“You’re insane,” Maurin said.
“Think about it,” Raef countered. “It’s a masquerade. We’ll blend right in. I’ll find Kinos and get out. You watch my back and pocket whatever you can. We both win.”
He took a seat on a pipe.
“You can’t just walk right in, Raef. You’d have to look the part, have the right clothes, not to mention a bath.”
The Crack was a gap in one of the canal walls. The interior, a network of bricked-off tunnels and pipes, was warm, but he’d never slept comfortably here.
She wasn’t wrong. He remembered the knight in the crypt calling him out. How many days had it been since he’d paid a few coppers to scrub himself clean? If Kinos cared, he hadn’t mentioned it. Raef almost flushed at the thought.
They paused to let one of the rumbles that sometimes moved through the underground pass. He didn’t know what caused them, but guessed it was something ancient, something in the deep tunnels Raef wouldn’t dare to enter.
“I know how to get us clothes, or at least enough money for them.”
“It’s an awful risk, Raef.”
The bricks reflected the red light of the Lost’s few fires. It danced over Maurin’s features as she stepped closer.
“Why does the prince have him?” she asked. “How do you know he’s not dead?”
“I think the prince wants to show up the Hierarch. He’s playing some game. I still don’t know why, but Kinos has value. The prince wouldn’t kill him, not if he’s worth any leverage. He’s important to them. I just need to know why.”
“I’ve always said that your curiosity would be the death of you.”
Maurin reached over and straightened his hair. She used to cut it for him, in those years when he’d been among the Lost, when the Grief was new and a simple nick hadn’t been such a risk.
“You should let this go, let him go,” she said gently.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not? You can’t care about him. You barely know him.”
Memories of waking alone, of that sinking feeling in his guts, came back.
But there was also the box, the moon, and the obvious importance Kinos had to the Hierarch. He’d brought the Knights Elite to make certain Kinos went back inside.
More than that, there was Kinos’s importance to Phoebe. She’d sent Raef the shadowknife. Dead or not, she’d spoken to him. He had to believe it.
Raef couldn’t tell Maurin any of that, so he said, “You didn’t see him when I opened the box, or his face when he talks about his family. I have to get him out of there, Maurin. I have to get him home.”
“He’s nothing like you,” she said.
She took his hands in hers. It was a motherly gesture, one she might use with one of the kids under her protection.
Raef would normally bristle at it. They were the same age after all, but in the moment he took the comfort.
“Nothing like us,” she stressed.
“I know,” Raef said, squeezing her hands. “I think that’s why I like him. I can’t give him back to the Hierarch and I can’t let the prince keep him. He is dangerous. All of Versinae could burn if they fight over him. I have to take him away from here.”
“So you’re leaving?” Maurin asked. “With him?”
Raef inhaled and gave a little nod. “I have to, I think. They won’t stop hunting him, not if he’s so important that the Hierarch himself came here.”
She let out a breath and nodded.
“You’re right,” she said.
“So?” he asked.
“So what?”
“One last job?”
“One last job,” she said, dark eyes sparkling. “But how? Where will you get the money for the clothes?”
“Don’t worry, I know just where to go.”
* * *
He’d never try this on any other day, but with the Hierarch in the city, most of the Watch would be in the temple plaza.
The houses here shone with fresh paint. The chandlers could afford windows of cut glass and servants to keep the panes free of soot and tallow grease.
Raef didn’t spy any rats. The Grief was ridding the city of vermin. Blood was blood to the shades, so there were fewer rodents and birds as the months passed by and the ghost mist thickened.
He picked a newer building with an open window on the second story and circled it for a while, watching from the shadows. He saw no one. The Hierarch’s visit had pulled everyone to the plaza to get a blessing or maybe buy his mercy.
Lady, he prayed. If you can hear me, bless me just a little more.
Raef shimmied up a drainpipe. The cast iron held his weight, and for once he was glad he hadn’t eaten better the past few months.
A little more climbing, a careful swing from the pipe, and Raef crouched on a broad window ledge. Pausing to get his breath back, he peeked inside.
