Conspiracy (17 page)

And
if Sespian fell in love with Yara, Amaranthe wouldn’t have to
worry that maybe he still held a hint of his former interest in
her. She doubted he did anyway, but this would put the whole notion
to rest. For her, and for Sicarius as well, because he claimed his
main reason for not wishing to pursue a relationship with Amaranthe
was that he didn’t want to give Sespian another reason to hate him.
But if Sespian was happily in love with someone else...

“
Should I be concerned that
you’re grinning?” Yara asked.

“
Yes
,” Books said. He stood at the corner of the shed, and he had
been staying out of the conversation, but that question apparently
tempted him too much.

Amaranthe dropped the smile. She hadn’t
realized it had grown light enough to read expressions, but she
ought to keep her scheming thoughts off her face anyway. Besides,
the threat to the emperor was the paramount concern, not this
relationship twaddle. “I was thinking that you might be the perfect
person to help us.”

Books sent a wary look in her direction.
Amaranthe was glad Sicarius hadn’t reappeared. Telling an enforcer
that her team planned to kidnap the emperor might not be a good
idea, but if Amaranthe could enlist Yara’s help, it could be worth
the risk.

“
How so?” Yara asked
warily.

“
You know the emperor has
been out inspecting the various forts around Turgonia?”

“
Yes... by
train.”

“
Indeed so. We believe
kidnappers are going to strike at him during the last leg of his
journey.”

Books made a choking sound. Amaranthe hoped
the look she shot him said, “Sssshh,” sufficiently.

“
Kidnappers?” Yara asked.
“Who?”

“
All we have is a note,”
Amaranthe said, being careful not to lie outright. “But if
he
is
in danger,
we intend to help him. If you want, you could join us at
Forkingrust Station. We intend to slip onto his train there and be
ready in case something happens while he’s en route to Stumps. If
you come, you could assist us if things get out of hand. Just to be
honest with you, I wouldn’t mind having a third party along who, if
things go wrong, knows our intent was to help the emperor. Perhaps
we’re foolish to want to risk ourselves to help him, but, as I’ve
told you, we’re trying to earn exoneration.”

Amaranthe had been speaking rather rapidly,
probably because she was afraid Yara would stop her with curses for
her dead, deranged ancestors. She paused to collect her breath and
wait for a response.

“
I have duties here,” Yara
said.

Amaranthe had expected a protest or a snort
of disbelief. This response startled her. It was as if Yara was
actually considering coming.

“
Surely you have some leave
you could take?” Amaranthe figured she’d better press before the
woman came to her senses. “One way or another, this will be wrapped
up in a week.” Meaning her team would either be dead for their
audacity to challenge a train full of soldiers, or they’d have the
emperor with them and... well, she had little idea what would
happen at that point. They would have to see what Sespian wanted
from them. “You owe him your promotion, don’t you? And he’s your
emperor. Can you stand back and let these Forge fiends threaten
him?”

“
You believe that entity
will be behind the kidnapping?” Yara asked.

Careful, Amaranthe told herself. “I believe
they’re the major threat to the emperor, and they may represent a
threat to the entire empire with the changes they want.”

“
What
do
they want?”

“
From what we’ve gathered,
power in the government, favorable economic laws for their
businesses, and... possibly to get rid of Sespian and replace him
with a more amenable figurehead.” Sometimes Amaranthe wondered why
Forge hadn’t already made that last move, especially if they had
people in the Imperial Barracks where they could strike at Sespian.
Maybe they figured they had him sufficiently under control, or
maybe they were biding time until they could raise a private army
to ensure they could come out on top in the civil war that would
likely rise should Sespian die without an heir.

Amaranthe swallowed.
Maybe
that
was
what the weapons were for. A private army.

“
I see,” Yara said, her
tone neutral. “I’ll consider what you’ve told me. I must go to
work. My shift starts shortly.”

