Chapter 13 Scarlett
CHAPTER 13
SCARLETT
O nce Lord Tyndell and Cassius were gone, Scarlett sent a messenger with a note to Nuri that she would meet her in an hour. Scarlett returned the now nearly empty tray of food to the kitchens and trudged upstairs to change. She was still tired, and the idea of sneaking off to the Black Syndicate sounded exhausting, but Nuri had to be biting people’s heads off with impatience by this point. She waited until the messenger returned to confirm that Nuri could indeed meet her, then she strode into her giant closet to change.
She tugged on black, fitted pants and a white top with a black jacket she buttoned up the front. She laced up her boots quickly and dropped to her knees to pry up the floorboard near the back of the closet. Pulling her weapons belt out, she strapped it low across her hips, sliding two daggers into it. She slid another dagger into her boot and strapped vambraces to her arms. You’d be a fool to go into the Black Syndicate unarmed.
After she’d braided back her hair, she slid two lethal silver hair pins into the plaits. Then she slung her cloak over her shoulders, pulling the hood up, and slipped out to the hallway and down the hall. At the end of it there was a study that was rarely used, and it was Scarlett’s preferred way to slip out of the manor. With preternatural quiet, she slid the window up. She waited until the two patrolling sentries rounded the corner, then climbed up the latticework in a few precise movements. She moved quickly across the roof to the back of the house, where a wood pile was always stocked. She leapt nimbly across the stacks of logs, landing with the grace of a cat, and crept along the wall where she slipped through the servants’ door without anyone the wiser.
Scarlett kept to the shadows as she made her way quickly down various alleys and streets. The Black Syndicate looked like any other wealthy neighborhood in Baylorin. If you didn’t know what it was, if you weren’t looking for it, you were none the wiser that it was a place full of dark dealings. She turned the corner and prowled onto the main street of the Black Syndicate for the first time in a year, her cloak billowing behind her. Others on the street cast her wary glances, marking her. She was known here, not forgotten in the slightest in her year-long absence.
She passed the healer’s compound on her right. She should really stop there before she headed back to the manor today, but the thought of seeing Sybil made bile rise in her throat. Directly across the street towered the four-story house of the Fellowship. The labyrinth of training rooms and dungeon cells beneath the house was unknown to many unless you trained there or were unlucky enough to be dragged below.
Scarlett continued down another few blocks, passing two of the Syndicate’s main brothels and an opium den. She made a sharp right down an alley and quickly climbed to the roof of a shop that sold various weapons. Leaping across a few more rooftops, she found herself atop a tavern. She dropped down over the side, holding onto the gutter, and swung herself through a window into an attic room.
Nuri sat at the long wooden table in the room, two mugs of ale before her. The Fellowship had standing ownership of this room. The door down to the tavern was always locked from the inside. The window was the main entrance used by those who utilized the room, and it was their usual meeting spot.
Scarlett closed the window behind her, pulled her hood back, and crossed the room, plopping down on the bench across from her. Nuri slid a mug across the table. “Were you followed?” she asked.
“Only by Maximus,” Scarlett said with a roll of her eyes, taking a long drink from the mug.
“Hmm,” Nuri mused. “I don’t know if I should be upset with Maximus that he was so obvious or impressed with you for knowing he was trailing you.”
“I don’t know whether I should feel pissed off that you think I wouldn’t notice someone tailing me so you sent an escort, or annoyed to all hell that you still have the Fellowship guarding my movements,” Scarlett retorted.
Nuri clicked her tongue. “After what happened a year ago, you really think we wouldn’t have eyes on you at all times?”
“My banishment was rescinded when I accepted my job,” Scarlett snapped, “and I don’t need a keeper.”
“Events from a year ago would suggest otherwise,” Nuri said with a shrug. “You are feeling better?”
“I’m fine enough,” Scarlett sighed, drinking again from the mug in front of her.
“Good. Then you can figure out how you’re going to speak to Callan.”
Scarlett choked on her ale. “You know I can’t do that, Nuri.”
“You can, and you must.”
