Dock Street Pastries
SERAPHAE
The target was late to his own death, which I found incredibly rude.
I had been on the rooftop for the last two hours, lying flat on my stomach.
The entire front of my tunic was soaked through, and the fabric plastered to my skin.
Around me, snow dusted the rooftops, quietly reminding me that this was a terrible time to be wet.
As I lay there and watched the lamplit windows of Doran Vex’s estate, the tiles had warmed beneath my body.
The man needed to stop entertaining and start being alone.
There were still nine guests below, with six guards on rotation.
I shifted my weight, rolled my neck, and settled back in.
Laughter from the open windows cut across the ambient sounds of Blackwater Cape and the dock bells ringing in the distance.
Patience was not something I was born with, but after ten years of contract work, it was something I had learned.
I installed it into myself the way a splinter installs itself.
Slowly, until you stop noticing it. My body had other opinions that patience could not override.
If Doran Vex didn't let himself get killed soon, I was going to break in to use the latrine.
“Have you tried the meat pastries off Dock Street?” a voice said beside me. “To die for, honestly.”
I didn't move, didn't even need to look.
“Xander,” I said. “I'm working.”
“I can see that.” He settled beside me, dropping crumbs around him. “Very dedicated. Very focused. I admire it deeply.”
“Go away.”
“I'm just sitting here.”
“Why are you even here?”
I glanced sideways at him.
He was on his back, pastry in hand, staring up at the sky with the profound contentment of a man who had nowhere to be and nothing to do. No target. No reason to exist on this rooftop except to annoy me. His blond hair was still bright against the darkness.
“The view from the other roof is obstructed,” he said. “Scaffolding. Very inconsiderate.”
I faced forward again. Doran Vex's study on the third floor had a balcony that his architect had almost certainly told him was ornamental and inaccessible. That would be my way in.
Below the balcony, two of his guards disappeared around the corner. I tracked them. Three minutes gone, four minutes back once they reappeared.
“So, what did he do?” Xander asked.
“Nothing.”
“Liar,” he said. “You're the pickiest assassin in Blackwater Cape, Sera. Possibly on the entire northern continent. You don't take every job.”
“I take plenty of jobs.”
“You take the ones that pass your moral inventory.” A pause. “Which, for someone in our profession, is frankly inconvenient.” He bit into the pastry and continued with a mouthful, “So what did the poor bastard do?”
I was quiet for a moment. The savory smell of his meat pastry made my mouth water.
“Children.” I pressed my fingers into the roof tile. “Sold south through the Kael route.”
“Ah.” He waved his hand lazily. “Carry on, then.”
Doran Vex appeared at the first window, talking to someone I recognized as Darrik Casseal, a noble with a charter seat. Nobody I was here for and needed to move.
“The Kingdom of Twilight is holding a masquerade,” Xander said.
I kept my eyes on the window. “Twilight?”
He turned to me, delighted. “Yes, the border kingdom.” He scooted closer and leaned on an elbow. “By invitation only. Half of Thalvarn is talking about it.”
“Half of Thalvarn forgets that humans and fae were killing each other fifty years ago.” I tossed my dark braid over my shoulder.
“But there's a treaty now. No one's dying anymore.”
I blinked at him, my breath fogging in the cold.
He blinked back as if he hadn't just insulted Thalvarnan history.
“The prince holds a masquerade every year.” I turned back to the window. “It's nothing new.”
Caelan Vaelor, the Prince of Twilight, did not care for rules.
“Have you been?”
“No.”
“Not at all curious?”
“No.”
He sighed and lay back on the tiles. “Your loss. Heard the wine alone will make you reconsider every wine you've ever had.” Then he added, as if it were an important detail he had missed, “And the prince. Every woman in Thalvarn has a story about him. Half the men, too.”
I had little patience for men like him. A rake with a prince's title who had nothing better to do with eternity than throw masquerade parties and invite humans to them.
Doran Vex laughed at something Casseal said, then shook his hand and disappeared from the window.
“I still think we should try to go,” Xander said, apparently still on the roof, still here to bother me. “The cliffside estate. I've never been.”
The study light changed, which was my cue to move.
I pushed up onto my feet and started toward the edge.
“Don't die,” Xander called from behind me.
“Don't fall off the roof,” I shot back.
“That was one time.”
I went over the edge.
I waited until the guards below the balcony rounded the corner.
Three minutes.
The railing caught my hands, and I swung myself over, my boots hitting the tile without a sound. I pressed myself flush against the wall and peered through the glass doors.
Inside, Doran Vex sat at his desk with a bottle of something expensive. Arm rested on his chair, ankle crossed over his knee as he sipped from his glass. He had the posture of a man who believed he was untouchable.
