Free Sworn in Steel by Douglas Hulick

to working for an Upright, let alone spying on a Gray Prince.”
    “I’m heartened by how hard you cling to your standards.”
    “Girl has to have ’em.” The grape went into her mouth. “So, what d’you need?”
    “Not much,” I said. “Just a time and place where I can drop in on Rambles and knock the shit out of him.”
    “Oh, is that all?”
    “That’s all.”
    Betriz shook her head and helped herself to my cup of coffee. “And this is why I’ll never take your Clasp, Drothe.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because if this is the kind of shit you have to talk me into doing, I hate to think about the jobs I’d get if we didn’t have to dicker over price.”
    I smiled and signaled for another cup.

Chapter Six
    I crouched, my body hidden by the decorative stonework that ran along the roof’s edge, and peered around the nymph’s carved ass in the
growing dusk. Sweat trickled down my back. Even three stories up, it was humid and still.
    Below, in the small courtyard in front of the whorehouse, I could hear the voices of two toughs talking to a third. The two were alternately joking and pleading, trying to talk their way into
the Mort Ken across the way. The doorman was having none of it. He kept telling them over and over that the whorehouse was closed until an hour after sunset, but the two men weren’t taking no
for an answer.
    Which was the whole idea.
    “This is stupid,” muttered Nijjan.
    I flexed my fingers and stared at the roof across from us and stayed silent.
    “I mean, really stupid.”
    “Shut up, Nijjan.”
    Nijjan Red Nails shifted behind her own nymph, her slippers scraping softly against the roof tiles. As an Upright Woman, Nijjan wasn’t used to dancing roofs or playing the Crow; but
neither was she used to having her Gray Prince at her door, demanding she put together a raid on another boss’s territory in less than four hours. To say she hadn’t been happy to see me
would have been an understatement; to say part of her wouldn’t have preferred to gut me and throw me out the door after hearing my plan would have been an outright lie. Especially since she
was right: This was stupid. Really stupid.
    Betriz had come through better—and faster—than I’d expected. A day of nosing had seen her back at my door, information in hand. It turned out that Rambles had developed a
pattern for himself, at least when it came to checking his investments, and today was the day he collected his profits—and sampled the wares—at the whorehouse across from us.
    “Are you sure he’s in there?” said Nijjan.
    “I’m sure.”
    “Because if I end up going to war over this bastard and he isn’t even in there . . .”
    I turned my eyes away from the roof and met Nijjan’s gaze. “I’m sure.”
    Nijjan glared at me, her blue eyes standing out like lanterns in the fading light. She was wrapped in russets and tans and browns, her dark hair cropped short and spiky. Hennaed designs on her
hands and cheeks turned round and round one another, like some lost language run amok on her skin. Only her fingernails remained devoid of any decoration, and that because she didn’t want
there to be any confusion about her name. She wasn’t Red Nails because of what was at the end of her fingers; she was Red Nails because of the broad-headed copper spikes she used to hold
people down—or up—when she was annoyed with them.
    “Fine,” she said. “He’s in there. But I still don’t see why we can’t bring a few more Cutters with us in case—”
    “Because more Cutters mean more noise,” I said. “And being noticed is not what we need right now.”
    Nijjan grumbled and looked back out over the roof.
    I couldn’t blame her: We were deep in a rival Upright Man’s territory, preparing to make a raid on one of his properties. If we were looking for a way to start a minor war, it
didn’t get much better than this. Add to that the fact we were outnumbered—possibly severely—and that any help