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  Roza didn’t repeat herself. She just stared at Katja and waited.

  “I know what else happened last night,” said Roza.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” said Katja. “I ran but they followed me. I had to defend myself.”

  Roza shook her head. “You’re not ready. You lack control and take unnecessary risks. You should be sent back home for more training.”

  Katja tried another approach. “What should I have done? Run? Reported it to the Watch?”

  Roza didn’t respond. Any sort of attention, especially from the Watch or the Guardians, would be unwelcome. The first lesson Katja had been taught back in Seveldrom was about blending in and not being noticed in a crowd.

  “Hopefully no one saw you last night,” said Roza. “If I were in Rodann’s position, I would have someone watching you at all times.”

  “I’ll be more careful,” said Katja, getting to her feet.

  “And no more trips to the Cave,” said Roza, catching her by surprise. “I know you went there the other night.”

  “How did you—”

  “You’re putting everyone at risk, not just yourself,” warned Roza. “If you can’t see that, then you shouldn’t be doing this job.”

  Katja pulled on the grey robe over her clothes and quickly went out the front door of the shop. She needed to focus on something else. She didn’t want to think about what Roza had said.

  Gankle had told her the new clients were grieving parents who had lost a child. The address indicated they were wealthy, but little else. In fact they’d given no hint about the type of service they wanted or their religion. No doubt the people she was on the way to visit would require something extravagant.

  The streets were busy and crowded despite the midday heat that made her sweat and start to itch. Almost everyone wore a hat or headscarf to ward off the worst of the heat, and many had pulled up the hoods on their robes. Katja left hers down, as she spent too much time indoors and her skin needed some colour. Fresh sweat beaded in her hairline but it dried out before it reached the bottom of her face.

  A light breeze blew in from the river, bringing with it a faint smell of the sea, but it wasn’t enough to cool anyone down. The fruit and ale vendors were selling as fast as they could pull a pint or chop up melons and spiny apples into manageable chunks. Katja bought two fat slices of red melon and slurped along with everyone else, spitting out the seeds with casual abandon. Daring seagulls came down onto the streets, fighting over scraps and scuttling out of the way of the many busy feet.

  By the time she reached the front gates of the large manor house she felt more alert, but no less empty. But it wasn’t hunger that gnawed away at her, it was guilt. Roza’s words rang in her ears and the possibility that she’d put others at risk burned her.

  Trying to keep her mind on the present Katja gave her name to the armed guard at the gate and was immediately shown inside.

  The guard led her along a winding path through a lush tropical garden sheltered by tall trees, creating delicious pools of cool shade and deep shadows. Bright flowers in every shade of red, yellow and purple lined the path on both sides, and the air hummed with a low buzz of insects and clusters of bees. Here in the garden, behind the stone walls, Katja could almost forget she was still in the city. The whole neighbourhood seemed quiet, although on reflection she realised only those who had to be out in the midday heat would venture outdoors. If the wealthy homeowners in this neighbourhood needed something they would simply send out a servant.

  Another servant, dressed in grey livery with a purple and red crest over the heart, met her at the door. Brief introductions were made and she was shown to a sitting room dominated by a large marble-fronted fireplace. Katja didn’t know a lot about art, but even she recognised the style of the landscape painting above the fire. Jade figurines, crystal glasses on a beautifully carved wooden table and other signs of wealth dotted the room. Ornaments and strange items, both familiar and foreign, probably gathered over many decades filled a cabinet to bursting against the back wall. A small portrait, presumably of the owners, hung on the wall, showing two adults and two small children. Even the painting was extravagant and very detailed, but it also looked old as the paint was starting to crack in places.

  The owners had a lot of money, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it except buy more curios from their travels.

  The silence of the house seemed absolute, which would normally have relaxed Katja, but now it bred thoughts she wanted to avoid. She rested both hands and then her forehead on the cold mantelpiece above the fireplace, cooling her flushed skin.

