What a dumbass thing to do.
“I needed the money to get you out,” I say, take a breath, then add, “and he wanted something the baron had.”
I can feel Oskar’s shock on the air. It gushes out of him. “He sent us after that baron? It was a setup. That job. Your father had us rob him?”
“He wanted it. You wanted it. I figured I could do the two together.” And that’s the truth. None of the others like doing jobs for my father; they don’t trust him. Rightly so—I don’t trust him either. I’m not the only one of us to know their father is a rich royal, but I am the only onewhose father claimed him. Not enough to give me any sort of station or even his last name. Just enough to use me on occasion.
But rat bastard or not, he pays well. The kind of well that gets food on our table. That keeps our roof from leaking.
Oskar’s glare is a brand on the side of my face as the carriage door groans open.
Leaning out the door is William Cecil, Baron Burghley, a lord and a secretary of Queen Elizabeth herself and a right piece of shit.
I got all my looks from my ma. Red hair, pale skin, tall stature. Cecil’s short and forgettable, balding brown hair and dull eyes. He blends into the edges wherever he is, which he prefers; makes it easier for him to be the head of the queen’s spy network.
Without another word, Oskar starts to pull Hal away—
But I hold out my hand. “I need it, Oskar.”
He freezes. Glares at me anew, this time in disgust. “That’s why you freed us?”
“No. ’Course not.”
He doesn’t believe me.
I’m not sure I do either.
Oskar’d been the one to grab the damn thing, and he works his hand into a compartment a lot of us have hidden on the backs of our shirts, a small gap stitched under our doublets. Keeps treasures hidden, and most people who’d search us assume it’s just a stiff part of our clothing.
But he wiggles out the object and tosses it to me in one careless flick.
I catch it. It’s wrapped up in a cloth still, thank God; Oskar hasn’t touched it. But I know it’s a brooch, no bigger than my palm, that lets off a faint magenta glow.
I tuck it to my side quick.
Oskar looks more tired than anything now. He shakes his head slowly, deliberately, letting that be enough.Don’t come back.
My eyes fall to the mud beneath my boots.
Maybe a minute or two passes.
By the time I look back up, Oskar and Hal are gone.
Cecil, though, is still watching me from the carriage, his beady eyes focused and intent.
“You have it?” he asks in a dull, flat voice.
My posture stiffens. Solidifies. No sorrow, no grief.
Around Cecil, I don’t have tells. Don’t have weaknesses.
I make for the carriage and hand the brooch to him. I’m not sure what it does; it’s vile fae crap, and I want nothing to do with it.
But I’m not a fool. I know when Cecil gets word of fae magic in Southwark and sends me trotting off to retrieve it for him that he keeps the nasty little glowing objects for his own use. For the queen’s own use. He’s told me what some of them do if I need to be warned before I interact with ’em: one could set fires without a spark or tinder; another could knock a person into a deep sleep with a prick of their finger.
Cecil tucks the wrapped brooch within his cloak somewhere I can’t see.
I expect him to leave. But he doesn’t, and I got nowhere else to go, so I stand there, staring at him, hoping for…something. A job, maybe. It’s the only way I can get money now.
