Chapter Three. Gin #2
I head toward the grimy eastern quarter.
None of the streetlamps in the Sleeve are lit.
Most are broken, some are missing. Few of the houses have any lights on, and save for a bonfire here and there, it’s almost as dark as the woods at night.
A handful of men gathered around a small fire call out to me; one of them whistles.
I neither acknowledge nor run from them.
Running would show fear and I don’t want them to give chase. Luckily for me, they don’t.
Just yesterday I was living in a dream world with Rollo, and now, somehow, I’m alone in the Sleeve in the middle of the night, with nowhere to go, and not a single coin to my name.
Maybe I should have kept a few for myself before handing it all to Bahram.
It’s all surreal. I should have prepared for this, I knew it wouldn’t last, but after so many years on the run, I’d just wanted to rest. Although if I give in to my deepest, darkest feelings, I don’t care what happens to me anymore.
Yet I continue, one foot in front of the other, knowing the way simply by muscle memory.
After all that time at Madame Verona’s, meeting Rollo, and living another life, I’m right back where I began.
I’d worked so hard to get out, to try to have something better. All for nothing.
Perhaps it would have been more merciful for Rollo to let me hang.
The old shack lies back from the road, behind a copse of large trees.
Smoke billows out from the chimney. Dim light flickers in the single, four-paned window.
It would almost look cozy, if I didn’t know better.
I drag myself up to the front door. There’s a hand-painted sign on a scrap of old wood.
KNACKER: WILL DISPOSE OF ANIMAL CARCASSES.
He’s still using the same old front, then.
I hold my fist up to knock, hesitate, then tap on the wobbly door. If no one answers, I’ll leave, and at least be satisfied that I tried. “Hello?” I call. No one answers. But the door is unlocked and I let myself inside.
The place is a wreck. Aris was never the best housekeeper, but it was never quite this bad.
There are rusty buckets scattered around the ground, collecting drips from the leaky roof.
A fire is lit, which is welcome after being out in the wet and clammy air for hours, and there are walls, technically speaking, but they’re so thin, they may as well be made of paper.
As soon as I step away from the fireplace, the room is chilly.
I clear my throat and tap on the doorframe at the entrance to the back room.
“Who’s there,” Aris calls. Though I recognize his voice immediately, it’s much scratchier and slower than I remember.
“Me,” I reply.
“Come in, then.”
I’m shocked by what I find when I step inside.
My old mentor, once tough and feared by so many, is weak and emaciated.
His bones peek through his skin; his face is stained with dirt.
He sits on a stool by another fireplace, hunched over, with his arms resting on his knees.
He seems to be folded over, like he can’t support his own weight.
There’s a cot in the corner, stuffed with moldy straw.
On the far side of the room, a dusty threadbare rug where I used to sleep with one eye open in case the rats bit.
“Gineth.” He nods.
“The one and only,” I confirm with as much fake cheer as I can muster.
Then I notice there’s another man in the room, sitting in a rickety chair.
His face is scarred, and he’s wearing a straw hat and a long brown robe knotted with a belt with wide-hanging sleeves, and on his hand, a silver ring featuring a small black stone.
Aris looks over at me, then addresses him. “All right, I’ll do it.”
The stranger nods brusquely before departing.
“Sit down.” Aris turns to me and motions to the chair the man had been sitting in.
When I do, he wastes no time or small talk getting to the point.
“What brings you here? Last I heard, you were off to the good life with one of the estate boys.” Word gets around in the Sleeve.
Who knows how many people saw me in Rollo’s carriage that night.
They assumed he had picked up an Ophir mistress.
The Laconians despise us officially, but unofficially, and behind closed doors, anything goes, of course.
There are even Laconians who are rumored to be half-Ophir, but no one would ever dare question the high houses.
“You know what they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Ah.” Aris raises his bushy gray eyebrows. The only part of him that hasn’t shrunk. “Trouble in paradise.”
“You could say that. How are things going with you?” I try not to look around the room when I say this. It’s clear things aren’t going well.
Aris sighs. “Business isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Too many crackdowns. The Blackcoats are not as easy to bribe these days. Or as willing to look away as they used to be.”
“I need a place to stay tonight,” I say. “Is that all right?”
He’s silent for a few seconds. He stares down at the floor. Just when I begin to wonder if he’s falling asleep, his head snaps back up. “I suppose I can offer you shelter. But in return, I need you to come back to work.”
I should be thrilled by this, except I know what he’s getting at, and I swore I would never do that again. Still, I ask. “What kind of work, exactly?”
“Funny thing, your timing.” He smiles for the first time since I arrived, though it’s a faint one, almost wistful. “It’s a big job. Only problem is, I’ve no crew. The boys all left me when I couldn’t drum up enough work. I thought I was going to have to turn it down until you walked in.”
“I told you when I left that I don’t do that anymore.” My voice is colder than I’d intended. There’s a beat of silence in the room. “And I just need a place for the night.”
His smile vanishes. “That’s the only work I’ve got.”
“A pity.”
“Sure is.”
“It’s one night, Aris.”
“It’s one job, Gin.”
That’s it, then. Take or leave it. Even this dilapidated shack is better than nothing. And what harm can one last job do? One lousy job and after I can come back here and sleep. A place where I won’t be robbed or beaten—or worse. But Aris can’t give me that for nothing. He’s desperate, too.
Aris raised me when my mother died a decade ago.
Taught me everything he knew, for good or ill.
Together we were a good team, but it was a hard life.
Hiding from the Blackcoats, stealing everything we owned or ate, always one step ahead of being rounded up and sent to the black cells.
We did other things, too, night work that is too unsavory to think about, work I want to forget.
I was this close to cutting the strings on Madame Verona’s ample purse when I heard about a job in her kitchen instead.
That was it, I turned my back on Aris, on our old life and ways.
Promised myself I would never go back to stealing for something to eat or a place to sleep. And yet here I am.
“Gotta warn you, I’m a little rusty, though. Not sure I’m as good as I used to be,” I tell him.
The old man grins. “I know my best girl is capable. I have to say, it’s great to have you back. A welcome surprise. A very welcome surprise indeed. Let’s go.”