“Did she look for me?” I bark at Stirling over the roar of music. We’re on the mezzanine layer above the dance floor. I pass Stirling a fresh drink and we clink glasses. Both satiated for the evening in all the important ways.
“Woman in the black dress? Slit up to her hip?”
I nod. “I couldn’t see who it was from up here but, yeah. She came out of the club prison livid. She looked for you alright. Looked like she was gagging for you.”
“Yeah, gagging to murder me after what I did.”
She huffs a laugh out, “Must you always play games? Why can’t you just enjoy the love of a good woman?”
“Says the biggest player I know.”
“I resent the accusation,” she says, elbowing me.
“I note you didn’t deny it, though.”
“Go fuck yourself, sister. Who was she anyway?”
I laugh and take another sip of my drink. But ignore Stirling’s questions. Now that Quinn has gone, the evening has lost its sparkle.
Stirling’s face falls. “For the love of fuck, tell me it wasn’t Quinn?”
I stay silent and sip my drink.
Stirling throws her hands up. “The whole point of coming here was to avoid her. What is wrong with you? I thought you hated her?”
“With all my heart.”
Stirling opens her mouth to respond and then closes it and shakes her head. “What about her?”
She points at a tall, thin girl wearing a suit much like mine. “She’s a sword maker from the next city.” Stirling knows everyone. To be honest, she’s probably fucked half of them. She’s a Resourcer by trade. It’s literally her job to know everyone. Or at least know someone who knows someone who can get the job done, or find the item you need, or source a ship, on and on it goes. There’s literally nothing she can’t acquire.
It’s exhausting. I keep a much smaller circle. I suppose that’s the prerogative of an Assassin. Don’t want too many people knowing your face. Or that was the case when I still held my rank and legacy.
I shake my head. “Too androgynous. I’m done anyway. Had my fill for the night.”
“Ah yes, how could I be so foolish? Fucking the enemy must be deeply fulfilling.”
“Gods, Stir, you don’t make this enjoyable. I’m going to get some fresh air.”
She shouts after me. “I’m just pragmatic.”
I head to the rear of the mezzanine toward the stairs. I turn back to check Stirling is okay, but she’s already deep in conversation with some guy. Her forehead furrowed between her brows, the way it always does when she’s serious. It’s probably business. I make my way to the balcony rooftop.
The stars paint a mosaic of diamonds on the velvet black of the sky. The air is frosty enough I need to do up the buttons on my shirt.
Hopefully Stirling can broker a deal with whoever that was. She’s far better at bringing cash in. Her reputation wasn’t as tarnished by our parent’s accusations as mine was. One benefit of being a Resourcer, everyone loves you because you give them exactly what they want.
This is one of my favourite views of the city. Up here, especially on a clear night like tonight, you can see miles across the city. Glistening lights sprawl on the horizon, a lake of glimmering sparks reflecting the sky. Below the club, there are narrow streets and alleys twisting like a maze. Then I spot Alchemists Row. My back stiffens. That’s Quinn’s territory. Her shop is down there. Not that I frequent it. Mostly, I avoid the area. Fucking plagues of medics and alchemists down there. All of them trying to steal my trade—at least, they are since The Poisoner came on the scene. They never used to bother me. But three years ago, she sprung out of nowhere. Cocky fucking apprentice, newly qualified with big dreams—the usual type.
Except she wasn’t. She came in hungry for success. Instead of sticking to her lane, treating and healing, she expanded… into my realm. I don’t know how it happened, to be honest. Some bored or desperate housewife without a budget for the likes of a talented Assassin on the dark market must have asked after a poison. I assume Quinn gave it to her, and then when it did precisely what she wanted and offed her husband or uncle or cousin; she talked. And now all of them go to The Poisoner. The richest commissions and they all choose to pay cut prices and off their husbands with untraceable poisons.
It’s a disgrace to the industry. To Assassins everywhere.
And sure, I could try to expand into another patch, like politics. But fuck that. I’m good at what I do, and some of the bored housewives like to experiment… they’ve only ever had a husband, and who am I to say no?
All that’s over.
Some weeks, Stirling and I have gone hungry. Once a couple of years ago, we got behind on rent and kicked out of our place. It was only by chance one commission I managed to get had a spare outbuilding and rented out to us because it needed work. Now, we’re at a family friend’s house who took pity on us.
Quinn, piece by piece, is ruining my life, stealing my clients and fucking with my mind.
And every time I get the opportunity to kill her… I don’t. I stall. We end up fucking.
