“Yes,” said Chains. “It was a game you couldn’t win. A situation that finds us all, sooner or later.”
“No,” said Locke, feeling his anger warm him from his head to his toes. “It was all wrong!”
“He did it to us too, once,” said Calo, grabbing his right arm. “Gods, we wanted to die, it was so bad.”
“He did it to all of us,” said Sabetha, and Locke whirled at the sound of her voice. She was standing in a corner, arms folded, studying him with a combination of interest and unease. “He’s right. We had to know if you could do it.”
“And you did superbly,” said Chains. “You did better than we could have—”
“It wasn’t fair,” shouted Locke. “It wasn’t a fair test! There was no way to win!”
“That’s life,” said Chains. “That’s your one sure inheritance as flesh and blood. Nobody wins all the time, Locke.”
Locke shook himself free from Calo’s grasp and stood on the table, so that he actually had to look down to meet Chains eye to eye.
Gods, he’d thought Sabetha was gone once, and he’d rejoiced to find her alive. Then he’d been sent to kill her. That was the rage, he realized, burning like a coal behind his heart. For a few terrible minutes Chains had made him believe that he would have to lose her all over again. Narrowed his world to one awful choice and made him feel helpless.
“I will never lose again.” He nodded slowly to himself, as though his words were the long-sought solution to some mathematical puzzle. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, not caring if he was heard across the length and breadth of the Razona.
“Do you hear me? I WILL NEVER LOSE AGAIN!”
CHAPTER TWO: THE BUSINESS
1
“MERCIFUL GODS,” SAID Locke. To Jean’s eyes, he seemed genuinely taken aback. “Your actual flesh-and-blood son? By, ah, traditional means?”
“I certainly didn’t brew him in a cauldron.”
“Well, come now,” said Locke, “as though we’d know one way or the other—”
“There are no means but traditional means for such an undertaking.”
“Damn,” said Locke. “And I thought this was an awkward conversation before.”
“The Falconer’s heart is still beating. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”
“You expect us to believe that?” said Jean. His defensive instincts, sharpened over years of alternating triumphs and disasters, came hotly to life. Even if Patience chose to pose no immediate threat, surely wheels were turning somewhere inside her mind. “His friends would have killed us, but you can just wave the whole mess off with a sad smile?”
“You two didn’t get along,” said Locke.
“Very mildly put,” said Patience. She looked down at her feet, a gesture that struck Jean as totally outside her usual character. “Even before he earned his first ring … the Falconer was my antagonist in all philosophies, magical or otherwise. If our positions were reversed he certainly wouldn’t feel bound to vengeance on my account.”
Now Patience slowly raised her head until her dark eyes met Jean’s, and he was able to really study them for the first time. Certain people had what Jean privately thought of as archer’s eyes—a steady coolness, a detached precision. People with eyes like that could sort the world around them into targets, pick their first shot before those nearby even knew the time for talk had passed. Eyes like that had killers behind them, and Patience for-fucking-sure had a pair.
“He and I live with the consequences of the decisions we made before he took the contract in Camorr,” she said, her voice firm. “Whether or not I choose to explain those decisions is my business.”
“Fair enough,” said Jean, taking an instinctive half-step back and raising his hands.
“Indeed. Take it easy.” Locke stifled a cough. “Well, you could murder us, yet supposedly you don’t want to. Your son pickled his own mind, but you say you don’t really give a shit. So what’s the story, Patience? Why are you in Lashain, lending me your cloak?”
“I’ve come to offer the two of you a job.”
“A job?” Locke laughed, then broke into more painful-sounding coughs. “A job? I hope you need someone to line a casket for you, you poor Karthani witch, because that’s the only job I’m presently qualified for.”
“Until you finally lose the strength for sarcasm, Locke, I wouldn’t hire any mourners.”
“I’m on my way.” Locke pounded on his chest a few times. “Believe me, I’ve ducked out of paying this bill before, but this time I’m pretty sure the house is going to make me settle. You should have tried, I don’t know, not fucking revealing my plans to the gods-damned Archon of Tal Verrar so he could fucking well poison me! Maybe then my schedule for the immediate future would be a tad more … open.”
“I can remove the poison from your body.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds. Jean was dumbstruck, Locke merely scowled, and Patience let the words hang in the empty air without further adornment. The timbers of the roof creaked faintly at the touch of the wind.
“Bullshit,” Locke muttered at last.
“You keep presuming that my powers are infinite where they concern your discomfort. Why not credit me with an equivalent capacity to render aid?” Patience folded her arms. “Surely some of the black alchemists you consulted must have passed on hints …”
“I’m not talking about your damned sorcery. I mean, I see the game now. It’s bullshit. Act one, those Lashani bastards trash the place. Act two, a mysterious savior appears out of the night, and we buy whatever you’re selling. You arranged this whole mess.”
“I had nothing to do with Cortessa. Jean brought the Lashani down on your heads when he mishandled the physiker yesterday.”
“What an eminently reasonable excuse! Good gods, woman, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?” Locke erupted into a coughing fit, and just as quickly brought it under control by evident force of will. “I ought to know a setup when it lands right on top of my head!”
“Locke, calm down.” Jean felt his heartbeat all the way to the base of his throat. “Think about this for a moment.” It had to be a trick, a plan, a scheme of some sort, but by all the gods, what was that against the total certainty of death? Jean sent a silent plea to the Crooked Warden to give Locke just a few moments of lucid reason.
“I have no money,” said Locke. “No resources. No treasure. And I’m too sick now to even stand up. That leaves me just one single thing you can still take.”
“We need to consider—”
“You want my name, don’t you?” Locke’s voice was hoarse and teasing. He sounded triumphant at having something to fuel a real argument; evidently the god of thieves had no common sense available for lending at the moment. “You knock everything out from under me, then show up at the last minute, waving a reprieve. And all you’d need is my real name, right? Oh, you want leverage, that’s for sure. You haven’t forgiven anyone for what happened to the Falconer.”
“You’re dying,” said Patience. “Do you really think I’d take these pains just to turn the screws on you? Gods be gracious, how much more pressure could I possibly apply?”
“I believe you’d do anything, if you wanted your hooks in me bad enough.” Locke wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and Jean could see that his spit was blood-tinged. “I know a thing or two about revenge, and you have powers I can only dream of. So I must believe you’d do anything.”