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Nary Frummagem’s turf wasn’t somewhere you wanted to linger unless you had business. What once began as a humble den of iniquity had sprawled into a respectably-sized criminal empire with enough business ventures to make any entrepreneuring Sharte green with envy—and prone to humoring ill-formed ideas of how to cash in on Frummagem’s success. This time, Riven Arnor’s business wasn’t with Patriarch Frummagem, but rather his height-challenged, rat-tailed daughter, Sette Frummagem.
Well, alright, it was supposedly a lion tail, but Riven wasn’t feeling generous with her descriptions at the moment. Looking every inch the Sharteshanian ne’er-do-well with her loose, teal shirt and dark breeches, Riven pulled up her black thief’s hood to cover her too-noticeable hair. She prowled along the block and peered into trash-filled alleys and uncovered windows, observing other people’s business with growing boredom. And it was merely simple business, a warehouse full of boxed cargo and hired hands of Nary’s who could count managing the inventory. No sign of the unkempt brat with the big mouth. That meant she had to go deeper.
Using the windows and jutting-out bricks for hand- and footholds, Riven scaled the graying building and travelled diagonally across the warehouse’s roof until she came to a series of flats clustered together in leaning towers. Casting long shadows across the warehouse roof, the flats slouched under their own weight, held together by the strength of brick alone as the wooden foundations became more susceptible to age and rot. Riven broke into a run and leaped over a clothesline to land on the nearest balcony. The wood groaned as she rolled but didn’t break under her this time. She continued her hunt for Sette much the same as she had for the warehouse, only this time she was suspended well above ground level, her good sense overridden by a driving need for vengeance.
At last, Riven found her rummaging through a vacant flat for any belongings left behind by its former occupant. Sette’s back was to her, but it was hard to mistake the familiar red and blue layered shirt let alone the thin tail poking out of her backside. Feet balancing on a narrow window sill, Riven rapped her fist hard on the glass. “Sette! Let me in, so I can tan yer hide!”
The girl in question jumped and spun toward the shout, but the alarm soon evaporated from her like steam on hot rocks. She moseyed to the window and popped her head up over the sill to meet Riven’s glare, her green eyes narrowed slyly and her long brown hair askew as if she’d never combed it today (likely). Sette showed Riven a wide grin of pointed teeth then promptly hugged her narrow middle and made exaggeratedly grotesque kissing noises. “Riven sucked faaaace!”
“Ugh, I’m gonna sock yer face!”
Without waiting a second more to carry out her threat, Riven reached up, grabbed the edge of the awning, and kicked open the window. Its wooden frame was tarnet, resistant to pymary but not to a kick in the dick. The window splintered, sending the entire pane, broken glass, and a perfectly pickable lock to spill across the floor. Sette shrieked with laughter. Then, she shrieked for real as Riven dove into the room.
Sette slipped from her grasp and bolted. Riven followed, chasing her through the flat and pursuing her out another window. The two made a game of it, blazing across rooftops of business offices that were little more than glorified shacks. Knocking over chairs in the common rooms of apartments to cause each other obstacles, to the angered shouts of Nary’s heavies. They even passed through the brothel, Riven skidding to a halt in front of an open door only once to give some much-needed advice to the busy folks inside.
“Don’t just jack-hammer her, lad,” she tsked and rolled her own hips in a languid demonstration. “Technique. Use technique.”
She laughed as an ashtray sailed past where her head used to be, leaving an ugly indentation in the wall.
By the time Riven caught up to Sette, it was where she’d expected the girl to flee. The kennel. Riven tackled her just inside its cool, shadowy confines, and the two tussled, tumbling around on the floor like a couple of ill-bred dogs. Appropriate since the hounds inside promptly lost their minds at the notion that Riven was potentially hurting Sette. They pulled on their leads, rammed their large bodies against the kennel doors, and barked loud enough to hurt one’s ears.
The two criminals paid no mind. Settling scores was far more important.
Riven had more than enough height on Sette, but the girl liked to cheat with her tail and tended to bite. Somehow, Sette was restraining herself today, probably because she was laughing too much.
“Did you suck his prick, too?” Sette taunted from somewhere about Riven’s knees. She had to shout to be heard over the hounds.
“That’s none of yer business, ya howling sphincter!”
“Oh, you did!”
Ceiling became floor became ceiling as they continued to roll. A slabbering jowl snapped near Riven’s head, and she fixed the hulking beast with a snarling growl of her own. Finally acknowledging Sette’s home turf advantage, Riven felt the weight of defeat and released her. The older Sharteshanian sprawled to a stop on her back and groaned into her hands. “But why did ya have to tell me da?”
“I didn’t!” Sette asserted as she went around the kennel, shushing and petting and soothing the hounds. Once they had mostly calmed but for the excited shuffling of feet, Sette flopped down to sit beside Riven, legs outstretched and hands braced behind her. She extracted a stray piece of straw from her hair and flicked it aside. “I just mentioned that I saw ya with Del when he asked. Can’t help it yer da has wits to rival mine own superior powers of reasoning.”
“Well, next time, mind your business. I’m runnin’ out of stories to tell him about why Sette Frummagem’s as full of shit as an Aldish noble.”
“I’ll not take such insults in me own home—or anywhere else!” Sette pounced, and the two wrestled again. Only this time, Riven fought to maintain her grip on Sette’s wrists as the girl seemed intent on tickling her to death… Or at least until Riven begged for mercy.
It’d happened before.
