Conspiracy (21 page)

Amaranthe removed it and headed through an
alley to a side door. This one was made of steel. Should Ms.
Sarevic’s side activities ever be discovered by the law, she could
likely hold off a squad of soldiers with cannons for quite some
time while she gathered her belongings and planned an escape.

The door lacked a handle, latch, or any
other adornment aside from a small hole precisely in the center.
Amaranthe slid the key in, turned it, and heard a soft click. The
door swung open with a push. A worn wooden stairway led down into
darkness.

Books plucked at a cobweb stretched across
one corner of the low ceiling. “Charming.”

Amaranthe headed down the stairs without
comment. She had been there a week earlier when she placed her
order, so she knew what to expect. What she didn’t know was how
much the final bill would be. The problem with working for the good
of the empire was that it didn’t pay that well.

When Amaranthe reached the bottom, the door
at the top of the stairs swung shut with a metallic thud.

“
Uhm,” Books
said.

Two candles flashed to life, one on either
side of a dusty, rotting wooden door. When Books stopped next to
Amaranthe on the landing, a fake brick in the wall popped open on
hinges, and a glass sphere snaked out on a flexible coil shaft. The
sphere rose to peer at Amaranthe’s face, then extended past her to
examine Books.

“
Magic?” he
asked.

“
No, and I hear Ms. Sarevic
will be insulted if you suggest any of her work has supernatural
elements.” Amaranthe pointed at the sphere as it retracted into its
hidden cubby. “She’ll be on the other side, manipulating it with a
crank.”

“
Huh.”

On that auspicious grunt, the wooden door
swung open. After the dimness of the stairwell, the light inside
made Amaranthe blink. She’d forgotten about Ms. Sarevic’s
experimental electricity balls that dangled from the ceiling.

“
Yes, yes, come in, and
shut the door,” a woman said, her voice coming from behind a pile
of crates draped with greasy rags, rope, wires, and other items
Amaranthe couldn’t name. “I’ll catch a chill with all that cold air
flooding my workshop.”

Amaranthe and Books shuffled inside, careful
not to bump against other stacks of crates or knock over toolboxes
balanced on bins filled with old parts, screws and cogs. Parts too
large for crates were stacked about the edges of the basement, a
single room that would have felt spacious had it not been so
cluttered. An L-shaped workbench and two stools were the only
furnishings, and they huddled in the middle with half-constructed
projects encroaching upon them from all sides. The whole place had
Amaranthe thinking of brooms, dustpans, and scrub brushes.

The owner of the shop stepped into view. Her
floral print dress hugged plump curves, and she wore her gray hair
pulled back in a bun that emphasized thick, bright red spectacles.
At first glance, Ms. Sarevic could have passed for a schoolteacher,
but she wore a grease-stained apron over her dress and held a pair
of pliers in calloused fingers with grime wedged beneath each and
every nail.

A man strolled out from behind the crates as
well, smiled at Amaranthe, and sat on one of the stools. She
recognized him, though she had no idea why he was there. He wore a
wool cap pulled down over his eyebrows, and mustachios hung to his
collarbone, though he kept his broad, granite jaw shaved. Tattoos
of spikes and chains circled his neck like a garish collar.

“
Rockjaw,” Amaranthe said.
“Good to see you.”

“
Good?
” Books whispered.

Rockjaw was a murderer and a rapist who ran
a guild of thieves. Normally, Amaranthe would have avoided—or
arrested—someone like him, but he had a talent for collecting
information, and she’d found it useful to trade tidbits with him
from time to time, even if she often wished she could scrub her
soul with soap and water afterward.

“
Good to see you, too,
Ammy.” He winked and gave her a long look up and down. It wasn’t
quite as long and lurid as the one he had given her the first time
they met, so she decided to count that as progress.

Books growled.

“
Who’s this, Ms. Lokdon?”
Ms. Sarevic adjusted her spectacles and craned her neck to look
Books in the eyes. “I thought you’d bring the pretty one to flirt
with me and haggle for a better deal.”

Warmth blossomed behind Amaranthe’s cheeks.
While that was exactly why she kept Maldynado around, she hadn’t
realized others had figured it out and that he was becoming known
as her dealmaker.

