Chapter Seven Honor Among Thieves #2
His gaze flickered over her arms and legs like he was waiting for something.
When his eyes met hers again, she could read nothing in them.
“I came to Rhiterra to find a thief. And I knew if I told enough people that I carried an Earth Star, that thief would find me.” Reya held back her grimace.
The Earth Star, this room—it had all been a trap, and she’d walked right into it.
“When you used this to knock me out with keel powder”—he set her ruby dagger, still wet with his blue blood, slowly on the table—“I knew I’d met the Crimson Dagger. ”
It took everything in her not to let a single muscle in her face react. To act as though his words were irrelevant to her. No one outside the Bluehoods, all of whom were sworn to protect Lennox’s interests—and thus to protect her—knew her face.
“They speak of you as if you are no more than a shadow in the night. A thief no man can catch. They say you can steal anything.”
With a flash of teeth, she asked, “Is there a question in there somewhere?”
Everyone, in her experience, had at least one nervous tic: twitching fingers, a bouncing knee, a flexing jaw.
But not him. Caelan Halcyon didn’t break eye contact, and he held utterly still.
That kind of restraint was unnerving, even for a Sage.
When he did speak, he chose his words carefully, like one wrong word would send her packing.
“I want you to steal something for me.”
She hummed. “And you think because I have a ruby-encrusted knife, this proves I’m the greatest thief in Rhiterra. I’m flattered.”
“The rubies could be a coincidence. But the sword… there’s only one thief in the world rumored to carry an Etellinian steel sword.”
Reya set down the half empty mug and dipped the fresh linen into the bucket, wiping the caked blood off her skin as casually as she could, all the while trying to think her way out of this mess.
Few had the study and eye to recognize an Etellinian steel sword.
Only two people had marked it on sight since she’d come to Edris.
Caelan Halcyon evidently had as well. Just her damn luck.
By the time she was finished, the linen was pink.
She grabbed her bag, attempting not to be obvious as she looked through the pocket where she’d stored the letters.
They were gone. She closed her eyes. Of course he’d searched her bag.
She thought of the king’s representative, waiting for her tomorrow night with a trunk full of coin she could no longer trade for.
Another job lost. Not to mention what this would do to her reputation.
If the Crimson Dagger didn’t back up her threats, no one would care when she made them.
Reya ground her teeth and snatched up her armor.
She wouldn’t make the mistake of going without it again, not when there were Dread Wolves and Sages and All-Gods knew what else stalking the streets of Edris. “None of that explains how I need you.”
“I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours with your clients and colleagues. People talk. Especially when they think I can’t hear them. So I know you’re neck-deep in debt to your snake of an employer, and no one in this city will touch you. You need this job.”
I had one. Until you stole back what I rightfully took. She avoided his gaze as she pulled on her leathers. “And what are you offering exactly?”
“I’ll pay your debt in full.”
Reya snorted. “Look, fire fingers.” Those remarkable eyes flared at the nickname.
“If you had that sort of coin, you wouldn’t be here talking to me.
And even if I believed you, my answer would still be no.
” Propping her leg on the table, she checked to make sure her hidden daggers were still in place.
His voice took on a deadly tenor. “And why is that?”
She needed to get Ash and get the hell out of Edris. Away from its many thousands of its inhabitants. And hope to the All-Gods there were no more Dread Wolves wandering about.
Master wants it whole.
Reya shivered, praying she’d only imagined the voices. Only when she was on the road to Port Talluah would she think about this shit show. She’d planned for something like this. Well, not exactly.
“One, I don’t get involved with magic-born.”
His reply was low and rough. “You are magic-born.”
Reya shot him a glare. Simply saying those words aloud could get her killed.
And he had done so intentionally, to remind her of what he knew and how it could damn her if he didn’t get his way.
She didn’t take threats lightly. Reya would entertain every conceivable option before resorting to her magic.
But he didn’t know that. “Everyone who is privy to that information is dead. If you do not wish to join them, I suggest you do not threaten me again.”
