13. Settling Debts #2
“Back in your hutches, all of you. Haven’t you ever seen a domestic dispute before? Go on, before I tell your wives where you actually spent the evening.”
There was no point in running. Not with the Watch already hailed and the stairs blocked.
Gabriel sank onto the edge of the mattress, where smoke still rose from the scorched patch where the thermal lance had nearly cooked them in their sleep.
Miles sat beside him, accepting the corner of the sheet Gabriel offered to staunch the cut on his hairline.
“Do we need your... friends?” Gabriel asked, pitching his voice below the murmurs of the crowd as Mistress Riding shooed the gawkers out. He didn’t say The Order , but the capital letters hung heavy in the air .
Miles shook his head, wincing as he pressed the cotton to his temple. “No need to burn favors. We have something better.” He offered Gabriel a bloody-minded grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Lord Fairfield.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Well, fuck him sideways. He didn’t need a secret vigilante society.
He didn’t need to hide in the shadows. He was Lord Gabriel Fairfield now.
In Averdon, gold and a title were the universal solvents for blood.
As long as they didn’t mention Vellast as the likely impetus behind this attack—as long as they didn’t turn this into a messy inter-noble squabble—this was just a lord defending himself against common ruffians.
The assassin bleeding out on the rug certainly wasn’t going to talk; he knew what happened to loose ends who tried to point a finger at men like Vellast.
It was sickening. It was unjust. It was incredibly convenient.
Twenty minutes later, the room was empty of everything but the smell of ozone and copper.
The City Watch had stomped in, changed their expressions at the first mention of “Lord Fairfield,” taken a good look at the purse Lord Fairfield tossed them, and decided it was an open-and-shut case of self-defense against a robbery gone wrong.
The bodies were hauled out like sacks of grain.
The survivor was dragged off, limp and silent, to a cell he likely wouldn’t survive the night in.
Mistress Riding stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her bosom. She looked at the bloodstain soaking into the floorboards, then at the ruined bed and nightstand, and finally at the two of them.
She let out a long, weary sigh, the kind usually reserved for spilled milk or a child who refused to eat their vegetables.
“I expect this sort of rowdiness from the sailors in the common room, but I thought you two were gentlemen.”
“Mistress Riding,” Gabriel started, clutching his robe, “We were attacked—”
“I can see that. And you made a terrible mess of it. That’s the second time you’ve trashed this room,” she said flatly.
“I’m putting the restoration on your bill.
And the cleaning fee is double for blood.
Triple for... whatever those bits are.” She gestured at the rug.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get red wine out of wool?”
“It was—” Miles started, looking at the Sunmere bottle shards, looking like a schoolboy caught with a slingshot .
“I don’t want to hear it.” She gave them both a stern, appraising look, clearly reassessing what sort of guests she’d let into her establishment. “Clean yourselves up. You look like frightened raccoons. I’ll send a boy with a bucket once you’ve come down.”
“Agreed,” Gabriel said. He was just glad she wasn’t giving them the boot. “Add it to our account.”
She turned to leave, her slippers shuffling softly on the wood, then paused.
“And next time,” she added, “try to keep the killing in the hallway. There are no rugs out there. Much easier to wipe down.” She closed the door behind her as she left.
Wordlessly, they resumed their spot on the edge of the bed. The smell of burnt feathers and copper hung thick in the air, mingling with the acrid tang of ozone from the caster’s failed spell.
Neither of them moved.
Miles sat beside him, smeared blood drying halfway down his face. The wound had stopped bleeding, and his hands had stopped shaking, but his eyes remained fixed on the dark stain on the floorboards where the caster had fallen.
“We knew,” Miles said finally, his voice rough. “We knew Vellast knew where we were staying. We should have changed inns after the party. Or after the first attack.”
Gabriel shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“We could have—”
“He found us here in the first place, Miles. He knew when we were at the manor yesterday. He’s having us watched.
” Gabriel pulled the dressing gown tighter around himself, silk sticking to cooling sweat.
“If we’d moved to a different inn, he’d have found that one too.
The man has informants, money, and apparently an inexhaustible supply of expendable thugs.
