CHAPTER FIVE
“If you don’t wake up right—”
“I’m up, I’m up!” Meesh rolled out of his nest of blankets swinging, though he was alert enough to avoid coming anywhere near Terio’s face. Which was good, because while she’d never stab one of her family, the worst time to push her was morning. The second worst time to push her was ever, but Meesh had always refused to learn that lesson.
Cima finished straightening her and Ackles’s respective cushions and coverings, tucking the latter into the old chest they’d scavenged from the dockyards a few years ago. Beyond general shape and function, it didn’t share much resemblance with the chest in Liddow, the one she could picture with prefect clarity if she just closed her eyes . . .
With a quick shake of her head, Cima finished her morning ablutions and gave the flop a once over with more attention than it usually deserved. They’d holed up in the ancient building for the last four years, once they’d found an understanding landlady to take their irregular payments in exchange for the work they—mostly Gaudi—did around the place. They had the top floor to themselves, which had become markedly nicer once they’d succeeded in patching the ceiling and scraped away all the rotten flooring. There were only three interior walls across the whole floor, all painted a different color and mostly covered in Ackles’s doodles. Meesh had contributed string art, much of which remained intact though he hadn’t added a new one in months, and Cima’s sketches filled in the remaining bare spots. They’d all had a role in collecting the various broken and well-used pieces of furniture that dotted various corners of the space. Gaudi had carried it all in, and Terio had fixed them up.
Cima had arranged it, found glass for one of the windows and sailcloth for the other, and kept it clean in the mornings when Terio’s patience was thinnest. While they’d never managed to source a trustworthy mattress, never mind five, blankets were easy to scour clean and they all had more than they perhaps strictly needed.
“I’m taking you with me to Hiane,” Cima whispered to her favorite one, made of wool so old and fuzzed it could have been silk, once dyed a brilliant blue and faded to a soft cloud over the sea, a hint of blue more than the color itself.
“I’m not taking any of this,” Terio said, pausing next to her and leaning her shoulder against Cima’s. “I think we should burn it.”
“My blanket?” Cima gasped, pulled the blanket closer to her chest, and was rewarded with Terio’s flicker of a smile. She was the only one of the crew who could provoke such a reaction in the slightly older woman before midday, and it still landed like a victory all these years later.
“All right, you baby.” Terio tugged Cima’s braid and smiled more fully down at the blanket. Maybe she remembered when she’d found it for her little sister’s crying friend, how she’d dried Cima’s tears with it, how she’d said Cima could come stay with them . . .
Or maybe she was thinking of the treasure they could go back for once the sun set. It wasn’t worth asking—with Meesh finally up, Ackles and Gaudi already downstairs, they didn’t need to linger. They needed to get where they were going, and solidify their plans.
For tonight, to secure more of their new hoard. For divvying it all up to buyers.
For the rest of their amazing, long, rich lives.
Within the hour they were gathered on the long sweep of beach past the docks, its faintly red and gold sand brilliant in the partial sunlight, the waves loud and the sightlines clear. No one would hear them, no one would sneak up on them, no one would know anything they didn’t want them to know. The wind, mild enough not to abrade them with sand, rewarded them with the clean salt smells of the incoming tide.
Cima leaned her back against Ackles’s and chewed on a piece of fish jerky while Terio laid out potential next steps.
“Gaudi and Ackles can hit jeweler’s row, and spread some of the pieces around. I’m going to get dressy and head to Terraces, see about finding a floor to rent. Cima, you wanted to deliver something to Rastanzi, then you can also get dressy and go see about getting a box at the bank.”
“And me?” Meesh asked, tracing designs in the sand and occasionally flicking grains at Gaudi.
“Oh can I assign you to things again? Or you going to complain the whole time like last night?”
“Come on Terio, you know it can be both.” He rolled to his back, shaded his face and stared up into the sky. “And I thought this was brainstorming, not assigning.”
“Come on Meesh,” Cima muttered, shifting to kick sand over his feet. “You know it can be both.”
“Ha. Very ha.” Meesh launched to his feet without any visible movements in between. His flexibility always made her body ache as though she were twenty years older than she was, but on this morning, with zero sleep, it made everything hurt.
