The Republic of Thieves (12 page)

Three feet away, a low dark shape against the stone parapet, lay Sabetha. Her only words to him at their meeting had been “Shut up, keep close, and stay quiet.” He’d done that, following her up the alley wall of the house they now sat upon, using windowsills and deep decorative
carvings to haul himself up with little effort. Since then his urge to speak with her had been overruled by his terror of annoying her, and so he fancied that he’d done a fine imitation of a corpse from the moment they’d arrived. When she finally did speak, her soft voice actually startled him.

“I think they’ve gone to sleep at last.”

“Wh-what? Who?”

“The three old women who live here.” Sabetha set her head against the stones of the rooftop and listened for several moments. “They sleep on the second floor, but it never hurts to be careful.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Never worked a roof before. Isn’t that the case, boy?” Sabetha moved slightly, and so quietly that Locke couldn’t hear a single ruffle of her dark tunic and trousers. She peeked over the parapet for no more than the span of a few heartbeats, then crouched back down.

“I, um, no. Not like this.”

“Well, think you can confine yourself to stealing just what we’ve been sent for? Or should I have the yellowjackets rouse out bucket-lines in case you burn the Razona down?”

“I—I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be careful.”

“Whatever I say?” Her face was in silvery-gray shadow, but her eyes caught the starlight as she turned to him, so he could see them clearly. “You mean it?”

“Oh, yes.” Locke nodded several times. “On my heart. Come hell or Eldren-fire.”

“Good. You might not fuck this up, then.” She gestured toward the parapet. “Move slow. Raise up just high enough to get your eyes over the edge. Take a good look.”

Locke peeked out over the southern parapet of the townhouse; their target house with its thick rooftop garden was to his right, and four stories below him was a clean stretch of cobbled road washed with moonlight. The Razona seemed a gentle, quiet place—no drunks sprawled in gutters, no tavern doors banging constantly open and closed, no yellowjackets moving in squads with truncheons drawn and shields out. Dozens of alchemical globes burned at street level, behind windows and above doors, like bunches of fiery fruit. Only the alleys and rooftops seemed wrapped in anything like real darkness.

“You see Calo and Galdo?” asked Sabetha.

“No.”

“Good. That means they’re where they should be. If something goes wrong—if a squad of yellowjackets shows up in the street, let’s say—those two will start hollering ‘The master wants more wine, the master wants more wine.’ ”

“What then?”

“They run, and we do likewise.” Sabetha crawled over beside him, and Locke felt his breath catch in his throat. Her next words were spoken into his ear. “First rule of roof work is, know how you’re getting down. Do you?”

“Um, same way we came?”

“Too slow. Too risky. Climbing down at speed is more dangerous than going up, especially at night.” She pointed to a thin gray line in the middle of the roof, a line that Locke’s eyes followed to a mess of pots and broken trellises. “I anchored that line when I came up. Demisilk, should get us down to five feet off the ground. If we need to run, throw it over the edge, slide down as fast as you can, and leave it behind. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Now, look across here.” She nudged his head up above the parapet again, and pointed at an alley across the street. “That’s the escape route. You’ll have to cross the road, but one of the Sanzas should be in cover there watching for you. Chains is another block or two past that. If it all goes to hell, find a Sanza. Understand?”

“Yeah. But what if we don’t get caught?”

“Same plan, boy. We just do it slower. Ready?”

“Sure. Whenever you say. How do we, um, get across?”

“Fire plank.” Sabetha crawled toward the parapet facing their target house, beckoning for him to follow. She gently tapped a long wooden board that rested snug against the stone wall. “In case the place burns up beneath you, you swing it across to the neighbors and hope they like you.”

Working quietly and slowly, the two children lifted the fifteen-foot plank to the edge of the parapet and swiveled it out over the alley, Sabetha guiding it while Locke put his full weight on the inner edge. He
felt uneasily like a catapult stone about to fly if the other end should fall, but after a few chancy moments Sabetha had the far end of the plank settled on the parapet of their target house. She hopped gracefully atop it, then got down on her hands and knees.

“One at a time,” she whispered. “Stay low and don’t hurry.”

