Erin Evans - The God Catcher

Ferremo started to protest his ignorance-they had taken all possible precautions. But the memory that had itched in his mind earlier crawled to the front of his thoughts, and he checked himself. He remembered where he had heard the name Tennora, and Ferremo breathed a sigh of relief.

"I have a suspicion, my lord," Ferremo said.

Rhinzen Halnian woke from a dreamless sleep to the sound of a knife scratching on its sheath and the prick of a blade settling on his throat. Nerves nearly made him sit up, right into the blade, but a hand pressed against his forehead an instant sooner.

"Well met, Master Halnian," Ferremo Magli said with exaggerated grace. "Who's Tennora?" "What?" Rhinzen gasped. "Who?"

"Tennora," the assassin said. "You spoke her name this evening, and tonight a thief with the same name ruined my master's shop. So I ask again. Who. Is. Tennora?"

"Tennora? She's… she was my student."

Ferremo's smile peeled open past his copper canines. "I'm glad to hear that. Sets my heart at ease to know you're guilty before we get on with things."

"Guilty?" Rhinzen said. He was starting to feel a bit like a trained bird. "Guilty of what? Of letting my worst apprentice go?"

"You took my master's coin," Ferremo said, "and ran off to tell his plans to another taaldarax. We don't take well to that, Master Halnian." The edge of his blade traced the prominence of Rhinzen's throat.

"Wait…" Rhinzen said, starting to make sense of things. "You think I sent Tennora to rob you? Tennora Hedare?" Rhinzen laughed. "If I were going to cheat you, I certainly would have a better plan than that. That girl is North Ward, born and bred. Proper as a portrait. And she's terrible at magic."

"Good enough to throw fire in my face. And decent with a carvestar."

"Now I know you have the wrong girl. My Tennora would be more likely to throw a book at you." Rhinzen laughed again. The press of the knife cut him short. "Look," he said, "there are probably plenty of Tennoras-"

"But not plenty who know you. And certainly not plenty who run around with dragons."

"I'll tell you where she lives. You could go and see that it's certainly not the same girl. Though," he added, wetting his lips, "if it were, you would probably find the treasure and evidence of the… the dragon."

The knife edged away a hair. Ferremo seemed to be considering it, but given what he'd learned in the last few days, Rhinzen suspected the assassin was conferring with his monstrous patron. The distant look in the man's eyes gave him away.

The knife abruptly went back into its sheath. "Very well. Where does she live?"

By the time they had made their way back to the God Catcher, the gray light of dawn was slinking through the alleys and courtyards of Waterdeep. Still trembling with shock and unused to traveling in the south end of the Trades Ward at night, Tennora had gotten lost in the maze of streets and alleys, not noticing where she turned or where she continued. She couldn't think straight-she dared not think straight. She walked hoping the passage of block after block of cobbles beneath her feet would be enough to drive the memories of the heist from her mind.

But when Tennora slipped in through the doors of the God Catcher as quietly as possible-lest her neighbors spot her at that time of the morning, stained with some stranger's death and carrying a sack with a golden mask in it-her thoughts were still full of flying knives and broken necks, spatters of brain, and the sound of a man choking on his own blood.

Nestrix clomped up behind her, her new boots echoing on the stairs. Tennora winced and sprinted up to her apartment, imagining the city Watch hot on her heels. She had made her peace with being a thief-just this once-but murder? There was no making peace with that.

Her hands shook as she unlocked the door. She swept into the apartment, grateful to be out of the sight of others, away from the blood and the broken glass. The leaflet with Nestrix's face was still sitting, folded up, on the table. Tennora set one hand on it and covered her eyes with the other. She could have seen this. She could have prevented it.

"Are you all right?" Nestrix asked, coming in and closing the door. "You look ill."

Tennora didn't move. "Ill is too light a word. That was… terrible."

Nestrix sighed and sat down. "Horrible. I very much wish I'd taken that lovely statue." "Don't you even care that we killed someone?" Tennora said.

"Just now?" Nestrix said. "That hardly counted."

"Of course not," Tennora said bitterly. She turned to face Nestrix. "It's vulgar to count, isn't that right?"

"Don't be dramatic. It doesn't count because they were attacking us."

"Because we were robbing them! We killed two of the antiquary's guards, and he's trapped under a cabinet, probably"-her voice caught in her throat-"bleeding out."

Nestrix rolled her eyes. "Don't waste your pity on those fools. They weren't exactly trying to show us their wares. As if they'd had any to show."

"Of course they weren't! They were trying to stop us… What do you mean by that? The shop was full of wares."

"That wasn't an antiquary's shop," Nestrix said.

Tennora was so startled by the assertion, she stared at Nestrix for a few breaths, waiting for her to amend it. When she didn't, Tennora burst out, "Of course it was! What else would it be?"

Nestrix gave her a look, as if Tennora were being willfully ignorant. "What antiquary trying to sell things fills the part of the shop people see with worthless junk and hides the valuables in the back? That was a lot of rubbish in those cases-polished-up rubbish, but rubbish still. The gold's nothing but brass, the silver's shiny tin, the gems were all chipped quartz and painted glass. The only genuine thing there was that ugly little pin with the spinel on it." She shook her head. "No one with the sense to collect the treasures in the back room would try and convince others that garbage was worth buying. They're trying to keep customers away."

Tennora stared, wondering why a dragon would know so much about shopkeepers. "Did you memorize everything in that shop?"

"Most of it. I'm not a white, after all," Nestrix said with a sneer. "It was the saddest little hoard I've seen in a while. It might very well be a white's."

"Hoard?"

"That was a seed hoard, make no mistake. You have a dragon in your midst, and he's aggressive. And sloppy."

"Dragons can't just show up in Waterdeep," Tennora said. "The dragonward-"

"The dragonward is fallible. Look at me."

Tennora sighed, exasperated. "You hardly count." Dragonfear rippled over Tennora, but she shook it off. "Stop doing that."

"Whether I count or not," Nestrix said in a low voice, "another dragon, a taaldarax, is behind that shop. Mark my words."

"That doesn't excuse you just killing those men!"

"Are you mad? You should be thanking me for killing his minions and lovac. Without them, his plans will have to slow down. Don't you know anything?"

"I know killing is against the law."

"So is stealing," Nestrix said. "And if you play, it's against the rules to move without your agents-so we slowed him down. If you're lucky, when I'm returned to my true form, I'll help you deal with the taaldarax." She smoothed her skirt down and gave Tennora a smug look. "Won't you be happy when I can return your favors?"

"I don't want you to return any favors by killing someone!" Tennora said. "Godsdamnit, Nestrix, there's a difference between pilfering someone's valuables and killing their servants!"

The fear rolled over her like a tidal wave as Nestrix surged to her feet. "You ungrateful little dokaal! I saved your life by killing that man-did you even think of that?"

She hadn't, and that was on purpose. The memory of being pinned by the axe blade, of the man drawing his knife and coming toward her, would not sit comfortably in her mind no matter which way she turned it. She had nearly been killed-the thought made her stomach drop.