Rhinzen opened it and poured fourteen platinum suns, feather-light and gleaming, into his palm. "And this is what I required," he said, sliding the coins into the secret compartment.
"Don't spend it all in one place, dreamkisser," Ferremo said as he headed toward the window. "A pleasure doing business with you."
"A pleasure indeed," answered Rhinzen. In an offhanded way, he added, "How is your master handling the city? I understand it's most uncomfortable for his kind."
Ferremo froze. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Dear boy, are you slow as well as tacky?" Rhinzen said mildly. "It means I know who your patron is."
"I haven't kept it from you."
"The important bits, lovac." Ferremo scowled. Rhinzen added, "And, more importantly, I believe I've worked out what it is you're planning on doing. This isn't about coin."
"Who ever said it was?"
"You certainly implied it," Rhinzen said, slipping his overcloak on. "But what you want is priceless, isn't it?"
Ferremo didn't answer, his head down, still studying the directions.
"You'll never get it out," Rhinzen said. "There will be wards besides mine. Ahghairon's-"
"We aren't planning to get it out," Ferremo said. "She isn't going to give it up, that much is true. So we'll have to take something she'll trade for it."
Rhinzen started to say that was a fool's errand-he was talking about one of the most valuable items in Waterdeep and one of the shrewdest women. There wasn't a device, weapon, gem, or spell that would make such a trade happen.
Then he remembered. There was one thing that was more valuable to Nazra Mrays. More valuable by far. For the first time since the dragon's assassin had shown up asking for information on Sea Ward homes, Rhinzen's heart fell.
It is too late for this, he thought. You have the coin. You earned the coin. The boy is none of your concern.
It did not quell the guilt.
The lovac's copper teeth glinted in the warm light. "You'll keep your mouth shut, Master Halnian. Lest you want your shiny name dragged through the muck."
There was a knock at the door. Ferremo's whole being tensed. Rhinzen waved his concerns away. "One of my apprentices," he said. "Come in."
The door opened to admit a young man with brown hair and pleasant, regular features-Cassian Lafornan.
"Master Halnian? Your carriage is ready. And Master Kellan is waiting."
Rhinzen smiled politely and fought the urge to send Cassian back downstairs with the message that Master Kellan could wait until Mystra came back, he didn't care. But he'd agreed to share a carriage with the halfling wizard to the evenfeast.
"Very well, tell him I'll be down in a moment. While I'm gone, I want you and Jihar to catalog the alchemical salts-make certain we have enough of the copper, in particular. Have someone rework the enchantments on the lights in the entry; they're going dim. And please remind Tennora to clean up the library before she goes home."
Cassian cleared his throat. "Um, sir, you let Tennora go."
Had he? Godsdamnit, Rhinzen thought. He had to cut back on the haepthum-as invigorating as it could be, he couldn't be caught with it. "Well then, I suspect the library is already in fine shape. Run along."
As Cassian left, Rhinzen turned back to Ferremo, who Cassian hadn't even noticed standing in the shadows. This time he chalked it up to the assassin's skill rather than his apprentice's inobservance.
"Ferremo?" Rhinzen said. "Do be gentle with him."
The assassin tipped his head. "Until next time, Master Halnian."
SIX
The next morning, the sun broke through the clouds long enough to give the people of Waterdeep a little hope of a pleasant day. Puddles of rainwater still pooled in the low spots of the cobbles and the patches of missing pavers. A scrap of fog clung to the God Catcher's shoulder, but it was rapidly burning off. The handful of people coming and going across the street of the God Catcher still wore their stormcloaks, in case the clouds changed their minds.
Tennora had spent the early hours of the morning attempting to open the lock of her door with the set of rusty picks from the bottom of her mother's trunk, while Nestrix leaned over her shoulder.
"You're doing it wrong," she said, as Tennora managed to snap three of the picks off in the lock. "I thought you said you were a thief."
"No," Tennora said. "You said I was a thief. I'm about to say I'm not going to help you anymore if you don't sit down." She sighed and examined the lock. "This isn't working-the picks are all corroded. We need fresh ones."
There were probably plenty of people in Waterdeep who could tell Tennora where the best place to buy lockpicks was. She only knew one-Mardin.
And just because he could didn't mean he would. Not for the first time, Tennora thought about plunging into the seedier areas of Waterdeep herself and ferreting out the sort of shop that would sell her lockpicks. Whether that would be better or worse than the lecture she was risking from Mardin… She paced a little bit before the door-rehearsing what she was going to say, how she was going to say it.
Nestrix would not have made things easier-she was as like to threaten Mardin as anything. Even if she were silent as a tomb, her presence would make Mardin overreact. Tennora told her to wait in the apartment and handed her a new stack of books to read, before heading out to Mardin's hearth-house.
Mardin was sitting at a table in front of the hearth-house's fire, his ledgers spread open in front of him when Tennora came in. She shut the door gently behind her.
"How the trembling Hells do we go through so much bacon?" he muttered to himself.
"Mardin?"
He looked up, and a smile broke over his face. "Good morning, petal. Looking for a slake? I can have Han fry up something." He started to stand. "Or lessons? Had we planned on you practicing? Let me get-"
"No, no. Nothing like that." She sat in the seat opposite him.
His smile fell into a worried frown. "What is it? Your aunt giving you grief? That brightbird of yours get you into trouble?"
Tennora sighed. "Mardin, I don't have a lover. And no, I'm not 'in trouble,' whatever you mean by that."
"All right, all right. Just making sure your sails are straight. Just seemed like maybe you and that fellow passing notes…" He raised his eyebrows.
Tennora frowned. "What fellow?"
"Nice half-orc. Wore a cloak. In here the other night, asking if I knew where you lived." Mardin put his quill back in the inkpot. "Figured you'd broken his heart and he was looking to beg you to fix it up. I don't judge if it makes you happy, petal." He gave her a particularly avuncular look. "You could do a lot worse."
Tennora sighed. Mardin was trying to protect her, she knew. But how was nagging her about finding a beau any different than Aunt Aowena nagging her about paying attention to her friends' sons in hopes she'd wed one? And she hoped she could do better than a strange half-orc…
"Wait," she said. "On the fifth? After I left?"
"Yes. Said he was worried about you."
The one who'd given her the leaflet. The one who had warned her about Nestrix.
"That wasn't a love note. Have you seen him around since then?"
"Neither hide nor hair," Mardin said. "You want me to keep an eye out for him?"
"Please. And don't let him tell you he knows me."
Mardin's eyes twinkled darkly, reminding Tennora he'd once been a bit of a tough in his younger days. She wondered if she asked him just exactly how he'd known her mother, he would tell her tales not of escaping monsters in the wilds but of second-story jobs and outsmarting guards.
"What was it you wanted to talk about?" he said.
"I… I'm a little short of coin," she said. "I need-"
"How much do you need?"
"No," she said. "I don't want to borrow anything. I need to sell some things. Some of my mother's things."