Blint smirked, but the dark cloud over him didn’t shift. “Right. Cleave means both ‘to come together’ and ‘to split apart.’ Two opposite meanings. Your name’s like that. It means one who kills and one who is killed.”

“I don’t understand,” Kylar said.

“You will. May the Night Angels watch over you, kid. Remember, they have three faces.”

“What?”

“Vengeance, Justice, and Mercy. They always know which to show. And remember the difference between vengeance and revenge. Now get out of here.”

Kylar stood and stashed his weapons expertly. His hip brushed the table as he stood and the balanced coin wobbled and fell before he could reach out with his Talent again and stop it. He ignored it, refused to see it as an omen. “Master Blint,” he said, looking his master in the eye and bowing, “kariamu lodoc. Thank you. For everything.”

“Thank you?” Master Blint snorted. He picked up the coin. It was castles. Castles I lose. “Thank you? You always were the damnedest kid.”

Chapter 50

50

K ylar had an hour before Durzo came after him. He knew that because he’d watched Durzo drink a full mug of stout, and Durzo Blint wouldn’t work when he had alcohol in him.

It was the perfect time to go to Master Blint’s safe house. He might get lucky and be able to figure out how Master Blint intended to kill him from what tools were missing.

To be careful, he used the back alleys to get to the safe house. In short order, Kylar disarmed the trap on the lock, then searched for the second trap. If he’d been fully visible, he would have felt exposed, but his Talent obeyed him this time and covered him with shadows. He still had no idea how well he was concealed, but in the heavily shadowed and rarely traveled street, he felt comfortable taking his time. The second trap was embedded in the doorframe opposite the latch. Kylar shook his head. And Blint said he was no good at traps. Setting a trap which used the release of pressure from the bolt itself for a trigger was no easy feat.

Having disarmed that trap, Kylar started picking the lock. Blint had always told him that setting more than two traps on a door was a waste of time. You should get someone with the first trap, but if it was set so poorly that it made them overconfident, you might get them with a perfectly placed second trap. After that, only an idiot wouldn’t check the door over so carefully that they’d find anything you could hide.