Page 58 of Brimstone

“And that got me to thinking that I could probably leverage the deep gratitude you must be feeling toward me right now by suggesting that we go and visit an old haunt of mine along the way.”

“We don’t have time, Carrion.”

“I beg to differ. It should take us no more than a couple of hours to load up with the silver. Once we’ve done that, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to go and fetch Hayden, anyway.”

“You could just point me in the direction of Saeris’s brother and go about your business, Swift.”

Carrion looked off down the side street we had stepped into, the corners of his mouth tugging down as he thought about this. The sight of his face like that, in profile, stirred a long-dead memory from the archives of my mind. A memory that was faded and moth-eaten at its corners.

The courtyard in front of the apartment back in Ballard.

My mother had been speaking with someone, and I had been tugging on her skirts, pestering her for Bettell biscuits. In that gentle way of hers, she had urged me to go and buy the biscuits for myself since I wasn’t a Faeling anymore and had pressed a coin made of brass into my hands. A whole cröna. An old one, worth twice as much as the new ones among the right circles. The piece of brass had been the most money I had ever held in my hands back then. I had marveled at it, stroking its surface reverently as I’d walked barefoot down the pathways of Ballard, on my way to Wendy’s to spend my fortune.

The face stamped into the coin had been regal and proud.

The face of Rurik Daianthus.

It took me by surprise, in that moment, that Carrion Swift bore a striking resemblance to his father.

He turned away from the street and looked back at me, his eyes clear and sharp. “I know I’m not very useful to anyone in Yvelia, Fisher. But I want to be. And I can be useful in this. I told Saeris I’d help. I told her I’d come back. So, no. I can’t just leave you.”

A pang ofsomethingspasmed in my chest, but I pushed it away, for once annoyed with myself for letting the past work its way under my skin. There was no denying it: Yes, Saeris had slept with the smuggler. But she wasn’t sleeping with him now. And she was entitled to her past, as I was entitled to mine. There was no sense regretting events that had helped form us as beings. And she was my mate now. Mymate. She was beautiful, fierce, clever, independent, and strong. It made sense that even Carrion Swift—a seasoned thief and well versed in the art of duplicity, by all accounts—wanted to keep his word when he gave it to her. He was her friend, much as it irked me. And I would accept that.

“All right.” I set my jaw, huffing unhappily. “Fine. Where is this old haunt of yours?”

Swift leaped up from the wall, kicking up a cloud of powder-fine sand when he landed on the ground. He clapped, crowing. “You are going tolovethis place. They have this ale that, well, yes, itisdistilled from rat urine, but—”

“Carrion!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking!” He held up his hands. Still grinning, he turned and started walking up the alley. “Seriously. Can’t youtellwhen someone’s joking, Fisher?”

The beer tasted so bad that I feared Carrion had not been joking. He was putting it back so enthusiastically that I figured it wouldn’t kill me, though. I sipped on the contents of my tankard, watching the humans as they came in and out of the tavern. The woman behind the bar had recognized Carrion immediately. She obviously knew him well, too, given that she warned him to behave himself or else she would toss him out on his ass.

A line of questionable-looking individuals stopped by our table. They all greeted the smuggler and asked him where he’d been, and Carrion came up with a new—and even more unbelievable—excuse for his absence every time. I hid my face in my beer, ignoring the stares from Swift’s compatriots. Their curiosity had them loitering at the table for longer than felt polite as they waited for Carrion to introduce his new friend, but Carrion was onlylooselyacquainted with the universal rules of etiquette and tolerated the awkward silence while he waited for them to leave without breaking a sweat.

I, on the other hand,wassweating. My shirt was plastered to my back. My hair was damp. It was hotter than the fifth level of hell in the tavern, and the temperature showed no signs of abating anytime soon.

“I fucking hate it here,” I murmured into my cup.

Carrion huffed out a breath of laughter. “Ahh, the Third grows on you after a while.”

I shot him an incredulous look. “Which part? The children starving in the streets? Or is it the hot beer?”

“Isn’t beer supposed to be hot?”

“No. No, it is not.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that.” He shrugged, downing another huge mouthful of his drink.

The magnanimous mood that had struck me earlier had fled a while back, and now I was getting restless. I threw back what was left in my tankard, wincing as I swallowed, and thenslammed it down onto the table. “We’re done here, Carrion. Time to go.”

“No, we’re not. We’re nowhere near done!” He looked like a Faeling who’d been told he had to go home early from winter fair.

“I get that you’re popular. I’m sure it must be nice to see your very interesting friends, Carrion, but we have things to take care of. I want to leave this godscursed place and get back to my mate, and there is literally nothing you can say that will change my mind on this. So let’s go.”

“Fisher, Fisher, whoa, whoa, whoa.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me back down into my seat. “Okay, all right. So I might not have been one hundred percent honest earlier back in the alley. I didn’t just feel like stopping by here for a drink. I kind ofhadto come by Kala’s.”

Gods alive, this male. He was something else.“Explain.”