Crumpling the notes in my hand, I frantically flung on street clothes, cursing at all the layers I needed to survive Doskvolian winters. By the time I stormed into the hall (leaving my room as much of a mess as if Faith had rummaged through it), my crewmates were already breakfasting in the common room.
“Hmm,” Ash was musing over his mug of coffee, “isn’t it strange how everyone who’s irritated Irimina also turns out to be a member of the Hive?”
Faith popped up from behind the bar, her special pink-rose-patterned china teacup in hand, her pink-lipsticked lips a perfect O of delight. “Are you saying that Irimina has good taste in enemies? I’ll note that Irimina has good taste in many things.” She helped herself to coffee, strutted back across the room, hopped onto the table, and simpered down at him.
Excavating his notebook from under a thick layer of ruffles, he replied pragmatically, “Yes, well, I’d really prefer for us or our orphans not to be picked off in the middle of the night – because if we keep accidentally murdering the Hive, that’s what will happen.”
Given what had happened last night in Crow’s Foot, his comment was a little too apt.
I snarled, “How about instead of accidentally murdering them, we do it intentionally and wipe out as much of the inner circle as we can?” Stalking over to them, I slammed down the two notes with a bang that rocked the table. Ash grabbed his mug before the coffee could slosh onto his notebook, while Faith faked a little squeak and jump, then pouted ferociously, silently reproaching me for setting a bad example for the children she’d banned from the room anyway. “Look what they did!”
“Ooooh!” squealed Faith. Like a schoolgirl teasing a friend about a potential beau, she inquired slyly, “The Hive sent you letters?”
“No!” I shook them at her. “This one is from Bazso; this one is from Mylera.”
Setting his mug far away from me, Ash reached for the notes, but Faith snatched them first and scanned the lines before tossing them to him. As he read, a troubled frown grew on his face.
“I want to take out Djera Maha,” I informed them, voice taut. “I want to take out the entire Hive.”
To my surprise, it was the part-demon forgotten god cultist bent on destroying the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh who objected. “Isha, taking out the head of the Crows was one thing. If we try to take out the head of the Hive, we will likely die.”
His attitude made absolutely no sense. “I’m not suggesting we do it without preparation!”
Ash only shook his head. “This would be an epic score. I guess I’m not opposed, but….” He groped for the right words to calm and convince me – as if any existed! “I would also prefer to remain alive,” he said at last. “If the Hive even gets wind that we’re planning anything, we’ll be dead before moonrise.”
Entirely unappeased, I snapped, “Then we don’t let them get wind that we’re planning anything. We have two Slides and a Whisper. I think we can do it.”
He just cast a helpless look at Faith, of all people.
Relishing her new role as the voice of reason, she leaped to his rescue. “Wait, wait, wait – back up for a sec?” Knitting her brows in a caricature of confusion, she inquired, “Why are we doing this? Who’s paying us?”
Automatically, the answer tumbled from Ash’s mouth: “I’m sure the Lampblacks and Red Sashes could be convinced to pay us dearly.” Abruptly recalling that he was supposed to be talking me out of this suicidal scheme, he quickly tacked on an unconvincing, “Except we can’t even ask them without some chance that word will get back to the Hive.”
Playing Ash for all she was worth, Faith pursed her lips, rolled her eyes ceiling-ward, and pretended to run through some financial calculations. “So…nobody is paying us.”
I’d had more than enough of petty pecuniary concerns. What was the point of having coin stashed away if I never used it? After all, I could always make more. “If necessary, I will pay us. And since when did you become so money-oriented, Faith?” I demanded, making it sound like a slur.
“Yes!” agreed Ash, making it sound like high praise.
All of the ruffles and lacy layers on Faith’s bodice literally puffed up in indignation. “I have so many things to spend money on! Schoolbooks for these young orphans – ”
“You already bought them,” I retorted. If I recalled correctly, she’d spent an entire coin on a library for the orphanage, much to Ash’s pain. (Even if it hadn’t come out of his personal stash or the crew’s coffers.)