“
Sorry, he was busy
tonight,” Amaranthe said. “I hope you’re not
disappointed.”

“
I am a touch, yes. It’s
not often that pretty young fellows flirt with me any
more.”

Rockjaw withdrew a pipe and
a tin of tobacco, and started preparing a smoke. Amaranthe stifled
a frown. She hoped he wasn’t there to collect information on
her
. Though he had been
the one to recommend Ms. Sarevic to her weeks before, it seemed to
be too much of a coincidence that he was there at the same time as
Amaranthe.

Ms. Sarevic poked into a box and headed for
the drawers of a desk half-buried by scraps of leather and canvas.
When she started rummaging, a tin fell to the ground and spilled
washers across the floor. Ms. Sarevic ignored them, but Amaranthe
watched them roll around, her fingers itching to pick them up and
return them to their home.

“
The blasting sticks are in
that box over there.” Ms. Sarevic waved to a corner while
continuing to poke through drawers. “Your man can carry them. No
need to be overly careful. I created a more stable substrate than
the army uses, so they’re less likely to spontaneously
explode.”

“
Less
likely,” Books said. “Joy.”

“
Blasting sticks, hm?”
Rockjaw lit his pipe. “Whatever are you planning next,
Ammy?”

Amaranthe tore her gaze from the spilled
washers and flicked a dismissive hand. “The usual mayhem. Ms.
Sarevic, why don’t you finish waiting on Rockjaw first, so he can
be on his way? I’m sure he has mayhem of his own to pursue tonight,
and I wouldn’t want to delay him.” She certainly wouldn’t want him
piecing together her plans based on the supplies she’d ordered.

“
Oh, I’m in no hurry.”
Rockjaw scraped the end of his pipe through a mustachio, using it
like a pick to detangle the rope of hair.

Ms. Sarevic, rummaging in a footlocker now,
didn’t seem to hear them. “And then that box on my desk is full of
your smoke grenades and—”

“
I’m sure it’s all there,”
Amaranthe blurted. “No need to detail everything. How much do we
owe you?”

Rockjaw’s eyes narrowed. The spilled washers
were bothering Amaranthe anyway, so she knelt and scooped them up
to avoid his scrutiny. She dumped them into their tin, then looked
around for a decent place to set the tin. Finding little open shelf
space, she held onto it.

“
Not much for a savvy
businesswoman such as yourself,” Ms. Sarevic said, voice echoing
oddly because she had her head stuffed in the metal locker. “Three
thousand ranmyas should cover the parts and my time.”

“
Three thousand?” Amaranthe
forgot the washers and stared at the woman. “You said... I mean
your estimate was closer to two thousand.”

“
Yes, but the knockout gas
was quite difficult. You specified that the canisters had to
release an inhalant upon impact, and that involved many hours of
intricate work. You don’t want shoddy craftsmanship for something
like that, dear.”

Amaranthe groaned at the details Sarevic was
leaking while Rockjaw grinned, not trying to hide his interest in
the least. Again, she wondered what he was doing there. He couldn’t
know about the kidnapping plans, could he? Amaranthe wished she had
Sicarius around to glare at him and convince him to leave. Of
course, if Ms. Sarevic were less oblivious, she wouldn’t be giving
up a client’s information, but the woman seemed to lack any sort of
tact in that area.

“
Ah, there it is.” Sarevic
pulled out a metal device that looked like a cross between a pistol
and a teakettle with a cylindrical kerosene canister attached to
the underside. She displayed it to Amaranthe with a proud grin
plumping her round cheeks. “You said you needed something that
would cut through metal. Concentrated flame will do that at a
sufficiently high temperature.”

Rockjaw’s eyes grew brighter yet at this new
hint. Amaranthe merely sighed. “Yes, I’ve seen something that could
do that,” she said, thinking of the torch they’d used to cut
through a hatch on that underwater laboratory.

Ms. Sarevic’s grin disappeared. “You have?
Someone else made something like my blowtorch?”

“
Oh, no, it was... The
device we glimpsed wasn’t entirely technology-based.”

“
Magic!” Sarevic
spat.

“
Yes, quite an inferior
product though.” Actually, Amaranthe wished she had thought to keep
that baton. It had been more compact than Ms. Sarevic’s mundane
version and would have been easier to fit in a rucksack. She made a
note to hoard future useful artifacts, even if she was busy dodging
attacks from krakens at the time.