“Da said your mum was probably some Aldish castaway.” Sette declared it so matter-of-factly that it ended their playfight. Riven sat up and pushed Sette off of her, no longer amused. A hound growled, and Riven sent it a rude gesture without looking at it.
“I know Nary’s word is god to you, but he can be full of shit, too.” Riven propped up her forearm on a bent knee and checked with her other hand that her knives were still where they were supposed to be, hidden on her person. They were. Sette could get prickly if you said the wrong thing about Nary at the wrong time. “No one’s seen mum since… Well, since I came around. I’ve never once seen her, even. Da’s the only one who knows.”
“‘Splain yer hair, then.” Sette pointed at Riven’s braided rose-gold hair, which was fully on display now that her hood had fallen back during their scuffle. “I finally believe ya that it’s not spellery. Can’t smell nothing but that godsawful sweetness in it, like some sagging-tits grandma let ya keel over in her flowerbed.”
Riven wasn’t going to work out how many innuendos were in that sentence. “‘Fraid it’s natural. Unlike you, lass, I’m a believer in bathing.”
Sette stuck out her tongue, and Riven did it right back. The latter sighed. “Ah, all me hard-won maturity just goes out the window whenever yer involved.”
“That why you broke into the window?”
“Ya had it comin’. And that’ll teach Nary to install better locks.”
“Which ya’ll be payin’ for out of the swelling generosity of yer heart.” Sette put her small hand in Riven’s face. The Arnors paid their dues to the Frummagems like most around here, and Riven wasn’t about to get on Nary’s bad side for a minor case of breaking and entering on his turf. With an eye roll, Riven—who’d heard Sette’s threat loud and clear—fished out one gold sem and dropped it into her waiting palm. “Thank ya, Ald freak.”
“I’m not an Ald.” Riven scrunched up her nose in distaste. “Just because me da discourages me from doing things doesn’t mean I’m stopped from doing things.”
“Like sneakin’ away to suck Del’s—”
Sette stood on a shirt she’d left on the straw-strewn floor; Riven pulled it right out from under her, and Sette went down hard. “Traitor,” she grumbled at the shirt as Riven stood and tossed it over her face. Sette tore the offending material away. “Still, I’m thinking—”
“Oh, no.”
“—you’re some sort of half-Ald. Breakin’ molds and soilin' the system with yer very existence!”
“Except they don’t have this color in Alderode. I don’t think.” How many castes were there again? Ugh, Riven didn’t like to think about it. Alderode was a mystery that grew more sensationalized with every rumor and official report, and if even half of it held weight, well, Riven was perfectly fine living in Sharteshanian squalor. The idea of being stuck on some government-mandated life path based on her hair, of all things, made her skin itch. She never thought too hard about the other hearsays.
But if she had been born in Alderode, at least she’d know how to fuckin’ read. Bleh.
“Then, ya must be a second-generation rebel. Yer mum a forbidden love child between a Copper and a Plat!”
“I don’t think it works the way yer implyin’, but I’m glad ya at least know yer colors. How many years would that give me, anyway? Minus these twenty-odd years I’ve managed not to die, and no pymary to complicate me affairs.” Amused, Riven helped Sette to her feet. “I suppose it wouldn’t matter ‘cuz I’m blowing all of them in Sharteshane.”
“And blowin’—”
“Nope.” Riven scooped up Sette, turned her upside-down, and dropped her on her basket bed headfirst. No longer sensing any hostility, the hounds paid them no mind. “And I’m not Aldish, so let that be the end of it.”
“But don’tcha want ta know for sure? Even I know me ma died from fishwomen, but you can’t claim anything about yours.” Sette straightened up and brought a prim and proper hand to her heart. “I’d want ta know. It’s yer family. Yer blood. Ya should start proddin’ yer da and find out.”
But Riven wasn’t listening, didn’t want to listen. Sette was still too young to have known her when she’d opened and shut that particular casket. A Frummagem though Sette was, she didn’t yet understand that life could hurt more than taking a punch to the face or a blow to the kidney. Some hurts never left a mark, but you felt them deep inside anyway, where they left you nearly cleaved in two.
Fortunately, instead of revisiting old pain, Riven found something else to focus on, courtesy of Sette still. Despite Nary being the kingpin he was, Sette had never had much to her name, and many a Sharte were hoarders of whatever they found by nature. That made the sudden clutter of Sette’s barren space all the more apparent, and that was without the general disarray of the kennel. Sette wasn’t only sitting on her raggedy excuse of a blanket. As if Sette had been sorting through them, various articles of clothing were spread upon the bed along with provisions and a cartographer's map, not one Sette scribbled up herself with lovingly-used drawing instruments. Among the heap, a glint of red caught Riven’s eye, and she plucked it from the throng of items, studying the necklace with a frown.
No, not just a necklace. Some sort of amulet shaped like a raven, and sloshing around in a vial held in the center sure wasn’t hunch punch. The liquid was thinner. Blood.
“Pretty bauble. Just who’d ya steal this from?”
Sette snatched it from her. “Given, not stole. It’s mine, is what it is. ‘M supposed to be wearin’ it.” She threw the chain over her head, quickly hiding the entire amulet under her shirt.
“It looks like some Black Tongue shit.”
“What big Aldish eyes you have!”
“Sette. Don’t make me set the straw on fire again.” From somewhere within the kennel, a two-toed lizard released a protesting squawk, but Riven didn’t have time to reassure Nary’s new servant that she was bluffing. She glared down at Sette. “Tell me ya didn’t make some stupid deal with a Black Tongue.”
