Aveline (21 page)

For once, Tiana made absolute sense. Aveline
snapped her mouth closed. Karl had told her Rocky was in prison,
but what if her friend found a way to escape? What if Karl had
negotiated his release early? Was it possible she worried about
Rocky, when he was completely safe? She did not doubt, if he were
released from prison, he would find her.

“Where is he?” Aveline asked, standing.

“In my dream, he waits by the southern
entrance and stops every fourth slave who passes him. I cannot hear
what he asks them, but each one of them shakes his or her head, and
then moves on.”

Before Tiana had finished speaking, Aveline
was at the door. She left her ward secure in her room and raced
through the Hanover’s apartment, barely able to contain her
excitement.

Ten minutes later, she reached the bottom
floor of the great pyramid and hurried to the slave entrance she
had never had a need to visit. When she reached it, she stopped
just inside. The door was propped open, allowing the scents of the
city and chill of winter to enter.

Rocky was not there. She waited and paced,
venturing out into the cloudy, cold day briefly to observe the
immediate area, in case Rocky had chosen to wait outside.

Disappointment sank into her. Rocky was
nowhere in sight. Had Tiana’s dream been wrong? If so, how could
she know about him at all?

“Aveline.”

She turned at the familiar voice. Jose, the
assistant to the madman with the electric trees, stood nearby in
his cloak, as if he were leaving for the city. His warm eyes and
wide smile mesmerized her before she had a chance to blink.

“I meant to visit,” she blurted out before
she could stop herself. “But … duties.”

“I rarely leave. When you wish it, you are
welcome to visit,” he replied.

Why did his gentle response leave her cheeks
warm? Aveline tore her gaze away from him, not liking how abruptly
unaware of her surroundings she became when she saw him. With him
standing before her, she could see, hear and smell only him. If an
army of Shield soldiers approached, she would not notice them until
after they had subdued her.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“My master has had one of his coughing fits.
I go to fetch herbal tea to help him,” Jose replied.

“They have tea in the kitchens.”

“He insists upon a tea a single merchant in
the entire city sells,” Jose said.

A smile slid free as Aveline recalled the
eccentric man in the basement. Mohammed was better off with Jose
than with her as an assistant. She would be nowhere near as patient
with the madman as Jose appeared to be.

“You are waiting for someone?” he asked,
glancing past her.

“No. Just needed some air,” she lied.

An awkward silence fell between them, ripe
with tension and self-consciousness she was unaccustomed to.

“I must go,” Jose said and cleared his
throat. “My apologies. Nothing would please me more than staying to
talk, but if I do not return by dusk, my master will grow even
madder with worry.”

Aveline stepped out of his path, wanting to
respond without knowing for certain what the right words were. She
had seen where Jose worked and lived and yet, realizing he was
about to walk away, she experienced the sudden urgency to speak, as
if this were the last time they would ever meet.

“I would be … happy to visit
tomorrow, if that’s … happy to you.” She mentally kicked herself.
Of all the words to choose, why had
happy
– which she could not recall
ever using – escaped her mouth twice?

You’re a fool,
Aveline!
She yelled at herself.

“That is happy to me.” Jose was
grinning.

Mortified, Aveline nodded and spun, walking
away quickly. Only when she had turned a corner did she release a
deep sigh.

Assassins were dutiful, honorable and
skilled – but never happy. What was it about Jose that left her
stumbling verbally and fevered? For all she knew, he was an
assassin, her competition, or some other sort of degenerate.

Lecturing herself about how dangerous it was
to lower her guard around a stranger, however handsome he was, she
descended to the basement to walk off the strange tension the run
in with Jose caused.

The halls were quiet and cool. Afternoons
were generally inactive until dinnertime, and few slaves passed her
in the halls. It was as her senses returned to their normal state
of awareness that she noticed the brush of cotton on cotton behind
her. The faint sound would have been impossible to distinguish in a
crowded market or elsewhere in the inner city. But here, in the
near silent hall, it was unmistakable.

