“Good night,” she said.
4
LOCKE WOKE the next day feeling as though the contents of his skull had been popped out and replaced upside-down.
“Here,” said one of the Sanzas, who happened to be sitting next to Locke’s cot with a book on his lap. The Sanza (Locke, muddled as he was, could not quite identify which one) passed over a wooden cup of water. It was lukewarm but clean, and Locke gulped it down without delicacy, marveling at how parched he felt.
“What time is it?” he croaked when he was finished.
“Must be past noon.”
“Noon? But … my chores …”
“No real work today.” The Sanza stretched and yawned. “No arithmetic. No Catch-the-Duke. No languages. No dancing.”
“No sitting the steps,” yelled the other Sanza from the next room. “No swordplay. No knots and ropes. No coins.”
“No music,” said the Sanza with the book. “No manners. No history. No bloody heraldry.”
“What are we doing, then?”
“Calo and I are to make sure you can stand up straight,” said the Sanza with the book. “Nail you to a plank if we have to.”
“And when that’s done, you’re to do all the dishes.”
“Sabetha …” Locke rubbed his eyes and rolled off his cot. “She’s really one of us?”
“Course she is,” said the Sanza with the book.
“Is she … here right now?”
“Nah. Out with Chains. Looking into things for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“Dunno. All’s we know is the afternoon; and the afternoon, far as you’re concerned, is dishes.”
5
THOUGH ENERGETIC enough when set a task, Calo and Galdo were virtuosos of laziness when left to their own devices. Between subtle interference and overt clowning, they managed to stretch the half hour Locke would ordinarily have needed to tend the dishes into nearly three hours. By the time the secret door to the temple above banged shut behind the returning Father Chains, Locke’s fingers were wrinkled and bleached from the alchemical polish he’d been using on the silver.
“Ah,” said Chains. “Good, good. You look more or less among the living. Feeling spry?”
“I suppose,” said Locke.
“We’ve a job tonight. Housebreaking. Windows work, and most of it on your little shoulders.” Chains patted his broad belly and smirked. “I parted ways with climbing and scampering some time ago.”
“Windows work?” said Locke, the drudgery of his long afternoon in the kitchen instantly forgotten. “I … I’d love to. But I thought you, um, didn’t do that sort of thing.”
“For its own sake, not usually. But I need to find some things out about you, Locke.”
“Oh, good.” Locke felt his excitement cool slightly. “Another test. When do they stop?”
“When you’re buried, my boy.” Chains knelt and gave Locke a friendly squeeze on the back of his neck. “When you’re under the dirt and colder than a fish’s tits. That’s when it stops. Now listen.
“I’ve got a tip from a friend at Meraggio’s.” Chains bustled about the kitchen, snatching up chalk and one of the slates the children used for their lessons. He sketched on it rapidly. “Seems a certain olive merchant is looking to marry his useless son to a noble wife. To sweeten the deal sufficiently, he’ll need to put his family splendids back into circulation.”
“What’s that mean?” said Locke.
“Means he needs to sell his jewels and things,” said Calo.
“Sharp lad. About an hour ago, the merchant’s man left the countinghouse with a lot of nice old things in a bag. He’s staying at a townhouse in the Razona; just him and two guards. The old man and a bigger retinue are coming in from his estate tomorrow. So tonight we have a bit of an opportunity.”
“Why us?” Locke’s excitement was tempered with genuine puzzlement. “If he’s only got two guards, anyone who wanted to could go in there with a gang.”
“Never in life,” said Chains, chuckling. “Barsavi won’t have it. The Razona’s a quiet district where doors don’t get kicked in. That’s the Peace. Anybody breaks it, they’re liable to have their precious bits cut off and stitched to their eyeballs. So instead of sending in brutes through the door, we send a quiet type through the window.”
Chains turned the slate toward Calo, Galdo, and Locke. The top half was taken up by a rough diagram of houses and their surrounding streets and alleys. Beneath that was a sketch of a necklace, with large ovoid shapes dangling from a thick central collar. Chains tapped one of his fingers against this sketch.
“One piece,” he said. “That’s all we’re after. One from twenty or so, and they won’t have time to put up much of a fuss about it. A gold necklace with nine hanging emeralds. Pop out the stones, send them nine different directions, and melt down the gold. Untraceable profit.”
“How do we do it?” asked Locke.
“Well, that’s half the fun.” Chains scratched at his chin. “You said yourself, it’s a test. You’ll be working with Sabetha, since she’s had more experience at this sort of thing. Calo and Galdo will be your top-eyes; that is, watching the area to cover your ass. I’ll be on the ground nearby, but I won’t be directly involved. My crooked little wonders get to sort the rest out for themselves.”
Locke’s heart raced. Test or not, a chance to work together with Sabetha on something exciting? The gods loved him!
“Where is she now?”
“Here.” Chains pointed to a square sketched on the upper portion of the slate. “On the Via Selaine. Four- story house with a rooftop garden. That’s our target. She’ll be nearby until dark; at first moonrise she’ll meet you in this alley.” Chains ran his finger up and down a set of chalk lines, blurring them. “Once the Sanzas are in position to keep an eye on the street, the rest is up to you and Sabetha.”
“That’s it, then?”
“That’s it. And remember, I want one emerald necklace. I don’t need two, or the deed to the townhouse, or the bloody crown jewels of Camorr. Tonight’s definitely a night for you to underachieve.”
6
FULL CAMORRI night at last, after a twilight spent nervously fidgeting in an alley, waiting for Sabetha to make contact. Now Locke was with her, up on the roof of the house next door to their target, crouched among the old wooden frames and empty pots of a long-untended garden. It was just past second moonrise, and the wide- open sky was on fire with stars, ten thousand flickering white eyes staring down at Locke, as though eager to see him get to work.
Three feet away, a low dark shape against the stone parapet, lay Sabetha. Her only words to him at their meeting had been “Shut up, keep close, and stay quiet.” He’d done that, following her up the alley wall of the house they now sat upon, using windowsills and deep decorative carvings to haul himself up with little effort. Since then his urge to speak with her had been overruled by his terror of annoying her, and so he fancied that he’d done