Across she went, while Locke’s heart raced with the familiar excitement of a crime about to get under way. The farm-field smell of the Hangman’s Wind filled the air, and a warm breeze caught at Locke’s hair. To the northeast loomed the impossibly tall shadows of the Five Towers, with their crowns of silver and gold lanterns, warm artificial constellations mingling with the cold and real stars.

Now came Locke’s turn. The board would have been unnervingly narrow for an adult, but someone Locke’s size could turn around on it without bothering to stand up. He went over with ease, rolled off the edge of the plank, and crouched amid the wet smells of a living garden. Dark boughs of leaves rustled above him, and he almost jumped when Sabetha reached out of the shadows and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“No noise,” she whispered. “I’ll go in after the necklace. You watch the roof. Make sure the plank stays where we need it.”

“Wh-what if something happens?”

“Pound the floor three times. If something happens that you can see before I do, won’t be anything for us to do but flee anyway. Don’t ever use my name if you call out.”

“I won’t. Good … um, good luck—”

But she was already gone, and a moment later he heard a faint set of clicks. Somewhere in the garden, Sabetha was picking a lock. A moment later she had it, and the hinges of a door creaked ever so faintly.

Locke stood guard at the plank for many long minutes, constantly glancing around, although he admitted to himself that a dozen grown men could have been hiding in the darkness of the vines and leaves around him. Occasionally he popped above the parapet and glanced back across the narrow bridge. The other rooftop remained reassuringly empty.

Locke was just settling back down from his fourth or fifth peek across the way when he heard a commotion beneath his feet. He knelt
down and placed one ear against the warm stone; it was a murmur. One person talking, then another. A rising chorus of adult voices. Then the shouting began.

“Oh, shit,” Locke whispered.

There was a series of thumps from the direction Sabetha had gone, then the loud bang of a door being thrown open. She flew out of the shadows at him, grabbed him by the arms, and heaved him onto the plank.

“Go, go, go,” she said, breathlessly. “Fast as you can.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just go, gods damn it! I’ll steady the plank.”

Locke scuttled across the fifteen feet to safety as fast as he’d ever moved in his life, so fast that he tumbled off the parapet on arrival and tucked into an ungainly roll to avoid landing teeth-first. He popped up, head spinning, and whirled back toward Sabetha.

“Come on,” he cried. “Come on!”

“The rope,” she hissed. “Get down the fucking rope!”

“I’ll s-steady the plank for you now.” Locke clamped his hands onto it, gritted his teeth, and braced himself, knowing with some part of his mind just how ridiculous a display of such feeble strength must look. Why was she not coming?

“THE ROPE,” she yelled. “GO!”

Locke looked up just in time to see tall dark shapes burst out of the garden behind her. Adults. Their arms were reaching for her, but she wasn’t trying to escape; she wasn’t even turning toward them. Instead her hands were on the plank, and she was—

“No,” Locke screamed. “NO!”

Sabetha was seized from behind and hoisted into the air, but as she went up she managed to swivel her end of the plank just off the parapet and push it into empty space. Locke felt the terrible sensation of that weight tipping and plummeting into the alley, far too much for him to hold back. His end of the plank leapt up and cracked against his chin, knocking him backward, and as he was landing on his posterior he heard the echoing crash of the plank hitting the ground four stories below.

“GO,” yelled Sabetha one more time. Her shout ended in a muffled cry, and Locke spat blood as he clambered back to his feet.

“The other roof!” A new voice, a man. “Get down to the street!”

Locke wanted to stay, to keep Sabetha in sight, to do something for her, but his feet, ever faster than his wits, were already carrying him away. He snatched at the rope as he stumbled along, threw it over the opposite parapet, and without hesitation flung himself over the edge. The stones flew past, and the pressure of the rope against his palms rapidly grew into a hot, searing pain. He yowled and let go of the rope just as he reached the bottom, all but flinging himself the last five feet to land gracelessly in a heap.

Nothing seemed broken. His chin ached, his palms felt as though they’d been skinned with a dull axe, and his head was still spinning, but at least nothing seemed broken. He stumbled into a run. As his bare feet slapped against the cobbles of the road the door to the target house burst open, revealing two men outlined in golden light. An instant later they were after him with a shout.

