stopped jiggling. This wasn’t how a test should go. “Yes,” she said finally.
“Really? Why is that?”
The answer came smoothly enough. “Because you’ve always looked after me. Always.”
“Because you miss your da?”
The knife edge of it, dulled by years, still surprised her. She wanted to lie, to say no, but Eneko always knew her lies, just like she always knew Vocho’s. “Yes.”
He nodded, still thinking perhaps. “Do you think I keep secrets? Think closely.”
She didn’t need to. “Of course. You run the guild. There must be secrets – jobs not meant for all ears, the real identity of some clients. Some things are only for masters to know.”
He smiled as though his faith in her had been tested, and she’d passed. “Many secrets. And what do you know of debt?”
She didn’t need to think on that at all. “To pay it.”
“Would you like to know a secret and help me pay a debt?”
She restrained herself from an outburst, barely. “I’d be honoured, Guild Master.”
“Eneko, if you like. I think you’ve earned it. Or are about to.”
The jitters were back, worse than ever. Only masters got to call the guild master by his given name. She was good with a blade, and she knew it, but was she ready for this? She was honest with herself about that doubt and how Vocho would howl unfair but knew she wanted it anyway.
Eneko kept his eyes on hers as he spoke, and she couldn’t have torn herself away if she tried.
“You remember the day – your birthday – on the wall? A bad day for the guild. Meant I had to ask a few favours. From people I shouldn’t have, and didn’t want to, though I was left little choice. A magician.”
That made her catch her breath. They’d all heard about what had happened that day up at the palace, how many had died trying to rid the place of magicians. Men vaporised where they stood, women dying, children screaming. They’d heard, but Kacha didn’t know anyone who’d seen it, and so part of her – the hard part Vocho called it because he didn’t understand – wouldn’t believe it.
“The magician saved my life that day, all our lives perhaps, by telling me what was coming so I could prepare. And in return I helped him escape. But I still owe him. And now I have notice he wants to collect on that debt.” Eneko’s lips twisted like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “This is a job I’d rather never take, but a job I have to do, and yet is almost impossible for me now. And if I don’t pay…”
She started to protest, but he waved it away. “I’m getting old. Not too old to be guild master but too slow for this kind of job. So I need someone I can trust. Someone I’ve been thinking might take over from me when it’s time. Will you do it? Remember – only if it seems good to you.”
She almost couldn’t breathe – to be guild master after Eneko… “Of course.”
“You can’t tell anyone. Not even Vocho. Everyone has secrets as they pass into adulthood. Now so have you. Here, let me show you the job.”
He spread out detailed plans for an assassination. Not unheard of but not usual either and something she’d hoped to avoid for as long as she could. But… master. Guild master.
All the training, the drills, the lessons, had been leading to this one thought. Could she kill a man, not accidentally in a fight but in cold blood? Could she show Eneko just how perfect she was? She had no idea, but she knew the thought of it made sweat sting her eyes. Especially if it was for her own ambition. If she couldn’t, she didn’t belong in the guild. If she could, what did that make her? The endless struggle, Eneko had called it once, and had also said that the battle was only lost when you stopped struggling – anyone who killed without question was lost.
Eneko showed her the point far above a factory where she could wait, could hide for her mark to come. Showed her just how easy it would be. And he told her who the man was: a clocker, owner of a sweatshop down by Soot Town, a hellish place that Kacha and Vocho always hurried past on their rare days out. And a father, brother, husband, son, though not a good one from what Eneko laid out here – mistresses galore,