CHAPTER 2

The Kendorian businesswoman’s office boasted neatly filed papers and meticulously organized bookshelves. A hint of lye soap hung in the air. The potted plant perched on the windowsill sported no dangling dead leaves.

Within seconds of walking in, Amaranthe was glad she had refused the assassination gig. One probably should not form opinions about people based on the cleanliness of their workspace, but she promptly liked this Telnola more than Ms. Klume.

Of course, that did not keep her from rifling through filing cabinets and desk drawers. Working by lamplight, she spent thirty minutes investigating, or, as Maldynado often called it, snooping.

Engrossed in logbooks, she almost missed the door opening. She reached for her sword, but it was only Sicarius. Coal dust smeared his hands and darkened his blond hair.

Guilt nudged Amaranthe to say, “Sorry to send you to investigate the machinery. I figured you’d be more likely to sense magical doodads than me.”

“Artifacts,” Sicarius said.

“What?”

“The Turgonian language lacks words to define the various contraptions crafted by practitioners specializing in Making, but artifact is the word most frequently used to describe imbued devices, especially those small in nature. Construct, such as the soul construct we battled, has similar connotations, though tends to refer to ambulatory creations.”

Amaranthe nodded, absorbing the information, though his monotone delivery tempted her to tease him. “Are either constructs or artifacts sentient enough to be offended by being called doodads?”

“Rarely,” Sicarius said without blinking.

She sighed. The man was impossible to tease.

Amaranthe closed the file she had been perusing and returned it to its proper place in a cabinet. “Did you find anything magically suspicious in the factory or about the furnace?”

“No.”

“Me either.” She waved to encompass the office. “From what I’ve learned, Telnola is visionary, efficient, and willing to take risks. She established a small fortune by buying faltering mother-daughter sewing shops and turning them profitable by introducing mass production through sewing machines and mechanized looms. Everything about her background suggests she’s the type of person who would hustle to accept an opportunity to start a business in the empire where steam-powered facilities are the norm instead of an anomaly. There’s no unexplainable efficiency in the logbooks. If she’s beating Klume, I’m guessing it’s because she’s good, not because she’s magically assisted.”

Sicarius listened. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, he was not the sort to tease her for going on and on. He simply said, “Agreed,” and added, “though I haven’t checked the loading docks and bay yet.”

“We can go out that way,” Amaranthe said, “but I suspect Telnola is innocent of any crimes. She’s hired more than a hundred workers in the last month, and she’s excelling here. In short, she’s exactly the type of entrepreneur Sespian hoped to attract with his tax incentives. Which means the trouble we hoped to find here isn’t likely to manifest itself. At the very least, you can feel good for choosing not to assassinate her.”

“I did not make that choice.”

No, and even knowing what she had just told him, he would probably still accept the assignment if motivated enough. “Then I can feel good for choosing for you.”

She smiled. He did not.

“Loading bay. Right.” Amaranthe grabbed her lantern and headed for the door.

Night pressed against the windows overlooking the factory’s main floor. Her lamp illuminated the first couple of sewing machines in rows that stretched throughout the cavernous room. Before they had gone more than a few steps, the scrape of a key fumbling for a lock whispered through the silent building. The front door.

Sicarius disappeared into the shadows below a fifteen-foot-high loft that housed more rows of sewing machines. Amaranthe cut off her lantern.

The front door swung open. Two figures stepped inside, each holding lanterns of their own. One man, one woman, both with blond hair, advanced down the central aisle. They lacked the furtive mien of robbers, and the pale hair suggested they might be Kendorians. They chattered in what was presumably their native tongue.

Using the wall as a guide, Amaranthe eased beneath the loft. She assumed Sicarius, who had explored more than she had, was heading toward the loading bay and a back way out.

Amaranthe bumped into someone. She expected Sicarius, but a knife rasped free of a sheath. She jumped back. Shadows hid details, but the dark figure loomed too tall and wide to be Sicarius.

An uncertain pause from the person gave her time to switch her lantern to her left hand and slide her sword free.

“Rovich?” the figure—a man—asked, voice dull and stunned, as if he knew she was not who he thought but could not imagine who else she might be.

“No,” Amaranthe whispered, “but if you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, I’ll tell you who I am.” She glanced over her shoulder, fearing the scuffles and whispers would alert the couple, but they had reached the office, and a conversation flowed from within, the words sounding casual and unconcerned.

“Uh,” the man said. “No, you tell me who you are, or I’ll—” He sucked in a startled breath.

The shadows cloaked movement behind the man, but his reaction suggested someone had come up behind him with a weapon. Sicarius.

Amaranthe followed as he pushed his prisoner past a large, sliding door and into the colder air of a loading bay. On the far side, beyond aisles of barrels, crates, and bolts of fabric, a roll-up door was open to the night.

The toe of Amaranthe’s boot nudged something, and she halted.

“Close the door,” Sicarius said before she could investigate.

Assuming he meant the order for her, she groped for the handle. She eased the door shut, trying not to make noise.

“What were you doing in here?” Clothing rustled—Sicarius jostling his prisoner.

Amaranthe knelt to relight the lantern.

