The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids Read Free

grey. Bloodwitch. I was having a conversation on Mourndock Street with a bloodwitch. Bloody fantastic.
    “I See blood, and gold,” she said, her voice gone all hollow. “I Hear a mournful howl. Fire and Death are on your trail, girl, and behind them the Eightfold Bitch makes her way to your door.”
    Twisting away from her, I broke contact. My hand itched to have a blade in it, but that would have been foolish. Bloodwitches are nasty enemies. “Kerf’s balls, woman, what the hells are you talking about?”
    She smiled, a little wanly.
    “Oh you have a world of trouble coming down on you, girl. Come see Mother Crimson when it gets bad. You’ll find me in Loathewater.” She moved to pat my hand, but I retreated. One more cryptic look and she was gone in the pedestrian traffic.
    “Kerf’s crooked staff,” I muttered. “Aren’t fortune tellers supposed to tell you how lucky you are?” But I knew my own words for what they were – bravado. I needed a drink. Bloody bloodwitches. I’d rather deal with mages any day, if I had to deal with magic at all. At least mages generally didn’t bother with cryptic nonsense.
    I spent some time at Tambor’s wine shop, at one of the outside tables, sipping vinegar from an earthenware cup and listening to gossip.
    When Tambor’s closed I was in a sour mood. I’ve never been good at waiting. I can do it, but I don’t like it. I was worried about Corbin and more disturbed by what the bloodwitch had said than I cared to admit or think about. I had no idea who this Eightfold Bitch was or could possibly be, but I knew bloodwitches were the genuine article. With an effort, I filed it away for later rumination. If there was trouble on the way, it would come whether I worried about it or not.
    About an hour before midnight I made my way back home to wait for Corbin, feeling aimless and surly. And worried.
    Midnight came and went. I read; my mother had taught me letters before she died, and Lucernis had some of the finest and most poorly guarded private libraries of any city I knew of. But then, who steals books? If you can read, you’re probably wealthy enough to buy your own.
    It was one of those slightly racy romantic histories from the past century. Normally I’d have enjoyed it, but my mind wasn’t on it. I kept reading the same passage over and over, and it kept slipping away from me. Finally I tossed the book aside in disgust and settled for pacing.
    Three hours after midnight my creeping suspicion had filled out into an atavistic certainty that Corbin had come to a bad end. But all I could do was wait out the night.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Cock crowed while the sky was still black. I was out the door. Whatever had happened was probably long over and nothing I could do about it, but I couldn’t just sit there. A heavy dread was slowly churning my guts. There were only two places to go. I decided to start with Corbin’s house, and check at his mistress’s if he wasn’t there.
    It was a long walk to his hovel off Silk Street, through streets mostly deserted. Few hacks worked at that hour, and fewer were likely to take me where I wanted to go. There was a baker’s boy stumbling late to work, white apron trailing unnoticed on the filthy cobbles; I didn’t have to be a seer to know he had a beating in his near future. There was a lamplighter on low stilts, snuffing white-yellow flame with his telescoping pole. There was the odd wagon creaking and rumbling its way towards Traitor’s Gate Market, down cobbled streets. But mostly it was just blank dark windows and shuttered doorways, until I turned onto Silk Street proper.
    Silk Street is where the boys and girls, and men and women in Lucernis practice the oldest profession. At that hour, there were far fewer wares on display, and those that were tended to be coarse stuff, made increasingly coarser as grey dawn seeped into the sky. Those left working were ones who had a quota to meet, a figure that had to be reached to