The Republic of Thieves

“Now, Locke,” she said softly, “you and I going on like this before the final results are tallied is like peeking at festival presents before they’re opened. This isn’t the game I came to play tonight.”

“Delighted to hear it! Watch, then, and be amazed as I perform the most menial portion of an amazing alchemical process and claim all the credit for myself.”

On the table stood a silver bucket-within-a-bucket, constructed so that there was an open gap of about a finger’s width between the inner and outer walls. In the center bucket, a bottle of pale orange wine stood in water.

Locke uncapped two leather-covered decanters. He poured their colorless contents into the outer channel of the chambered bucket, then juggled the empty decanters hand-to-hand a few times and bowed.

A patina of frost appeared on the outer surface of the bucket, steadily thickening into a wall of crisp white ice. Puffs of pale vapor rose from the bucket’s outer channel, and a jagged crackling noise could be heard. Locke silently counted out fifteen seconds, pulled on a leather glove, and carefully tilted the bucket toward Sabetha. The wine bottle, cloudy with frost, was now immersed in slush.

“Behold! I have chilled the wine. I am the true master of the elements. Bondsmagi across the city are handing in their resignations.”

Sabetha rendered applause by tapping one finger inaudibly against the opposite palm. Locke grinned, withdrew the bottle from its semisolid surroundings, uncorked it, and poured two glasses.

“I give you our first toast of the evening.” Locke picked up his glass and touched it gently to hers. “To crime, confusion, and all arts insidious. To the most enchanting practitioner they’ve ever had.”

“That’s awkward, asking me to drink to my own honor.”

“I’m sure a self-regard as robust as your own can easily bear the strain.”

They drank; the sweet orange-and-ginger wine was cold as a northern autumn. Locke poured them each a second glass.

“My turn,” said Sabetha. “To strange little boys and impatient little girls. May their real mistakes … be gentle and far between.”

“Am I wide of the mark, or are you in a better mood than you were three nights ago?” said Locke as he finished his second drink.

“It was quite a mood, wasn’t it?”

“Did you figure anything out?”

“Only that I wasn’t going to find any real answers in one night of brooding. Besides, packing you off in some sort of richly deserved trap always cheers me up.”

“You might see those snakes again, madam, if you keep up that unseemly gloating. Now, I believe I promised you dinner.”

Off to one side of the balcony was a long oak table and a smoldering brazier. Locke threw more chips of aromatic wood into the brazier and gave them a stir. Pleasantly approaching the edge of muddled as the wine mounted from his mostly empty stomach, he examined the piles of ingredients and utensils he’d set out earlier. There was a tap on his shoulder.

“Now, this is not how it’s done,” said Sabetha. She’d removed her black velvet jacket, revealing a white silk undertunic and a loosely knotted scarf just slightly darker than her hair.

“I haven’t even started cooking yet!”

“Where we come from we didn’t cook for one another, remember? We cooked together.”

“Well—”

“Let’s see what sort of mess you’ve got here.” She bumped him gently aside with her hip. Together they sorted out the components of the meal he’d planned—fennel fronds, onions, sliced blood oranges, pale white olives, almonds and hazel nuts, a chicken he’d plucked and dressed, and enough assorted oils to saute anything smaller than a horse.

“How strange,” she said, “but it looks as though you’ve assembled some of my favorite things.”

“My life is haunted by wild coincidences,” said Locke.

“I suppose I should admire your constancy in one respect, Locke Lamora. All these years and you’re still beside yourself to tumble a redheaded girl.”

“Oh?” His grin faded, along with some of his wine-induced buoyancy.

He reached out and touched a loose strand of her burnished copper hair. “You know, if you take offense at the notion, you have a hell of a strange way of showing it.”

“ ‘Confusion and all arts insidious,’ ” she said, glancing away.

“Did you really restore that color just to keep me off balance? Make me easier to play games with?”

“No,” she said. “Not entirely.”

“Not entirely.” Locke stared at her, trying to force the muscles of his face, usually so loyal and pliable, to twitch into some semblance of a smile. “You know, I hate the way one of us can say something.… We’re enjoying ourselves for the gods know how long, but one wrong word and suddenly it’s like we’re not even in the same room.”

“ ‘We’ is a tactful way of saying ‘me,’ isn’t it?”

“Only this time,” said Locke, “Sabetha, listen to me. You know what I’m after. My cards are on the table and always have been. Am I fixated? Yes. Absolutely. Am I sorry about that? No. I’m standing here with my intentions plain as the rising sun, waiting for you to convince yourself, one way or the other. And I’ll wait for that. I’ll wait until I’m old and bent and need help spelling my own name. But you know, if I had the luxury of any self-respect at all where you’re concerned, I’d be insulted by the idea that I must think convincing you to spread your legs is the big endgame.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know. I do know you want more than that, and for all your faults you give more —”

“Bloody right. I mean, who knows, maybe we could sleep together twice.” He drew himself up, thrust out his chest, and stuck out his tongue. “Limitless ambitions, woman! Limitless!”

“Oh, you bastard.” She punched him, but it was the sort of punch delivered with a warm smile. “So, has it … well, how long has it been, for you? Since, you know—”

“You already know the answer,” said Locke. “Very precisely. Think about the day you left. Go back two nights from that, and there you have it.”

“Not even once?”

“I guess it’s fucking ridiculous, isn’t it? But no. I tried. I tried to enlist some help. One of the resident cherry tops at the Guilded Lilies.

Turns out a redhead’s just not a redhead if she’s not, you know, twice as smart as I am and three times as infuriating.”

“Three times as smart,” said Sabetha. “Half as infuriating. And … I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t too bad.” Locke rolled an onion across the table and bounced it off a decanter of olive oil. “She was a friend, close to Chains and me. She knew what my problem was, and that pushing it wasn’t the answer. I got a massage that was worth the price of admission.”

“I suppose I should tell you … it hasn’t been the same way with me these past few years. For several reasons.”

“I see.” He felt cold knots forming in his guts, but fought the sensation down. “I won’t lie. My feelings about you are selfish as hell. I don’t like to think about you with anyone else, but … I wasn’t there. You’re a grown woman and you didn’t owe me anything. Did you expect me to be angry?”

“Yes.”

“I might have been, once. Maybe the one real advantage to getting older is that you have the time to pull your head a little bit farther out of your ass. I don’t want to care, understand? You’re here now. With luck … I really hope you’ll be here later. Besides, it seems safe to assume you weren’t swept off your feet by a handsome young Vadran lord with a castle or two to spare—”

“I had some comfort from it, once or twice.” She reached out and touched his arm, not softly, as though she were afraid he might suddenly decide to be elsewhere. “And the rest of the time, it was to empty some pockets. Or a vault. You know.”