Dark Dealings (7 page)

“All healed.” Ava scrubbed her fingers over her face and found it wet. Had she cried? The force of his energy tearing into her flesh had been powerful. He glared at her and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’ll be fine.”

Heyerdar looked to the beds that held the baby’s mother, her brothers and sisters. “Maybe. One day.” His own voice was just a rumble. He pushed himself to his feet, careful of the child in his arms. “Find something clean to wrap her in.”

Ava nodded and forced herself up. She found a chest beside one of the beds. Light slanted across it, and wooden hinges creaked as she pushed it open. Neatly folded clothes, sheets, a winter quilt filled the inside. She pulled a sheet free and folded it into a smaller square. “Here. Let me.”

“No.” Heyerdar’s eyes narrowed to slits of dangerous gold. “You don’t touch her.”

“I’m not going to
eat
the child, Heyerdar.”

His gaze moved to her neck. No doubt there was bruising from the hard grip of his fingers. The tendons ached and her skin was raw and hot. “You had to bite your own hand to stop yourself.”

She pressed her lips together to deny her reply. He could think what he liked. She was here to track down the thieves. The memory of the Words carved into the child’s skin pushed across her thoughts. They were familiar. Written into
her.
“What do you know of thieves, Captain?”

He frowned and took the folded sheet from her. With an expertise she hadn’t expected, he swaddled the baby to keep her warm and calm. He tucked the child back into the crook of his left arm, the little bundle almost lost against his massive frame. “More than the mages let you know.”

She ignored his dig. “Thief Words. The cuts in her skin weren’t random. They wrote something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What were they doing here?” She stared at the beds, and the bile rose again. She remembered her role. “I have to...” She waved her hand. It’s what he had her here for, her reading of the dead. Looking at the face of Searlaim’s wife, so grey and wizened, wrenched her gut. She stretched her fingers, feeling the pull of her
teken
across her palm. She wanted to be back in the Institute. Ignorant of this horror. “We need to know who did this.”

His thick fingers closed around her wrist. “No. You do this with me, back at the vault. I’m not risking her further.” He glanced at the baby. Her eyes had closed, her long, dark eyelashes brushing her plumped and rosy cheeks. “Understood?”

“Can we get out of this room, then?” She didn’t wait for him to reply, but trotted down the narrow, creaking stairs to the small front room. The stink still sat at the back of her mouth, and she cut through the darkness to the small shutters. She yanked them open, the stench of shit and refuse from the alley better than the sickly sweet odor of too many dead.

“This place has to be thoroughly searched.”

Heyerdar looked to the baby in his arms and back at her. She could read his expression. He wanted to do his job, but he couldn’t let her anywhere near the child. She offered anyway, just to see his sudden flicker of disgust. “I could take her back to the palace.”

And there it was. His eyes gleamed and a wisp of fire threaded through his irises. “We’ll wait for the ward constables.” He stroked the baby’s smooth cheek with his fingertip, and her eyelids fluttered. His voice softened. “I’ll take her back. The Guard always has a place for orphans.” He looked up and the touch of humanity was gone. “You have interviews for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I what?”

“My office, with a supply of food, paperwork and guards. Until I return.” His frown was back. “I can’t trust you. Not around people they’ve killed.”

“That’s...”

“Outside the vault? And a minute ago, I had to pin you to the fucking wall to stop you. No more.” His jaw tightened as the baby stirred in his arms, disturbed by the tight anger in his voice. He blew out a terse breath. “You’re trouble. And I don’t want to see more babies like...that because I have to rein you in.”

“This is a joint effort. The Mages and the Guard. Right and Left. You can’t kick me out.”

Heyerdar snorted. “You think this is open to discussion? You’re wearing my uniform.”

Anger burned in her gut. She wasn’t
his
lackey to be ordered about. She was in the employ of the Highest Mage. “Want me to strip? Again?”

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t make an enemy out of me, little thief.”

