Chapter Four The Benefits of Patronage
Chapter Four
The Benefits of Patronage
In Which Saeldian Saves a Cat, and Kell Curses a Rooster
Now that Kell and Lorzok were walking just outside Saeldian’s Major Image spell, they had turned west off the wide High Road and onto a street full of shops for people with too many gold dragons and not much restraint.
Saeldian glanced longingly at a jewelry shop with no mention of a Goldenight sale and waited for Jubilee to match their stride.
Jubilee leaned close and asked, “What’s the story—”
“With me and Kell?” Saeldian finished. “He covered it pretty well already.”
“I mean, how did it start?” Jubilee pressed.
How did you meet? People liked to know that about someone who hated you just as much as someone who loved you, and the information was about as useful. “It’s a long story, but it condenses like this. Kell was an urchin. I was an urchin with pretensions.”
“So you met when you were children?”
Saeldian winked at a gentleman who looked at Saeldian with interest. He looked hastily away. “Not quite young enough for the sad widows to dote on us. Old enough for—other attentions. We had to stick together.”
Jubilee nodded. “That’s why you give gold to the older ones.”
Saeldian continued down the comfortable beggar-less street. “Right. We ran small swindles and petty thefts until we were running full scams and legendary burglaries down in Baldur’s Gate. We juggled the guild and the Zhents and did enough favors for the Harpers that we stayed up on that tightrope.”
“Until you left?”
Saeldian answered the question wedged in Jubilee’s tone. “I didn’t sell him out. By my word and my oath. I just left.”
“Why?”
Saeldian shook their head. “Patron stuff.”
Jubilee sighed. “Are you saying your patron ordered you to desert your partner and never look back?”
Not exactly, but Saeldian couldn’t explain the truth. “I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“If you had, would you have made sure he didn’t get caught?”
The thorny pain in Saeldian’s throat was tiny, but they couldn’t speak around it.
“Sheld.”
More barbs sprouted. It hurt to swallow.
Kell had gotten caught with the loot. How?
They’d been careful. No, they had been perfect.
Flawless. They had built their cover identities impeccably for months.
They never dropped a cue, never faltered in character, never mixed up when they were supposed to be whom.
It was the greatest job the Silver Cat had ever pulled—the theft that would have passed into legend, and no one would have had the least idea they were the ones who did it.
They’d left Kell everything. They wanted to set him up for life, at least, before they stole away in the soft gray dawn on a ship set down the coast.
“Sheld. Would you have helped him?”
“I’m trying to think how,” Saeldian said. Their voice croaked. “I would have tried. But I left a note.”
“A note.”
“I did what I could.”
“What did the note say?”
Saeldian would never forget. “Sorry. I left it all for you. I know it’s not enough. I wish I could explain. Please be happy, S.”
“That’s it?”
Jubilee had to be thinking about whether Saeldian would do that to her. Saeldian would be, if their positions were reversed. “I had to go,” Saeldian repeated.
“What? Immediately? In secret? Why?”
Thorns sprouted in Saeldian’s throat again.
“Right. The secret,” Jubilee said. “Your pact.”
Saeldian couldn’t even nod to verify that Jubilee was right.
Everything in Saeldian’s life depended on their pact.
Ever since the day they found the most beautiful elf they’d ever seen…
even with torn robes and burrs caught in his hair, he was everything elf beauty was supposed to be, unlike Saeldian, who was runty and weak and unbearable to look at.
But the elf was something more than a woodland wanderer, and he had offered Saeldian power if they gave up just one thing—and stayed silent about it forever.
It had been a bargain.
“So you left your—partner?”
The street lined with handsome, discreet shops gave way to the high walls and pointy gates of noble villas. Fragrant flowers in gardens Saeldian couldn’t see scented the air and made it sweet. “Not partner like that. Partner in crime, best friend. Yes.”
“I’m your best friend,” Jubilee said. “And your partner in—well, retrieval services.”
Saeldian nodded. Osalor had wanted something that was worthless. They agreed. The deal was struck. And Saeldian was safe and would be safe forever.
“And if your pact—whatever that is—told you to bug out on me, you’d…do it.”
There it was. “The reason why I had to leave Kell won’t happen to us.”
“By your bond?”
“By my bond,” Saeldian said. “I made a mistake. I know what happened and how, and that’s not happening again.”
There were still mistakes to be made, but not that one. Saeldian patted Jubilee’s arm. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. It’s on me. I got in my head. He got in my head, with that little speech of his. But he’s wrong. It’s not the two of us against the world. It’s never been like that. We—” Jubilee stared down the street, frowning. “Is that—that’s Verity.”