“Are we all doing jokes this morning?” Ackles dug her fingers into the sand and pulled out something small and spiraled. She fidgeted with it and leaned her head backward to rest on Cima’s shoulder. “Because I haven’t had nearly the amount of sleep needed to be funny and haggle with jewelers.”
“We can save it a day,” Terio started, and everyone shook their heads in unison.
Meesh did a cartwheel—brat, he was barely younger than her and Ackles, but acted like he hadn’t hit twenty yet, all energy despite their lack of sleep. Cima glared at him, and he spun around them until she had to squint into the sun to look at him. Instead she rolled her eyes and turned her nose up, making a rich woman appropriate “hmph” noise, and he dropped to a squat and chuckled.
“It’s as good a plan as any—your first round of suggestions, Terio, not that idiot second one. Save it? That’s crazy. Bad enough we can’t go loot the trunk and dump it all on Ky’s counter.” Meesh bounced on his heels and extended his hand toward Ackles, who tossed him the shell she’d found without hesitation.
He held it up to the sun, but their luck had run out—it didn’t flash with precious gems or a mysterious, special inlay. Alas, they’d have to make do with the wild heaps of treasure they’d already found.
“Morning is nearly done. Late lunch at Hezill Café, half to evening?” Terio cocked her head, but she stared out to sea rather than meeting any of their eyes.
“Nah.”
Her gaze snapped to Meesh, and when he didn’t add anything she visibly braced herself. “And your alternate plan is . . . ?”
“I was gonna say I’ll go with you to the Terraces, because you never think air flow is important in a place to stay.” Meesh shook his head, doing an excellent impression of one who had suffered long and without mercy. “But better idea: I go to the grocer, load up on fruit and fresh everything, and we meet back at the flop to gorge ourselves.”
“Hate to say it,” Gaudi said cheerfully, picking his head up off his knees. He’d apparently had more to drink than the rest of them combined, and had the lingering after affects to show for it. Cima hadn’t even noticed him staggering—he’d really learned to hold his alcohol. Now he grinned, bleary eyes ever so slightly cleared. “But that’s an excellent idea. Almost as good as Cima taking us to the Liddow. I’ll come up with a good toast for it, later.”
His stomach growled, the sound carrying even over the long pull of the waves. Cima curled her aching hand tight, pushed exhaustion away, and laughed.
It wasn’t that funny, which they had to all know, but each of them laughed until they were breathless. Even Terio, who wiped the corner of her eyes, and Meesh, who collapsed back in the sand without a care in the world for how hard it would be to clean off once they left the beach behind.
Soon enough, they’d have people to clean their clothes for them.
Cima kept her pace sedate as she left the bank behind, though her entire arm ached. Everyone at the bank had been most pleasant once she demonstrated she had enough money to cover a year’s worth of the fee for a mid-sized lock box in the vault. Her clothes were the best she had, and along with her fancy coat, buttons out, they hadn’t truly questioned her seriousness. The flash of coin sold them, and then she’d had to listen to almost a full hour of detail about their security measures.
She knew they were good enough, because she’d never heard of anyone knocking the place over, and the employees dressed nice but not so nice she worried they’d take a dip into the boxes when no one was watching. Still, leaving the strand of pearls behind, security and newly struck keys and somber bank manager or no, had set a pang through her like . . . like she’d left Ackles locked in that cold metal box, trapped behind the thick vault door, no air and no light and no movement and—
Enough. She shook her head, took a handful of turns without focusing, and forced her muddled thoughts clear again. The pearls had been locked in a chest in a hidden basement in an abandoned house for centuries. A vault couldn’t be any worse.
Also they’re pearls, she reminded herself, trying to muster a laugh for her sentimental streak. They don’t want anything. They don’t need anything. They were grown inside a shell, so even if they could feel anything about being locked up, it might as well be contentment.
It would be nice to be contented. Riches would surely help with that, and in the more immediate future, sleep. She flexed her aching left hand as she walked. No matter how she stared at it, there was no obvious injury. It had been swollen last night, but whatever had cut her hadn’t left any visible marks.
