Chapter Five The Man in Black
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MAN IN BLACK
A silver for the doorman told her which way the man in black had gone. There wasn’t a buyer in this city with whom she wasn’t on a first-name basis, and she knew where they all liked to conduct business. From there, it was simply a process of elimination.
Reya clutched the hilt of her father’s sword in a death grip.
Lennox knew about her brothers. And she could do nothing to protect them because she had no rotting idea where they were.
She’d intended not to find out, or so much as speak their names—not until she was free of Lennox and had the mastery needed to put their father to rest.
The easiest way to control someone was by threatening what they loved.
So she’d buried their memories deep, where they ached with all the rest. That had been the price of protecting them.
Connery wasn’t an uncommon surname anymore—not when Rhiterrans and Etellinians had been citizens of the same empire for generations—and she’d never so much as hinted at her brothers’ existence. How Lennox could possibly have—
What did it matter now? The dead might keep secrets, but a mountain of them wouldn’t put that one back into the grave where she’d laid it.
Not after Lennox had exhumed it. If she couldn’t come up with the coin, she would have no choice but to forsake her apprenticeship and offer Lennox another decade as recompense.
Thankfully, some arrogant fool had flashed an Earth Star inside the Bear and the Bard.
For years, fate had royally screwed her.
Tonight, it might very well be her salvation.
Normally, she would spend days watching a target before she moved.
But there was no telling how long the man in black would be in Edris or the time it would take him to make his trade.
Already the stone might have changed hands, and she wasn’t about to lose its trail.
Reya spotted a fire escape ladder ahead and climbed one-handed to the roof, every breath like a knife.
She kneeled to rest on the steel shingles, clutching her fractured ribs.
She needed to reapply her healing salve, drink some blue bark tea, and go to sleep.
But she couldn’t afford to lose this chance.
The Earth Star might not sell for one hundred thousand golds, but it would get her close enough that she could pay the remainder from her savings. It would take her years to earn back the coin honestly, but her brothers would be safe, and she would be free.
Reya needed to work quickly. Word of the gem would spread like wildfire across the Heap.
Soon, every thief in Rhiterra would be after the man in black.
Although she knew from experience that anything that sounded too good to be true usually was, Lennox had seen the stone, and if he was willing to set up a meeting with an antiquary, then he believed it was authentic.
Reya finally spotted the man in black leaving the Peacock, a pleasure house on the border of the East End where several of her buyers liked to meet.
The gilded sign above the mahogany doors had been carved to look like the bird in question, the draping tail made of genuine green and blue feathers.
The man was so tall he had to duck to keep them from brushing his hood.
As the woman at the door tempting new patrons dragged her sky-blue gaze up and down his retreating back with a sultry smile, Reya wondered if he frequented such establishments, and the notion made every muscle in her body tense.
The man moved with grace for someone so large, cloak billowing behind him on the northern breeze like a living shadow. Trailing him from the rooftops, Reya watched as he made his way to an inn not twelve blocks from her flat. Clearly not from around here.
When he disappeared inside, she counted the seconds until a light flickered to life in a north-facing window on the fifth floor.
There you are.
She wasn’t dressed for work, but she couldn’t risk letting the man in black out of her sight.
It was entirely possible someone else was also watching the flat.
So she reluctantly perched in the shadow of a chimney to wait.
She would have to do this as Reya, not the Crimson Dagger.
Thankfully, she never went anywhere unprepared.
She ran her hand along the narrow compartment on her belt, feeling the instruments wrapped in leather.
Hours passed before the light was finally put out.
Reya waited another half hour before climbing down the nearest fire escape and crossing the street.
It took her all of five seconds to pick the ancient lock on the front door to the empty lobby, and she made a mental note never to rent a room here.
Counting as she went, she climbed the narrow stairs four flights and pressed her ear to the door of the only north-facing room.
No sound came from the other side save a deep, steady breathing.
