“Torrell, start a fire in the hearth? It’s growing cold.”

  Kaddie glanced at the other women as Torrell got to work. Her grandfather was stalling. What could be so terrible? The look on Marla’s face mirrored her own. Something was coming. Something bad. “Is it the Shale?” she asked.

  Robles offered her a look of exasperation. “Not quite. It concerns our friends, Mr. Tenadas, and Mr. Breso.”

  “The men who came into the store?” Torrell was breaking cinders apart with the poker.

  “Yes, and this afternoon, threats were made. Reading between the lines, in an attempt to protect the Theeds, I think they plan to implicate us in the death on Bryler Street.”

  “Crone’s teeth.” Kaddie clenched her fists.

  “Indeed. Therefore, I plan to nip their entire plan in the bud and pay a visit to the Shale.”

  “What if they don’t believe you?” Elspeth said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Dangerous or not, would you prefer them to turn up at the dispensary?”

  Marla folded her arms. “We’ve faced worse.”

  Kaddie brooded silently as the others continued to argue. Tenadas and Breso were already at the top of her retribution list, their names in capital letters and underlined. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  All eyes turned on her. “No,” Elspeth said.

  “Absolutely not,” Marla added.

  “I’ve done it before. Grandmother used to take me.” She hesitated. Everyone, with the exception of Robles, was staring at her in astonishment.

  “Well, you’re full of surprises,” Elspeth said.

  Kaddie ignored her and looked at her grandfather whose face was unreadable.

  Marla’s eyes were narrowed. “My cousin accompanied my uncle when he went to buy metals. He said negotiations were a lot more civilized when there was a child in tow.”

  “You’ve actually visited the Shale?” Torrell had risen after setting alight a layer of kindling. His eyes remained on the flames, watching them lick across the layer of wood he’d spread across the grate. “I bet that was something.”

  “Hmm.” Robles gathered his pipe from the mantle. “A symbolic gesture, but it might prove practical.”

  “You’re not seriously thinking about it?” Elspeth began.

  Robles raised his hand. “No. On this we agree. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’ll be worse if you go on your own,” Kaddie insisted.

  “How would it be worse?” Torrell appeared baffled.

  “It’s a high plains tradition,” Marla said. “A throwback to the old wars. Children are precious. No one lifts a finger during peace talks when there’s a child present.”

  “She’s not exactly a child, though.” Torrell grinned as he stepped back from the hearth, inspiring a glare from Kaddie.

  Robles was now stuffing his pipe. “I’d like to talk to Kaddie, alone.”

  Elspeth arched an eyebrow as she and the others filed out of the study. He’ll talk some sense into you, her expression suggested.

  After an interminable wait, while Robles lit his pipe, “How old were you?”

  “The first time? Eight, maybe nine.”

  He let out a sigh. “And how many times?”

  “A dozen, maybe more.”

  “So, you know all there is to know about the Shale.”

  Kaddie knew exactly where this was going and immediately wanted to yell at him. Instead, she said, “We never had any trouble.”

  “You were buying poison, presumably, adding to their already considerable wealth. Whereas, what I’m about to do is nothing of the kind.”

  “What if they kill you? What then?”

  He waved a hand. “Oh, I’m sure the dispensary will run perfectly without me.”

  “I don’t care about the dispensary!” It came out hard and loud, enough that they’d probably hear it downstairs.

  He held up a hand. “I’m sorry. That was flippant. I should not be talking to my granddaughter in such a manner.”

  Silence hung between them. It felt like ice, creeping through her chest. “I don’t care what you say. I’m going with you, and don’t think you can sneak out without me.”

  Robles drew on his pipe, and after exhaling a vigorous stream of smoke, “I despair at the women in this house, I really do. Now, go. Let me think on it.”

  ##

  Fear that he’d set off without her the following day kept her awake for most of the night, and when she rose earlier than usual, a full eighth according to the asymmetrical clock in the upper hallway, she discovered Elspeth and Marla already busy in the kitchen.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “You’ll be staying somewhere overnight.” Elspeth regarded her with disapproval. “So, make sure you’re packed.”