If I can’t kill her… maybe I could mess with her instead.
Yes. Maybe that’s what I’ll do. I take a sip of my drink and glare at Alchemists Row. It’s not sporting to off the enemy. When I beat her—and I will—it needs to be fair and square. Yeah. That’s the real reason I haven’t killed her already. I need to beat her at her own game.
No one ever said you can’t have a little fun… a little smack talk. Psych the enemy out.
And I do love a game.
The next morning, I’m jobless. I didn’t secure any more commissions last night, and Stirling will sleep for a few more hours. To avoid boredom, I decide chaos is in order. Especially after Stirling was most disappointed in me for losing interest in finding another woman once The Poisoner left.
But I’m not Stirling, I don’t want to fuck around for the sake of an orgasm. I want to hunger for my women.
I let Stirling sleep. I was right. That guy she was speaking to was after her services. She spent half the night brokering a ship deal to transport illegally embezzled coin across the sea. As the middleman, she doesn’t get the big money, but she gets to chip a piece off whatever deal is had between the two parties. And thank the gods, because she’s keeping us afloat far better than I am at the moment.
I leave porridge half made on the side for her. She’ll finish making it when she’s up. She hates it if it’s left too long. I shower and dress in my training kit. Combat trousers and a tight fitting long-sleeved top and bike leathers on top of them. I braid my hair, save the wind matting and knotting it, and leave. It takes fifteen minutes to ride across the city. I park in the centre, locking my bike to a rack, and tuck the leathers in the box on the back.
Before I get to Alchemists Row, I have to meet a client, Avis. I offed her husband two nights ago, and she needs to pay up. She’s inheriting three farms, and enough coin to sink a monarchy. The husband died in an illicit incident, so the papers reported.
He didn’t, of course. I hung him and set it up to look like a kinky affair. The perfect murder, you might say. Even the forensic magicians haven’t picked up on that method yet. Not that I’ve used it often, have to keep things fresh.
I smile to myself. It truly was a beautiful killing. I didn’t even have to talk to the guy. Got in. Slung the rope over his neck. And down the son of a bitch went.
Easy money. And given the level of notoriety, I charged healthily for it, too.
One moment I’m walking down the cobbled streets of New Imperium and then next I’m yanked sideways.
“Gods,” I growl. “You realise most people would lose their life or at the very least a limb yanking me like that,” I say.
Avis is short, her greying frizz pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a traditional magician’s robe in dark navy and holding a suspiciously small bag of coin.
“I thought we were meeting at the city park?” I say, my voice rising.
“Yes. Well. Other plans necessitated a closer rendezvous,” Avis says.
“I see. Well, I take it you were happy with the end product?”
Her lips press together, her brow furrows. “That is debatable, Scarlett. Questions are being asked.”
“Questions?” I scoff. The fuck she mean questions? It was a textbook kill.
She fidgets and forces out a huff. Then presses her lips into a line so thin I swear her mouth has eaten them.
“The forensic morticians are asking questions because of the number of deaths of late.”
My chest tightens. That’s not good. I also can’t afford for her not to pay me.
“We both know those deaths aren’t me. Far too crude. And whoever it is needs to be careful. The number of identical deaths is rather telling.”
Quinn. Always fucking Quinn. The amateur is ruining everything once again. Greed. That’s her problem. If she was pickier, selected her clients more carefully, the entire industry would be better off.
“It appears you’re also losing your touch, Ms. Grey. I heard you were the best, despite your parents—”
“—I am the best, Mrs. Randall. And I’ll thank you to remember that,” I snarl. My hand twitches, itching to reach for my concealed blade.
Avis sniffs. “Yes, well. I am less than happy that I’m being questioned. But I supposed you did as requested and the lawyers have assured me I will inherit the farms.”
I lean in, my eyes cold, my face hard. “To payment then.”
Avis shifts on the spot, then tips her chin at me. “I’m docking you for the inconvenience of having to deal with the High Magician’s questioner and the forensic team.”
I have to suck air in, shove it down into my lungs to try and stop the pounding in my ears. I choose my next words carefully. “You’ll do no such thing, Mrs. Randall.”
She cocks her head at me. “And what, exactly, is a disgraced Assassin going to do about it?”
I smile, letting the sun glint in my eyes. The corner of my lip curling.
She holds out her hand. “Let me stop you there, Ms. Grey. You put a single foot out of line, you’re going straight to the dungeons. Who do you think the high questioner is going to believe? A disgraced Assassin and daughter of the map thieves? Or me? A respectable lady of Randall farms, recently bereaved and supplier of Sanatio to the Queen? I think we both know who would come out on top.”
