The morning was as dark as midnight or noon, down in the underbelly of Hilltown’s tunnels; when Jaylon summoned them to his office the clock by the lamp said it was almost eight. A pair of the gang’s heavies were flanking him while he sat there at his table, unshaken and pink-eyed, counting his money.
He shouted. He wailed. Rheva’s face almost came unstuck at least five times – but she knew if it did, she was dead. She clenched her hands, curled her toes, hid her expression behind her hair, anything to escape the hilarity of it all.
“If the three of you ever – ever – see her again… on a job, in the street, in the gods-damned ladies room… you are to kill her, you understand me? Kill her, or die trying – just getting out of the city won’t be enough, you follow? All of you – yeah, you too, Ghlaion – you let her ruin one more job and I’ll set demons on your asses. I know a guy who knows a guy. Now get the Twelve Hells out of my sight and pray that you don’t end up visiting them soon!”
When it was over, she went and found her partner in crime, and laughed her fill.
They met in a different place every time. Today it was under the arches in Tippletain, the small bar district in northern Hilltown. They got glasses of mulled wine – the girl paid – and then went to sit at a private table outside. It’d stopped raining but there weren’t many people passing by, especially here where the two neighbouring establishments had shut up shop since Everseer’s announcement. In any case, the mysterious girl was at least as adept as Rheva at lowering her voice appropriately.
“He really got so mad?” The girl sipped her wine and winced. “Ow! Hot! So, do you think we need to stop, then? Because I don’t want to get you and your friends killed –”
Rheva snorted. “Friends? Please. Those people don’t even like me, never mind know me.” She lifted her own glass, drank in its aromas. “I’d be interested in joining your crew, though. Do I have the right skill-set?”
“I thought you wanted your own crew?”
“If I look half as good in that blonde wig as you did, I’ve got to join just to try it out.”
“Gosh, thanks.”
Does she think I’m being sarcastic?
“I know you can see my lips moving when I count,” Rheva went on. “I watched you watching, you know.”
The girl’s smoky eyes narrowed, but her lips creased in a crooked smile.
“Running my own gang’s gonna be difficult. Until I can find someone to work the numbers that I can trust. I know you’re good, but I don’t get the impression you’re going to be happy being my accountant.”
The girl inclined her head with mock seriousness.
“And I don’t even know your name,” Rheva finished.
“Up till then, you were doing perfectly,” the girl murmured. Now she sounded serious. “We don’t do names. Not ever, not in this place. I need three dropping expensive items on me at all times just to operate independently… ‘Dropping’? Did I just say that? Your damn city’s getting to me, you know… And no, I can see you looking at the rings and necklaces – you’re never guessing which ones do what, which ones are decoys… which ones aren’t in… visible places…”
Rheva only realised too late that her eyes were wandering a little too far –
“You’re very forward, aren’t you?” The girl was smirking, Rheva saw, as she returned her focus to the master-thief’s face. “If you were propositioning me before, with the wig thing, you should know I’ve got a boyfriend, and before you get any funny ideas, he’s possibly the most-talented mage in Mund… that isn’t, like, a hundred, anyway…”
“Forget the wig thing,” Rheva grunted, hiding her mild disappointment easily. “What I want to know is, do you need me?”
The girl didn’t answer directly, but she held out her gloved hand face down across the table, and Rheva put hers out face up. She took the coins and tried to ignore the feelings that flushed through her at the brief contact, then turned her hand over before withdrawing it to her lap. She wasn’t wearing her gloves, and even if she had been she fancied she still could’ve picked out the fact they were plat by the tinkling sound alone. As it was she could feel their size, could even discern the insignia stamped into the coins’ faces. All coins minted in the city had the ‘M’ tail on the back (for ‘Mund’, or, if you were being sceptical, ‘Magic’ or even ‘Magisterium’), but these bore the weird, almost flaming device of a platinum coin on the front, while gold had the mountain-looking thing, silver the floral leaves, copper the little houses…
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She had far less trouble picking out the details on the small discs than she had actually counting the (one, two, three, four) five plat – not because it was a difficult number to count to, but because her senses were recoiling.
F-f-five plat?
Her long-trained instincts told her that anyone who was willing to pay her that much money was someone who’d kill her and take it back off her corpse not long afterwards. It had to be ten times what Jaylon would’ve given her for last night’s job…
But her deeper instincts, instincts that had been with her since childhood, told her she could trust this young, extremely lithe stranger.
“You look like you’ve decided to run.” The girl sounded amused; she sipped at her drink and didn’t splutter this time.
“This is too much.”
“Not nearly enough, and it’s out of my personal.”
Rheva ducked her head, staring at the girl in confusion, trying to get her to go on.
“What, you didn’t think I actually took anything, did you? I just popped a note in there, explaining the finer points of seasoning a good side of lamb.”
