“Rovich?” the figure-a man-asked, voice dull and stunned, as if he knew she was not who he thought but could not imagine who else she might be.
“No,” Amaranthe whispered, “but if you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, I’ll tell you who I am.” She glanced over her shoulder, fearing the scuffles and whispers would alert the couple, but they had reached the office, and a conversation flowed from within, the words sounding casual and unconcerned.
“Uh,” the man said. “No, you tell me who you are, or I’ll-” He sucked in a startled breath.
The shadows cloaked movement behind the man, but his reaction suggested someone had come up behind him with a weapon. Sicarius.
Amaranthe followed as he pushed his prisoner past a large, sliding door and into the colder air of a loading bay. On the far side, beyond aisles of barrels, crates, and bolts of fabric, a roll-up door was open to the night.
The toe of Amaranthe’s boot nudged something, and she halted.
“Close the door,” Sicarius said before she could investigate.
Assuming he meant the order for her, she groped for the handle. She eased the door shut, trying not to make noise.
“What were you doing in here?” Clothing rustled-Sicarius jostling his prisoner.
Amaranthe knelt to relight the lantern.
“Eat street,” the thug said. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”
Her light stirred to life, revealing the thug with Sicarius standing behind him, a knife to his throat. The heavyset man wore ill-fitting, mismatched clothing and bracelets that might have been working wrist shackles once.
Another bounty hunter? If so, an inept one.
The lantern also illuminated the cut throat of a second man, the body Amaranthe had bumped against. The man Sicarius restrained paled when he spotted the body.
“What were you doing in here?” Sicarius asked again, his voice colder than the room.
“You might want to answer.” Amaranthe decided revealing names might move them to the information- sharing portion of the interrogation without the application of imperial torture techniques. “If Sicarius has to ask twice, it’s a sure sign maiming and pain are imminent.”
The man’s eyes bulged. “Sicarius?” he whispered.
“Is whatever you’re doing worth dying for?” Amaranthe asked.
A puddle formed between the thug’s boots, and she figured that was a good sign he would talk-and that she should step back-but he whispered, “No, but I can’t…can’t say anything.”
Sicarius’s blade bit into flesh, and blood trickled down the man’s neck, staining the collar of his shirt.
“Please, I can’t.” A tear slid down the thug’s cheek, out of place on such a hardened face.
“Why?” Amaranthe asked. “What were you doing that’s so important to keep secret?”
“They just wanted us to-” He gasped in pain, back arching.
At first, Amaranthe thought Sicarius had done something, but the man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and quakes wracked his large body. A seizure?
“Let him go,” Amaranthe said.
Blood oozed from the thug’s nostrils. As soon as Sicarius stepped back, the man collapsed. A final spasm wrenched his body, then he lay still.
“Uhm.” Amaranthe stared. “That’s unexpected.”
Sicarius opened the man’s mouth and probed about with a finger.
“Think he poisoned himself?” she asked. “Or are you searching for gold teeth to help with our financial problems?”
“No residue or capsule in his mouth that I can detect, and I didn’t notice him swallow anything.”
With his knife at the man’s throat, Sicarius probably would have felt that.
She nibbled on a fingernail. “Any thoughts on what might be responsible? He’s too young to spontaneously seize up and die. Think someone…didn’t want him sharing secrets? And somehow rigged it so he’d die if he did? Is that even possible?” She had never come across the like during her enforcer career, but she had never dealt with magic in those days either. Until a few months ago, she had not known it existed.
“Possible, yes.” Sicarius rotated the dead man’s head and leaned closer. “There’s fresh scar tissue and something under his skin, a nodule or shot from a blunderbuss perhaps.”
“Does the other man have it?”
He gave her a sharp look, then examined the second body. Amaranthe slid the door open a crack to check the factory. Light and voices still spilled from the office.
“Not in exactly the same place,” Sicarius said, “but yes.”
His black dagger appeared in his hand, the metal so dark it seemed to swallow the lamplight. He sliced into one of the men’s necks, and Amaranthe looked away. She ought not be squeamish about such things by now, but the idea of cutting open a corpse to investigate inside unsettled her.
“Huh,” Sicarius said.
“What’d you find?” She drew closer, despite her stomach’s protests.
“I didn’t.” He was probing around inside the wound. Blood dripped from his fingers and onto the floor. “Whatever I felt disappeared.”
“Maybe you…imagined it?”
He gave her a flat look.
Right, he was about as imaginative as a stump.
Amaranthe waved toward the loading bay. “Shall we see if we can find evidence of tampering?”
Sicarius searched the bodies first, then slipped into an aisle formed by crates on one side and bolts of textiles piled head-high on the other. She supposed that meant yes.
Footsteps sounded in the factory. Cursing under her breath, Amaranthe cut off the lantern again. She felt her way down the aisle after Sicarius.
The heavy door slid open.
Light pushed back the shadows near the entrance. Amaranthe lunged around a crate at the end of the aisle, though she left her head out far enough to peer around the corner. The blond couple walked inside, lanterns held aloft. Alarmed chatter broke out when they spotted the bodies.
Amaranthe wished she could understand their words, though she had no trouble reading the surprise in their tones.
Sicarius touched her shoulder and murmured, “They stopped by to check something on the way to dinner. They don’t recognize the men, and they’re-”
The couple ran out the door, and darkness swallowed the bay.
“Leaving?” Amaranthe guessed.
“Going to get the enforcers,” Sicarius said.
“Emperor’s warts. We won’t have much time to investigate now.”
She relit her lantern and jogged down the aisles, eyeing crates, sewing machine parts, and more fabric than she had ever seen in one place. Nothing appeared unusual or out of place. As minutes skipped past, she clenched her fist, sure they were going to be denied clues to some heinous plot.
Steam brakes squealed outside-an enforcer vehicle pulling up, Amaranthe wagered.
Sicarius appeared out of the shadows. “We must go.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“Nothing they might have left? Nothing special they might have come to steal?”
“No.” Sicarius gripped her shoulder and rotated her toward the end of the aisle. “Go.”
Vehicle doors slammed, and voices drifted in through the open loading dock entrance. Amaranthe cut off the lantern and reluctantly let Sicarius push her toward the sliding door. They could return tomorrow night and investigate more thoroughly.
Footsteps sounded outside the roll-up door, and she picked up her pace. Flickering lamplight came from behind as enforcers crowded the loading docks.
She and Sicarius slipped past the bodies and into the factory. He halted. Another pair of enforcers had
