A Jewel Among Thieves

Chapter 2: The Wake-Up

The sudden explosion of cold water all over her woke Safia up with a gasp. She jerked upright, twisting her head this way and that. The yellow glow of a lantern revealed the rough stone floor and walls of the cell she was in, one whole wall being thick iron bars. Through them she could see the outline of a person who had his back to the lantern that sat on the wooden table. The still dripping bucket he held in a gloved hand answered one of her questions.

"Sounds like you're awake." His voice was low and deep, more like the rumble of thunder than any voice she'd heard before.

Her captor shifted in his seat as he put the bucket down, the lantern light revealing broad shoulders covered in the heavy leather of his studded vest. She eyed the material, wondering if it contained any hidden spells or tricks. Her hands crept to her sides but a light pat of her hips found only skin. Face going cold, Safia patted as quietly around her as she could, trying to find her belt.

A snort from the man on the other side of the bars drew her attention and let her know how well her attempts at being silent had been. "If you're looking for your invisible bag of tricks, I can promise you, you won't find it in there."

She bared her teeth at him. Standing slowly, Safia considered her options. She was naked, locked into a cell, and didn't have any of her tools with her. Worse, she'd been found out as being invisible. The job had gotten far more interesting than she liked.

"I have questions for you, thief. If you don't answer them, that's fine. The guard I called will get the truth out of you when he gets here."

Shit! He'd already called the guards. That complicated the situation considerably, and Safia's first instincts, to either pretend she wasn't actually there or to convince him not to report her through some sob story were now out of the question. The guards had enough magic tech to be able to see her, even if her potion didn't wear off before they got there, and now that the report had been filed, there was no way they wouldn't look into things.

Safia licked her lips and went through the options she had now. One, try to convince him that Lord Catus had hired her to test how good he was at guarding. She threw that one aside instantly. The noble bastard was far too cheap to have done that and then her captor would know she was trying to game him. Two, she could try and convince him she was in desperate need of the money. That wouldn't work though, not since he'd already found her equipment. The fact it was invisible alone would tell him she was a pro.

A faint creak drew her attention back to him. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, the light glowing through the thin dreadlocks that spilled over his shoulders. "Don't bother trying to convince me to let you out, thief. I know your kind and your tricks. You might as well answer my questions. If you do, I'll at least tell Kasen you cooperated when he comes to collect you."

Kasen was it? So he knew the guard he'd called well enough to use his first name, and as an added bonus not one she was familiar with. That could work to her advantage, if she could turn her captor. She'd have to be careful and do everything delicately since he was already looking for her to do exactly that. Though she'd found in the past that some people who thought they knew all the tricks were in fact the easiest to snare with a bit of subtlety.

The first step was to establish some kind of trust or bond with her captor, and she couldn't do that by remaining silent. "Safia," she said.

"What was that?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "My name's Safia, not thief."

"Glad to know you can talk, Safia the thief." He leaned back in his chair, the wood groaning faintly under the weight of him.

Safia rolled eyes he couldn't see but kept her annoyance out of her voice. "You haven't told me your name."

"No, I haven't. Typically I wouldn't bother, but as it'll take Kasen at least until morning to get here, I would much rather you call me Rezo than hey you."

Her eyes widened. Morning? On the plus side she had more time to work on him, on the other, she ran the risk of being locked in here for hours and then shipped back to the city. "Thank you, Rezo," she said, allowing an edge of sarcasm to bleed through.

He raised his eyebrows. "Not going to try to convince me that it's some kind of mistake, or that you have starving children at home?"

Safia snorted. "You obviously already know that neither of those is true, and without my stuff, I'm stuck in here. No point in wasting my time and breath on that crap." She smiled as she watched him stroke his goatee. Let him think she was resigned to her situation and that he'd out-smarted her. Let him think he'd won, and she'd find cracks she could use to break through.

"So you're not a third-rate thief. Not that I expected as much, given how far you got." Rezo held up the puzzlebox in a mocking salute. "You have a decent invisibility spell there, and that's not something your run-of-the-mill burglars are going to cough up the coin for. Let me guess, you were hired?"

She shrugged, then remembered he couldn't see her. "You seem to think you have all the answers, so why don't you tell me?" Safia thought she saw a hint of a smile cross his lips, but in the lantern-light, it was hard to tell. If it had been there then she thought she had some hope in turning him.

"Well, we did hear the whispers that someone was interested in stealing the diamond. Probably a rival who wants to lord that glitter over Catus. At least, that's what he thinks."

Safia snorted faintly. She wasn't about to give up a client, not one who hadn't broken faith with her. She had a reputation to uphold, and in the dark underbelly of Perdim, your reputation was everything.

A glint of light drew her attention when Rezo shifted in his chair. Hanging from his belt was a large ring of keys. Her eyes grew momentarily before she grinned wickedly. She padded over to the bars, doing her best to make no noise, trying to judge the distance between the bars and Rezo.

When she glanced up at his face again, Safia noticed his eyes were still mostly on her. She frowned and looked around, trying to figure out what he was looking for. He couldn't really be looking at her. Not unless he had some kind of spell that let him see invisibility potions, which she doubted. They were hideously expensive.

Deciding to ignore it, Safia smiled again when she realized he was just within reach of her if she stretched full out. She squatted down in front of the bars and slipped one arm through. She'd barely extended herself at all when Rezo stood up and stepped backwards until his back was against the table.

He leaned there, arms and legs crossed, looking down at her. "Nice try."

A quick glance at her arm showed Safia the problem. With the lantern light spilling across her, the shadow of her arm and the rest of her was obvious. She hissed and yanked her hand back. The quiet chuckle from Rezo did nothing to improve her mood and she glowered at him. As much as she hated to admit it, the first point of this game was his.