Overriding me, Faith continued to rattle off her basic necessities of life: “Decorations, new ribbons, ongoing fees for these incredibly expensive fencing classes I’m having them take – ”
I could have grabbed her and shaken her. Here I was, trying to get the crew started on an intricate plot to destroy an Imperium-wide criminal organization with connections to the Church of Ecstasy, the government, and the aristocracy, and Faith was being so – well, Faith. “You already paid for them! When you took down the ribbons canal-side!”
Slanting a smile at me, Faith flung out her arms dramatically. “So many wild expenses! They just add up!”
At this point, our usual peacemaker deemed it wisest to interject, “I’m sure we could get paid a lot for this, but – ”
Faith didn’t let him finish. “And when you find someone to pay us for this, then I’ll be in on it!”
I exploded, “I already told the two of you – I’m willing to pay!”
“Is this a ‘you’re actually willing to pay,’ or is this an Ash-style ‘you’re willing to pay – until it actually becomes an option’?” she countered, somehow contriving to insult both of us at the same time.
Doggedly refusing to take offense, Ash sighed deeply. “I assume this is a genuine offer,” he said before I actually did grab Faith and shake her. “Isha, how about we plan this, but not today?” he temporized. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not opposed, but we have gotten in over our heads several times.”
And each time, we’d hauled ourselves back out with no (permanent) damage to ourselves, while garnering a great deal more respect in the Doskvolian underworld in the process. Unwilling to accept his compromise, I argued, “We’ve already made a good start killing off the Hive. We might as well continue.”
Faith cut me off with a long, deafening, high-pitched yawn. Once she had our full attention, she murmured, “I was under the impression that this Hive is a wide-spanning crime syndicate with semi-independent cells in all the major cities, and complicated internal structures that may or may not even be located in Doskvol itself.”
To punctuate her conclusion, she took a sip of coffee, making sure her pinky stuck straight up from the teacup.
Before I could launch into a good counterargument, Ash cut in. “Take out Djera Maha, and someone else will come to power. That person will wonder who else will attack them now. They will investigate, and they will trace it back to us – all of us – effortlessly.”
As much as I hated to admit it, both of them had a point. With its decentralized nature and its close ties to organs of government, the Hive would be almost as hard to eradicate as Faith’s love for frilly, pink things. “Fine,” I snapped. “Then we start from the bottom. We slowly erode Djera Maha’s support base.”
Frustrated that he still wasn’t getting across to me, Ash released a sharp breath. “It would be very poetic to take out her second-in-command – ”
Faith immediately pointed out, “Unfortunately, that’s Karth Orris, and he’s already dead!”
“Yes, but wouldn’t he have a replacement?” Ash reminded her logically.
Almost certainly, but none of us knew who it was. Given that I’d used the Hive threat to unify the Lampblacks and Red Sashes, I of all people should have monitored it closely and had that information at my fingertips. Covering my chagrin, I relented. “I’m not saying we have to do this immediately, but – ”
Ash finished, “But it’s something we will likely want to do.” I nodded at him gratefully, and he added practically, “I also think we can charge more than eight coin for it.”
“Perhaps we can start by investigating the basic structure of the Hive, pinpointing the key players, and identifying their enemies,” I suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Ash replied, “although the letters you just showed us already suggest two key enemies.”
“They must have more.”
Surely any powerful faction would engender its fair share of powerful opponents, and the more complete our understanding of these connections, the greater our chances of executing a quick, clean strike.
Or strikes, if necessary.
“All right, Isha. I’ll help you,” Ash promised. “Faith?”
“I’ll pass. My nails need to be repainted a slightly lighter shade of pink,” she explained sweetly, splaying out her fingers like claws for us to admire. “Besides, I wouldn’t dream of stealing all your glory!”