Locke sprinted into the darkness of the alley, willing his legs to rise and fall like water-engine pistons. He knew that he would need every inch of the lead he already had if he hoped to escape. Vague black shapes loomed out of the shadows like something from a nightmare, only transforming into normal objects as he ran past—empty barrels, piles of refuse, broken wagons.

Behind him came the
slap-slap-slap
of booted feet. Locke sucked in his breath in short, sharp gasps and prayed he wouldn’t run across a broken pot or bottle. Bare feet were better for climbing, but in a dead run someone with shoes had every advantage. The men were getting closer—

Something slammed into Locke so forcefully that his first thought was that he’d struck a wall. His breath exploded out of him, and his next impression was a confused sense of movement. Someone grabbed him by his tunic and threw him down; someone else leapt out of the darkness and sprinted in the direction he’d been headed. Someone about his size or a little bigger.…

“Shhhh,” whispered one of the Sanzas, directly into his ear. “Play dead.”

Locke was lying with his cheek against wet stone, staring at a narrow opening into a brick-walled passage. He realized he’d been yanked into a smaller alley branching off the one he’d tried to escape down.
The Sanza restraining him pulled something heavy, damp, and fetid down around them, leaving only the thinnest space exposed for them to see out of. A split second later Locke’s two pursuers pounded past, huffing and swearing. They continued after the shape that had taken Locke’s place and didn’t spare a glance for the two boys huddled under cover a few feet away.

“Calo will give ’em a good chase, then get back to us once they’re slipped,” said the Sanza after a few seconds.

“Galdo,” said Locke. “They got her. They got Beth.”

“We know.” Galdo pushed aside their camouflage. It looked like an ancient leather coat, gnawed by animals and covered in every possible foulness an alley could cultivate. “When we heard the shouting we ran for it and got in position to grab you. Quick and quiet now.”

Galdo hoisted Locke to his feet, turned, and padded down the branch alley.

“They got her,” repeated Locke, suddenly aware that his cheeks were hot with tears. “They got her, we have to do something, we have to—”

“I bloody well know.” Galdo seized him by the hand and pulled him along. “Chains will tell us what to do. Come on.”

As Sabetha had promised, Chains wasn’t far. Galdo pulled Locke west, toward the docks, to the rows of cheaper warehouses beside the canal that marked the farthest boundary of the Razona. Chains was waiting there, in plain clothes and a long brown coat, inside an empty warehouse that smelled of rot and camphor. When the two boys stumbled in the door, Chains shook a weak light from an alchemical globe and hurried over to them.

“It went wrong,” said Galdo.

“They got her,” said Locke, not caring that he was bawling. “They got her, I’m sorry, they just, they just got her.” Locke threw himself at Father Chains, and the man, without hesitation, scooped him up and held him, patting his back until his racking sobs quieted down.

“There, boy, there,” said Chains. “You’re with us now. All’s well. Who got her? Can you tell me?”

“I don’t know … men in the house.”

“Not yellowjackets?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so. I’m sorry, I couldn’t … I tried to think of something, but—”

“There was nothing you could have done,” said Chains firmly. He set Locke down and used a coat sleeve to dry his cheeks. “You managed to get away, and that was enough.”

“We didn’t g-get … the necklace—”

“Fuck the necklace.” Chains turned to the Sanza who’d brought Locke in. “Where’s Galdo?”

“I’m Galdo.”

“Where’s—”

“Calo’s ditching a couple of men that chased us.”

“What kind of men? Uniforms? Weapons?”

“I don’t think they were mustard. They might’ve been with the old guy you wanted us to rob.”

“Hell’s flaming shits.” Chains grabbed up his walking stick (an affectation for his disguise, but a fine way to have a weapon close at hand), then produced a dagger in a leather sheath that he tossed to Galdo. “Stay here. Douse the light and hide yourselves. Try not to stab Calo if he returns before I do.”

“Where are you going?” asked Locke.

“To find out who we’re dealing with.”

Chains went out the door with a speed that put the lie to his frequent claims of advancing infirmity. Galdo picked up the tiny alchemical light and tossed it to Locke, who concealed it within his closed hands. Alone in the darkness, the two boys settled down to wait for whatever came next.