Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

"You can hide yourself, your feelings. The way he can," Isana said quietly. "You let me feel that, just now. You wanted to reassure me."

The Marat girl faced her, unsmiling, and bowed her head. "You are a good listener, Lady Isana."

Isana bit her lip. "I am hardly a lady, Kitai."

"Nonsense," Kitai said. "I have seen nothing in you to indicate that you would be anything other than one of nobility, refinement, and grace." She pressed something into Isana's hands. "Hold this for me."

Isana blinked as Kitai handed her a sack of heavy burlap. She looked around. The Marat girl had directed their steps while they walked, and Isana had not realized that they had left Craft Lane. She was not certain where they were now. "Why do you want me to hold this?"

"So I have something to put the coldstone in after I have burgled it," Kitai said. "Excuse me." And with that, the girl stepped into a darkened alleyway, flicked a rope up over a chimney, and calmly scaled the outside of a building.

Isana stared for a moment, aghast. Then footsteps sounded down the street, and she looked up to see a pair of civic legionares on their patrol. For a moment, Isana nearly panicked and fled. Then she berated herself sharply and composed herself, slipping the bag underneath her cloak.

The legionares , both of them young men, dressed in leather tunics rather than the military lorica, nodded to her, and the taller of the pair said, "Good evening, miss. Are you all right?"

"Yes," Isana said. "I am well, thank you."

The shorter of the two drawled, "On a pretty spring evening like this, why wouldn't you be. Unless you were lonely, of course."

His immediate and… somewhat exuberant interest ran over her, and Isana felt her eyebrows go up. She'd spent comparatively little of her adult life in places where she wasn't known, by reputation at least, if not by sight. It hadn't occurred to her that she would be effectively anonymous, here. Given the apparent youth of a powerful watercrafter, with her hood up and the strands of silver in her dark hair concealed, she would look like a young woman no older than these legionares . "Not lonely, sir, no," she said. "Though I thank you for asking."

The taller one frowned, and a practical, professional kind of suspicion rippled across her. "It's late for a young woman to be out alone, miss," he said. "May I ask what you're doing here?"

"Meeting a friend," Isana extemporized.

"Little late at night for that kind of thing in this part of town," the shorter legionare said.

The taller one sighed. "Look, miss, no offense, but a lot of these young Citizens from the Academy book time, then don't show up for the appointment. They know they're not supposed to be seen down to the Dock Quarter after dark, so they promise the extra coin to get you up here, but-"

"Excuse me?" Isana said sharply. "Exactly what are you accusing me of doing, sir…" She snapped her fingers impatiently. "Your name, legionare . What is your name?"

The young man seemed somewhat taken aback, and she felt his flash of uncertainty. "Urn. Melior. Miss, I don't want to-"

" Legionare Melior," Isana said, pressing her aggression with the kind of self-assurance no younger woman could quite have matched. She reached up and lowered her hood, revealing the silver laced through her hair. "Am I to understand that you are accusing me"-she gave the last word very slight emphasis- "of prostitution?"

The shorter of the two frowned and returned with restrained belligerence, "Well why else would you be out here alone this late with-"

The taller one stepped firmly on his foot. Then he said, "I meant no accusations, my lady. But it is my duty to keep things in order here at night."

"I assure you, young sir, that everything is in order," Isana replied firmly. "Thank you for your concern," she said, then added a slight barb to her tone, "and for your courtesy."

The shorter legionare glared at his partner, then at Isana, and seemed to come to some sort of realization. "Oh," he said. "Right."

The taller one rolled his eyes by way of apology. "Very well, my lady," he said, and they continued on their way.

Once they were out of sight, Isana let out an enormous breath and leaned against the nearest building, shaking slightly. A fine contribution to their mission she would have made, from the inside of a cell with any other wayward ladies of the night they'd collected. For goodness' sake, there was even the chance that she might have been recognized as something other than an anonymous Citizen. She hadn't exactly been a celebrity during her previous visits to the capital, but there had been a number of speeches on behalf of the Dianic League. There was always the chance, however slim it might be, that she might be recognized.

"That was well-done," murmured Kitai's voice. The Marat girl came down the side of the building with the grace of a spider, landed, and dislodged her line with a flick of her wrist. She hissed as she quickly took a pouch whose neck she gripped in her teeth, and held it away from her face. Little wisps of steam trailed from the pouch, and a small patch of frost had begun to form on its surface. "Quick, the bag."

Isana opened the thick burlap sack, and she realized that it was several layers thick and heavily lined, a sack designed specifically to contain the fury-bound coldstones. Kitai opened the pouch and dropped a rounded stone the size of a child's fist into the sack. The evening air was brisk, but a deeper chill followed the coldstone, and Isana hurriedly shut the heavy sack over it.

"What have you done?" Isana asked quietly.

"Acquired something we need," Kitai replied. "Whatever you said to those two was effective. Could you say it again, perhaps?"

"Again?" Isana replied.

"If needed." She nodded at the sack. "I have to get the rest of them."

"And you're going to steal them?" Isana asked. "What if you're caught?"

Kitai jerked her head back as if Isana had slapped her, and arched one pale, imperious eyebrow. "No Aleran in this entire senseless, pointless city has ever caught me," she said, with the perfectly steady confidence of someone telling the truth. Isana could feel that in her voice as well. Kitai sighed. "Well," she admitted. "One. But it was a special circumstance. And anyway, he's asleep right now."

Isana shook her head. "I… I'm not certain what you think me capable of,

Kitai. I believe that you are skilled at this sort of thing-but I am not. I'm not sure you want me to come along."

"Faster, if we can walk openly on the street," Kitai said. "One woman alone will be questioned. Two women, walking quickly, will not be. And I cannot take the heavy bag along with me. I would have to leave it behind each time I climbed. I would feel better if it was being watched than if I had to leave it lying in some alley."

Isana studied the Marat girl for a moment, then sighed, and said, "Very well. With one condition."

Kitai tilted her head. "Yes?"

"I want to talk to you about Tavi as we walk."

Kitai frowned, her features concerned. "Ah. Is that considered to be appropriate, then?"

"Between us?" Isana asked. "Yes. It's something called girl talk."

Kitai nodded as they began walking again. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you can speak openly and plainly to me without fear of being inappropriate-and I won't be outraged or angered by anything you tell me."

Kitai gave the city around them an exasperated glance. "Finally," she said. "Alerans."

Amara was worried.

The swamps stretched out all around them, an endless landscape of trees and water, mist and mud. Life seemed to boil from every patch of ferns, to drip from the branches of every tree. Frogs and singing insects filled the nights with a deafening racket. Birds and small animals who lived within the trees chirped and cried throughout the day. And always, day or night, the air swarmed with insects, like a constant, buzzing veil that continuously had to be pushed aside.