Casket of Souls

housebreaking.”
    Alec grinned. “And
I
won’t set anything on fire.”
    Dressing for the evening, Seregil was careful to leave the lacings of his shirt loose, so that the garrote mark showed. It would be interesting to see how Laneus reacted to the sight of it.
    The sharp thud of an arrow striking a wooden target drifted in through the open bedroom window. Seregil shrugged into one of his more elaborate coats and wandered over to watchAlec send another shaft to the center of the painted bull’s-eye. The setting sun cast a mellow light over the garden and picked out glints of pure gold in his lover’s hair as he smoothly nocked an arrow and raised the bow again, speeding a third arrow to split one of the first two. It was a neat trick, if hard on arrows, and one that never ceased to impress people. Alec made it look as easy as picking a single ward lock.
    As he lingered there at the window, however, another image came to him: Yhakobin’s villa in Plenimar, and the day he’d stood at a barred window, seeing Alec alive in another garden, walking with Ilar.
    Stop it
, Seregil told himself, willing the painful image away. The past was past and Alec was right about his unreasoning fears.
    He stood a moment longer, admiring the strong lines of Alec’s slim body, and the lean, corded muscles in the younger man’s bare forearms as he pulled the bowstring to his ear again. Seregil had long since come to appreciate that archery was far more to Alec than a mere skill; it was a kind of meditation, a way he sometimes focused that fearless mind of his.
    Alec let fly, then looked up and smiled at him, as if he’d known he was there all along. Seregil smiled back and went to find his boots.
    Alec saw Seregil off that evening, then stole off to the Stag and Otter to pass the evening until it was time to go. Settling by an open window in the sitting room with a book Thero had lent him on dragon lore, Alec tried to read, but soon found himself scanning the same page over again. He set it aside and gazed out over the neighboring rooftops as the shadows lengthened across the city. Seregil had always been concerned for him, he knew, and in the early days of his apprenticeship that concern had been warranted. He wasn’t sure when it had begun to irk him, but it did now.
    When it was full dark he went to one of the clothes chests in the bedroom and put on a plain dark coat and trousers, then tucked a square of black silk and his tool roll inside hisshirt. The cool weight of the tools against his bare skin was familiar and comforting, as was the dagger at his belt. After a moment’s thought, he buckled on his sword belt and threw on a light cloak to cover it, in case of assassins or footpads, though the latter were less likely in that quarter.
    He blew out the lamp and went back to the sitting room and one of the chests there. Inside, he found the muslin bag he was looking for and selected an owl feather. He held it a moment, sending up a silent prayer to Illior Lightbearer, patron of thieves—and nightrunners, presumably—then singed the tip of it over the remaining candle and tucked it behind his ear for luck. Gathering the rest of the night’s equipment, he blew out the candle and set off.
    Laneus’s handsome three-story villa in Ruby Lane had plenty of tempting balconies and lots of trees. Alec skulked down an alleyway to the tradesmen’s lane that ran behind it. The wall here was higher than most. Seregil had joked that the higher a noble’s rank and the greater their fortune, the more they walled themselves in.
    He checked the lane, then took the rope and muffled grapple from under his cloak. Checking the cloth wrappings that would mute the sound of the metal on stone, he swung it up and grinned when it caught on the first try. Tugging it to make certain it was securely seated, he climbed up to the top and peered over. Metal spikes that had once protected the house had been sacrificed to the war here, too.
    The garden was large and laid out in a formal pattern, with traditional crushed-shell paths that showed pale in the starlight between the beds of flowers and herbs. Balanced there, Alec appraised his route in. On this side of the house there were no trees or convenient drainpipes close enough to the balconies to be of any use. However, the ground floor was lined with tall glass doors overlooking a terrace and an ornamental fishpond. He’d have preferred a kitchen or pantry window, but the sides of the house were