“I don’t want to make anything out of you. I
want
to do my job.” She closed the short distance between them. “Don’t forget, without me, you wouldn’t be here.” She stared at the sleeping baby, her cheeks rosy with warmth. Ava dropped her voice, but the hard edge remained. “You wouldn’t have found her. For all your strength, without my skill as a thief,
she
wouldn’t be alive.”

Anger pulsed around him, the streams of his magic thickening. His right hand clenched around his sword. “Don’t—”

The front door slapped back and a disheveled constable lurched into the room, shoved there by three grubby children. “What the...? Stinks like the emperor’s shriveled old balls in here!”

Heyerdar hushed the startled baby. “Quiet.” The word was a low growl aimed at the constable. “How many men do you have?”

“Who...?” The young man stared at Ava, his face red as he realized what he’d just declared in front of members of the Guard. “I’m...”

Heyerdar pulled free the sheaf of gleaming paper from his tunic. “I act with the authority of the Left Hand. Your men? How many?”

“Six.” The constable tugged at his patched and stained tunic, his face still fiercely red. “Stationed throughout the ward.”

“In the nearest alehouse? Where the children found you.”

The man briefly closed his eyes, but he didn’t try to lie. “Yes, sir.”

Heyerdar looked to the hovering children. “A tanner for each of you when you get them here.” The children vanished. “Now.” He took a step closer to the constable and the man shrank in on himself. “You and your men will guard this building. No one will come in. You are to stay here and touch nothing. Do not go upstairs.”

The constable blinked. “It smells of death in here, sir.”

Heyerdar leaned in close and the constable started to shake. He rucked up the front of the man’s tunic in a thick fist. “Do you understand?”

The constable jerked a nod. Outside, shouting and the shrieks of children echoed and chased through the alleys. Five children burst through the open doorway and clustered around Heyerdar.

“When I get—” A fat constable lumbered in. His mouth clamped shut and he smacked a sloppy salute to his forehead. “Sir!”

Ava stopped herself from rolling her eyes. He was drunk. The fumes of cheap beer wafted around him. And Heyerdar wanted to leave these incompetents in charge of the house because he didn’t trust her. She caught his dark look. Seemed he was going to do just that.

He unclipped a roll of metal from his belt and opened it with one hand. A surge of magic touched the thin sheet and the baby against his chest stirred. Ava had heard of this device and knew mages who would kill to play with it. It was doubtful they’d be able to activate it. Without an elemental’s magic it was simply a very fine sheet of copper.

“Captain.”
The tinny voice shocked those surrounding Heyerdar into silence. At least one drunken man stepped back.
“What do you require?”

“Vedas, get the Guard to this location. Secure it and await my return. Nothing is to be disturbed.” The surge of magic over the copper flared and Ava winced against the brightness. “The Watch are here.” The edge of derision in his voice made more than one constable open his mouth, but quick and painful elbows to the ribs reminded them this wasn’t an ordinary guard. “Move fast.”

“Understood, Captain.”

The magic faded and the sheet was simply metal again. Heyerdar reclipped it to his belt. He met her look with his usual deep frown.

Ava’s mouth tightened and she pushed her way out of the foul stink of the room to the warm, shadowed stink of the alley. Heyerdar ordered the men around, paid the grinning children and followed her outside. He strode away.

“
I
could search here.”

He stopped and turned, his expression cold. Ava tried not to groan. The nonspeaking messenger. That was who she was supposed to be. Yet another fuckup of a day. Vaguely the idea caught her of draining enough magic from him to start the day over. She enjoyed the cold, dark thought. Drag enough energy from him and she could step back a month, more, and grab Reist before his thoughts even turned to Fallon...

Taking Heyerdar like that would kill him. Her gaze flicked up to the overhanging balcony. The image of the little bodies, ripped, torn and wizened burned across her thoughts. And she wasn’t a killer. Not like them.

She forced her feet forward. Fuck. She’d just consented to an afternoon of paperwork.