His amused expression was anything but humorous. “I’ll threaten you at my leisure.”
It might have been foolish to try and intimidate someone who was, by all evidence, death’s deliverance, but she knew better than to look like prey before a predator. Gaze never leaving his, she thrust her knives into the sheaths on her thighs. “Do it again, and you will die at mine.”
Surprise and something else flashed in his expression. Something like hunger.
Reya continued, “Two, my employer might be a snake, but he’s a snake you can count on to do what’s in his best interest. Always. I don’t work with those whose motives I don’t understand.”
He ran a thumb along his jaw. “What exactly do you wish to know?”
“For starters, what do you plan to do with the king’s private correspondence?” His eyes lit with warning, and she took another sip of her tea. “That’s what I thought.” It was just more secrets and lies she wanted nothing to do with. She had plenty of her own.
“You haven’t earned the answer to that question.”
She snorted, making quick work of the rest of her armor.
“I already know everything I need to. You’re old.
Much older than you look. You’re powerful.
Deadly. And you don’t belong here. Not in my world.
While you could probably burn the mountain palace to the ground with a flick of your wrist for all that Rothmire and his ancestors have done to your people, you won’t.
” She gave a knowing shake of her head. All he’d had to do to get her to cooperate was threaten not to heal her.
But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d brewed her tea and tucked her into his sheets.
“I know the look of a man with honor and one without. And you, Caelan Halcyon, are practically dripping with honor. You will not compromise. And that makes you more dangerous than half the people in this city. Someone who cannot bend, breaks—every time.”
She, on the other hand, had made a career of bending.
Reya drew her midnight-blue cloak across her shoulders, then grabbed her sword from the corner and sheathed it, buckling the sheath across her back through the slits in the fabric.
She snapped up her bag and dagger, not bothering to wipe off Caelan’s blood.
“Much as I appreciate you patching me up, I really have to go.”
When she made for the door, he was out of his chair and in her path faster than she could blink, crowding her until she felt his breath on her nose.
The gold in his eyes flared, not unlike the fire that raged at his command.
Reya wondered how many women had gotten lost in those amber depths. She would not be one of them.
“And what of your honor?”
She snorted. “You’ll find little honor among thieves in this city.”
“Have you none?” he said softly. “You could have killed me the night we met. You had to know I’d come after you.” She wondered if it cost him to acknowledge that.
Allowing him to think she was anything less than what the legends had painted her to be would only invite him to come after her again.
So she gave him her deadliest smile. “Where would the fun have been in that?” She stepped around him.
“I wish you good fortune, Caelan Halcyon. It’s been interesting. ”
A pace from the door, Reya froze.
There, propped in exactly the same place she’d seen it the first time, was his axe.
No. No.
Had Reya not been looking at the floor, she would have sworn it had fallen out from under her.
“What exactly did you plan to do with all that coin you stashed away?” Caelan mused, moving out of her way, no longer feeling the need to block the door. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
She faced him, heartbeat like a drum in her ears. Victory was written across every line of his beautiful face. Apparently, she hadn’t covered her scent trail as well as she thought.
He gave her a self-satisfied smile that, had it belonged to anyone else, might have made her toes curl. But it didn’t. Obviously. “Tit for tat, thief.”
The double-cross was so ballsy, Reya had to concede its genius—even as she imagined all the ways she could slide her blade through that impressive armor.
Had he tracked her scent to all her caches or just the one?
Her mind rebelled against the possibility that all of her savings—every coin she’d fought and bled for—was gone in a single night.
“Well played, fire fingers,” she said, knuckles turning white around the hilt of her dagger—so white that, for a moment, she was sure they were glowing.
The only things stopping her from trying to bury the blade in his immortal heart were his reflexes and the fact that he could turn her into a smoking corpse with a snap of his fingers. “I’m listening.”
“My motives are quite straightforward.” Caelan took a step closer, either unseeing or uncaring that she was teetering on an attempt at murder. “I’m dying. And I need you to steal me a cure.”