Queen Of The Great Underworld

80

I gave the line some slack, shook it, and coiled it so that it fit in a clip on my hip.

The tiles on the roof were slick, but the treads of my boots gripped and my footing was secure. One more climb down to the ground. My toes hit the courtyard with hardly a sound. The whole night held its breath as I raced after Melanie.

She was far ahead of me by now, a slim figure keeping to the shadows, nearly invisible. If I hadn’t been looking for her, I’d have never known she was there.

But she and I had the same training. I knew all her tricks.

I followed her through the King’s Seat and Hawksbill. The mansions were hulking shadows in the dark, glimmering here and there with mirrors. Fountains splashed and wind chimes rattled. There was a party in one of the houses; laughter carried from an open window. Farther away, dogs barked, and the clock tower chimed twenty-three: an hour before midnight.

When Melanie climbed over the wall surrounding Hawksbill, I followed a minute later.

In Thornton, she stayed on the streets, but I ascended to the rooftops where I could keep an eye on her. While most of the shops were closed this late, the inns and taverns were brightly lit with candles and lanterns. Gas lamps hissed at intersections, making it impossible for anyone to hide, but Melanie slipped through the crowd, unnoticed. A few times, her hand flashed out and into someone’s purse. She pocketed her prizes.

At last, we reached Laurence’s Bakery, its windows dark now. Melanie stole around the back of the building and wrestled out a loose brick near the chimney. She stashed our reports and map inside the hollow, then replaced the brick.

It hadn’t taken her three hours to get here, so—

Melanie glanced over her shoulder before she climbed onto the roof and headed south, deeper into Thornton. Now what?

Maybe she was bored not being able to steal things in the palace and simply needed to scratch that itch. But she wouldn’t hide that from me, surely.

I followed, keeping my distance as she crept across peaked roofs, climbing and leaping and scrambling where necessary. Thornton’s architecture was such that anyone with the skill—and who didn’t mind heights—could use the roofs as a second and secret road. People almost never looked up, but we had to be careful in daylight; the mirrors scattered across the western faces of buildings could give us away.

In one of those mirrors, a shadow darted across the reflection of the slender crescent moon.

Someone was behind me.

Maybe someone from another g**g. Soon, they’d go somewhere else and be out of sight, so I didn’t turn around and alert them to my knowledge of their presence. They probably hadn’t seen me.

Still, I checked my stealth as I continued after Melanie. She headed into less crowded areas of the market district, where being noticed wasn’t such a danger, but I kept lower to the rooftops and wished the darkness were a palpable thing I could gather around me like a cloak.

It could be.

No. Fantasies were one thing, but actually using the magic would always remain a last resort.

Minutes later, the shadow appeared in a mirror once more, gone so quickly it might have been my imagination.

Someone was following me.

I stuffed down my indignation. I was following Melanie, after all. Still, I didn’t want to lead this person to wherever she was going. Not when I didn’t know. It could be something Patrick had asked her to do.

But why wouldn’t he have told me, too? Unless he knew it was something I wouldn’t like.

With one last glance at Melanie’s vanishing figure, I slipped behind a chimney, its bricks warm with smoke and fire from below, and I waited.

My pursuer would slow, would watch for me in the direction I’d been heading, wondering if he’d missed seeing my leap onto the roof of the next building. He’d be curious whether I’d somehow spotted him. Because he’d been careful. Quiet. Only chance had let me see him.

I steadied my breathing and strained my hearing beyond the pounding of my heart and the wind that kicked up dirt and trash. Paper scraped the side of the building, and a door slammed down the street. Wind moaned around corners. Chimes clattered.

The chimney seemed to blur as a darkness moved forward.

Without hesitation, I grabbed my pursuer’s wrist, yanked him forward and around, and slammed him back against the chimney where I’d been hiding. My hand was splayed out across his chest, pinning him, and my dagger gleamed against the black skin of his throat.

No, not skin. Silk. It covered his entire face, save his eyes.

“Black Knife.” My blade stayed steady at his throat.

“You won’t look, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say there’s a dagger at your stomach.” Darkness obscured what little of his face was visible, but his eyes remained on mine.

“I believe you.” Neither of us moved, maybe both of us thinking about how we’d react if the other attacked. Or how we could attack first, without getting killed. For either of us, it would take only a quick flick of the wrist to make the other bleed to death. Even if I cut his throat, he could gut me in his last moments of life. And the other way around, too.

“So what do we do?”

“Why were you following me?”

“You were sneaking around on rooftops. Only dangerous people do that.” His arm shifted and the point of his dagger caught my clothes and scraped my skin. I adjusted the angle of my blade on his throat, and neither of us moved. “We both know how a fight would end.” His voice was low and menacing.