“It’s not stoopid,” Sette fired back. She stood up on the round bed, coming closer to eye-level with Riven. “Me da made the deal, not me, so it’s fine! No one gets the best of him, not even some foppish, smelly Black Tongue what don’t own a real shirt.”
“He was a wright, too?”
“Aren’t they all supposed to be? I didn’t see him do any pymary, but I could still smell it on ‘im.”
Riven’s right foot bounced in anxiety as she considered the implications. Creepy blood amulet. A Black Tongue hanging around Nary’s place. All the supplies.
“You’re not runnin’, are ya?”
Riven deserved the knock on the head Sette jumped up to deliver.
“A Frummagem never runs! Da’s sending me on an important mission! I’m—I’m the only one what’s got the wits and the balls both to do it!” Sette settled her hands on her hips, chest swelling with pride. “I gots ta prove that nobody skips out on what they owe the Frummagems, not even a Frummagem. Cousin Stockyard’s gonna pay back every sem he owes da, or he’ll be crappin' out his own tongue.”
Riven nodded, understanding. “A good, strong visual.”
Sette bowed. “I’ll think up more on the journey and tell ya all about it when I get back. I’ll be declared fit to be Da’s heir, then, and Riv, outta respect fer yer loyalty, I’ll name ya me first underling.”
Once again, Riven nodded, but it was slower. Thoughts were spinning in her head as unease built in her stomach like a stormcloud. Riven liked Sette. She was the rare sort who held nothing back, which suited Riven because she often forgot that it was considered polite to communicate with others using a filter. How boring.
It stood to reason, therefore, that there were few people in New Tawhoque Riven could be completely herself with, and Sette was on that short list. She sometimes thought that the two of them could be what sisters were like, if both sisters were fine engaging in the art of murder, thievery, and reckless endangerment along with causing the most widespread offense possible. When it came to doing business, Sette could be surprisingly reliable in a pinch, so eager was she to please. However, Sette’s mission was starting to sound like it wasn’t—and shouldn’t be—Arnor business. Something was… off.
Riven didn’t want to be here any longer, not until she learned more about Nary’s mind. Perhaps after Sette left and was out of harm’s way, she could snoop around, find out what all this mission of Sette’s entailed.
She turned toward the kennel’s wide-open entrance. “Well, I’ll be listenin’ fer the trumpets to sound yer triumphant return. I’m satisfied with all the hide-tanning I’ve visited upon your person today—”
Sette snorted.
“—so I’m gone. Spy on me and Del again at your peril, Frummagem.”
“Ah, but… Riven, wait!”
The note of panic in Sette’s voice drew Riven up short; it was so dissonant from the girl’s usual bluster.
Sette also knew she’d let something slip that she shouldn’t have. Already, she was pulling back her hand from where she’d reached toward Riven. Was standing as straight and tall as her meager height allowed, her tail alert behind her. She cleared her throat. “I was wondering,” she began.
Then cut herself off. “No, I know exactly how I’m gonna deal with Stockyard. He’ll rue the day he ever caught eyes with Sette Frummagem! But y’know, it got me thinkin’. Me? I’m so fearsome and intimidatin’, people quake when I approach. But you with ya freak-pink hair and your skinny limbs and pretty face. How do ya get folks to take ya seriously when ya go ta shake ‘em down?”
Riven’s mouth quirked, and—try as she might to stop it—she chuckled. It was either that, or she’d have to go over there and beat Sette’s ass anew, and she didn’t think the hounds could take it. She picked over the straw on the floor, her boots leaving it undisturbed, and regarded Sette over the wooden kennel fence. “Ya wanna find out?”
“What, ya mean now?”
“Unless ya gotta be going on yer big important mission.”
Sette shook her head fiercely and scrambled off the bed. “I got time!”
“C’mon, then. Baker’s jukrum’s due.”
They took the rooftops as much as they could, feet passing silently over wooden planks as they jumped from building to building, houses and businesses alike clustered together along too-narrow streets. Some were still bright with lamplight as evening approached while others had been rifled through, boarded up, and abandoned long ago.
Riven only had to slow down marginally for Sette to keep up; they didn’t have far to go, and the girl was a proven natural runner. Below them, citizens hurried home from work or begged on the side of the street. Others weren’t so preoccupied and desperate, sifting through the crowd and finding easy marks to pickpocket. Riven didn’t think that she or Sette would be bothered if they joined the teeming masses, but there was always some idiot out there dying to prove her wrong.
And she would kill them if they messed up such perfect timing.
“See it at the end of the street?” Riven asked, pointing out an old shop with a flat roof and chipping white paint that had long since turned yellow. The baker’s shop. “Byrne closes up at the same time every day and not a minute later. Routines, they’ll kill ya.”
They slipped down onto street level and approached the shop at a casual pace. Here, the streets were wider, spilling out into a marketplace square that only ever seemed to limp on despite how bustling it was. Hard times in Sharteshane, and that was as true for the have-nots as it was for their puppet monarchs.
“I’ll do all the talkin’, Sette. You just watch.”
“But what if he tries to fight ya?”
“That won’t happen,” Riven said, “but if it does, I’ll handle it. This is Arnor turf.”
“Turf you pay me da for,” Sette pointed out.
“True, me family’s a subsidiary of yours, which is why I need to do right by Nary, not you. This is me business.” With a wink at Sette, Riven knocked on the baker’s door.
“We’re closed,” a rough voice barked from inside.
“Oh, but Byrne, didn’t ya get me order?” Riven called back with a mellow smile on her face.
