Page 144 of The Discount Damsel

The ferret was curled up in the valley of Bradley’s bare chest, the apprentice’s breath ruffling his black fur. Millie held a finger to her lips as Fink lifted his head from his paws. Mercifully, the ferret stayed quiet, didn’t even uncoil, though he watched her with those dark eyes as she stole over to the bed.

Upon the nightstand was Bradley’s mug of chamomile tea, half drunk, and droplets of tea beaded upon the polished wood. Frowning, Millie swiped those droplets away so they wouldn’t ruin the finish. It wasn’t like Bradley to be so careless, but maybe he was that tired. She’d noticed the hollows deepening under his eyes as he threw every ounce of energy into the Tianzi Toad Treasure Hunt.

The sleeping apprentice still didn’t stir, not once, as Millie hovered by the bedside edge. A pang of empathy gave her pause. He truly was bone tired.

He also truly deserved this.

“Don’t rat me out,” she whispered to the ferret when her task was complete.

Fink huffed, insulted she would associate him with such a wretched creature. He used to be a prize ratter before his previous owner had lost him in a game of cards to Jaxson Sloop. Not that anyone had ever asked him. Not that he could tell anyone even if he wanted to.

Millie slipped out of the room, shut the door behind her, and practically skipped down the stairs to the dungeon. The evening was already approaching, but dinner wouldn’t be for several hours yet with Bradley dead to the world. She had plenty of time to finish her afternoon lessons with Duncan and Jax. She couldn’t wait to tell them of her own little adventure.

CHAPTER 60

THE NIGHT MARKET IN THE CURSED LANDS AND WHAT DIRK FOUND THERE

Dirk waited in a dead forest for twilight to fall.

The trees, once conifers of some kind, had been petrified long ago by Huang Fu’s curse. They rose like spears and crumbled like stone pillars, blocks and chips of ruddy orange and blistered beige littering the ground. It was the perfect place for a Mini Red to hide and nap until he could move about the barren wasteland unseen.

The Strip was preparing for the arrival of a sandstorm, so there had been no pickpockets to interview and/or snatch off the streets. Dirk had moved inland, back towards the village that sprawled through the shriveled forest. It was an oasis of life, since its village well hadn’t dried up yet, and such prosperity attracted those who wanted to steal a little for themselves. Those thieves would wait for the cover of darkness before emerging from their hidey-holes, and then Dirk would have his pick.

When the sky was a lovely shade of plum and speckled with stars, the Mini Red approached the village. He wasn’t the only one visiting this night—a stagecoach approached from the north, a group of riders from the east. Rich folk, to afford a coach and horses instead of mules. Dirk rubbed his hands with glee—the pickpockets would be out in force tonight.

The little dragon stayed high amongst the tree tops and moved like a whisper through the brittle branches. And he watched.

A few thieves tested the cabins and hovels on the outskirts of the town, but Dirk didn’t want a cat-burglar. He needed a pickpocket, which wasn’t to be confused with a thief, who would often rob at knifepoint. He needed someone sneaky, someone who could vet a mark at a glance and swindle them without getting caught. Someone as cool as ice and as smooth as oil.

Dirk diverted to the village’s only drinking establishment at the north end of the square—The Hollow. For those who couldn’t read the words carved into the door, a wooden sign hung from the eaves depicted a squirrel in the hollow of an oak tree. The tavern’s many diamond-pane windows were cracked open despite the falling temperatures, spilling heat and light and music into the night.

The little dragon landed softly on the roof, well away from the lanternlight striping across the village square and out of sight of the patrons of The Hollow’s beer garden, which hadn’t sported anything hardier than a few clumps of stubborn daylilies for over a decade. His tail barely whispered against the thatch as he tucked it around his paws. Dirk crouched and searched for his pickpocket amongst the crowd.

Stalls lined the square to form a night market, and it was bustling with activity. These cooler temperatures and moonlit skies were much nicer to the produce and masked the swindling of butchers as you bought filet and were packaged shank. Dirk spied a few candidates, but they all stole food. No one tried for coin or trinkets. These were starving men and women, desperate. They weren’t the caliber of pickpocket—a real artist—he sought.

Then the stagecoach arrived, the horsemen soon after, all of them hooded and cloaked. Apparently the populace was used to such mysterious visitors, as hardly anyone batted an eye. Or maybe they just knew it was safer to mind their own business. There could be daggers and swords and all manner of stabby things concealed under those cloaks, and you never knew where they’d been. A citizen of the Cursed Lands had enough to worry about already; no need to add a bacterial infection from a gut wound for being nosey to the list.

The travelers made for the weak ale and hot food of The Hollow, one of the horsemen flicking a silver coin to the stableboy who’d arrived with water for the tired beasts. The flash of lanternlight upon that silver coin had the same effect as the first shot of a cannon between warring galleons—it had begun.

The thatch creaked underfoot when Dirk’s claws drummed with excitement as the artists emerged and followed the travelers into The Hollow to try their luck. Not willing to miss a second of the auditions, the Mini Red rooted through a gap in the rotting thatch and slithered into the loft-style attic. It was cluttered with old glass bottles and molding beer kegs shrouded in dust—the bones of a bygone era when the tavern was profitable enough to serve both wine and imported beer. In the loft, he startled a barn owl, but the bird wisely thought better of attacking its sanctuary’s intruder. It fled out a different hole, the skeletons of its many meals rattling in the wake of its wings.

Dirk suppressed a gag, stifled a sneeze from the all the dust, and slunk out onto an exposed beam. Someone in the owner’s family was an avid forager, for bundles of herbs and fragrant grasses as thick as the bristle block of a broom hung from the rafters. Mesh sacks of onions and wild garlic were pegged to the beams, as was a thick slab of salted fatback.

From his perch, he watched the happenings of the tavern. A skinny boy retrieved a ladder and opened it under the fatback, from which he cut a wafer-thin slice to give to his waifish teenage sister cooking cornmeal griddle cakes by the gigantic stew pot bubbling away by the fire. Their father, Dirk presumed, poured and served weak ale, and their mother (also an educated presumption), spooned bowls of squirrel-and-pigeon stew for their customers, of which there were plenty this market night.

Folks played cards and dice, sang bawdy songs, and each conversation turned into a shouting match just so one could be heard over one’s neighbors. Every table was full to the gills, friends packed tight to the shoulder, except for the booth in the corner. It was furthest from the fire and would have been shrouded in darkness if not for a single candle in a clay bowl. It had been burning for quite some time, only a nubbin now about to drown itself in its own pool of wax.

The booth became the topic of the loudest discussion as some irate textile merchant demanded to know why it wasn’t available—for the third time.

“Because it’s reserved every second and fourth Friday of the month, and looky here”—the tavernkeeper kept his pitcher braced under the flood of anemic ale as he thrust a meaty finger at the nearby calendar—“tis a second Friday. Or are you one of them nouveau rich folks who can’t read?”

“Of course I can read!”

“Then maybe you’re deaf, cos I’ve already said the booth’s not available.”

“But no one’s in there.”

“Don’t hafta be. I get paid either way.”