  “He agreed?” Kaddie stood transfixed for a moment, before running back upstairs. She’d need her hairbrush, soap, her toothbrush…

  When she returned to the kitchen, Torrell was sitting at one of the tables wolfing down a plate of eggs. “I have to go arrange a carriage,” he said, as she sat alongside him.

  Marla pushed a plate of eggs and ham in front of her. “I pinned a sprig of sicklebark to your coat.”

  Kaddie nodded. Elspeth rolled her eyes.

  “Can’t hurt,” Marla added. It was another tradition. Proof that a traveler had approached along a certain path toward the high plains. A fall back to the days when the more treacherous might approach via more secretive means.

  Torrell gave her an odd look as he finished breakfast and grabbed his coat, but said nothing as he left via the back door, almost tripping over Bodworth in his haste. Shaking her tail, the cat followed him out.

  Kaddie ate her breakfast in silence while apprehension—hers and everyone else’s—hung like a cloud in the kitchen, souring her mood, and by the time her grandfather arrived downstairs she felt positively bad tempered.

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Elspeth said while their employer sat down to a piled-high breakfast plate.

  “How many more times, woman?” He looked at Kaddie and winked, which rendered her confused, and when it came time to leave, “The back door,” he instructed, while pulling on a plain woolen coat she hadn’t seen him wear before.

  Outside, there was no sign of the cat, and the air was so damp she could taste it. Shadows hung in the alley like heavy curtains. No lights shone in any of the other houses. This early, Toch Avenue was entirely deserted. Even the gratings that lay above the second city were clamped shut, leaving no evidence of the teaming life below.

  Robles walked with a spring in his step, his horse head stick swinging forth. They passed by the house owned by the man who was giving fighting lessons on the rooftop. She was about to say something about it, but in the end thought better of it. The avenue was deathly quiet and her voice might carry across half the city.

  Approaching the main gate, she saw more signs of life. The guardhouse was manned, and there were two guards walking back and forth on the wall. The gate was open and a small group of citizens were already leaving the city. Travelers, she assumed, or those doing early morning business in the Flats.

  One of the guards, a broad-shouldered man in middle years raised an eyebrow as she and Robles passed beyond the gate. She saw Robles give the man a tight nod.

  “He’ll tell Breso and Tenadas, for sure.”

  Robles’ face grew mischievous. “And what do you think he’ll tell them about that?” He gestured toward a line of carriages waiting along the cobbled road.

  Part way along the line she spotted Torrell, who waved. There was something odd about his posture. His shoulders were hunched as if he’d just received one of Robles’ bitter scoldings. He seemed apprehensive, and no wonder, for alongside him were the two members of the Shale they’d spotted entering the city the day before.

  Abruptly, the knapsack Kaddie was carrying felt as light as a feather.

  The Shale had thrown back their hoods. One of them was a man, his skin as gray as a winter storm. The other was a woman, as pale as ice, her expression impenetrable as she watched Robles and Kaddie approach.

  “You’re late. The sun is already breaking over the hills,” the woman said.

  “Hardly,” Robles said. “Nonetheless, forgive us, please.”

  Kaddie glanced toward the horizon where dawn was a hair’s width fracture, painting the sky a muddy lilac.

  Her attention returned to the woman. She was extraordinarily beautiful, slightly taller than the man and someone of importance, going off the heavy silver torc around her neck.

  “Did you bring it?” She was still addressing Robles and ignoring Kaddie altogether, and when he nodded, “I want to see.”

  “Here? Now?”

  Her male companion edged forward. A long braid, slightly darker than his skin color, swung forward over his shoulder, “Now,” he said.

  Kaddie watched with growing horror as her grandfather brought forth his small knapsack, retrieved a carefully wrapped linen parcel and proceeded to untie its leather bindings. Within its folds lay the cured piece of skin bearing the tattoo.