At the next square she paused to eye the water clock, weighed how much time she had, and decided it wasn’t enough for either of her potential detours. Terio’s current favorite soothsayer was on the far side of the city in the Heights, and finding an appropriate medic was rarely straightforward. Without an actual wound to stitch, a seamstress wouldn’t be the right option, and the workers who provided aid at the docks were more often than not overbooked, much like the few doctors that would take a new, Muckers-adjacent patient, which meant a long way to go for uncertain assistance.
Besides, it was only sore. She’d had worse, and at least her headache had faded almost entirely. Her left hand would recover soon enough—to be sure, without an actual puncture it couldn’t be some kind of blood poisoning, and any other lingering issue would be curable. Before long, she could employ the best doctors in Broadside to solve stubborn ailments.
While she might have repeated the thought to herself several times on her walk back, it was a beautiful day and there was nothing else to distract her, so even that was for the best.
By the time she returned to the flop, Meesh had not only procured a veritable feast, but he’d set it on the table that usually held clothes and decorated it with various sentimental items they’d collected and managed to save over the years. One of his first pieces of string art, an enormous nautilus shell, a piece of driftwood that looked like a quirl bird, a smattering of glass jewels they’d proudly lifted before they knew better, a small, lopsided basket Ackles had woven out of beachgrass, a scrap of gorgeous silk from a purse Gaudi had cut early in their careers, a sketch Cima had made of Terio a decade ago on paper they’d scavenged from one of their early jobs, a shiny hairpin they’d unanimously refused to sell because Terio had lingered over it, and the shell from the beach that morning.
Cima blinked rapidly and made a show of sniffing the air to distract from it. “Is that . . . roast?”
“Just a few slices.” Meesh puffed out his chest and paused in folding blankets around the low table for each of them to sit on. “I did good, didn’t I?”
“Meesh . . . you did great.” Cima dangled two keys in her normal hand and lifted a shoulder. “My chore was successful, but not nearly as exciting. Lock box seventy-six at the Targon Holding on Sweets.”
“Suppose we can’t tell Terio it’s sixty-seven?” Meesh cocked his head, and sure enough a bare moment later the door flung open.
“No, no you cannot, or Terio will send you to the wrong building in the Terrace.” Terio herself paused in the doorway, and her expression flashed from satisfied smirk to blank to a small, genuine smile. “Well. Shit, Meesh. You really cleaned it up.”
“Not bad for a task I assigned myself, huh?” Despite the sarcasm in his tone, Meesh’s return grin was brilliant. “Now we just need our late two, because I’m pretty sure Gaudi will hang me out the window by my ankles if we eat the roast without him. I did get some fancy cheese though—it’s a soft one, you’re supposed to spread it on bread or fruit, so I got some for us to snack in case weren’t all back at the same time.”
“You already started, didn’t you?” Cima asked teasingly, but she didn’t hesitate to cross to the table and help herself rather than attempt to sell the false disappointment.
“Of course I did! You know how the inspectors do it on the Harborwatch—quality control. Making sure it’s safe for the people of the city. Or in this case, my people of the city.”
“Mm. Safe.” Cima snorted, and held out a piece of bread slathered in cheese to Terio. The bread was soft, with a nice crust that would be unlikely to rip up the inside of her mouth.
“It’s . . . still a little warm?” Terio’s voice wavered only the slightest, but Cima had to press her lips together to keep from grinning at the change in her older sister’s usual tone.
Of course Meesh couldn’t let the moment be too sentimental.
“That’s because I carried it home in my armpit,” he said with perfect seriousness, not a hint of a break in his expression.
Cima snorted, and Terio was still finding things to throw at him—one-handed, keeping the precious fresh bread safe—when Ackles and Gaudi returned.
They came in fast, and Cima whirled, a shock lighting up her limbs, sure it was about to go all wrong. It took a split second to understand they were breathless with laughter, and she forced her posture to relax. The surge of unnecessary energy shifted to a slight tremor in her hands—worse in the throbbing left one.
“I smelled roast from down the street,” Gaudi declared, his normal easy grace turning predatory as he approached the table. “I really held it together out there, but we raced up the stairs.”
“I won,” Ackles interjected, eyes fixed on the food in her sister’s hand. Terio pointed at the table and made a warding gesture to fend off her sibling’s attention.
