Saeldian had been the annoying clerk, and Kell had been the exciseman, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Ha!” Handsome elbowed Broken Nose in the ribs. “There! Deception by paperwork! I was right!”
“People thought it was us, though,” Broken Nose said. “So you stole Hullhollyn’s Storm Harp. Was it much harder than stealing Sharess’s Sigh?”
Hells. “No idea,” Kell said. “I don’t even know what that is.”
All three of them leaned forward. “You never heard of it?”
He hadn’t. Had he? It didn’t matter. He could lie about some things, but not a scam he hadn’t pulled. “Never. What is it?”
Handsome glanced at Krent, just for a moment. “He never heard of it.”
“It’s not like I can steal every hatpin in Baldur’s Gate,” Kell said with a scoff. “I need to sleep and eat eggs occasionally. I never heard of your Sharess’s Sigh. Whoever stole it must be good.”
Broken Nose slapped his thighs and grinned. “No such thing. I made it up to see if you’d claim it.”
He couldn’t sigh in relief. “I’m not the only smarty-pants in the room, then.”
Broken Nose puffed up at the compliment, and now Kell had them in his hand. “That’s settled, then. You’re better off timing your escape for closer to dawn than night’s heart, by the way.”
Krent kept his mouth shut this time.
Kell looked at the bricks across the room, bored stiff by all this nonsense. “In the morning on payday, the guards get the good breakfast.”
“That’s the day after tomorrow,” Broken Nose said.
“That’s enough time for cheese-foot Ralthar to come and gloatat me, then, isn’t it?” Kell yawned, stretched, and continued in a bored tone, “But it’s not a lot of time, so I guess you’d better plan faster. I can open that cell door, by the way.”
Handsome leaned closer. “If you can open that cell door, we can help you escape.”
“Since you can’t open that cell door, I think I’m helping you escape.”
“Getting out of this cell is a favor for a favor,” Broken Nose said. “Getting you out of Baldur’s Gate in one piece is another.”
He had agreed, because what choice did he have? Kell’s skill at opening locks freed them from Wyrm’s Rock. The Zhentarim smuggled Kell out of town like he was untaxed brandy.
Baldur’s Gate was ten years behind him. He wasn’t even the same person now. But here, on a comfortably down-at-the-heels promenade in Waterdeep with the song-drenched air smelling of cake and the sunshine warming his hair, he had become Kell the charlatan again. All it took was Saeldian, looking just the same.
He was in the sun. He was walking free.
To his left, a contralto trilled out a scale. Brightly dressed young people trooped out of a coffee shop, declaiming lines from a comedy. He was in Waterdeep, walking with Lorzok to a job that would take him home.
“You’re brooding,” Lorzok said.
“You’re right, I am.”
“Is it about anything useful?”
“No. Is there anything useful to brood on?”
“Yes. We still don’t know how to get you two inside,” Saeldian interrupted. “Lorzok doesn’t sing. You don’t have the right clothes. You don’t have unlimited invisibility—”
“Dad does,” Jubilee said. “Not unlimited invisibility. But he’s about Lorzok’s size. Wisdom is about Kell’s size too. They could borrow.”
“There!” Kell said. “All fixed.”
“What’s your cover, though?”