Chapter Seven

Heyerdar was agonizingly efficient. Dispatch boxes for the day, filled with reports of bodies from the vaults, were stacked at one end of the Left Hand’s wide desk. Ava pulled them apart—each one thorough to the point of making her hungry—and formed her own theories and questions. Each guard, from whom she had to extract verbal information, stood to easy attention and answered her every query clearly and succinctly. It was a new experience not having to twist and drag out her answers.

Ava watched the last of the guards turn on his iron-shod heel and march from Heyerdar’s office. She rested her elbows on the heavy table and let her head drop into her hands. Were they any further? The five male victims hadn’t known each other, didn’t share guilds, their movements in the previous days hadn’t intersected. They were complete strangers.

She needed time with Searlaim’s wife. The thought of that woman’s pain, the horror of knowing that her children were about to die caught a heavy breath in Ava’s chest. Or worse, her touch would experience the woman’s agony as she watched the thieves eat her babies.

Ava groaned and she pushed the unwanted images from her head. At that moment, Heyerdar’s insistence that he stand with her was a relief. Not that she’d tell him. She frowned. Or think it.

She glanced at the dispatch boxes. The male victims had been witnessed near brothels on the south wall. But brothels were tight-lipped about their patrons, a part of their city pledge. Senior guards were working on them.

But the men’s homes, such as they were, were owned by a branch of the Treasury. Nothing unusual there. The emperor—and the favored few—owned swathes of the imperial city beyond the palace walls. Still, it was a connection. One they would have to look into.

The thief Words...she knew nothing more than the vague feeling that they were somehow a part of her. Her request for books from the library had been denied. The returning guard, his eyes wide, had said Master Dorien had spat on the official seal of the Left Hand. That fact forced her mouth to lift. His disrespect would get back to Heyerdar. The ancient mage had insulted the wrong man.

She sat back and shuffled the sheaves of paper into a neat stack and dropped them back into the metal dispatch box. The sun had moved across the sky and she frowned at the shadows cast across the room. It had moved past the tenth hour of the day. Reist would be wondering where she was.

She climbed out of Heyerdar’s deep leather chair and stretched her arms above her head. Her joints popped. She hoped Reist had been wondering, and perhaps even worrying a little, about her working with the elemental. Something about Heyerdar had pricked at Reist. The bruises on her neck had grown more obvious as the hours slid by. Maybe she could use them to her advantage.

She popped the final slice of lamb heart into her mouth and wiped her fingers on a napkin. Heyerdar had kept her fed. A nervous runner had appeared on the hour with a platter of still warm and practically raw meats. She hadn’t had such easy meals in a long time.

But now it was time to leave. His desk was neat. The leads she’d discounted, the maybes and the slim Treasury connection she’d listed on three sheets of paper and stacked them beside the dispatch boxes. She remained Reist’s lackey for a reason. She could be efficient too.

It was a relief to find the shadows of the Institute again, even if she didn’t have her cloak. She still wore the messenger uniform. Another conscious choice to remind Reist that his rival had her.

Her boot slipped on the stone step leading up to the Highest Mage’s office. Not that he had
had
her. She pulled in a calming breath, the threads of his power, the taste of him on her lips and tongue somehow still there. Was she insane for going to him, for offering such a dangerous deal?

The thief in her didn’t think so. Which proved it
was
a shitty idea.

Mage-light flickered over the solid wooden door to Reist’s chamber. She rapped her knuckles twice and lifted the latch. Reist, if he hadn’t been called away, would be settling down to finish off the niggling scraps that had appeared during the day.

The door creaked inwards and Ava slipped inside.

For a moment, the shadows held her invisible. It gave her the time she needed to get her heart beating again and for her to remember how her lungs worked. Fallon was in the chamber. In the month of their relationship,
she’d
never set foot...

Reist stood at his desk, leafing through imperial documents. Light edged him, the steady glow of a lamp pushing back the first of the shadows across his desk. It warmed his skin, drew gold across the perfection of his profile. But Ava couldn’t let herself enjoy his beauty. Fallon stood beside him, resting her chin on his bent shoulder, her fingers absently teasing through his hair. Her happiness shone.