“Because I had the money, and it weighed me down.” Gaudi replied, though more as an afterthought. He’d reached the table, and while there was no visible drool leaking from his mouth, Cima was sure they were only moments from such a response.
“You have longer legs and always carry more weight than I do but you know what?” Ackles dropped her coat and fishskin bag and took three long strides to fold herself to the floor at the table. “Who cares. I won, Meesh is a genius, and can we talk about our days while we’re shoving food in our mouths, please and thank you?”
They were in full agreement, and the next blissful stretch of time remained blessedly unmeasurable in Cima’s memory. Laughter, joy, countless questionable toasts from Gaudi, tasks executed as intended, only themselves for company and some of the best tastes her mouth had ever experienced. All with the promise of more ahead.
It was perfect. Cima could have lived in those moments forever.
Instead, mid-bite into a cirrabun, a flaky concoction filled with a sweet cream she’d never been lucky enough to eat before, a rapid series of thumps on the door interrupted the haze of delicious food and excellent company. Reality crashed back into focus so sharply it was as though she could hear the drip drop of all the city’s water clocks at once.
Ackles hooked Gaudi’s bag with her foot and dragged it under her blanket, and Terio leapt for the door, pausing to give everything a thorough once-over before she hauled it open. Each of them had a hand near the sharpest of their knives, and only Cima and Ackles relaxed when they recognized the half-sized figure revealed in the doorway.
“This is the third place I looked for you.” Pipsy’s voice, still unchanged though he’d begun the rapid growth of boys his age, filled the room with his indignation, as though he couldn’t figure out why they were in their own space in the late afternoon. “Ky’s got a job.”
Pipsy had been one of Ky’s runners for a little over a year—enough to know where to find almost all Ky’s preferred subcontractors, and still new enough to puff himself up with pride about it. He leaned around Terio to ogle the room, and his eyebrows lifted hopefully.
“You having a party? Got any extra?”
“What kind of job?” Terio asked, crossing her arms. “Cima and Ackles just saw her last night and she didn’t say anything about needing us.”
“Just came up. Council wants a new row in Cavella. It’s on the Mountain River bank, but nearer the edge bordering the Liddow. Arvyle special request, and two teams have already turned it down.”
Cima stretched her legs and considered standing, but waited on Terio’s response.
“So we’re not first choice?” Meesh cleaned his teeth idly with a knife. Cima shot him a look and he smiled, took the knife from his mouth, and spun it in between his fingers instead.
“She heard you had a late night and was gonna give you a break.” The boy shrugged, then planted his hands on his hips. “So? You too old and tired, or you want some actual money?”
It was a fair ask, any other day. This day, Cima hoped Terio would turn it down . . . but they’d never once turned down one of Ky’s jobs. They couldn’t have afforded to before, and doing so now, after the score last night, would only trigger her suspicions.
Or confirm them, because it was possible their fence was already suspicious, given the timing of this request. Had two other teams really turned it down? Then Ky should be offering—
“Is there a bonus, then? Last minute job, close to Liddow, people saying no.” Terio tapped a foot and tilted her head to the one window that showed the light outside. “Getting late, too. Or is this for tomorrow?”
“No, it was supposed to have already started.” Pipsy tipped his head back, as though straining to be taller. “Guess there was a request mix up on the Council’s side. Requests usually come from Smeaton, but Arvyle requested it special. Ky wants some progress to report tonight to keep from getting a penalty.”
“So. Bonus?” Terio drawled the word, as though they’d say no otherwise. At this point Cima was fairly certain they’d have to say yes, but negotiation wasn’t unheard of, and shouldn’t raise either of Ky’s eyebrows. Though a report on their picked over feast might, and they wouldn’t have much success bribing one of Ky’s runners. They’d each done a turn or five in the role over their early years, and knew better than most how very particular Ky was in determining, instilling, and maintaining loyalty.
“She said ten percent.”
“She said fifteen, and you’re trying to pocket five.” Terio tsked. “Greedy.”
