Chapter Nineteen The Balfour
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE BALFOUR
Every ten minutes, like clockwork, a cart made its way across the harbor, ferrying luggage from the carriages on Dockside to the ship preparing to set sail. Crew members fluttered about the deck by lantern light, tossing and tying off ropes.
A large raven sat perched on the yard of a mainmast sail on a neighboring ship, where it had been for the last half hour. Caelan hadn’t heeded Reya’s request two days ago, but at least he’d stayed out of her way.
Judging by the small army Domwell St. Lucius had hired to protect his ship, the information the Savant had provided had been worth the cost. The mercenaries appeared to have been plucked from all over the world, all armed to the teeth and trained well enough to be a problem if this went south.
The crafty bastards had closed down this stretch of the harbor and covered it from every angle in seamless rotating shifts for the last day.
But per usual, they were looking for threats everywhere except in the precious cargo they were guarding.
Which was why Reya had lodged herself under the luggage cart while it stopped to reload.
Using the wheel axles like handlebars, she balanced herself flat against its underside, just as she had that night on the bridge.
Why sneak onto the boat when she could be carried on?
Hair braided in a tight crown at the back of her head, Reya had worn only her leathers.
All that remained of her arsenal were the fighting knives on her thighs, the blades hidden in her boots, and the Etellinian steel sword strapped tight to her back.
It was weighing her down, but she wasn’t about to let it out of her sight, especially not in a city where some of the world’s best pickpockets made their fortunes.
Sulfur and salt carried on the wind rippling across the bay. Dawn was only an hour off, and the tide was rising around them.
Reya kept her breathing steady and controlled as the cart jostled over the weatherworn pier, up the gangplank, and down again.
She counted the three minutes it took to reach the cargo hold, and the moment they stopped to unload, Reya pried herself from the mechanism and rolled behind the crates they’d already roped down. Then she was alone in the hold.
She started her ten-minute countdown.
There was a groan and pop as she forced the porthole window open and slid her torso out over the water. Using the brass frames and planks as holds for her hands and feet, Reya slid along the sea-facing side toward the stern and pulled herself up onto the rear balcony.
The door to the captain’s quarters was unlocked, as she’d expected.
No one bothered to lock a door surrounded by water on all sides.
Meanwhile, the captain was on deck with his navigator, charting their course, leaving the room empty, though a two-legged shadow under the door indicated one of the mercenaries was standing guard outside.
It was the only place on a ship to house a safe besides the hold, since Reya doubted St. Lucius would trust the crew anywhere near his most prized possession. Thanks to the sketches she’d found in the shipwane’s office, she knew exactly where it was and how to get there.
Sure enough, there it was.
The green cast iron safe was mounted in the corner.
Crossing the room on silent feet, Reya examined the five-spoke steel turnstile handle.
Lockwell and Caster was embossed in gold across the face.
She and the two locksmiths were old friends—she had cracked their work many times before.
This one was a six-digit combination. The walls and door were thick, meant to conceal the sound of the tumblers inside.
But they hadn’t accounted for demi-Sage thieves.
Reya spun the wheel three times to clear it, pressed an ear to the metal, and started turning.
Six minutes. Judging by the shouts in the distance, they were about to loosen the sails.
Nine to the left. Twenty-eight to the right.
She was so close to victory, she could taste it.
Soon her debt to Lennox would be paid. Once she got her coin back and found a way to shake the twins, she would be free.
Her brothers would be safe. She could pen a letter to Master Odell, accepting his offer, and after settling her affairs in Rhiterra, sail to Delthia well ahead of summer’s end.
She imagined days spent learning in a forge and evenings spent discovering a new city, one where she didn’t need to look over her shoulder. A painful longing twisted in her chest.
Ninety-two to the left. Eight to the right.
Caelan would be cured, and he would sail to Delthia and get the aid the magic-born needed. And she would never see him again.
His future was a painting she didn’t belong in.
One day, artists would render him into the sort of epic floor-to-ceiling battlescapes monarchs kept in their dining rooms. They likely already had.