“Eat street,” the thug said. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”

Her light stirred to life, revealing the thug with Sicarius standing behind him, a knife to his throat. The heavyset man wore ill-fitting, mismatched clothing and bracelets that might have been working wrist shackles once.

Another bounty hunter? If so, an inept one.

The lantern also illuminated the cut throat of a second man, the body Amaranthe had bumped against. The man Sicarius restrained paled when he spotted the body.

“What were you doing in here?” Sicarius asked again, his voice colder than the room.

“You might want to answer.” Amaranthe decided revealing names might move them to the information-sharing portion of the interrogation without the application of imperial torture techniques. “If Sicarius has to ask twice, it’s a sure sign maiming and pain are imminent.”

The man’s eyes bulged. “Sicarius?” he whispered.

“Is whatever you’re doing worth dying for?” Amaranthe asked.

A puddle formed between the thug’s boots, and she figured that was a good sign he would talk—and that she should step back—but he whispered, “No, but I can’t…can’t say anything.”

Sicarius’s blade bit into flesh, and blood trickled down the man’s neck, staining the collar of his shirt.

“Please, I can’t.” A tear slid down the thug’s cheek, out of place on such a hardened face.

“Why?” Amaranthe asked. “What were you doing that’s so important to keep secret?”

“They just wanted us to—” He gasped in pain, back arching.

At first, Amaranthe thought Sicarius had done something, but the man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and quakes wracked his large body. A seizure?

“Let him go,” Amaranthe said.

Blood oozed from the thug’s nostrils. As soon as Sicarius stepped back, the man collapsed. A final spasm wrenched his body, then he lay still.

“Uhm.” Amaranthe stared. “That’s unexpected.”

Sicarius opened the man’s mouth and probed about with a finger.

“Think he poisoned himself?” she asked. “Or are you searching for gold teeth to help with our financial problems?”

“No residue or capsule in his mouth that I can detect, and I didn’t notice him swallow anything.”

With his knife at the man’s throat, Sicarius probably would have felt that.

She nibbled on a fingernail. “Any thoughts on what might be responsible? He’s too young to spontaneously seize up and die. Think someone…didn’t want him sharing secrets? And somehow rigged it so he’d die if he did? Is that even possible?” She had never come across the like during her enforcer career, but she had never dealt with magic in those days either. Until a few months ago, she had not known it existed.

“Possible, yes.” Sicarius rotated the dead man’s head and leaned closer. “There’s fresh scar tissue and something under his skin, a nodule or shot from a blunderbuss perhaps.”

“Does the other man have it?”

He gave her a sharp look, then examined the second body. Amaranthe slid the door open a crack to check the factory. Light and voices still spilled from the office.

“Not in exactly the same place,” Sicarius said, “but yes.”

His black dagger appeared in his hand, the metal so dark it seemed to swallow the lamplight. He sliced into one of the men’s necks, and Amaranthe looked away. She ought not be squeamish about such things by now, but the idea of cutting open a corpse to investigate inside unsettled her.

“Huh,” Sicarius said.

“What’d you find?” She drew closer, despite her stomach’s protests.

“I didn’t.” He was probing around inside the wound. Blood dripped from his fingers and onto the floor. “Whatever I felt disappeared.”

“Maybe you…imagined it?”

He gave her a flat look.

Right, he was about as imaginative as a stump.

Amaranthe waved toward the loading bay. “Shall we see if we can find evidence of tampering?”

Sicarius searched the bodies first, then slipped into an aisle formed by crates on one side and bolts of textiles piled head-high on the other. She supposed that meant yes.

Footsteps sounded in the factory. Cursing under her breath, Amaranthe cut off the lantern again. She felt her way down the aisle after Sicarius.

The heavy door slid open.

Light pushed back the shadows near the entrance. Amaranthe lunged around a crate at the end of the aisle, though she left her head out far enough to peer around the corner. The blond couple walked inside, lanterns held aloft. Alarmed chatter broke out when they spotted the bodies.

Amaranthe wished she could understand their words, though she had no trouble reading the surprise in their tones.

Sicarius touched her shoulder and murmured, “They stopped by to check something on the way to dinner. They don’t recognize the men, and they’re—”

The couple ran out the door, and darkness swallowed the bay.

“Leaving?” Amaranthe guessed.

“Going to get the enforcers,” Sicarius said.

“Emperor’s warts. We won’t have much time to investigate now.”

She relit her lantern and jogged down the aisles, eyeing crates, sewing machine parts, and more fabric than she had ever seen in one place. Nothing appeared unusual or out of place. As minutes skipped past, she clenched her fist, sure they were going to be denied clues to some heinous plot.

Steam brakes squealed outside—an enforcer vehicle pulling up, Amaranthe wagered.

Sicarius appeared out of the shadows. “We must go.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No.”

“Nothing they might have left? Nothing special they might have come to steal?”

“No.” Sicarius gripped her shoulder and rotated her toward the end of the aisle. “Go.”

Vehicle doors slammed, and voices drifted in through the open loading dock entrance. Amaranthe cut off the lantern and reluctantly let Sicarius push her toward the sliding door. They could return tomorrow night and investigate more thoroughly.