“Hey—”
“I did the job too, Pip.” Terio uncrossed her arms and spread them wide. “Consider who you’re trying the game on. Run ahead and tell her we’ll do it for twenty, ask for your own bonus since you had to work hard to find us, and we’ll give you some leftovers.”
His eyes widened, and for an instant he looked like a Hiane child his age, all hope and wonder. But he was from somewhere between Muckers and Ossington, same as them. His cousin lived in the building next door, no less, and it was only a heartbeat before his face closed in. “I get to pick.”
“You get to pick and we get to stab if you get too greedy,” Meesh offered, knife still atwirl.
“Deal.” He darted around Terio and inside, and in a flurry of efficient motions he had a stack of food stashed in various pockets, crammed in hand, and shoveled into his mouth. His free hand hovered over a chunk of cheese and bread and stopped short as Meesh leaned forward with his knife.
Ackles chuckled and leaned her elbows on the table. “Let him have half. We’ll have to go down to Ky’s to sign, and with the job it’ll be stale by the time we get home.”
But Cima followed the boy’s gaze, which had fixed on Meesh’s multicolored interlocked triangles made of string scraps. It was almost like a kid’s toy, or an amulet, and she couldn’t help jumping in. “She’s right. And maybe that star, too. Kid could use a good luck charm.”
Before Pipsy could stiffen at being found out, Meesh relaxed and laughed. “Can never have enough luck in our line of work, huh Pip?”
The implied camaraderie erased the lines on the runner’s face like a wave on the beach. The moment his hand closed around the string art, Gaudi slapped the boy on the back. “And maybe next time you come find us first for a job.”
Cima held back the urge to smile—Gaudi had cemented the reassurance with exactly the right note. Gifts freely given might be rare, but a trade, a favor for a future consideration, that was simply good business; the kind that had kept a crew on the right side of the desperation line, more often than not. Ky wouldn’t blink when the boy dutifully reported the details—sure, they’d indulged in a celebratory meal, but also used it to help pay for future work. Nothing much suspect about that.
Pipsy left with a spring in his step, and Terio closed the door and returned to the table. In nearly the same moment, Ackles climbed to her feet and crossed to lounge by the window. She nodded, though she remained in her spot, the gesture confirming Pipsy had taken off in the direction of Ky’s shop.
“We have to, don’t we?” Meesh said with a sigh. “Guess it’s good I didn’t try to get a fancy wine or something.”
“We have to,” Terio agreed, and pressed her thumb against bread crumbs until she had enough to chew off her finger. “And it means she’s watching.”
“So we’re not going back to Liddow tonight.” Meesh made a disgusted noise, deep in his throat.
“We’re probably not going back for a few days—when has she ever been that easy?” Terio blew out her breath.
“Well, we can’t all go back any time soon,” Cima said thoughtfully. “But we do the job deep into night, help her catch up, maybe one of us gets hurt, just a little, one needs to roll off for an errand . . .”
Gaudi nodded enthusiastically. “I’m real good at fake tripping on things.”
“Yes,” Ackles said, and rolled her eyes even as she grinned at him. “And you’re not great at cat footing.”
“Sure, that isn’t my sneak gift, but I did just fine getting the Watch off your trail last night. I can fake trip into one of you, or drop something heavy close by, or—”
“Or I can go to the doctor.” Cima took her left hand out of her pocket and held it out. The swelling hadn’t gotten any worse, nor had it gotten any better. Not a dramatic injury, but not a faked one either, and one she already worried would affect any of the fine motions their sanctioned scavenging occasionally needed.
“Perfect,” Terio said immediately, though her gaze lingered on Cima’s hand long enough that Cima knew she’d hear about it later. “We work tonight, you go to the doctor tomorrow, maybe we’ll have Meesh stay back with you tomorrow to make sure you rest . . . Ky’ll still be happy with the three of us.”
“And we probably decide who the second one is depending on what we need for the job,” Cima offered, and the cut a glance toward Meesh. “Not that I don’t trust your hands around the chest, but if it’s a tight space in Cavella and they need you . . .”
“Yeah yeah.” Meesh waved it away, but winked to show he understood. “I’m a very valuable asset, all that cramming into tiny corners.”
