charge, for the next year. After that time, additional coverage may be purchased at the rate of ten percent of your net profits.”
Amaranthe lowered the page and joined Sicarius in the shadows.
“You read it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Who could provide that kind of protection? Forge?”
“Many organizations could, gangs included.” Sicarius started walking.
Amaranthe caught his arm. “If it is Forge, this could mean they have an inventor who can make magic things, right? That’s what a Maker does, isn’t it? Create devices like the one I may have possibly-probably- damaged. What do you think?”
“That I’m tired of standing in an alley.” He pulled his arm away and strode forward, not bothering to see if she followed.
Surprised by his abrupt dismissal, Amaranthe ran to catch up. “Any reason you’re being stiffer and snippier than usual tonight?”
“Next time you need someone to distract a woman while you snoop, Maldynado would be a better bet,” Sicarius said.
Ah, so that’s what he was sour about. Ellaya might appear mature and prim, but it seemed Amaranthe’s first impression had been right, and she had a healthy…appetite. Sicarius had no trouble rebuffing people- obviously-but he had probably had to humor the old woman to buy time for Amaranthe to explore. Well, there were worse things in the world. He would get over it.
“Sorry, but Maldynado couldn’t have won the shell game over and over,” Amaranthe said. “Besides, I’m not sure he would have stirred that woman’s imagination.”
“He’s far prettier than I.”
“Oh, he’s gorgeous. But attainable. Your aloofness and your reputation make you seem unattainable.” She laughed to herself, not sure why she’d used the word “seem.” “Some women like a challenge.”
She wriggled her eyebrows, hoping for…she did not know what exactly. For him to ask if she was one of those women? Or perhaps to state he wasn’t unattainable?
Sicarius kept walking.
CHAPTER 8
A s dawn turned the alleys from black to dark gray, Amaranthe jogged the last few blocks of the miles-long route. Usually Sicarius picked their path, and the rest of the men ran with them, but he had not shown up that morning. Books was recovering from his wounds, and Basilard had complained of a stomach bug. Not surprisingly, Maldynado and Akstyr had yet to return from The Pirates’ Plunder.
Amaranthe made sure nobody was following her, then trotted through another alley, up a concrete staircase, and into a door she’d left unlocked. She slipped past the pipes and control valves of the above-ground portion of the pumping station, not expecting anyone inside this early.
The sound of voices made her halt.
“…nothing wrong with the controls, my lord. I assure you, we’ve a man who works here day in and day out. I’d have heard if there was a problem.”
Amaranthe recognized the voice; it was the supervisor who had hired Books. He oversaw the utilities building for the industrial area and rarely visited the pumping house.
“Something’s going on,” a second man said. “You figure out if there are rusted pipes or malfunctioning machines, or I’ll send a private company in with the expense taken out of your salary.”
Footsteps thudded on concrete-the men heading for the door through which Amaranthe had entered.
She squeezed between a fat pipe and the wall, hoping the shadows hid her. Little light came in through the windows yet.
“I know how to do my job, my lord,” the supervisor said. “If something strange is going on, it has nothing to do with my machinery.”
The men passed within a few feet of her. Amaranthe held her breath. The supervisor carried a lantern, but it did not illuminate the face of the other man. He was well-dressed in slacks and a frock coat, as one would expect from the warrior caste. The lord who oversaw the public works?
The door opened, then clanged shut. Amaranthe waited, not sure if both had left, but no more footsteps sounded. She was tempted to follow them outside to see if she could hear more of the conversation, but dawn’s light would make staying close difficult on the open streets.
She eased out of hiding and slipped through the control room to the access shaft in the back of the pumping house.
She wondered what had come up to bring the public works supervisor here. The corpses? After considering several options, she had finagled her team into taking the bodies of the appraiser and the workers to another part of the aqueducts. She had sent a note to Enforcer Headquarters in hopes they could be identified and their families informed. But this sounded like something unrelated to the deaths.
When Amaranthe reached the lower level where she and the men stayed, the sound of someone retching waylaid her thoughts. Basilard?
Frowning, she wound through passages toward the source. Maldynado hunkered over the washout, sides heaving, face pale.
“Are you…uhm?” Amaranthe stopped herself from saying “all right,” since clearly he was not.
Maldynado issued a final heave and sank back against the wall. “Just regretting the night’s activities.”
“You’re back earlier than I expected.”
“I was too miserable to stay.” He dragged a sleeve across his mouth and rubbed his face. “I didn’t think I was imbibing that deeply. I even drank a bunch of water, figuring Sicarius might come yank us out of bed before dawn for some of his horrible exercises. I-” He lifted a hand, cheeks bulging out, and returned to his previous activity.
Amaranthe backed away. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Strange, she had seen Maldynado hung over, but not sick like this. If Basilard also felt poorly, and he had not been drinking, some bug must be about.
Amaranthe stopped to grab a jug of apple juice, then headed past the boiler room, through the following door, and into a cramped space she called, for lack of an official-sounding name, the big pipe place. Most of the chamber lay underground, but shafts of light angled through windows high on one wall. Sicarius’s latest sleeping spot lay in an elevated, dark corner atop a round cap that appeared as uncomfortable as a blanket on the concrete floor. Of course, he could see people coming from the perch. And he, unlike she, apparently had the unconscious wherewithal not to roll off in the middle of the night and crash to the floor.
“Sicarius?” she asked.
When no answer came from the depths, she clambered across the fat pipe leading to his spot, an act that would have been easier if she left the jug behind, but if he was there and also sick, he might like a drink. She struggled to imagine him ill. If he had ever so much as sneezed in front of her, she could not remember it. Of course, he might be out, skulking around the city for his own reasons. He did that from time to time, but he always showed up for morning training.
“Sicarius, are you there, or am I crawling up here for no reason?” Her knee cracked against a wheel for regulating water flow, and she grimaced. “For no reason except to bruise myself, that is.”
Amaranthe hopped off the pipe and onto wooden scaffolding left against the wall after some project. From there she could climb to Sicarius’s niche.
“I’m here.” His voice gave little away-as usual.
“Are you sick too?” This close, she could make out his supine form on the wide pipe cap. “I promise I won’t run out and tell your enemies you’re an easy mark right now if you admit you have the flu,” she said.
Wood cracked at Amaranthe’s feet. The hilt of his black knife quivered, the tip a centimeter from her big toe. His way of saying he was not an easy mark, sick or not. She hoped there was not more of a message behind
