Stalking Darkness

we’re out in this to deliver a damn love token,” Alec groused, shaking his wet, fair hair from his eyes.
    “We’ve got the Rhíminee Cat’s reputation to maintain,” Seregil said, shivering beside the boy. The slender Aurënfaie envied Alec his northern-bred tolerance for the cold. “Lord Phyrien paid for the thing to be on the girl’s pillow tonight. I’ve been wanting a peek into her father’s dispatch box anyway. Word is he’s maneuvering for the Vicegerent’s post.”
    Seregil grinned to himself. For years, the mysterious thief known only as the Rhiminee Cat had assisted the city’s upper class in theirendless intrigues; all it took to summon him was gold and a discreet note left in the right hands. None had ever guessed that this faceless spy was virtually one of their own, or that the arrangement was as much to his benefit as theirs.
    The wind buffeted at them from all sides as they pressed on toward the Noble Quarter. Reaching the fountain colonnade at the head of Golden Helm Street, Seregil ducked inside for a moment’s shelter.
    “Are you sure you’re up to this? How’s your back?” he asked as he stooped to drink from the spring at the center of the colonnade.
    Less than two weeks had passed since Alec had pulled Princess Klia from the fiery room below the traitor Kassarie’s keep. Valerius’ malodorous drysian salves had worked their healing magic, but as they’d dressed tonight he’d noticed that the skin across the boy’s shoulders was still tender-looking in places. Not that Alec would admit it and risk being sent back, of course.
    “I’m fine,” Alec insisted as expected. “It’s your teeth I hear chattering, not mine.” Shaking out his sodden cloak, he tossed one long end over his shoulder. “Come on. We’ll be warmer if we keep moving.”
    Seregil looked with sudden longing toward the entrance to the Street of Lights across the way. “We’d be a hell of a lot warmer in there!”
    It had been months since he’d visited any of the elegant pleasure houses. The thought of so many warm, perfumed beds and warm, perfumed bodies made him feel even colder.
    Invisible in the shadows, Alec made no reply, but Seregil heard him shifting uncomfortably. The boy’s solitary upbringing had left him uncommonly backward in certain matters, even for a Dalnan. Such reticence was unfathomable to Seregil, though out of respect for their friendship he did his best not to tease the boy.
    The fashionable avenues of the Noble Quarter were deserted, the great houses and villas dark behind their high garden walls. Ornate street lanterns creaked unlit on their hooks, extinguished by the storm.
    The house in Three Maidens Street was a large, sprawling villa surrounded by a high courtyard wall. Alec kept an eye out for bluecoat patrols while Seregil tossed the grapple up and secured the rope. The roar of the storm covered any noise as they scrambled up and over. Leaving the rope in a clump of bushes, Seregil led the way through the gardens.
    After a brief search, Alec found a small shuttered window set high in a wall at the back of the house. Climbing onto a water butt, he pried back the shutter with a knife and peered inside.
    “Smells like a storeroom,” he whispered.
    “Go on then. I’m right behind you.”
    Alec went in feet first and disappeared soundlessly inside.
    Climbing up, Seregil sniffed the earthy scents of potatoes and apples. Squeezing through, he lowered himself in onto what felt like sacks of onions. He reached out, finding Alec’s shoulder in the darkness, and together they felt their way to a door. Seregil eased the latch up and peeked out into the cavernous kitchen beyond.
    The coals in the hearth gave off enough of a glow to make out two servants asleep on pallets there. Deep snores sounded from the shadows of a nearby corner. To the right was an open archway. Tapping Alec on the arm, Seregil headed for it on tiptoe.
    The arch let onto a servant’s passage. Climbing a narrow staircase, they crept down a succession of hallways in search of Lord Decian’s private study. Not finding it, they moved up to the next floor and chanced shielded lightstones.
    By this dim light they saw that these nobles left their shoes outside their bedroom door for a servant to collect and clean. Seregil nudged Alec and flipped him the sign for “lucky.” The lord of the house had only one daughter; it was a simple matter to find the footgear appropriate for a maiden of fifteen.
    A pair of