And just like that, we were committed to enacting poetic justice on one of the most formidable criminal organizations in the Imperium – or at least its Doskvolian chapter.
----------------------------------------
As much as I chafed to start hunting the Hive at once, I needed to check on my friends first. While Bazso and Pickett’s relationship had never progressed beyond the professional, they’d worked together since before Bazso came to power, and he’d trusted her implicitly. In many ways, Pickett had functioned as an extension of his will, silently handling part of his duties with understated and usually uncredited competence. As far as I could tell, she’d harbored no secret ambitions and advised him with no ulterior motives. (Which, to be honest, was more than I could say for myself.) I couldn’t imagine the Lampblacks without her. I couldn’t imagine Bazso without her. There was simply no one else in the gang who could even begin to replace her.
Alternating between a jog and a sprint, skidding over icy patches on the cobblestones, I made it to the Leaky Bucket in record time. Although the Lampblacks had relaxed their guard after consolidating control of Crow’s Foot, Pickett’s and Xayah’s murders had ratchetted them back into full wartime mode. Now grim, heavily-armed scoundrels in black overcoats were looming in front of the pub and patrolling the surrounding streets, practically screaming their defiance. Just try attacking us now, they seemed to roar. Please try attacking us now!
Inside, the Leaky Bucket was packed to capacity with dazed men and women, many of them tear-streaked, all of them drinking with determination. When they spoke at all, it was in hushed tones, as at a funeral. The only civilians present were those with ties to the gang, the rest of the Crow’s Foot citizenry having opted to avoid the Lampblack haunt for now. Automatically, my eyes skimmed over the tables and darted to the back corner where the Lampblack leaders held court.
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Bazso’s booth was empty.
My heart nearly stopped.
I’d have heard, wouldn’t I, if something had happened to him? Surely, even in all the chaos, someone would have sent a runner, right?
Desperately, I scanned the room in case he was at one of the tables, mingling with his people, and then scanned it again more slowly, studiously avoiding Pickett’s empty booth. At the bar slumped Henner, head in hands, haunted and miserable. Hovering over him was Mardin, speaking in a low, urgent voice and perhaps exhorting him to live up to his new role as Lampblack second-in-command.
I cut across the pub towards them, very deliberately turning my back on Pickett’s booth. So many times, I’d walked into the Leaky Bucket and pointedly refused to look at that booth. It seemed unreal that I’d never again twist my neck at unnatural angles to avoid acknowledging her existence, never again accidentally glance in the wrong direction at the wrong time to catch her piercing, icy eyes fixed on me. Alone among the Lampblacks, Pickett had always known what I was.
How could anyone live up to the bar she had set?
My footsteps had brought me to the counter and her successor’s dejected figure.
“Henner,” I greeted him awkwardly. How did you offer condolences on the death of someone with whom you’d had such a famous antipathy? Would any of the Lampblacks even believe me, or would they consider it ill-timed, ill-advised mockery? “Henner, I’m so sorry.”
Pickett would have raked me with a unbelieving glare while she assessed my sincerity.
Henner, on the other hand, trusted his boss’ girlfriend to share his grief. “Yeah,” he mumbled without looking up. “Yeah, me too.”
“Henner,” I said, trying to keep the anxiety from my voice, “where’s Bazso?”
“At home,” he muttered. “He didn’t take Pickett’s – ” He choked, unable to force out the words. “He didn’t take it well.”
Bazso was all right, then. I practically crumpled with relief. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. Since Henner didn’t seem inclined to talk, I turned to Mardin and asked quietly, “What happened?”
The bartender’s face hardened, and suddenly I could see the faction leader and ward boss he’d once been. Clenching his fists, he spat, “Djera Maja’s favorite hitmen happened.”
“Her nephews, Wayan and Kuwat Maha,” supplied a nearby Lampblack, rousing herself and shoving her empty glass back across the counter. Mardin sloshed whiskey into it, uncharacteristically slopping liquid over the rim.
