Lon & Mareah
—SPRING
—Corabel
—20 years ago?
As the stew bubbled in the cast-iron pot, clouds of steam fogged the windows, filling the gardening shed with the smell of brine and vinegar. Outside in the cold spring air, the vast White Plains were carpeted with thousands of pale poppies.
In the distance, the terra-cotta rooftops and coral towers of Corabel, the capital of Deliene, rose behind the high city walls. But out here, Nin was the only person for miles, and she preferred it that way.
Smoothing clay into a hinged metal compact, she placed a leaf of waxed paper inside and snapped it closed. Dotted with tiny enamel flowers, it looked for all the world like an ordinary case of powder.
But nothing Nin did was ordinary. Weeks had gone into the planning of this heist. Through careful observation and a few well-placed bribes, she’d discovered the location of the safe and the weaknesses of the one man who carried the key. Tomorrow, she’d finally swipe it, make an impression in her compact, and cast a copy with the skill and precision for which she’d earned her name: the Locksmith.
The moniker was uninspired but apt. No lock could stop her. No safe was safe. She prided herself on it.
Placing the compact in her pocket, she patted it once—for luck.
As she turned to the stove, the door opened behind her. Someone shuffled into the shed.
Nin recognized those footsteps—Lon. He never came alone, but the other one was silent and Nin never heard her coming.
They’d first approached her about a job two years ago. Her reputation had preceeded her, they said. No one else could pull off the heist they had planned—no one else could replicate the keys they needed.
They’d offered her a sum that would sustain her for years, but she hadn’t done it for the money. She’d done it for the challenge of living up to her own reputation. The first key they’d given her was exquisitely crafted, with ornate wards and multiple-toothed bits so intricate they would have stymied any other craftsman.
But not the Locksmith.
When Lon and Mareah came back for the cast, they’d promised to return with the second key and the rest of the payment.
That was over a year ago. Nin thought they’d given up. Or gotten caught.
Now here they were. Without turning, she took another two bowls from the shelf.
Lon swung off his pack. “Hello, Nin,” he said.
“Finally got me that second key, did you?” She glanced over her shoulder, but Lon didn’t look flush with success, as she’d expected.
There was a new scar at his temple, still puckered at the edges where it had been stitched. He had dirt on his boots and the hems of his trousers, and the oversize sweater he wore was beginning to fray. In fact, he looked a bit frayed himself.
“What happened?” Nin asked as he pulled something heavy and rectangular from the depths of his pack.
“Ah.” Lon ran a hand through his black hair, making it stand up at the ends. “It’s a long story.”
Nin’s gaze shifted to Mareah, standing silently by the window.
The girl—easily in her mid-thirties, but everyone was a child to Nin—stared back solemnly, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
“Then start at the beginning.” Nin dunked spoons into the bowls and set them on her worktable.
Mareah began pacing the perimeter of the shed, past the hoes and pointed rakes, the tiny cot with its threadbare quilt.
“We got it.” Lon slid the heavy object onto the table and pulled up a stool.
So this was the great treasure they’d wanted her to help them free from the vault—a box. A case for carrying jewels, maybe.
“How?”
“We . . . had to improvise.” Lon ate slowly, laboriously, like he could barely sustain the effort it took to hold the spoon. However they’d done it, it had cost him.
Mareah seemed unaffected.
Nin looked from one to the other. “What do you want, then? I didn’t copy your second key. Don’t want to be paid for a job I didn’t do.”
Pushing his bowl aside, Lon folded back the leather casing of the box and slid out an object encrusted with gems: amethysts, sapphires, emeralds, cuts of brilliant blue tanzanite and red beryl, cabochons of cat’s-eye, rubies and diamonds so perfect they were like cold stars winking among the curling gold filigree.
Nin leaned forward, studying the jewels with an expert eye. The exterior of the box was more valuable by far than the contents of the safe she’d been planning on looting in Corabel.
“Very pretty.” She crossed her arms. “But if you’ve got it, why are you here?”
Lon fiddled with one of the clasps on the box, clicking it open and shut again.
“Lon,” Mareah said from the window. Her hand closed around her sword. A sharp silver ring on her finger flashed in the light.
Nin’s gaze darted to the acres of poppies outside. “You didn’t get away clean.”
“No.” Lon pushed himself to his feet.
“Stupid boy.” Nin began pulling items from the shelves and stuffing them into a sack. All those weeks of work, wasted. “Who’s after you?”
