The Nameless Assassins

Chance Encounters

A flash of bright hair, golden and shimmery, beneath last season's tricorn hat. A slender figure, so much like my own that it might have been my own, clad in an Iruvian-style loose silk tunic and leggings under a heavy Akorosi cloak. Silhouetted for one brief moment in the doorway of the Iruvian Consulate, he slipped out the back way – exactly the way I would have slipped out, had I wanted to avoid Doskvolian eyes. I didn't even need to see the curve of his cheek or the shape of his hand before I flung myself around the corner, heart thudding, knowing that the first place he'd check would be my dark corner – exactly the dark corner he would have chosen, had he wanted to spy on the comings and goings at the Consulate.

Because I knew him. Oh, how I knew him.

And because he knew me. Oh, how he knew me.

I fled.

Halfway across the district, I finally calmed down enough to slow to the brisk trot of a servant running errands, or perhaps a shopkeeper's assistant delivering a late-night package to some lord or lady. Thanks to its wealthier population, the Bluecoats patrolled Brightstone more assiduously, meaning that they were less amenable to the level of bribes I could afford. (Of course, they had their price. Everyone had a price.) But luck was with me tonight, and I hit the bridge over the canal that separated the nobility from the sailors and dockers without getting accosted. As soon as I reached the Docks, I lengthened my stride again – not to the mug-me-please-mug-me-now scamper that drew all sorts of attention from the unsavory elements that hung around the taverns, brothels, and tattoo parlors, but to the purposeful I'm-busy-and-if-you-delay-me-my-boss-will-be-very-angry-and-trust-me-you-don't-want-to-see-him-angry jog that sailors and dockers alike respected. Dodging a group of workmen who cursed and sweated as they lugged a huge wooden crate towards a looming warehouse, I cut straight for the bridge to Crow's Foot.

Back in my home district at last, I flung myself into the shadowy alley behind a rickety boardinghouse and hunched over, gasping for breath. The most pressing question now was: Did I want to be a Lampblack or Red Sash tonight? Wracking my memory of recent gang fights, I tried to guess which streets belonged to which gangs at the moment, and which affiliation would be more likely to warn off petty criminals dumb enough to bother me. Unless something had gone seriously sideways during my surveillance shift, the Crows' territory should still lie to my west, extending from the Crow's Nest tower out to the river, so none of their followers would molest me on my way home. Thanks to the way my features looked either Skovlander or Iruvian depending on the lighting and the observer's bias, the newer, dumber, or drunker Lampblacks and Red Sashes would consider me a fellow countrywoman and let me through – if I got my outfit right, that was. Of course, I could run through any interlopers with my sword, but that was messy and noisy and would annoy either Bazso Baz or Mylera Klev. Also, in the event of a death, it would attract the attention of the Spirit Wardens and of any Bluecoats hungry for a bribe. (Which they always were.) I was trying to conserve my rent money.

Oh, whatever. Yanking a red silk scarf – which looked more or less black on the unlit backstreets of Crow's Foot anyway – out of a coat pocket, I wrapped it around my waist twice and knotted it securely on the right side, away from Grandfather's hilt. Then, with the ends fluttering along behind me, I sauntered down quiet Hulliver Lane, with its crumbling stone manors that housed up to a dozen families each, and swung onto the wider Cinder Street, where taverns and brothels jockeyed for business while smithies and butcher houses catnapped for the last few hours until dawn. Here a prostitute giggled coquettishly at a docker passing her corner; there a tattooed tough handed a nervous young nobleman a packet of drugs; and in the distance a couple Bluecoats strode out of an inn, looking so smug that they must have extorted a significant sum from the innkeeper.