Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
E arly the next morning, before I had to be at Bertrand’s for my first day of falconer apprenticeship, I stood before The Hoof and Saddle.
Gayelette had told me this was where I could find the O’Donnellys, but instead of knocking as instructed, I stared at the front door frozen in place. And it wasn’t due to the cold, though the wind was biting my nose and cheeks.
I’d spent the night tossing and turning, trying to decide if the ends justified the means, but I could see no other way around. There would be no escaping Little Alabaster and getting back to The Hollow without the help of locals who knew how to get us out. We needed them. But damned if I didn’t feel exposed going to strangers who could as easily turn us in for a reward.
This would be the biggest risk I’d taken so far. I had to trust that the flower-woman Whisper had been straight with me and that I could walk into this place to ask a group of total strangers to smuggle me and Moll out of here less than a week after an attempt had been made on the king’s life…By a woman.
Surely that was a suspicious ask. What was to stop them from turning me in? Honor among thieves, perhaps?
Perhaps not.
A shared hatred for the crown and everything it stood for?
I was banking our lives on it.
I rapped on the door three times, then two, then three again as instructed. A minute or so later, a slat of wood slid to the side, and one brown eye stared out at me.
“I’m here for the O'Donnellys, please.”
“Come on then,” a raspy voice answered, muffled by the layer of thick wood between us. The door swung open, and I stepped inside. The place was empty but for the man standing at the door. He was short, barely five feet, and he scowled up at me. “You going to stand there and let out all the heat or are you coming in?”
“Sorry, are they even here?”
He let out a grumble and tugged me inside before slamming the door shut and locking it.
“In back.”
I let my eyes adjust to the dim light before I carefully made my way in the direction he’d pointed. Once I got closer to the open door in the back of the tavern, I could hear low, animated voices.
I peeked my head in the room to find four men gathered around a billiards table.
“The locks are too well-crafted. It’s going to take a lot longer than you think just to get inside.” A red-cheeked hulk of a man took a gulp from his pint, which looked like a child’s cup in his ham-like hands.
A bald guy with a lean face and thick-framed glasses stepped forward, gripping his pool stick. “I say we–”
A crack rang through the room as the larger brother gave him a whack upside the head without spilling a single drop of his pint. “No one cares what you think, Jacob.”
The smaller man—Jacob apparently—reeled, dropping his stick as his hand went to his face. He stared up, defiant as he fixed his now twisted glasses. “Remind me again, when did we vote on you being our de facto leader, Scotty?”
The third man let out a raucous laugh. A teenage boy stood at his side, silent, eyes wide at the interaction. “Like anyone would pick that chickenshit to lead.” Closer in height to red-cheeks, the third man who’d spoken actually fit the bill of a proper smuggler—at least in looks. Dark curls with a hint of auburn hung just above emerald eyes, and he had a roguish smile that pulled it all together.
I cleared my throat and four sets of eyes snapped toward me in unison. “Are you the O'Donnellys, then?”
The largest one—Scotty—looked me up and down as he set his pint on the pool table.
“You’re the chit trying to get back to The Hollow, yeah?” He leaned forward. “Gayelette mentioned you might be coming.”
I swallowed hard, sparing a quick glance behind me. The lone bartender was still in the other room, keeping his nose out of our business. Just to be safe, I strode a bit closer before replying.
“Yeah,” I kept my voice low in hopes they followed suit. “My friend and I need to get out of here and back to The Hollow as soon as possible.”
The bespectacled Jacob rubbed at a wispy, flesh-colored beard I’d not seen at a distance, his eyes thoughtful. “Tough time for jobs like this… when do you need to be out by?”
“As soon as possible. I have family waiting on the other side. We just came here to—” I stopped short at a wave of the hand from big Scotty.
“Save it. We don’t care about any of that. The less we know the better. Just tell us when the soonest you can leave is, and we’ll tell you what it’s going to cost you.”
I blinked. “Um, we could leave as soon as tonight. As far as payment goes, I don’t have cash, but I do have something of value.” I paused briefly, pulling the prince’s pocket watch from my pocket. It caught the light, and they all leaned forward a little, the gold beckoning them as surely as bees to honey.
Jacob narrowed his eyes, gesturing for me to approach. I did, staying alert as the smugglers eyed the gold watch with greedy, gold-lusting eyes.
What was to stop them from just taking it? Not much.
It wasn’t a question I was new to asking. A few months in the Hollow would be enough for even a fool to pick up on the ‘law of the coin’; you’d always be better off assuming others will do what nets them the most coin rather than to take them at their word. It was a simple enough premise, but it had served me well over the years, even if it left me more than a little jaded.