“
Naturally,” Sarevic
grumbled. “Do you have the three thousand ranmyas?”

Maybe if Sicarius hadn’t stormed off, and
she could send him to a gambling house to win a few rounds, she
would. “I don’t suppose you’d accept partial payment now and the
rest later?”

“
Partial payment gets you
partial supplies.” Sarevic propped a grease-smeared fist against
her hip. “And the irritation of the woman who worked hard to
complete your order on time.”

“
Perhaps charging your
clients half up front and half once they’ve seen if everything
works would be fair,” Books said.

Sarevic’s hands dropped.
She grabbed the blowtorch and stomped toward Books like a squad of
enforcers approaching a barricaded door with a battering ram.
“
If
everything
works? You
doubt
my skills?”

Displaying great bravery, Books stepped
behind Amaranthe.

Rockjaw, watching the exchange with
amusement, shook his head and lifted his eyes ceiling-ward.
Amaranthe blushed, annoyed anew to have him there.

She turned, put a hand on Books’s arm, and
whispered, “Don’t help,” before he could respond to Sarevic.

“
Please forgive him,
ma’am,” Amaranthe said, facing Sarevic again and withdrawing her
purse. “Of course we know of your reputation and how skilled you
are. We don’t doubt that your devices work as promised. We can pay
you full price.” Amaranthe could feel Books’s gaze on the back of
her head as she untied the purse strings. No doubt he was wondering
if she
had
full
price. “Although...” Amaranthe lifted her head, as if she’d just
thought of a sterling idea. “Perhaps you’d be better served by
partial payment and a trade.”

“
A trade,” Sarevic said
flatly.

“
Indeed so.” Amaranthe
spread an arm to encompass the basement. “It’s clear that you’re in
need of a cleaning service, but I imagine the covert nature of your
work makes you hesitant to invite outsiders down, outsiders who
might blab about your special workshop and second set of office
hours. Suppose we pay you two thousand ranmyas in cash tonight,”
Amaranthe said, taking a guess at how much Sarevic had paid for
parts and how much of her fee was the result of personal hours
invested in the projects, “and then I come back several times over
the next month or two to clean and organize everything
here?”

“
Organize?” Sarevic
scratched her head while she considered her shop.

“
Yes.” Warming to the idea,
Amaranthe walked about, gesticulating as she explained. “We could
do a rack over here with baskets, a shelving unit there, and all of
those cogs, nuts, and bolts could have separate smaller containers
that would go in a bin system. I’d put labels on everything, of
course. Think how much time you could save if you didn’t have to
hunt around for things.” Amaranthe went on for two or three
minutes, describing her vision. By the time she finished with, “And
we haven’t even talked about hooks and racks for ceiling storage,”
Sarevic was gaping at her.

Amaranthe decided she had better let her
potential new client have a moment to mull over the idea.
Meanwhile, Rockjaw was stroking his mustachios and watching with an
expression somewhere between bemusement and incredulity. Nothing
new. Her men gave her those looks all the time.

“
You are... qualified for
such work?” Sarevic finally asked.

“
Oh, yes,” Amaranthe said.
“I’ve been inflicting, er, providing organizational paradigms for
friends and relatives for years.”

“
It’s true,” Books said.
“You should see her work with rucksacks. Did you know underwear
apparently won’t wrinkle when tucked into tight little
rolls?”

Because Amaranthe’s roaming explanations had
taken her from Books’s side, she couldn’t grab his arm and whisper,
“Don’t help,” again. Fortunately, Ms. Sarevic threw her head back
and laughed.

“
You do look like a neat
and prim little thing,” she said.

“
She is,” Books said,
before Amaranthe could decide if she wanted to encourage the new
line the conversation had taken. He pointed at her. “Look, not a
spec of dirt beneath her nails, nor a strand of hair gone stray
from her bun. And you can probably tell she irons her fatigues. I
bet you’ve never met a mercenary who does that. And look at the
shine on those boots. You can view your own reflection if you gaze
into them. Ask to see her sword and knife too. They’re spotless.
Precisely sharpened and not a smudge on the blades. You’d think
they just came from the smithy.”