“Just believe me when I say they’re dangerous. If they find you, they’ll do anything to find out what you know.” He glanced at Mareah. “Anything.”
“And you led them here?” Nin buckled her pack and began feeding the rest of her belongings into the stove. “Couldn’t just leave me out of it, could you?”
“We had to warn you.”
“You haven’t told me a rotten—”
“They’re here,” Mareah interrupted. Her eyes were unfocused, her pupils constricted into pinpricks of darkness in her brown eyes.
“Who’s they?” Nin patted her pocket, where her case of lock picks thumped against the now-useless compact, and grabbed her bear-skin cloak. “What kind of mess have you dragged me into?”
Lon ran his hands through his hair again. “Anything we tell you could lead them to us.”
“You’ve already led them to me,” Nin snapped.
While they argued, Mareah drew her sword. The shed filled with the metallic scent of blood.
Nin gagged. Lon grabbed the jeweled box from the table and shoved her toward the corner, placing himself between her and the door.
Through the window, Nin spied figures hurrying across the plains, leaving gray trails of crushed poppies behind them.
Mareah raised her copper blade. Outside, the fields went still.
Then the door flew open. The first attacker barged in. In a single swift motion, Mareah drew a red line across the back of his neck, severing his spine.
The blood on the blade disappeared, absorbed into the steel.
The windows shattered. Assailants leapt through the glass. Mareah was everywhere, a blur of movement between the transparent shards, her sword flashing like copper lightning, seeking blood.
Nin had never seen anything like it. Mareah’s movements were so sharp they hurt to watch, so beautiful you couldn’t look away.
With a flick of her fingers, she sent a shard of glass flying deep into the throat of one of the attackers.
Magic. Huddled behind Lon, Nin drew a dagger from her boot.
Palming the air, Mareah shoved another opponent into the wall. The woman’s head cracked against a beam and she dropped to the floor like an empty suit of clothing. Mareah fought off another, her sword nicking him in the arms, the chest, the backs of his thighs, until he sank to his knees, his face contorted in pain.
She brought her blade down, parting his head from his body in one seamless movement.
Then the shed was still, the copper-colored sword silently drinking in the last of the blood on its blade.
Mareah looked over her shoulder. “Everyone okay?” she asked.
Nodding, Lon gripped Nin by the elbow and hauled her upright. “You won’t need that,” he said, gesturing to her dagger.
Nin jerked out of his grasp. “Sorcerers,” she spat.
Mareah sheathed her weapon, and the buzzing scent of iron ebbed out of the air.
There was a flash of fire on a distant hill, followed by the crack of a gunshot.
Before either Nin or Lon could react, Mareah lifted her fingers. A bullet halted midway through the empty window frame. For a moment, it hovered, turning slowly in the air.
Narrowing her eyes, Mareah turned her wrist and sent the bullet spiraling back into the fields.
Far away, there was a fine mist of blood among the white poppies.
At the table, Lon began prying sapphires and coils of gold from the jeweled box. Taking Nin’s hand, he pressed a handful of gems into her palm. More than enough to compensate her for her wasted time. More than enough to live on for the next few years, if she was careful. And then some.
“You’re leaving me?” she demanded. “When I don’t even know who’s hunting me?”
“The less you know, the safer you’ll be.” Lon wrapped the box again and stuffed it in his pack. His eyes glinted sadly. “We’re sorry. You’ll have to lie low. Head into the wilderness. If you’re careful, they won’t find you.”
She dropped the jewels into a coin purse. “For how long?”
“Forever,” Mareah said. Her scarred hands flexed at her sides. “You’ll never be the Locksmith again. Even a whisper of your whereabouts will draw them to you. You have no choice—you have to run. Run or die.”
Nin glared at them. In less than fifteen minutes, they’d taken her safety, her identity, her future. She could imagine the rest of her life now, a harried existence flitting from town to town, as the wanted posters of the Locksmith faded, and she and all her deeds were forgotten.
She wished she’d never met them, never heard the names Lon or Mareah. They had powerful enemies, and now, though she didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, those enemies were hers.
Nin flung her bear-skin cloak over her shoulders and looked around. Among the broken glass, the pools of blood, the cooling bodies, Lon found Mareah’s hand. Their fingers twined.
“Good-bye, Nin,” he said. “Good luck.”
“No such thing as luck.” Without another word, Nin stalked out the door into the White Plains, leaving Lon and Mareah behind—she hoped—for good.