Shadows Return

CHAPTER 1
    The Stag and Otter

    SEREGIL BALANCED PRECARIOUSLY atop the shard-lined wall, impatiently scanning the shadowy garden below for his misplaced partner. Alec had been right behind him when he’d shimmied out the library window, or so he’d thought.
    Everything about this job had taken too long: finding a way in, finding the right room (for which they’d been given the wrong directions), then finding the stolen brooch in question, the possessor of which—one of the most vicious new blackmailers in Rhíminee—had very wisely kept in a casket with several dozen others. Seregil had to scrutinize each one by a lightstone’s glow. If he hadn’t been so fond of the young lady whose reputation hung on the success of this night’s work, he’d have given up the whole damned mess hours ago.
    Dawn was a faint smudge above the rooftops now. A weak but welcome breeze whispered through the yellowing leaves of the garden below. It tugged at the long, stray strands of dark hair clinging, sweat-plastered, to Seregil’s forehead. Summer’s heat was lingering into early autumn this year. His thin linen shirt was soaked through and rank under the arms. The swath of black silk across his lower face was sticking to his lips. He just wanted to go home to a bath and clean cool sheets…
    Yet there was still no sign of Alec.
    “Hey! Where are you?” he called softly. He was about to risk calling out again when he heard a muttered curse from the shadow of a pear tree near the house.
    “I dropped it,” Alec hissed, still out of sight.
    “Oh, please tell me you’re joking!” Seregil whispered back.
    “Shh! They’ll hear you.”
    The telltale scrape of iron against stone came from the nearby kitchen as some early-rising servant stirred up banked coals on a hearth.
    Seregil climbed down the lime tree they’d used for a ladder, with every intention of collaring Alec and dragging him away—by force if need be.
    The younger man’s dark clothing made him all but invisible in the shadows, except for his blond braid. He’d pulled off his head scarf somewhere along the way and his hair gleamed tellingly over one shoulder as he scrabbled about on hands and knees, searching frantically in the grass.
    “Leave it!”
    Stubborn as always, Alec crawled back toward the house instead, frantically brushing his hands over the clipped turf. Seregil was reaching for Alec’s braid when the sound of a door opening sent them both flat on their bellies. Neither breathed as a young servant trudged by with reeking pails of night soil, passing within a few feet of where they lay.
    As soon as he was gone, Alec was on his feet, pulling Seregil up. “Found it! Come on.”
    “
Now
you’re in a hurry?”
    They ran for the tree. Seregil, the better climber, laced his fingers together and gave Alec a one-footed boost up into the lowest branches. Before he could follow, however, he heard a startled gasp behind him. Turning, he found the servant staring straight at him, empty pails on the ground at his feet. They stood eye-locked for an instant, then the child found his voice and shrieked, “Robbers! Mistress Hobb, loose the dogs!”
    Seregil scarcely felt the rough bark of the tree as he launched himself up. He hadn’t once been known as the Rhíminee Cat for nothing. In his haste, he was careless, though, and sliced his hand open on one of the pottery shards set into the top of the wall. Ignoring the pain, he vaulted over and landed in a crouch on the pavement beside Alec. As they sprinted away, two enormous mastiffs came pelting out through a side gate, and several men with them, armed with cudgels.
    “Do it!” Alec hissed, eyes wide above his mask. “Do the dog thing!”
    “I’d have to
stop
first, wouldn’t I?” Seregil panted, trying to staunch his bloody hand in his shirttail as he ran. “Follow me.”
    The Temple District was not the sort of neighborhood in which masked men being pursued by large dogs went unremarked upon, even at this hour. The Scavenger crews were already at work, and Seregil collided with one of them as he rounded the corner into Long Yew Street. He kept his feet but had to roll awkwardly across the top of her stinking barrow, coming eye to eye with a rotting dog in the process.
    “I’ll have the Watch on you, you bastards!” she screeched after them as they pelted on.
    And all the while, their enemy the sun was rising, and the dogs were gaining.
    Seregil caught Alec’s arm and steered him down a side