“Besides.” Terio lifted her eyebrows—apparently they hadn’t told her about the close call with the Watch. “We’ll also have a letter saying we have every right to be in Cavella. It’s got to be good for a day or two.” She rubbed her hands clean and stood, with a brief but clearly regretful glance at the table. “Well, it’s a plan. Let’s portion out the money so it’s hidable—Pipsy’s quick, we don’t have much of a delay before Ky will expect us.”
They retreated to their respective corners to change and redistribute their loot. Cima pulled her braid loose and reached to refasten it, but her left hand refused to cooperate. It was as though calling attention to its soreness had made it worse, and she frowned at it as though it had purposefully offended her.
“Need help?” Ackles didn’t wait for an answer, but gestured for her to sit and knelt behind her. She didn’t tug or twist too hard, but Cima felt the tension in her sister’s usual light touch.
“I should have told you,” she said after a long moment, resting her left hand atop the right on her lap.
“You should have.” Ackles’s tone, normally thrumming with her next laugh or bright with expected joy, was markedly steady.
“I mentioned it last night.”
“Once. In passing.” A slight tug as she tightened Cima’s braid. “And not again. How bad does it hurt?”
“Not terrible. More an ache. I don’t think our bartendering helped, though, and now it’s getting stiff.”
“Will you be able to work?” Ackles ignored her sister’s made-up word, tightened the braid, and plucked the string to fasten it out of Cima’s unhurt hand.
“Of course.”
“Will you go to the doctor today if we tell Ky you can’t make it?”
“Absolutely not.”
A harder tug, for that, but Ackles didn’t argue.
“It’s too soon to go tonight, and if I slip off by myself, she’ll be able to set some of her other people to tail me. Even tomorrow will be risky, but if we split up we’ve got a better chance.” Cima wasn’t sure which of them she was convincing, or even why she was making an effort to avoid going back to the basement and the chest and the treasures. The thought of going there outlined itself in perfect detail in her head: ensuring the heaped debris over the front entrance was untouched, sliding in the side window, slipping into the basement, and laying eyes on the chest, studying the curve of the piled coins, lifting the delicate chain of diamonds and etched metal links and—she shoved the temptation away, and when she couldn’t curl her left hand, she squeezed her right hand around it. The pressure eased the ache, if only slightly.
“If it’s getting worse now, it might be even worse tomorrow.” Ackles tossed Cima’s long braid forward, making a point to slide the edge of it across Cima’s cheek.
“It’s not worse, it’s just . . . stiff.” Cima flexed her fingers, and something throbbed once in the center of her palm. She didn’t gasp, but Ackles’s stilled in her movements to stand for a heartbeat. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine, and it’ll be believable to Ky.”
Ackles continued silence indicated her chosen sister didn’t necessarily agree, but wouldn’t push her. Yet.
Despite its location, the job didn’t start as anything special. Ky gave them a list of specific pieces to keep a special eye out for, and told them twice that one of the Arvyles was very interested in what they found. She equipped them with a cart, axes, hatchets, pry bars, thick gloves, thick wraps for Meesh if he had to clamber through crawlways, and crates for anything of particular value, then sent them on their way.
Afternoon stretched into evening and they’d done an initial walkthrough, a more detailed search for hidden compartments—Cima tested the floor thoroughly in every individual room—and demolished two of the smaller rooms upstairs by the time Ky’s runner appeared with lanterns and a meal of hardtack and jerky.
Cima hadn’t expected to be hungry, but devoured everything handed to her in less than a minute and cast hopeful eyes in Meesh’s direction. He pretended not to notice, and she knew better than to prowl after Gaudi—the largest of them, he always had a deficit to make up, and no single feast would fix that. She resolved to ignore the rumble in her gut in the same way she was ignoring her hand, and returned to the job they’d entrusted to the one-handed member of their team.
Packing the reflective lenses of the sconces that had been left in half the rooms left her entirely too much room to think, and her thoughts wandered three dozen places before she heard Ackles calling her.
The other woman was halfway down the stairs when Cima poked her head around the corner from what had been the main hall. “Ci—relics below, I thought the house ate you! Gaudi found a false wall after all, and there’s a locked cabinet. Think you can get in?”