“Going to see Callan is like signing your death warrant. I won’t do it,” Scarlett argued.
“If anyone even whispers about my death, they would be dispatched within a day,” Nuri replied darkly.
“I haven’t spent time with Callan in over a year, Nuri. I can’t just drop into his rooms at the castle out of the blue,” Scarlett argued.
“Then drop in out of the night. I don’t care how you do it, but you need to talk to him, Scarlett. Two more have disappeared,” Nuri said, her voice quieting at the last words.
“I know. Cassius told me.”
“No,” Nuri said, shaking her head. “Two more . Last night. Four in four days.”
Scarlett’s eyes widened at the news, her face paling. “Who?” she whispered.
Nuri was looking down at the table, twisting a section of her ash-blond hair around a finger. “Dexter and Lena,” she answered quietly.
“The twins? They are so young,” Scarlett replied in shock.
“They were six. They’re getting younger and younger again,” Nuri said, quiet anger ringing in her voice.
“This hasn’t happened since that night,” Scarlett said.
“No, it hasn’t. We let our guard down. We got lax. We mustn’t make that mistake again. You need to go talk to Callan,” Nuri pushed.
“What about the other Districts? The slums? Are their children going missing?” Scarlett asked, ignoring Nuri’s plea.
“No. Only here. I’ve been scouting the other areas of the city for months. I’ve had members of the Fellowship doing the same. I was thinking maybe they had left our children alone only to move on to others, but only our children, our orphans, are going missing. I have as many as I can at the Fellowship, but it’s not a place for children with the constant training and killing. Sybil has taken several in at the compound, but it’s the same thing. They have their own work to be doing. They can’t be watching children all day. I don’t want the Madams getting their whoring mitts on them, so I don’t let them go there. I’m getting a safe house set up again, but I’m running out of options, Scarlett.”
Scarlett could hear the rage and worry mixing in her voice. She stared down at her half-empty mug of ale.
A little over two years ago, orphans from the streets of the Black Syndicate had started going missing. They would disappear in the middle of the night. At first, no one noticed one or two missing street children, but then it started happening more often. The children started roaming in packs and word spread. There was no pattern to the disappearances. There was no type or reason.
Nuri, Juliette, and Scarlett had started investigating and digging for answers, but whatever was happening left no clues, no trails to follow. They had infiltrated various districts and company to try to hear any gossip or news but had learned nothing. Not until Cassius found them one night and said he had overheard a group of castle guards discussing the “urchins in the dungeons.” They came to dead end after dead end, though. Until one day, by chance, Scarlett had befriended the Crown Prince of Windonelle. Then she had become more than friends with Callan, and, much to the dismay of several court Ladies hoping to become his bride, she began spending a lot of time with him. The girls had pushed and pushed Callan to begin asking questions in the council meetings he attended daily with his father and court. They had grown desperate as children began disappearing almost nightly. But when Callan did, when he had finally started pressing the subject in those meetings, that was when everything went to hell.
Scarlett and Nuri sat in silence, listening to the revelry going on in the tavern two stories below them. She could feel Nuri’s eyes on her. “I cannot go to Callan, Nuri. We need to come up with another option.”
“There is no other option,” Nuri snapped, ire lacing every word.
“Then you go to Callan!” Scarlett retorted, glaring into Nuri’s honey eyes.
“Fuck, Scarlett. You know that’s not an option. The second someone reports that I have started trailing the Prince of Windonelle, we find the king’s soldiers burning the Black Syndicate to the godsdamn ground, which is nothing compared to what Alaric will do to me.”
Scarlett knew it was true. The king was well aware of what went on in this District even though he didn’t know exactly where it was. As long as the residents kept to their own, the king let them be. He even utilized services in the District from time to time, but the minute someone from the Black Syndicate threatened him or his own? That fickle truce would snap, along with the necks of everyone in the Syndicate, and an internal war would ensue.
“And the second it is reported that I have started conversing with the prince again, you have a target put on your back,” Scarlett argued. “I won’t risk that.”
