As she made her way along the quay, Adric watched her come. He had a long-stemmed pipe and puffed bluish smoke that smelled better than she expected. She sat down beside him and looked out over the water: dark in the shadow and blinding in the light.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“Nowhere particular to be.”
“Still.”
“Welcome.” He drew on the pipe and puffed out smoke. “Work, is it?”
Sammish felt the knot in her stomach tighten. When she’d rehearsed the plan to herself, it all sounded plausible. Now that she was speaking aloud, she worried it would seem ridiculous.
“It’s a safe-cache pull,” she said. “In Green Hill.”
He shifted to look at her, curiosity in his expression. “Which family?”
“No family. One of the religious brotherhoods. I won’t say which yet. You understand.”
“I do. What’s the take?”
Sammish shrugged. “Depends on what’s in the cache. It’s Green Hill, though. One of their dinner plates is worth a week’s food in Longhill.” She chuckled, but it sounded forced even to her. A scowl touched the corner of Adric’s mouth, and she felt herself losing him. “I’m looking for something in particular. It’s my cut. Anything outside it, that’s the payout.”
“What is it you’re wanting?”
“Last harvest, I had a knife I was looking into. Finding where it was from. Who wanted it. They have it, and I want it back.”
Adric nodded. That, at least, was a scenario he understood. “Who’s the buyer?”
“Me. Just me.”
“No one else behind it?”
“Someone else with me. Not behind me, though. This one’s mine.”
One of the boatmen shouted and lifted his pole, dripping and green, from the canal to swing at another boat. Adric sighed. “You have someone inside?”
“No, but I’ve been in before. Not a whole map, but enough to start, and their guard captain will show us the rest of the way.”
“How does that happen?”
“We start a fire and come in with the sand-and-water crew. The captain’s been burned before. Badly. Wading into the flame won’t come easy for him, and getting the blade out safely will be what he needs to do.”
“This thing’s more important than keeping his people alive?”
“It is. We raise the alarm and start the smoke when he’s someplace we can see him, and then follow him back. He’ll lead us straight to it. We take what’s ours in the chaos, and get out before the ashes drown.”
“Did something like that at a warehouse three years back,” Adric said. “House man got so scared, he grabbed the payroll and ran out the back. We took him in the alley.”
“I know. It’s why I wanted you on it.”
“Yours has more risk.”
“Mine has a bigger payout, and I’m not taking a cut except the knife.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Sink it in the river and let the fish shit on it forever,” Sammish said with more heat than she’d intended. Adric nodded, leaned forward, and tapped the ash from his pipe into the canal; the grey flecks darkened and vanished as soon as they touched water.
“Interested, then?” Sammish asked.
“No.”
“Oh,” she said, and looked out at the canal. She tried not to speak. “Why not?”
“Too many holes in it.” He might have been talking about the weather or the odds of a fight he didn’t have money on. “You have to find this captain before you start the fire so you can follow him. He has to go for the safe cache instead of any of the other thousand things. If someone else is assigned to grab the payroll, you’ll be following the wrong man. You don’t have anyone inside, so you have to get in while he’s already reacting. Walking through a Green Hill compound’s a hard pull. Aunt Thorn wouldn’t do it. It’s the kind of thing someone would do at the top of their arc, to show they could, and most of them would fail. It’s an amateur plan. No offense. We all start amateurs. But pick a tailor’s house or a farm cart first. Spend a few years getting good at it. Then you’ll know enough to see why this one’s too hard. And anyway…”
He tucked his pipe up his sleeve, shaking his head gently from side to side. His hair looked stupid.
“Anyway?” she said, the way she knew he’d meant her to.
“It’s not really a pull, is it? We work pulls to get coin, and there’s no coin in this. It’s revenge, maybe. Or pride. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter to me much. But you’re leading this one with your heart, not your head. I don’t do passion work. It’s a rule of mine.”
“All right. I respect that. You know anyone looking for work that doesn’t have your scruples?”
“Anyone that would take the job, I’d be doing you a favor by not naming them.” Adric shifted, stood, and stretched. “You shouldn’t do this unless you have to.”
Sammish nodded. Then, when he didn’t walk away, “I have to.”
“Pray first.” Adric turned to the north, walking toward Newmarket and whatever business or whim called him there. Sammish pulled her knees up and hugged them. She was going to have to make her way back to Saffa without good news. And worse, everything Adric said felt true. The plan wasn’t right yet, and she wasn’t ready. She’d never even been a cutter, just a walk-away. This was beyond her, and she needed it anyway and couldn’t quite explain why except that she did. If she couldn’t give Saffa hope that the pull would work, the older woman might go back to the Bronze Coast to heal from her wounds or else only live with them. Sammish would be on her own.
And even then, she’d get that fucking knife back.
She watched the flatboats for a time, hoping for some inspiration that didn’t come. A boat heavy with tuns from a brewer’s house poled its sluggish way north, and the boys on the bridge shouted down, begging the boatman to drop one over the side for them. The boatman made a friendly obscene gesture. Across the canal two older men walked together, hand in hand, their grey heads canted in toward each other as they talked. The sun shifted the shadows around her, but no new wisdom came to her. When she rose, her legs ached.
As she hauled herself along the quay, she heard her name called from the bridge. She squinted up, hand blocking the sun, and saw Little Coop waving down at her. She lifted her chin, acknowledging him, and started walking away, but he motioned for her to wait. He clambered down to the quay. She stood by the water’s edge. The sunlight against her neck felt good. Little pleasures, even in evil times.
“Was looking for you,” Little Coop said, catching his breath.
“Here I am.”
“Alys was at the Pit. Paid me to tell her how to find you.”
This day just keeps getting better, Sammish thought, and spat into the water. “You can tell her I was here.”
“Would I do that for? She’s made it pretty fucking clear from how she dresses and throws her coin around that she’s too good for Longhill. I just thought you should know she was looking. In case you don’t want to get found.”