A fair fight, perhaps. But I could bring our weapons to life. I could bring this roof to life. I could make them fight for me.

“I suppose.” My eyes watered with the need to blink against the cold wind, but I couldn’t look away from Black Knife. Now that we were practically nose to nose, my perception of him shifted: he was young, not a grown man like I’d thought.

“You’re a very interesting thief. I’ve been trying to find where you and your g**g stay, but no one seems to know. No one seems to know even your first name.”

“I treasure my anonymity. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

In his humph, I could almost hear a smirk, but the black cloth concealed the expression. “I’ve never seen you alone before,” he went on. “Usually, you have quite the entourage. Or at least that black-haired girl. You two seem close.”

Why was he talking so much? To confuse me? To trick me into relaxing? Whatever he was up to, it wouldn’t work.

“I don’t need my friends to protect me from you.” Wind picked up, howling now. A faint, acrid stench rode the air. A trash bin clattered and a cat yowled.

“No. That is obvious.” He broke our stare, glancing toward the street below. “I have a proposition. We both agree that standing here with blades at each other’s bodies is not going to accomplish anything but cramped muscles. So why not back off and sheathe our weapons? And if we decide to fight, we can get right back into this position. I prefer this to potentially falling off the roof.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust you, either.”

“So we don’t move.”

“Ever?” He met my eyes again, and seemed to search me. “You may not believe that I have things to do besides chase you around the city, but it’s the truth.”

“Doesn’t change that I don’t trust you.”

“If I dropped my dagger?”

I let the corner of my mouth curl up. “You’d pick it up and throw it at me as soon as I retreated.”

“If I handed it to you?”

“I’m sure you have more weapons.” That sword he used so much.

“So you’d rather stay like this.” When I didn’t answer, he pulled back his blade and my clothes shifted straight again. “I’m not going to stab you. I’m lifting my hand, see? I’m going to put the hilt by your hand. You can take it.”

His movements were slow, both of us waiting to see if I’d slice his neck open, but when the dagger came into view, he’d shifted his hold so the weapon hung between his first two fingers; it would be impossible to get a good grip on it before I attacked.

“That’s my dagger.”

“I know. In your haste to escape our last pleasant meeting, you abandoned it in a glowman’s hand.” His eyes never left mine. “Take it.”

I snatched the hilt and took several strides backward, keeping the edge of the roof to my left.

But before I could decide to run or attack or anything, Black Knife drew a miniature crossbow from his belt and leapt off the roof.

I reached the edge of the roof just in time to see him hit the ground, crouched and balanced on the balls of his feet and one hand. Like the jump didn’t faze him, he lifted the crossbow and shot a bolt into the darkness across the street.

The darkness roared and reared up, assembling itself into the shape of a huge black cat, all pale scars and sinewy muscle. Crates and beams clattered aside as the beast charged Black Knife, who reloaded his crossbow and shot again. The bolt struck the cat’s throat, making the cat stumble, but it didn’t halt.

With another yowl, the beast pounced. Black Knife rolled away as immense paws thudded on the ground, making even the building shudder under me. The cat seemed to be growing as it prowled around Black Knife, who shot it again and again.

Small black bolts protruded from the beast like whiskers. It let out another bone-shaking roar as it closed in on Black Knife, trapping him against the wall.

That hardly seemed to concern him. From a sheath along his back, he produced a black-handled sword and pressed his attack.

The cat swiped at Black Knife, who raised his sword and blocked the fan of claws. A fine spray of blood coated the ground between them, and the cat roared again.

In the nearby houses, candles and lamps were doused. A child’s scream rose up and was hushed. The clatter and shouts and roars of a boy fighting a beast were the only sounds on the dark street, and they were piercing.

This creature was a nightmare from the wraithland in the west. It had been normal once, but wraith seeped into its body and mind, reshaping it into this horror. When the wraith reached the Indigo Kingdom, these creatures would be everywhere, not just here and there, blown in on storms.

Black Knife ducked another swipe of the cat’s claws and deep gashes appeared in the wooden fence, just behind where his head had been. He leapt onto a stack of crates, lithe and limber as he climbed upward.

The cat pounced, and Black Knife’s sword flashed in the gleam of a gas lamp. The cat jerked back and out of the way. Black Knife let out a rough, frustrated sound and pursued the cat without apparent distress.

A pungent, wraithy stench filled the street, wafting up as the cat growled and lashed its tail. With a ripple of muscle, the beast struck. Black Knife blocked, but his wrist wrenched sideways, and the sword went spinning beneath the creature. The crossbow was nowhere I could see. Black Knife drew a pair of knives, but they had no reach. The wraith beast crouched and growled.