In the dim light, Amaranthe could not follow its path. A pained grunt came from the roof above her. A heartbeat later, a man smashed onto the sidewalk, the throwing knife lodged in his eye. A repeating crossbow flew into the street, and the impact sent a bolt flying. It skidded into a curb beneath a gas lamp, revealing a green smudge of poison on the tip.
Amaranthe rested her hand on the damp stone of the building for support. Maybe it was time to get more serious about looking for a disguise to wear in public. The fact that she had the most common eye, skin, and hair color in the empire had served her well so far, but apparently no more.
“Mercy has no place out here.” Sicarius retrieved his knives. “If you’re lenient with bounty hunters, they’ll try again, and they’ll speak to others of your leniency, which will encourage every pauper to take a chance.”
“I can’t argue with your logic, but it’s not in my nature to stick knives in people’s backs.” Amaranthe grimaced at the broken body of the man from the roof. “Or eyes.”
“Adapt.” After cleaning and sheathing his knives, Sicarius searched the bodies of the dead men, removing their valuables, before coming to stand beside her. “Are you injured?”
She straightened. “No. Of course not. That was all part of my plan. I was acting as bait to lure bounty hunters to attack, so you could sneak over and kill them and take their ill-gotten thug earnings, thus -” she lifted a finger, “-alleviating our money problems.” That sounded plausible, didn’t it? He might even believe it. If he had the intelligence of a sloth.
The flat look Sicarius gave her suggested that sloth would have to be drunk to be fooled by her extemporizing. He handed her a few crumpled bills, not enough money to buy a meal much less gear. “Bait doesn’t survive long.”
“Well, if you hadn’t left in a huff, I wouldn’t have been bait. You know I need a keeper to watch over me while I’m dreaming up fanciful schemes.” She smiled to let him know she was not truly accusing him of anything; she had been the idiot, and she knew it.
“I don’t huff,” Sicarius said, though his tone softened.
“Ever?” She nodded toward the street, and they strode away from the dead men. In the city, only soldiers were permitted by law to carry firearms, so enforcers would doubtlessly show up to investigate the shots soon. “Must be disappointing for the ladies.”
Apparently the comment did not deserve a response, for he only said, “What’s the new scheme?”
Business first with him. Always.
“I want to investigate Ms. Klume’s adversary before returning to the pumping house,” Amaranthe said. “Just in case something interesting is going on there. Waiting for the right people to hire us isn’t going to get us where we want; we need to go out and find…” She groped for the right word. A mission? A project? A job?
“Trouble?” Sicarius suggested.
“An endeavor that will help the city and prove to the emperor that we’re undeserving of the bounties on our heads and we’re invaluable resources to his regime.”
“Trouble,” Sicarius said.
She grinned sheepishly. “Well, probably. Yes.”
CHAPTER 2
T he Kendorian businesswoman’s office boasted neatly filed papers and meticulously organized bookshelves. A hint of lye soap hung in the air. The potted plant perched on the windowsill sported no dangling dead leaves.
Within seconds of walking in, Amaranthe was glad she had refused the assassination gig. One probably should not form opinions about people based on the cleanliness of their workspace, but she promptly liked this Telnola more than Ms. Klume.
Of course, that did not keep her from rifling through filing cabinets and desk drawers. Working by lamplight, she spent thirty minutes investigating, or, as Maldynado often called it, snooping.
Engrossed in logbooks, she almost missed the door opening. She reached for her sword, but it was only Sicarius. Coal dust smeared his hands and darkened his blond hair.
Guilt nudged Amaranthe to say, “Sorry to send you to investigate the machinery. I figured you’d be more likely to sense magical doodads than me.”
“Artifacts,” Sicarius said.
“What?”
“The Turgonian language lacks words to define the various contraptions crafted by practitioners specializing in Making, but artifact is the word most frequently used to describe imbued devices, especially those small in nature. Construct, such as the soul construct we battled, has similar connotations, though tends to refer to ambulatory creations.”
Amaranthe nodded, absorbing the information, though his monotone delivery tempted her to tease him. “Are either constructs or artifacts sentient enough to be offended by being called doodads?”
“Rarely,” Sicarius said without blinking.
She sighed. The man was impossible to tease.
Amaranthe closed the file she had been perusing and returned it to its proper place in a cabinet. “Did you find anything magically suspicious in the factory or about the furnace?”
“No.”
“Me either.” She waved to encompass the office. “From what I’ve learned, Telnola is visionary, efficient, and willing to take risks. She established a small fortune by buying faltering mother-daughter sewing shops and turning them profitable by introducing mass production through sewing machines and mechanized looms. Everything about her background suggests she’s the type of person who would hustle to accept an opportunity to start a business in the empire where steam-powered facilities are the norm instead of an anomaly. There’s no unexplainable efficiency in the logbooks. If she’s beating Klume, I’m guessing it’s because she’s good, not because she’s magically assisted.”
Sicarius listened. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, he was not the sort to tease her for going on and on. He simply said, “Agreed,” and added, “though I haven’t checked the loading docks and bay yet.”
“We can go out that way,” Amaranthe said, “but I suspect Telnola is innocent of any crimes. She’s hired more than a hundred workers in the last month, and she’s excelling here. In short, she’s exactly the type of entrepreneur Sespian hoped to attract with his tax incentives. Which means the trouble we hoped to find here isn’t likely to manifest itself. At the very least, you can feel good for choosing not to assassinate her.”
“I did not make that choice.”
No, and even knowing what she had just told him, he would probably still accept the assignment if motivated enough. “Then I can feel good for choosing for you.”
She smiled. He did not.
“Loading bay. Right.” Amaranthe grabbed her lantern and headed for the door.
Night pressed against the windows overlooking the factory’s main floor. Her lamp illuminated the first couple of sewing machines in rows that stretched throughout the cavernous room. Before they had gone more than a few steps, the scrape of a key fumbling for a lock whispered through the silent building. The front door.
Sicarius disappeared into the shadows below a fifteen-foot-high loft that housed more rows of sewing machines. Amaranthe cut off her lantern.
The front door swung open. Two figures stepped inside, each holding lanterns of their own. One man, one woman, both with blond hair, advanced down the central aisle. They lacked the furtive mien of robbers, and the pale hair suggested they might be Kendorians. They chattered in what was presumably their native tongue.
Using the wall as a guide, Amaranthe eased beneath the loft. She assumed Sicarius, who had explored more than she had, was heading toward the loading bay and a back way out.
Amaranthe bumped into someone. She expected Sicarius, but a knife rasped free of a sheath. She jumped back. Shadows hid details, but the dark figure loomed too tall and wide to be Sicarius.
An uncertain pause from the person gave her time to switch her lantern to her left hand and slide her sword free.
