It’s the best that I can do.

“I promise,” he says.

24

The Bread Price

We find Corday near the stables, where a retinue of carriages stands waiting. Corday motions to Ettie and me to join her. We slip into a carriage after her and are joined by Montparnasse. I sit poker-straight and alert as the carriage starts to move, still marveling at the implications of Corday’s performance tonight. Ettie, however, is so exhausted she doesn’t even seem worried about sharing a carriage with the Lady of the Assassins Guild.

She curls up and starts to fall asleep, her head resting on my shoulder.

I stay awake because no one in their right mind falls asleep in a carriage with two Assassins. For a long while we are silent. My stomach is all knots. I have failed to get the bread price.

I can feel Montparnasse’s eyes on me, watching with the long silence that the Death Dealers have perfected. It sets my teeth on edge.

Corday clears her throat and I tense.

“I think you could go far, little Cat,” Corday says. “I think you could in time be the Lady of Thieves.”

I frown darkly. “I have no desire to be Lady of Thieves,” I say, though I recall my conversation with Tomasis.

Corday’s lips quirk slightly at the corners; she is amused at my reaction. “All Guild Lords in their time must also lie down to die. We’re not immortal.”

I turn my head away, as if that will stop me from hearing her words. To suggest I could one day be Lady of Thieves is to envision Tomasis’s death. Tomasis, my Father, who took me in and protected me, whose care has been a shield around me. How could I think of a world without him in it?

“Death the Endless comes to us all,” Corday says, as if reading my mind. “There’s nothing to fear in the grave. But while we live, it is instability that we should fear. The Guilds need strong, ruthless Lords who are not afraid to maintain peace at any cost.”

“Even at the cost of the Law?” I bite out, thinking of the Tiger.

Corday smiles, baring her teeth. “You must make your enemies your allies. And if you can’t do that, then destroy them. Them, and all who follow them, so that fear doesn’t come for you when you sleep.”

We ride along in the darkness, Corday’s words echoing in my head. She’s clearly been driven half mad by too many assassinations, to speak in such riddles.

“Who paid the blood price for the death work this evening?” I ask. It is a bold question, but Corday seems inclined to talk. “How many of the Guild’s children partook of the water before it was known that it carried death? Did Orso send you to avenge what the nobility have done?”

Corday looks out the carriage window before speaking, and maddeningly, her answer is not a response to any question I have asked. “Is it known that those who join the Wretched shed their old skin, forgetting what came before. But sometimes, in the darkness, I remember.