Reya could see it now—Caelan holding the front line, facing down a thousand men in silver mail, with a flaming sword and an army of Sages at his back.
The only art pieces she was rendered in were wanted posters.
Six to the left.
She could admit it had been nice not having to watch her own back every night, that she’d slept easier knowing for at least a few hours, she was safe.
It had been years since she’d known that kind of security, so long she scarcely remembered it, and hated that the feeling had grown familiar, comfortable.
Because now she would remember what it was like to lose it.
No matter how many times she told herself that this was just a job, that Caelan was just a client and he only cared about her so far as what she could do for him and his people, she couldn’t change the way he’d made her feel.
Twenty-three to the right.
One day, perhaps, she would earn the sort of love and loyalty Thance and Omira gave to Caelan, even in their hurt.
The kind her parents had. She would settle for nothing less, if she ever settled at all.
And if she was lucky, the brushstrokes of her painting would become a quiet landscape of rolling hills and sand dunes and cresting waves.
Iron whined as she opened the door and reached an arm inside. She slid her hand over stacks of papers, a few leather-bound books… and nothing else.
No false compartments. No additional locks.
It wasn’t there.
Reya crouched down and swept her hand across the two cast iron tiers once more just to be sure. Nothing.
What the rotting hell?
Don’t panic, she chastised. Work the problem.
What had she missed? There was enough security on this ship to protect the royal family.
It had to be here. Where else would St. Lucius keep it?
Reya could think of nowhere else save for on his person, and if that were the case, then this job was about to get a whole lot harder.
The doors to the captain’s quarters flung open, and before Reya could fully stand, she was surrounded. Mercenaries blocked the moonslight pouring in from the port windows. She counted them off but stopped when she got to ten. Ten was one too many.
A man entered behind them, and Reya’s grip tightened on the daggers she’d instinctively freed.
Domwell St. Lucius was shorter than she expected, with a thick gray mustache and beard.
No one made their riches manufacturing weapons for an expanding world power without spilling blood, but that life had turned him into the kind of man who paid others to do his fighting for him—and quite well by the look of things.
Though their bodies and faces were scarred from years on the job, the mercenaries bore all the finery of career killers.
St. Lucius’s voice was as pompous as his appearance. “I was assured that safe was uncrackable. I’ll have to write for a refund.”
“Get yourself a dog instead,” Reya said. “I don’t kill animals.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
He was careful not to step beyond the protection of his sellswords. Smart man. She’d killed smart men before.
“You, my dear, certainly live up to your reputation. I would love to take off that mask and see if the face matches the rest of you.” His eyes roamed over her body, pausing on the wild red strands that had ripped from her tightly braided hair.
“I see now why you chose the moniker the Crimson Dagger.”
Reya angled her steel, and the mercenaries followed the movement like the good dogs they were.
“Would you like to know what tales they tell of you here in the south?” St. Lucius continued as the men closed in around her.
“They say you were trained by the finest killers in the empire, that you can cut down half a dozen men in the blink of an eye, that even King Rothmire’s finest Silver Guardsmen fear to speak your name.
” His eyes drifted to the hilt peeking over her shoulder.
“They say that the thief of the north carries an Etellinian steel sword.”
Reya kept her face carefully blank, but there was a faint ringing in her ears. Her father’s sword would be the crowning jewel of any weapon master’s collection.
“When I received an anonymous tip a fortnight ago that I would soon be paid a visit by the Crimson Dagger, I thought, why miss out on this opportunity to discover the truth? It would seem that for once, the rumors were correct.”
The sting of betrayal was nothing compared to her rage, even as her mind raced for answers. Someone had tipped St. Lucius off that she was coming. Which meant, in all likelihood, that there was no Kraken blood, and Caelan was as good as dead. She’d been set up.
But for what purpose?
Her traitor was either fool enough to think she wouldn’t evade capture, or they’d known she would come here with an escape plan and kill her way out if she had to.