You might be wondering why I would trust a man like Yannec, and the truth is, I don’t. I’ve known him since Fortune sent me to his scullery in Castle Falbirg; I trust his resentment and I trust his greed.
I know when Yannec rode with me and Gisele to Minkja, it was to serve dinner to fine ladies, not to sling grease in this dingy tavern.
I trust that Yannec thinks hedeservesbetter than this, even though it’s his own damn fault for thinking the best cook in backwater Sovabin could hold a candle to traders from all over the world. (If anything, his success was Joniza’s doing, for sneaking spices into his pans when he wasn’t looking.)
And I trust the trinity of want: I bring him profit and, since he’s my only fence, power. He sees me, even if it’s just as a resource, and he won’t jeopardize his cut of the profit.
“Hundred and sixty,” he finally concludes. “After my cut. This’s a good haul.”
That still leaves me short, like I’d feared. “Would you consider . . . loaning me money?” I venture. “Against a future job?”
(Am I planning a future job? No. Does he need to know that? Also no. I’ll be long gone before he figures it out.)
He opens the strongbox and shakes his head, counting out stacks of coins. “Ja, but not tonight. We just paid out wages, so we’ve only eightygildenin cash. You get the eighty now, and I’ll take the goods to the buyer before dawn and have the other eighty for you tomorrow.”
I press my lips together, trying to smother a frown. I don’t like it. Eightygildenis a lot of money to leave on credit. And it’s also too much for a tavern to have lying aroundafterpaying wages.
Joniza was the one to teach me the trick to sleight of hand. There was one person I trusted in Castle Falbirg, and that was Joniza, because the bard taught me how to lie properly. Or, more romantically, she saw a little girl exhausted and covered in soot and grease, and decided to share a bit of her magic.
“Your hands must always be moving,” she explained, slipping cards through her elegant brown fingers. “Both of them. People know it’s a trick, right? So they try to watch your hands to see it for themselves. But they can only watchonehand at a time.”
Joniza taught me the tricks behind card games like Find the Lady. How to palm a tin coin and slip it into someone’s pocket. How to pluck a silk daisy from behind someone’s ear.
But what she wasreallyteaching me was how to read a person.
How to keep their attention where you want it. How to make them see only what you want them to.
Yannec never bothered learning any of that. So he doesn’t give me anything to look at other than the strongbox he’s rummaging in, the one he claims doesn’t have more than eightygildento it. According to his mumbles, he’s counted out twentygildenalready.
I can see at least another hundredgildenin there in hard yellow coin. Another fifty in rolls of white pennies.
I don’t know why he’s lying and I don’t care. There are all manner of things a man could spend coin on in Minkja, for good and for evil. What matters is that he thinks he can lie tome.
“If you only have half the money, then you get half the jewelry,” I tell him coldly.
He slams the strongbox shut. A glitter in his eye says his temper’s stirring. “You got another fence,Rohtpfenni?”
There are plenty of other fences down in the Lähl district, but we both know I can’t go there alone by night, and a Reigenbach servant has no good reason to go there by day. Besides, they all owe a cut to the Wolfhünden, and that cut will come out of my share, not theirs.
Still, I won’t be yanked around. “You sure don’t have another supplier,” I return. “No one else is bringing you hauls like this. Deal clean with me, or you won’t deal with me at all.”
Nothing stokes his ire like jealousy, but in the past, he’s caved easy enough at a threat. Tonight that glint in his eye sharpens. He’s staring narrowly at me—no, my cheek. One meaty finger jabs my way. “What’s that?”
I feel a draft where the gauze hid the ruby teardrop. A moment later, a white square flutters onto the desk.
For the second time tonight, a hand clamps around my chin like a vise.
“Who else are you selling to?” Yannec demands, dragging me up to the tips of my toes. Ragne lets out a startled chirp and squirms in my hood. “A stone like that’s worthtwicewhat you brought me!Who is he?”
“Bold of you to assume it’s a he,” I squeak, trying to wriggle free to no avail, “but it’s no one, you dolt. The margrave’s coming back tomorrow, and this is a gift for the wedding. I can’t sell it.”
“Pig shit.” He digs at the ruby with his free hand, but it doesn’t budge, only grating a little, like a molar rooted to my cheekbone. “What devilry is this? Why won’t it come off?”
“Itoldyou, it’s a gift, it’s a special kind of glue—”
He whips me by the jaw like a wet rag. My teeth ache from slamming together.
“Stop lying,” Yannec growls, breathing hard. He leaves off picking at my face to grasp about the papers on the desk. My breath catches when he finds what he’s looking for: a dull knife.
