Free Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) by Craig Schaefer Page B

her.”
    “True enough. I’m certain he’s sent her to some remote location to hide and wait for his triumphant return. But we also know Felix is here. Inside the walls, isolated and alone. That means he’s cut off from the most valuable coin of all: information.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning, perhaps we can’t find Renata.” Aita favored the table with a golden smile. “But Felix doesn’t know that.”

CHAPTER TEN
    Another night. Another target.
    Felix stalked down empty streets, the city markets abandoned in the dark, no sound but a cold lonely wind whispering across shutters and canvas awnings. He forced himself to breathe deeply, fighting the hammering of his heart, the nervous energy that pushed him to break into a run. The next of Aita’s henchmen kept himself penned up at the top of a two-story inn, always renting the same room. Flooding the hall outside with his thugs, but that wasn’t a problem; the coil of rope and heavy grappling hook dangling from Felix’s shoulder would see to that.
    Nothing flashy this time , he told himself. Just slip in from the balcony, kill him in his bed, and slip out again. Do this right and I’ll be long gone before anyone knows he’s dead .
    The business of killing had stopped bothering him. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. He felt no hesitation now, and no regrets after the deed was done. Part of him wondered what that meant. The rest of him didn’t have time to think about it. Didn’t want to think about it.
    He crept along a narrow alley, closing in. The inn stood across a desolate boulevard, faint lights shining behind scarlet-curtained windows. Felix froze in his tracks.
    Fresh paint daubed the stucco wall, scrawling letters in tar-black ink.
    WE HAVE RENATA .
    Then underneath, an addendum.
    ASK ZOE .
    Now he ran, racing back the way he’d come. His mission abandoned and only one thing on his mind—Renata—as he headed for the city docks.
    *     *     *
    The Hen and Caber bore an autumn harvest of memories for Felix. All the nights he’d lingered alone at a back table, drinking in the warmth of the fire and the merry reel of lute song, savoring the crusty bread and fresh-churned butter. All the nights he’d met with Renata in the alley around back or slipped up to her room, endless waiting and anticipation giving way to sudden passion.
    Renata wasn’t here anymore. Neither was the warmth, though the fire still crackled in the hearth, or the merriment. The locals drank in stony silence or murmured conversation, casting a dour eye at every new arrival. The city was changing all around him. The fear of an impending siege weighing heavy on every heart. Felix kept his hood low and his face turned from the light, skirting around half-empty tables on his way to the bar.
    “Zoe?” the barman said. “She’s upstairs. Says she ain’t feeling well tonight. Stomach sick.”
    As he stood at her door, Felix heard faint weeping. He knocked, knuckles light.
    The door opened a crack. One wet, reddened eye peered out at him, one pox-ravaged cheek caught by candlelight.
    “A man came to see me,” she said in a broken whisper. “He knew she was my friend. He asked if I knew where you were.”
    Felix furrowed his brow. “Did he hurt you?”
    “Not…not like that. He…” Zoe shook her head, suddenly mute. She opened the door.
    He stepped into her room. Another wave of memories. Not happy ones now. Thinking back to the night he’d taken refuge here, and Hassan the Barber had tracked him down. There was the table where he’d impaled Hassan’s hand with a rusty knife. There was the spot of floor, still stained dark, where they’d struggled for the blade.
    There was the wall by the shabby little bed, where Felix had killed a man for the first time in his life. And sawed off Hassan’s head, sending it to his mistress in a gift box.
    Zoe sat on the edge of the mattress and cradled a slender carton in her hands. A gold ribbon sat beside her, untied and