Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(29)

From there I could reach the rooftop with my fingertips. I threw my bags up and then pulled myself after them. I sat down to catch my breath and let my pounding shoulder rest.

Where Ravenna’s roofs had been angled and tiled, Yvain’s roofs were flat and uneven, the difference in height between each building varying greatly.

I grabbed my bags and headed for another roof, jumping the gap easily. I landed hard. The roof creaked below me. I stumbled away just as a rotten part of the roof collapsed. A puff of dust erupted from the new hole.

I set my bags down and approached cautiously.

The rest of the roof seemed stable. I peered past the dust and darkness to find an empty and abandoned room. Maybe this was just what I needed.

I dug through my bag until I found my grappling hook, and then used my rope to slide down into the dark room. If this didn’t work out, I’d face a hard climb back up. . . .

The room was empty and abandoned. The windows and door had been boarded up, the floor and walls covered in dust and cobwebs.

It was perfect.

No one had been in here for a long time, which meant no one would start poking around now. The boards covering the windows were rotted and they easily popped off the nails holding them in place. It would be simple to slide them on or off the nails, to replace them while I was inside or gone to make it look like nothing had changed. I arranged my two bags in the corner. Then I stared at them.

Now what?

I’d found somewhere safe to stay. Well, safer anyway. A ghost wouldn’t find me in here. But there were lawmen after me now, for a crime I didn’t commit. And I couldn’t walk around Yvain dressed as I was.

My stomach growled. I sat on the dusty floor and went through my things. I had two purses of coins, but one contained my holy coins, which weren’t for spending. I poured the money from my other purse into my hand and counted. I had maybe enough to buy some food and local clothing but not much else.

I’d thought I was poor before. But the hard times my Family had fallen on were nothing to what I was feeling now. I’d never gone hungry at home. I’d just always compared myself to Val and the wealth of the Da Vias.

I swallowed and returned the coins back to their bag. The Da Via wealth would only grow, now that they didn’t have to compete with the Saldanas for jobs.

They had so much money already, though. Of course, I didn’t know the other Da Vias. I only knew Val, and he wouldn’t have been part of murdering my Family just for the chance at more wealth. Or, at least, I’d thought I knew Val.

But the Da Vias had gotten in somehow, and I kept picturing Val returning my key to me after he’d lifted it at dinner.

I clutched the key against my chest. The house was gone, of course. The key was useless, with nothing left to lock, nothing left to protect. But I couldn’t give it up. It was all I had left of my home. And its weight served to remind me what I needed to do.

I needed to find my uncle, enlist his help and his knowledge of the Da Vias. And then kill them all.





thirteen


IT TURNED OUT FARADAY AND THE OTHER PRIESTS HAD done more than just pack my belongings. I found some bread and hard cheese, a skin of wine, and Butters’s saddle blanket all tucked inside. I wished I’d known about the saddle blanket before my cold night in the boat, but now it would serve as a bed.

I made a quick meal of the food and mapped out my next steps.

I would go out when the sun set—sticking to the roofs as much as possible to avoid any more ghosts—and begin my search for my uncle. The lawmen had mentioned the mystery of a serial murderer. If I were a gambler, I’d put money on it being my uncle. He must have created some way to find jobs. One didn’t give up being a clipper just because he’d been ousted from his Family and home.

The second plan, though, the most important one, was harder. I had to find the Da Vias’ Family home. Then I had to find a way to get inside. Both of these were things my uncle could help me with.

There were over fifty Da Via clippers, which didn’t even include those who were too old, or women who were pregnant or had recently had a baby, or even younger children who weren’t clipping on their own yet. Somehow my uncle and I would have to kill all of them before they dropped us.

I closed my eyes and pictured slipping my knives into their hearts, cutting them down with my sword, forcing them to drink my most painful poisons. They deserved it and worse for what they’d done to the Saldanas.

I took a nap, using the robe I’d worn to escape the monastery as a pillow. I slipped off my mask, tucking it safely beneath the robe, my fingers tracing the crack along its surface. My injured shoulder pulsed with the beat of my heart, lulling me to sleep.

I dreamed of Val. His lips on my skin, his calloused hands on my flesh, and when I woke, my body burned, missing him. But my heart burned more with missing my Family.

My muscles creaked, still stiff and sore, but the nap had helped to clear the last bit of cobwebs from my head.

I tightened my cloak around my shoulders and loaded up my weapons. The empty room had grown even darker with the setting sun. It couldn’t be that hard to find one old clipper in a city that abhorred death.

I slipped out the window. It was time to hunt.

Nothing.

I found nothing in my night of hunting.

I’d traveled along the rooftops, searching the dark alleys and streets for signs of my uncle, for bodies or sounds of death or any clue, really, that somewhere in the city a clipper conducted business. But all I found were ghosts, lazily traveling the streets, doubling back when they came to a canal or crooked bridge.