Chapter Five. Gin
CHAPTER FIVE
GIN
I tug at Aris’s tunic, yanking him along with me. Come on. Hurry up. There’s no time to waste. The marks are getting ahead of us. We need to catch up. I scan the area for their gray cloaks. The marks are dressed as gong farmers and are hoisting a large, heavy barrel between them.
The four men are headed west, toward Lucent Quay, though, luckily, they aren’t moving at full speed, either.
The barrel they’re carrying seems to be very heavy indeed, loaded full of—well, I’m not sure what, but something good.
Incredibly good. Either mountains of coin or bars of gold, judging by how, even with that many of them, they struggle to carry the oppressive weight of it.
“Things go south, don’t wait for me,” Aris says, as he always does at the start of a job.
“Do you understand? Save yourself. I promised your mother I’d keep you alive.
” I nod. He continues: “Just get it done, get the prize, and get out. I can take care of myself.” That’s hard to believe, given how slow he’s walking.
He takes a deep breath and, as if suddenly reinvigorated, continues ahead of me, hobbling some, but fueled by determination and stubborn pride.
Aris won’t give up, no matter how much his knees hurt or his joints ache.
I get ahead of him again, but he manages much better now, still stumbling but moving faster.
Despite his age and impairments, he’s almost as agile as ever, likely bolstered by adrenaline and the tantalizing promise of snaring the largest hoard of his career.
Enough to officially retire in comfort, he says.
Whatever is in that barrel must be very valuable.
I’m relieved that I don’t have to worry about him, at least for now.
I spot a rusty ladder leaning against a nearby building. I whistle to get Aris’s attention and nod upward. He nods in return. It will be easier to track the other thieves from above.
Once on the roof, we run through clouds of woodsmoke billowing out of chimneys, around cast-off stools missing a leg, broken wheels, and nests of blankets left behind by vagrants looking for a temporary place to sleep.
We duck beneath clotheslines where stained rags drape sadly from the line, freshly washed but long past their usefulness.
We trail the thieves as they traverse the empty streets and snake through rain-soaked alleys with that humongous gong barrel.
When the men stop to rest, so do we, crouched down out of sight, just in case one of them happens to look up.
Each time we stop, Aris closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, each one sounding more painful than the last. But his resilience is impressive.
Meanwhile, this breakneck pace is pushing my limits. I’ve gotten soft during my weeks spent in the comfort of an estate and months working in a kitchen. It’s been almost a year since I’ve done any night work.
After another block, the marks take another break. Aris gasps a little and bends over, unable to catch his breath, unlike before. He coughs but attempts to silence it. Despite being exhausted myself, I rush to his side and pat him on the back. “Are you all right?” I whisper.
He nods. I glance in the direction of the four men, though I can’t see them from where we are.
But I can hear them talking. It sounds like they’ll be there for a bit.
“Take your time,” I tell Aris. “They’re taking a break, too.
And it won’t do us any good if you pass out.
We’re better off letting you sit.” I’m speaking for myself as much as Aris.
My ribs are starting to cramp. I cock my head toward the alleyway where the men are.
I can still hear the murmur of their chatter.
“It’s probably hard to carry that barrel around, too,” I tell Aris. “We can move faster than they can.”
His eyes are closed; he inhales, long and deep, then exhales slowly.
I step away to see how close I can get to the thieves.
Their voices have petered out, so I want to see what they’re up to, whether they’re back to heaving the barrel and heading down the street again.
I creep up to the edge of the building and peek over.
They aren’t there. I move down a few paces and try again, without getting so close that I can be seen.
Again, no sight of them. A spark of panic lights up in my chest. Frantically, I look all over, even braving being seen by sticking my face over the side of the building.
No thieves. No barrel. And when I try to listen, no more voices, either. How could this have happened? I’d only looked away for a short moment.
Aris coughs. “Which way did they go?”