“My safety is not your priority,” Nuri seethed. “Me? Cassius? Our safety is not your concern. We can take care of ourselves. We’re trained to do so. Those innocent children on the streets? Those innocent lives that have no one to care for them, no one to worry about their safety? They are your concern. Shit, Scarlett, you’re living in a fucking noble’s household. You have access to the court on a daily basis. Do something with it!”
Scarlett placed her hands flat on the table before her. “You do not get to pin this on me, Nuri. This is not my responsibility.”
“Apparently not,” Nuri snapped back. “Apparently, when you left to go to the Elite District, your responsibility to your family was no longer your concern.” Scarlett felt as if Nuri had slapped her across the face. She reeled back, nearly knocking her ale mug over. The two squared off. “We’ve lost too many. Losing Juliette that night… We never should have let them scare us off.”
Scarlett swallowed hard. That, losing Juliette, that had been her responsibility. That had been her fault. The silence was thick around them.
“What about the one that’s training you? He’s close to the soldiers, isn’t he?” Nuri finally asked.
“Ryker? He trains a special group of elite soldiers for the king’s armies. I know little more than that when it comes to his work for the king,” Scarlett answered.
“Can you ask him? Get information from him?”
“Nuri, I can’t ask him about something like this without telling him everything else. We’d have to reveal who you are, who I am, who trained us, everything.”
“We both know how persuasive you can be,” Nuri said with a smirk.
“Not an option,” Scarlett replied flatly.
Nuri chewed on her bottom lip, contemplating. “Do you trust him?”
“What?” Scarlett asked in surprise.
“Do you trust him?” Nuri repeated.
“You would have me bring him into this?”
“If it will save even one of those children, yes. I would have him know me and my own,” Nuri answered, fire and determination ringing in her voice.
Scarlett was quiet a long moment, then said, “It’s not that I don’t trust him, but…”
“Have you told him about that night?” Nuri asked quietly.
“No.”
“Would you?” Nuri pressed.
“No,” Scarlett sighed. “No, I do not trust him enough to tell him that story. Besides, I’m not sure how much I will be seeing him any more.”
“Then we are back to Callan,” Nuri replied simply.
Scarlett turned to the window. The sky was cloudy, blocking out the sun and casting the streets in shadows. “So we are.” She stood, pulling her hood back up.
“Where are you going?” Nuri asked, standing as well.
“If I’m going to be sneaking into the castle, I’m going to need a new sword,” Scarlett replied grimly. “I never got a new one after… that night.”
“I’ll come with. I love sword shopping,” Nuri said brightly, like they hadn’t just been discussing something so dire moments before.
“You love shopping for anyone new to warm your bed,” Scarlett pointed out.
“True,” Nuri replied, pulling her own hood up. Before she opened the window, she turned back to Scarlett and said, “Don’t tell Cassius you’re going to see Callan until after you’ve done so. He’ll skin me alive if he knew I’d talked you into this.”
“Cassius is not my concern here,” Scarlett said as she followed Nuri out the window, hauling herself up onto the roof.
“Veda and I haven’t had a chat in a good long while. Maybe it’s time,” Nuri said with a wicked grin.
“Let’s not play with fire until we’re sure we need the heat,” Scarlett answered, sliding down a roof slope with ease.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Nuri asked, her grin turning downright feral now.
Scarlett couldn’t help it. A grin spread across her own face. It had been over a year since she’d felt even remotely like her old self, over a year since she’d felt alive. She stepped to Nuri’s side at the edge of the roof. “Then I suppose we better decide what we shall burn first.”
“All of it,” Nuri breathed, as she stepped from the roof. “Every godsdamned inch of it.”
Scarlett dropped down beside her, landing gracefully in the alley street below. “Perhaps we start with a spark and see where it leads?”
“A spark can start quite the blaze,” Nuri replied, her eyes bright, like they always got when she was tunneling down into that place of intense focus.
“Then it shall be one of wildfire,” Scarlett purred as they set off down the street.
Death’s Shadow and Death’s Maiden. Two sparks to set their world on fire.