“Seriously?”
“Seriously. As I said, the who is not important. I want to know the why.”
“That makes it a lot harder.”
Demir removed his coffee cup from the saucer and dropped something on the dish, pushing it across the table to her. It was a piece of horseshoe-shaped light green godglass about the size of Kizzie’s pinkie finger, with one end of the horseshoe tapered and hooked to go in a piercing.
“Shackleglass?” she said in surprise. Shackleglass was illegal for use by civilians, but you could get it if you were rich or connected enough. She hadn’t seen a piece in person for years.
“I want confessions.”
Kizzie looked carefully into Demir’s eyes. There was an edge to him that hadn’t been there in his youth, a hardness that mirrored the changes to his appearance. Perhaps he had already become a violent man. He was a glassdancer, after all. Was he going after something bigger than the killers themselves? Perhaps the hands that swung the cudgels were merely a loose end. “Does Capric know what you’re ‘borrowing’ me for?”
“He does not.” Demir sipped his coffee, studying her right back over the lip of the cup. “I told him I needed some extra security around the hotel.”
“Why me?”
Demir raised an eyebrow as if the answer should be obvious. “Because you have a hard-earned reputation for being the only honest enforcer in Ossa. You put personal integrity above your loyalty to the Vorcien.”
“I’m out of favor for exactly that reason,” Kizzie snorted.
“And I like that. We were also childhood friends. I could use a friend right now. So? Will you take the job?”
That phrase echoed something that had gone through Kizzie’s head just minutes ago, lowering her guard. She should say no. A murdered Assemblywoman was something for the Cinders to deal with, not a lone enforcer. But it sounded like the Cinders had already moved on. The Grent were the fall guys, and Demir didn’t accept that explanation.
“You might not like the answers I dig up,” she offered.
“I’m prepared for that eventuality.”
“One last question.”
“Ask anything.”
“Is Montego going to be involved in this?”
Demir hesitated just a moment too long. “He has been summoned. I have no idea when he will arrive. Are the two of you still … estranged?”
“Interesting choice of words,” Kizzie replied with a tired chuckle. “We also haven’t spoken in fifteen years.” Just thinking about Montego was vaguely unpleasant, for a number of reasons. Their personal past was one. Another was the reason that Montego made everyone nervous: he killed for sport.
“I won’t ask you to work with him, but you might see him around,” Demir said.
In a self-abusive way, Kizzie realized that this sealed the deal. The chance to see Montego again, with Demir acting as a buffer between them, was too good to pass up. Fifteen years without so much as a letter passed between them, after the way it ended last time; the sudden yearning for closure was a powerful motivator.
She snatched up the piece of shackleglass and stuffed it into her cork-lined pocket, the momentary contact causing her to feel a little tired and giddy.
“Fine,” she said, “I’ll do it.”
Something seemed to pass across Demir’s expression. Relief, perhaps? “The Assembly won’t tell you any more details. They covered things up pretty well, and they’ll probably be irritated if they find out that you’re meddling around their investigation.”
“I have circumvented official investigations before,” Kizzie replied. Most experienced enforcers had. It was, after all, their job to maneuver the space between the National Guard, the guild-families, and the law.
Demir suddenly downed his coffee in one go and stood up, tossing enough coins onto the table to pay for them both. “Find me at my hotel if you need me. Breenen will arrange for expenses and payment. Thank you, Kizzie. This takes a weight off my shoulders.”
Kizzie raised her cup to Demir, then watched as he walked away. “And,” she said quietly, “puts that weight onto mine.” Despite her misgivings, Kizzie was intrigued. She had never been given permission to stick her nose into a proper conspiracy before. It might be simple. She might track five killers to the Grent border and then tell Demir that it was exactly as it seemed.
She had a feeling, however, that this job would be anything but simple.
5
Thessa used the cover of the early-morning darkness to cross the river, commandeering one of the many public canoes that could be found tied to docks throughout the Grent delta. She was no strategist or soldier, but as far as she could tell the invasion of Grent seemed focused on the east many miles away. The attack on the Grent Royal Glassworks appeared to be an isolated contingency. She almost turned back a hundred times, reasoning with herself that Kastora might have rallied their small garrison and turned away the Ossan invaders. But she’d been given a task and she would deliver the schematics to Adriana Grappo. If Kastora wanted them with the Grappo, despite the breakout of war, then she would follow his instructions.
By dawn, just a couple of hours after the attack on the glassworks, she had reached the northern boroughs of Grent. Church bells rang, people crowding the streets, rumors spreading faster than wildfire. The duke was already dead, one man claimed. The Ossan surprise attack had failed entirely, another shouted. Some people screamed and panicked, while others stood on their doorsteps and stared toward the smoke rising to the east, loudly positing that this was all some sort of mistake.
Thessa stopped only long enough to ask for news from passersby. None of it was helpful, and yet she kept moving. She’d been given a mission. She intended on carrying it out. She found herself staring at the sky, looking for Ekhi’s familiar silhouette circling above the glassworks far behind her. His absence felt like a hole in her gut. He was, she realized, the last thing she had from home, given to her as a chick when she apprenticed with Kastora ten years ago. He’d been her companion ever since.
By noon she had reached the suburbs. Roads turned into dirt tracks, tenements giving way to houses, which gave way to farmsteads. She walked for miles, her feet hurting in her heavy siliceer’s boots, her apron discarded so as not to so candidly give away her profession. She had no money, no godglass, and no papers. She was exhausted and scared, but she forced herself to keep her eyes up and her shoulders squared. If she walked with purpose, she would be less likely to be questioned.
She couldn’t cry for Ekhi. Not yet. Her plan was simple: follow the cobbled highway all the way around Ossa and enter the city from the north, where she was less likely to be questioned. She might have to sleep under a hedge for a night or two, but it should be safe.
It was getting into the late afternoon when she came over a hill to see a small group blocking the road just below her. It was a large family, perhaps twenty people all told – mostly children and the elderly. They had three wagons, all piled with what looked to be their worldly possessions. The last of these wagons was stuck in the ditch at the bottom of the hill, one wheel sunken deep into the mud. The four healthy adults and their ox couldn’t get the cart unstuck.
The children and elderly stared back toward the smoke rising from Grent, wringing their hands nervously. Refugees then, fleeing the city at the outbreak of the fighting.