“When haven’t I?” She climbed the stairs with more enthusiasm than the task perhaps deserved, given the likelihood of their finding two incredible treasures two nights in a row was about as unlikely as a Council Seat showing up at the Barren.
Gaudi was systematically breaking down the wall with a broad smile across his face when she reached the room, and she noted she should probably take a handful of the fine wood panels down to the cart when she was done, to be a little more helpful.
“Why they’d hide something behind tijia wood and not expect someone to want the materials some later day beats me,” he said cheerfully, and Cima laughed.
“Not like anyone was kicking around thinking their houses would be meat for scavengers four hundred years later. Maybe tijia wood wasn’t so fancy then?” She paused to take in the room in the midst of its disassembly. The chandelier had long lost its candles and most of its refractive beads, but the material itself appeared intact enough to be worth something to Ky, and they’d need to take it down before they were done. No furniture, but the paneling of the walls was mismatched in what must have been an eye-catching way in another era. Three of the walls were paneled in various woods still common past the marshland that curved around the far west side of the city, and would likely end up in places like the Barren to fill in gaps. The tijia wood though, revealed once Gaudi had wiped a rag across the accumulated dust and filth, would make Ky excellent money and earn them another bonus. It had been shipped from a land across the ocean, one long lost in the Cataclysm, and had proven to be resistant to both fire and the rot that consumed most wood in a seaside climate.
“This why Arvyle was so keen to get us in sooner than later?” she asked, and Gaudi shrugged.
“Weird that it’s Arvyle involved at all. Scavenger contracts are under infrastructure, and that’s Smeaton.” Ackles paused in the entrance, her arms full of scraps.
“What’s Arvyle Seat, again? Artisans?” Gaudi lifted a truly enormous amount of wall, and Cima glanced at him, eyebrows raised. Must be hollow.
“Health and safety,” Ackles replied with great patience. She was the only one of them who paid any attention at all to the antics of their Council.
“Explains it then.” Cima waved a hand. “Some Watcher passes through, sees the fancy, reports it up the line, emergency order goes out before some other Councilor got wind . . .”
Ackles snorted and didn’t disagree, and Cima dismissed the ruling families from her thoughts.
“I think the wood wants out,” Gaudi said, maybe to Meesh, his voice carrying from the stairway. “It’s staying so nicely stacked!”
Cima thought of the smug door in the Liddow and chuckled before returning to the matter at hand. The gap Gaudi had already made in the tijia wood wall revealed a space twice the size of the usual crawlways, almost a full room in itself. It had been built into the bones of the house, if the bracing wood and beams were any evidence. From habit, Cima told herself to try and remember to check the shape of the house from the outside before they left. Maybe there would be a small bulge, or some telltale sign to help them in future projects.
No, she corrected herself as she tested the dustier, thinner planked floor in the newly revealed space. They wouldn’t be doing more jobs. But she could take a pointer or three in case there were ways to better hide a secret room in the house—or houses—they would soon be in ownership of, themselves.
Gaudi or Ackles had left a lantern in the rectangular room for her, and sheets of dust hung illuminated in the air. She led with her left hand, forcing it to be good for something, to clear any potential cobwebs ahead of passing through with the bulk of her body.
“Not today, spiders,” she announced, earning a snort from Ackles’s general direction. Barring any further secret compartments, the only thing in there with her and the crawling creatures was a vertical, double-doored cabinet. Each door was carved in sweeping, abstract lines, and the top had scrollwork so fine Cima knew even if there was nothing inside, it would earn them another bonus.
Luckily they had Gaudi to wrangle the thing down the stairs, because it stood solid and unmoving when she leaned her weight cautiously against it. Another hard-learned note of caution, to ensure it wouldn’t topple on her if she shifted too much with the lock. The lock itself, though, took effort to find.
Enough that she tried the doors again, just in case. They didn’t fly open, and the cabinet didn’t tip over, so she examined the knobs themselves. Someone had already rubbed a finger over them, revealing brightly colored inlays on each—chips of glass or pottery, or if they were really lucky, gemstones.
Good for their reputation that they’d found this after the incredible treasure of the night before, otherwise she’d be more than a little tempted to screw off at least one of the knobs and hoard it to sell to someone not under Ky’s thumb. A pointless temptation, really, as there wasn’t anyone fully out of Ky’s notice, and she never forgot a pretty trinket.
