Page 65 of Brimstone

“Ugh.” Carrion huffed. “I’m so bored of this conversation already. Eric is the laziest, most arrogant person in the Third. He would never have transported those trunks by himself. That kind of grunt work is beneath him. And he wouldn’t have brought anyone else in to deal with it, because you’re right, heisparanoid. Which means he gotyouto shift it all. That also means that this,” he said, waving a hand at the human, pinned against the counter of his own store, “is pointless, and you are wasting my time. Where’s my money, Vorath?”

Again, Shah glanced at me and flinched.

I was wearing armor, but he couldn’t see that. I was glamored. He was looking at me strangely for someotherreason, and that had piqued my interest.

“If I tell you where he is, I’m siding withyou,” Shah gasped. “If I don’t tell you where he is, I’m siding withhim. You’re both out of your godscursed minds. How am I supposed to decide which one of you to piss off?”

“Oh, you should definitely piss off the one who isn’t here,” Carrion suggested. “Or the one whoishere will rip out your fingernails.”

“I—Yes, I can see the wisdom in that,” the human said. He squeezed his eyes shut when Carrion strengthened the grip hehad on his throat. “I don’t mean to complain, Carrion, but your elbow is digging into my rib cage.”

Shah wasn’t as afraid as he needed to be. He knew there might be some pain along the path that stretched before him, but he wasn’t concerned about any real consequences. Not from Carrion. ButIwas an unknown entity. “Just kill him and have done with it,” I said, affecting an air of boredom.

The vault breaker began thrashing his arms and legs. “No! No, you don’t need to do that. I-I’ll tell you. It’s fine. You just have to understand, the Third isn’t the kind of place you can just double-cross someone and walk away.”

Shah had double-crossed plenty of people in his time. My gut instincts were rarely wrong. There was something untrustworthy about the human. He was cleverer than he was making out to be. His mind was working a mile a minute.

“I can’t tell you where Eric’s taken your money, but Icanshow you,” he said.

“And why the hell would I want you tagging along on this adventure? It’s already zero percent fun,” Carrion said, shooting a none-toosubtle look in my direction.

“Because I’m useful. Because I want to make it up—” He coughed, struggling to swallow around the forearm Carrion was pressing into his windpipe. “Up to you for running just now. You know how it is. I panicked. I’m sorry, Carrion. Come on. We’refriends.”

This man had no friends.

If I was right about him, then he had a barrow where he dumped the bodies of his victims, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

Carrion pulled back, easing the pressure from Shah’s throat a little. His pale blue eyes went to me. “Well? Are we letting him escort us to the goods or what?”

“I say we torture the location out of him and then dispose of him.”

Thum.

Thum.

Thum.

Shah’s pulse was as lazy as could be. It didn’t spike at all, as he pretended to panic again. “No! Eric’s laid out traps. You’ll need me if you want to get past them!”

Why did he want to come with us so badly? I supposed there was only one way to find out. “All right. Fine. He can come. But he’syourpet, Swift. Make sure you keep him on a short leash.”

It was morning now. At least Ithoughtit was. It was impossible to tell. I “borrowed” an oversized gray scarf from the human and used it to shield my head from the suns and the Third’s prying eyes as we made our way through the ward, silently hating the sensation of the sweat running down my back.

Carrion kept his head down, moving with the flow of the crowded streets. His shoulders were relaxed, his gait unhurried and easy, but his eyes skipped over the faces of the humans who passed us. His hand rested casually at his side, but his fingers brushed his hip, where I knew a dagger was strapped to his side, concealed beneath his shirt.

He was ready.

If we had to run, he wouldn’t need telling twice. If we had to fight, that steel would be in his hand in a heartbeat, and he wouldn’t be afraid to use it.

A little ruefully, I squirreled away the observation to process later.

Shah was twitchy as a ferret. Ten feet ahead of us, he wove through the press of bodies like a minnow swimming upstream. I kept an eye on the back of his head, determined not to let him give us the slip among the crowds.

“What are all these peopledoingout here?” I muttered. “Don’t they have homes? Work?”

Next to me, Carrion laughed bitterly down his nose. “They’re on their way to the ward gate to claim their water ration for the day. If they don’t get there early, there’ll be none left, and they’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

It was one thing, knowing that Madra kept her people under the heel of her boot by keeping them thirsty. Seeing it in action was another thing entirely. The humans who shuffled toward the ward’s entrance were dirty, their clothes worn. Many of them were rail thin, eyes sunken in their sockets. But . . . there were smiles on their faces. They laughed and catcalled at one another as they made their way to collectjustenough water to keep them going until tomorrow. Their homes were little more than crumbling shells. They were beaten and oppressed at every turn. They barely had enough food to feed their children, and it had becomenormal. They had accepted it. Found a way to cope with it. In the face of abject misery, they had built lives for themselves, and community. They weren’t yet broken.