The intimacy stabbed Ava in the gut and she fought to keep her eyes dry. She had to remain calm, controlled. Reist couldn’t suspect how much he was hurting her. She wanted to feel guilty. She should let him go...but she couldn’t. He was
hers.

Ava formed her protecting mask. The icy calm and clear head let her breathe again. Even as the idea of using the slivers of power still riding through her to stab nails into every inch of Fallon’s skin burned satisfying images into her brain.

“First day and I’m still alive.” She grinned and turned her neck, aware that the fading light from the narrow windows caught on her skin. “Well, almost.”

They both looked up. Something flashed through Fallon’s eyes that Ava couldn’t name. She picked at it, quick to analyze the emotion. Fear. Why would Fallon feel fear? Was it fear of how Reist would react to the marks on her neck? How it would pull Fallon away from him and towards her?

“What happened?” Reist’s eyes had narrowed on her throat.

“I’m a thief. Heyerdar doesn’t like thieves.”

“He what...?”

Fallon slipped away, moving quietly to the windows that looked down onto the curtain wall of the palace. She hadn’t left the room.

“I reacted to the bodies.” Ava kept her body relaxed, her voice calm. “Reacted to finding one of the victims alive.”

Reist frowned. “There were more?”

She handed over the folded sheets of her report to him and followed it up with her verbal account. She left out the kissing and the threat Heyerdar had made to fuck her on the guildhall steps.

“So your next move is Treasury records.”

Ava nodded. “I also need access to the special collection in the library. Master Dorien refused.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Fallon stiffen.

Reist paused. She was surprised to see something darken in his gaze, something that looked suspiciously like unease. “You don’t have the authority to look at those books.”

The Highest Mage voice. She wanted to ask what he was hiding from her. A month before she would’ve done, but there’d been a shift in their relationship. Though a month before she could never have believed he
would
hide anything from her. She cursed it. Her work dealt in deception and lies. Reist had been the one thing, the one person she’d always relied on to tell her the truth. To keep everything straight. Now he didn’t.

And there was something about being a thief they didn’t want her to know.

“Heyerdar then.”

“Ava...”

She stopped herself from pinching the bridge of her nose. She was tired. She ached. Having Fallon in the same room and fighting back the need to rip out her magic ate at her. She wanted to wash and sleep.

“Get some rest.”

Her mask had to be slipping if Reist could see that. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It shifted his expression, brought warmth to his gold-lit eyes. Her heart tightened. He was a bastard for not seeing how much she’d always wanted him.

“And get something to eat.”

“Heyerdar kept me fed all day.” She let out an even breath, not wanting to dwell on the fact that Reist’s need to feed her had never been born from a concern for her welfare. Like Heyerdar, he was worried what would happen if the hunger took over. “I’ll report in the morning.”

“Sleep well.”

She gave him another brief nod, muttered “Mage Braith,” and got out of his chamber.

Wash, sleep and then she had to find Heyerdar for their deal. Her stomach flipped over. It had to be done. She had agreed. And even if all she ever managed to do was put herself and Reist back to how they were...it would be enough for her right then.

She was too tired to think, the day crashing over her. They were no further, just with a pile of more bodies for her and Sahar to examine. The thieves were in the city, planning whatever they were planning, and she—they—were no closer to stopping them. Unless Heyerdar had found something in Searlaim’s house.

Ava stopped outside her door, searched for the automatic markers and pushed her way inside. She lifted her hand, focused, and a stream of sunlight danced between her fingers. It would use up everything Heyerdar had fed into her, but the ease of finding her little cubicle without having to stumble in the lumpy darkness was worth it.

She lit the small candle that sat on a sconce over a small sink. Ignoring the chill, she stripped, throwing the uniform back to the nearby chair. The water was cold, but she felt better for running a soapy washcloth over her skin, removing the stink of the city and the foul odor of the house.

Drying herself, she pulled on a nightshirt and crawled into her cot. She wanted sleep to take her, but her mind turned over on itself and her skin itched against the cold sheets. The creaks of the bed, the drip of water, the whistle of air through a gap in the shutters wrapped around her and she closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.

