Chapter 3

The guild's exercise room smelled faintly of mold and strongly of sweaty bodies as I took a deep breath before launching across the floor in a series of flips. I landed smoothly on the padded floor and bounced on my toes, planning my next pass.

"Nice flip, Ziola," a voice drawled from the corner. I turned to see Jareth leaning against the stone wall, a smile playing on his lips. With his tousled brown curls and dreamy eyes, he was popular among the ladies of the guild. Too bad he knew it.

"Thanks," I replied curtly. I had no time for games. As a newcomer to Sageport, I had no outside network to take on non-guild jobs. No one to tell me where to find salable goods, and no one to sell them for me if I found them. The letter of introduction one of my former acrobat colleagues had given me got me an apprenticeship with the guild, but nothing more. If I didn't want to be reduced to picking pockets and petty theft simply to survive, I was completely dependent on guild assignments. And if I wanted more than the lowest-level guild tasks, I needed to work hard and impress the directors.

Jareth pushed off the wall and sauntered towards me with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. "Care to practice with a partner?" he asked, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm good, thanks."

Jareth chuckled. "Come on, Ziola. Loosen up a bit. All work and no play…"

"Leaves me with my sanity intact," I retorted.

He laughed, obviously enjoying the banter. "You're something else, you know that?"

I smirked, flipping backwards away from him. "And don't you forget it."

"You don't know what you're missing." He winked and turned on his heel, strolling to the far side of the room where two other men were throwing knives at a target.

"Yeah, I think I do," I muttered under my breath. As much as I would have liked to partner with other members on outside jobs, forming those alliances on my back was definitely not part of my plan.

When I finished my workout, I shook out my ponytail and walked to a corner table with a jug of water and cups. Folding my legs to sit on the floor, I closed my eyes and listened to Jareth and his companions, Gordon and Polix, with half an ear. Polix had curly brown hair like Jareth but a knife blade for a nose, while Gordon had spiky blond hair and a weak chin. Much of their conversation involved boasting about their female conquests or their prowess on recent jobs. Neither topic interested me at all.

I was about to head out to the narrow alley behind the guild house to practice with my bow when Jareth's comment snagged my attention. "I heard an assignment came in to hit the Quinlin mansion."

"Isn't that a fae-owned house?" Gordon asked.

Thunk. Jareth's knife hit the target. "Yeah."

Polix whistled appreciatively. "That'll take some balls. There'll be all sorts of magical protection."

"No kidding."

"Who are they sending?" Clink. Polix's knife bounced off the stone wall.

"Clearly, not you," Gordon said with a snort.

"Not like you're any better," Polix grumbled as he walked over and picked the knife up off the floor.

"I heard it's Remy," Jareth said.

"He's a wily bastard. He'll succeed." Gordon's knife just caught the edge of the target.

"Two coppers says he fails," Polix said with a grin.

"You're on." Gordon slapped Polix on the back.

When the conversation turned to plans for a night out drinking, I stood to leave.

"Sure you don't want to come drinking with us?" Jareth flashed his dimples at me. "I've heard redheads are hot stuff."

"Sorry, I've already got plans." Plans for anything besides spending an evening dodging sexual advances. I trotted up the steps to the guild house's main floor.

This floor was a single room with a large, carved oak table in the center. Cushioned high-back chairs surrounded the table, where members gathered to exchange information and plan operations. Most days, I liked to admire the deep-green wall tapestries that depicted some of the guild's more daring heists from days gone by, but today I went straight up to the second floor.

Master Lorget's office door was ajar, but he wasn't there. I went inside to wait for him, moving a stack of ledgers from an upholstered chair and dropping into it. The room was small and cluttered, with parchment strewn across the desk and books crammed haphazardly onto shelves. An assortment of oddities he'd acquired over the years collected dust on the mantle. I wouldn't have been able to find anything, but Lorget could unerringly put his finger on the exact item he needed.

After a few minutes, I rose and glanced up and down the hallway. There was no sign of Lorget or any of the other guild masters, so I silently crossed the room and flipped through the papers on his desk. I felt guilty violating the master's space since he had generously agreed to sponsor me based on the letter of introduction. Just not guilty enough not to snoop.

I stopped rifling through his paperwork when I came across the document outlining the Quinlin job. The target was a famous diamond necklace that Lady Quinlin kept in a locked jewelry box in her second-floor dressing room. There was a rough sketch of the floor plan and a notation that the Quinlins kept a private box at the opera. Someone had clipped a flyer from the Sageport Opera House that listed opening dates to the document. I scanned the flyer and noted that a new performance opened tonight.

Boot steps echoing in the corridor caused me to drop the papers and scamper back to the chair. Lorget came through the door a few seconds later. Like most guild members, Lorget was slender and athletic, but now in his late fifties, he no longer went out on assignments. He possessed an air of quiet authority, with salt-and-pepper hair that fell in unruly waves and deep-set, stormy gray eyes.

"Nice to see you, Ziola." His smile deepened the lines bracketing his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes.

"And you," I replied. "I came to see if you had news about Emil's health." One benefit of guild membership was that they provided basic health care if a member couldn't afford it himself. I hoped whatever damage the Enforcers had meted out wasn't permanent.

"He's doing well. He suffered broken ribs and a collapsed lung at the hands of the Enforcers. You did an outstanding job getting him out."

"Thanks. I'm glad he's recovering." I sat back in my chair and tried to look casual. "Do you have another assignment for me?"

The master plucked a document from the clutter on his desk. For a moment, I thought it was the Quinlin job and my pulse quickened in excitement. But Lorget said, "We need someone to surveil the law offices of Mince and Townsend. Note guard routines, pedestrian and carriage traffic patterns, watchmen rounds… You know the drill."

The smile froze on my face. "Do you mean as preparation for entry?"

"Yes, but we'll have a more experienced member do the actual infiltration."

"You sent me to get Emil out of the Enforcers' holding cells, but don't think I can handle a law office?" I felt my temper rising and struggled to tamp it back down.

"That was an unusual circumstance, my dear." Lorget leaned forward and spoke soothingly, as if to calm a skittish horse. "Time was of the essence, and none of our more senior associates were available. The board was reluctant to send you, but I assured them you could handle it." He clasped his hands and placed them on the desk. "And you handled it brilliantly."

"Apparently, not brilliantly enough," I grumbled.

"Have patience. Keep up the good work and they'll start sending you on more challenging and lucrative jobs."

He gave me another smile that he probably thought was reassuring. To me, it just felt condescending. But I pasted what I hoped was an agreeable expression on my face and stood.

"Thank you, Master Lorget. I'll get right on the surveillance." Fingernails digging into my palms, I walked out of his office.

Two hours later, I was stretched out on the roof of a building across the street from Mince and Townsend, bored to tears. I enjoyed preparing for my own assignments, but doing the scut work so someone else could get the glory galled me. Most of the guild members had started their apprenticeships much younger than I, so by the time they were in their early twenties, they had journeyman status. Their skills were no better than mine, but they all had seniority over me. Even buffoons like Polix.

After stewing for another hour, I realized these apprentice-level assignments were a dead end. At this rate, I'd never reach journeyman, never mind master status, before I was too old to climb a rope. I drummed my fingers on the edge of the roof. What I really needed was another high-profile success like the jail break. And if the guild wouldn't give me that opportunity, I would have to make my own.