“Fuck you.”
She laughs, drops the bag of coin in my hand and turns her back on me. Always a dangerous move that. I whip out a blade and in one swing it’s under her neck and nicks the skin enough she stills under my grip.
“Quite right, Avis. But you got one thing wrong. All those things you said don’t make me weak or vulnerable. Quite the opposite.”
She turns to face me, her eyes wide. Blood pumps harder through my veins. The promise of the kill threading liquid adrenaline through my muscles. We’re taught to control this reaction in the guild. When you kill regularly, it becomes a drug. The addiction seeps into your veins, your vision funnels. Nothing else exists except you and the kill. It stops us from being aware of our surroundings, not good when you’re infiltrating dangerous realms.
But right now, none of that matters. I’ve lost the guild, my legacy. Fuck my training, I should do it. I’m tired of this endless boredom. But killing the customer is never great for business. I ease away from her neck, my shoulders loosening.
“Disgusting. Like your parents,” she spits on the cobbles.
Oh well. I tried.
I draw the blade across Avis’s throat. Stupid bitch. Doesn’t know what she’s talking about. My parents didn’t steal the fucking Queen’s map. She’s wrong. The Queen is wrong too, and I will find a way to prove that.
Five years ago, the Border Lord set my parents up. All because I didn’t follow through on a job he’d given me. The piece of shit screwed my parents up as punishment. Stole the Queen’s map and replaced it with a fake one, not that the general populous knows that. He let my parents take the fall. I’m not even sure if the Queen knows.
I drop Avis to the floor. A halo of rouge spreads from under her twitching limbs. I flip her over and fumble in her pockets for a second bag of coin.
There.
In the folds of her thick cloak. So predictable. The entitlement of legacy-borns is unfathomable. And yes, I’m aware I’m a legacy-born, but I’ve also had the entitlement knocked out of me.
Avis was bluffing the whole time, thought she could get one over on me. I take the second bag and haul her body next to the alley dustbins. Someone will find the festering body in a few days and figure with her dead husband it was a deal gone wrong, or she committed suicide.
I give her a last glance, the bitter aftertaste of my parent’s lost legacy clawing at my throat. The injustice of it. The Border Lord needs stopping. He only stole the map to stop the Queen from healing our land. If she heals the land, he loses his ability to tax the Border routes and traders. If it hadn’t destroyed my family, I might actually respect the deviousness of it.
So the story goes, ten years ago, the Queen argued with her twin sister and tore their royal map in half. The palace is sovereign land and thus owns Imperium. Any map born of palace magic is powerful in more ways than we can imagine. This map was no different. When they tore the map, it also tore our world in half. Half the city was lost to The Tearing. Swallowed in mist and rumour. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when supplies ran dry and traders needed to cross to the cities on the other side, that the first Border Walkers attempted to cross.
But the Border Lord had already militarised those who were left inside the Border and had survived The Tearing. When no help came for them, he capitalised on the rage of those left and took control. He taxed any trader daring to walk through. Now, both sides of the Border, both Queens, suffer under the hand of the Border Lord and they have for the last decade.
If the two pieces of map could be placed together, I swear we could heal the land and get our world back. And I, for one, would take great pleasure in executing the son of a bitch lord who ruined my parents’ legacy.
I leave the alley and head to Alchemists Row. Avis might be a traitorous cunt, but she wasn’t wrong. The poison trade is shrinking my clientele. Quinn’s poisons more than any of them. It’s time to cause trouble.
Alchemists Row is a thin sapling of a street. It’s so tight I could probably stretch my arms and touch the shops on either side. Awnings hang out from the windows like tongues. Magical items, cauldrons, wands, bottles of potions and herbs, wooden bowls, pestles and mortars sit waiting for eager magicians in shelving. The air is thick with the pungent scent of cooking herbs, broths and the bitter hint of poisons.
In the middle of the street is a cluster of shops. I examine them, but the source of my trade issue is obvious. Of the cluster of shops, all bar one look dishevelled. The shop signs are peeling, the windows are dusty and cluttered. But one shop is clean, and sharp. The window organised and dust free.
The Poisoner.
Yes, there’s only one shop I need to venture to. The one making all the money. Quinn’s Remedies, it’s called. I roll my eyes.
How quaint.
How unoriginal.
Couldn’t she have come up with something cleverer than that?
I march down the cobbles. They’re hard and bumpy underfoot. The path is so narrow the warm morning sun barely reaches me.