Inside, all movement stopped. The shop became deathly silent. With a sigh, Riven put a hand on Sette’s shoulder and drew her gently back. Then, using even more strength than with the flat’s window, Riven balanced on her back leg and kicked the shop’s door in with the other. Something metallic pinged, and the wooden door snapped back on its hinges, slamming into the entryway wall.
Riven strolled through, teal eyes searching the shop. “Close the door behind ya, Sette.”
“What for?”
“Being polite is fun sometimes.”
Inside, the air smelled heavenly of bread, the savory kind, full of starch and spice. The sweeter confections were made in the morning and were often gone by midday. Riven liked coming here when she could be a customer. Today, however, she was an enforcer, here to collect a different kind of bread. A shop like this couldn’t thrive in Sharteshane without the owner paying protection money to a crime family. There were reasons why some buildings remained empty and neglected. Such was the price of doing business.
Her boots clunked heavily on the floor. She was making noise on purpose. “Twins, Byrne, I’m not in the mood for hide ‘n seek. You’re overdue. I know it, you know it, even the Ssaelit heathens up north know it. Pay up, or we’ll have to—”
A flash of silver out of the corner of her eye. Riven dodged out of the way as a sword came down where her body had been, the blade lodging into the bread display counter. Holding the other end of it, eyes blown wide and sweat pouring down his balding temples, was Byrne.
Riven clucked her tongue. “I’m still willing to overlook this if you—”
“FOUL!” Sette cried and launched herself on Byrne’s back. Her sharp teeth sunk into his ear. Byrne screamed and wrenched the sword free, clawing for her.
Riven would massage the bridge of her nose if she had the time. Instead, she caught Byrne’s sword arm and twisted his wrist until he dropped the sword. With her other hand, she reached around and balled a fistful of Sette’s shirt. A quick kick to unbalance Byrne, and down he went with Riven using enough force to pull Sette off of him.
“If ya get a mark on ya, who do ya think Nary will kill, huh?” Riven told her. “Here, hold this sharp object and just watch.”
Trusting the sword to Sette, Riven went to Byrne and crouched down to his eye level. The man clutched at his bleeding ear and glared fiercely at her; his entire body was also shaking like a leaf in the wind. At least he hadn’t pissed himself.
Time for that yet.
Riven lowered her head with a heaving sigh. “Lad, if ya didn’t have the money, why didn’t ya just say that?”
“As if any excuse I made you would listen to!” Byrne tried and failed to scrabble from her, but his back was flush against the counter. He wasn’t going anywhere. “We both know what happens next. The least I could do was take one of you bitches with me.”
“Fat Yerta’s dripping cunt, I wasn’t gonna kill ya over a little late fee.” Riven rose and flicked her wrist. The knife’s sudden weight in her hand was as familiar as a friend, the wooden hilt worn smooth by years of use. As she inspected the blade, she said, “But because of all this, it’s gonna be worse than it had to be.”
A kick to Byrne’s head to disorient. A blade swiped against his arm, dripping blood. A heel smashed into his ribs, cracking them. Over and over and over again. At some point, Riven directed her knife with a stylish flick, finishing the work Sette had begun in separating the man’s ear from his head. Through it all was the screaming, then the begging, then the wimpers, and then silence. The sharp, rancid odor of piss and vomit was endured as usual. No one from outside came to investigate or alerted the cops. No one pressed themselves to the windows or tried the unlocked front door. The second an Arnor and a Frummagem both had made their way inside a closed shop, pedestrians scattered, giving the area a wide berth out of an abundance of caution.
The entire time, Sette watched Riven with wide eyes and a growing grin. If the lass could write, she probably would’ve been scribbling frantic notes. In the middle of the shakedown, she belatedly remembered something and turned up her face toward the ceiling, hands clasped loosely in prayer.
“She didn’t mean it, Fat Yerta.”
On the way back to Nary’s, Sette asked, “How come ya didn’t kill ‘im?”
“Eh, it wasn’t that much money.”
“But he tried ta kill you!”
Riven just laughed. “He’s a good baker. That’s why I took his ear and let him keep his fingers. It doesn’t really matter how ya do it, Sette. As long as you put fear in ‘em, they’ll step in line next time.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then ya make sure the only place they’re steppin’ next is to the khert.” In faux-lecture mode now, Riven raised her pointer finger, all the better to act the sage. “If all else fails, just remember: ya gotta act crazier than them and believe that ya are. Don’t be afraid to froth at the mouth all diseased hound-like. Men have no idea what to do when someone, especially a woman, goes utter batshit. It’s hilarious. But ya can’t crack first. Crack open their heads, and then ya can laugh.”
They openly walked the streets, which were cast in a weak, orange light as the sun set. Sette absorbed every word the older criminal said like a bar rag, Byrne’s sword slung over her shoulder as a trophy. “That’s really worked for you?”
“So far.”
“Is that what ya had to do when your da came at you about Del?” Sette puckered her lips and made sounds that sounded less like kissing and more like a dying fish, clearly not interested in a real answer.
“How you trample over me tender, loving heart,” Riven responded, tone as dry as a desert. “No romantic, you.”
Sette blew a raspberry. “Romance is for suckers and whores.”
“And your da only says that because he’s become an embittered widower.”
“Shows what you know! I’ve got an empire to run, Riven. I ain’t got time for matters of the heart.” She danced forward, brandishing the sword. “Unless it involves the proper way to cut one out and butterfly it.”
“I do love a good butterfly cut of meat.”
“But ya love Del’s prick more, dontcha?” Sette’s shit-eating grin faded, and she asked in a tone too nonchalant to ever be mistaken as genuine. “So does this mean you and him are gonna get married, and you’re gonna get boring?”