  The clicking of heels on the tiled floor brought her back to the present. Her eyes snapped open in time to see a couple in their late fifties approaching, shadowed by a servant carrying a glass tray with a jug of some sort of fruit juice.

  “Leave the tray, I’ll pour our guest a drink,” said the man, a local with a weather-beaten face, grey hair and matching beard. His wife looked only slightly younger, but her skin was equally weathered, suggesting she’d spent as much time working outdoors as her husband. Katja recognised them both from the painting, but it must have been commissioned many years ago as their hair was dark in the portrait.

  The servant raised an eyebrow at his owner’s unusual order, but said nothing and quickly withdrew, closing the doors firmly behind him.

  “Please, take a seat,” said the husband with a gesture at the red and yellow chairs set around a low metal table with a glass top. Katja settled herself and tried to wait patiently as cool drinks were poured by hands that shook.

  “Thank you,” said Katja, accepting a glass, noting the old calluses on the husband’s hands. A life spent at sea then. He probably owned a shipping business with a fleet of vessels.

  “I’m Sim, this is my wife, Belle,” said the man, keeping it very informal, which only made her more nervous. At their lowest moment, most people were desperate to hang on to their full names and titles, rank and merit, to show they’d achieved and accomplished something. They hadn’t beaten death, hadn’t stopped the sand falling through the hourglass, but they mattered. But here, they were talking and treating Katja as if they were ordinary clients who had walked in from the street with only a few coins to their name.

  “How can I help?” asked Katja, addressing the question at both.

  Sim licked his lips nervously. “Can we rely on you to be discreet?”

  “Anything you tell me will only be shared with those who absolutely have to know. The priest we involve and my business partner. No one else. If the manner in which your…” Katja trailed off, suddenly aware she didn’t know if their child had been the boy or the girl from the painting.

  “Our son,” said Belle in a quivering voice. She fiddled with the lace on the front of her dress and wouldn’t meet Katja’s eye.

  “If he died in a manner you’d rather not have others know about, there are ways to obscure it.” Katja waved a hand vaguely, certain they wouldn’t want to know about the heavy make-up and materials that were sometimes stuffed inside a body to pad it out and make it look more normal.

  The couple shared a look that she didn’t fully understand, but they weren’t appeased by her assurances. Katja took a sip of her drink, a cocktail of wine mixed with chilled fruit juice.

  Belle tried a different approach, forcing a smile. “Is it true you’re the only one of your kind?”

  “Yes, at the moment, but I’m sure that will change.”

  “You’re a leader,” said Sim. “Whatever others do after, you were there first.” It sounded as if he spoke from personal experience.

  “Are you personally tied to any particular faith?” asked Belle. Katja had been asked the question dozens of times. Normally people wanted to know if she was truly independent or if she favoured some religious customs.

  “I deal with people from all faiths, and I’ve come to respect them all equally. I have no personal affinity to one faith,” she told them carefully.

  S
im tried to ask a question but nothing came out. He looked to his wife for support but she just gulped down her drink, leaving him trying to find the right words.

  “Are you familiar with… old religions?” he finally asked.

  “Not personally, but I have contacts who can carry out last rites for all faiths.”

  “All?” pressed Sim and a growing suspicion in Katja’s mind started to take shape.

  “I have a friend who runs a farm, a few miles outside the city,” said Katja, almost casually as if the subject wasn’t related. “He has a hundred head of beef and about forty pigs. They’re always hungry. In fact they’ll eat almost anything.”

  Sim heaved a long sigh while Belle looked as if she would faint, but both were visibly relieved. They were Eaters. Followers of Khai’yegha, the Pestilent Watcher, the Eater of Souls. They practised an old faith that had supposedly been wiped out during the war when mad King Taikon had razed every temple and murdered all of the priests. Apparently some of his people had not lost their faith.