Henner lifted his head at last and stared at me without actually seeing me. “They ambushed her,” he said slowly, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “On the street. A block from home. She fought well.” Of course she had. It was Pickett. “But – there were two of them. And they’re really big. Dagger Islanders, you know? They shot her.”
“In full view of witnesses,” grated Mardin, who as leader of the Crows must have had his own run-ins with Djera Maha. “So everyone knows who did it and learns never to cross the Hive.”
Recalling Ash’s concerns, I winced. The Hive’s bullying tactics had had exactly the desired effect on my crewmate. Striving for casualness, I inquired, “Do these two hitmen live in Crow’s Foot, then?”
I couldn’t fool Mardin. He just leveled a stare at me that said he knew exactly what I wanted to do and had seen plenty of better fighters try, fail, and die, but he recognized that I wouldn’t believe him until I’d also tried, failed, and possibly was on the verge of dying, so he wasn’t going to waste his breath talking me out of it. Voice flat, he answered, “No. Her nephews most likely live on the Hive’s island. In the middle of North Hook Channel.”
That was the broad body of water that insulated Whitecrown and its elite from the rest of the city. After growing up a street urchin in the Dagger Isles (assuming the Dagger Isles were technologically advanced enough to lay streets, that was), Djera Maha had arrived in Doskvol as a nobody and murdered her way up through the Hive. Astride the Doskvolian chapter at last, allied closely with the Ministry of Preservation and the Church of Ecstasy, with her tentacles and suckers entangled throughout the aristocracy, she’d deemed herself above a home in mere Brightstone. However, when she’d moved to purchase a mansion in Whitecrown, the nobles had closed ranks to deny access to a lowborn Dagger Islander upstart. In a face-saving compromise, the City Council had then offered her a tiny island in the middle of North Hook Channel “to honor her island roots.”
Thwarted and furious, she’d promptly fortified it and transformed it into a miniature citadel, right on the doorstep of the Lord Governor’s stronghold. It was a daily reminder of the Hive’s invincibility (and infinite ingenuity).
I didn’t like it.
Abruptly, I asked the Lampblacks, “What does Bazso plan to do?”
“Don’t know yet. He’s at home,” Henner repeated. “You…you should go to him.”
Although he might have been trying to get rid of me so he could return to brooding, his tone suggested otherwise, so I hurried out of the pub. As a sign of how rattled I was, I jogged practically all the way to Bazso’s old townhouse before I remembered that he’d moved – that I’d helped him move, in fact. Cursing under my breath, I spun around and backtracked across half of Crow’s Foot to get to his new place. There I found heavily-armed Lampblacks patrolling the neighborhood and Bazso himself slumped morosely on a sofa, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in front of him. An empty one lay at his feet. Around the sitting room hovered several anxious gang members, torn between deferring to their leader and rescuing him from alcohol poisoning. Faint relief crossed their faces when I entered.
With a quick nod at them, I perched on the sofa next to Bazso.
He didn’t even glance up.
Cautiously, I edged closer and, when he still didn’t react, placed a hand on his back and rubbed it soothingly.
Still without looking at me, he stirred and rumbled, “You didn’t even like her. And she certainly didn’t like you.”
It wasn’t an accusation, but a statement of fact. An expectant hush filled the sitting room, the other Lampblacks curious to hear my response.
I didn’t bother to protest or defend myself. No, Pickett hadn’t liked me at all, and everyone knew it. And I hadn’t liked her either, and everyone knew that too. But I’d never wanted her dead, and I was almost positive she’d felt the same way about me. We had respected each other, if nothing else.
At last, I said simply, “We knew where we stood with each other.” In my line of work, it was something to be valued. To be appreciated. Treasured, even.
It was the right response. Accepting my answer, Bazso sank back into silence.
After a moment, I looked around at the exhausted, grieving Lampblacks and offered, “If you want to go home and rest, I can take care of him.”
