a dying mother left in poverty when he was rich. Other things too – the slaves that passed through his hands, got from no-one-knew-where, sold on to no-one-was-sure-who, though Ikaras seemed a fair bet – their sugar plantations, the trade the whole country depended upon, couldn’t operate without slaves. One reason the prelate always baulked at negotiating with them. She wondered whether these things were true, or if they were, whether Eneko laid them out because he thought she wouldn’t do the job otherwise. She wondered how little he knew her – or how much.
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Eneko said quietly. “A lot, and if you do it this won’t be the last one I ask of you. You’ll need extra training, but we can arrange that. There’s time enough. But there’s no one else I trust to do it, and I must pay my debt. In return, I’ll pay my debt to you by making you my acknowledged apprentice. Does that seem good to you?”
She stared down at the plans for a long while. A job – she’d always known it would be a job they’d task her with for her master’s test. Not a guarding job either, or an escort, or anything straightforward. An assassination. A cold-blooded killing, even of a man such as this, a slaver. Was a master’s title worth that?
She looked up, ready to say no, it didn’t look good to her, to receive the small frown that would be his only reproof – jobs were theirs to take or leave, their morals their own past duty to the guild. If she said no, someone else would do it, someone else would get their master’s title. Vocho perhaps, with his lusting ambition and lack of scruples. Eneko would invite someone else to share his chamber of an evening, someone else to play cards with and laugh with, teach all his little tricks with the blade to. Someone else for him to be father to, as he’d been to her.
It wasn’t for the guild she said it, nor fear of the magician and what he’d do to Eneko if this job wasn’t done, though that was part of it, she told herself. But not just that, nor that this clocker was as bad as the nobles had been before the revolt, nor Eneko’s debt, or hers to him for taking her into the guild in the first place. It was because he smelled of pipe smoke and salt, like Da, because he was all the da she’d had for a long time, and she wanted that to continue. Because she wanted to bask in his approval as she had in Da’s, and life had been cold without it. Because to refuse the job was to refuse to be a master, become a duellist when that’s all she’d ever wanted. To refuse her test was to leave the guild, her home, and know that she could have had it all if she’d had the nerve.
“It seems good to me.”
She swallowed back the spurt of acid in her throat and told herself it was only the truth.
Later, much later, after weeks of extra training, longer weeks of watching her mark, of seeing that he was exactly the kind of man Eneko said he was, she sat in her room and stared at the blood on her shaking hands, on her blades. The acid was back in her throat worse than ever, but she swallowed it down.
“Perfect. You were perfect.” Eneko put a hand on her shoulder, and that, and his words, his voice sounding just like Da’s, were enough to stop the shakes. For now. She was pretty sure she’d be shaking in her dreams later.
“But I—”
“Got the job done. It’s always hard, especially like this. Always a fight in yourself. Worry when you don’t have to fight it any more. Look at me. Look. That’s it. There’ll be other jobs, but I promise I’ll never ask you to kill anyone who doesn’t fully deserve it. Put your trust in me and I’ll look after you. You saw the man he was, saw what he did, didn’t you? Saw what needed to be done and did it. You handled it well, and I’m proud of you.”
She blinked hard, took a deep breath and nodded. That was all she wanted: him to be proud, so she could imagine that Da was proud too.
As if reading her mind he said, “I’m your father. I have been since