Someone was following her at a safe
distance. The women she had bested on her first day as a slave were
not likely to be ready to challenge her again any time soon, but it
was always possible they had friends who witnessed the exchange who
were.

Aveline navigated the underground maze
easily and led whomever followed down a corridor lower and narrower
than most, and away from the flow of normal foot traffic, in case
she drew blood. The hallway ended in a t-intersection, and she went
left, walked four steps and then halted. Pressing her back against
the cool wall, she eased a knife free from the small of her back
and waited.

Silence. Her stalker had stopped.

“Avi?”

She froze, not expecting the quiet
voice.

“I know you’re there.”

Rocky could sense her as well as she could
him. She lowered her knife and eased to the corner then peered
around. He remained a safe distance way, pending her reaction.

“How … where … Rocky, what’re you doing
here?” Uncertain where to start, she put her weapon away and closed
the distance between them, slinging her arms around her best
friend. Her thoughts raced, a jumbled mix of astonishment that he
was alive, incredulity Tiana had really envisioned him, and
confusion over how either was possible.

Rocky hugged her. “Looking for you!” he said
with his normal humor.

Relief washed over her. He was solid and
strong in her arms, a reassurance he was indeed free and safe.
Recalling the emotion she experienced when she heard he had been
captured, she felt the anxious tension within her unravel without
realizing it had been coiled in the pit of her stomach since
hearing the news.

She released him and stepped back. Like any
good assassin, Rocky was making an attempt to fit in. He wore the
clothing of a slave, though the pants legs were too short on his
tall frame and the sleeves of his shirt did not quite reach his
wrists. He wore a sash, twisted in a way no real slave would wear
it. Still, his attempt at dressing like a slave had granted him
access to the pyramid.

“We have an agreement. We’ll
always find one another,” he said firmly, though his eyes were
warm. “When I heard you were
here
, I didn’t believe it!”

“When did Karl get you out? Did he send
you?” she asked.

“Karl?”

Movement came from down the hall as a slave
passed through an intersection.

Avi glanced past Rocky before taking his arm
and tugging him down the vacant hallway where she had been waiting
to ambush her stalker. “Yes, Karl! He sent me here on my first
mission,” she explained as they rounded the corner.

“Karl.” This time, coolness was in Rocky’s
tone.

She faced him, searching his features
quizzically. “You say his name as if you have never heard of him
before. I assume he got you out at some point the past two weeks?
Or did he send someone else?”

“Out of where?”

“Of prison. Where you were sitting because
the Shield caught you that night instead of me!” she exclaimed with
a small laugh. “What is with you, Rocky?”

Rocky was frowning.

Aveline amusement faded. “What’s wrong?”

“I wasn’t in prison,” Rocky replied. “After
we got separated, I went to our rendezvous point, but you never
showed.”

She blinked, uncertain how to respond.

“It took me a week to find out where you
were,” he added.

“Why would Karl claim you were in prison?”
she asked. “Did he at least tell you where to find me?”

“Avi, Karl left the Guild the day after your
father was killed. He’s working for the Trench,” Rocky said,
referring to the Guild’s competition. “He told the Guild you were
dead. They held a ceremony for you and your father.”

She was silent, stunned.

“I never would’ve known you were alive, or
here, if some irate apothecary hadn’t shown up at Guild Main
demanding payment for medicines he claimed had been stolen from him
by the Devil’s daughter. No one else listened to him, but what he
said sounded too much like you for me to ignore.”

Rocky’s words were moving at the speed of
sludge through her mind. If any other person stood before her, she
would never believe any of what was said.

“You’re saying Karl lied about what happened
to me to you and lied about you to me,” she stated.

“It seems that way.”

“Why?”

Rocky shrugged. “Rumor has it he was paid
off by someone. You say he hired you for a mission?”

She nodded.

“Against Guild rules?”

She nodded again.

“And that didn’t bother you?”

