canister of the knockout concoction Sarevic had made. When Yara joined her, Amaranthe held out the items.
“You should take these. You can use the canister to make those around you sleepy, maybe even pass out.” Amaranthe wished she’d tested them, but they were among the most expensive items Sarevic had made, and she couldn’t waste them. Besides, she couldn’t imagine a stupider way to die than by testing these on her men, causing everyone to lose consciousness, and then having a soldier stumble across their hideout and kill them all. That wasn’t the way she wanted to make the front page of a newspaper. “The mask will protect you from its effects.”
At first, Yara didn’t make a move to touch the items. Amaranthe could understand her reluctance. If she was captured and had the tools of guerilla kidnappers on her, there’d be no way for her to claim innocence. Honestly, that was part of the reason Amaranthe wanted Yara to take the items. It’d force her to commit. She also didn’t want Yara getting killed or dropping unconscious in the middle of the emperor’s car. That’d leave Amaranthe and the others with two bodies to tote outside.
“You’ve tested the mask?” Yara finally asked.
“Ah, sort of. We tested its ability to block out noxious fumes.”
A few feet away, Maldynado snickered.
“Let me guess who supplied them,” Yara grumbled.
“It was… a group effort. After a meal that involved a couple of cans of beans. Uhm, but anyway, that’s not important.” Amaranthe didn’t want to scare away their new teammate with further details. “I believe the mask works, and it would behoove you to keep it with you.”
Yara took the items. Amaranthe wanted to give her a few minutes to familiarize herself with them, but Sicarius said, “We should go now.”
Amaranthe almost said that five more minutes wouldn’t make a difference, but he was right. Books’s estimate was exactly that. An estimate.
“All right,” Amaranthe said. “You and Basilard know what to do. Maldynado, we have a coal shed to subjugate.”
“I love it when you say things that make us sound fearsome and formidable,” Maldynado said.
Amaranthe let Sicarius and Basilard go first. Before he crossed the railway, Sicarius stopped to rest a hand on the train tracks, and Amaranthe decided to wait for him. He glanced back at her and lifted a hand, fingers outstretched. Five minutes. Nerves tangled in her gut. The train was that close?
Sicarius and Basilard disappeared into the shadows between the lampposts, only reappearing when they had to stop before the well-lit door. Sicarius tried the knob. The door was locked.
Still hunkered by the corner of the warehouse, Amaranthe nibbled on a pinkie nail. Sicarius slipped a lock- picking kit out of a pocket.
Maldynado tapped her shoulder. Yes, they had to get on with their own part of the mission. She would trust that Sicarius could slip in before trouble noticed him.
“Stay close,” Amaranthe told Maldynado and Yara, then led the way toward the coal shed, trying to use its bulk to hide their approach from anyone at the train station.
Avoiding lampposts and their damning light, Amaranthe walked into the square fronting the refueling area. Here and there, her boots slipped on oil-slick bricks and grime. Incipient frost and damp leaves further complicated the footing. She’d hate to fall on her backside in front of Yara. That’d make it even harder to live up to Maldynado’s suggestion that they were fearsome and formidable.
She reached the coal shed without any embarrassing falls. She already had her lock-picking kit in hand, but the door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed all the way.
“Someone inside already,” Amaranthe whispered. She didn’t bother using Basilard’s hand signs since it was dark and Yara wouldn’t be able to understand them anyway.
Maldynado puffed out his chest and indicated that he would go first. Though Amaranthe doubted they would run into more than one or two workers tasked to load coal on the arriving train, she didn’t see a point to arguing with him. She pushed the door open and listened. She thought she heard something-a soft scrape perhaps-but the noise did not repeat.
A new noise from outside reached her ears-the distant chuffing of an approaching train.
Maldynado stepped past Amaranthe. She followed right behind and paused to listen again while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The earthy scent of coal hung thickly in the air, and dust lingered, tickling her nostrils and coating her tongue. Someone must have been shoveling fuel into the dispensary bin upstairs in preparation for the train’s arrival. But where was that person now? And why wasn’t there any light if someone was in there working?
A set of stairs rose along the wall next to the door, and Amaranthe pointed for Maldynado to check upstairs while she investigated below. He padded up without a word. Amaranthe waved for Yara to stay by the door and eased into the dark room.
The only windows in sight were shuttered, so little light crept inside. Searching by feel, Amaranthe passed double doors and piles of coal, some in bins and some free on the floor. A mountain of the stuff buried the entire back half of the first floor.
She’d completed a circuit around the room and was heading to the stairs when her boot caught against something on the floor. It didn’t feel like coal.
With one hand on the hilt of her sword, Amaranthe squatted down, her other hand outstretched. She encountered clothing, damp clothing, and caught the familiar scent of blood. The overpowering odor of the coal had masked it.
“Body over here,” she whispered to Yara.
“Do you want me to come in?”
“No, someone better guard the door.”
Amaranthe drew a kerchief and wiped her hand before backing away. Deciding to risk a light, she shrugged off her rucksack.
Floorboards creaked above her head. Maldynado walking around, doing his own search. She thought about calling a warning up to him, but she had a feeling they weren’t alone, and she couldn’t risk a loud voice that someone outside might hear.
The ground trembled faintly, a sign of the train drawing close. Amaranthe reminded herself that it wouldn’t go anywhere until it had refueled its coal car and water tanks. But, then, if workers didn’t show up to do so promptly, someone would come to investigate.
Awareness of the need to be swift nagged at her, and Amaranthe almost dropped her lantern when she pulled it out. She did drop the matches she’d been fishing for. She patted the ground, looking for one, and encountered a warm puddle. When she’d chosen this line of work, she’d known she couldn’t be squeamish over such things, but touching bodies and blood never seemed to get easy.
“The blood’s still warm,” Amaranthe whispered. Books could have told her the minutes the owner might have been dead based on the temperature, but she didn’t need a lot of precision to know it hadn’t been long.
A steam whistle squealed. Not much time.
Amaranthe found a match and lit her lantern. Yellow light bathed a supine man in dust-coated overalls with a slit throat. A shovel lay next to him, fallen where he’d dropped it. He’d died with his eyes open, surprise on his face.
The creaks upstairs had ceased. Had Maldynado stopped to study something? Or…
A nervous flutter tormented Amaranthe’s gut. He wouldn’t fall to some assassin. Surely, he had too much fighting experience to be caught unaware like the worker.
The train ground to a stop outside of the refueling station, and Amaranthe had no hope of hearing what, if anything, was going on upstairs. She handed the lantern to Yara and gestured for her to stay by the door.
Amaranthe eased her sword out and climbed the steps. They were narrow with a brick wall on one side and the other side open to the floor. The pesky fingernail-nibbling side of her brain noted that fights on stairs rarely went well for the person in the lower position.
Ears straining, she forced herself to tread slowly-silently-instead of racing into danger. Concern for Maldynado lent urgency to her steps, though, and she wasn’t as cautious as she should have been.
A cry of surprise and pain came from the darkness above. Maldynado.
Amaranthe rushed up the last few steps. Lighting the lantern had affected her night vision, and she almost