  Although their religion wasn’t illegal, people did find it distasteful and would often distance themselves from its followers. It had become much worse since the war when the Mad King, Taikon, had tried to create his own religion with him as the central deity and prophet. Now anyone who deviated from one of the main religions was treated with disdain and people who followed the old faiths were seen as deviants.

  Eaters were not ashamed of their faith, but they were now wise enough never to declare it in public in case they were shunned. From the size of their house Sim and Belle were obviously people of significant wealth and standing in the city. If people found out it could have a significant impact on their life and business.

  Sim produced another heavy purse which he put down on the table.

  “You can collect him whenever you like. We’ve said our goodbyes.”

  The money they’d already paid would cover her expenses five times over, but she took the heavy purse anyway. It wasn’t for the service, but to ensure her silence.

  They led her to the front door where they shook hands and Belle quickly hurried away, no doubt keen to forget about such unpleasant business. Sim took a more stoic approach, gritted his teeth and was determined to look her in the eye and get through it.

  As she stepped outside again the heat hit Katja like a wave, making fresh sweat bead at her brow. She wanted nothing more than to linger in the garden and enjoy the shade but knew she couldn’t. She had an appointment with Rodann in a few hours and needed to be ready.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Emerald Dragon sat in the heart of the Jarrows’ territory, a gambling den for those with an excessive amount of money to waste on cards, dice and other games of chance. The buy-in for some of the tables was more money than Choss had ever seen in his life. Normally it wasn’t a place he’d visit but he’d been told by a Silver jackal that the owners would be visiting tonight.

  The thick-shouldered man at the door looked him up and down, sneering slightly at his clothes, but eventually agreed to pass a message to someone inside. In some ways it was refreshing to be treated exactly the same as everyone else and Choss unnerved the doorman by smiling at him.

  A few minutes later the front door opened and Vargus came out. The doorman looked extremely uncomfortable at the Naib’s presence.

  “Come in,” he said. “I’m sorry you were stuck out here.” Vargus glared at the doorman who, despite towering over the older man, leaned away in alarm.

  From outside, the Emerald looked like every other building on the street, slightly shabby and in need of repair. Inside, it had been completely gutted and rebuilt by expert craftsmen to make it appeal to the rich clientele.

  The main room was a large oval with tables in the centre and booths around the edge for onlookers and drinkers. The top stakes games were held in one of the private rooms on the first floor, where players were waited on by a famous chef from Morrinow and a local vintner who offered only the best wines from around the world.

  The atmosphere in the main room was one of constant celebration, with some in the crowd crying out at their victories, while others laughed at their appalling losses because, after all, it was only money. The clink of coins and rattle of dice mixed with a loud hum of conversation. Men and women dressed in green and white livery moved through the room with trays of free drinks.

  Stationed around the room at regular intervals, looking very uncomfortable in tight and expensive clothing, were several enforcers. Customers at the Emerald required a velvet glove instead of the iron fist which Don Jarrow preferred, but deterrents were sometimes necessary.

  Choss followed Vargus to the bar at the back of the room and took a seat, resting his forearms on the cool marble surface. He didn’t want to guess how much the bar top alone had cost.

  “The Don and Dońa are greeting some new customers,” said Vargus, gesturing towards the rooms upstairs. “They shouldn’t be long.”

  “Thank you.”

  Vargus nodded and walked towards the crowd, which parted as he approached and closed in his wake.

  “Hello sweetheart,” said a slurred and husky voice to his left.

  “Hello Munroe,” said Choss. Tonight the petite brunette was dressed in an elegant black dress and elbow-length gloves. She tried to lean against the bar, missed and would have fallen if Choss hadn’t caught her. He held her gently by the elbow until she managed to pull herself onto a high stool. Glancing over his shoulder Choss noticed a lean-faced Morrin woman watching them from nearby. A Naib for Munroe in all but name, and one of the few people openly armed in the room.

  “My hero,” said Munroe, trying to blow a strand of her curly hair out of her eyes. It persisted in being an annoyance until she tucked it behind an ear in a way he found endearing.

