Crown Thief Read Online Free Page B

chance."

CHAPTER TWO
     
 
 
 
    "I get it, I really do. Coalition of dangerous forces, shadowy figure lurking in background pulling strings. I've followed all that. It's quite a problem you have here, Alvantes. Do you know what else I followed? It isn't my problem."
      Estrada looked at me in horror. "Damasco… if Altapasaeda's in trouble, it's everyone's problem."
      "You see, I'd swear I just covered that point. Alvantes's, yes. Mine, not at all. Not yours, either, Estrada, and definitely not Saltlick's. I say, back off, let the dust settle. There's a fair chance the families and the gangs will fall out and kill each other off, probably sooner rather than later. The streets might run red for a day or two, but after that everything will go back to normal. They'll welcome you with open arms, Alvantes. You can be the hero of the hour."
      Not one of the faces turned on mine showed any hint of agreement. Saltlick's bemused smile came closest, but I was confident it meant he simply wasn't following the conversation. How could they be so stupid? Altapasaeda was like an hysterical child; always wailing over something, only to forget it the moment a new threat or annoyance distracted its minuscule attention. This current crisis, whatever its true nature, was bound to pass the same way.
      Well, I wasn't about to let weight of numbers convince me to sign on for Alvantes's suicide plan. I'd started off with flat refusal; moved through anger, abuse, self-ridicule; listed the failings that made me so unsuited to the job; returned to stubborn negation; spent half an hour cataloguing the deficiencies in his logic… on and on, until I began to suspect I'd win by simply dying of exhaustion.
      No such luck. Now I only had one argument left – the most obvious, the one I'd found myself shying away from again and again. "The fact is, Alvantes, I'm through jeopardising my life to solve other people's problems. I'm leaving."
      "I can't stop you," said Alvantes.
      "That's right. You can't."
      "But I can make sure that bag of stolen coins you've been carrying around doesn't go with you."
      I winced. "It's mine. I've earned it." And I had. Stealing from half a dozen of Panchetto's guests in a single night had been no easy feat.
      "A room full of guardsmen says different."
      There it was, as inevitable as dying. There was a basic incompatibility in how Alvantes and I viewed the world, and the bag of money in my pocket was a prime example of that. I couldn't leave without it. I couldn't walk away empty-handed. Doing that meant returning to the life I'd been leading – a life that had left me desperate enough to try stealing food from a notoriously homicidal invading warlord.
      "This is the last time," I said. "This cleans the slate. You don't throw my past in my face. You forget about the money. If I do this, Alvantes, it gets you off my back until the end of time."
      It was all the more frustrating that he didn't even pause to consider. "All right," he said. "A clean slate."
      "And the coin stays with me. I might need it in there."
      "You keep a quarter. The rest back when you return with answers."
      "A third. Anything I spend in bribes, you refund."
      "Agreed."
      Far too late, I saw it. Alvantes had known how this conversation would end before he'd ever started it. Moreover, whatever the reasons he'd given for choosing me, it was the one he hadn't said that clinched it. Guardsmen's lives mattered. Mine was expendable.
      I felt the first fluttering of panic. Here, then, was the price of my future. One last gamble. One final job.
      In my line of work, those never went well.
     
    We'd waited through the remainder of the night and the next day. The hours had passed interminably. I'd slept a little, in bursts that always ended with me starting awake, heart vibrating with vague fear. Navare had fed us, but I'd hardly tasted the watery stew he'd served up, or managed to stomach very much of