“We can’t let it get to that point,” I said. “We need to keep the war in Ten Ways from happening.”
“Possibly,” said Kells.
“ ‘Possibly’?” I said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Kin war. Gray Prince. Targeting you-targeting us!”
Kells stared at me coolly. “I heard you, Drothe, but I think you need to remember something: I’m not Nicco. I don’t jump at the first hint of smoke. Something like this can run in any number of directions, and I don’t want to end up going down a blind alley because I didn’t stop to think first.
“Yes, keeping this war from happening would be the best course of action, but it may not be possible. We’re talking about Nicco here. He may not listen to reason, and he certainly won’t listen to it from me. If he decides I’m behind what’s happening in Ten Ways, he’ll see it as a personal attack and come at me with both fists cocked. And I won’t back down from him, even if this is all a setup. I still have my organization and my people to think about.”
“So you’ll do what the Prince wants?” I said.
“I may not have a choice.” Kells grinned. “But that doesn’t mean I have to follow the script she prepared.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Are you telling me that you’re thinking about taking on a Gray Prince?” There was a hell of a lot of difference between my going up against one and Kells’s doing it. With luck, I might escape notice, but Kells didn’t have that kind of option. He was too big to miss.
Kells’s finger ran through his mustache again, highlighting the grin. “Tempting, isn’t it? Taking on one of them at their own game? Proving you cannot only stand against them, but maybe even with them? It has its appeal.”
“You become a Gray Prince?” I said. Was that even possible? I’d never thought about it, but they had to come from somewhere.
“What, you don’t think I’d look good in the shadows?” he said. Then he sighed, and the sparkle dimmed in his eyes. “No, you’re right. It’s too risky to try, especially like this. The risks are too great to do it on the fly, but I can use what we know to manipulate things, to make sure Nicco is the more tempting target for the Prince. I might even be able to arrange it so I end up with a share of Nicco’s territory myself-possibly a healthy share.”
“So you don’t want to take on a Gray Prince,” I said drily. “You just want to manipulate one.”
Kells’s grin widened. “More or less.”
“And if you can’t?”
Kells laughed. “Hell, I haven’t even figured out how to con her yet, and you want to know what I’ll do if the plan falls apart. Give me some time, Drothe! ” He leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “But I do agree with you-even if we can’t stop this war, we can’t let it get out of hand, either. If it gets big enough to draw in the empire, like you fear…” He waved his hand. “Poof! Everything, on our level at least, goes up in smoke. The best we could hope for would be to hunker down and hope the White Sashes pass us by.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising,” I said.
“Last resorts never are.”
I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. It was midday and damn bright out. I was so fatigued that even though my night vision was dormant, the light still hurt. I added it to the list of all my other current aches and pains-pains I had managed to almost forget while sitting with Kells, but that had come back with a vengeance now that I was up and moving. Well, barely moving. As I walked, I consoled myself with visions of painkilling powders and drug-deepened sleep. I’d earned them.
Kells and I had kept at it for another couple of hours, chewing over concerns and possibilities, discarding more ideas than we kept-just like old times. I never realized how much I missed that until the rare occasions I got to see him.
Kells was the one who had brought me up within the Kin, who had spotted me in Ten Ways and decided that I could be more than a Draw Latch. He had pointed me toward Wide Nosing by asking careful questions, requesting the odd favor, and steering bits of information my way early in my career. I hadn’t known it then, of course, but, over the years, I’ve caught enough hints here and there to piece it together: Kells had been grooming me. And not just as a Wide Nose-he’d seen Long Nose potential.
That was why I had never officially worked for him back then, even though I had asked-repeatedly. If I’d been visibly attached to him, Nicco would never have taken me. Better I appeared “independent,” Kells had said. And I had listened, because he had helped me out of Ten Ways and had taught me to Nose, and because he had one of the best criminal minds I had ever encountered. But mainly I’d listened because he had stood by me and believed in me when no one else would.
And so we had hacked and kicked and spun ideas around each other in his office until he had told me to get out. I didn’t doubt that Kells had the beginnings of a plan already, but he wasn’t about to share it with me, which was smart. The less I knew, the less I could spill-always a wise policy with Long Noses.
As for me, my assignment was more or less what I had already been doing: try to keep Nicco from going to war in Ten Ways. I rated my chances at better than even, given what I had on Rambles, but I knew better than to assume it would be easy. As long as Nicco thought Kells was involved, his first inclination would be to wade in swinging; I needed to convince him that Rambles and Ironius were a better target for his anger.
I was cutting through an alley three blocks west of Ten Ways, running likely scenarios through my foggy head, when a voice came to me out of the shadows.
“You’re looking for Larrios.” It was a rich voice, smooth as fine cognac. I instinctively dropped into a crouch, a knife in each hand. The alley walls were too close for rapier work. I scanned the shadows for the source of the voice, but there was enough sunlight seeping in from above to foil my night vision.
The voice sounded vaguely familiar.
“Rumor has it,” I said. I’d put the word out two days back but hadn’t expected to hear anything so soon. Larrios had struck me as the kind of Kin who could vanish when he needed to.
A figure stirred in the gloom ahead of me, seeming to materialize from the shadows. He was tall, and that was about all I could say of him. The full gray-black cloak and hood he wore hid any other features he had.
“You’d better be paying more than last time,” he said.
“Last time?” I said.
He was five paces away when his gloved hand slipped out of the cloak and casually flipped something toward me. A hint of sunlight caught metal, glinting dully as the coin spun through the air. The copper owl chinked as it bounced once, twice, then rolled across two cobbles to come to rest in a slimed-over puddle of… something, at my feet.
The man chuckled, and my memory stirred at the sound. This was the cove that had directed Degan and me to Silent Eliza our first night back inside Ten Ways.
“If you can take me to Larrios,” I said, “the pay’ll be better. Much.”
The cowl dipped once in acknowledgment.
“Provided,” I added, “Larrios is in one piece when I get him. Finding him dustmans does me no good.”
“That’s your problem,” he said. “I can help you find him. I can’t promise what shape he’ll be in.”
“You know where he is?”
“Essentially.”
I frowned. “That’s vague. Vague lowers the price.”
Shoulders shrugged beneath the cloak. “Give me a day and I’ll have more details.”
“What kind of details?”
“The kind you’ll be happy to pay for.”
I slipped my knives home and crossed my arms before me. “You’re an arrogant bastard, you know that?”
I could hear the smile in his voice as he answered, “I can afford to be. Can you?”
“I’m the one with the hawks,” I reminded him as he turned away.
“Hawks don’t make a Kin deep-file.”
“Neither does friendship with the shadows.”
He chuckled again. “Don’t be too sure,” he said as he slipped into the dark edges of the alley. When I moved forward, he was gone.