“I ain’t going to church.”
“You and I will go to weekly service at Saint Limarre’s,” Satrine said. “Don’t make me waste time hunting you down, because Phillen will get every page in Inemar to All-Eyes you.”
“Rutting blazes,” her mother said. “What did I do to deserve two rotten children who are both rutting sticks?”
Satrine could provide her with a list, but held her tongue. Her mother stomped off down the street toward Phillen’s place.
“Everything all right?” Inspector Kellman asked, looking harried as he guided two spent horses to her.
“Fine as can be expected,” she said. Kellman had been more than accommodating about the new situation with her mother since they had partnered up. He was a dull block compared to Welling—just about anyone would be—but he was decent enough. There were worse fates than partnering with him.
Like whatever happened to Corrie.
“We got something?” she asked, noticing he was holding a new page note.
“Some window-cracking on the east side.”
At least it wasn’t another murder. The last thing Satrine needed was for today to be any more gruesome.
“All right, Kellman. Let’s get to work.”
“Let’s get to work!” Verci Rynax called out to his brother as he came down the back stairway from the apartments to the workshop in the back of the Rynax Gadgeterium. He actually hoped Asti was in the shop. Asti was supposed to be out front, taking care of customers, while Verci was building and repairing in the back.
That’s how it was supposed to be. But Asti would still slip out for extended periods to “check on something” or “keep an eye on a situation.” The neighborhood was relatively calm, no one was trying to kill or muscle them, at least not today, and they weren’t directly planning to go at anyone in the near future. Right now, it was legitimate business for two reformed thieves.
But Asti was Asti. As much as he talked about “clean, honest lives,” Asti wasn’t handling the day-to-day of it well.
“Are you talking to me?” Raychelle, Verci’s wife, asked as she came in from the front.
“I hoped I was talking to Asti, but I’m guessing he stepped out. Did you just come in?”
“I did,” she said.
That meant there was something wrong with the bell on the door, which was the most basic bit of gadgetry in the whole place. For that to not be working was downright embarrassing. Verci grabbed a couple tools and went to the front of the store. Everything looked in order, nothing missing. The lockbox under the counter was in place.
Verci tried the door. The bell rang just fine.
“Did it ring when you came in?”
“Yes,” Raych said. “Maybe you just weren’t paying attention?”
“Possibly,” Verci said. “I had told Asti I was going upstairs for a bit. Where did he go?”
“I saw him go past the bakery,” Raych said. “Which is why I came over. Where did he go?”
“Asti being Asti,” Verci said, hoping that would explain it.
“I think,” Raych said carefully, “that Asti likes the idea of going straight, having a nice, normal life as legitimate shopkeepers. But the reality of it—”
“Drives him crazy?”
“I wasn’t going to say that, exactly.”
“Because he’s already crazy?”
“I definitely wasn’t going to say that,” she said. “He’s troubled, of course, but—”
“You’re trying too hard to be kind,” Verci said. Asti was far from stable, still occasionally having violent blackouts, muttering to empty air. Verci knew there was more to it, but Asti wasn’t telling him.
Maybe that’s where Asti was going all these times. Maybe he had someone to talk to.
“How’s today been?”
“Actually pretty good,” Verci said. The Rynax Gadgeterium had only been open for a few days, but with Terrentin coming up, there were people looking for toys and other gadgets to give as gifts. “We actually got a pair of fellows who came out here from across town. So word is getting out.”
“Legitimate business is a beautiful thing,” she said. She glanced at the satchel behind the counter. “So does that have to be there?”
The satchel had Verci’s darts, his spring gauntlet and the various chemical-filled shots for it, as well as climbing tools, window-cutting and lockpicking tools, a bandage kit, a few other helpful gadgets, and a leather coat with iron plates.
Everything Verci might need if things went bad.
“Where would you want it?” Verci asked.
“I don’t know, I just—I wish it wasn’t necessary.”
“Someday it won’t be, I hope. But in this neighborhood, in our lives, love,” Verci said, coming closer to her and wrapping his arms around her waist, “I’m afraid that day might never come.”
“I hate living our lives afraid.”
“Think of it as ‘prepared.’”
She kissed him quickly. “I can live with prepared. I would like a less bloody version of prepared, but, well . . .”
“You know what our lives are like.”
“But that’s only there for emergency, right?” she asked. “You’re not going out looking for anything?”
“I definitely am not,” Verci said. “I really hope that bag stays right where it is.”
Though he couldn’t speak for what Asti hoped.
“I see her, you know,” Asti Rynax said quietly. “Sometimes right in front of me, sometimes in the corner of my eye. But she’s there, all the time.”
Kimber, the sweet-faced proprietress of her namesake tavern, came a little closer to him, not saying anything. This was what she had done for him for months, since the night at Henterman’s, since the fire, since . . . really since coming back from Paktphon. She hadn’t pushed for anything from him that he wasn’t ready to give—which he appreciated—but she had been there, with quiet reserve, always ready to listen. And usually bring him to Saint Bridget’s Church afterward.
“It wasn’t always like that,” he went on. “But it started after Henterman’s, and it’s been pretty constant for the past few days.”
“You mean the woman who betrayed you,” she said.
“Liora Rand,” Asti said, as if saying her name out loud would deny her power. “She didn’t just betray me. She traded me to the Poasians, who tortured and broke me. And put something in
