showed up, he’d be doomed, so the Sa’kagé would have owned him.”
“You know,” Elene said, “sometimes I try to imagine what this city would be like without the Sa’kagé, and I can’t. I want to get out of here, Kylar. Can I come with you tonight?”
“There’s not enough space for an adult,” Jarl answered for him. “Anyway, they’ll be back by dawn. Uly? Kylar? You ready?”
Kylar nodded, and, grim-faced, Uly copied him.
Two hours later, they were at the docks ready to split up. Uly would hide beneath the dock in a raft camouflaged to look like a clump of driftwood. When Kylar fell in the water, she would extend a pole for him to grab so that he could surface out of sight. There would barely be room enough in the little raft for Uly to crouch and Kylar’s head to emerge. After he emerged, the “driftwood” would eventually drift downstream a few hundred paces to another dock where they would emerge.
“What if it all goes wrong? I mean, really wrong?” Uly asked. The night’s cold had left Uly’s cheeks red. It made her look even younger.
“Then tell Elene I’m sorry.” Kylar brushed the front of his cream-colored tunic. His hands were trembling.
“Kylar, I’m scared.”
“Uly,” he said, looking into her big brown eyes, “I wanted to tell you . . . I mean I wish . . .” He looked away. “Uh, I wish you wouldn’t call me by my real name when we’re on a job.” He patted her head. She hated that. “How do I look?”
“Just like Baron Kirof . . . if I squint real hard.” That was for the head pat, he knew.
“Have I ever told you you’re a pain in the ass?” he asked her.
She just grinned.
In a few hours, the docks would be swarming with longshoremen and sailors, preparing their cargoes for the rising sun. For the moment, though, it was quiet except for the lapping of waves. The dock’s private night watch had been paid off, but the bigger fear was of the groups of Khalidoran soldiers who might wander by, looking for blood. Mercifully, it seemed most of them were in the Warrens tonight.
“Well then, see you on the other side,” he said, smirking. It was the wrong thing to say. Uly’s eyes filled with tears. “Go on,” he said, more gently. “I’ll be fine.” She went, and when she was safely out of sight, his face began shimmering. Kylar’s lean young face put on a second chin, a red beard sprouted in the Khalidoran fashion, his nose grew crooked, and his eyebrows became great, wide brushes. Now he was Baron Kirof.
He pulled out a hand mirror and checked himself. He scowled. The illusory nose shrank a little. He opened his mouth, smiled, scowled, and winked, seeing how the face moved. It wasn’t good, but it would have to do. Uly would have helped him get the face right, but the less she knew about his little talents, the better. He started down the dock.
“Dear gods,” Duke Tenser Vargun said as he approached. “Is that you?” The duke was sweaty and pasty pale even in the light of the torches on the end of the dock.
“Duke Vargun, I got your message,” Kylar said loudly, extending his hand and clasping the duke’s wrist. He lowered his voice. “You’ll be fine. Just do everything like we planned.”
“Baron Kirof, thank you,” the duke said, a bit dramatically. He lowered his voice again. “So you’re the player.”
“Yes. Let’s try not to put me out of work.”
“I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“Let’s make sure tonight isn’t your first,” Kylar said. He looked at the jeweled dagger tucked into the duke’s belt. It was an heirloom in the duke’s family, and its inexplicable loss would be part of the evidence that the duke really had killed Baron Kirof. “If you do this, you’ll be going to prison, and not a nice one. We can call it off.” Kylar waved his hands around as he talked the way the real Baron Kirof did when he was nervous.
“No, no.” The duke sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Have you ever done this before?”
“Set up someone by pretending to be someone else? Sure. Pretended to get killed? Not so much.”
“Don’t worry,” the duke said. “I—” Tenser’s eyes flicked past Kylar and his voice went tight with fear. “They’re here.”
Kylar jerked away from the duke as if startled. “Is that a threat?” he barked. It was only a fair imitation of