The Republic of Thieves

1

“MERCIFUL GODS,” SAID Locke. To Jean’s eyes, he seemed genuinely taken aback. “Your actual flesh- and-blood son? By, ah, traditional means?”

“I certainly didn’t brew him in a cauldron.”

“Well, come now,” said Locke, “as though we’d know one way or the other—”

“There are no means but traditional means for such an undertaking.”

“Damn,” said Locke. “And I thought this was an awkward conversation before.”

“The Falconer’s heart is still beating. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

“You expect us to believe that?” said Jean. His defensive instincts, sharpened over years of alternating triumphs and disasters, came hotly to life. Even if Patience chose to pose no immediate threat, surely wheels were turning somewhere inside her mind. “His friends would have killed us, but you can just wave the whole mess off with a sad smile?”

“You two didn’t get along,” said Locke.

“Very mildly put,” said Patience. She looked down at her feet, a gesture that struck Jean as totally outside her usual character. “Even before he earned his first ring … the Falconer was my antagonist in all philosophies, magical or otherwise. If our positions were reversed he certainly wouldn’t feel bound to vengeance on my account.”

Now Patience slowly raised her head until her dark eyes met Jean’s, and he was able to really study them for the first time. Certain people had what Jean privately thought of as archer’s eyes—a steady coolness, a detached precision. People with eyes like that could sort the world around them into targets, pick their first shot before those nearby even knew the time for talk had passed. Eyes like that had killers behind them, and Patience for-fucking-sure had a pair.

“He and I live with the consequences of the decisions we made before he took the contract in Camorr,” she said, her voice firm. “Whether or not I choose to explain those decisions is my business.”

“Fair enough,” said Jean, taking an instinctive half-step back and raising his hands.

“Indeed. Take it easy.” Locke stifled a cough. “Well, you could murder us, yet supposedly you don’t want to. Your son pickled his own mind, but you say you don’t really give a shit. So what’s the story, Patience? Why are you in Lashain, lending me your cloak?”

“I’ve come to offer the two of you a job.”

“A job?” Locke laughed, then broke into more painful-sounding coughs. “A job? I hope you need someone to line a casket for you, you poor Karthani witch, because that’s the only job I’m presently qualified for.”

“Until you finally lose the strength for sarcasm, Locke, I wouldn’t hire any mourners.”

“I’m on my way.” Locke pounded on his chest a few times. “Believe me, I’ve ducked out of paying this bill before, but this time I’m pretty sure the house is going to make me settle. You should have tried, I don’t know, not fucking revealing my plans to the gods-damned Archon of Tal Verrar so he could fucking well poison me! Maybe then my schedule for the immediate future would be a tad more … open.”

“I can remove the poison from your body.”

Nobody spoke for several seconds. Jean was dumbstruck, Locke merely scowled, and Patience let the words hang in the empty air without further adornment. The timbers of the roof creaked faintly at the touch of the wind.

“Bullshit,” Locke muttered at last.

“You keep presuming that my powers are infinite where they concern your discomfort. Why not credit me with an equivalent capacity to render aid?” Patience folded her arms. “Surely some of the black alchemists you consulted must have passed on hints …”

“I’m not talking about your damned sorcery. I mean, I see the game now. It’s bullshit. Act one, those Lashani bastards trash the place. Act two, a mysterious savior appears out of the night, and we buy whatever you’re selling. You arranged this whole mess.”

“I had nothing to do with Cortessa. Jean brought the Lashani down on your heads when he mishandled the physiker yesterday.”

“What an eminently reasonable excuse! Good gods, woman, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?” Locke erupted into a coughing fit, and just as quickly brought it under control by evident force of will. “I ought to know a setup when it lands right on top of my head!”

“Locke, calm down.” Jean felt his heartbeat all the way to the base of his throat. “Think about this for a moment.” It had to be a trick, a plan, a scheme of some sort, but by all the gods, what was that against the total certainty of death? Jean sent a silent plea to the Crooked Warden to give Locke just a few moments of lucid reason.

“I have no money,” said Locke. “No resources. No treasure. And I’m too sick now to even stand up. That leaves me just one single thing you can still take.”

“We need to consider—”

“You want my name, don’t you?” Locke’s voice was hoarse and teasing. He sounded triumphant at having something to fuel a real argument; evidently the god of thieves had no common sense available for lending at the moment. “You knock everything out from under me, then show up at the last minute, waving a reprieve. And all you’d need is my real name, right? Oh, you want leverage, that’s for sure. You haven’t forgiven anyone for what happened to the Falconer.”

“You’re dying,” said Patience. “Do you really think I’d take these pains just to turn the screws on you? Gods be gracious, how much more pressure could I possibly apply?”

“I believe you’d do anything, if you wanted your hooks in me bad enough.” Locke wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and Jean could see that his spit was blood-tinged. “I know a thing or two about revenge, and you have powers I can only dream of. So I must believe you’d do anything.”

“Why bother when I could have your real name anytime I wanted it?”

“Now that’s so much arrogant bull—”

“It would simply be a question,” Patience continued, “of how long you could watch Jean Tannen suffer before you would beg for the privilege of telling me.”

“You’re no different than the Falconer,” said Locke. “Same fucking—”

“Locke,” said Jean, very loudly. “—attitude toward … yeah?”

“Kindly shut the hell up,” said Jean, enunciating every word as though teaching the phrase to a small child for the first time. Locke’s slack-jawed stare was gratifying.

“She’s right,” continued Jean, unable to keep a growing excitement out of his voice. “If your true name was all she wanted, why not torture me? I’m compromised, I’m bloody helpless. It would be quick and simple. So why aren’t I screaming right now?”

“Because if these people were any good at ‘quick and simple’ the Falconer would have killed us back in Camorr.”

“No, dammit. Think harder.”

“Because you have such a sweet and innocent face?”

“Because if she doesn’t want your real name the easy way—”

“Then she has some other motive. Sweet dancing donkey shit, Jean!” Locke rolled back toward Patience, but closed his eyes and rubbed at them. “She wants me to stick my own head in the noose, of my own free will. Get it? She wants me to step off the cliff. Cut my own wrists so she can gloat … humiliate—” Locke broke into another severe coughing fit, and Jean sat down on the bed and pounded gently on his back. The rhythmic movement did nothing good for Jean’s collection of fresh aches and bruises, but it calmed Locke rapidly.

“What we’re discussing,” said Patience, “is employment, not compulsion. Credit me with enough wit to recall the fate of Luciano Anatolius and Maxilan Stragos. Coercing you two never seems to work. We’re willing to trade service for service.”

“Patience,” said Jean, “can you really get rid of this poison? Can you do it without using his real name?”

“If we hurry, yes.”