Free The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch Page B

wealth could make possible, and her hair was the color of dry autumn wheat with currents of silver at the temples. She had a squarish face, with disconcertingly wide, dark eyes.
    “Here, take this.” She tossed the alchemical globe to Jean, who caught it by reflex. “I know they took your lights, too.”
    “Um, thank you, but—”
    “My, my.” The woman unclasped her cloak and spun it off her shoulders as she strolled into the inner apartment. Her coat and skirts were richly brocaded with silver threads, and puffs of silver lace from beneath her cuffs half-covered her hands. She glanced at Locke. “Ill would seem to be an understatement.”
    “Forgive me for not getting up,” said Locke. “And for not offering you a seat. And not being dressed. And for not … giving a damn.”
    “Down to the last dregs of your charm, I see.”
    “Down to the last dregs of my everything. Who are you, then?”
    The woman shook out her oilcloak, then threw it over Locke like a blanket.
    “Th-thank you.”
    “It’s difficult to have a serious conversation with someone whose dignity is compromised, Locke.”
    The next sound in the room was that of Jean slamming home the bolt on the front door. In an instant he returned to the inner apartment, knife in hand. He tossed the light-globe onto the bed, where Locke prevented it from bouncing onto the floor.
    “In faith,” said Jean, “my patience for mysterious shit went out that door with the money and the furniture. So you explain how you know that name, and I won’t have to feel guilty for—”
    “I doubt you’d survive what would happen if you acted on that impulse, Jean Tannen. I know your pride wouldn’t. Put your blade away.”
    “Like hell!”
    “Poor Gentlemen Bastards,” said the woman softly. “So far from home. But always in our sight.”
    “
No
,” said Jean in a disbelieving whisper.
    “Oh, gods,” said Locke. He coughed and closed his eyes. “It’s you. I suspected you’d kick our door down sooner or later.”
    “You sound disappointed.” The woman frowned. “As though you’d just failed to avoid an awkward social call. Would you really find death preferable to a little conversation, Locke?”
    “Little conversations with Bondsmagi never end well.”
    “You’re the reason we’re here,” growled Jean. “You and your games in Tal Verrar. Your damned letters!”
    “Not entirely,” said the woman.
    “You didn’t scare us in the Night Market.” Jean’s grip tightened on the hilt of his blade, and the pain of his recent beating was entirely forgotten. “You don’t fucking scare us now!”
    “Then you don’t know us at all.”
    “I think I do. And I don’t give a damn about your gods-damned
rules
!”
    He was already in motion, and her back was to him. She had no chance to speak or gesture with her hands; his left arm went around her neck and he slammed the dagger home as hard as he could, directly between her shoulder blades.

11
    THE WOMAN ’ S flesh was warm and solid beneath Jean’s arm one moment, and in the next his blade bit empty air.
    Jean had faced many fast opponents in his life, but never one that dissolved instantly at his touch. That wasn’t human speed; it was sorcery.
    His chance was gone.
    He inhaled sharply, and a cold shudder ran down his back, the old familiar sensation of a misstep made and a blow about to fall. His pulse beat like a drum inside his skull, and he waited for the pain of whatever reprisal was coming—
    “Oh yes,” said their visitor mildly from somewhere behind him. “That would have been very clever of me, Jean Tannen. Leaving myself at the mercy of a strong man and his grudges.”
    Jean turned slowly, and saw that the woman was now standing about six feet to his left, by the window where the linens table had once been.
    “I hold your true name like a caged bird,” she said. “Your hands and eyes will deceive you if you try to harm me.”
    “Gods,” said Jean, suddenly overcome by a vast