  The man and woman took a moment to stare at it before glancing at one another. The man nodded.

  Robles took that as his cue to begin repackaging. “Kaddie, hold out your hands.”

  Palms up, she held the small sheet of linen containing the slice of skin, impressed at how Robles carefully refolded and tied the bundle with meticulous precision. It felt like a ritual, and she was betting that Marla would tell her it was exactly that. Daresay it had been Marla who had prepared the bundle the evening before, while her grandfather looked on.

  Done, Robles offered the parcel to the woman, but it was the man who took it, placing it carefully in a leather satchel. There was another moment of silence until the woman finally regarded Kaddie. “She has your eyes,” she said to Robles. “Come, we can formerly introduce one another on the journey.”

  Her grandfather gave Kaddie a playful wink as they approached the carriage, where Torrell and the driver’s lad were waiting.

  “Are you okay?” Torrell whispered.

  Afflicted by a growing temper, her reply was merely a shrug. The woman’s remark had stung, suggesting once again that everyone had known Robles was her grandfather except her.

  She recognized the young man alongside the carriage steps as the one who’d walked her to the city gate when she’d first arrived. And as he helped her aboard, “Thank you, Jim,” was all she could manage before taking a seat opposite her new companions.

  The men climbed aboard and the carriage immediately began to move. Kaddie leaned out of the window and waved at Torrell. His acknowledgement was hesitant. Growing smaller in the distance, he appeared troubled, his hand hovering uncertainly before returning to his side.

  “Arcantha,” she heard the woman say. Kaddie reluctantly focused her attention on the carriage’s interior.

  “I’ve heard of you.” Robles wore his charming smile, the one Kaddie had seen him use on other women in the city. “This is Kaddie, my apprentice,” he continued before addressing the man. “And you are?”

  “Melaris.” The man’s eyes remained on the view outside and his face bore a mild frown. Kaddie was about to ask him what he was looking for when suddenly, he was staring at her. “I’ve seen you before in the territories, with an older woman.”

  “My apologies, I don’t recall.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have seen him,” Arcantha said. “Not unless he wanted you to.” The two shared a glance before Melaris went back to staring out of the window.

  The carriage rattled hard over the cobbles. Early vendors yelled out their wares, and the early morning stench of cooking fires and smoke drifted into the carriage’s interior.

  “So,” Robles said, after their vehicle lurched alarmingly onto the packed earth of the north western trail, “are we in trouble?”

  Both the Shale regarded him. “Not unless you killed him,” Arcantha said.

  “Do you know who he is? Or was?”

  Again, the Shale regarded one another. The woman offered him a frown. “Are we able to trust you, poisoner? You and the girl?”

  “I’m sure we both have qualms on that score.” Her grandfather’s seductive smile had dropped. “But if we continue to hide behind one another’s suspicions we’ll get nowhere. Hence my original request.”

  Kaddie’s throat was dry but her palms were sweating. She studied Melaris’s face which seemed utterly impassive, and yet there was a slight change in his posture, one that brought another layer of tension to their little gathering. Consequently, she found it hard to breathe, while subconsciously her fingers brushed a pocket of her coat, the one containing her sickle.

  Arcantha let out a sigh. Her hand brushed gently against the forearm of her companion. “Let’s not scare the girl.”

  “I’m fine.” Kaddie’s words came out loud and brittle and immediately she felt ashamed of herself. A glance to her left, and her grandfather was staring at her. “I’m fine,” she repeated.

  “Thank goodness one of us is,” Robles announced. “Melaris, you looked about ready to leap forward and rip out my throat.”

  The other man said nothing. He merely smiled and went back to his study of the endless fields now stretching out on either side of the carriage.

  “In answer to your earlier question,” Arcantha said, “the dead man was young, foolish, his better judgment was swayed by others, and he paid a terrible price.”

  “I get the feeling,” Robles said, “you know who the others are.”