Chapter Eight. Gin
CHAPTER EIGHT
GIN
The three of us stare at each other, wide-eyed at the Guild mark on the dead man’s arm. I’m growing frantic, though I try not to reveal that to the other two Ophir thieves. They’ll sense my weakness and pounce on it. Exactly what they’re waiting for. Why are they even keeping me alive?
My luck keeps getting worse and worse. I should’ve followed my instincts—I knew this was a bad idea when Aris offered me the job.
I should have taken my chances on the streets instead of returning to night work.
Why did I go back? A foolish question and a pointless one—I know why, I was desperate. What’s done is done.
“We’ve got to hide them!” I say, motioning to the dead men. The streets will be teeming with Blackcoats any minute.
“We don’t have time to conceal the bodies and take the loot,” the tall one named Eban says, as if he knows exactly what’s going through my mind.
And the way he looks at me, like he sees right through me, past the facade I try so hard to project, intrigues me and makes me uncomfortable at the same time.
“Then we should only take the loot,” says the younger one, Vergel, his voice urgent. “Forget the bodies. They’ll be found no matter what we do with them. Let’s go.”
“Hiding them buys us some time,” I insist.
“Not necessarily.” Eban crouches next to one of the Guild thieves and begins checking his pockets. “Remember what Zagar told us? That they stole all this from House Dominant.” He stands up, empty-handed. “In which case, they broke the pact.”
It’s forbidden for Guild thieves to target the high houses, as every thief—licensed or not—well knows.
They’d face swift punishment if they did.
Which was exactly why Aris wanted nothing to do with them, never joined the Guild.
He’d always said he’d rather rob the wealthy than those who struggled alongside him.
But he also knows better (or knew better, I realize with a pang) than to rob a Guild thief directly—like I just did, however unintentionally.
“They were doing an illegal job,” I say quietly. “Maybe the Guild won’t be interested in avenging them.” I look at the two strangers hopefully, urging them to agree. “Maybe?”
Eban and Vergel exchange an anxious glance.
They don’t agree. We all know we’ve stumbled onto something far above our station.
Whatever this is, now the three of us are involved with it, too.
We’ll be accused of both conspiring with the Guild thieves and murdering them.
And even if the Blackcoats don’t get a hold of us, the Guild will.
It’s an easy tale to spin: We all conspired together, then turned on the Guild thieves and killed them to take all the bounty for ourselves.
We’ll all hang within days, if not earlier.
I feel a lump in my throat and swallow hard. All roads lead to the gallows. I wonder how many times I’ll be able to evade that fate before it finally catches up to me. Perhaps it already has.
“Oh well, it doesn’t matter now, because we blew it,” Vergel says, cocking his head in the direction of the main road into town.
Iron horseshoes clatter ominously down the road toward us. Vergel’s right, we’ve wasted too much time. The Blackcoats are here.