Does this mean you’re going to leave? Sette didn’t say it, but Riven heard her worry crystal clear.
“I doubt it. Del’s one wrong look away from da making sure he can never look at anything ever again. Besides, I do have me own inherited obligations to consider.” Riven’s gaze turned inward, pondering. “Not sure I’m built for marriage anyway. Cresce’s got it partly right. I think I want a harem. Del can be head concubine; it’s a high honor.”
“Hmm, now that’s mighty wise of ya.”
“It’s been known to happen biannually.”
Getting Sette back where she belonged inside Nary’s stronghold was also no more of a challenge than sneaking her out into the city. Riven no longer believed this was through any ingenuity on her part. Increasingly, those earlier feelings of unease crept back, including the feeling of being watched. She had Sette lead their way back to the kennel, looking over her shoulder and spying nothing unduly amiss.
Okay, so she was being paranoid now. That, or the blood was still pumping from beating an armed but untrained civilian to a pulp.
Easy to confuse the two.
“Ya sure yer gonna be alright on this mission of yours?” Riven ventured when Sette threw aside the sword in a corner of the room, where it would spend the rest of its life raising a charming family of dust bunnies. At the question, Sette gave her the stink eye. The lion-tailed girl resumed gathering together the travel supplies she cared about, many of which she managed to stow on her person. Watching her, a distressing thought occurred to Riven. “Wait. Yer not going alone, are ya?”
“‘Course not! I’ve a faithful attack zombie.”
“You—what? You mean a plod?”
“Not just any plod!” Sette spun towards her, eyes flashing. “Ya wanna see ‘im? Da should’ve finished giving ‘im the dressing down by now.”
Riven wasn’t sure what to make of that. She’d thought plods were mindlessly obedient regardless. Her gaze skated toward the kennel entryway, which would inevitably lead deeper into Nary’s domain. “I’m not sure I should.”
“Psssh! Come on.” Sette grabbed her arm and dragged her along. Toward Nary’s pub, The Midnight Cricket, she realized. “Ya likely won’t get another chance, Riv, so I gotta rub him in your face while I can.”
The pub’s main room wasn’t deserted by any means, patrons already slung across the bar and the air full of an out-of-tune jig someone was attempting to play on a piano. In the corner of the room, a prostitute was giving one of Nary’s stooges a blowjob while a whole gang of enforcers crowded another table, eyeing each other over their cards. Cigarette smoke blanketed the room, rising toward the ceiling. Neither Riven nor Sette even blinked at the goings-on, heading straight for the backrooms.
They passed several other thieves and soldiers that reported to Nary, though she was certain that both Crescians and Aldishmen alike would sneer at the use of the term. Sette and Riven respectively grinned and winked at a passing cop on the Frummagem payroll before pressing on.
“He’s in here!” Sette crowed, sweeping them both inside a dark room with only a few dim lamps left glowing.
Riven’s eyes and ears adjusted to the sudden darkness and quiet. She spotted a few wooden chairs strewn about, but the room appeared empty save the two of them. One of the chairs had a pile of dirty laundry spewing over it, which was odd, but there was no sign of this plod Sette was so impressed with. They were hulking things, generally. Riven didn’t think one would be possible to overlook. She opened her mouth to demand answers of Sette when the laundry pile suddenly shifted, the clinking sound of chains loud in the silence. Every hair on her body stood on end, and Riven skirted back, knives in hand. “Sette, what the fuck?”
“Pipe down, nursemaid! Night’s falling, so da’s got him chained up already.”
“I’ve gotten into some crazy shit, lass, but this is a bit too cracked even for me.”
With careful steps, Riven followed Sette’s lead, edging closer but not putting her knives away. What she’d assumed was a pile of laundry was actually a plod that was hooded and cloaked. And whose body was sinking in on itself, his thin arms stretched behind the chair and chained to the wall. She understood that plods were all male, as much as gender mattered to a shambling corpse, but that’s where this plod’s resemblance stopped compared to the others she’d seen. He wasn’t a hardy, boulder-like mass at all, and as Riven peered beneath the hood, she saw his rotting, maggoty features clear as day.
“Why doesn’t he have something on his face?”
“Oh, he just looks like that.”
“No, I mean the”—Riven gestured toward her own face with the tip of a knife—”mask. Restrainer. Thing.”
“He doesn’t need one! Me attack zombie hangs on me every word, a slave to my every whim.”
“At the moment, I still say this whole plod business compared to slavery is a lateral move.”
Not that there weren’t slaves and plods in Sharteshane, but Sharteshanians had hardly invented either, had they? As fashionable as plods were now for manual labor across Kasslyne, Riven found the whole thing distasteful. Dead bodies should stay in the ground.
“Back up,” she instructed Sette. “He’s gonna bite off yer face. Always hungry, they are, thanks to Cresce and Alderode first breedin’ them for their pissing contests. And they call us the barbarians.”
“I’d certainly call you rude,” the plod said crisply.
Sette jumped a foot in the air, and Riven screamed bloody murder.
“It talked! It talked! Plods don’t fucking talk! ”
“Oi, yer supposed to be asleep.” Sette jabbed a finger at him to make her point.
“A nigh impossible feat given how cacophonous you two have been.” The plod adjusted, resting an ankle upon his knee as the chains rattled ominously behind him. Riven got the distinct impression he was giving her a look. A look she usually only saw on her own da’s face. It made her bristle. “Aren’t you a little too old to be acting thus? I would expect you to put forth a better example for the little one.”
