Free Crossed Blades by Kelly McCullough

unhappiness when I forced it open with my thumb, but it did open.
    That revealed a large, flat, boxlike space with no apparent access other than the ports. Considering the size of the ship and the height of the ceiling, I didn’t like the odds of a smuggling compartment being concealed up top. Underfoot was possible, but unlikely as it would be easier to intuit from a quick glance at the hull and much harder to keep dry. That left the forward bulkhead.
    “I don’t see anything,” said Jax.
    “That’s kind of the point,” I replied. “Now be quiet and let me concentrate. I need to do this before I keel over, and I don’t think I’ve got a lot of time.” With some reluctance and a great deal of difficulty I forced myself back up onto my feet and stumbled my way over to the bulkhead.
    “If you’ll tell me what we’re looking for, I’ll help.” Jax was heading for the other end of the bulkhead on hands and knees.
    “I don’t know exactly. A loose joining peg maybe, or a knothole that can be pulled out, if we’re lucky. If not, something completely invisible and devilishly clever.”
    Turned out to be a loose peg high on the starboard side of the bulkhead. Push it in hard and it popped back out far enough to reveal a release. Pull that and it exposed a gently glowing glyph. A moment in shadow’s skin and a word of opening and a large section of bulkhead swung out and down, becoming a short set of stairs leading up into darkness. I poked my head through the opening. The compartment was about four feet in depth by eight high and it probably ran the width of the ship. I couldn’t say for sure because they’d packed it tight.
    “Here.” I helped Jax up onto a seat on the steps to get her out of the water and handed her my light. “Hold this.
    “Triss, see if you can’t slip back into the depths and check for anything dangerous.” I started pulling out enough of the stuff right around the hatch to make room for Jax and me, as he slithered through gaps that would have stymied anything bigger than a nipperkin. “Looks like they’re on their way out of port.”
    “How can you tell?” asked Jax.
    “This.” I dropped a small bale of exceptionally fine silk regretfully into the water sloshing around the bottom of the bigger compartment. “And this.” I added a tiny crate of tea stamped with the seal of the Duke of Jenua—everything had to be packed small enough to fit through the flood ports.
    “I think I must have missed a step, Aral.”
    “You don’t smuggle tea and silk
into
Zhan. Though
this
they might.” I pulled out another small crate labeled with a familiar distiller’s mark and set it on the top step—Aveni whiskey, though not my favorite Kyle’s.
    “How do you know so much about smuggling?” she asked as I pulled my remaining hip dagger out and jammed the tip of it under one edge of the crate’s lid.
    I pounded on the pommel with the heel of my hand. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing since the temple fell, but I needed something to pay my rent and my bar bill.” I leaned gently on the dagger—I’d lost three knives already tonight—and the lid started to lift. “Turns out the smugglers will pay pretty well for a courier who never gets stopped by the Stingers.”
    “Stingers?”
    “City watch. That’s what the underworld types call them because they wear gold and black. And . . . oh, there we go.” I lifted out a bottle of Skaate’s finest eighteen, sliced the seal, and pulled the cork with my teeth. “Beautiful.”
    And so very delicious. I took a long swig off the bottle.
    “Aral, that’s disgusting! Don’t you remember what the priests had to say about alcohol?”
    I pulled the bottle away from my lips and looked down to meet her eyes. With the way she was holding the thieveslight I couldn’t see them clearly, but the way her lip curled spoke to the contempt I couldn’t see.
    “Every word, Jax. Every word.” I lifted the bottle and took another long