looked up. “You know, Malden, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. I’m worried about you.”
In the middle of scribbling his receipt on the desk, Malden managed to misspell his own name.
“You… are?” he asked, trying not to sound too surprised.
Cutbill frowned. “You’ve been taking on these protection and recruitment assignments more and more often. I might begin to suspect you were looking to move up in the organization, if I didn’t know you better. This sort of work is hardly fit to your temperament. You’re a housebreaker, not a kneebreaker. Blackmail and extortion are foreign to your character-if you take a coin from a man’s pocket, it seems to actually pain you to smile at him afterward. It’s one of the things I like about you. You’re the most honest thief I know.”
“I didn’t know you took such a personal interest,” Malden said. In truth, he found it rather disturbing.
“Do not give me too much credit,” Cutbill said. “A happy worker is a good earner, that’s all. I like to keep my people happy when I can. So I would like to know-why do you keep taking assignments you must hate?”
“For the money, of course. They pay so much better.”
Cutbill picked up his pen and looked down at his ledger. The time for concern and caring, apparently, was over. But then he surprised Malden again. He nodded vigorously, though he didn’t seem convinced. “I’m all for uncomplicated cupidity, of course. Greed is a wonderful motivator. But would you indulge me and answer one more question? What is it that you plan to buy with all that money?”
“A house,” Malden admitted. “A fit place for a fine lady.”
“Indeed? Malden the thief looks to marry? Fascinating,” Cutbill said, and wrote a number down in his ledger, as if he’d taken the empirical measure of Malden’s heart. “Does this most fortunate creature have a name?”
Chapter Five
“Cythera should be here by now,” Sir Croy said, and paced across the floorboards for the hundredth time. “And Coruth-where is Coruth?”
Sir Croy was a knight of the realm, a man of action. He’d spent his life fighting demons and sorcerers, defending the weak and protecting his king from danger. He had faced down deadly monsters and desperate enemies and never quailed in the face of certain death.
Today he felt like every nerve in his body was twanging with panic. He felt faint, and flushed, and like he might be sick.
He stared over at Malden, who stood at the side of the hearth, leaning on the mantel. Tapping his foot on the floor in impatience.
“I beg you,” Croy said, as his stomach flopped about in his midsection, “stop that tapping! I swear, Malden, you seem more nervous than I feel right now.”
The thief’s eyes went wide, as if he’d been caught cheating at cards. He licked his lips and said, “Do I?”
“If someone walked in right now, they wouldn’t know which of us was getting married today,” Croy said. He laughed to cover up his distress. “Just-be calm, will you? It would help me.”
Malden’s face froze, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled, though it seemed he had to force himself. His foot stopped its infernal tapping and he laughed at Croy’s joke. “You’re right, of course. I have no reason to be nervous. I suppose I was simply agitated in sympathy with your plight. But please, Croy. Be at ease.”
Might as well ask a goblin to be pious, Croy thought. He went to the window for the hundredth time, then back to the hearth. “Is she late? Perhaps she’s not coming at all,” he said. There was something strangely appealing about the idea. If she didn’t come-if she had been detained by some small accident, something harmless but which required her attention, then he wouldn’t have to stand here feeling like a newly anointed page facing his first sparring match. But if she didn’t come-if she didn’t come-what would that mean? Would it mean she’d stopped loving him? Would it mean she had broken her pledge to him?
Why wasn’t she there already? Didn’t she know how important this was to him? He felt that if she didn’t come he would die on the spot.
“You spent ten years wooing her,” Malden said, favoring Croy with a knowing smile. “A few minutes more won’t erase that.”
“Of course. Of course you’re right,” Croy said. Good counsel-he knew it as soon as he heard it. Malden had a way of seeing things, of putting things in perspective. It was one of the things Croy valued in him.
It was more than a trace unusual that a knight of the king and a common thief would share this bond of friendship. Scant months earlier, Croy would never have associated with his sort. Yet the two of them had been through so much together, there was no one else Croy wanted standing beside him this day.
They were alone in a private room above a tavern. The room had been rented for the full afternoon and made cheery for the occasion. A fire had been lit in the hearth, though autumn was still young and there was only a hint of chill in the air. A table had been set out with wine and meats and bread and cheese. Strings of flowers hung from the walls, bright and colorful in the dusty light that streamed in through the open window.
Also on the table was a rolled up parchment, a pot of ink, and two quill pens already cut and ready for use. The parchment was a copy of the banns of marriage, and once Cythera signed it, Croy’s life would change forever. She had only to step up to the table, lift her pen, and Croy jumped when he heard someone shout in the room below. Just a man calling for ale, he told himself. The common room of the tavern, just down the stairs, was full of men drinking and gambling, two of the most common labors in the Free City of Ness. They made far more noise than Croy had expected. He’d wanted this room to be perfect, this room where all his dreams were set to come true. He’d wanted everything to be… perfect.
“Do you think she’ll like the place?” he asked. “It was all I could arrange on short notice.”
“I think she will be so busy looking into your eyes that she will forget what land she is in. Here,” Malden said, and grabbed Croy’s arm. He yanked downward on one sleeve of the knight’s leather jerkin where it had bunched up. “And take this to mop your brow,” he added, handing Croy a cloth.
Croy grimaced and wiped sweat away from his face.
“Ah,” Malden said. “I hear the carriage.”
At that moment Croy felt his heart stop in his chest. He raced over to the window and peered down into the street, just in time to see Cythera step down into the mud.
The footman of the hired carriage squawked and rushed to help her, but she had not waited for him. She could be headstrong, at times, and she would need some training before she could be presented at court, but – but she was beautiful. Especially today.
She wore a velvet gown, the finest he’d ever seen on her. Her dark hair was gathered in thick braids entwined with golden bells. Her skin was fair, with only a hint of red on her high cheekbones. A tattoo like a vine wrapped around her forearm. As Croy watched, it bloomed with pink wisteria flowers. It was not a tattoo at all, he knew, and it betokened something darker than ornament. It was her curse-or perhaps her gift-that she could absorb magic into her skin. Curses or baleful spells cast against her would manifest themselves as painted vines and flowers on her body, blossoms that were never still. Once those painted blooms had been like chains that bound her to her dead father, the dread sorcerer Hazoth. Croy, with Malden’s help-he could never forget the debt he owed the thief-had laid the sorcerer low and freed Cythera from that slavery. In gratitude Cythera had agreed to marry him and make him happy. Now, wherever they’d come from, the painted vines seemed to only enhance her delicate beauty.
She entered the tavern below to much comment and acclaim from the men in the common room. She must have made some small jest, for Croy heard the men laughing in response. Then he heard her footfalls coming up the stairs.
The door opened and a boy showed her into the private room, where Croy and Malden stood together waiting for her.
She smiled for them both, and let them kiss her hands.
Croy tried to speak, but then he grimaced with pain as he heard a man in the common room announce he was going to be sick.
“Boy,” Malden said, snapping his fingers for service, “close that door. We like not all this noise.” The serving boy rushed to do as he was told.
Croy opened his mouth again, intending to speak, and found he could not. His tongue would not lift from the