She slid her tools into the keyhole, manipulating the pins and applying tension until she felt it give and heard a soft, unavoidable click.
The door opened with barely a sound, and shut just as quietly. That’s when she noticed the bed was empty. Reya’s hand dropped to her hip on instinct.
What the rotting hell?
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming in.”
She whirled, freeing her namesake dagger.
Dark leather boots gleamed in the shaft of moonslight from the window.
The man in black was sitting in the corner, a phantom behind his cloak, elbows resting on the arms of a chair he was far too big for.
Even sitting down, he looked like every man’s worst nightmare come to call.
Perhaps fate had not been so generous. She really needed to stop trusting that bitch.
So he was awake. And large. And terrifying.
Fine. She had fought large and terrifying men before.
She could still do this. Her left hand might have been screwed, but her right was working fine.
All it would take was a flick of her wrist, and he would go down in a ruby flash, only…
he had been behind her. He’d had the advantage and done nothing.
Either he was sorely overconfident that she wasn’t a threat to him, or she was missing something.
And this was not the time to be out of the loop.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Reya said with as much swagger as she could rally.
She shifted her weight, taking in her surroundings, the exits, everything she could use to her advantage.
His gaze slid over her the way opponents’ stares often did.
But there was no guile in the features she could see, only appraisal, if a little appreciative.
His head angled in a motion she could only describe as predatory, and she caught the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose. His nostrils flared beneath the shadow of his hood.
“How is that possible?” he said, more to himself than to her. “You can’t be more than twenty-four.”
“Twenty-one actually. But don’t let the number fool you.” Reya’s other hand inched down her thigh toward the hilt of her fighting knife, prepared to rely on what fingers she had left. He tracked the movement, and the temperature in the room took a sudden spike.
Slowly, he rose to his feet. Even the shadows seemed to cower before him. She’d seen wolves prowl toward prey with less grace.
“That’s not a fight you can win, thief.” He took a step closer.
Like she’d never heard that before. “That’s far enough.”
The heat in the room increased with every step he took toward her.
Maybe it was curiosity that made her hesitate, the sudden need to know who he was; or perhaps it was pride, to know what had given her away so she could be sure not to make the same mistake twice.
He was close enough now that she could shave the stubble from his throat, overpowering her with his delicious scent, one that not even the Heap could obscure.
Reya set the blade against his pulse. Her final warning. “I’ll be taking that Earth Star.”
Moonslight refracted off the rubies, sending red spectrals dancing over the lower half of his face. His full mouth twisted in a smirk as he looked down at the blade, his reply like the rumble of a coming storm. “Will you now?” Her skin prickled at the sound.
It was an effort not to swallow when he pressed his own neck against her weapon as if it were no more than a feather tickling his irritatingly pleasing jawline. “I’m afraid so.”
“Do I look foolish enough to bring something so valuable to a meeting with you?”
Without an explicit answer, she couldn’t be certain of the lie.
“A meeting? If that’s what you want to call my robbing you.”
His answering chuckle went straight to her core.
Keep it together.
Reya was so distracted by his neck she almost didn’t see him reach for the blade sheathed at his hip, one of five she’d already counted beneath the movements of his cloak.
With a disapproving tsk, she gave a threatening jerk of her wrist. He stopped moving, finally tipping his head back to avoid the red necklace she wouldn’t hesitate to give him if he so much as twitched again.
“Careful now,” she warned. It took all her considerable strength to feign calm and ignore the raging agony in her hand as she freed her fighting knife with her thumb and two fingers, and raised it to his crotch.
“If you’re telling the truth, then this will be lethal.
We can find out together, or you can give me the stone, drink the contents of the vial in my left cloak pocket, fall back into that nice warm bed, and wake up tomorrow none the wiser. Up to you.”
“Do people actually do that?” He sounded genuinely curious.
Reya flashed her teeth. “You’d be surprised.”