“Aren’t you a little too dead to have an opinion?” Riven shot back, but she was also curious despite the insanity of the situation.
“Aye, worms eat the vestiges of my brain, yet still I think. The blood has dried in my veins, yet still I move. My vocal cords rot in my throat, yet speech remains, and by all accounts what shouldn’t exist lingers still.”
“Sette, what is this thing talkin’ about?”
“I dunno. He’s been like this since he got here.”
“I’m not a thing. Ladies, attempt to shed the barbarism your cesspool of a country has taught you, and heed me. I have experience teaching the greenest of wrights, and if your male betters have failed to impart manners and good breeding both upon you, then I shall endeavor to succeed where they have spared the rod. I am—”
“Obnoxious?” Riven guessed.
Sette raised her hand. “Pompous!”
“Flatulent.”
Sette bent over laughing, holding her stomach. “Good one, Riv!”
“But most of all…”
The two rogues shared a knowing look and declared in unison, “He’s Aldish.”
“...Yes ,” the plod drew out between decaying teeth. “I’m Ald—”
“Or, y’know, he thinks he is,” interrupted Sette. “A plod is a zombie is wormfood. Nuthin’ else in there. He’s probably all addled in the head from spellery. He’s Ald-dled.”
“Good effort, but there’s room for improvement.”
“Oh, sure, but you make a fart joke, and it redefines comedy.”
“It has a double meaning, making it clever. And ya laughed. No take-backs.”
“Ssael preserve me, there’s no hope for either of them,” the plod muttered with a long-suffering sigh. “Regardless of what I am, I am now grateful that I will only endure one of you as a traveling companion.”
“You’re traveling to Stockyard’s with Sette, yet ya have to be chained?” Riven stabbed a knife in his direction, not liking the implications of this at all.
“Only at night,” the plod said in a soothing tone. “I’m afraid a… madness overcomes me as the moon rises. I can feel it anon, creeping in but for the distraction you have served. But I take precautions. I will not harm Sette, this I vow to you. Rather, her father has… employed me as her protector.”
The hunger. He was talking about a plod’s incessant hunger, the very thing Riven had just warned Sette about that the girl had so casually dismissed. She threw Sette a look that said, Have you all lost your fuckin’ minds? But Sette only grinned back and tapped her chest.
Where Riven knew the Black Tongue amulet rested. She closed her eyes.
Of course.
Not seeing a threat she could deal with presently, Riven sheathed her knives. “Well, forgive me if I’m not overly reassured, plod.”
“I suppose I must. If I were in your circumstances, I would be moved to agree.” The plod’s head tilted. “Is Sette your… sister?”
“Can’t tell unless our hair matches?”
“In truth, no, though your brazen tongues certainly pair you. But I suppose that’s a commonality all your people share.”
Riven let the slight go. Polished as the Ald’s insults and criticisms were, they were as weak as a fart in the wind. “She’s me friend, and technically one day, she’ll be me boss.”
“That reminds me,” quipped Sette. “I need to find a big, fat ring with a big, fat rock you can bow down and kiss.”
“I’m partial to morganite.”
The plod snickered, and then it grew into something fuller, something almost fond. The act seemed to surprise the plod—it surprised Sette and Riven, who’d just gotten used to the thing talking—and the laughter disappeared as soon as it came. He cleared what was left of his throat, abashed, but offered, “Blood or no, you both act like siblings. Oil and water, and yet thick as thieves.”
It wasn’t a compliment per se, yet Riven felt warmth spread through her chest as if it was. It felt like pride but something else, too. Something truer. She darted a glance at Sette, but the tailed girl was toeing the floor with her bare feet, pink in the face but smiling a rare, soft, little smile. Riven could’ve breathed a sigh of relief that Sette felt the same, but oddly, the two of them viewing each other as something akin to family wasn’t the strangest thing. It was that this weird, talking plod had rendered the both of them speechless.
The irony.
“I will bring the sister of your heart back to you safe and sound, Miss…?” the plod trailed off.
Riven was thrown by his sudden politeness which, for all intents and purposes, was genuine. It prompted her to respond in kind, as solemnly as she could allow. “Arnor, attack zombie. Riven Arnor.”
“Miss Arnor, you have my word. And please, let us drop such a ridiculous moniker. I am Dua—”
The door slammed open behind Sette and Riven. The former twisted towards the sound, but Riven’s shoulders had jumped to her ears. She didn’t need to hear Sette announce the man who had entered. She already knew.
Nary-a-Care Frummagem simply exuded that kind of air. Good-humored on the surface yet just beneath was a menacing undercurrent. It brought to mind why you never went diving down to the depths of dark, unknown waters. Didn’t matter if you had pymary to light or fight your way down, and waterwomen were the least of your problems. There were some monsters you weren’t meant to find.
Others found their way to you no matter what, even if you stayed up on the shore.
“I was wondering what all the commotion was.” Nary’s voice was deep yet it had a quality to it like cut glass. “Princess, you know our friend needs to sleep. You both have an early start tomorrow.”
“Sorry, da. I wanted to show Riven before—”
“Ah, yes, Erosen’s oldest and youngest brood.”
A heavy hand came down on Riven’s shoulder, Nary’s chest pressing close. The gesture could almost be called fatherly were it not for the lack of affection. Riven congratulated herself for not flinching. “And what do you think of him?” Nary asked.
“The plod’s… something.”
Nary laughed, a raspy thing. “Try not to say that in front of me guest. He takes a certain pride in his work. Which reminds me that you’re both making me out to be an impolite host. Let’s walk.”