They exchanged quick glances, vacillating between giving the two of us some privacy and leaving their leader near-defenseless. “We’ll be outside if you need anything,” one of them replied, and they withdrew outside the townhouse. Through a crack in the curtains, I watched them take up guard positions in the yard.
In the end, Bazso and I didn’t say much of anything to each other. But I put my arms around him, and he relaxed against me, and together we mourned wordlessly for our lost comrade.
----------------------------------------
I stayed with him until the very last minute before my fencing class, then sprinted all the way to the sword academy. Although a blank-faced Ardashir occupied Xayah’s desk in the main office and ensured that lessons proceeded as usual, the rest of the Red Sashes wore the same dazed, haunted expressions as the Lampblacks. Catching the general mood, my students tended towards distracted and clumsy, and I dismissed them early before they could add themselves – or me – to the casualty list.
As soon as they skittered into the courtyard to trade rumors, I bolted upstairs in search of Mylera. Here, as at Bazso’s townhouse, the gang was on high alert. Ardashir had stationed heavily-armed sword masters every few feet along the hallway, within easy reach of the semi-decorative weighted sashes draped over the bannisters. At Mylera’s office, a pair of stone-faced guards stopped me. While one kept a sharp eye on me lest the erstwhile Lampblack spy reveal herself to be a Hive assassin, the other rapped out a staccato pattern on the door.
“What?” growled Mylera’s voice. Even muffled by the wood, it still sounded slightly clogged. “I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Although the Red Sash cringed a little, he reported bravely, “Glass here to see you, ma’am.”
“Who – oh, Glass.” Her chair gave a familiar creak as her weight lifted off it. “Yes, send her in.”
By the time I entered, Mylera was pacing back and forth behind her desk with her head angled so I couldn’t see her face. Without turning, she waved me impatiently towards the chairs, paced a couple more steps, hesitated for a half-beat, and stuttered to a stop in front of the window, like a Nightmarket toy running out of electroplasm. If she’d been thinking clearly, she’d have realized that the blurry reflection in the glass would betray her devastated, broken expression.
Out of respect, I dropped my gaze and busied myself selecting a seat. “Mylera, I’m so sorry,” I murmured.
Catching myself scanning her desk out of sheer habit, I reined myself in, but not before I noted a heap of black-bordered envelopes. Only a handful had been addressed so far – including one to me. That simple gesture of friendship brought a lump to my throat for the first time all day, and anything I could say seemed utterly inadequate.
Switching to Hadrathi, I recited the traditional mourning phrase, “May the desert welcome her home.” The familiar words rolled smoothly off my tongue, even though I hadn’t needed to use them in over two years.
Something about that reminder of home snapped Mylera back to herself. Clearing her throat, she completed the ritual formula: “May the stars shine on her forever.”
Her shoulders relaxed in a deliberate, forced sort of way, and when she met my eyes at last, her face was cool and composed.
“Thank you, Isha. I guess we did know something like this could happen.” She even faked a little shrug, as if to say, Such is the life of a scoundrel.
Playing along, I asked, “So what happens now? What are we going to do about this?”
Mylera’s lips pinched into a thin, blood-drained line. “Well, obviously, we can’t let this stand,” she declared, sounding exactly like an Ankhayat leviathan hunter captain sentencing a sailor to death for cowardice. “But obviously….” For a moment, she lost her train of thought, and her face almost crumpled. But then she shook her head sharply and pulled herself back together. “I think what happens now, weirdly enough, is that I talk to Bazso. Combined, we might be big enough to respond.”
That was exactly the reaction I’d hoped for. “Respond, as in assassinate Djera Maha’s nephews?”
Her fists clenched, the skin pulling taut over sinew and bone. “I’d like to,” she snarled, in an uncanny echo of my own voice when I proposed to Ash and Faith that we wipe out Hive leadership. “I’d say we assassinate Karth Orris, but someone’s already done it for us.”
