Chapter 6 Chapter 6

"Where are you going?"

Kaelen turned around slow. Rook was in the doorway with her arms crossed and her head tilted. That look on her face again. The one that meant she'd already made up her mind.

"Going to watch. That's all."

She walked in and looked around. The walls. The chair. The small window. "This is your place? It's tiny."

"It's a room, Rook. It does the job."

She sat on the chair and looked at him. "Hmmm. Watch where? And don't say nowhere because I can see it on your face."

He looked at her a moment and took a deep breath. "Flint's Den. Vane's place."

Her eyes went wide. "You're going to Vane's place! That's walking into a dog's mouth!"

"I'm not going inside. Roof across the street."

"How long will you be up there."

"As long as it takes. I need to know who comes and goes. When Vane shows up. What his people look like."

She nodded slowly, thinking it through. "That's actually smart." She stopped. "Can I come?"

"No."

"Why not."

"Because if someone spots us we're both dead. And you're a kid."

She stood up fast and her face changed. "I'm not a kid. I've been on my own since before I could tie my own shoes properly. I know these streets better than you do. I grew up in them."

"I didn't ask for help."

"I know you didn't." She walked to the door and looked back. "I'll be on the next roof over. You won't know I'm there." Then she was gone. Door clicked shut.

Kaelen stood there looking at the door. He shook his head in disbelief. Then he grabbed his coat and left.

The roof was cold and the stone was hard under him. He lay flat at the edge and looked down. Flint's Den sat across the street. Two stories. Wooden sign swinging in the wind. Light coming out through the windows making yellow patches on the ground below. Loud laughter from inside. The rough type.

He waited.

Two hours. Three hours. People came and they left. Men in work clothes with dirty hands. Women in plain dresses. Some laughing, some stumbling, some doing both at the same time.

Then five men came around the corner. They walked like the ground was theirs and so was everything standing on it. Big man in the middle. Thick neck. Even from up here his eyes looked like trouble. He was laughing at something but it wasn't a real laugh.

The man at the door nodded at him. "Evening Garret."

Garret. That was Vane's right hand. The name Jaxon had given him.

Garret nodded back. "Any trouble?"

"Quiet so far. Just the usual ones."

"Keep it that way." He went inside with his men.

Kaelen noted it. Same time every night. Five men. Door man knows him, answers to him.

Another hour went by. Street got quieter. Noise inside got louder.

A woman came out on her own. Young. Maybe twenty. Dark hair. Her dress cost more than anything else on that street. She stood outside looking around like she needed air she could actually breathe.

A man with a scar on his cheek came out after her. "Lorna. What are you doing out here alone?"

Lorna. Vane's woman. The nice apartment in the merchant quarter.

"I needed air. It's too close in there."

"Vane won't like it. You know what he's like."

She rolled her eyes. "Vane doesn't own me." She walked off. The man watched her go then went back inside.

Kaelen watched her until she turned the corner. So that was her. The one Vane kept well and kept close.

He stayed the whole night. Watched faces come and go. Noted the ones he saw more than once. The ones who moved through that place like they had business there. By the time the sky started going pale his body hurt and his eyes were raw. But he had something now. Faces with names. Garret. Lorna. The door man. A few others who carried themselves like they meant something in that building.

He climbed down and walked back.

The next night he came back to the same spot.

Rook was already there. Sitting cross legged on the roof next to his. Right where she said she'd be.

"You came."

She grinned. "Told you." She pointed down at the street. "That man with the scar. He's one of Vane's collectors. Comes by every night around now."

He looked where she was pointing. The scarred man was walking toward the tavern. Nodded to the door man. Went inside.

"How do you know he collects."

"I've seen him on Tanner's Row. Goes to the shopkeepers and takes their money and leaves them shaking. Every week same thing." She looked at Kaelen. "You want me to keep eyes on him?"

"Watch everyone. Tell me what you notice."