Footsteps sounded outside the roll-up door, and she picked up her pace. Flickering lamplight came from behind as enforcers crowded the loading docks.

She and Sicarius slipped past the bodies and into the factory. He halted. Another pair of enforcers had entered through the front door. Their lantern light gleamed against the brass sewing machines on that end of the building.

“Not good,” Amaranthe whispered. “If we’re seen here, it’ll incriminate us. Further.”

She knew she was stating the obvious, but Sicarius moved without comment. They crouched low, easing along the wall until they reached a corner near the entrance. She had hoped the enforcers would go down the center aisle to meet with their comrades in the loading bay, but they remained up front. One leaned against the frame of the door, and she grimaced. They must believe criminals were still on the premises, and they had set up a perimeter to watch the exits. She thumped her fist on her thigh. They—she—had dawdled too long.

Perhaps they could escape through a window, but the enforcers would spot them if they opened one at floor level. If they could reach the higher ones…

“Loft,” Sicarius murmured, following her gaze.

Amaranthe eyed the ladder leading to the second level of sewing machines. No more than a few meters from the door, it rose well within the enforcers’ sight. But Sicarius did not head that direction. She followed as he weaved through the workstations and stopped at a support post halfway down the center aisle.

Before she could question him, Sicarius shimmied up the post as if it were a rope. He lunged sideways, caught the edge of the floor above, and pulled himself through the open railing.

Not sure she was agile enough to duplicate the feat without making noise—or falling to the floor a few times—she eyed the enforcers. She had worked this part of town when she was a patroller, and these men had familiar faces. She thought she knew the name of the older fellow, but that meant little. Last she heard, she was more hated by enforcers than by anyone else, both for the role she had played in getting her old partner killed and for allying with Sicarius to—according to the newspapers—kidnap the emperor. As far as she knew, nobody knew the truth, that she and Sicarius had saved Sespian.

The enforcers turned to speak to someone outside. Figuring that was the best chance she would get, Amaranthe gripped the worn post and hopped up, digging into the support with the inside edges of her boots. Squeezing and pushing with her legs, she clawed her way toward the ceiling.

The hilt of her short sword clunked against the post. Wincing at the noise, she checked the enforcers. One frowned her direction. She froze.

The ease with which she saw them made her feel vulnerable, perched halfway up the post. She reminded herself their light should dull their night vision, and she ought be cloaked by darkness.

The enforcer walked her direction, his lantern in hand. He drew his sword as he advanced. He might not see her, but he had heard her.

Amaranthe was about to drop down and dart into the shadows when a soft clank sounded across the building, in a corner near the front door. The enforcer’s head whipped about.

Trusting the distraction came from Sicarius, Amaranthe hustled the rest of the way up the post. At the top, the smooth floorboards offered nothing to grab, and the edge of the loft hung five feet away. Figuring her legs were stronger than her arms, she maneuvered herself as best she could to push off. After a final glance toward the enforcer, who was now investigating the corner where the noise had sounded, she lunged, making a horizontal leap.

One hand caught the lip, and one didn’t. Her knuckles smashed against the floorboards, and for a moment she hung by one set of fingers, her legs dangling free.

Amaranthe forced calm and pulled herself up enough to grab the lip with her loose hand. With both arms anchored, she rocked her legs from side to side to create momentum. She swung them up, catching the lip with the inside of her foot. From there, she was able to scramble though the railing.

“Good,” came Sicarius’s voice, soft and nearby.

She gaped into the darkness. “If you were right there, why didn’t you give me a hand?” she whispered.

“Training.”

If not for the enforcers below, she would have let out a long groan. Sicarius pulled her to her feet and gave her no time to complain further. Stepping carefully, toe first, she followed him across the floorboards without a sound.

Sicarius stopped below a window not visible from ground level. He eased it open, checked the alley below, then led the way outside.

Cool, damp air breezed past Amaranthe’s cheek. The brick exterior might have proved as hard, or harder, to scale than the post, but another window adorned the wall above the first, providing ledges and sills for handholds. Soon they reached the flat roof. From there, they found adjacent buildings lower than the factory and close enough to reach by jumping the alleys. When they dropped to the ground a half a block away, Amaranthe leaned against the wall to catch her breath and appreciate their escape.

Not one for idle chatter, or chatter at all, Sicarius waited in silence.

“Interesting evening,” she said, hoping to draw him out. “When you said ‘good,’ did you mean I looked good, as in all those workouts are improving my skills, or it was good that I didn’t fall?”

“Yes.”

She snorted. “Thanks.”

When he did not speak again, she headed for the street. Sicarius walked beside her.

“I guess we better check on the others,” she said. “It’s always possible they’ve found some trouble of their own.”

He said nothing.

“You’re an awful conversationalist,” Amaranthe said. “How is it possible I prefer spending time with you?”

“Most people don’t want to talk to assassins.”

“I’m a unique individual.”

“Yes,” he said, deadpan.

“I’m never quite sure if you’re complimenting me…or not.”

His eyes glinted as they passed a streetlamp. “Good.”