiting plates, and Amaranthe tucked them into the crate beside the stacks of bills. She, Books, and Maldynado had removed the drying lines and paper cutter. Of course, someone ambling into the fish cannery would find the printing press loitering in the corner a tad odd. Sicarius had not returned since receiving his note the day before, and Amaranthe feared he would not return at all.
Footsteps thundered on the dock. Akstyr grabbed
the door frame and swung into the cannery.
“Enforcers!” he blurted. “Coming down the hill.”
“Spitted dead ancestors,” Books cursed.
“Don’t worry.” Given the number of people who had delivered messages to their secret counterfeiting hideout, Amaranthe was surprised enforcers hadn’t come down their street sooner. The meeting with Forge and Hollowcrest was that night; the cannery had served them long enough. “We’re ready. Everyone grab something, and let’s go.”
Books and Akstyr lifted the crate.
“How many enforcers?” Maldynado belted on his sword.
“It doesn’t matter,” Amaranthe said. “We’re not killing any more of them. Door. Now.”
Books and Akstyr hustled onto the wharf. Maldynado sprinted to his chicken pen and threw open the latch. His charges streamed out, squawking uproariously. Amaranthe cringed at the noise. Maldynado tried to usher them to the door.
“Leave them,” she hissed.
“Not for some enforcer to throw in a stew.”
Amaranthe grabbed Maldynado’s arm and dragged him through the doorway. Using the building for cover, she headed for the edge of the dock. She waved for the others to follow and slipped over the edge. When she ducked beneath, the five foot clearance left her hunched, but it was enough. Maldynado followed. Akstyr handed the crate down to him, then came after. Books, the last over, skidded on the ice beneath the snow and landed on his backside.
“I’m too old for this,” he muttered as Amaranthe helped him up.
“There’s never a good age to fall on your butt,” Maldynado said. “That’s why the rest of us stayed upright.” He grimaced as his head brushed the underside of the wharf. “Mostly upright.”
“There’re at least ten coming,” Akstyr whispered. “Where are we going?”
“Across the lake?” Books suggested.
Chin on the top of the crate, Akstyr said, “I’m not hiking to the other side with this.”
“Just be glad we didn’t decide to forge coins.” Amaranthe pointed to the shoreline beneath the head of the dock. “We’ll hide in the shadows until they’re in the building.”
Before they had gone halfway, synchronized footfalls pounded the boards above them. Snow trickled through the cracks in several places.
They reached the shore as the footfalls faded. Amaranthe peered over the edge of the dock. A single man paced in front of the building. The rest had gone inside. Before long, enforcers would move their investigation outside, looking for trails. Her team had to move now, or chance being found later.
Only a few yards separated their dock from the neighboring one. If they stayed low and did not make any noise, maybe the enforcer guard would not see them.
“Slow and subtle,” she whispered, “we’re heading over there.”
Hugging the shoreline, Amaranthe eased toward the next dock. She resisted the urge to sprint—sudden movement was more likely to draw an unfriendly eye. No shouts arose from the cannery, and she made it to the protective cover of the dock.
She hunkered behind a piling and waited for the others to catch up. Between the ice and the weight of the crate, Books and Akstyr crossed ponderously.
Voices sounded on the street.
“Corporal, take your men and check the warehouses in the nearby docks,” someone said.
Amaranthe winced. Back up.
“Hurry,” she mouthed. She waved for Maldynado to help with the crate, even as she watched and hoped the enforcers on the street didn’t look down to the lake. With luck, the men searching the cannery would be content with the evidence they found and assume the building’s occupants had left hours before.
“Find their tracks,” an enforcer called from inside the cannery. “The fire barrels are still warm. They haven’t been gone long.”
So much for luck.
A chicken strutted down the dock alongside the cannery.
“Oh, good,” Maldynado said. “Isabel got out.”
Amaranthe envisioned the chicken hopping down to squawk cheerfully at them. Did other leaders have these kinds of problems?
“We better put a couple more docks behind us,” she whispered.
But, before they reached the far side of their current dock, two pairs of standard enforcer-issue boots skidded down the snowy bank and onto the ice. The owners, two men armed with repeating crossbows and swords, landed on the frozen lake and looked about.
“Uh oh,” Akstyr muttered.
Amaranthe inched forward. They ought to be able to subdue two men if they could surprise them.
Before she could close, the nearest enforcer spotted them. “Down here!” he called to the street.
She frowned. If several were up top, waiting to help, subduing these two was less likely.
“Drop your weapons and your…uh…chicken crate,” the younger of the two said, “and come out with your hands open, or it’ll be crossbow quarrels up the nose.”