I reach Quinn’s Remedies and open the door. A little bell tinkles as I enter. Quinn’s mass of dark curls covers her face where she’s bent over the serving counter. Her head is buried in a leather journal, ink smeared across her fingers as she drags a quill over the parchment. I can just about make out the page. As fast as she writes, the ink melts into the page. Interesting.
She hasn’t looked up, clearly more interested in her note taking than serving a lowly customer like me. How she has any returning customers with manners like that is beyond me.
I enter and close the door behind me, walking around the room, eyeing the shelves of herbs and racks of bottles. Insects and animal detritus all jarred and categorised. Gross. Yes, I use poisons occasionally to help guarantee a death or to hide what I’ve really done, but it’s basic. An amateur Assassin could poison someone. Where’s the art? There’s nothing better than a blade against skin, the pull and gentle resistance as I slice through layers of flesh. You have to be far more skilled to cover up a murder like that.
I run my finger along the bottles, nudging them this way and that. They were all perfectly aligned. Knocking them out of position is so satisfying.
“Do you mind?” Quinn says, finally looking up. She tuts and moves out from behind the counter. She still hasn’t looked at me, but she nudges me out of the way and straightens the bottles.
I step back and fold my arms, watching as she fusses.
Her irritation is enough to get me hot.
I spot the back shelf. A strange array of blades, with one missing. Ah yes, the blade I stole from her the first time we met. My fingers twitch, wanting to move to my waistband, where it’s nestled against my hip. But I don’t want her getting suspicious. I guess I’ll keep it a little longer.
I still remember the first time I picked it up.
The first night I met her. We were at Roman Oleg’s annual party. I’m not a huge fan of him. He uses a lot of dark magic, trades in it—all completely illegal, of course. But his party is big business. Most of the year’s biggest deals are brokered there. So of course, Stirling was going, and she dragged me too. No weapons, no recording equipment, just you and your charm.
So when I noticed The Poisoner and noticed the curved shape of a blade against her sleeve, she piqued my interest.
I knocked into her, a distraction, slipped it out. It was pathetic, really. Classic pickpocket technique. She didn’t have a clue until I’d long gone and was watching her from across the room. The blade had a ruby the same shade as one on a signet ring the Border Lord wore on his pinkie.
I ran my hand over the blade. Its surface was smooth and icy, far colder than the surrounding air.
Odd.
My fingers slipped to the cutting edge. As I examined the shape and lines of the weapon, I drew my finger down the tip. It was so sharp it stung hot and sliced into my skin.
My lips pulled into a dark smile. I didn’t push hard enough to cut flesh. The blade was obviously hungry for blood. A drop of red rolled to the metal point, and I swore it vibrated in response: deep, rumbling. Almost as if it was greeting me; one weapon to another.
“Don’t you know stealing in a place like this could get you killed?” A sultry voice said.
I glanced up. It was The Poisoner. She’d caught me. And that piqued my interest in her for the second time that night.
“Good thing I’m excellent at murdering then,” I grinned and kicked off the wall I was leaning against.
“I want it back,” she said.
“Mmm. No. I’ll keep it. But thanks,” I said and barged into her as I passed her.
“Be it on your head. That blade belongs to the Border Lord, and he’ll want it back.”
Strike three for The Poisoner piquing my interest. Because if it really did belong to the Border Lord, how sweet would it feel to push his own blade between his ribs as I watch the light fade from his eyes?
I glanced over my shoulder. “And what’s a pretty little thing like you doing with a blade that belongs to him?”
She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again.
I laughed and walked off, pocketing the blade.
That was three years ago, and she’s been a fucking nightmare ever since.
“You,” she says, wrenching me out of my memories.
I face her, grinning.
“Yes. Me. Good Morning, Poisoner.”
She moves back to her counter. Closes her journal. Presses her hand on top of it. It’s a protective move.
Interesting.
“What do you want?” she says.
I move closer. She grips the journal; her knuckles white where she holds it.
More interesting.
She slips it off the counter and hides it under the glass serving desk. A plan forms in my mind. A little dose of blackmail, perhaps? Theft in exchange for fucking off out of my territory. What does she need the extra coin for, anyway? She’s clearly minted given the quantity of stock in here.
Yes. I like this plan.
She eyes me, her lids narrowing as she looks me up and down.
Hunter.
Prey.
This is my favourite game. If only it would end in the bedroom permanently instead of where it’s going to lead her eventually: the mortuary.
Too bad, Poisoner.
Let the games begin.
