Secret Seller: Prequel to The Famine Cycle, an epic fantasy thief saga

1: A Finch in the Storm

It wasn't the first time I had watched Xaron drink a skin of wine at once, but it was the fastest. With lifted eyebrows and a reluctant smile, I shook my head as he wriggled the sack to drain the last drops, then threw it aside with a satisfied sigh. "How's that?" he asked, grinning lopsidedly at me. "All in one go!"

I mustered up every bit of lackluster in me. "Very impressive."

"You've been practicing," Nomusa observed from next to me on our patched divan. "Now why was I not invited?"

I shook my head and looked out the large bay window before us. Oedija, our home city, spread out before us in a shimmering sea of lights. Canopy, as we called our loft, provided a fine vantage point from atop a derelict tower. It was drafty, leaking, and often chilly from being up so high, but the view never failed to awe. In the daytime, it was even better as we could see all the way to the western seafront where the ocean extended ever outward, far and away to the lands from which my ancestors had come.

Xaron belched, drawing my gaze back inside, and I shook my head. He often acted the fool as well as dressed like one in bright coats and fine trousers, but Xaron was far more than his appearance. Barely taller than Nomusa and willow-lean, he still possessed a lithe strength suited to a man who often visited the gymnasiums. His position as our tracker and house-breaker kept him fit, even if his lifestyle tended him towards slothfulness. But most surprising was the secret gift he hid from all but us, his accomplices. For if it were known, we could all be killed for it.

He chuckled as I glanced at him. He didn't have the decency to look ashamed. "You're always invited, Nomu, you know that," he said to our third companion. "Airene, on the other hand, has to work on her constitution before I can be seen with her." He couldn't resist lightening the gibe with a smile.

"Pardon me for practicing moderation," I said drily. "A foreign concept for you two, I know."

"Don't listen to her." Nomusa waved a hand as if to disperse a foul odor. "It's not our fault she doesn't know how to relax."

I nearly rolled my eyes. Nomusa knew far too well how to relax in my opinion. She liked to indulge what Oedijan society deemed "vices" — drinking to excess and finding different strangers with whom to spend the night — though her own Bali culture didn't frown upon such behavior. She easily managed it, too, blessed as she was with a fullness of figure, natural charisma, and a finely featured face to leave a woman jealous — including me, in my weaker moments. While I had inherited a certain prettiness from my mother, I was but a candle to Nomusa's beauty. She used her talents to keen advantage in our work, manipulating those who had valuable information into tipping their hand, whether by guile or charm. She, too, bore a hidden past, if a less dangerous one. For if her parents hadn't been killed and herself exiled from her homeland eleven years before, she would be the ruler of her home chiefdom.

I didn't protest, but smiled thinly. "I just don't celebrate every small job we complete." Supposedly, this was what my companions' revelry was all about: satisfying another client in our line of work as Finches, surveyors of whispers and rumors, who turned happenstance and hunted knowledge into a profit. Yet after seven years of running down common mysteries, I found little reason to celebrate.

I continued. "Even a city guard could have discovered that it was a disgruntled apprentice breaking that potter's wares. Give me something significant, and I'll be happy to drink myself silly afterward."

"I doubt you would even then," Nomusa said snidely.

Xaron studied me for a long moment. Or perhaps he squinted because his vision was starting to swim. "I think the monsoons have you down again," he concluded. "Happens every year, doesn't it? It was bound to come again."