“Would’ve just had to take both, mess up the fastening,” she murmured, but she’d already forgotten the idea as she traced the fingers of her right hand over the swirls that tightened closer to the knobs. Most likely the hidden lock to pick, or a latch to finagle. She paused, unfocused her eyes, and stretched her left hand before repeating the gesture on the other door, and yes, there it was. A slight irregularity, sure enough repeated on the other door.
She touched her ear for luck and pressed into both at the same time. Nothing happened, so she tried shifting them up, then one up and one down, to the left and right. Nothing. She glared at the cabinet, which helped more than one might guess, and unwrapped her left hand for skin to stubborn wood contact.
“The door let me in, and you will too,” she whispered, and brushed feather light over the potential mechanisms. Finger and thumb of each hand squeezed around the thickened pieces on either door, and she pushed them each up and out, following the direction of the decorative shapes. Her first direction was wrong, but down and in worked, evidenced by the low clunk on the very edge of hearing.
“Got it!” she called over her shoulder, and was rewarded by multiple sets of feet approaching. She waited to be sure she had a cluster of faces in the newly revealed doorway—none of them trusted the thinner floor where she stood, and she certainly couldn’t blame them—then finagled the doors open with only a single protesting creak.
“Treasure!” Gaudi said, clasping his hands.
“Magic!” Ackles touched her ear.
“Money we don’t have to fence!” Meesh hopped on Gaudi’s back to get a better view over the others.
“It’s . . . paper?” Terio squinted, and Cima moved to the side so they all had a better view. The top three shelves were piled high with paper, and a peek indicated they were either in indecipherable handwriting, or a completely different language. Ky ensured all her work groups had at least one literate member, and they had all chosen to take advantage of the lessons. All of Cima’s crew could read, though Meesh had declared spelling to be useless and nonsensical, and never chosen to improve in it.
The bottom of the cabinet had three closed boxes, and Cima carefully pulled one out, tipping the top off with a careful finger. “Paper and pictures,” she answered, attention snagged on the beautiful face staring up at her. “Really nice portrait, some other frames underneath here, ooh, maybe they’ll be by some master the Council has records on.”
While she was sure the conversation continued behind her, she tuned it out and dropped into a squat to better examine the topmost portrait. Colors vibrant enough to have been painted and recently hung in the Council’s public building, deep blues and wine reds and flaming orange with hints of brush strokes that added a sense of movement. The woman stood by a curved wall with the ocean stretched below and beyond it. Her dark hair pooled in curls over her shoulder, strands lifted in a nonexistent breeze. Her eyes, the same summer blue as the water, stared directly out of the portrait, brilliant despite the shadow cast over her by the fantastical giant lizard climbing the wall on her left.
Cima checked her hand before her fingers brushed the surface—sure she’d feel the silk of hair, the warm scaled hide—and instead the touched the frame lightly and lifted it. “At least four more in this one, all in good shape.”
Terio knelt next to her and pulled out another box. More paper, mixed with smaller portraits. The third had small, unidentifiable figures, made of cleverly articulated wood.
Meesh grunted, disappointed, but Ackles laughed before returning to her work. “Ky will be pleased, at least. How often have we found art?”
“And maybe the documents will be records from before the Cataclysm that solve all the history mysteries,” Cima called after her, exchanging a quick smile with Terio.
“Not the best night we’ve ever had,” Terio murmured, leaning her shoulder briefly against Cima’s. “But far from the worst.”
And despite the truth of it, and how much effort they all put in preparing everything for Ky, sleep eluded Cima again that night.
Worse, the center of her palm itched, and the more she thought about it the deeper the itch grew, until she was sure her bones were made of delweed. At the exact moment she knew it couldn’t get worse, the itch spread to the tips of her fingers, then began an excruciatingly slow climb.
She stared at the ceiling and traced shapes in the darkness to keep hold of her sanity and ensure she didn’t shift enough to disturb anyone else, but all she managed to imagine were a pair of ocean eyes and the shape of an improbably large lizard, over and over again.