Fingers dug into Riven’s shoulder, and she pivoted with Nary as he forced her from the room. The strange plod didn’t utter another word, merely watched the group leave. Riven thought she glimpsed a frown peeking out from his hood, but that was impossible. The thing’s lips had already rotted off.
The door closed behind their exit, and Nary finally released her to lock the plod inside the room. Riven thought it pointless. If the plod got free of his chains, a little lock on a door wouldn’t stop him. As Nary worked, Riven tried not to look at him dead-on, had always tried not to meet his eyes, but she still caught the sight of Nary’s dark hair, his long nose, the sharp hunger in the planes of his face that he never could quite mask. She noticed then what she always did about him. That he didn’t feel or look anything like Sette.
She would not utter a single word of it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Beside her, Sette searched the halls left and right, lips pursed with disdain. “Is Winalils still here?”
“Lord Winalils. And he’s just leaving now that we’ve settled our accounts.” Nary placed a hand on his daughter’s head and pushed her farther down the hall. “Head off to bed, girl. I’ll see Arnor out.”
“But—”
“Now, Sette.”
Sette’s tail wasn’t quite tucked between her legs, but there was no arguing with that tone. “Bye, Riv.”
“Bye,” called Riven after Sette’s fleeing back when what she wanted to tell her was, be safe.
Not the sort of weakness Nary would abide right in front of him, so Riven swallowed every word. She found her business voice instead. “Speakin’ of accounts, sir, your jukrum from Byrne.” She drew forth a coin pouch and deposited it in Nary’s waiting palm. “And some extra.”
“I’m surprised Byrne came through this time.”
“He didn’t. He was short. The Arnors will take the cut,” she reassured him, even as it made her want to clench her jaw from frustration. She’d done the work, bloodied her hands, and was walking away with coppers in comparison.
Nary pulled open the purse strings and looked inside. “Ah.” He drew forth Byrne’s pale ear, crusted with dried blood. “And I didn’t get you anything.”
“I hear it’s the thought that counts.”
“Not in this business.” He fixed her with a hard look. “I was expectin’ a finger or two.”
“Hard to knead bread when yer low on fingers.”
“And cutting off an ear sends a message he can hear, does it?”
“He felt the message, sir, and everyone who sees him will know it.” Riven leaned against the wall, feigning boredom. “‘Sides, he didn’t need the ear. Lad doesn’t wear glasses.”
An airy laugh echoed down the corridor. “Never a boring moment with you Sharteshanians, is there?”
Riven started at the newcomer standing with them in the hall, which she swore had been empty since Sette had left. Who the hell was this to have snuck up on her? Her? If Sette was the best pickpocketer in all of Sharteshane, then Riven was its queen of stealth.
Nary dropped the ear back into the pouch and pocketed the whole thing, completely undisturbed by the detached appendage or the man’s arrival. “All these interruptions, Lord Winalils. I trust ya can forgive the jugglings of a man runnin’ a criminal empire and raisin’ a willful brat.”
“Funny how much of that is going around these days.”
As the two men conferred, Riven watched this “Lord” Winalils through narrowed eyes, her body coiling tighter and tighter. She was simultaneously the spring ready to flee and the snake waiting to strike.
“—all chained up and asleep by now, I reckon,” Nary was saying.
“Pity. How regrettable that I must strive once more for patience.” Though Winalils spoke Continental without a discernible accent, something about his words reminded Riven of how the plod had spoken. The very plod they were discussing. “There will be opportunity yet to talk with him. He’ll survive the journey, of that I have no doubt. These Adeliers have proven wonderfully resilient to death.”
Winalils possessed straight, jet black hair and eyes to match, blacker than fresh ink yet without the shine in the dimness of the hall. Riven’s gaze passed right over his features, drawn to the billowing cape that fell to knee-length behind him and the, well… He wore an idea of a shirt, held together by a few straps and a prayer, likely to some northern, heathen god. The rest was skin. Sette’s earlier words flooded into her head at once.
Me da made the deal, not me, so it’s fine! No one gets the best of him, not even some foppish, smelly Black Tongue what don’t own a real shirt.
Not a real shirt. Black Tongue.
Winalils’ mouth suddenly quirked. Though he was still engaged in conversation with Nary, his eyes flicked toward her, glittering with amusement.
Oh, she must’ve muttered that aloud. A shame she wasn’t at all sorry. Fuck the spring. She was all snake now. Riven assessed him this time for weapons, only to kick herself. He was a wright, wasn’t he? So there was no telling what he could do. He could probably turn her knives to butter or something equally frustrating.
Winalils shifted his weight, and the movement caused something to glint near his throat. Riven’s focus shot straight to the source: a shiny, silver torc resting around the back of his neck. The old urge hit her. She couldn’t remember the last time she wanted to steal something so badly, but she didn’t know what caused the compulsion more. The item or its target.
Only… Fuck. She couldn’t. Nary was right there and had struck a deal with the wright besides. If the Black Tongue didn’t kill her for trying, Nary certainly would on principle and would even kill her da to make a point. Doublefuck.
“—not that I be doubtin’ your craftsmanship or spellery, Bastion, I mean, m’lord .” Nary wasn’t smiling, but his voice had taken on a note of calculated glee. Well, at least one of them was having fun. “But they’ll be off only as soon as we test it on Adelier and make sure he listens to Sette.”
