The Republic of Thieves

brought you here for, I might lose my nerve.”

“Wait, what do you mean—”

She answered him by pulling him out of the chair and into her arms. Reflexively, he fought back for a moment, but the intensity of the embrace subdued him.

“I am glad you’re alive,” she whispered. “Please believe me, whatever else happens, I’m so glad to see you.”

“I can’t believe I have two reasons to be grateful to the Bondsmagi,” said Locke. Gods, she was warm and strong, and her scent so instantly familiar beneath the slightest sweet-apple scent of perfume. He ran a hand through the gentle curls of her hair and sighed. “Assholes. I’d work for free for any chance to be near you. They’re offering a fortune, and I’d throw it in the Amathel for this. I—”

“Locke,” she whispered. “Indulge me.”

“Oh?”

“Kiss me.”

“With every—”

“No, not like that. My preferred way. You know what I mean. From back when we were—”

“Ahhh,” he said, laughing. “Your servant, madam.”

Sabetha had always had a peculiar ticklish weakness, something he’d discovered by accident when they’d first become lovers so many years before. He gently placed his left hand beneath her chin and tilted her head back, then planted his lips high up the side of her neck, beneath her ear.

The way she moved in his arms instantly folded his better judgment up and hid it away in a deep, dark place.

“So this is what you really brought me here for?”

“Keep going,” she said breathlessly, “and we’ll find out.”

He kissed her several more times, and when he felt he’d teased her enough, ran his tongue up and down those same few inches of warm skin. She actually gasped, and clutched him more tightly still.

“Oh, dear,” he said, laughing and smacking his lips. He swallowed several times to clear a curious dry taste from his tongue. “Your perfume. I seem to have removed some of it. I hope it wasn’t expensive.”

“A special formulation, just for you,” she whispered. She continued to cling to him, digging her hands into his shoulders, and for one more moment Locke was at peace with the entire world.

The numbness began at the edge of his tongue, and in a few seconds it spread, tingling, around his mouth and up to the tip of his nose.

“No,” he whispered, hit as hard by shock as he was by whatever he’d just swallowed. He tried to pull away, but she was too strong for him; his limbs were already taking on a curious foggy dissociation. “No, no … Jnnnn … Jnnnn!”

“Shhhhhh,” Sabetha whispered, no longer shuddering, no longer breathless with shared anticipation. “A special formulation. Throat and voice go first. Just relax. Jean can’t hear you.”

“Whhhh … whhhhy?”

“Forgive me,” she said. She cradled him as his legs turned to jelly. She knelt slowly, bringing him down with her, laying him across her knees. “I wasn’t sure whether I’d really do it or not. If it’s any consolation, your story about Tal Verrar was the convincer. You’re not as good as I am, Locke, but you’re too damn good to let you run around fighting fairly. I have to beat you, for both our sakes.”

“Nnngh—”

“Don’t talk. Just listen; you don’t have much time left. There’s a second reason. I can see now how ill you’ve been, and how you’ll have to push yourself to keep up with me. I can’t let you do it, Locke. I can’t watch you do it. You’ll kill yourself trying to best me, and you can’t ask me to permit that. Not when I could stop it. I once cared for you a great deal. I care for you now. Remember that.”

She kissed him gently on the forehead, and he barely felt it.

“Remember that, and forgive me.”

9

“NNNNGH,” SAID Locke, coming up from layers of blackness that seemed draped over him like burial shrouds. “Nnngh—Sab … no, please!”

He gasped, with the disbelieving gratitude of someone finally fighting back to wakefulness after an interminable nightmare of suffocation. He smelled his own sweat, and the familiar odors of wet wood and fresh lake air.

His eyes slid grudgingly open. He was lying on his back in yet another ship’s great cabin, this one more luxuriously appointed than any he’d ever seen, even Zamira Drakasha’s. Soft orange alchemical globes cast the fixtures and finery in an inviting light. Gulls cried somewhere nearby, and the world creaked gently around him.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” muttered Locke, reveling in the full recovery of his powers of speech. He sat up, and instantly became aware of the fierce gnawing hunger in his belly. “Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid— ”

“You can’t blame yourself,” said Jean.

Locke turned to see him sitting against the opposite wall on a hanging bed furnished with embroidered sheets. Jean had fresh bruises on his bare forearms and around his eyes.

“Gods,” said Locke. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Remember how she joked about twenty armed people in the next room?” said Jean with a sigh. He set down the book he’d been reading. “There were twenty armed men in the next room.”

“Fuck me sideways with hot peppers and a pinch of salt,” said Locke. “How long have I been out?”

“Half a day.”

“Where are we?”

“On the Amathel, headed west. Bound for the sea.”

“Are you kidding?”

Jean pointed at something behind Locke, and Locke turned. The rear windows of the cabin, which were open to let in a view of a gray morning over blue water, were girded with a network of thick iron bars on their outer surface. The gaps in the bars were too small for even Locke to contemplate wiggling through.

“She’s put us on quite a luxurious prison ship,” said Jean. “We’re the only passengers. And we’re chartered for a nice, slow voyage out to sea and around the continent.”

“Are you fucking kidding?”

“If all goes as she planned, we’ll get back to Karthain a week or two after all the votes have been counted.”

INTERSECT (II): TINDER

I HAVE TO tell you, we’re not terribly impressed with your boys so far.

We thought they did very well, up to their meeting with your exemplar.

It’s that meeting with our exemplar that inspires a certain lack of foreboding on our part.

They’ll be back soon enough.

They’re headed out to sea in irons.

You know who else thought lightly of them, once? The Falconer.

Very amusing.

Interesting things are going to be happening around Lamora, my friend. Just keep your attention focused very closely on him at all times.