Chapter 6: The Deal That Bites Back
762 Words
The Lion guards didn’t hunt like the Rabbits.
They marched.
Boots in rhythm, shields locked, voices calling orders like they were moving an army through a single alley. Jupiti’s lower district felt smaller every hour. Sela had sold my location for a better cut of the Lion’s grain tax. That was her price. Always a deal, always a debt.
I watched them from the roof of the dye house, the air thick with indigo and sweat. Below, Kaia argued with a Lion sergeant. Vorr stood apart, silent, his eyes scanning the rooftops. Sela wasn’t with them. She never showed her face when the deal went sour.
Good. That meant she was close.
I had one thread left to pull.
Sela found me first.
She stepped out of the shadows in the alley behind the tannery, where the stench of hides covered sound. No blades out. Not yet.
“You’re clever,” she said. “But clever doesn’t pay debts.”
I leaned against the wall, hands open. “Neither does betraying the people who pay you.”
Her jaw tightened. “The Lion pays better than the dead.”
“Do they?” I pulled the totem out, let it swing. “Because I heard the Lion captain talking last night. He said the Rabbit family keeps failing. Said if you don’t bring me in by tomorrow, he’s giving your district to the Jackal family.”
Her eyes flicked. Just once. But I saw it.
Lies worked best when they had teeth.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Am I?” I stepped forward. “Go ask him. Tell him you want to renegotiate. Tell him you need more time.”
She didn’t move.
“You think I’m stupid?” she said. “You think I’ll walk into his tent alone?”
“No,” I said. “I think you’ll send Kaia.”
That got her.
Kaia was her best hunter. Her favorite. And expendable, if it came to it. Sela’s face went cold.
“You’re trying to turn us against each other,” she said.
I smiled. “Anansi didn’t fight stronger enemies. He made them fight each other.”
Behind her, I heard boots.
Vorr came around the corner first, blade out. Kaia was behind him, breathing hard.
“You were right,” Vorr said to Sela. “He’s here.”
Sela didn’t look at me. She looked at Kaia.
“Go,” she said. “Tell the Lion captain we need more time. Tell him the Jackals are circling.”
Kaia hesitated. “Alone?”
“Yes,” Sela said. “Alone.”
I saw it then. The doubt. The calculation. Kaia knew what that meant.
She left without a word.
When she was gone, Sela turned to me.
“You’ve made an enemy of me,” she said.
I shrugged. “You made an enemy of me first.”
Vorr moved.
He was fast, but I was faster. I ducked, grabbed the rope coiled by the tannery door, and yanked.
A barrel of lye fell from the rack above.
It hit the ground between us and shattered.
The chemical smell hit like a slap. Vorr jumped back, cursing. Sela didn’t flinch. She stepped through the splash like it was rain.
“You can’t run forever,” she said.
“No,” I said. “But I don’t have to.”
I threw the totem.
It landed at her feet and skidded to a stop.
She looked down.
For half a second, fear crossed her face. Real fear. The kind you don’t fake.
Dust Weaver. The third thread. I couldn’t create the lye, but I could time the fall, use the wind, make the cloud do what I needed.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” I said.
She kicked the totem away and lunged.
I was already moving. Up the wall, over the fence, into the maze of alleys where only a spider could follow.
Behind me, I heard Vorr shouting.
“Kaia’s not coming back!”
Sela didn’t answer.
I didn’t stop until I reached the old well in the dead district.
The totem was quiet now. Cold.
I sat on the edge and stared at the water.
Three nights. Two left.
Kaia was gone. Vorr was angry. Sela was cornered.
And the Lion was still coming.
I heard a sound of footsteps on stone—too slow to be a Rabbit, too heavy to be a guard.
Someone else was in the dead district.
And they knew my name.
- Writer
