Chapter 17 #3
She glanced behind us, checking on them. “They’ll be fine with-out me. We’ve done drops at least a hundred times together. They know the drill by now. Besides”—she nudged my ribs—“helping a friend of Max’s is much more important.”
I wasn’t sure we were friends, but if it meant she’d help me, she could believe what she wished.
We dodged workers and merchants, heading toward the back of the docks in a shadowed area where the cargo was stored. A lone cart was parked in the dark, no lanterns and too far from the gaslights to clearly see what a group of men were loading.
“What is this?” I asked her.
She gestured something to a pair of men draped in all black, high collars hiding their faces.
They nodded to her once, lowering their caps, before slinking off into the night toward the shipyard with the kind of stealthy speed I’d only seen from one other.
I realized then the kind of people I had run into. The kind that had saved me.
“You’re Cursed, too.” I barely breathed the word.
“Is that a problem?”
I shook my head quickly. Maybe a lifetime ago, I would have been hesitant to work with a notorious criminal group, but no longer. I had my own share of blood on my hands now.
“Good. We just came to get our usual drop,” she murmured. “I was scoping out the area when I found you.”
She lifted a tarp covering the boxes the men had brought in. The crates were labeled as medicinal supplies—tonics and tinctures. “In you go. Just until we get past the gate.”
Though I was hesitant to trust it would work, a lack of time had obliterated the rest of my options. Somewhere in the yard, a second bell rang, and I quickly slipped beneath the tarp, hiding near the front where the driver sat.
She patted the cover near my head. “Listen now, I paid the customs prick to smuggle liquor, not killers. So keep quiet back there.”
“Got it.”
She snapped the horse in motion, and a terrible quiet followed the ride out of the yard.
The woman was in no hurry despite smuggling the Crown Killer next to her mislabeled liquor into the city.
When we came to a stop, my stomach clenched, pulling at the ends of my ribs.
There was a brief pause at the gate leading out of the docks, and I remained as still as possible.
“Everything’s sorted, Elli. You’re free to pass. Tell my girl I miss her.”
“Tell her yourself, Beau. You see her every night.”
“And it’s still not enough.” He sighed.
Elli made a gagging sound. “Let it be enough, before someone finds out a copper is in love with a Cursed.”
“Ah, quit teasing me. Get out of here!”
We rolled on, and Beau was none the wiser that I was hiding beneath the tarp. Elli took a few blocks before she lifted the edge of the covering. “You can come out now. We should be clear.”
I sat beside her in the cart and found myself thinking of Claude. Poor mule. He’d probably been sent to the butcher after being abandoned, but I couldn’t worry about him now.
I glanced behind us, in case Max somehow appeared out of the nightly fog. Where was he? When nothing stirred in the smoke, I looked back to the road. “Don’t you think we should go back to help him?”
“Max was climbing over the wall last I saw him. He’ll be fine, I promise.” She pulled out a cigarillo and lit the tip before bringing it to her lips. “I was surprised to see him, to be honest. He’s been out of town for a while.”
I caught her side-eye, watching for my reaction. “He found his dice,” I only said.
Her brows jumped. “So he did. Maybe now he can finally worry about his family. Everything has gone to hell since he left.”
“Why do you say that?”
The roads were empty at this hour, and I pulled back my hood, my sleeve glowing slightly from the cuff still around my wrist.
“Max went and lost his dice not long after Damien rolled out a new product in the Lower District. Days later, we find out Therell is missing. A few weeks after that, you’re branded his killer, and then…
” She exhaled smoke through her teeth. “Then Maxence drags you here. Would you care to explain what’s going on? ”
“I’m not sure I can. It’s… complicated.” And not a story I was sure I wanted to explain to this stranger yet.
Her jaw flexed. “Yes. I bet it is.”
“I met Max as he was bleeding out in my surgery. He nearly died.”
Elli’s posture changed, stiffening. She urged the horse to pick up speed.
“Did he now? Perhaps he shouldn’t chase after relics on his own without warning anyone.
” She cleared her throat. “But that’s not important right now.
We’ll get you to safety, since Max considers you significant enough to keep the coppers off your trail. ”
She flicked her cigarillo into the mud and leaned back in the seat.
Her horse moved much faster than my Claude and rolled through the streets of Valveron so quickly, I could barely get a glimpse of the New City.
The streets still impressed me. There were no canals in sight, just winding paved roads and stacked buildings growing ever taller.
Elli drove through an empty outdoor market draped with twinkling string lights and vacant vendor stands. Guards whistled at us as we passed, insisting she slow down, but I doubted she was worried about the law. She hadn’t given the Commissioner a second look after I strangled him.
“Where are we going?” I asked her.
“A safe place,” was all she said.
“But Max—”
“Maxence will turn up eventually. I swear it. And if he doesn’t, I’ll send word out. There isn’t a soul this side of the canal that doesn’t know and fear Max. He won’t be difficult to find.”
The tips of my nose and cheeks were numb from a recent rain and the damp cold settling over the city. We turned sharply to travel through a different part of town, passing through an archway with an inscription I didn’t have time to read.
“The Lower District,” Elli said. “Cursed territory, as most know it. Coppers avoid it. We’ll find help for you here.”
She slowed, and I could get a better view of this area. The streets were thinner here, the buildings composed of dirty brick and wrought-iron balconies. Here and there, figures still stalked the streets.
Fog already collected beneath the glow of the lampposts, drowning the streets in a silver haze. Music poured from windows, brass bands and laughter. It reminded me of the Fissures, in a way—wealthier, but darker, and maybe even more dangerous.
I pointed out the speakers attached to the lampposts. “Is the new Governor still using those?”
“Worse. Now that Therell is out of the picture permanently, he makes announcements through those hell-forsaken things every morning.” She clearly wasn’t a fan. “Some of the younger Cursed have found ways to cut the wires, but the police come through regularly to fix them.”
“Sounds wasteful.”
“Terribly.”
She brought us to a street corner where a business stood.
A hotel by the shape of it, well-lit and surprisingly active at this hour.
Every window in the towering building glowed, reflecting off the puddles filling the pothole-ridden street.
Carriages were parked outside, but Elli took hers down an alley next to the hotel.
At the end was a square courtyard and the hotel’s livery stable. The stable master appeared between the open stall doors, a bucket in his hand. Behind him, lights draped from the rafters of the boarding stable, where a few other horses were resting for the night.
“You ready for my baby?” Elli spoke as she brought us to a stop in the middle of the shared space.
The master appeared less than thrilled to take the beast off her hands. “Your baby eats better than half the city of Valveron, Ell. I’ll let the boys unload the cargo from the cart before brushing her down for the evening.”
“She deserves it.” Elli jumped out of the cart, and I followed. Behind the stable master, more figures slipped from the shadows to unload the mislabeled contraband. “How’s your wrist?” she asked me.
I pulled back my sleeve, showing her the bloody mess over my hand where the poison had eaten through my skin.
She winced. “That’s a nasty wound. I’m surprised you’re so calm about it.”
I scoffed. “Oh, I’m not calm. I just hide my anxiety well now. Max always complains that my heartbeat gives him headaches.”
She brought me to the back entrance of the hotel, smirking before opening the door. “I’m very curious to hear more about how you two got to know each other. Once you’re out of that cuff, I want to hear all about it.”