Free Lord of Ashes (Steelhaven: Book Three) by Richard Ford

and whether she’d be stuck right at the heart of it. Way her luck had been going lately, chances were she’d definitely be right smack bang in the frigging middle.
    ‘What are we even still doing here?’ muttered Shirl from the shadows. ‘We should be long gone.’
    ‘Gone where?’ Essen hissed. His annoyance with Shirl’s constant griping had only grown more intense over the past days. ‘There ain’t nowhere we can go that Bastian won’t find us. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s around forty thousand Khurtas camped just north of the city. I reckon they’re hungry too, just waiting for some fat fuck to stumble past so they can have a good feed.’
    Shirl shut his mouth, looking equal parts angry and fearful at Essen’s dressing down.
    Rag couldn’t help but feel for Shirl. Couldn’t help but think he might be right. Who was to say if trying to escape was any less dangerous than sticking around? There was every chance one of Bastian’s men would stab them in the neck before any Khurta got the chance.
    The back door to the tavern opened, not with a bang but a whisper of hinges. Still, everyone in the place went quiet. Rag saw some hands stray towards blades while others just froze. She half expected it to be the Greencoats come to arrest them all, but deep down she knew they were too busy with what waited outside the city’s walls to be bothered about what lurked inside some backstreet tavern.
    What walked in was scarier than any Greencoat, though.
    Bastian had given her a chill ever since the first time she’d laid eyes on him. It was a chill that never left her, a cold spike down her back that was always there, lurking like a stray cat. Seeing him just reminded her that it was still there, that she was living on borrowed time and it was this corpse-looking bastard she was borrowing it off.
    He walked into the centre of the room and his men went about making themselves look busy. Bastian’s cold eyes scanned the tavern, and Rag felt her heart begin to sink as they passed over all those lean, deadly blokes until they finally rested on her. He stared at her for some moments, dead fish eyes glaring, and Rag knew it was her he’d come for.
    Best not keep him waiting, Rag. You should know better than that.
    She walked across the tavern so slow it almost hurt. Rag had watched a man hanged once. Watched him walk to those gallows at a snail’s pace like he wanted every last moment on earth to stretch out and give him as much life as possible. As she walked across the tavern towards Bastian, Rag began to realise how that poor fucker had felt.
    He stared at her all the while until she came to stand in front of him, regarding her like some giant bird about to eat a worm. She just stared back, not wanting to speak but needing to know what in the hells he wanted with her.
    Then he smiled.
    It looked horrible on that skeletal face; cracking his pale flesh and showing a set of teeth yellow as old parchment.
    ‘I have a job for you,’ he said in a voice that creaked like a coffin lid. Then he let that hang there so long she almost had to ask him what it was. But Rag knew better than that. Don’t speak until spoken to if you want to keep that tongue in your head. ‘Someone is waiting,’ Bastian continued. ‘At the other side of the Rafts. It’s important they are relayed a message. I need someone sly. Someone no one’s going to notice. Someone insignificant. Naturally, I thought of you.’
    Thanks a fucking bunch.
    ‘Yeah,’ Rag whispered. ‘No problem.’
    ‘That’s the right answer,’ said Bastian, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a roll of parchment, sealed with black wax. He held it out to her and she took it in her hand. As she tugged on the parchment she realised he still held it in a dead man’s grip. ‘Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.’ He spoke each word so sharp it was like being stabbed in the ear with them. Then he let go of the parchment and let her take it.
    ‘I won’t,’ she