The Nameless Assassins

Observations

I skipped lunch.

Not because I'd killed my appetite along with Kamilin, as I pleaded to the others, but because I needed my last remaining silver slugs for something more important.

"Never jump into relationships too fast," Mother used to warn in Skovic, on those melancholy days when she found the Well's flames oppressively bright. Subsequent to the famed romance in Lockport, the fair maiden departed the shores of dark, starry Skovlan for the black crystal spires and celestial fires of U'Duasha – and, of course, the snake pit that was her new husband's family. With far-flung branches tangled in internecine quarrels, cycles of murder and vengeance played out across generations, presided over and (some whispered) encouraged by the Patriarch. Scion of a cutthroat leviathan blood processing empire herself, the lovely young bride plunged in with gusto. Mother proved such a perfect partner for Father that some of my outmaneuvered aunts, uncles, and cousins even insinuated that the Prince of Shadows himself had something to do with their marriage.

Perhaps. Ixis played the long game – as did Mother.

But sometimes, after a long, lonely night during which my twin brother and I huddled in a closet, clinging to each other for comfort while the latest assassination – character or otherwise – raged through the halls, we'd creep out to find her standing by the window nearest our bedrooms, staring fixedly out across the city. Silently we'd join her, and with her watch the skies until the last glittering stars surrendered to the onslaught of dawn. Then, absently, she'd pet our heads and say, "Always take time to observe and evaluate. Remember that those you trust most can hurt you worst."

Now, an isle away, I followed her advice: For the better part of a week, I investigated my new crewmates. Turning down a few contracts I could ill afford to lose, I personally tailed Faith and Ash until I formed a sense of their habits, and then I dispensed the last of my slugs to buy informants.

"She's a disturbing one, is Mistress Karstas," reported a mousy-looking archivist from Charterhall.

Although it lay just across a canal from Crow's Foot, this district housed such lofty establishments as government offices, banks, Charterhall University, the Bellweather Crematorium – and the Sensorium, an elegant building with a marble façade kept white by weekly washings. This was one of the first places Faith headed after we earned our railcar. Peering through a window, I watched her traipse down a massive hall lined with rows and rows of comfortable couches. People sprawled on them like opium addicts, losing themselves in the memories of others. Some sighed and smiled; others twitched and convulsed; efficient attendants checked them periodically. Faith vanished into a back room where I couldn't follow, and I turned my attention to bribing the clerk who ran the memory archive.

Unfortunately, he wasn't a natural at espionage. "I want facts, please," I reprimanded him. "Not your personal opinion. I will judge whether Mistress Karstas is disturbing or not."

Looking abashed, he ducked his head so far that his bowler hat toppled off. Barely catching it, he muttered, "She comes in once a week on average, I hear for at least ten years. Sometimes she has a spirit bottle – those times she sells the ghost to Madame Keitel. Other times she comes to...experience. More often than not, she requests a particularly violent and gruesome memory."

That was another subjective statement, unless the Sensorium officially categorized certain memories as "violent and gruesome." Somehow I doubted it. "Such as...?" I prodded.

The man actually shuddered. Then the words came spilling out, as if he couldn't bear to hold them in. "She just comes in, wearing in that fussy pink dress, the one with the big sash and all the layers and layers of ruffles, and she waltzes past all the normal patrons – the ones who want to live a happy memory or a sensual memory or even a memory of a classroom lecture – you know, memories from people who are still alive – " In his agitation, he turned his bowler hat over and over his hands.