Free Den of Thieves by David Chandler Page B

exchange of promises and honeyed words.
    But it would not happen tonight. Tonight he could only watch.
    The guards at Hazoth’s door challenged the pair, but Bikker reached for his sword’s hilt and the armored sentries fell back. The two of them stopped just inside the sorcerer’s gate, however, and waited for something Croy could not see. When it came, he felt it instead. There was a sudden change in air pressure, or perhaps merely the crickets in the grass all fell silent at once. It was like the night itself held its breath.
    It lasted a bare moment. Then it was over, and Cythera and Bikker entered the villa’s grounds and went their separate ways. He, toward a low shed at the side of the house that Croy knew served as barracks for the sorcerer’s guards. She, into the house through the stables—like a common servant.
    How he felt the need to rush down there and follow her, to reach—quite gently, of course—for her hand in the shadows, to breathe her name and see recognition in her eyes. But not tonight.
    Not while the house was shielded so patently by some spell—a spell even she must wait to pass.
    Not tonight. Not until he could get his weapons back.
    It was time to find out what friends, if any, he had left in the palace.

Chapter Thirteen
    T he next day Malden spent in preparation.
    It was mad even to consider going through with this. The job he’d been hired for was, if not impossible, distinctly ill-advised. It was going to make of him a pigeon in the midst of a pack of dogs. If the plan failed in the slightest particular, it would mean a quick but nasty death, a spear through his lights, or an axe through his skull. Cutbill’s influence could not protect him from that.
    Yet if it worked—it couldn’t, of course, it was the worst kind of folly, but —if it worked , he would be clear of his debt to the guildmaster of thieves before the sun rose tomorrow morning. He would be a full member of the guild, with all the rights and privileges thereunto pertaining. He would be a free man again. Better, by far, because he would be on his way to wealth. On his way to being a man of means.
    In the Free City of Ness, that was the only thing that counted.
    He made his way to the Ashes early, just as the sun was rising over the city’s wall. The gang of children that guarded Cutbill’s headquarters did not show themselves—they already knew he belonged there. Loophole, Lockjaw, and ’Levenfingers were inside the ruin already, though. As far as he knew, they were there all day, every day, sitting on the empty coffin. The old men greeted him warmly and asked him what schemes he had planned for the day. They asked every time he visited. “A little of the same,” he told them. “Though to be honest, my heart’s not in it.”
    â€œBe of good cheer, lad,” Loophole told him. “Money comes to them that keep their eyes open.”
    â€œI’m sure you’re right.” Malden would gladly have spoken with the old men, for he’d learned they were a sure font of wisdom. If any of them knew how this job could be done, this fantastically impossible job, surely it was one of them. Yet he knew that anything he said to them—even to Lockjaw—would be reported to Cutbill at once. In addition, Bikker and Cythera were quite clear that his fee included a hefty sum to make sure Cutbill never learned of the plan. So he kept his peace and headed inside.
    He had learned on his second visit, some days ago, that it was not necessary to travel by coffin every time you visited Cutbill’s burrow. That was just for new arrivals, a kind of object lesson to remind them their lives were forfeit if they crossed Cutbill in any way. Actual employees had their own entrance through a trapdoor hidden in the debris of the fallen house. It led to a door below, hidden behind a curtain. There were many doors in Cutbill’s domain, and all of them