Her measured words drove a spike of worry
into Amaranthe. Had she just made the biggest mistake of the year?
What if Yara warned someone and arranged to have swarms of
enforcers and soldiers at Forkingrust Station when Amaranthe and
her team of outlaws arrived?

Yara pulled her parka tight
about her and strode up the street. Thoughts gibbered in
Amaranthe’s head. Mistake, mistake, was the foremost cry among
them. For a ludicrous moment, she thought of chasing after Yara,
cracking her over the head, and kidnapping
her
, if only to detain her until the
team had left for Forkingrust, and it was too late for Yara to do
anything.

A shadow stirred beside Amaranthe, and a
hand clamped down on her elbow.

“
What were you
thinking
?” Sicarius
asked.

Amaranthe jumped. She
shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d finished with the brother
and joined them, but his appearance rattled her nonetheless. That
she’d been
thinking
of setting his son up with a date was probably not the right
thing to say.

“
That we could use another
ally,” she said. Yes, that sounded safer. At least he wasn’t asking
about her sudden interest in the shaman’s workshop.

“
We don’t need her. She
hasn’t been training with the team. She’ll be like you were when we
first met.”

“
Gee, thanks.” Amaranthe
clasped Sicarius’s hand and attempted to pry his fingers loose. He
wasn’t hurting her, but it was definitely a firm,
you’ve-irritated-me-with-your-unpredictable-antics grip. “I want an
outside witness in case something goes wrong. I don’t want to lose
everything we’ve fought for because the papers assume we’re the
villains again.”

Sicarius released her with
a swift motion. “It’s more likely that her reputation will be
ruined because she associated with us.
If
she joins and doesn’t simply tell
the authorities what you told her.”

True. Amaranthe hated to admit it, but he
was probably right. That had been impulsive and foolish of her. She
forced herself to smile and say, “We’ll see.”

Sicarius stalked away without a word.
Amaranthe had learned nothing useful in regard to those under-skin
devices, and her plan to win Sicarius for herself seemed less
likely to work than ever. Right now, she’d be lucky if he didn’t
strangle her on the way back to the city.

Akstyr strolled down the street with his
hands in his pockets, trying to look casual despite the sweat
slithering down his spine. Affluent pedestrians meandered down the
cobblestone lane, chatting with vendors selling everything from
exotic spices and flavored honeys to engraved wooden swords and
shields for children. Now and then, enforcers strode past the
carts, batons and short swords dangling from their hips. Akstyr
subtly avoided them, glad he had tied his hair back in a knot so
his usual spiky tufts wouldn’t draw attention. It seemed a strange
neighborhood for his contact to frequent, but then the man wasn’t a
criminal himself, so he had no reason to avoid the law.

A couple of thieves tried
to “accidentally” bump Akstyr for a chance to fish in his pockets,
making him feel a little more at home. Fortunately, or
rather
unfortunately
, he didn’t have any money for them to find. Amaranthe and
the others weren’t back yet, so payday hadn’t come, and he’d spent
his last fifty ranmyas to arrange a meeting with Khaalid, a
sharpshooter and blade master who had, his reputation said, gotten
wealthy by collecting bounties on gangsters and felons. His
reputation also said the meaner the bastard he was hunting, the
better. He might be crazy enough to want a stab at Sicarius and
wealthy enough to pay for information on his
whereabouts.

A brass sign hanging above
a doorway ahead of Akstyr read,
Juiced
. He weaved around vendor
stalls, heading for the shop.

To his side, someone darted out of sight,
using a vegetable cart for cover. Akstyr paused. It probably had
nothing to do with him, but nobody else was acting suspiciously in
the neighborhood. He hadn’t had a good look, though he’d glimpsed
long hair and a dress.

He waited for a moment, but he didn’t spot
the person again. After resolving to keep an eye out on the way
back to the hideout, Akstyr slipped into Juiced.