Amaranthe’s eyebrow twitched—that wasn’t the line taught at the academy. She glanced back and nodded slightly to her men. She hoped the group had been working with her long enough to recognize it as meaning, “We can’t get caught with all these counterfeits so if the odds are in our favor smash these lads into the ice.”
“Very well,” she told the enforcers and stepped out.
If it had just been the two men, she would have led a charge, but as soon as she came out from under the dock, four enforcers on the street came into view. They also bore crossbows. A couple of familiar faces stared down the shafts—no one she ever worked with but men she had passed in the hallways at headquarters. Footsteps announced the arrival of two more enforcers on the dock above, bringing the total to eight. Eight versus her four. Wonderful.
The enforcers stirred with surprise as several seemed to recognize her. Weren’t expecting me, eh? They must have come for the money, probably traced Akstyr’s note to the area. Apparently no one had put her together with the counterfeiting scheme. Until now.
“Isn’t she the one with the death mark on her head?” someone asked.
The enforcers shifted their crossbows from the vague direction of Amaranthe’s party to dead center at her chest.
“Fire!” one of the men on the street shouted.
Amaranthe thought it was the order to shoot. She crouched, ready to throw herself into a defensive roll, but no quarrels launched from the crossbows. Instead, yells erupted from the cannery. Smoke roiled from the broken windows, and screams of pain followed.
“Help!” someone cried.
Four of the enforcers on the street sprinted toward the burning building, leaving only two above and two below to deal with Amaranthe and crew.
It was the best chance they would get.
She charged the distracted enforcers in front of her. Her heel struck ice under the snow, and she lost her footing. The charge turned into an ungraceful dive, and she tumbled lengthwise at the group. She collided with two pairs of legs. An enforcer crashed to the ice. The other flailed and tried to keep his balance, but Books bowled into him. Soon a jumble of thrashing bodies and limbs writhed about on the ice.
In the confused tangle, Amaranthe grabbed someone’s crossbow even as a hand latched onto her ankle. She kicked out and clipped an enforcer in the jaw. His head cracked ice, and he stilled.
Crossbow quarrels hammered the frozen lake. Maldynado and Akstyr charged up the snowy slope to get at the bowmen.
With the crossbow in hand, Amaranthe skittered away from the fray and got her feet beneath her.
“Get back, Books,” she barked.
He obeyed, and the enforcer saw her crossbow. His hands opened and spread.
On the street above, Maldynado and Akstyr had flattened their opponents.
“Go help your comrades with the fire,” Amaranthe told the sole conscious enforcer. She twitched the crossbow for emphasis.
He looked at his inert partner and the two unmoving men on the street, nodded curtly, and scrambled across the ice toward the can
nery.
Amaranthe strapped the crossbow to her back. “Books, help Maldynado with the crate. Akstyr, let’s grab the other crossbows. We’re going back to our first hideout.”
So loaded, they hastened inland. They ran between two buildings, through an alley, up the hill, and into the next block before Amaranthe found a vantage point to peer back along their trail. No one was following them. Flames ate at the cannery’s walls. A loud snap echoed across the lake, and the building’s roof collapsed. More destruction in her wake. She sighed as she led the men away from the scene.
Three blocks farther on, Sicarius fell in beside them.
“You missed the opportunity for daring heroics,” Maldynado told him.
Amaranthe knew better. That fire had not started by magic. And she suspected the cries for help that had come from the building had less to do with burning rafters than with a dark figure stalking the shadows.
“How many dead?” she asked grimly.
“Two or three,” Sicarius said. “It was meant primarily as a distraction. Most of the men made it out.”
He watched her as he spoke, no doubt wondering if she would yell at him again. Amaranthe could not. By now, she understood the ruthlessness of his methods and she was still using him. When people died, she could only blame herself. Besides, she was relieved he had come back at all. After reading that note, she had not been sure.
She wanted to ask him about Hollowcrest, about his ‘old job,’ why he’d returned to help, and if he was truly on her side or working toward some other agenda. But she could hardly do so, not without confessing her privacy-defying reading habits.
“Glad you came back,” was all she said.
• • • • •
Sespian leaned against the wall outside his office, feigning nonchalance as he chatted with Dunn and a couple of soldiers. Sespian kept catching himself tugging at his collar or wiping moist hands on his trousers, so the casual facade probably wasn’t fooling anyone.
Inside the office, Lord General Lakecrest waited, as he had for the last twenty minutes. Sespian wanted Hollowcrest’s loyal officer to have time to feel nervous. Unfortunately, Sespian probably felt more nervous than the experienced general.