The Dragon Rogues, page 7
They stepped inside. As soon as they did, everything opened up into a space that was too large for what the exterior suggested.
Jonathan walked back out to the street, and he turned his head from side to side, studying the building and trying to make out just what was there. He guessed there had to be some evidence of the facade placed on the building, but he didn’t see anything. He didn’t think it could be the actual building, not with the way it looked on the inside.
Unless the inside was the facade.
Jonathan stepped back through the doorway and looked around.
Matthew watched him. “Well?” he whispered.
“Whoever has done this has some talent,” Jonathan said.
“He does. I thought you might be impressed by it.”
“Where are we?”
“This is the home of the king’s auditor.”
Jonathan snorted. “I’m not so sure we want to involve somebody who’s part of the administration.”
“I’m just laying out your options,” Matthew said with a shrug. “Not that I disagree with you. At least not in this case.”
The facade around them was incredibly skilled. If the auditor were interested in the job, he would be useful. And then Jonathan could begin looking for the next part of the team.
“Where is he?”
Matthew turned in place. “If we don’t see him, it means he has declined the meeting. Then again, he hasn’t taken many jobs. Or any. He’s still on the list, though.”
Jonathan swept his gaze around him, looking for signs of the facade—something Grayson had taught him over the years. The tell could often be a subtle thing, and he didn’t know if he was going to be able to see anything. He knew the facade was here and that whoever held on to it had to be talented, but unlike when he usually looked around him, he wasn’t able to make out anything that suggested there even was a facade here. Which meant he wasn’t able to find any way to identify where the sneak hid.
“I don’t think he wants to visit with us,” Jonathan said.
Matthew sighed. “Perhaps not.”
They walked back out into the street. “Was that the last one on your list?”
“The last one who would have the strength and skill. There’s one more, at least for now, but I don’t know how much to trust the person who recommended her.”
“Her?”
“She’s young, Jonathan. Young enough that I’m not so sure you would even be willing to take her on.”
Matthew knew him well. At least enough to know that a young woman would trouble him. Not because she was a woman—he’d worked with plenty of skilled women. But because it would bring up memories of his sister. It would be like hiring Jayna, something Jonathan had once tried, before seeing that she could have a better life.
“Why don’t we at least go see her?” Jonathan said. “I’m sure she can’t be any worse than these others.”
“She’s young,” Matthew said again.
Jonathan’s skin tingled. It was a trick he used often, a way of picking up on the potential of magic around him. Perhaps it was magic of his own. Jonathan had never really understood it, only that he had always been able to detect that sense around those who could use power. It didn’t need to be a sorcerer. Sneaks would trigger that feeling, along with others who had minor magic, like the enchanters who created some of the more useful items he used on jobs.
And he felt it now. The hairs on his arms stood on end.
Matthew guided him directly toward that sense of power, and when they reached it, he paused. They were in a narrow alley, and Jonathan could feel something here even though he wasn’t able to see anything.
Did that mean this was another facade?
There were times when he simply couldn’t tell. Other times, it was obvious, such as when he had dealt with the first person who had attempted to place a facade for them.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“We’re going to see if we can’t find the sneak who I heard was operating over here.”
“Operating. You mean as part of a crew.”
“Unattached. At least for now,” Matthew said.
“If she’s unattached, then she probably isn’t anyone we want to use.”
“I thought you wanted to give her a chance.”
At this point, Jonathan was starting to feel like he didn’t have much say in the matter. He might not get his first choice of sneaks. Or his second or third. He might have to take someone like this, someone who had not yet proven themselves. There was some value in it, as he might find somebody with untapped potential, the same way Grayson had once found him.
They turned a corner and he noticed movement. A dark shape slipped along the opposite side of the street.
Matthew started forward, but Jonathan raised his hand, pulling him back. The figure was small and slender, and everything around them blurred and bent as if they stood in front of something that caught the reflection, curling it around them.
The sneak. Jonathan would have bet his life on it.
He leaned over to Matthew. “This is your sneak?”
“Most of the ones in the city are attached to crews, or they have other responsibilities. That limits the pool we can draw from.”
“We shouldn’t have to limit our options.”
“Well, unless you want to advertise what you’re after, then we do.”
Jonathan had no interest in giving anyone else an idea about what he was planning. It was safer that way. He watched the slender figure navigate across the street. Every so often, there was a surge of color around her, as if the attempt to hold the facade failed.
In some ways, it was even less skillful than the first one they had seen. But there were also patterns that crisscrossed over the sneak—the kinds of patterns that would require an incredibly delicate touch.
Jonathan trailed after her, although he had no idea where she was going. He and Matthew reached a side street, and he paused to look all around him.
There was no sign of her. She’d disappeared.