“He said he’d get you out of prison if I did
it, and he’d sponsor me to become a full assassin,” she whispered.
The reality of what Karl had done began to register. She had
silently questioned why he was working outside of Guild practices
but never suspected he was deceiving her about his intention to
help her or flat out lying about Rocky being in trouble.

Dread sank into her stomach, along with
hurt. “There must be an explanation. What reason would he have to
lie to me?” she mused aloud.

“Maybe he heard the Guild wasn’t going to
appoint him the leader, as he hoped. You know people’s motivations
can be complex.”

“Karl helped my father raise
me. He’s family! If this is true, then he betrayed everything my
father stood for, everything I thought
he
stood for! He would never leave the
Guild if my father lived!”

“Burn me, Avi. I don’t know why it all
happened, only that it did happen,” Rocky replied. “I was never in
the Shield prison or in any danger at all, and the entire Guild was
stunned when he left.”

Rocky’s presence was too damning for her to
deny Karl’s actions had been undertaken with no good intentions
towards her. But what was he doing? Why? If his promises to aid her
were false, had he been truthful about hiring her because of her
demon cursed blood? About wanting Tiana dead? He had known too much
about who Aveline was hired to protect for it to be
coincidence.

“Karl is a smart man. He knows your
weaknesses,” Rocky said. “He probably knew I’d try to find you, if
he didn’t lie about you being dead.”

She warred with herself for a moment,
wondering who she should trust: Rocky or Karl. When she met Rocky’s
gaze again, she knew the answer. Karl had been her father’s advisor
– but she knew little about him aside from how close they were and
how well he treated her, until her father’s death. In comparison,
she understood the depths of Rocky’s loyalty from years of
experience.

She would never doubt Rocky.

“I’m glad you’re well, Rocky,” she
managed.

“What reason would Karl have to send you
here?” he asked, motioning to the pyramid above the basement.

She did not answer. Of all the emotions
Aveline thought she would experience upon learning Karl might have
betrayed her, sorrow was an unwelcome surprise. It ran deeper than
fury. Even the devil in her blood was subdued. On the night she
lost her father, she had lost Karl as well without knowing it.

The longer the quiet stretched, the more she
thought about the assignment Karl had given her. She hated the
relief trickling through her sorrow, as if some part of her – an
instinct she had not wanted to acknowledge – had never wanted to
hurt Tiana in the first place.

“Avi?” Rocky’s soft voice drew her gaze to
his face. “I know Karl was close to your family. We can find him
together.”

“No,” she said and then shook her head. “I
mean, yes, I want to find him, but Rocky …” Uncomfortable with
expressing emotion, she drifted off.

“It’s Karl,” he finished for her. “And you
just lost your father. You don’t want him dead, even if he has
betrayed you.”

She nodded, grateful Rocky understood
without her explaining it. “I want to talk to him before we do
anything else.”

Rocky studied her. “It’ll be dangerous to
approach him.”

“He’s supposed to contact me in two days,”
she replied. “I’ll request a meeting in person.”

“Somewhere in the open where I can observe
from the shadows.”

“I won’t go without you,”
she agreed. “I trained with him as well. It would take both of us,
if it comes to that.”
I hope this is a huge
misunderstanding.
The longer she considered
what Karl had done, though, the less she believed it possible he
had done this for a reason other than to serve his own needs,
whatever those were.

“It is good to see you, Avi. I feared you
were dead for a week,” Rocky said. “I never felt so alone.”

Aveline forced herself out of her mind and
smiled at her friend. The pain of losing her father remained fresh,
and she did not want to know how it would have felt to lose Rocky
as well. Orphaned at an early age, he had been mentored by her
father and loved by her as a brother from the day they met. His
suffering, too, was of Karl’s devising, and Aveline shifted further
away from her denial of what Karl had done when she imagined her
best friend feeling the pain she did.

“I’m alive, Rocky,” she said. “We’ll figure
this out together. I want to talk to Karl, to hear the truth from
his mouth. If justice is needed, we will burn him.”