The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,133

man. The Old Man said it was hard to find people who were willing to kill drafters, hard to find people willing to kill women, and hardest to find people who’d take dangerous assignments on short notice. This job had to been done immediately. Course, he didn’t tell me what he meant by ‘immediately,’ but I knew it was my chance—maybe my last chance—to work my way into his good graces.”

“Shit,” Teia said. She didn’t want to, but she felt a kinship for him. The job assassinating the Nuqaba had been like that.

“Yeah. I botched the job. I wonder how different things would be if I hadn’t. Not just for me, either.

“She was staying in a part of Big Jasper I didn’t know well back then. I asked directions from some idiot kopi seller, and he told me the wrong street, gave me directions to Farhad Street instead of Farbod Street. Maybe I misunderstood his accent, or he mine. I broke into the house, and there was no young woman there, but there was a bed and a woman’s clothing in the trunk, so I waited all night for her to come back, thinking I was at the right place. Some tavern girl comes back after dawn, and it’s not her. Description is totally wrong. I ask someone else out in the street and figure out what I did wrong—and I run. I get to Felia’s house and she’s gone. I’m reckless as all hell—knowing this might mean my death if I fail, and I figure out she’d gone to the harbor. I got that feeling in my gut the whole time I’m running there—and I get there in time to see her ship disappear on the horizon. I ask where the boat’s going. I ask for other boats going the same way, though I have no way to pay for passage. It turns out her rich daddy’s boat is one of the fastest around, and no one knows where it’s headed anyway. I ask if there’s a boat heading for her home port, because I know I’m in it deep. I’m willing to gamble going to the wrong port on the bare chance I can fix it. But there isn’t. Not for a week. And I know the Old Man won’t let me live that long if I don’t meet him when I’d said.”

Holy hells, Teia thought.

“No matter how I practiced it in my head, it all sounded like a lame excuse, an unforgivable failure. The Old Man’s not a fool. He doesn’t expect perfection. He tolerates failure from those valuable to him. But this? A rich woman allowed to escape, when the Old Man was already suspicious? I’d look untrustworthy. And that he doesn’t tolerate. So it was life-or-death. Do you know I didn’t really have good teeth beforehand? Didn’t even think about my smile. Didn’t take care of myself. I’d probably not choose to keep a single one of those teeth now. Not like you. Very fortunate, you are.”

She did not want to hear him rhapsodize about her teeth, not right now. Not ever. “That’s . . . that’s not the story you told in the Mirror Room,” Teia said.

“Well, all that was a lie. I was trying to scare you into not getting distracted or greedy when you’re on a job. The real problem with taking a bribe is that every delay gives your target more chances to get away or be saved. Don’t do that.”

Please stay utterly un-self-aware, Teia thought. “So, how am I supposed to know that this story is true this time?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Does it look like I’m trying to amuse anyone?”

“So that’s why you broke all your own teeth? Because you were afraid the Old Man would think you’d taken a payoff to let that girl go?”

Too late, as he sucked air through his perfect dentures, she realized she shouldn’t have said he was afraid. How could you call a man a coward who had shattered all his own teeth in order to live?

“I’m sorry—”

“Point is,” Murder Sharp cut her off angrily, “I never had a choice. Not from the moment I was born with a paryl talent I didn’t ask for. Elijah ben-Kaleb didn’t have a choice who I would kill for the Chromeria, and Murder Sharp didn’t have a choice who to kill for the Order. They’re just the fuckin’ same.

“Maybe that’s what she meant,” he mumbled. “Weird fuckin’ lady. No coward, for sure, but