You set a ward. This time Vellast sprang for a mage strong enough to dismantle it. ”
“So, what do you suggest? Keep sleeping in shifts until he runs out of hired killers?”
“I suggest we deal with him.” Gabriel turned to look at his partner, watching the way Miles’s throat worked around something that wanted to come up. “Permanently.”
Miles closed his eyes. His hand trembled against the bloodied sheet. “ Gabriel—”
“He’s not going to stop.” Gabriel kept his voice steady, though something cold and fluttering had invaded his chest. “I offered him a deal. Silence for silence. He responded by sending a caster to burn us alive in our beds. That’s not a man interested in negotiation.”
“I just—” Miles’s voice cracked. He pressed the heel of his free hand against his eye socket, breathing hard. “We did this before, with Madaze. And it was a bloody mess. Worth it—always worth it—but as good as I am at the killing, there’s only so much—”
“I know.”
“I can still hear the bottle hitting his face.”
“I know.” Gabriel reached over and took Miles’s free hand, threading their fingers together.
The grip was clammy. Both of them were running cold with shock and adrenaline crash.
“We’ll have our shaking fit later. Both of us.
I’m sure it’ll be spectacular—tears, possibly vomiting, definitely some ill-advised alcohol consumption. But right now, I need you to hear me.”
Miles opened his eyes. They were red-rimmed, wet at the corners.
“Vellast is too stupid and too venal to deal in subtleties,” Gabriel continued.
“Even Madaze used to complain about it. Said the man’s vast inherited wealth was his only asset as a partner.
That and his willingness to get his hands dirty with the procurement side of things.
He’s not going to accept a stalemate. He’s not going to let us walk away with his ledgers and his diamonds.
Even if I handed them both back and promised to open the damned basement again…
It’s too late for that, even if we could stomach it.
He’s going to keep sending men until one of them gets lucky, and then he’s going to stand over our corpses and congratulate himself on his business acumen. ”
Miles was quiet for a long moment. Then: “You’re saying we have to kill another lord.”
“I’m saying we have to end this. One way or another.” Gabriel squeezed his hand. “Or—we reconsider my earlier suggestion.”
Miles blinked. “What?”
“Flee to Averly’s surrounding islands. Component diving.
Take on new identities.” Gabriel’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“You dismissed it before because we would be discovered fleeing from the damned summons if we booked a government Aethership. But Miles, the playing field has changed. You showed me that just now. I hadn’t even thought of it before.
I’d only focused on getting rid of the fucking title but—”
“I don’t—”
“This morning, we killed three men in a crowded inn, and the Watch apologized for the inconvenience while they dragged the bodies out.” Gabriel gestured at the ruined room with his free hand.
“Six months ago, that would have been a murder charge without the Order pulling some invisible strings. Today? ‘Terribly sorry for the disturbance, Lord Fairfield. Will there be anything else, Lord Fairfield?’”
Understanding dawned in Miles’s eyes, followed by something more complicated.
“I don’t need to hire passage,” Gabriel said.
“I own Aetherships. Several of them. Madaze’s primary business was shipping.
He had plenty of river vessels for the interior trade where the wyrms can’t go, but most of his cargo went by air.
They might be frozen assets, but you know damned well we can talk or bully one of the captains with my lordliness.
Or find one disaffected or broke enough to be bribed into going pirate.
We could take any one of those ships, the diamonds, and disappear.
Leave Averdon, leave Vellast, leave the whole rotten mess behind us. ”
Miles stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.” Gabriel held his gaze. “So, I’m asking you. Seriously. Is that what you want?”
The question settled between them. Miles’s expression shifted—calculation, hope, fear, longing—all of it flickering across his features in rapid succession.
“Is it what you want?” Miles asked finally.
Gabriel considered the question. Really considered it, turning it over in his mind like a gem held up to uncertain light.
The smart thing would be to run like he’d wanted to since that letter had first arrived.
Take an Aethership and vanish into the archipelagoes.
Start fresh somewhere Vellast’s reach would be hard-pressed to follow.
It was the survivor’s choice. The choice the old Gabriel would have made without hesitation.
But.
“No,” he said, and the word surprised him even as it left his mouth. “I don’t want to run.”
Miles’s eyebrows rose .