I spin around, heart pounding. Aris stands right behind me. I shake my head. “I don’t know. There’s no sign of them anywhere. It’s as if they vanished.” I check again, as if something may have changed. “Maybe they knew they were being followed.”
“I don’t think so,” Aris says. “Very likely they took a longer but less visible route. To avoid roving Blackcoats and the like.”
“Which would be…” The sentence trails off as I turn in circles searching for the thieves.
There are few options. The men didn’t simply continue the way they’d been going, and if they’d changed direction and gone to the main road, they’d still be visible from the rooftop.
The main road is completely empty. One of the alleyways to the right is nothing more than a narrow pass-through between buildings, possibly large enough for a man to fit, but not wide enough for a barrel to get through.
Then it occurs to me—they disappeared into one of the buildings.
“Maybe they’re meeting someone?” I say to Aris. “A buyer or something?”
He shakes his head. “My source said they’re headed to the wharf.”
“Plans change. Maybe there are Blackcoats at the wharf?”
“Always possible,” he concedes. “Though doubtful. Blackcoats tend to adhere to their schedules, unless there’s some emergency.
In which case, word wouldn’t reach this far, this late at night.
” Aris is correct, of course. This time of night, there are no messengers, or even any citizens out and about.
The marks won’t know anything we don’t know ourselves.
We stare at each other, frowning. I know we’re both thinking the same thing, though neither has to say it: Which building?
“It could only be one of those two,” I say, pointing where the thieves were last seen.
“If they went through the smaller building they’d have emerged on the other side by now.
They must be inside the larger building, then.
” I curse under my breath. The larger building is a massive storehouse.
One that processes silk fabrics for the highborn.
There are countless entrances and exits that let out on several different roads, many of which might ultimately lead to the wharf—or not.
“We’ll find them,” Aris assures me. He puts a scrawny, shaky hand on my back. “They have to exit at some point, and as long as we get on the roof we’ll be able to spot them.”
“Unless they entered the smaller building, that is. Then we’ll lose them for sure.”
“Like you said, if they went that way, they’d be outside by now.”
“Right,” I say. We steel ourselves before leaping onto the roof of the storehouse and make our way across to where I hope the thieves have gone.
I hope I made the right call and didn’t ruin this heist for Aris.
He’s stern and gruff and could barely afford to keep me fed and clothed, but he tried.
He didn’t abandon me to the pimps and the flesh peddlers after my mother died. He deserves this score, and so do I.
The building covers at least two blocks of the city, so it takes a while to reach the opposite alleyway, especially since we’re trying to minimize our chances of being seen by anyone else.
We can’t bolt straight across, out in the open.
Instead, we dash between huge brick chimneys, which slow us down some.
I wipe the sweat from my brow and pray that my instincts led me the right way.
When we finally get there, I’m disappointed to find an empty alley.
“All right, so, maybe we can catch them at the dock,” Aris says without hesitation. He charges ahead, following the alley in the direction of the wharf.
Then we catch sight of them—four gray-cloaked men, carrying a huge gong barrel, approaching from our right. Relief floods through my limbs. I’d guessed well.
Aris smiles again. “My best girl never lets me down,” he says, through labored breaths. His face is flushed; sweat drips down the sides.
We crouch in the shadows and wait. I try to ignore the pain in my legs and stay focused on the task at hand.
It’ll be far more difficult to follow the men if they decide to take the roundabout tree-lined path that leads to the wharf instead of continuing through town.
If they go that way, and they most likely will, because there’s less risk of detection, there’s a high chance of losing them.
That way is noisier—branches snap, rodents and small animals scatter—and Aris will never be able to move through the trees like I can.
Or could, in the past, anyway. I’m not confident I can handle much more of this, either.
No matter what Aris says about leaving him behind, if necessary, I need him; I can’t take four men alone.
We’ve got to take them now, while their backs are turned.
I look at Aris and nod. He understands. He glances in the direction of the road and nods in agreement.