The Final Strife

“We can’t.” Jond woke from his brief slumber, throwing the words across the table like a dagger. Loot studied him.

“How am I going to get you what you need?”

“You don’t.” Jond turned to Sylah. “Sylah, let’s leave now.”

“No, Jond,” Sylah shot back. “Loot, we need someone who can make us inkwells.”

“What would two Dusters like you need inkwells for?” A sly grin crept up toward his ears.

“We don’t.” Jond tugged on Sylah’s sleeve. “Please, let’s go.” She shrugged him off.

“We can’t tell you.”

“Well, there’s no fun in that.” Loot’s white teeth gleamed in the light. He spun the spider brooch on his lapel.

“Can you do it? Can you find someone who can make us inkwells?”

“Of course I can do it. Come back in a strike. Dina, bring through the contract.” Sylah didn’t see who had written it up, but she was still shocked to see Loot so brazenly commit a crime.

“A Duster wrote that?” she breathed.

“You want an inkwell, one of the hardest things to acquire and without a doubt a ripping offense for everyone involved in this room, and you’re worried who wrote the contract?”

“Writing’s a ripping offense too.”

“And that’s my specialty.” He put the paper in front of Sylah. She glanced it over. In exchange for one favor to be redeemed at a later date, Sylah Alyana will receive two inkwells—

“And stylus, he’s missed the stylus,” Jond interrupted her thoughts.

“Surely they come as a package?” Sylah asked Loot, and his only response was a wink.

“Dina, would you add in stylus?” The contract was whipped away and returned a moment later. A favor is defined as a debt of equal or greater worth than the request. The Warden of Crime may call on you at any time in the next three years to fulfill this debt and you will have 24 strikes to complete it. Forfeit of this debt is death—

“Death? Sylah, really? Death?” Jond’s whisper cut through her thoughts.

“Fancy breaking the law together?” Loot handed Sylah a pen.

A pen! She didn’t even know there were any on this side of the river. She put it between finger and thumb and signed at the bottom of the page. The second signature she’d ever written, it still looked pretty good to her. Loot followed hers with a dignified flourish.

“See you in a strike.” He placed two clear vials of liquid on the table. Sylah downed one. Jond looked at her questioningly.

“Drink it, it’s the antidote to the poison in the tea,” Sylah hissed.

Jond’s eyes widened into two fufu bowls. He reached shaking fingers to the vial before drinking it.

A strike later they returned. Fayl led them down to a darkened side room Sylah had never been in before. A cloaked man, with skin like coal and eyes just as brittle, stood behind a makeshift workbench. The crackling fire was bordered by an assortment of tools burning red with heat. Sylah wondered if it was hot enough to crack the skin of a joba fruit.

The man refused to look either of them in the eye, as if seeing them, truly seeing them, would make the crime a reality. He grunted at them to hold out their wrists.

Both inkwells would cover their brands.

A strike later the smith dunked two inkwells into a bucket, the hissing water cooling the molten metal. He pulled them out with tongs.

“Money?” He barked at Fayl, who had watched the whole process.

“I’ll take you to Loot,” Fayl said to the smith, his hands on his dagger by his side. “Sylah, you can make your own way out?”

She nodded, still mesmerized by the intricate piece of metal on the table.