Jubilee took off at a sprint toward the terrified howling of Jubilee’s littlest sister. Saeldian let out a relieved sigh before running hard after her.
“Hey!” Kell shouted.
“There’s trouble!” Saeldian shouted back.
Four people running down this street would catch attention, until onlookers saw a tiefling leading the other three to the open gates to Righthoof Manor.
One day, they’d be fixed so they closed properly.
Saeldian lengthened their stride over the potholes in the lane to the main house and hopped over the still-broken knee-high gate into the orchard.
They narrowly sidestepped an abandoned bough hook and skidded to a halt beside Verity, who had cried so hard her face was wet with tears and—well.
Saeldian flourished a fresh handkerchief and squatted beside her, starting at the child’s leaky eyes and wiping downward.
“Blow,” Saeldian commanded, and folded the expensive cotton square carefully as they looked up.
Snowball, that stupid little beast, had scrambled up one of the cherry trees and clung to the end of a branch dense with reddening buds, only a few of them daring to bloom.
He meowed at the sight of them, the branch swayed, and Verity shrieked, which scared him even more.
Pounding footsteps behind them slowed and stopped.
“A kitten,” Kell said. “You came running at a child’s distress over a kitten?”
“He’ll fall!” Verity howled.
Saeldian sighed but rubbed Verity’s back. “He’ll be fine. He would have come down by himself once he got bored.”
Jubilee jumped for a branch and dangled from one hand. Snowball was crying now, and Verity shook her head at the adults, who were not listening. “I called for him, and he wouldn’t come!”
Lorzok laughed, but gently. “Cats understand their names perfectly well, but you can’t tell them what to do. You can only present a tempting offer.”
Verity looked at Lorzok, filled with hope. “You’re really tall. Can you reach him?”
Lorzok looked up at the cat with a measuring eye. “I can tell he’s just a little too high for me.”
“If you put me on your shoulders, I could!”
“He’ll scratch you to ribbons,” Jubilee called. “He’ll scratch me to ribbons instead, I guess.”
Saeldian put their fists on their hips and called, “Jubilee! Did you really climb a tree after a kitten?”
“She loves this kitten.” Jubilee retreated to the sturdier portion of the branch. “I have to go get him.”
“I swear I have to do everything around here,” Saeldian grumbled. “That cat is terrified now, with all this fuss. He’ll never come to you in that state.”
In answer, Jubilee let go of the branch she was on, dangling by her hooked knees. “So you’re volunteering? Good.”
“I did not—”
Kell chuckled. “I think you did.”
Great.
Jubilee landed on the grass with a thump, then knelt with her arms out. Verity dashed into her and plastered herself to her big sister. Over Verity’s shoulder, Jubilee gave Saeldian a look.
Saeldian huffed. “Fine.”
Their knee-length skirting became a short jerkin, and gloves covered Saeldian’s hands.
Kell scoffed. “Rescuing a kitten is a fashion show?”
“I can’t show up to the dance with scraped hands, and Lixettia just did my nails. If I chip them now…”
“Oh, this is too good,” Kell said with a chuckle.
“She’s just a kid,” Saeldian said. “Come on.”
Kell gave his most embellished gesture of invitation. “Whatever rescues Snowball.”
“Ass.” Saeldian rolled their eyes and stood under the lowest branch. They caught hold on their second jump.
“You’re getting better!” Jubilee called.
“Shut up.”
Verity twisted around to watch as Saeldian swung their legs a little, getting enough movement to jackknife them up and over the branch.
“You are getting better,” Jubilee called. “That’s the smoothest jump I’ve ever seen you do.”
Saeldian was too busy getting their feet centered to sass back. They had to jump for the next bough, the one where Snowball, who needed daily brushing and was too good to eat mice, cringed on a branch. He stared at them with huge frightened eyes, backing away as they approached.
“Hey, buddy,” Saeldian said. Gentle, soft. “Those aren’t strong enough to hold you. We’re okay. We’re just up in a tree, because it’s fun.”
Jubilee snorted.
Saeldian ignored her and went on. “It’s a nice afternoon and there’s nothing to do but sit with my friend Snowball, who is so pretty and fluffy and smart, oh yes, he is.”
Kell covered his mouth, but his eyes squinted with mirth. Snowball, meanwhile, was not buying any of it.
“And I’m wearing my good clothes, and there is not a single long white hair on them anywhere! How will people know that I belong to Snowball, buddy? Huh? How’s that going to work?”
The kitten’s ears swiveled forward, and he meowed. Saeldian pulled out a bit of fleece and made it look and smell like smoked smallfish, which Snowball was not supposed to steal off Mr. Bastion’s toast. Irresistible. Stinky. Forbidden.