“I’d take you for a fool if you didn’t, Frummagem, but your good business sense is exactly why I came to you.” Without warning, Bastion turned from Nary and regarded Riven with a raised brow. “Am I naked yet, my dear, or are you still working on it?”
“‘S definitely not what I was doing!” Riven’s face warmed, but she held her ground, pouring every bit of arrogance she could muster into her wall lean. “I’m trying to intimidate.”
“Do try harder. But I can keep standing still for you, if you like. Or Frummagem can give us some privacy.”
“Ya don’t want that one,” Nary cautioned with a cutting smile. “She’s half-feral most of the time. ‘Course, that’d be an accurate statement for most of our women.”
“No cotillion for ladies in Sharteshane, I’m shocked.”
“What I am is spoken-for,” she interjected, waving a disinterested hand at Bastion. “Don’t know what all ya preenin’s for, anyway. You’re just okay-looking.”
Bastion’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted just so. “...Okay-looking?”
Nary chuckled, but the glare he sent her behind Bastion’s back was a clear dismissal. “Run along to yer daddy, Riven darlin’. The game’s afoot. I’m sure even that old bastard Erosen will crack a smile once he sees the paydirt we’re gonna rake in.”
“Mm,” Riven offered noncommittally. Stockyard’s jukrum was that much? Sounded like funny math to her, some real funny math. It just didn’t add up. “Sir.”
She turned on her heel and made for a way out of Nary’s pub, seeking another exit besides the front. Riven didn’t think she could take the carefree racket of a bar crowd after what she’d seen today. She did not flee, but perhaps she should have. It wasn’t long before the Black Tongue’s footsteps caught up with hers. “I’ll walk you out, my dear.”
She sighed sharply through her nose. “Fine, but remember ya chose to make me yer personal problem.” Riven stared at Bastion’s proffered arm like it was infected with lice but took it anyway, resuming their walk. All the better to get up in his face and search for truth. “So you and Nary. You’re fuckin’, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely not.” He was still smiling, but his dark eyes flashed. “You’re making me question how many insults I can suffer upon my person in so short a time.”
“What, because I said you were just okay-looking? Don’t take it so personal,” Riven purred with sweet venom. “Or are you Black Tongues really so thin-skinned?”
“Ah, that old, familiar sneer. So it’s slander and lies that have poisoned you against me from the first. For being from such a lawless country, you’re all astonishingly superstitious.”
“Part of our effortless charm.”
“As you say. But by all means, keep up that glare of yours. It’s quite fetching, though I won’t be responsible if you run into something for lack of paying attention.”
“I’ll live. We rogues know how to roll.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Will you stop talking? I’m trying to commit yer face to memory in case of future vengeance, and it’s so hard when ya move ‘cause it’s so distressingly average.”
Somehow, they arrived outside into a cool night before Riven felt compelled to draw her knives or for Winalils to curse her, or however it was that Black Tongues screwed people. Getting out of Nary’s earshot and the many walls that listened for him was the most important thing on Riven’s to-do list. Now, she could ask the bloody wright what she truly wanted to know. She stepped away from him as quickly as she could.
“Is that... thing ya gave Sette going to hurt her?”
Bastion’s pale face was lined with wry amusement. “Which thing, darling?”
“The amulet, for starters.”
“Oh, that.” He plucked something off the arm she’d held on their way out, the picture of disinterest. “No, it will not cause her pain.”
“Good. Because if it does do her harm, I will hunt you down and fill ya full of knives.”
“How frightening. This is sounding rather like the end of many a first date.”
“That prone to makin’ enemies, are ya, Black Tongue?”
“And making beautiful yet foolish women chase after me.” Smirking, Bastion leaned down until his face was inches from her own. His knuckles brushed against her chin, lifting her face up to his, only for him to step back with a wink. “So be sure to think endlessly about this handsome face of mine, and hunt well, sweet avenger.”
Riven waited until he was walking away from her to furiously wipe away his touch and flip him off. She’d finally placed what accent he was hiding, but it was a close thing. Damn Aldishmen were the bane of her existence today.
So it was a surprise when Bastion stopped to offer one final bit of true reassurance, his voice floating to her in the night. “Duane Adelier is also harmless, provided you are a poor, pitiful child with green eyes.”
“The plod?”
“He is not a…” But he cut himself off with a sigh, muttering something to himself that sounded like, “Pearls before vliegeng.” Then, he stepped into a shadow between two buildings and for all appearances completely vanished.
Riven settled her attention one final time on The Midnight Cricket. Now that she was alone, she let her concern show stark on her face as she looked in the direction of the kennel where Sette slept.
She hoped the hounds were each doing their job to watch over and protect her for this final night. She hoped she’d see Sette again.
Be careful, lass. And ditch the plod if you have to. Ditch the whole damn mess.
She didn’t linger any longer. The streets turned deadly at night, and she had her own home to get back to, the feeling of being watched no longer an abnormality but a reality born from old fears of things that lurked in the shadows.
Riven had no idea that one of those shadows was alive, that it hid the wright she had just finished speaking with. A talented wright who had far too many plans and who noted down which streets she sprinted. She had no idea the thing he’d plucked from his sleeve was a single hair, rose-gold, hers. That he was studying it so intently until he spoke a few Tainish words and sent just a hint of pymary through it, intrigued by a mysterious abnormality he sensed through touch that sight hadn’t detected. She had no idea how his face slackened from shock then split into a smile as the act disrupted a glamour spell that neither of them had known was there at all, the rose-gold color now permanently reverted back to Platinum white.
All Riven had on her mind was Sette and a foreboding sense that everything was about to change, not necessarily for the better.