She chanced another glance at the man, considering.
Normally she was above petty theft. But she wasn’t one to turn down a dare. And it was a pretty trinket, besides, and it looked like Glashtyn silver, judging by the way it appeared to turn blue when the firelight struck it—which meant that it would fetch a very pretty price.
It wouldn’t fetch as much as their payment from Lord Merric, but that mission for the Lord of Stonefall looked as though it was going to take longer than she’d hoped—if they even managed to complete it at all.
She had to do something to hold her over in the meantime. There was medicine for Asra that she needed to buy, and the only man capable of getting her that medicine was not known for his charity.
Also, she hated cooking duty.
But then, almost as if he sensed he’d become a topic of conversation, the man by the fire stood up. He dropped a few coins onto the table, smiled a handsome smile at the servant who was bowing and looking flustered over the generous tip, and then he disappeared up the stairs located in the back of the room.
“Well, so much for that,” Zev pouted.
Cas thought again of Asra. Of the way she hadn’t been able to get out of bed the morning before, and how her body seemed to have started wasting away. Cas’s last memories of her first adoptive parents were similar—the weakness, the protruding veins, the ashen color of their hair and eyes spreading over their entire body—except it had all progressed much more quickly for them; the Fading Sickness almost always claimed its victims within a year. That illegal, expensive medicine that Cas had managed to procure was the only thing that had kept Asra with her for so long.
Cas was not prepared to lose her simply because she couldn’t afford that medicine.
Petty theft, here I come.
“You’re on,” she told Zev, getting to her feet.
“Really?” He leaned back in his chair, looking both amused and curious.
“Really.”
“You have a plan?”
“Of course.”
“Do tell.”
She swallowed hard, and then proceeded to make one up: “They have certain kinds of…er…room service in this tavern, don’t they? Shouldn’t be too hard to get into his room under the guise of that, and then…”
“And then?” Zev prompted, grinning his fool’s grin as the back of her neck burned hot.
“I…well, you know.”
“Do I? I’m not sure I do. Please explain in detail.”
“Please bite me, asshole.”
“Save that line for your target; he might like it.”
“I’m pretty sure I can come up with at least several lines that are better than that.”
“I would love to hear them.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Cas,” Rhea said with a sigh.
“She can’t help it,” Zev said, “she was born that way. Let’s not be rude about it.”
Cas flicked a crumpled up napkin at his face, and Zev chuckled as he batted it away. “I do have to agree with my dear sister on this one, though,” he said. “You’re skilled in a lot of things, Cas. Seduction and flirting are not among those things. So while I don’t doubt your thieving abilities, if that’s really the method you’re going to try and use…well…um…”
“Okay, so now you know I have to prove you wrong,” Cas said.
He did know, judging by the way his grin widened even further. “Good luck.”
Rhea sighed again. “This is almost exactly the sort of recklessness I mentioned earlier.”
“Think of how many coins that silver bracelet might sell for,” Cas implored.
“It might not even be real silver.” Rhea pursed her lips and grumbled something about children, but after a moment she shook her head and relented: “Fine. I’ll sign off on this only because I vastly prefer Zev’s cooking to yours, and so I hope you win this bet.”
“Take Silverfoot,” Zev told Cas, “so that Rhea can see how horrendously this goes, and then she can describe it to me in all of its full, glorious detail.”
The fox let out a squeaky yawn from his place beneath the table, sounding perfectly unenthusiastic about this plan, while Rhea herself just massaged the space between her blind eyes and whispered what sounded like a prayer under her breath.
“Unnecessary,” Cas muttered with one last cross look at Zev. “Because you’ll see how wonderfully it’s gone in just a few minutes, when I reemerge with that bracelet in my hand.”
“I hope he lasts more than a few minutes for you, friend.”
Neck flushing even hotter, she turned to Rhea. “I actually might need Silver’s nose for a moment.”
Rhea nodded, and at the click of her tongue the fox rose, stretched, and leapt up into her lap. “Help Cas, please?” she asked, and with a nod toward her brother, added, “This idiot can be my sight in the meantime.”
The fox yawned again, blinked the sleepiness from its big dark eyes, and then obediently bounced down to wait at Cas’s feet.
“Be careful,” Rhea said.
Cas promised she would, and then she turned and strode purposefully toward the table where her target had been sitting, the tiny fox trotting at her heels.
“Just scream if it goes poorly,” Zev called after them.
But they both knew she wouldn’t scream. She wasn’t worried about it going poorly, either; she could handle herself. Madam Rosa insisted on her bar patrons disarming at the door, so Cas no longer had her bow—they had all left their larger weapons at their hideout, anyway—but she still had a throwing knife hidden against her thigh, her dart gun tucked into the inner pocket of her coat, and Laurent had been giving her hand-to-hand combat lessons for so long that she herself was not a weapon to take lightly.
And she was almost eager for a fight, besides.
Let it go poorly, she thought.
It would give her another chance to work out her anxieties and frustrations.
She approached the table, pretended to be warming herself by the fire behind it for a moment, and then knelt down to stroke the fox’s silky fur and whisper, “Can you pick up the scent of the man that was just sitting here?”
The creature went to work sniffing the chair and the floor beneath it, helping himself to a few crumbs of fallen food as he did. After a moment he lifted his head, snorted, and bounded off toward the stairs.
She followed him up those stairs, and all the way down a narrow hallway and to the last room on the left. There, Silverfoot paused, stuck his snout beneath the door, inhaled deeply for a moment, and then settled back on his haunches while looking rather pleased with himself.
“Thank you. Now go on back to Rhea,” Cas said, knocking lightly on the door. “I’ll be fine.”
The fox tilted his head, and his tail thumped an uncertain rhythm against the floorboards.
“Go on—”
The door flung open.
Chapter Five
Silverfoot scampered away, and Cas turned to find herself staring into a pair of pale blue eyes. The fox’s nose was accurate; this was definitely the same man that had been staring at her earlier. He seemed even more imposing up close. Cas was not particularly small, but the longer she stared at him, the more tiny and overshadowed she felt.