Chapter Two A Better Liar than Anyone
Chapter Two
A Better Liar Than Anyone
In Which Kell Is Offered What He Wants Most—for a Price
Kell Redsong sometimes wondered what he’d do if fate brought him face-to-face with Saeldian Charmhand again.
He’d imagined what he would say (something devastating) or do (something impactful) or how Saeldian would react (something dishonest), but he hadn’t really expected them to flinch.
He hadn’t expected to see sadness twist their mouth like it hurt, but they tucked it away so fast that no one but him could have seen it before the familiar knowing amusement returned to their features.
There had once been a time when Kell could read paragraphs in Saeldian’s smallest expression.
They wore their infuriatingly blasé mask now, but that stricken expression had been real.
Kell shrugged it off. The knowledge that Saeldian was actually capable of regret wasn’t enough of a surprise to matter.
He gave his ex-partner one final baleful stare. “Let’s go, Lorzok.”
“I don’t want to say this,” Saer Briona interrupted, voice dangerously soft, “but if you walk out that door, there won’t be anywhere you can run.”
The Zhentarim had waited so long to collect on the debt Kell owed for his life that he’d nearly forgotten about it. He shouldn’t have. Kell didn’t want to settle that old debt this way. But if he refused, the price would be the last thing he ever paid.
But here in Waterdeep, of all places? What did Saer Briona expect him to step into in exchange for that favor? It wasn’t like any of the others could have escaped without his help. But that didn’t matter. Kell owed them his life, and he’d forgotten that they owned it.
“Then let him stay,” Saeldian’s voice cut in. “We will let him get all the rewards.”
No. Not their pity. Never that. “Fuck you, Saeldian. Don’t do me any favors.”
“Kell,” Lorzok said, and his surprise colored his tone. “Do you know this elf? Sorry, elf-human, right?”
Saeldian gave Lorzok a curt nod and never took their eyes off Kell.
Fair. Kell wouldn’t take his eyes off someone with reason for revenge either. “A long time ago, I thought I did.”
“Oh,” Lorzok said, now understanding. “This is the Saeldian who betrayed you, back when you were a criminal.”
The tiefling’s—Jubilee’s—jaw dropped. Saeldian’s soft brown cheeks flushed with offense. Kell didn’t care. “That’s them.”
“And so they are the reason you owe the Zhentarim your life.”
“Correct again.”
Lorzok’s pleased smile at making the connection was eclipsed by the offended face Saeldian made. They pressed their lips tight on whatever they wanted to say. Something to defend their honor? Ha! Saeldian, with honor. What an imagination Kell had!
Saeldian’s offended expression found its way to their voice. “Reminisce later. Good day, Saer Briona. Best of luck, Kell.” Saeldian tossed their napkin on the table. “Release us.”
Jubilee studied a key cradled in her hand. Kell recognized it as a key for quickened barrel tumblers. The turning plate was shaped like a gold dragon…a bank vault key?
“We’ll find something else,” Saeldian said. “It’s just gold. We’ll figure it out.”
What kind of employer paid so much gold that they had to put it in a vault?
The Zhentarim, apparently. What did they want so badly that they would bring him and Saeldian Charmhand together for a job?
That was the question, and Kell didn’t care to hear the answer.
But Jubilee looked at the vault key a moment longer before she closed her eyes and let it land on the table.
“If you’re sure.”
Once, Kell would have walked away from a vault full of gold out of loyalty to Saeldian Charmhand. Ten years ago, he would have trusted Saeldian over the word of a hundred experts, and he couldn’t stand to watch someone making that same mistake.
Kell wouldn’t let himself. He couldn’t help it. “Wait.”
Jubilee turned her attention to Kell. She was the color of a forget-me-not, with black hair that shone violet.
She had a handsome face—angular in that way that meant a bit of makeup and a costume change would let her impersonate a man if she needed to.
Perhaps that’s what she’d been doing, in the silk shirt and many-pocketed attire of a well-to-do artisan who needed to keep a variety of small things on their person to do their work uninterrupted.
Everyone from cabinetmakers to cooks to tailors wore a vest like that.
Combined with Saeldian’s glamorous, alluring attire, Kell would bet ten dragons they’d been in the middle of a scam when they were invited to hear this offer. Jubilee had been Saeldian’s sentinel, watching for the moment she needed to protect them.
Jubilee probably took it as seriously as he had.
Kell leaned closer. “You don’t know me, Jubilee. But get Saeldian Charmhand out of your life. Don’t wait until they’re done with you.”
