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“I know. But eventually, it’ll start to pay
off. We can buy a bigger boat, or hire on a second. You already
have the crew. Leave it to the Board to fight and squabble while
they pretend to rebuild the government. You and I can start
rebuilding the city.”

Frey’s smile spread, his dark eyes showing a
hint of light through his grief. “Wouldn’t hurt to start planning
for next year’s festival, either. If we get enough rebuilt, maybe
hire some entertainers, who knows? Maybe we can even bring in a few
tourists.”

“The trick will be providing something they
can’t get anywhere else.”

He laughed. “Like a High Priestess, returned
from the dead?”

“That might do it. So? What do you think? Are
you in?”

“I think it’s a hell of a plan. We may go
broke, but at least we’ll know we tried.”

Not only that, but I’d be my own man. Sure,
I’d have partners, but no boss. Nobody would ever again send me to
lie or cheat or whore for them again.

I turned back to Donato’s safe. Having more
money than I could carry was a new experience for me. Would it be
better to lock it up again and come back with a bag? To take it in
several trips? Or could Frey and I safely stuff it all into our
clothes for as long as it took to get back to the inn?

“Hey, Misha?”

“Yeah.”

“I get to drive the boat, right?”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“And what about you?” he asked. “What are you
going to do?”

I pulled out another stack of money. It no
longer mattered how I’d earned it. It only mattered that it was
mine.

And it was more than enough to give Ayo the
simple life I knew he craved.

“I’m going to buy an inn.”

Eight Months Later

I woke on Festival Day to the smell of apple
turnovers. Ayo was already at work downstairs in the kitchen, and
for a while, I simply stood at our window, staring out at the
plaza, thinking. Exactly a year before, I’d woken up in the
crowded, stuffy den under Anzhéla’s theater. Jabin, Jimbo, and I
had eaten a breakfast of stale bread and not-quite moldy sausages
and then gone out into the plaza to pick pockets. I’d turned a few
tricks. And then Anzhéla had called me home and given me a new job
as a spy and a whore.

What a difference a year could
make.

The city was different too. The citizens of
Davlova had made good progress since the fire, but there was still
a long way to go. Most of the buildings around the courtyard had
been rebuilt, and the plaza itself buzzed with energy and
excitement, but the trenches where I’d grown up were still barely
recognizable. Most of the rubble had finally been cleared away, but
it would be years before the black scars were covered
completely.

Still, there was no denying that the city was
slowly coming back to life. By next year, Davlova would be
thriving. Maybe, as Frey had said, we’d even draw in a few
tourists.

I eyed the perimeter of the plaza, which was
now ringed with wires and newly installed lights. Tonight, as the
highlight of the festival, the Board of Governors would turn them
on, and Lower Davlova would be bathed in the brightness of
electricity for the first time since the ban. Of course, it was
only the plaza for now. It’d be ages before we could generate
enough power or string enough wire to light residences and
businesses, but at least what progress was being made was reaching
past the wall.

Most of the lower city still credited Anzhéla
for that. She’d become something of a martyr to those on our side
of the wall. There was even talk of erecting a statue in her honor.
I was just glad she was remembered fondly.

Ceil had been thrilled to pocket a chunk of my
newfound money in exchange for her rundown inn. She'd caught a ride
back to the mainland with Frey and returned to Layola to open a bed
and breakfast with her brother. Frey, who not surprisingly had
taken to the yacht like a bird to the sky, had even gone there once
to visit, simply because he could. He reported that The Thief's
Prize was an upscale establishment in one of Layola's nicer
neighborhoods, and that Ceil was as happy as he'd ever seen her.
Ayo and I hoped to visit and see for ourselves, come
spring.

Whispered tales of my own heroics reached my
ears from time to time, but the shine had worn off, and I was glad
for it. Tino had indeed turned up dead in a ditch, and although
Jemal and I would never be friends, we respectfully gave each other
a very wide berth. Former slaves still boasted tattoos that said
“Freed by Misha,” and I knew no clan kid in the city would stick
their fingers in mine or Ayo’s pockets for as long as we lived,
mostly because a decent number of them were employed in honest work
by Frey and Lorenzo in one capacity or another. But for the most
part, life at the inn had become simple and unassuming.

It was everything I’d hoped for.

Movement on the far side of the plaza caught
my eye. It was Lark, running toward the inn. She wore boys’ pants
and a simple, woven shirt, because dresses got in her way, but her
oversized, flowered hat proved she was still a young girl at heart.
She’d given up life as a whore and worked for Lorenzo now. She saw
me standing in the open window and waved.

“They just docked! Frey says to give him an
hour.”

It was about time. Frey and Lorenzo were a day
late returning from Deliphine. Ayo had nearly driven me crazy,
wondering when they’d arrive with a new shipment of fruit. He’d
been fussing for three days that he only had apples to bake
with.

I dressed and made my way downstairs. I found
Ayo and Lalo in the kitchen, loading the fresh-baked turnovers and
a few pies onto trays, getting ready for the day. Ayo’s physical
appearance had finally caught up to his true age. He was as tall as
me, his shoulders broad, his arms thick and muscular from the
manual labor involved in running the inn. His pale blond curls were
matched by the platinum stubble on his cheeks. He looked like a man
instead of a boy, and he was absolutely stunning. Both women and
men turned on the streets to watch him pass, but it wasn’t only his
looks that caught their attention. Something about his open smile
and his never-ending optimism drew them in, whether they were
attracted to him or not. I was quite sure his newfound success
selling pastries had as much to do with him as his wares. Nobody
commented on the scars behind his ear, and few people knew that
when he was exceptionally tired, his left eyelid began to droop. It
was the only lingering side effect of slamming my knife into his
brain. Why it affected his left eye when the damage had been done
on the right, nobody knew, but it didn’t bother Ayo either way. He
was just happy to wake up every morning without that black spot in
his brain.

