38. Dependencies
38
DEPENDENCIES
Claw paced the room. The full crew was there, including Jaemeh, although he was still injured. Fresh injuries, Anahrod noted. He looked like he’d been thrown down a flight of stairs or lost a fight against a wall. When pressed for an explanation, he’d demurred, saying he healed fast and it was his own fault for being so clumsy, anyway.
Even Gwydinion was present—he had to be.
Claw faced Anahrod. “Did it occur to you to check in with us before you made a decision that jeopardized the entire plan? Did it?”
Anahrod gazed at the woman calmly. “It also occurred to me that by the time I did, the opportunity would’ve passed. I had to reach Varriguhl before he made the expulsion official.”
“So, I’m not expelled,” Gwydinion said, “but it doesn’t matter, because in a week we’re running away?”
“We’re escaping,” Anahrod said, “not running. And you’re not expelled, so in a year or two, you can return. If it’s safe.”
“The duplicate sword won’t be ready in a week!” Claw screamed. “We don’t even know if his damn sword will be here.” She pointed at Sicaryon.
“My sword arrives the day after tomorrow,” Sicaryon responded. “And technically speaking, we don’t need your sword.”
“Wait,” Jaemeh said. “There’s more than one sword?”
“Yes,” Ris stopped chewing on a nail to say. “And we need all of them.”
Sicaryon was undeterred. “We’ll have all of them just as soon as we steal the one from Brauge’s parlor. We won’t have the duplicate, but does that matter, since we’re running, anyway?”
Anahrod laughed. “It helps us. We want as many alarms, alerts, and problems triggering at the same time as possible. If we can’t tackle this with careful planning, let’s try pure chaos instead.”
Ris smiled around the thumb she was biting. She pulled her thumb free with a pop. “You just might have saved this. I should kiss you.”
“Later,” Anahrod said.
“Boss!” Claw was still distraught.
Anahrod understood. She really did. Claw had put a lot of work into infiltrating the Brauge household, stealing the sword rubbings, organizing the manufacturer of a counterfeit. Changing plans so none of that was necessary negated all her hard work.
Ris pointed at Kaibren. “Inscriptions and folding boxes ready?” He nodded.
Next was Naeron. “Climbing gear?”
“No,” the man replied, “but in three days? Yes.”
“Good enough. Am I forgetting anything?” Ris asked the group.
“Yes,” Claw said. “How the fuck we’re going to get Brauge to open her front door!”
“He’s going to do that.” Ris hooked a thumb in Sicaryon’s direction, grinning.
The Scarsea king straightened. “I’m sorry. Why is she opening the door to me?”
“Because you are a sexy bastard,” Ris said, “and because she’s lonely. Officially you’ll be—” She dramatically pondered for a moment, forefinger to chin, then turned to Kaibren. “Poet, you think?”
Kaibren nodded. “A gift’s true worth is oft lost in wrapping’s art.”
Sicaryon stared at him, narrow-eyed. “Did you just insult me? Because I feel like you just insulted me.”
“She’s not going to notice you can’t rhyme,” Claw translated, “because she’s going to be too busy staring at your ass.” She made a show of tilting her head as if looking behind him, although the angle was wrong. “Which—fair.”
Sicaryon scowled. “And what? I’m supposed to slip the drug into her drink?”
“No,” Anahrod said. “You’re distracting her. I’m slipping the drug into her drink.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ll be with me?”
“It can’t be Kaibren, Naeron wouldn’t be believable, Ris and Jaemeh are both dragonriders, no way in hell is Gwydinion going, and Claw will be recognized. So yes.” She pursed her lips. “How complicated is that inscription you used to knock out everyone at the guesthouse back in Duskcloud?”
“Very,” Sicaryon said, “so I can’t draw it in silverpoint on the lady’s chalice while she isn’t looking.”
“We could steam off a wine label,” Gwydinion suggested. “Draw it on the inside and then glue it back in place.”
Everyone paused to look at the teenager, who fidgeted. “What?”
“That would work,” Anahrod said.
Sicaryon pointed. “Has he always been this terrifying—?”
“Oh yeah,” Ris said, while the others all nodded in agreement.
“What do you need me to do?” Jaemeh said then.
He’d been so uncharacteristically quiet that Anahrod had almost forgotten he was there.
“Heal,” Ris told him. “You have one week. Keep your ears open for any new security procedures that might cause us a problem.” She paused. “The cutter’s ready, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Jaemeh agreed. “Pier 7, berth 23. That’s where we’ll meet when the job’s done.”
“All right,” Ris said. “Then let’s get ready.”
As everyone else filed out, Anahrod turned to Gwydinion. “You’re staying in your room, understand? This whole plan falls apart if you’re found early.”
