Thief's covenant

immediate problems, or learning who was trying to kill her and William, who had slaughtered Olgun's cult.

“Help me, Olgun,” she whispered, her voice lost in the chilling breeze. “Tell me what I'm supposed to do!”

But the deity, as she'd expected, could tell her nothing at all.

She was still muttering peevishly when she rounded the next corner and realized she'd been heading, all this time, toward the Flippant Witch.

Widdershins stopped, her heels skidding on the dew-slicked cobblestones, and briefly debated going the other way. Someone could well be watching her-especially considering Bouniard's unexpected appearance at the manor- and she absolutely did not want to put Genevieve at any more risk.

But Olgun seemed certain she was in no immediate danger, and she really, really needed a friendly ear. Too much had happened to sort through by herself. With a deep, calming breath, Widdershins set out across the market square.

When she spotted the small but irritable crowd milling about out front, what poise she'd gathered shattered like a fallen vase. The usual drunkards and other flotsam that washed up on the tavern's doorstep every night-there was nothing unusual about them, save that they were outside, when the ale and beer and wine were inside. Her heart hammering at her ribs, Widdershins pushed past the belligerent lurkers and leapt the steps to the front door.

“Might's well give it up,” one of the ruffians behind her growled as the latch refused to budge beneath her grasp. He was a particularly brutish specimen, with dark blond hair matted into spiky clumps, a thin growth of beard sporting rust stains from an old razor, and clothes that hadn't been cleaned since he was last caught in the rain.

“I tried already,” he continued, the noxious fumes of his breath suggesting that he'd recently inhaled a plague rat. “They ain't open t'night, damn ‘em all!” He leered a gap-toothed grin. “Means I got me a few extra marks tonight, and no good place where to spend ‘em. You got a few free hours, you could earn ‘em.”

Widdershins turned her back on the man and shook the latch until not only the door, but the nearby windows rattled in their housing.

“I just tol' you-,” the oaf began irritably.

“Go away! We're closed!”

Widdershins recognized the voice. “Robin? Robin, it's Widdershins! You open this door right now! Open this bloody door, or I'm coming through it!”

When no response was forthcoming, Widdershins dropped to one knee and examined the various locks. Ignoring the foul-smelling fellow peering in fascination over her shoulder, she pulled a few wires and probes from her pouch and went to work.

The new locks were good; it took Widdershins five minutes to open the lot of them.

Widdershins began to push through the now more pliable portal, only to stop and glower as she felt the man behind her step forward.

“This is private,” she told him, her voice ice. “They're still closed.”

“Like fun!” he barked, his breath nearly knocking her through the doorway. “You're going in, I'm going in! Ain't nothing you can do to-”

Widdershins introduced her knee to the drunkard's gut, and the last of that foul air escaped his lungs in a single overpowering whoosh as he toppled from the steps. Widdershins was inside, the door slammed and locked behind her, before he'd finished bouncing across the cobblestones.

“Robin? Robin, where are you?” She was frantic; she knew it, heard it in her voice, and she didn't care. “Where's Gen?”

The tavern was unbelievably dark. The fireplace was cold and empty, the lamps quiescent. Only a handful of torches cast tiny fingers of illumination through the ebon depths of the common room.

It took Widdershins a moment to orient herself. Slowly, hands stretched before her until her vision fully adjusted, she crept toward the bar.

“Robin? Gen?”

A soft sniff called to her across the darkened gulf. Slowly, as her vision adjusted, the furniture began to loom from the shadows.

There! At the very edge of the room, a slender figure hunched over one of the tables. Widdershins recognized Robin's slim build and boyish hairstyle. Heartbeat all but echoing through the empty chamber, the thief skidded to a halt beside the serving girl.

“Robin, what's happened? What's wrong?”

The girl blinked up at her, and Widdershins paled at the unfocused look in her eyes, visible even in the insignificant torchlight. “It's Genevieve,” Robin said, her tone puzzled, hollow.

Widdershins found it impossible to breathe. No. Gods, please, no…

“What…what about Genevieve? Robin, what about Genevieve?!”

“It's the wine, Shins,” Robin said almost dreamily, pointing down at the table, her expression glazing even further. “Genevieve's spilled her wine, and she won't move to let me clean it up.”

Only then, staring hard through the looming shadows, did Widdershins see the figure slumped over the pocked wooden surface, facedown in a glistening pool of slowly spreading red.

There was no anger in her scream when it finally erupted, no fear, for there was nothing left for the world to throw at her that she'd not already suffered. There was only pain in that pitiable sound, the terrible wail of a lost and despairing child.

Widdershins didn't remember falling to her knees. Hands shaking wildly, blinded by tears, she reached out to the cooling corpse of the only person she had left, truly called friend, truly loved.

“Olgun?” The god cringed, horrified at the terrible pleading in her voice. “Olgun, please, please, you have to help her! I need you to help her! Please…”

But save for weeping in his own peculiar way, there was nothing even Olgun could do.

The lingering torches continued their dance, oblivious and unabated, as a tiny portion of the world ended within their feeble glow.

It might have been minutes, or hours, before Widdershins finally looked up from where she'd buried her face in Genevieve's hair, cradling the woman's head without thought to the blood that now coated her arm and chest. She'd sobbed until her muscles ached and her lungs burned for air, cried tears enough nearly to wash the bloody table clean. But all her sorrow, all her prayers to every god whose name she could recall, couldn't restore the life- size doll she held, that once moved and talked and laughed and loved with the soul of Genevieve Marguilles.

And finally, though it took a lifetime, her tears slowed, slowed and stopped, and the sobs that racked her body faded away.

There was no sign of Robin. Widdershins had a faint memory of sending her upstairs to get some sleep. The girl was utterly overwhelmed, and Widdershins could only hope that the vague tint of madness in her eyes was a temporary thing.

She couldn't bear the thought of losing anyone else tonight.

Steeling herself against the pain, biting her lip until it bled, Widdershins moved the lantern closer, looking for details she didn't really want to find.

She didn't have to look hard. The wound that had taken Genevieve away from her was a simple stab, directly over the heart-but the poor woman had suffered before that merciful thrust, her legs broken multiple times with a heavy instrument.

An instrument that Widdershins herself had felt on more than one occasion.

She rose, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm, and she hated. She hated the Guardsmen who had stopped her from killing Brock in that alley; hated herself for failing to end his life when she had the chance.

For Brock, she could spare no hate-because so far as she was concerned, he was already dead. Widdershins knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she could find it in her to kill.

She turned to leave, to hunt, and the door opened at her approach, long before she reached it. And there he was, as though delivered by the hands of the gods themselves.

She had been right: He was already dead, a neat gash stitched across his throat by