“Yesh, renowned,” said Locke, grinning stupidly. His belly was warm, his head seemed not to weigh an ounce, and his intentions were disconnected from his actual movements by a heartbeat interval. He was aware that, if not already drunk, he was headed for it like a dart thrown at a wall.
“Now, Locke,” said Chains, his voice seeming to come from a distance, “I’ve a few things to discuss with these three. Perhaps you’d like to get to bed early tonight.”
A sharp pang pierced the bubble of warm contentment that had all but swallowed him. Go to bed early? Leave the company of Sabetha, whose blurry loveliness he was fixating on, barely managing to grudge himself the time required to blink every now and then?
“Um,” he said. “Wha?”
“It wasn’t a request, Locke,” said Chains gently. “You’ve a busy evening tomorrow, I can assure you, and you need all the sleep you can get.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’ll see.” Chains rose, moved around the table, and carefully took Locke’s empty glass from his hand. Locke looked down in surprise, having forgotten that he’d been holding it. “Off you go.”
A tiny part of Locke’s mind, the cold wariness that had been his sentry in Shades’ Hill, realized Chains had long planned to send him, happily befuddled, to an early rest. Even through his wine-induced haze, that stung. He’d been feeling more and more at home, but no sooner had Sabetha walked through the door than it was Streets and Windows all over again, and he was packed off to some dark corner without the privileges enjoyed by the older children.
“I,” he muttered, taking his eyes off Sabetha for the first time in several minutes, but directing his voice at her. “I will. But … I’m g-glad you’re here.” He felt the urge to say something else, something weighty and witty that would turn that beautiful head of hers and fix her attention to him, a mirror of his own. But even drunk he knew he was more likely to pull rubies out of his ass than he was to speak as older people spoke, with words that were somehow careful and powerful and right. “Sabetha,” he half mumbled.
“Thanks,” she said, looking at the table.
“I mean, I knew … you knew I meant you, Sabetha … sorry. I just … I’m glad you’re not drowned, you know.”
More than anything, at that moment, he just wanted to hear her say his name, call him anything but “him” or “the Lamora Boy.” Acknowledge his existence … their partnership in Chains’ gang … gods, he would exile himself to bed early every night if he could just hear his name come out from between those thin lips of hers.
“Good night,” she said.
4
LOCKE WOKE the next day feeling as though the contents of his skull had been popped out and replaced upside-down.
“Here,” said one of the Sanzas, who happened to be sitting next to Locke’s cot with a book on his lap. The Sanza (Locke, muddled as he was, could not quite identify which one) passed over a wooden cup of water. It was lukewarm but clean, and Locke gulped it down without delicacy, marveling at how parched he felt.
“What time is it?” he croaked when he was finished.
“Must be past noon.”
“Noon? But … my chores …”
“No real work today.” The Sanza stretched and yawned. “No arithmetic. No Catch-the-Duke. No languages. No dancing.”
“No sitting the steps,” yelled the other Sanza from the next room. “No swordplay. No knots and ropes. No coins.”
“No music,” said the Sanza with the book. “No manners. No history. No bloody heraldry.”
“What are we doing, then?”
“Calo and I are to make sure you can stand up straight,” said the Sanza with the book. “Nail you to a plank if we have to.”
“And when that’s done, you’re to do all the dishes.”
“Sabetha …” Locke rubbed his eyes and rolled off his cot. “She’s really one of us?”
“Course she is,” said the Sanza with the book.
“Is she … here right now?”
“Nah. Out with Chains. Looking into things for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“Dunno. All’s we know is the afternoon; and the afternoon, far as you’re concerned, is dishes.”
5
THOUGH ENERGETIC enough when set a task, Calo and Galdo were virtuosos of laziness when left to their own devices. Between subtle interference and overt clowning, they managed to stretch the half hour Locke would ordinarily have needed to tend the dishes into nearly three hours. By the time the secret door to the temple above banged shut behind the returning Father Chains, Locke’s fingers were wrinkled and bleached from the alchemical polish he’d been using on the silver.
“Ah,” said Chains. “Good, good. You look more or less among the living. Feeling spry?”
“I suppose,” said Locke.
“We’ve a job tonight. Housebreaking. Windows work, and most of it on your little shoulders.” Chains patted his broad belly and smirked. “I parted ways with climbing and scampering some time ago.”
“Windows work?” said Locke, the drudgery of his long afternoon in the kitchen instantly forgotten. “I … I’d love to. But I thought you, um, didn’t do that sort of thing.”
“For its own sake, not usually. But I need to find some things out about you, Locke.”
“Oh, good.” Locke felt his excitement cool slightly. “Another test. When do they stop?”
“When you’re buried, my boy.” Chains knelt and gave Locke a friendly squeeze on the back of his neck. “When you’re under the dirt and colder than a fish’s tits. That’s when it stops. Now listen.
“I’ve got a tip from a friend at Meraggio’s.” Chains bustled about the kitchen, snatching up chalk and one of the slates the children used for their lessons. He sketched on it rapidly. “Seems a certain olive merchant is looking to marry his useless son to a noble wife. To sweeten the deal sufficiently, he’ll need to put his family splendids back into circulation.”
“What’s that mean?” said Locke.
“Means he needs to sell his jewels and things,” said Calo.
“Sharp lad. About an hour ago, the merchant’s man left the countinghouse with a lot of nice old things in a bag. He’s staying at a townhouse in the Razona; just him and two guards. The old man and a bigger retinue are coming in from his estate tomorrow. So tonight we have a bit of an opportunity.”
“Why us?” Locke’s excitement was tempered with genuine puzzlement. “If he’s only got two guards, anyone who wanted to could go in there with a gang.”
“Never in life,” said Chains, chuckling. “Barsavi won’t have it. The Razona’s a quiet district where doors don’t get kicked in. That’s the Peace. Anybody breaks it, they’re liable to have their precious bits cut off and stitched to their eyeballs. So instead of sending in brutes through the door, we send a quiet type through the window.”
Chains turned the slate toward Calo, Galdo, and Locke. The top half was taken up by a rough diagram of houses and their surrounding streets and alleys. Beneath that was a sketch of a necklace, with large ovoid shapes dangling from a thick central collar. Chains tapped one of his fingers against this sketch.
“One piece,” he said. “That’s all we’re after. One from twenty or so, and they won’t have time to put up much of a fuss about it. A gold necklace with nine hanging emeralds. Pop out the stones, send them nine different directions, and melt down the gold. Untraceable profit.”
“How do we do it?” asked Locke.
“Well, that’s half the fun.” Chains scratched at his chin. “You said yourself, it’s a test. You’ll be working with Sabetha, since she’s had more experience at this sort of thing. Calo and Galdo will be your top-eyes; that is, watching the area to cover your ass. I’ll be on the ground nearby, but I won’t be directly involved. My crooked little wonders get to sort the rest out for themselves.”