“I’m not a child,” Gwydinion said. “I understand how important it is.”
“Good,” Anahrod said. “Grab some snacks from the kitchen. I’ll be back later with dinner to keep you company.”
Gwydinion blinked. “What? You’re not staying with me now?”
“Apologies,” Anahrod said, “but I need to talk to some birds.”
Several things happened over the next week.
Gwydinion Doreyl, traumatized from the recent rampant attack, ran away from the school. Neveranimas didn’t turn out every force in the city to find the boy. In hindsight, that made sense: it would’ve looked too odd. Every guard had a drawing of his likeness, though, and rumors spoke of wide-net sweeps (for criminals, of course) in the undercity’s poorer areas. The dragon was looking—and spending significant resources in doing so.
Good.
A courier dropped off Sicaryon’s sword at the school administrative center two days later. The sword arrived in a flat wooden box wrapped in paper, neatly labeled, and stamped with the Seven Crests seal.
Ris stared at Sicaryon. “You mailed it? You mailed the fifth sword?”
Sicaryon shrugged. “Safest way. The delivery couriers are all screened, and it’s not illegal to deliver an antique.” He flipped the latches on the box and opened it. “I will remind you that this is fragile.”
Anahrod reached out and touched the blade. It was a beautiful sword, gracefully curving, with beasts picked out in bas-relief on the blade. It also looked like it would break the next time someone used it to butter toast.
“I’m aware,” Ris said. “All of them are, except for mine. They haven’t been maintained—the magic’s been eating away at it for close to a hundred years. The first time we use these to open the lock will also be the last, because half the swords will shatter on the spot.”
Sicaryon sighed. “You didn’t say that when I agreed to this.”
Ris smirked. “That’s because you would’ve said no.”
The look on his face suggested he would be inventing new curse words to use on Ris for the rest of the morning.
And lastly, Yagra’hai was overcome with a plague.
Not the disease kind of plague. The animal kind. Two unseasonal, large infestations gripped the city: scrabbers and blood crows.
Neither of which had been easy to arrange. Anahrod had always struggled to control animal groups, but she found she could cheat by targeting pack leaders. Neveranimas had to feel like she wasn’t special, wasn’t being singled out. She couldn’t be the only dragon who found scrabber eggs in her vault entrance, the only one with blood crows heckling her. Once established, Anahrod found it relatively simple to gain the information she needed.
For example: Neveranimas could teleport from the elder dragon council chambers to her own estate in five seconds.
Anahrod also learned that Neveranimas had added alarms to the Five Locks Division’s original work. After the third time an animal triggered the alarms, that delay turned into thirty seconds. By the seventh, Neveranimas took three minutes to respond. By the twelfth time, fifteen minutes. Then she began sending other dragons, unwilling to waste her time on nonsense.
Neveranimas would get around to updating those wards. At the very least, she’d rewrite them to exclude scrabbers and blood crows (itself a vulnerability that Anahrod could’ve exploited under other circumstances). In the meantime, Neveranimas was dealing with disasters of her own making: the rampant attack aftermath, the animal infestations, the heightened security, the humans and dragons both complaining.
Somewhere in all that, Neveranimas needed to find the time to kill a fifteen-year-old boy. There just weren’t enough hours in the day.
Anahrod sympathized.
Technically speaking, Gwydinion was allowed anywhere in the apartments, but they all thought it was safer he stayed in his room. Everyone but Jaemeh dropped by at one point or another, aware that the boy was restless. They played cards and told stories. Kaibren taught him how to draw an inscription that functioned as a reliable compass. Sicaryon shared a few choice phrases in Sumulye.
Anahrod slept in Gwydinion’s room, and neither Sicaryon nor Ris were foolish enough to suggest she alter that arrangement.
The pair also took time for a brother-sister group family project, namely brewing up a batch of sedative for Brauge.
She knew several recipes that would work, but for the sort of sleeping draught that a dragonrider wouldn’t realize had affected her later, there was only one: daervi powder. Fortunately for her, Belsaor the alchemist had sent along an excessive amount of alchemy supplies.
Daervi powder was easily manufactured and undetectable when taken in alcohol. Other potions were faster but more obvious.
They made two batches, just in case they might need a spare. If everything went well, she wouldn’t need them—using the inscribed wine bottle to knock out Brauge would be ideal, especially as people sometimes had odd reactions to herbal sedatives.
Five days, and then Gwydinion quietly presented himself to Headmaster Varriguhl, looking small and vulnerable and very dirty, to beg forgiveness. He was sent back to his assigned apartment with Sicaryon and Anahrod ordered to keep him under guard.
Later, a note was delivered with little fanfare.
It read: Interview tonight in Neveranimas’s office, 9th bells.
Now they had a time for the robbery.