They lay there in the dark for hours. Rook pointed out people as they came. A man who moved stolen things. A woman who ran cards in a basement somewhere. Vane's regulars who showed up every single night.

Kaelen watched Garret come again at the same time with the same five men.

Lorna came outside again. Different man came out after her this time. They argued about something. She walked away from him mid-word.

Rook whispered beside him. "That's Vane's woman isn't it."

"Yeah."

"She doesn't look happy about it."

"No. She doesn't."

Just before midnight Vane arrived.

Carriage. Two men got out first and looked the street over before they nodded. Then Vane stepped out. Bigger than Kaelen had expected from Jaxon's description. Wide shoulders and a thick neck and hands that looked like they'd broken things and not thought twice about it.

He walked into his tavern like a man who has never once in his life had to ask for anything.

Rook breathed beside him. "That's him."

"I know."

They watched until the last light went out inside and the last person left. Then they climbed down and went their different ways. Not much said between them.

Third night Kaelen went alone.

He didn't tell Rook. He needed the quiet. Needed to sit with everything he'd been seeing and let it settle.

Same patterns from the roof. Same faces at the same times. Garret and his men. Lorna coming out for air. Vane's carriage near midnight.

Then something broke.

A man came running up to the tavern. He was breathing hard. He grabbed the door man by the arm and said something Kaelen couldn't catch from up here. The door man's face shifted and he went inside quick.

A minute later Vane came out.

His face was the kind of dark that makes people near you take a small step back without deciding to. He grabbed the out of breath man by the shirt and pulled him up close.

"Say that again. Say it one more time."

The man could barely get words out. "Warehouse on Dock 4. Someone set it. Men inside barely got out."

The colour in Vane's face changed. "Who did this."

"They were gone before anyone saw them. I don't know."

Vane threw him hard. The man hit the ground. "Find out who. Or you'll be in the next one." He went back inside.

The man got himself up off the street and ran.

Kaelen lay flat on the cold roof and thought about what he'd just seen. A fire at Vane's warehouse. Someone else moving against him. Someone Kaelen hadn't known about and hadn't planned for.

He stayed till dawn. Then came down and walked back.

Rook was at his door.

"You went without me."

"Needed to think."

She crossed her arms. "Something happened didn't it."

He told her. The running man. The fire. The way Vane's face had looked standing in the street hearing it.

Her eyes went wide. "Someone else is going after Vane. Who."

"Don't know. Vane's got a long list of people who'd want to."

"What does it mean for you."

Kaelen thought about it properly. "It means things are moving faster than I planned. So I move faster too."

"What do I do."

He looked at her standing there. Dirty face and eyes that had seen too much for her age. She wanted to help and she knew these streets in ways he didn't, not after ten years gone. "Keep watching. Keep listening. You hear anything about that fire you come find me straight away."

She nodded and ran.

Kaelen went inside and sat on the bed. He thought about Vane. About Garret. About Lorna walking away from that man outside, something tight and fed up in how she moved. He thought about whoever had set that fire and what they wanted and whether they'd make his job easier or turn everything into a mess.

Both were possible. Vane angry and rattled meant mistakes. But it also meant more of his men on the streets with their eyes open and more chances for everything Kaelen was building to fall apart before it got started.

He sat with it going round in his head for a long time.

"You have to move now. Can't keep watching and waiting."

He got up and went to the window. The city was getting started below him. Somewhere out there Vane was in a bad mood trying to find out who'd touched his warehouse. Somewhere out there somebody else was playing their own game on the same board. And somewhere in the middle of all that was a gap that wasn't going to stay open.

He watched the street till the sun was properly up. Then he lay down.

Sleep didn't come straight away. His head kept moving through it all. The faces. The patterns. The fire. What had to happen next and when. But his body got tired of all that thinking eventually and dragged him under.

“I need to act fast. But I need to rest now. I have been awake all night watching”. He slept.

Still working through it even as he went.