  “Another of my usual, Col,” she said, gesturing at the barman, who looked at Choss expectantly.

  “Nothing for me.”

  “Come on, drink with me. It’s a party,” said Munroe, gesturing expansively, wobbling and nearly falling off her stool.

  “It’s not my kind of party,” said Choss, feeling more than a little out of place.

  “Me neither, but here we are.” Munroe squinted at him. “Why are you here?”

  “Business.”

  “Ahhh.” She touched the side of her nose with one finger in a conspiratorial manner, nearly poking herself in the eye. “Business, good. Because I never get tired of that.”

  “You could leave,” suggested Choss. It was a conversation they’d had many times.

  Munroe threw back her head and laughed. It was a rich sound that made the hairs stand up on the back of his arms until it changed in tone, becoming something cynical and mocking.

  “Maker’s balls. I needed that,” she said, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek. “I love you, Choss. You’re so naïve.”

  Choss said nothing, one eye on Munroe in case she fell off her chair, the other on the closed door upstairs.

  “Don’t sulk,” said Munroe, winking salaciously at the barman, who swapped her empty glass for a full one. Col hurried away and Munroe sighed dramatically.

  “I’m not sulking. I’m worried.”

  “Business, right?” said Munroe, taking a big gulp of her drink. “Something dangerous, I assume? Putting your life at risk?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Then why don’t you enjoy yourself a little before getting to that. We could go upstairs,” she said, running a hand up his arm, making his skin tingle. “I have a key to the Don’s private suite. No one would disturb us, all night long.”

  Choss felt her hot breath on his ear as she leaned over, pressing her body against his arm. A shiver ran down his back at her touch and Choss felt his body start to respond.

  Munroe was clever, beautiful and she had a wicked sense of humour. She didn’t care about his celebrity status and wasn’t trying to get close to him to curry favour with someone in power. She had plenty of her own. In the last few years she
was the only woman who’d shown any interest in him for who he actually was beyond his reputation. They’d been friends and sometimes a little more, but her unusual circumstances prevented them from being completely intimate.

  Several times they’d come close to doing something drastic, they’d even joked about running away together, but each time one of them had faltered because the risk was too great.

  “Sadly, I’ll have to say no,” said Choss.

  Although Munroe had no official rank in the Jarrow Family, she was the most valuable member of their organisation. She was worth more than ten times her weight in gold to them. The Morrin warrior breathing down Choss’s neck was there to ensure no one so much as looked at Munroe in an unpleasant manner. The bodyguard also prevented Munroe from taking any risks, which he knew rankled her.

  “Not even tempted a little?” said Munroe, leaning forward to give him a generous view of her cleavage. “I promise, it would be a night you’d never forget.”

  “I’m very tempted, believe me,” said Choss, taking the time to glance at her assets with an appreciative eye. “But you know we can’t.”

  “Your loss,” said Munroe, shrugging as if it didn’t matter before slumping back in her chair and rearranging her dress. She recovered quickly and the hurt look faded in her eyes. “Did I tell you I recently tried to join the Silent Order?”

  Choss’s jaw fell open. “The assassins’ league?”

  “That’s the one,” said Munroe, slurping her drink. “They said I was too dangerous. Me!” This time her laugh started out bitter and only went downhill from there.

  She had a lot of stories about things that had happened to her, most of which he didn’t believe, but her latest had a desperate ring of truth.

  The last three men to have sex with Munroe had died during the act. The first could have been caused by any number of things and ignored. Perhaps the second could’ve been attributed to bad luck, but by the time the third turned up cold, people realised it was more than a string of unfortunate events.

  She’d been given many unpleasant nicknames but Widowmaker seemed the most accurate, not that Choss ever used it. A lot of dangerous people were very afraid of her, but she didn’t worry him. Munroe presented one face to the world to protect herself, but he knew the real person behind the mask.