“I can handle myself.”
“Right,” said Fowler, “because that’s been working so well for you up until now.”
“With the number of Kin I have after me at this point,” I said, “I may be better off without a slew of people trailing after… Holy Angels!”
“What?” snapped Fowler, her hand immediately going to her knife.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I stopped in the middle of the street and stared, ignoring the traffic that split and flowed and cursed its way around me. There had been a gap in the people a moment ago-a gap that had let me see a face. I stood and waited.
The gap came again. Yes. There.
I immediately began pushing my way through the throng.
“Drothe?” said Fowler from behind me, sounding more annoyed than anxious.
I ignored her. My whole attention was fixed on the tall, thin man standing in the open air of a street-side barber’s stall. He had just gotten out of one of the wooden chairs. He was busy wiping his face with a towel to remove the last of the shaving soap.
“Baldezar,” I whispered to myself, invoking the name to make it true. “Angels, let him be dumb enough to be standing there in the open.”
As if in answer to my prayer, the man turned, a coin glinting in his hand as he reached to pay the woman who had shaved him. It was the Jarkman.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
I quickened my pace, my hand going to the dagger on my belt as I dodged through the press around me. Behind, I could hear Fowler calling my name again. She sounded farther away.
Not far enough, though, as it turned out. As Fowler shouted out my name a third time, Baldezar’s head snapped up and swung toward the street. I tried to duck behind a passing cart but wasn’t fast enough. Baldezar’s eyes grew wide as they lighted on me, and then he was off, sprinting down the street.
Idiot, I thought as I rushed after him. Idiot me for not giving Fowler a sign to keep quiet; idiot him for leaving the barbershop. There are very few places we Kin will not happily kill one another, but a barber’s place of business is one of them. It’s as close as our kind comes to giving sanctuary. The truce between the Kin and the Sisterhood of Barbers had been in force for almost one hundred and eighty years-ever since the Seven Months of the Razor, just after Isidore’s death-and I wasn’t about to break it for Baldezar, no matter how badly I wanted him. If he had stayed in the shop, I couldn’t have touched him, but as soon as he hit the street…
I cursed almost continually as I dodged and shoved my way through the press of bodies. I could make out the back of Baldezar’s head now and then, bobbing above the crowd even as mine stayed well below it.
He took his first right, then a quick left. I stayed with him and even began to close the distance. Baldezar might have the longer stride, but I could duck through the gaps in the crowd more easily. I allowed myself a feral smile. All I needed to do was keep pace. He was a scribe-how far could he run?
As it turned out, farther than I would have liked. Maybe it was all the stairs I’d just run with Fowler; maybe I was pushing too hard; or maybe Jelem’s glimmer hadn’t finished its job yet; regardless, by the time Baldezar began to show signs of wearing down, my left leg was stiffening up. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep pace. It only made things worse. Baldezar nearly fell as he turned onto an empty side street, but, try as I might, I couldn’t take advantage of it. He might be weaving and stumbling like a drunk, but it was still better than the old soldier’s limp I was forced to imitate.
That was when Fowler sprinted past me, arms pumping, hat jammed down firmly on her head, hair flying out from beneath it. I don’t know how fast she was running, but, to me at that moment, it looked as if she could have given the wind a good race. I slowed further and admired the fit of her leggings as she closed on Baldezar.
When she came up behind him, she didn’t waste time or effort. No tackling; no forcing him into a wall; no trying to trip him-Fowler simply drew her long knife and hamstrung the scribe with one smooth slash.
He went down on the pavement, hard and screaming.
I immediately picked up my pace again. The street we were on was narrow, with little traffic and few doors opening on it. What doors I did see were large, solid, ornate, and set into high walls. There was money here. That meant blood wasn’t usually spilled on these paving stones, and when it was, the Watch didn’t waste time getting here. This needed to be kept short.
Fowler was kneeling next to Baldezar as I hobbled up. He was doubled up on the cobbles, grabbing at his left leg and gasping through clenched teeth. There was blood coming out of his nose where it had smashed into the street, and he had a deep scrape on his chin and along the right side of his jaw. He had, however, stopped screaming. I chalked that last bit up to Fowler’s threatening worse if he didn’t shut up.
“This is all he had on him,” said Fowler as she stood up. She handed me a knife and a small pouch of money, then glanced back down at Baldezar. “I hope you didn’t need him whole.”
“Just talkative,” I said. I moved so Baldezar could see me standing over him. I liked to think it wasn’t solely pain and blood loss that made him go pale.
“Go watch for Rags,” I told Fowler.
“But-”
“Go.”
Fowler muttered and cursed, but she went. As she did, I noticed at least three different heads poking out of windows set high in the walls. They vanished quickly.
“All right,” I said, “I don’t have time to do this how I’d like, so I’ll give you a choice: Cooperate and I’ll leave you for the Watch to find. Be difficult, and they’ll trip over your corpse. Decide.”
Baldezar opened his mouth, coughed, and turned his head to spit. Blood-tinted mucus came out, along with a tooth. “Drothe,” he said, the side of his face still lying on the paving stones, “you have to understand, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just-”
“Corpse it is,” I said as I drew my rapier.
“No, wait!” Baldezar held out a bloody hand. “What do you want to know?”
I showed my teeth in a manner too nasty to be called a smile. “Smart man,” I said. “Start with the Blades and the forged letter from Baroness Sephada.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“Of course not.” I drew my rapier back for the thrust.
“No, listen!” Baldezar pushed himself up on his elbow. “When you came to my shop, I thought you were there for the letter I was copying for the baroness. When you showed me Athel’s cipher instead, I panicked. I didn’t know how you’d gotten ahold of it, if Athel was alive or dead, or how you were involved.” Baldezar glowered. “All I did know was that you were toying with me, trying to make me nervous so I’d talk. I’m not stupid.”
I forced my face to remain impassive even as what he was telling me sank in. Stupid? Baldezar had been too clever by half. He’d read more into our conversation than I’d had an inkling about. He’d been in on what was happening from the beginning, and I’d missed it completely! If anyone was stupid here, it was me.
“Then you came in with the forged letter,” said Baldezar, interpreting my silence as agreement, “and I thought I was dead. I still don’t know why you let me live, but I knew better than to give you a third chance. I was in over my head, so I ran.”
“What about Lyconnis?” I said. “Were you just going to leave him for me in case I decided he was involved?”
Baldezar looked away and said nothing.
“The proud and mighty guild master,” I said, “watching over his charges with courage and diligence.”
Baldezar stayed silent.
“So what happened after I left your shop the first time?” I said.
“I went to see Ironius. He wasn’t happy at the news.”
I chuckled. “I’ll bet.” Ironius must have figured my visit meant I knew what was going on in Ten Ways-especially with Baldezar leaping to conclusions for him. And if I knew, then it followed that Nicco knew, too-or would, once I told him. Except I never had.