She stepped through the narrow spot just as the spy did. She pretended a stumble. He brought his hands up and pushed her away. She grabbed the notes, but it wasn’t clean. She tugged a bit of sleeve, too, and the spy turned as she yanked the letters free. Shit!
And then something happened too fast for her to follow. The shadow of that narrow spot in the alley came alive, detached itself from the very wall it had been part of, and imprisoned her arm.
It whiplashed her back toward the spy. Something warm splattered against her lips and neck. The spy raised his hands, panicked—his throat slashed open, his jugular fountaining blood all over Teia.
Teia pushed the spy away and he fell, gasping like a fish. The shadowed assassin put something into her hand. A bloody knife.
She recognized him by his size and stature and eyes, because he was completely covered otherwise, his cloak drawn tight over his head, the side of the hood hooked closed to make a mask over his face, only his eyes uncovered. Murder Sharp.
He released her, stepped back quickly, stepping over the spy dying at his feet as if there were nothing noteworthy in having murdered a man.
“You’re a murderer now,” he said. “Run, or you’re fucked.” His cloak shimmered, starting around his eyes, and in trails like smoke that raced in spirals down his body, light twinkled and then disappeared.
She heard the scrape of his boot in the alley, but there was nothing there to see. She tried to look in paryl, but she couldn’t control it. She was frozen. She looked at herself—covered in blood, bloody knife in her hand, dying man at her feet.
A sharp sailor’s whistle blew in the air, the three-tone call for help. Unmistakable for anything else. “Good luck,” the air said. She could hear Murder Sharp’s wide grin, even if she couldn’t see it.
Teia stood, paralyzed, for one moment more. She saw a watchman two hundred paces down the alley. He saw her, too, bloody blade in hand, standing over a dead man. She ran.
Chapter 18
Gavin hoped that the ship going in to port would give him a chance to escape. If not that, at least a chance to send a message. And if not that, he hoped that the sailors’ natural braggadocio would serve to get word to the Chromeria for him. But though Gunner might have been half crazy, he wasn’t stupid. After he’d taken the Ilytian galley, they’d headed directly to port. The Ilytian sailors who had survived the attack had been chained to their own oars, replacing the dead slaves, given fresh oars from the supplies on the Bitter Cob, and kept strictly away from the Cob’s crew.
Away from Gavin.
The Bitter Cob had dropped anchor a fair distance from whatever the nearest town was. The slaves thought it was Corrath Springs, though more than half the slaves were Angari and therefore strangers to the Cerulean Sea, so Gavin figured everyone was guessing, putting a name on a place to try to give themselves some illusion of control over it. The other galley, Rage of the Seas—a grandiose title, but the Ilytians didn’t have much use for modesty—had been manned by Gunner’s first mate and the third mate, who hated the first mate, and Leonus, who hated everyone.
Gavin thought it was a smart move. Men who hated each other were much less likely to collude. If the officers came back with wildly different stories of how much they got paid for the galley and cargo, you could ask Leonus. Not a foolproof design, but reasonably good, especially if the next time you sent different men.
The crew who’d stayed behind were unhappy about not getting a chance for shore leave, but Gunner silenced that in short order with a few beatings.
The mates and Leonus came back the next morning, having sold the Rage of the Seas and the slaves—and doubtless spent the night being entertained at a brothel, but that was a tax any wise captain was willing to pay. They hoisted anchor and headed out immediately. The only supplies the men had brought back were barrels of hardtack and barrels of brandy. The galley slaves all got a measure, with a double for those in the first six rows. Leonus shorted them all, though, setting aside enough for himself that he got thoroughly sick.
It was also thoroughly stupid. If he’d only shorted a few of them, or those in the back, he could have stolen the same amount of drink. Instead, he was uniting the slaves against him.
Once they’d been under way for a couple of hours, Gavin was chained, released from his oar, and bundled upstairs. He was taken to the poop, where Gunner was waiting.
Gavin was forced to kneel again, and his chains locked to a ring on deck. He didn’t fight, didn’t grimace.
“You’re a problem,” Gunner said. He dismissed Leonus and the other sailor who’d brought Gavin up. He had his curious white gun-sword hoisted over his shoulders, and was hanging his hands off it like it was a yoke.