“They just docked,” I told him. “They’ll be
here soon.”

His eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands
together gleefully. “I hope they brought cherries. Everybody likes
those the best.”

“I’m sure they did.” Neither Frey nor Lorenzo
were immune to Ayo’s charms. They generally brought him anything he
asked for.

“I hope they brought wine,” Lalo added. “We’re
almost out.”

It’d been Ayo’s suggestion to bring Lalo on
board, but it was a good one. Being away from the whorehouse had
worked wonders for him. He looked ten years younger. We often
laughed that it took three of us to do what Ceil had done alone for
years, but it worked for us. I made the deals, Lalo worked the
books, Ayo did most of the cooking, and we split the rest of the
chores. We hadn’t rented a single room yet, but plenty of people
stopped by for drinks after work, or to buy turnovers for lunch,
and none of us would ever have to steal or turn a trick again. We
all felt that was success enough for now.

Frey arrived a half-hour later, carrying a
large crate of fruit.

“What’d you bring me?” Ayo asked before Frey
was halfway through the door.

“Apples, peaches—”

“And cherries?”

Frey laughed. “And cherries. That’s why we’re
a day late. Had to wait for them to arrive.” He plopped the box
down on the counter. “There are some blueberries too.” No pears
though. That was the one fruit Ayo never asked for. “I make
everybody else wait until we’ve unloaded, you know. You’re the only
one who gets special treatment.”

Ayo gave him a smile that nearly outshone the
sun in the brazen sky. “If I start baking now, I can have some
fresh turnovers ready for the afternoon.”

He took the crate through the door, toward the
kitchen, and Frey turned to Lalo.

“Your wine will be here later. I told Lorenzo
to bring it over, after they unload the rest. It shouldn’t be more
than a couple of hours.”

“That’ll be fine. The real drinking won’t
start until after lunch anyway.”

Frey perched on one of the bar stools and
leaned his elbows on the bar, eyeing me. “I have a message for you
from Mama B.”

We did a lot of business with Mama B, but
something about his tone told me this was different.
“Oh?”

“She said to tell you that intelligence she
was given by a pickpocket several months ago led to the location of
a house she thought you were familiar with. She said continued
surveillance of the premises led to the location of three other
houses in Deliphine, all part of the same operation, and that this
information proved to be quite profitable to her when an interested
party came along.”

He paused, watching me expectantly, waiting
for me to say something. I had to clear my throat before I could
say, “Go on.”

“She said that two weeks ago, a couple of
hours before dawn, there were four explosions. They were in
different parts of Deliphine, but they were only a couple of
minutes apart. All four houses were destroyed. Several bodies were
found in the wreckage, including a tall blond woman, but so far,
nobody has been able to identify any of the casualties, and there
don’t seem to have been any survivors.”

My hands began to shake. My knees felt weak. I
wished I had a seat on my side of the bar, but I didn’t. I settled
for leaning back against the wall. I hadn’t thought of the
collateral damage, and yet I knew it wouldn’t have changed anything
that I’d done.

“What does it mean?” Frey asked.

I couldn’t answer. It was Lalo who spoke. “It
means the Dollhouse has been destroyed.” He reached out and put a
hand on my shoulder. “The part of it that existed in Deliphine, at
any rate. There have always been rumors about their roots being in
Chilpan, but—”

“But any records of Ayo are gone,” I finished
for him. “That’s what matters. Nobody will come for him now.” After
months of looking over our shoulders, wondering if they’d send
somebody, we could finally breathe easy. I wiped a hand over my
brow, steadying myself. “Did she say who was behind it?”

“According to her, nobody knows for sure what
was in the houses or who planted the bombs. She said to tell you
that some rumors point to the Guild of Surgeons, but she emphasized
that this of course was only wild speculation.”

Which meant the Guild probably
had
been
involved, but she didn’t want to tip her hand and risk angering her
customers. I wondered if Gideon had been part of it. “I can’t
believe it’s over.”

“
Ayo will be so relieved,” Lalo
said.

That was putting it lightly. The Dollhouse had
been the one shadow in our new life, often causing nightmares that
left Ayo shaken for hours. Now, maybe it would stop.

“You know,” Lalo said, more to Frey than to
me, “I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t finish off the last of our
wine now, do you? We have more on the way, and it’s Festival Day,
after all. We’re supposed to be drunk by midday.”

Frey laughed, and I left them to
it.

I found Ayo in the warm kitchen, his busy
fingers shockingly red with juice and pulp from the cherries he was
pitting. I took his hands, not caring that my fingers would end up
stained and sticky too.

I told him the news. I held him while he
cried.

He was free. Never again would we have to
worry about somebody trying to claim him. Never again would he
whisper to me in the night, begging me to kill him if they ever
tried.

The only way out is through, and we’d made it.
Now we had what neither of us had dared dream of.

Release

About the Author

A.M. Sexton (who also writes gay romance as
Marie Sexton) is a typical soccer mom. She has a fondness for wine
and cheese, an addiction to coffee, and occasionally bleeds orange
and blue. She lives in Colorado with her husband, their daughter,
her dog, and one very stupid cat.

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http://mariesexton.net/

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