The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,199

sensibly kept away from making a pilgrimage because of the war, someone else came in their place, desperate because of the war.

She couldn’t have let Halfcock live with what he knew of her, but by killing him, she’d given up her one certain lead to where the Braxians would meet the night before Sun Day. Halfcock hadn’t known where their rituals would be held beforehand, and claimed he always would find a note in his pocket with directions when the time was close. So he couldn’t tell her where it would be, but she could’ve followed him.

Now this safe house was her only lead.

A safe house no one had visited in three days.

It could be a trap, of course.

Worse, the longer she waited, the more likely it was that Murder Sharp would get wind of Halfcock’s disappearance. Would that lead him here?

She gathered her paryl around her, going invisible, and moved through the street. She’d mastered it now, moving with her head down, shooting the quickest glances this way and that to see what she must, moving with the understanding that others didn’t see her at all. It was a busy street, but the little house had a recessed doorway.

Teia slipped into it and started to work with the picks and anchors.

Through Quentin, Karris had made sure she had the best gear, but truth be told, Teia still wasn’t much good with lockpicks.

The mechanism was neither new nor tight nor complicated, and it still took her almost ten sweating minutes and one ruined anchor to open the lock.

Opening the door a crack, Teia streamed a cloud of paryl vapor through the gap and into the room beyond. She felt nothing moving.

She looked back to the street and the bustle of carts, then opened the door—neither fast, which would draw the eye, nor too slow, which would make any who saw wonder why a door was swinging open by itself. Nope, this was just as if someone in the house had opened the door, changed their mind, and closed it again.

Her heart was in her throat as she stepped inside, hands baring daggers from sheaths, paryl readied for the attack. She pushed the door shut with one foot.

The trap would spring shut now, if there was one.

One breath passed with no attack.

Two.

She streamed out clouds of paryl again, moving from room to room quickly, not really noticing anything, merely feeling for life or empty places, trapdoors, hidden alcoves.

It was clear.

She breathed easy for the first time in half an hour.

Empty. Like she’d supposed it would be, after all her time watching the place.

Now to work.

There was a bed that was too rich for this neighborhood by half, a closet with various clothes rich and poor, and a woman’s white Braxian robes.

That was good. At least it told Teia Halfcock had been honest with her about that much. This was someone in the Order’s safe house.

Teia examined everything for some hint of who the woman was. The sheets were Ilytian cotton, but had no tailor’s mark on them. The nicer clothing came from a variety of tailors around Big Jasper, but not a piece was monogrammed.

So whoever owned this place wasn’t stupid, then.

Teia searched for two hours and found nothing.

She sat on the bed and sighed. What was she going to do? She could set Karris’s people on it—the White did have many other eyes and ears—but Karris had asked that Teia reserve that for an emergency. Anything to do with the Order should be held closer than close, lest they all get killed.

What were her other options? If she set Karris’s people on this, she could get back to hunting for her father, which almost certainly would be where Murder Sharp would have his best traps set. But some traps you have to risk.

It was hopeless. For months and months she’d been hunting the Order, and she had nothing. She was a total failure.

If she could just think. There had to be some way forward.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, she couldn’t tell how long they’d been closed. Had she fallen asleep? No, surely not.

The rattle of a key in the lock sent a jolt through her. Shit! She hadn’t even locked the door behind her.

But it bought her an extra couple of moments now, as whoever was on the other side had first locked the door, tried it, and now unlocked it.

She jumped to her feet, pulled the cloak shut, went invisible, and roughly smoothed the blankets from the

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