Jubilee sniffed. “You don’t know me, Kell.” The tiefling turned to Saeldian. “Is it true? What the orc said.”
Saeldian looked exactly the way they had ten years ago when they were forced into an admission, down to the charming, rueful smile.
“Not totally. I did leave abruptly, but I didn’t drop Kell in the hands of the Zhentarim.
” Saeldian glanced at him and said, “I didn’t have a clue about that last part, not that he’ll believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either.”
The muralist who had painted the rippling sea and dawn-to-midnight horizon on the dining room’s walls had hidden faces and animals in the clouds, and Kell counted running horses until the tiefling spoke again.
“Then what did you do?”
Saeldian’s dining chair creaked. They had shifted their weight the way they did when they were itching to vanish. “I just left! Like I said. I didn’t even take my share of the score.”
“That much is true,” Kell said. “You made sure every gem was right there so you couldn’t be implicated.”
“I didn’t—” Saeldian took a breath. “Saer Briona. You said this job was nearly impossible. If you try to put us together, we’ll never pull it off.”
Briona shook her head like she had honest regrets. “I need you both.”
Jubilee asked, “Why?”
Briona looked between the two of them before she answered. “They’re uniquely suited to the assignment.”
Kell groaned. “Oh no. I’m out. I quit.”
Saeldian kept talking. “Kell doesn’t trust me.”
Jubilee leaned closer. “But why doesn’t he trust you? What did you two do that—that I can’t?”
Saeldian turned to their partner and shook their head. “I wanted to leave this behind me. We were thieves. We were very good thieves. Then I had to leave, and I didn’t tell him I was leaving, but I guess something happened after I left.”
“Conveniently,” Kell muttered.
Saeldian glanced at him before continuing to answer Jubilee. “This is the first I knew of Kell Redsong’s whereabouts after I got out of Baldur’s Gate. I thought he’d be fine.”
“You thought I’d be fine?”
Saeldian apologized with a shrug and wide eyes. “I only took the armor. The rest of the take was yours.”
Saeldian lied better than anyone Kell had ever met. They lied so well that Kell could only spot their deceit when he knew the truth. They even looked genuinely surprised and upset to learn what had happened to Kell. But he knew better.
“No. You don’t get to pretend you’re innocent.”
Saeldian smirked. “When would I ever claim to be innocent?”
“When it got you what you wanted.”
They nodded. “Fair. But you know me too well to believe me.”
Saeldian smiled, all sparkle and presence. Kell leaned away as if it would snap the threads of enchantment Saeldian never stopped spinning. Still the same. Still relentless. Still like a magnet that drew everyone closer.
It hit him then—their hair was longer, their clothing suited to the blossoming eve of Waterdhavian spring, and that was all.
Ten years were ten days to their face. Black hair held back by a beaded band and allowed to tumble around them in shivering, bouncy curls—Kell still remembered just from looking at them how soft those curls were.
An expertly applied layer of makeup covered their golden-blush skin, but their eyes still shone like a starry night.
The same curving lips and strong bones that made people stare at their beauty and mystery.
Looks like a lodestone, he’d said once, and they had laughed.
Saeldian looked just the same as the day they’d left, wearing the same subtle illusion that perfected their features. Was it the illusion magic that left them looking so young? Or was that the timelessness of elf-human beauty?
When they turned their face away, Kell finally realized he’d been staring.
“I do know you too well, Saeldian.” Kell tried to add just enough boredom to make that perfect facade crack, but all they did was roll their eyes.
“You see,” they said to Briona. “It’s best if I go. Release me and Jubilee. Let him have the job.”
“I said don’t do me any favors.” Kell turned to Jubilee. “I don’t know you. But I know your story. You were a pickpocket, weren’t you? A light set of fingers. You could steal purses, trinkets in shops, but you got your start with stealing food. Bread?”
Jubilee made a face. “Cinnamon.”
“Daring. Why cinnamon?”
“Ran out,” Jubilee said. “M—Someone needed it for a cake.”
Kell had an idea about what the first thing a thief ever stole meant about the person.
Saeldian had taken coin from their father’s purse so they could sneak away and disappear.
After Terandis had pushed Kell out of Essanderon’s Rest and into the Material Plane, Kell waited for his father to come through and tell him that it was safe again.
On the third day, he had been so hungry, he stole a pie hot enough to burn his hands from a windowsill.
It had been made from mortal fruit and not of the crust Terandis cut with two magically chilled knives.
Every bite told him he would never have Terandis’s anyberry pie again.