Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 1)

“A business proposition.”

I laughed and tightened my hold on her back, squeezing her against me. “You? Take me down again? Things have changed a little since that last time.”

“Think so? You don’t even know half of my tricks yet. Do you really want to take that chance? Everyone’s watching. I think I even spotted Paxton across the way.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m helping you, Jase. I’m giving you a chance to do the right thing. My friends are not your problem. Let them go.”

“I don’t need an outsider, much less a Vendan, to tell me the right thing to do.”

“Maybe you do. You promised me you would never harm them. Holding them against their will when they’ve done nothing is harm. Your word means nothing?”

Neither of us were smiling now.

“A large dinner out in the gardens is planned tonight for family and friends. It would be better if your friends came along quietly with us. As our new guests, their absence would be both suspicious and insulting.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is there anything that you Ballengers don’t find insulting?”

“Plenty. It’s just that you Vendans are so accomplished at dishing insults out.”

“Fine. They’ll come to your little festivity, but they’re free to leave when it’s over.”

Her gaze was steady, unrelenting.

Rahtan as guests and in possession of their weapons, which included quivers of arrows, when we still didn’t know who had started the fires?

Kazi’s gaze held, as unblinking as a statue, her loyalty to them fierce. I finally looked away, calling to Samuel. “Show our guests to the Ballenger Inn. Make sure they have the best rooms and everything they need.”

Her finger gently pushed on my jaw, turning my attention back to her. “One last thing, Patrei. No more tails. Call them both off. I am either your honored guest with whom you have an agreement. Or I am not.”

How did she know? The decoy, I understood, but Garvin was damn near invisible.

“No more tails,” I agreed, and I brought my mouth to hers before she could say one more thing. I was through with conditions.

I thought the kiss would be awkward, strained, but she relaxed in my arms, creating the show that she promised. I pressed her against the wall—the image that would burn in everyone’s memory and erase the last one—but that was the last of the show, at least for me. I felt her tongue on mine, the warmth of her lips, breathed in the scent of her skin and hair, and we were in the wilderness again, and nothing else mattered.

* * *

We sat in a dark corner of the tavern sipping a cool ale. Priya fanned herself with a tattered menu, and Mason absently spun a spoon on the table. After seeing Wren and Synové escorted to the inn, Kaz

i had gone back to Tor’s Watch with Jalaine and my mother.

“She made you,” I said.

Garvin swilled back the last drips of his ale. “No. She never looked my way,” he answered. “But when you stopped her outside the apothecary, she did spot me in the crowd.”

“She’s seen you before?”

He bit the corner of his lip, still chewing on some memory. “I didn’t place her when Mason first pointed her out to me. I was too far away. But seeing her up close—I know her, somehow, from somewhere, but I’m not sure where.” He told me that when he used to run wagons sometimes he went into Venda, mostly for the Komizar, sometimes for merchants in the jehendra, but the last time he was there was about seven years ago. “How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

He rubbed his bristled cheek, trying to recall where he had seen her. “That would make her just a kid the last time I saw her. What about her name?”

“Only Kazi. No surname. But she goes by Kazi of Brightmist. I guess that’s the—”

“It’s one of the poorest quarters in Sanctum City. Well, truth is, they’re all poor, but Brightmist is an especially bad one. Don’t let the name fool you. Nothing bright about it. Never sold any goods there. No one in those parts has two coins to rub together. Her name doesn’t sound familiar though.”