‘What’s taking that mad bastard so long?’ Doranei muttered, still staring out of the window.
‘Peace, Brother,’ Veil urged, ‘he’s not late yet.’ He paused. ‘You’re as jumpy as a raw recruit, Doranei. What’s got you wound up?’
‘A woman,’ Doranei said darkly.
Veil frowned at that. ‘You heard from her?’
‘No, I kept her well out of this. Last time I saw her we, ah — ’ He faltered. ‘Well, I don’t know how I left it, really, but it felt sort of final. Can’t tell whether she’s been keeping an eye on me, but there’s this itch at the back of my mind.’
‘Reckon you’d be able to tell if she was tracking you?’
‘I guess not, but I got a burr of something nonetheless.’
‘You decided she’s our enemy now?’ Veil asked in surprise. Last time the subject had come up, Doranei had been emphatic that Zhia wasn’t working with Azaer, and her actions had borne his assessment out. ‘What’s changed?’
Doranei rubbed a callused palm over his face. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, ‘just a feeling. I could be wrong o’course, she’s had a hundred lifetimes to practise giving nothing away, but something’s got me thinking all the same. She’s a cold bitch when she wants to be — think she surprises herself when she’s with me — but there was always a part of her that was closed off.’
‘Aye, well that’s her reputation,’ Veil said. ‘She might be a vampire, might be a heretic, but her heart’s that of a blood-sucking politician.’
Doranei nodded. ‘She’s been doing it for too long, it’s what she is. I’m just scared she might decide what Azaer did in Scree was a true demonstration of the shadow’s power. Cursed with compassion she might be, but she’ll still take sides with Azaer if she can break her curse.’
‘And if that happens,’ Veil finished, ‘we’re in a whole heap of trouble.’
As Veil spoke there came a quiet knock at the door downstairs. Both men were up and moving before it had even been opened, hands moving automatically to their weapons. When Daken slipped through the doorway, his face more animated than before, it was clear the operation was in motion.
‘It’s done?’ Doranei asked.
‘That it is,’ Daken replied, lifting his mail shirt in evidence. The white-eye’s broad chest was missing the large tattoo of Litania the Trickster; the skin where she’d been looked raw and painful. He grinned. ‘She said she’d give me time to get here. I left her slipping into some servant girl near the Menin barracks.’
‘Any idea what she’s going to do?’
Daken’s grin got wider. ‘She’s not one for plannin’ but that girl’s hungry for a bit o’ fun. They’ll be distracted all right!’
‘Then we’re off. Get moving, Veil.’
As Veil and the youngest of the four Tio He thieves headed for the roof, Doranei turned to the rest of his troops. ‘Everyone remember their job? Any questions? All got your equipment?’
‘Stop fussin’ like an old woman,’ Daken growled, ‘we’re good to go and you ain’t in charge, remember?’
‘The plan’s mine,’ Doranei reminded. ‘If everything’s in place, then I’m yours to command.’
‘That’s the sort o’talk I like.’ Daken pointed past Doranei to the smaller of the warehouse’s two doors, the one leading to the gate. ‘Time to move.’
Upstairs, Veil pulled himself up onto the building’s roof and hauled his companion up after him. The greater moon, Alterr, was hidden by cloud, and this deep into the night, the Poacher’s Moon was hours off. Veil sensed as much as saw the swift dark clouds sweep east overhead. He made his way to the corner of the building closest to the wall and knelt to check the iron hook they had put there that afternoon.
‘Ready, Dirr?’ he asked softly.
‘Hurry up old man,’ Dirr replied, with an obscene gesture.
Veil secured a rope to the hook and slipped over the edge, lowering himself down until he felt his boots reach the jutting edge of a beam that ran down the side of the building, almost the height of the wall beyond. He retreated along the beam a little and let the rope play out, then signalled to Dirr before launching himself forward. He ran a few steps along the beam and jumped forward, pulling hard on the rope, using the hook as a pivot to swing himself up to the district wall.
Reaching it comfortably, Veil hooked his legs over and caught his balance. He found himself just above the guardhouse on the right of the gate. He eased himself down until