It’d be bad for word-of-mouth business if they just stole the watch from me, but that was assuming I made it out of this alive. With that said, they had no way of knowing whether I’d shared my whereabouts with others before coming here. Surely it wouldn’t be worth the risk. I sucked in a breath and held it out, trusting my gut.
It wasn’t like I had a lot of options.
Jacob flipped the watch over and his eyes widened as he inspected it more closely, smacking the largest smuggler’s hand away disdainfully. Then, he glared at me. He pushed the timepiece back into my hand, shaking his as if trying to rid himself of its taint. “You would be so stupid as to bring this here?”
I tried to push the watch back toward him. “It’s a valuable piece, pure gold, surely it’s worth?—”
“We don’t want anything to do with jewelry stolen from the royals,” he snapped.
I flinched, sparing a glance over my shoulder as I shushed him.
The handsome one chimed in. “Stealing from the royals, huh?” He flashed a crooked smile, and looked me up and down, as if taking my measure. “I like your moxie, but it’s going to be a lot of trouble to get rid of something like that, especially at a time like this—you know, with all the trouble they’re having right now.”
“Don’t sugar-coat it, Paddy,” Jacob pushed up his glasses. “It’d be downright insane for us to buy it. No buyer in their right mind would even consider taking it off our hands.”
“What if we filed the markings away?” Paddy grabbed the watch and flipped it over.
“As if someone wouldn’t recognize the quality? Billy’d have us killed if we tried some shit like that, you idiot.” Big Scotty reached out to cuff Paddy in the ear, but he dipped under it, leaping from his barstool to stand, still clutching his own pint.
He took a big swig, flashing me a wink as he stepped just out of reach of a follow up strike from the larger smuggler. He spun, chuckling. “Once a chicken, always a chicken, I suppose. If you’re worried about being found out, how about we melt it down and sell it that way?”
Scotty grunted, scrunching up his face in thought for a long moment before shrugging. “As long as you’re gonna be the one to get it melted then do as you please, but once you take the glass and all away, it’s a small hunk of gold. Won’t get her far. It’s in the fancy workings of a Whisper made watch where the value is.”
Whisper made. Fuck.
Jacob’s eyes met mine as he cut in. “Scotty is right, for once. If I had to guess, it’ll cover about half of one person’s fare, assuming you have nothing else to offer us.”
“Could I give you something on the other side?” I said, my hands beginning to feel clammy. This was going to be way more expensive than I thought, and I was running out of options. “I’m an inventor, I have plenty of stuff–”
Scotty waved me off. “We’ve been through that enough times to know it’s more trouble than it’s worth. You Hollowers are both broke and crafty and we aren’t going to be chasing you down. We’re smugglers, not debt collectors.”
“What can you do for us here , if you’re such a great inventor?” the teenage boy spoke finally, drawing my eyes to him. The smallest of the bunch, he shot Scotty a nervous glance. Judging by his appearance he couldn’t have been older than thirteen.
I nodded to him, thinking fast. “Well…when I walked in you were saying something about struggling with some kind of lock.” I paused, thinking out loud. “If you pay me some for the watch, I could use the money to build you a lockpick based on one that I invented. I have yet to meet the lock she couldn’t break.” The old one hadn’t gotten me into the palace church, but the new version that I could already see in my head was going to be twice as good, so it wasn’t a lie so much as a…promise of sorts. “What are you trying to open, anyway?”
Scotty raised a thick eyebrow. “And why would we go telling you that, lass? If you want to make it in the underworld you should learn to keep questions to yourself.”
I drew back, raising my hands in an exaggerated apology. He might be acting tough but judging by the intrigued looks on their collective faces, I knew I’d stumbled onto something important to them. Whatever it was they were trying to unlock, it was worth at least as much as passage for two to The Hollow.
“If it works as well as you say,” Jacob began, eyes narrowing again, “Then we would pay you good money for it. If it works.”
My heart began to beat a little faster. This could work. But I had to be careful. “Enough to get me and my friend back home?”
The four smugglers turned to each other and closed ranks, whispering quietly amongst themselves for a long moment. It was Paddy who spoke as they turned back to face me.
“You bring us a lockpick like you say you can, and aye…we’ll give you passage to The Hollow for two…”
I nodded, hope bursting upward and I fought to keep the triumph off my face. “It’s a deal then. I don’t have the supplies, and it will take me a couple of days to make.” Smitty was kind enough, but he’d make me work for my space in his forge. “I’d like to get started as soon as possible. How quickly do you think we would be able to melt down and offload the pocket watch?”
Could I have melted it down for them at Smitty’s place? Sure, but that was more time I’d have to trade for. Besides, the quicker I got it off my hands, the better. Whisper made…could be tracked possibly, and better that they had it than me.