He twisted his head from side to side. Whenever he was around a sneak, turning like that usually allowed him to capture the blur that slipped by when the person’s magic shifted. In this case, when he did it, he wasn’t able to make anything else out. Still, even though he might not be able to see her, he suspected she was there. Somewhere.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
Matthew took a step forward, and Jonathan grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
He saw it then. A ripple. It took on Matthew’s contours, to the point where it had begun to absorb even his clothing, his face and arms, and everything about him. For the facade to do that, the sneak would have to be close.
Either that, or strong.
“Did she know you were coming to observe her today?” Jonathan asked.
“I didn’t tell her. Others might have, but I didn’t,” Matthew said.
Jonathan stayed in place, watching.
After a while, the figure moved. It was difficult for him to identify, but he could make out just the barest form slipping along the street. The transparency held, though it changed as it did.
He smiled. “Do you see that?”
“Is she—”
“Yes. She’s holding the facade and moving.”
Doing so was incredibly difficult. It required technical skill, and it required power.
What he had seen from her so far hadn’t suggested that she was all that powerful.
Until now.
“Let’s go after her,” Jonathan said.
Matthew shrugged then started moving. He was fast—much faster than Jonathan. That wasn’t surprising, as Jonathan had long suspected that Matthew had a hidden talent that he didn’t tell anyone—even Jonathan.
He managed to catch the girl as she turned a corner and tried to disappear.
“Just want to talk,” he said.
Jonathan finally caught up to them. “We’re looking for help on a job,” he said. “Heard you might have some talent. That’s all we’re looking for.”
The girl—and she was a girl as she couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old—looked at him, jaw jutted out, and stared. “I do have talent, but no one wants to take someone my age seriously. Or a girl.”
“What’s your name?”
“Elizabeth Wiggins.”
Matthew nodded. That was who they were looking for.
“What kind of things can you do?” Jonathan asked, though he wasn’t sure that he even needed to. He’d seen evidence of her ability already.
She stepped back, then the entire street disappeared, leaving little more than a blank wall. Even that faded, then started shifting, contours filling in, and finally everything reappeared—only slightly different. The control surprised him from someone her age. She was strong. She might be inexperienced, but that was something he might be able to help with, if she were interested in learning.
He glanced over to Matthew. “Now I think we have our sneak.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jonathan leaned back against a building, the shadows of night swirling around him. He had changed into black clothes and now hid within the darkness. He stared at a door with a simple lock. At least, that was what he had been told. Still, he wasn’t able to open it.
Matthew stood across from him. “What are we doing here?”
“A test,” Jonathan said.
“What sort of test?”
“The sort that ends with us deciding whether or not we need to bring in a lockpick.”
“I thought you’d already decided we did.”
“I had decided it was likely, but I’m not so sure either of us wants that. It means we expand the number of people.” He glanced back toward Elizabeth, who was crouched further along the wall, saying nothing. She held the facade that shrouded them, obscuring them from sight.
Jonathan hadn’t been surprised that she’d leapt at the opportunity to join a crew. What he hadn’t expected was just how skillful her work already was. He offered a bit of guidance, enough to make suggestions about how she held on to her facade—which he never had to do with Grayson—but he hadn’t expected her to be able to take that advice and act on it almost immediately.
She was gifted. And she reminded him of his sister, down to the same slight build and mousy brown hair. Even the confidence bordering on cockiness was like Jayna. Perhaps that was why it troubled him so much that they were using her. Jonathan had never used Jayna in any of his jobs. Mostly.
He had tried early on, before her potential had become evident, but once he had seen that, he’d stopped trying to use her. He’d known that she could have a much better life for herself by going to the Academy, training with the Society, and joining them. If Jonathan was honest with himself, there was a part of him that still hoped he could use that connection, though he had never put words to it.
“I can’t open it,” Matthew said.
“Neither can I.”
“That’s why you brought us here?”
“I brought us here to see if either of us could open it,” Jonathan said. “And failing that, to see if Elizabeth might be able to do so.”
“Why do you think she might be able to open the lock?”
“I’m not entirely sure. With her power, it’s possible she might be able to use magic for it.”
Jonathan whistled, and Elizabeth looked over to them with a frown.
“Am I doing it wrong?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Not wrong at all. I just wanted to see if there was something else you might be able to do.”
She nodded, hurrying over to them. Even as she moved, the facade moved with her, concealing her beneath it. When he had seen her do something like that out on the street, he had wondered whether she would be able to do so consistently, or if she would fail to replicate it. He need not have worried. Elizabeth was a natural.
“Do you have anything in your repertoire that might allow you to open a lock?” he asked.
“Other than a key?”
“Other than a key. There are times when we might need to open doors without having the actual key. I wasn’t sure if your skill with creating a facade might permit you that ability.”
