The Republic of Thieves

“You heard me.” Locke’s voice was still hoarse, but to Jean it seemed infused with genuine strength. Or anger, which was as good for the time being. “I don’t want one of you people popping out of my ass five years from now and implying that I’m still on the hook for having my life spared. I want to hear it from you, right to our faces. Once this is done, we don’t owe you shit.”

“What a high art you’ve made of insolence,” said Patience. “If that’s the game you feel you have to play, so be it. Service for service and a clean severance, just as I said.”

“Good. I want another privilege, too.”

“Our side of the bargain is already exceptionally generous.”

“Who do you think you’re haggling with, a fucking pie vendor? If you’d rather lose your election—”

“State your request.”

“Answers. I want the answer to any question I ask, when I ask, to the best of your ability. I don’t want you to wave your hands and give me any bullshit about how great and terrible and incomprehensible everything is.”

“What questions?”

“Anything. Magic, Karthain, yourself, Falconer. Anything that comes to mind. I’m tired of the gods-damned shadow dance you people call conversation. If I’m going to work for you, I want you to explain some things.”

Patience considered this for some time.

“I have a private life and a professional life,” she said at last. “I may be prepared to discuss the latter. If you fail to respect the former, you will earn … consequences.”

“Good enough.” Locke wiped his mouth on his tunic sleeve, adding new blood to old stains. “Okay, Jean, do you still want the job?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Locke. “I do too. You’ve hired us, Patience. Now do your thing. Get this shit out of me.”

“I can’t work here,” said Patience. “We’ll need to move, and quickly. A ship is waiting at the docks to take us across the Amathel; everything I need is on board.”

“All right,” said Jean. “I’ll go out and call a—”

Patience snapped her fingers, and the outer door fell open. A carriage was waiting on the street outside, its yellow lamps glowing softly in the drizzle, its quartet of horses standing in silent readiness.

“Aren’t you theatrical as hell,” said Locke.

“We’ve lost enough time taming your pride, Locke. We need every moment we can steal back if you’re going to survive what comes next.”

“Hold it,” said Jean. “What do you mean, ‘survive what comes next’?”

“It’s partly my fault. I waited to approach you. I should have done it before you had a chance to start kidnapping physikers. Now Locke’s condition is worse than precarious, and this would be hard enough for someone in perfect health.”

“But you—”

“Stand down, Jean, it’s the same hard sell we use,” said Locke. “Astonishing promises first, important disclaimers second. Just get on with it, Patience. Do your worst. I’m pissed off enough to take any sorcery you can throw at me.”

“Jean must have said something very interesting to shame you into finding your courage again.” Patience clapped her hands, and two tall men strode in through the front door. They wore broad-brimmed hats and long black leather coats, and carried a folding litter between them. “Keep that shame burning if you want to live.”

Patience touched Locke briefly on the forehead, and then she beckoned her coachmen over to roll him onto the litter. Jean watched warily but let them handle the work alone, as they seemed steady and careful enough.

“The only thing I can promise with absolute certainty,” said Patience as she watched this delicate process, “is that what I need to do when we reach the ship will be one of the worst things that’s ever happened to you.” 

INTERLUDE: THE BOY WHO CHASED RED DRESSES

1

“YOU’RE STILL ANGRY with me,” said Chains.

It wasn’t a question. Locke’s attitude would have been plain to someone with the empathy of a shithouse brick.

A day had passed since the affair of Sabetha’s “capture,” and while Locke had rapidly shrugged off the effects of his fall into the garden, he’d been snappish and sullen since returning to the Temple of Perelandro. He’d flat-out refused to help prepare dinner or eat it, and after a brief, awkward attempt at a meal Chains had finally dragged him up to the temple roof.

They sat there now, under the dying aura of Falselight, the hour when every visible inch of Elderglass in Camorr threw off enough supernatural radiance to bring on a second sunset. Every bridge and avenue and tower was limned in eerie light, and beneath the steel-blue sky the city was a dark tapestry knit with ten thousand glowing stitches.

The parapets of the temple’s untended rooftop garden shielded Locke and Chains from prying eyes. They sat a few paces apart amidst the shards of broken pottery, staring at one another. Chains was taking unusually frequent drags on his sheaf of rolled tobacco, the red embers flaring with each indrawn breath.

“Look at me,” he muttered. “You’ve got me smoking the Anacasti Black. My holiday blend. Of course you’re still angry with me. You’re about seven years old and your view of the world is this wide.” Chains held up the thumb and the forefinger of his left hand, and the distance between them was not generous. This, at last, drew Locke out of his silence.

“What happened wasn’t fair!”

“Fair? You mean to claim with a straight face that you buy into that heresy, my boy?” Chains took a last long puff on his dying cigar and flicked the remnants into the darkness. “Everyone in Catchfire dropped dead except for you and your fellow wolf cubs. In Shades’ Hill, you avoided death for at least two grandiose mistakes that would have gotten a grown man’s balls peeled like grapes, and you still want to talk about—”

“No,” said Locke, his look of self-righteous annoyance instantly changing to one of startled embarrassment, as though he’d been accused of wetting his breeches. “No, no, I didn’t say those things were fair. I know life’s not fair. But I thought … I thought … you were.”

“Ah,” said Chains, “well, now. I’ve always thought of myself as fair to a fault. Look, what are you more upset about, the fact that I lied about what had to happen to Sabetha or the fact that the contest I rigged wasn’t, ah, as open to improvisation as you might have wished?”

“I don’t know. Both! All of it!”

“Locke, you may be too young for formal rhetoric, but you’ve got to at least try to pick your problems apart and explain them piece by piece. Now, here’s another important question. Are you comfortable at this temple?”

“Yes!”

“You eat well and sleep soundly. Your clothes are clean, you have many diversions, and you even get to bathe every week.”

“Yes. Yes, I like it a lot, it’s all worth having to bathe, even!”

“Hmmm,” said Chains. “You live long enough for your stones to drop, then tell me if bathing is really such a hardship when the young women around you have bosoms that are more than theoretical.”

“What? When my what?”