A sudden thud jerked her up out of her bed. Her fingers shot for the small blade under her pillow. There was no magic left in her, but she wrapped shadow around herself and sank into the cold darkness at her core.

“You left.” Heyerdar yanked back the curtain surrounding her small bed. Light seared around him in a quick bolt of gold. “I did not give you permission.” His gaze narrowed on her blade. “Lose the metal.” His mouth thinned. “Now.”

With a sigh, Ava pushed the thin blade back under her pillow. “Reist gave
his
permission.”

“And you think that’s good enough?”

“Can I sleep?” She curled back into her bed and pulled the sheet over her, ignoring the fierce light that had ripped the shadows from the air. “Long day.”

His silence and the burn of light behind her closed eyelids spoke of his fury. “Kaia is safely on her way out of the city.”

Kaia? She frowned. He’d named the baby. “To the compound in Aliria.” She didn’t turn. “You’re going to turn her into a guard?”

“She’ll be protected in the compound. Has my name.”

“You’ve taken her past away.” She thumped her pillow. “She won’t thank you for it.”

“I didn’t say you could sleep.”

“Fuck you, Captain.”

“You will.” His low growl forced her to stillness. The promise in his voice, the almost-taste of his magic in her mouth, the power and heat of it driving the fast thud of her heart—it mixed with her exhaustion and made her dizzy. “We have our deal.”

“Heyerdar...”

“You can’t break an agreement with me, little thief. Did the mages teach you nothing?”

Apparently not. And she didn’t know how she felt about the need she had for him. It wasn’t like the affection she had for Reist. Heyerdar itched under her skin, made her hot, made her twist with anger and need and other insane emotions that seemed to spin her beyond control. Her thief, her darkness, wanted him. Feeding would be an endless pleasure.

Ava found her dark heart, letting its control hold her, and sat up. Light wreathed around Heyerdar, his face bleached and angry. She tilted her head. “Here and now?”

His frown deepened. “Don’t think you can bluff me, girl.”

Ava laughed. The captain might know dozens of ways to kill a thief, but she doubted he knew how her mind worked. Not really. “You can give me your first time with Fallon.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t need to fuck you for that.”

“But you want to.” He unlooped his sword belt and hung it over a bedpost. His eyes never left her. Molten gold licks of fire burned in their depths.

What was she doing? He was an elemental and she only had rumors on which to rely.
Shit.
She wrapped what she could of her emptiness around herself, needing the steadiness, the coldness in her heated blood. She had to have
some
control.

A dark smile touched his mouth. “You aren’t strong enough to fight this or me, little thief.”

Ava wet her lips as Heyerdar’s strong fingers stroked over her thighs. His touch ran a quick shiver under her skin. The thief in her ached for him. That was something she couldn’t deny. She tipped her head back, letting the beauty of him sway her. It was only about feeding. A pleasurable meal. Using him to break Fallon from Reist. Nothing more.

His magic pulled at her and she accepted the brief brush of his mouth over hers, its heat, the sweet, raw burn of his energy pushing into her greedy flesh. “Show me.”

Heyerdar’s smile was sharp against her mouth. “I’m going to tell you.”

Ava drew back to stare at him. “Tell me?”

His thumbs teased along the sensitive inner sides of her thighs, taking up the edge of her nightgown. Darkened eyes held her. He leaned forward, forcing her back with her fingers digging into the warm blanket behind her. The grip on her legs twisted into more than a bite of pain. His lips touched hers, and his voice was a low rumble. “I broke into her room too.”

Her heart gave a hard thump. Not even her cold center could ignore the stark fear of her next question. “You raped her?”

His hands released her, slipping to fist the cover of her rush mattress. The leather tunic brushed against the thin material of her nightgown, teasing her nipples.

“You think I’m an animal? Is that it?” He sneered. “Just like everyone else. Fallon wanted to flirt with danger.” His teeth grazed Ava’s bottom lip, and the golden strands of his magic wound under her skin. Hot and wanted. “She needed to know the power of old magic. To have it hold her. Live in her. Possess her.”