“It doesn’t form anything concrete,” she said.
He knew that it didn’t, at least from the lessons he’d learned from Grayson on facades. It’s only a subtle sort of magic, Grayson had said. Not sorcery, and not an enchantment. It’s more of an illusion. Strange how his mentor’s words came back to him.
He turned to Matthew. “For this to work, we are probably going to have to find a lockpick.”
“I have a few names.”
Jonathan laughed softly. “Like the list of names you had before?”
“I seem to recall that list of names providing us the answers we needed,” Matthew said, shrugging.
“At the end.”
Jonathan started along the street, with the other two trailing after him. Elizabeth kept herself shielded with her facade. A ripple was visible along the border of the illusion, but the longer she held it, the more it smoothed out.
“I don’t suppose you have a lock to test the candidates with?” Matthew asked.
Jonathan pulled one out of his pocket.
After half an hour, Matthew stopped at a door. He tapped on it and waited for a few moments before twisting the knob and entering the building. Jonathan followed him inside. They stepped into a strange shop with walls covered in locks. They were of all different shapes and sizes and metals.
“I take it that you’ve been here before?” Jonathan asked.
“I’ve been to all these places. I’ve scouted.”
“Even before knowing what I might want?”
“I told you I’ve been pulling some jobs without you. I need my own connections. But there is some benefit for you as well.”
Jonathan glanced around at the walls of locks. “This is a little more… conventional… than I expected.”
Lockpicks for his jobs tended to be of a certain type.
“We wanted a lockpick,” Matthew replied.
“What if he doesn’t want to take a job like this?”
“This is just a test. We’re feeling them out. Nothing more than that. If they don’t want to do it, then they don’t have to do it.”
Jonathan looked around for the proprietor. He turned slowly in place and realized that Elizabeth had blended herself into the back wall, the other locks showing through her. He doubted that any of the other sneaks they had tested would’ve been able to do that. She seemed to hide instinctively. If it came down to it, Jonathan had to hope that she would be able to hide not only herself but others with her.
“May I help you?” The voice that came from the back reminded Jonathan of the woman who’d questioned him before freeing him from prison. He looked over and saw a short, stooped woman.
“We wanted to know whether you could help us with a lock,” he said. He swept his gaze around the shop, lingering briefly on where he knew Elizabeth to be, even though he couldn’t see her. “We have a difficult lock, and it’s one we can’t quite get open.”
The woman’s feet tapped along the hardwood floor as she moved toward him. “Let’s see it.” Jonathan held the lock out, and she took it from him, frowning. “You have it in this form, and not attached to anything?”
“We cut it off,” he said. “We intend to replace it but wondered if perhaps we didn’t need to.”
The woman hobbled around behind her desk, and she picked out several keys from a massive collection stored there. She worked one by one, shoving keys into the lock and twisting, before withdrawing each and trying another.
This went on long enough that Jonathan began to lose patience with the process, and he worried that perhaps this had been a mistake. After what seemed like an eternity, she tried a key, and the lock came open.
“There. This one will do. Now, if you would like me to replicate the key, it will only be a day or so.”
“Is this how you handle all locks like this?” Jonathan asked.
“Locks like this, certainly. They are relatively straightforward.”
“What about locks where you don’t have a key that matches?”
“There aren’t too many that don’t.”
“Are there any?” he asked.
The woman looked up at him, holding his gaze for a moment. There was something knowing in her eyes, as if she recognized what he was getting at and didn’t care for it. “You must have a key in order to trip the lock. There are some thieves”—she emphasized the word with harsh irritation—“who think they may be able to bypass the lock, but they are fools. Locks are meant to be caressed, not forced. Locks can be opened by another key, but only if it has the right contours.”
“So you don’t force the lock the same way someone else does… but you’re still forcing the lock.”
She frowned at him. “What I’m trying to explain is that there are certain ways to open each lock. One is with the native key. That is made at the time of the lock’s construction by the locksmith himself—or herself.” She smiled widely. “It’s a delicate process, which involves keying a lock in a specific way. Not all locksmiths are able to key their locks as skillfully as another. You might find some who trigger here, or here, but rarely will you find them here, here, and here.” Each time she said the word, she pointed to a different part on the end of the key.
Jonathan resisted the urge to pull out a key from his pocket, knowing that it would do him no good.
“Other times you can find a way to use an existing key,” she continued, “sliding it into a lock that looks comparable. There are many locks that share similarities. Once you begin to understand them, you can look for them.”
Jonathan frowned. He hadn’t seen her really looking for any sort of similarities. As far as he had been able to tell, she had merely plucked key after key from some mysterious bucket until she found one that worked.
“How do you decide which ones are similar?” he asked.
