Within These Wicked Walls(51)

One at a time, then.

This way was tedious, and gave me a little bit of a headache, but it was better than no progress at all. Jember wouldn’t let me practice on a slab of wood until I mastered the strokes. And it had to be absolutely perfect before he would give me a disk of silver—one disk, because the church didn’t believe in supplying too many at once for something so expensive. If I had known I’d be staying here, I would’ve brought a few from the castle. As it stood, I’d just have to get in enough practice to not mess up.

Easily done.

The cellar door creaked open, and I finally looked up and rubbed my eyes.

“Had to pretend to be fascinated by the archbishop’s new horse for the past half hour,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Massive beast. We could eat meat for a year.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You could stand to eat such a beautiful creature?”

He looked at me like I was crazy, raising his eyebrows right back. “People shoot lame horses all the time. Why waste all that good meat?”

He had a point. And a young horse probably hadn’t seen much hard work yet, so the meat might be more tender. My mouth was watering at the prospect of a dream. “It won’t be lame for a while if he just bought it.”

“Who’s to say?” His tone sounded vaguely underhanded. He took a small brown package from his pocket, groaning a little as he sat beside me on the bed. He quirked his brows at my work. “Hm.”

“Is it wrong?”

“You tell me.”

I lifted his amulet level with my chalkboard, comparing the two. “It looks right.”

“Then why’d you doubt yourself?”

“Because you said ‘hm’ like you disapproved.”

“You want to die, girl?”

“Of course not.”

“Then start over.” He swiped his sleeve on my board, wiping away all my work before I could stop him, then took off his own amulet and handed it to me. “And this time be sure.”

He opened the brown paper and held it between us. I grinned and snatched up my triangle of baklava. Warm and flaky and crispy and dripping precious gold. I took a big bite, leaning my head back so the honey running out would get in my mouth instead of my lap.

I hummed a joyful tune, licking my lips.

“Glad you’re enjoying it,” he said. “Because it’s your lunch.”

“Well, that’s okay, I can—” I could buy us some groceries with my bonus money. But he’d hate that, out of principle. Anyway, with the kitchen a mess there’d be nowhere to put them. I was used to getting by on little. I would “survive.”

“Living in that castle hasn’t stretched your stomach yet? Surprised.”

“Oh!” Speaking of the castle … I fished out the folded note from my pocket and held it out to him. “Saba wanted me to give this to you.”

There was the slightest hesitation before he took it, but no hesitation whatsoever when he opened his drawer and dropped it in.

I chewed on my lip. “Don’t you want to read it?”

“While I was out, it occurred to me,” he said, licking honey off his fingers, “you’ll need a special thread for the hyena’s amulet.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you don’t want to read it?”

“Do you want a patronage or don’t you?”

“I’d prefer a license, but it’s a little—”

“Too late for that,” he said at the same time I did. “Our concern now is that thread. It’s woven with pure gold, very rare. The church doesn’t keep it on hand and, for obvious reasons, I never thought I’d need it again. So we’ll have to go shopping.”

I felt my nose crinkle. I was surprised I knew what the word “shopping” meant, Jember had used it correctly so few times growing up. “Food and medicine are one thing, but you expect me to steal gold? They’ll notice it’s gone.”

“No, they won’t. No one frequents where we’re going.”

I stood up and paced a little. “I have money now. We can just buy it.”

“The closest place that sells it is half a day’s journey. Besides, what would be the fun in that?”

Seeing the spark of mischief in Jember’s brown eyes made my heart kick off with excited anticipation. And, God forgive me, I only felt the slightest bit of guilt as my lips slipped into a grin.



* * *



The sun was setting by the time we left on our errand, but the moment we exited the city gate and began walking west I realized it didn’t matter that the market was shutting down for the night.

“You didn’t say we’d be robbing a grave.”

Jember let out a breath of a laugh. “But I did say they wouldn’t notice.”

Twenty minutes later, we stood in front of the stairs that led down into a tomb. Jember leaned on the small shelf-like handle of his maqomiya, then removed a long candle from his pocket and held it out to me.

“How did you find out the thread was here?” I asked, flinting the candle to life. “You haven’t faced a hyena in twenty years.”

“I’ve been shopping in here before.” He led the way down the stairs, through a crudely constructed gate, and into the dark.