At that, I had a sudden, horrible thought. “Do you think Djera Maha did this because she thought you killed him?”
Naturally, Mylera had already considered that angle. “Probably,” she answered immediately. “Kind of fits her MO. She’s all about that kind of retribution.”
As was Mylera; as was I.
“Maybe we should find out who killed Karth,” I suggested, thinking that they’d make a convenient scapegoat when we executed Wayan and Kuwat Maha.
Mylera, however, drew the exact opposite conclusion as to the uses of Karth’s murderer. “Yes,” she mused. “They’re a potential ally.” She drummed her fingers on her desk, and then, in a convulsive movement, snatched up her letter opener and turned it over and over. It had been a gift from Xayah, I recalled, a private joke between them that I’d never learned and probably would never know. “I mean, there aren’t that many other factions it could be, right? Off the top of my head, the Hive’s enemies are the Circle of Flame, the Wraiths, the Unseen, and the Crows.”
No one knew anything about the elusive Unseen, whose membership was as closely guarded a secret as the Spirit Wardens’ roster. The Wraiths, on the other hand, were a notorious crew of Shadows who operated primarily in Silkshore and Nightmarket, and whose burglary and blackmail activities frequently inconvenienced Hive members. The Circle of Flame was a secret society, supposedly composed of prominent nobles obsessed with the occult. Remembering Mardin’s distaste for Djera Maha, I guessed randomly, “Could it have been the Crows?”
Mylera stabbed the letter opener back into its holder in one decisive thrust. “I don’t think it was the Crows. It wasn’t Lyssa’s style,” she declared. “It wasn’t Bazso, right? It really didn’t seem like Bazso.”
Funny that he should have asked me the exact same question about her, right after Karth’s death. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I could ask him directly if you want.”
“No, don’t. I don’t think it was Bazso.” Façade crumbling, she heaved a long, shuddering sigh and slumped down in her chair. Tentatively, she confessed, “Part of me thinks I should wait before doing anything, because I’m probably not thinking rationally right now. And part of me just wants to act.”
Was she actually going to lean on me as a confidante now that her best friend was gone? I wasn’t sure whether to feel triumphant, flattered, or absolutely terrified. “I feel the same way,” I soothed.
Suddenly realizing that she was entrusting her pain and vulnerability to an Anixis, of all people, Mylera jerked upright and leaped back into business mode. “How much would you lot charge for a strike against the Hive?”
Honestly, that reaction was about what I deserved. Equal parts disappointed and relieved, I warned, “Ash is the one who would need convincing. He seems extremely wary of the Hive.”
“Well, that’s not unwarranted. It is the Hive.” Perhaps recalling her last business dealings with him, which had resulted in not only the loss of coin and turf but also the addition of unwanted neighbors, Mylera briefly wrestled over whether she should hire a less overpriced crew. In the end, she reluctantly conceded, “But – you’re very good at what you do. I’d pay you. Bazso probably would too.”
“I’ll talk to my crewmates,” I promised.
Correctly interpreting that as a “Yes, we’ll do it, even if I have to drag Ash on the score myself,” Mylera lapsed into a reverie, staring sightlessly at that pile of black-bordered envelopes.
A little disingenuously, I hinted, “Will there be a funeral?”
Even in her distracted state, Mylera knew perfectly well that I’d already read everything on her desk, so she roused herself long enough to answer my real question. “Next week. I haven’t gotten around to finishing all of them yet. We’ll do something.”
The conversation died again.
After quizzing myself on what Xayah would do in this situation, and debating whether I could even pull off whatever it was, I concluded that the answer was almost certainly a resounding no. So instead I rose, moved around the desk slowly so Mylera could see me coming, and gave her an awkward, one-armed hug.
She stiffened but accepted it.
Then I made her a cup of coffee, set it on her desk, and quietly let myself out of her office.
Just before the door clicked shut, I saw her reach for the cup.