Warmth rolled from a furnace in the back
where a boiler powered an engine driving a maze of moving pipes,
gears, and levers that stretched along the walls and even across
the ceiling. The complex apparatus smashed fruit and muddled the
cafe’s “special blend of energizing herbs” before pouring the
contents into giant glass carboys that filled shelves behind tables
full of patrons. Some carboys were fermenting their concoctions,
emitting a yeasty smell that competed with the fruity scents in the
air, while other jars had spigots and simply held fresh juice.

While Akstyr watched, a woman wearing a
grass skirt filled a glass with a greenish liquid and delivered it
to a table where a slender, fit man dressed in dark green sat
alone. He handed the server a couple of coins and sipped his
beverage. Couples and groups occupied the other tables, so Akstyr
figured this lone figure was his contact. The bounty hunter lacked
a Sicarius-like knife collection, but he did have a pair of long
blades in a torso harness that he’d draped over the back of his
chair. If he carried a pistol, it wasn’t visible—not surprising
since firearms were outlawed in the city. A few scars chipped at
his weathered features, giving him the experienced visage of a
veteran, and Akstyr vowed to be careful dealing with him.

The man nodded in his
direction, and Akstyr joined him. The bounty hunter had taken a
chair that put his back to a corner, and Akstyr grimaced at the
only other option, a seat on the opposite side. After seeing that
person darting out of his path, he didn’t want
his
back to the door
either.

He dragged the free chair about so that the
back faced a clanking, hissing tangle of pipes and sat down. He
promptly felt silly since the position put him less than a foot
away from the man’s arm.

“
Khaalid.” The bounty
hunter inclined his head in a nod, all business, but then a smirk
teased his lips. “Do you find me attractive, or do you always sit
this close to people you’ve just met?”

Akstyr’s instinct was to scowl and scoot the
chair away, but it might be better to act as if the comment didn’t
bother him. He wasn’t some young rube. He was calm and unflappable.
“Enh, you’re decent.”

“
Quite true, yes.” Khaalid
eyed him up and down, and Akstyr struggled not to panic. He hadn’t
offered some sort of flirtation, had he? “You’re either fearless or
stupid to want a meeting with me,” Khaalid said. “Care to opine on
which it might be?”

Relief washed over Akstyr when the bounty
hunter switched to business, but he stiffened as soon as the man
finished speaking. “Why do you say that?” Akstyr asked, figuring
that sounded better than confessing to either of the two
options.

Khaalid slipped a hand into his pocket.
Akstyr tensed, thinking the man might pull out a weapon, but he
removed a piece of paper. Rather leisurely, he unfolded it and held
it up for Akstyr’s perusal.

On the paper was a clumsy sketch of himself.
He wouldn’t have recognized it except for the spiky hair and an
inset image of an oversized hand with a Black Arrow brand clearly
displayed. Words under the drawing read, “Wanted dead: Akstyr,
former Black Arrow and wizard. 5,000 ranmyas. To be paid upon proof
of death by Trevast the Terror, the Madcats.”

It was the first Akstyr had heard of the
bounty. It probably should have scared him, but mostly it irritated
the piss out of him. Trevast was buddies with Tuskar, the Black
Arrows’ leader and Akstyr’s old boss. Amaranthe had sweet-talked
Tuskar into leaving Akstyr alone—there’d been an implied threat
that Sicarius wouldn’t stand for an attack on Akstyr—but Tuskar was
afraid of magic and had never liked Akstyr, so he’d probably talked
Trevast into putting the bounty out. Too much of a coward to do it
himself and risk Sicarius’s ire.

“
Fresh news to you?”
Khaalid returned the poster to his pocket.

Akstyr shrugged. “Only bounties put out by
enforcers are legal. As far as I know, they don’t particularly want
me.” Only because they didn’t know that he practiced the mental
sciences, but he wasn’t about to bring that up. “From what I hear,
you kill gangsters and are on good terms with the enforcers. You
won’t turn me over to some street thug.”

“
But you run with people
who the enforcers
do
want. The emperor too for that matter.”

“
Yes, that’s what I wanted
to talk to you about.”

“
I’m listening,” Khaalid
said.