When he stood to move to the cabinets lining the wall, I waited until the gust of wind passed. Even if he didn’t hear me, the Thalvarn cold that rushed in once I opened the balcony door would be hard to miss.
The door latch gave without sound, and I was across the room before he even opened the cabinet doors.
My hand went to his mouth, fingers gripping his jaw.
I pulled him back and felt the surprise snap through his body like a bowstring.
Before he could even react, my blade pressed against his throat just below the ear.
He froze.
This was the part where they usually pleaded. Where they offered double, triple even. It wouldn't have made a difference.
“This is for the girls in the cellar,” I whispered into his ear.
Warmth spilled over my knuckles as he cried out against my palm. My grip tightened when he struggled. Within seconds, his body went slack. I eased him down and wiped my blade on the robes he had bought with someone else's life.
His signet ring sat on his index finger.
I crouched down beside him, careful to avoid the pool of blood crawling toward my boots. I twisted it once. Twice. It didn't budge. I considered my options and looked at the blade I had just wiped clean.
Then I made the practical decision.
After one last look at the man bleeding on the floor, I was out through the balcony. Xander was predictably gone.
Blackwater Cape at the seventh bell was its truest self. The city did not sleep. Coin here had better stamina than most men I knew.
Vendors were still shouting out prices. The smell of flatbread and fried things drifted from carts. A very enthusiastic card game was spilling out of a tavern. Someone was singing badly in the distance. Two men argued by the pier over coins that would likely settle in blood.
The cold air stung my cheeks as I hugged myself.
I never wore a cloak on the job. I did once, during a particularly unforgiving winter.
Let’s just say my getaway was less graceful than it should’ve been.
I tried to leave, but my cloak didn’t want to.
After that, I never wore anything that could snag.
My boots crunched against the snow as I picked up the pace.
Just past the harbor, where anything from small fishing boats to mercenary ships pretending not to be mercenary ships docked, was the Black Gull.
Its first level was a gambling den. It had a painted sign, windows you couldn’t see into, and two guards at the door who made you feel warned just by looking at you.
Inside, there were game tables, and a wheel in the back corner I had seen nobody win at.
It was a place that no one would look twice at.
I headed for the side entrance around the back alley. The man at the door and I exchanged nods without a word, as if the only qualification for his job was not to ask questions. The stairs led down to where the real profit was.
The common room had a low ceiling and smelled of alcohol and the staleness of a space that was never aired out. Tonight, it had a metallic tang in the air. Blood probably. At least it wasn’t mine.
A bar sat on one side of the room, two booths on the other. Simple, bare, and incredibly boring but efficient.
I crossed to the bar where a familiar figure sat and set the wrapped cloth in front of Doss, the barkeep.
She had the blank expression of someone who had seen too much and had stopped commenting on most of it.
She unwrapped it, examined the contents with a straight face, then wrapped it back up.
Without a word, she reached under the bar and set down a bag that landed with weight on the counter.
I pocketed it without counting. Doss never shorted her assassins. She enjoyed breathing.
“Bold delivery.” Xander peered over my shoulder.
“Ring wouldn’t come off.”
He considered that and nodded. “Fair.”
I sat beside him and flagged Doss for something that wasn’t water.
“Vex was my last job.” I stared at the dark liquid in my glass.
Xander went still, his brown eyes skimming my face. “Yeah?”
“Doss did accounting last week,” I said. “I’m done.”
Ten years killing for the Obsidian Hand. I had a body count I was both proud of and ashamed of.
“South?” he asked. “Aurelion?”
“South,” I confirmed. “Somewhere quiet.”
A short laugh escaped him. “You’ll be bored in a week.” He took a long drink from his glass. “You’re not built for quiet.”
“I’ll be bored and free.”
Xander nodded in a way that made me wonder if he was agreeing with me or battling opinions internally. “Did you hear about Rellin Marr?”
I glanced at him. “No.”
“He missed.”
My glass stopped midway to my lips. Missing a mark wasn’t common, and it was not survivable.
“Marr panicked and disappeared for three days, thinking he could run,” Xander went on. “Hung him at the docks afterwards. Third pier where the ferries come in.” His hand lifted in demonstration, and casually added, “Hands chopped clean off.”
“Policy.”
The word was said enough times to mean nothing. My stomach didn’t even turn at the thought of it. That might have been the worst part.
“Policy,” he echoed.
I finished the rest of my drink in one gulp and hopped off the barstool.
“What are you doing tonight?” Xander asked.
“Celebrating,” I said over my shoulder. “Preferably with someone who understands the meaning of casual.”
I was retiring, which was something worth celebrating. Almost enough that I might even consider getting an invitation to the Twilight masquerade.
Almost.
He turned slightly. “Sounds romantic.”
As I walked out of the Black Gull, I told myself I would never step foot into this place again.
And I couldn’t stop smiling.