12 Maerryl #2
I slipped through the halls, making my way to Lord Wistrallo’s study.
Conveniently unlocked. That wasn’t necessarily a bad sign.
As I’d learned during my time with the Takers Guild, many rich folks didn’t bother with physical locks and barriers.
Magic was more expensive, harder to procure, and so they seemed to think it must be stronger and better.
The wrinkle with that way of thinking, for them, was that expensive often didn’t equal more secure.
Particularly when everyone in the area was getting their charms from the same mages in Talon.
Mages who were sometimes more than happy to sell the counter charms for the right price—or to be unhappily blackmailed into it.
Before I’d left, Zephyra had given me another useful tool from the guild’s armory.
One from her personal vault. A smooth, solid cylinder about as long as her forefinger—a stone of unmaking.
Deep shimmering gray and cool to the touch, it was designed to absorb and hold many charms at once.
Potentially an infinite amount, I’d heard.
But they must, as Zephrya had impressed on me, all be of the same type of charm.
I didn’t ask what would happen if a rogue charm was added to the stone; I wasn’t stupid enough to question the guildmaster when she was in such a generous mood.
This one was filled with all the charms of unlocking that the guild had gathered from mages in and around Talon over the years.
A magical skeleton key, of sorts. The nickname for them in the guild and around the lower parts of the city was gimmees—as in, they could give you what you want, easy as pie.
Incredibly rare, they were a thief’s dream tool, requiring no noise, no clicking or breaking of locks, no whispered spells.
I checked for the gimmee in a small pouch on my belt now, touching it with careful fingers as I approached the lord’s desk.
Let’s see what you’re hiding, fancy-pants.
The desk was massive, and, as I’d expected, ridiculously ornate.
Carved swirls and swooshes covered the polished marble surface, and each handle was a different metal fruit.
Shaking my head, I crouched down, keeping below the top of the desk in case anyone walked in.
The waning daylight coming through the windows would have been enough for me to work with, but there was also a softly glowing yellow magelight in the corner.
They probably just left that on all day. Wasteful assholes.
I lightly brushed my fingertips all over the inner walls and the underside. Pressing carefully into the seams of the wood, I hunted for any hidden compartments. This was the trickiest bit, and often the most rewarding, so I always checked here first.
But nothing. So I moved on to the drawers.
Starting at the bottom and moving my way up, I slid each one open, searched carefully, and closed them as silently as I could.
Nothing of importance; mostly just import order records from merchants, flyers from old art auctions and gallery shows, signed bills of sale and authenticity records for countless works of art.
An obscene amount of coin being spent by the lord and lady.
Mainly the lord, from the looks of it. But nothing about coin coming in.
I worked my way up the desk, keeping an ear trained on the hall.
Finally, my hands snagged on the last drawer, in the top left corner.
It wouldn’t budge. A thrill jolted in my chest, but I kept my fingers steady.
Pulling the gimmee out, I pressed it gently against the keyhole like Zephyra had instructed, waiting.
After a moment, the gray stone seemed to pulse, just once and then…
Click.
I slid the narrow drawer open. Some scraps of parchment, a couple broken quills, but underneath—jewels.
Most of them were tiny, smaller than my pinkie toenail.
But some as large as boysenberries. There were at least twenty of them, an array of reds, blues, yellows, greens.
Every shade of the rainbow, and just as sparkly, catching the soft magelight in their facets.
I plucked up an amethyst about the size of a small kidney bean.
It was off-kilter, lopsided and imperfect, but still lovely.
Would they even miss it? These people, these decadent people, who kept such wealth loose in a simple locked drawer rather than a bank or a vault?
Maybe they were fakes. That could be their con.
But even as I thought that, I knew it was untrue.
I stood and held the amethyst close to the lamp to be sure, inspecting how the light played in its depths.
No, this was real. Poorly cut, perhaps from an inexperienced jeweler, but real.
One of the first things the Takers Guild made sure we knew was how to tell a fake from the true thing.
Instead of placing the amethyst back among its fellows, I brushed its smooth surface once and carefully tucked it into my belt purse, heart racing.
This was it. Something substantial that I could send to Zephyra, show that I was making progress.
And I’d bet my boots that Lord Wistrallo wouldn’t even notice.
I’d send the jewel to Zephyra so she could have it tested, maybe learn more about its origin and quality—there were magically-trained messenger birds in the stables that I’d been told I could use when needed.
I checked the drawer for hidden compartments, just to be thorough, then covered all the jewels with the junk before carefully closing the drawer. Enough for now. A fair amount of time had passed, and Dove would be waking soon, if she hadn’t already. I’d need to pick this up again another day.
Listening at the door for steps in the hall, I slipped silently out and made my way outside to where the messenger birds were kept in a coop near the stables; thankfully, the stablemaster wasn’t about.
After scrawling a quick coded note updating Zephyra on my mission, I sent the amethyst off with a large raven, watching as it made its way north through the rapidly dimming sky.
Please, please let this satisfy the guildmaster for now, I thought, throwing a half-hearted prayer to the dual goddess for luck.
Once the raven was out of sight, I continued my “security check” near the entrance until Petra came to call, finding me conveniently hard at work making the manor even safer for her mistress.
As I strolled slowly along the house’s front, pretending to inspect window frames and tree climbability, the alluring pull of those remaining jewels nagged at me. They’d make a heavy handful. As imperfect as they were, I knew they’d pull a sizable amount on the black market.
A fallback plan, I decided. If things went tits up here, I’d grab them and run. Sell the lot for whatever I could as quickly as possible, get the coin for Balfie’s cure to the priory for safekeeping, and go underground until the heat wore off.
This settled, I breathed a little more easily. I always felt better with a backup plan.