Endless rows of dipped candles were hung to dry. There were devices, cranked molds, enough to keep a score of apprentices busy, but they’d gone to the plaza too. Even commerce and new wealth could not deny the Hierarch.
Raef probably could have walked in the front door and gone unnoticed.
He dropped to land in a pile of dried rushes and stayed there several moments, listening.
No one came but he still eased his way out of the pile, making as little noise as possible as he moved past the cauldrons of wax, the bottled dyes, and the clay jars of scented oil.
The iron door at the end of the hall looked promising. Its casters squealed when Raef opened it. Wincing, he moved it only as much as he had to and slipped inside.
He’d caused no alarm, but it didn’t mean he shouldn’t hurry. The Hierarch’s blessings wouldn’t take forever. Still, he grinned to be getting away with a daylight burglary.
The office on the other side doubled as a supply room. Metal racks stocked with unrendered fat rose to the ceiling. The pale stuff resembled lumpy, bundled cotton. Raef debated closing the door behind him but did not want to risk another squeal or chance getting trapped inside.
The thick walls must shield the suet from heat and any ghosts that might be drawn to the purple veins running through it.
An iron strongbox rested on a beaten desk. Raef licked his lips and drew the shadowknife. It came easily now, perhaps from practice, perhaps from his accepting what he hadn’t before.
It opened the padlock as easily as it did a door.
Raef bit his lip.
There were more than enough coins to afford what they needed.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Raef’s luck was changing. They could pull this off, save Kinos, and buy passage on a ship.
He tucked the money into his shirt and made his way to the door. He’d walk out like he belonged. Then a bath and Maurin could dress him. She’d known what to buy and how to get it on short notice.
Smiling, Raef had barely stepped outside when a shout rang out. Turning, he saw a watchman running toward him. It was one of the men who’d chased him and Kinos into the Narrows.
“Damn it,” Raef said.
He bolted for an alley. It should cut through to Iron Street. He’d lose the graycloak among the forges. He found a wall instead, its mortar still new and bricks unstained by soot. He’d run so fast that he almost slammed into it. The chandlers’ wealth had them expanding their shops and homes.
The watchman stalked into the alley. Too many patrols on rainy nights had given him a fleshy, undercooked pallor. Too bad it didn’t slow his gait.
“Give it up,” he said. “Whatever you took.”
“So you can take your cut?”
The watchman sneered. “So I can take all of it.”
“I thought you were looking for someone else,” Raef said.
“Already found him.”
That was confirmation at least.
Raef backed up until his foot touched the wall. He risked an upward glance. They both knew he didn’t have time to climb. The watchman slid his iron baton free of his belt.
Raef drew his knife. The watchman stopped his advance.
“It’s a tenday in the cells for carrying a cutting weapon. You so much as nick me and it’s the noose.”
“I wasn’t going to cut you.” Raef lifted the edge to his right wrist. “Back off.”
“You wouldn’t.” The watchman’s eyes flicked to the edges of the alley, checking for Grief. It may not work. The day was overcast, but it wasn’t that dark. “Whatever you got can’t be worth dying for.”
“I’m not bluffing,” Raef said.
He pulled his sleeve up with the tip of the knife, exposing a strip of pale flesh. The watchman’s eyes bulged. Raef didn’t break eye contact.
If the man spotted the tremble rippling through Raef’s limbs the bluff would be up. He’d be forced to try spilling blood, and if that failed, he’d have to fight. The other man wasn’t a knight, but he was armed and had a lot of bulk on him.
They stood there, Raef’s knife upheld, the watchman’s expression unreadable.
“One of us is going to have to take a piss eventually,” Raef said. “And it’s only going to get darker. So what will it be?”
The watchman slid his baton back into the loop on his belt. “You’d better hope I don’t catch you again.”
If Raef had any luck, he and Kinos would be long gone before he had the chance.
He scoffed at the thought. Counting on luck had gotten him caught.
Raef left the alley carefully, making sure the watchman wasn’t lying in wait.
It had been too close. He’d never done anything stupider. Yet, he hadn’t had a choice. It was this or leave Kinos to the prince and the Hierarch.
Raef couldn’t do that, which was good, because what they were about to attempt was even riskier.