Rheva could hardly contain her giggles.
“It’s going to baffle the rich guy’s people,” the girl went on, “sure, but it’s really going to get to your boss when he realises how close you and your… not-friends were to a huge windfall. Five’s generous, but not as generous as you think. I can’t pretend to be an expert on street prices in your city, but if an ounce of pure whitestick goes for three-point-seven peas then Jaylon’s head’s going to be bouncing all over the walls once the news gets about. Best you avoid the place awhile.”
“Bahaha! Hahaha, oh gods… Gods, seriously?”
The girl sipped some more, nodding through the steam escaping her glass.
“Oh, gods… You still haven’t answered my question, though. Do you need me?” She couldn’t rein in her enthusiasm.
The girl seemed to study her, like she was studying a diamond under a looking-glass.
“You’re not the only person I’ve got betraying their boss, you know,” the girl said at last.
“Really?” Rheva considered it. “You planning a mass take-over?”
You planning on letting me live if I decline an offer to join up? Then, on the heels of that: Like I could decline…
“Mass take-over…” The girl mulled it over with another sip. “I suppose you could call it that… It’s just, I’ve never been somewhere with as much competition as Mund before. It’s hard to know where to start, you know?”
“Well, what’s your goal?”
The girl shrugged. “Guildmaster of the thieves of Hightown, I guess.”
“What, all of them?”
“I don’t know – how many guilds are there?”
“Hah!” Rheva snorted. “Too many.” She didn’t know how you’d begin to count them, even if you had a brain for numbers. Some thieves’ guilds probably barely interacted with outsiders – there could be two such guilds on any given street corner, each oblivious to the other’s existence until they clashed. “And, what – Hilltown’s just the jumping-off point?”
“Something like that.”
“Soooo… I shouldn’t go back there?” Rheva flashed her teeth. “Offering to put me up for a few nights?”
“You really are forward, aren’t you?”
Rheva just kept on grinning.
“Fine. You know what, I could do with a helper.” The girl scanned the nearby buildings. “This is a big city, and if half the rich are leav-“
“Helper?” Rheva pursed her lips. “You mean – an assistant.”
“Sure.”
“A lieutenant?”
“Whatever.”
“A second in charge?”
The girl laughed. “Okay, okay… Can you help me get a base set up – somewhere for you to stay? Somewhere we can start to operate out of? Money’s no object, but we’d have to steer clear of Jaylon if it’s around here, as well as Madman Madrigoss and Curveto o’ Oin…”
“You made enemies with the Myri? You really are taking over!”
“Let’s just say there’s an enterprising young man with a peculiar accent who might be having a similar conversation with me in a week or two.”
“Third in charge, right?”
The girl shrugged deviously.
“Well, he wouldn’t be the only one with the weird accent,” Rheva commented. “You’re good at masking it, but it’s obvious you aren’t from round here. An exotic beauty, with piles of cash lying around, unlimited piles of cash… Are you some foreign princess or something? Come to the city, to rebel against her evil father’s wishes –“
“Yeah, I’m totally princess material…”
“Well, you know the way to a poor street-thief’s heart, all I’m saying. So, where do I sign?”
“What do you sign?” Rheva’s new boss cocked her head. “You need a name, a fake name, but I had the idea –“
“Oh, don’t you know, all names are fake, lovey. You think I was born ‘Rheva’?”
“Niiiiiice…” The girl was leaning forwards now, cupping her empty glass between both hands. “I thought we might use code-names, you know, like the mages? Don’t know why they’re the only ones who get to have fun round here.”
Rheva frowned. “We don’t want to get hunted as darkmages –”
The girl held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Sunflower. Pleased to meet you.”
That tickled her; Rheva actually cackled. “Ha! Oh gods, you’re so right.” She shook her new boss’s hand and squeaked: “I’m Butt… Butt… ha-hah, Buttercup. Awesome to meet you, Sunflower.”
The delicate touch of the master-thief’s silken glove sent shivers up her spine, in the good way; she felt herself blush, and knew that the girl saw, but Sunflower didn’t make a big deal out of it.
“Shall we?” was all she said, slipping the gloved hand free of Buttercup’s fingers and hopping down from her stool.
The pair of thieves headed off down the street, Sunflower asking non-stop questions about the base, about the businesses they passed, the contacts they’d have to set up, the locals they could snag, add to their crew… Buttercup walked at her side, answering her as best as she could, and even when skirting obstacles and moving through foot-traffic, she didn’t for one moment take her eye off her alluring new boss.
They halted, waiting for a wagon to pass to cross the roadway –
“The best part is,” Sunflower said musingly, “I don’t even know the first damn thing about seasoning lamb.”
I’ll help you take the city, Buttercup thought, trying not to laugh too insanely. I’ll help you take it, and, when you rule, I’ll be right there at your side… and finally everything will be right with the world.