Paddy waved my concerns off, not even glancing at the others. “Give the girl an advance. The sooner she can get the project done, the better. Things are getting hot around here. We can’t risk waiting any longer…”
Scotty scowled, but waved me closer with a grunt, even as he reached for the watch on the pool table. He scooped it up. “We’ll get rid of it. I’d say it’s worth…” He paused, turning to Jacob, who whispered something in his ear. “Fifty marks.”
I gritted my teeth the moment he said it, as I would have no matter what number he gave me. Bartering…you never took the first offer, even though fifty marks would have been plenty to get what I needed. “Geez…It’s going to be tough to do it for so little. I have a lot of stuff to buy for this to work right.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then grunted. “Seventy-five. And don’t even think about running off with the money. I know I said we weren’t debt collectors, but this deal here is different. You’re on our turf. No matter where you go, our people will find you. There’s nowhere here in Little Alabaster out of the O'Donnellys’ reach.”
I held out my hand, and his engulfed mine. “Deal.” Seventy-five was a good deal, and with no other way of getting back home, I would see this through.
Paddy flashed me a final wink before striding off and disappearing through a side door with the young, quiet one in tow.
I left the tavern a few minutes later, seventy-five marks richer, and let out a long breath. The path ahead was finally clear. If all went well, Moll and I would have our ticket home within a few days’ time. We just had to make it through those few days.
My mood was the highest it had been all week as I bustled down the alley…right up until I smacked face-first into a wall of muscle. Strong hands caught me as I staggered back to see Prince Duncan Westerly’s piercing gray eyes looking back at me.
“Hell…Ella? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” Every muscle in my body seemed to tense up at once, going into full fight-or-flight mode. I held it back as much as I could, taking a quick account of the situation. Had he tracked his watch to me?
Fucking hell.
Despite the rush of anxiety, I wasn’t doing anything overtly wrong. For all he knew, I was just a servant visiting a shop in The Smudge on my time off. Nothing weird or incriminating, except my reaction. I steadied my voice as much as I could manage, continuing, “What are you doing here?”
A cart rolled up behind Duncan and I craned my neck sideways to see Sir Crispin Locke hobbling up beside him.
Duncan reached into the cart and pulled out a basket full of food. Bread, fruit, some wrapped up items I couldn’t identify. “There was some leftover food from the palace meal after the amphitheater event, and we decided to bring some down here.”
A sexy prince who also fed those less fortunate? Damn. It was getting harder and harder to dislike the man.
“I’m happy to see you up and walking around, Sir Crispin,” I said, turning away from the prince and dipping my head in greeting to the guard. “You… didn’t deserve what happened out there, in the ring.”
I wanted to bite my tongue off. Who said something like that about the king…in front of his brother, no less?
But Crispin just shrugged. “We don’t always get what we deserve, do we? If only we did.”
Prince Duncan turned and smiled. “Anyway, it was nice to see you…Ella. But we’ve got to go. My timepiece seems to have disappeared, as if into thin air. I’m headed to the shops to replace it.”
His eyes drilled into mine and I cleared my throat, determined not to let my guilt show.
“What a shame. Those things have a habit of turning up in the strangest places, so who knows?”
He cocked his head, dark brows furrowed but his eyes never left mine. “I have a gut feeling it won’t, but you’re right, who can say?”
Okay, so he wasn’t above yanking my chain over his suspicion that I’d taken his watch, which meant he wasn’t all angel. But how much of him was devil? Then again, he wasn’t having me clapped in irons, so there was that. Maybe a bit more angel than devil.
My mind shot back to our near kiss on the dance floor and my pulse skittered like I’d touched a storm bug. Duncan’s keen eyes seemed to miss nothing as his gaze trailed to that very spot in my neck that danced with my heartbeat and his tongue touched his upper lip.
“Anyway,” I chirped, cringing at the shrill tone of my voice. “I’d better be off, but I’m sure I’ll see you…around.” I flapped my hand in their direction like the chicken I was before scurrying off.
Once back through the shroud between The Smudge and Little Alabaster, I veered away from the porcelain white pathway, and headed toward the palace grounds, deep in thought. Having the prince on my side had been a boon so far, but there were a lot of potential pitfalls. Would he recognize me eventually, if he hadn’t already? Would I slip and say or do something to give myself away? But the most dangerous of all…
If we were ever somewhere alone…truly alone…and he made good on the gleaming promise in his eyes, would I have the strength to turn him away? Something deep inside me already knew the answer, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I was still thinking about it as I was ushered through the gates, and made my way to the hut…only to find it empty except for Fetch.
He gave a clack of his beak, and my stomach flopped like a dying fish.
“Moll?”
A peal of familiar laughter sounded from behind the house, and I rushed to the back door and yanked it open. There she was, sitting in the grass across from a young girl, both legs crossed in front of her as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Hey, Ella!” Moll smiled up at me. Speaking.
Speaking in front of someone other than me.