Seren tucked the dagger back into its sheath at the small of her back, though her hand still rested on its hilt. She looked at the old thief seriously. “Why are you helping me?” she asked.
“Honestly?” Jamus ask as he returned to his seat. “Because I know this city. Senthea means well, but without theft as a viable means of income, what would happen to a young girl like you?”
Seren’s face flushed. She looked away. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
“You never needed me to save you,” Jamus said. “You saw the signs just like I did. The only mistake you made was not listening to your instinct. Of course, one mistake is generally more than enough for people like us.” The old thief leaned back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head.
He was right. The smell of spell reagents was only one clue. Seren had thought it somewhat odd that the guards were so bored in such a dangerous part of town. The bartender and other servants recognized Senthea by the way she was acting. She wouldn’t have survived an excursion into this part of town without some means of defending herself. Seren had convinced herself she was just lucky. She might have found a more reliable target, but this just seemed too good to be true. She had chalked it up to a well-deserved instance of good fortune. Her hand fell limply from her dagger. She slumped into the chair across from Jamus and stared at the table.
“As old as I am, I have never seen a real wolf,” Jamus said, rocking idly on the back legs of his chair. “I spend too much time in cities. But I have read books about wolves. I am reminded of the lesson of the wolf.”
Seren glared at the old thief. “What?” she said. Her tone was perhaps a bit more irritable than she intended, but she was not in a pleasant mood and had no patience for nonsense.
Jamus did not appear to take offense. “Though many creatures of magic and legend roam the wilds, the simple wolf is still among the most feared,” Jamus answered. “The Valenar respect the wolf greatly, for it is a creature of great cunning as well as ferocity. The lesson of the wolf is twofold. The first lesson is patience. The wolf must choose its prey carefully, for if the hunt fails it will not have the strength to hunt again. A poorly chosen hunt can kill a wolf.”
“I think I know that feeling,” Seren said, her voice much softer now. She tried without success to ignore the gnawing feeling in her belly. Seren had counted on a quick pull to earn enough coin to eat, and had almost paid the price.
“I’m glad you understand,” Jamus said. “The second lesson of the wolf is more important. Loyalty.”
Seren studied Jamus’s weathered face thoughtfully. There was a keen, excited look in his eye. “We had wolves out by my father’s farm,” she said. “Father always said that the wolf you saw was never the wolf that killed you.”
“Exactly,” Jamus said, snapping his fingers. “Strength in numbers. Loyalty born of mutual benefit. Each member of the pack offers strengths the others lack. Each one watches the other’s back. Youth and energy are strengths. As are wisdom and experience. With these combined, there is little that the pack cannot accomplish.”
“I see,” Seren said. “You want me to join your pack, then?”
Jamus nodded.
“And how many are in your pack?” she asked.
“One,” he said with a laugh. “This old wolf has lost his pack, and he is too old to hunt alone. What say you, Seren Morisse? Are you interested in learning what I have to teach?”
“How do you know my name?” she asked, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair the same way he did.
Jamus smiled.
Seren wiped her face with the back of one hand. She had not even noticed the tears when they came. She huddled on the tattered pallet in the corner of her apartment, rocking gently as memories of her mentor flooded through her mind. He was gone now. She was alone in the city, but that was not the worst part.
What had happened tonight? Why had Jamus agreed to take a job from a man like Marth? Why had he hidden the truth from her? They had always been honest with one another, at least professionally. Now, she knew that Jamus had not merely been a thief before they met. He had been a spy. His old “pack” had been Fiona Keenig’s intelligence network, washed away when the innkeeper vanished after the Day of Mourning.
There were no answers.
She still had a little money saved up. It might be enough to buy passage on a coach out of town. She could go back to Ringbriar, back to her mother. Whatever troubles Jamus had stirred up in Wroat would never find her there. She would still have to find a way to scrape out a living without relying on her impoverished mother, but she would be relatively safe. No more stealing. No more strangers following her through the streets or threatening to disembowel her. She might starve, but at least she would see it coming.
Then she saw the seal of the gorgon and albatross looking up at her from the Cannith journal. The eyes of the gorgon glared up at her relentlessly. The albatross looked only to its flight, ignoring her completely. Seren wiped the tears from her cheeks again.
Loyalty.
If she didn’t find out who Marth was and why he killed Jamus Roland, who else would ever care? Jamus had been a spy and a thief. He had taken her under his wing because he was too old to scale walls and pick pockets himself. He was no hero. Even to say he was a good man would have been a stretch.
But he was her friend. He was her teacher. He had accepted her unconditionally when no one else would. Even if he had hidden things from her, Seren owed it to Jamus to find the truth.
She cradled the thick book to her chest as she lay back on her bed, quite literally clinging to the only clue she had. She would find the truth, she told herself as she pulled the thin sheets over her shoulders.
But not tonight.
Seren lay in the dark for several hours, and the tears continued to come. Eventually, somehow, sleep found her.
CHAPTER 5
The next morning, Seren set out to find Karia Naille. If Tristam and Omax had been truly sincere in their offer for help, then she would need to share information with them. The possibility that this might be some sort of trap flickered only briefly through her consideration. What would they have to gain? If the warforged had wanted to kill her, capture her, or take the book away from her, they could have done so easily last night.
Of course that was no reason to walk into a situation unprepared. She rose and dressed conservatively in a long linen dress and cloak, so as not to draw attention. She stuffed the Cannith journal in a clean woolen bag and then stuffed a blanket in as well. Carrying around an expensive journal bearing the seal of a dragonmarked house might draw a question or two, but carrying a sack of laundry to the river was normal enough. Plucking her coin purse from the broken wooden crate that served as a dressing table, she counted her remaining funds. It would have to do for now. Tucking her knife into the folds of her dress at the waist, Seren set out for the landing.
Seren soon arrived at the docks and carefully inspected each ship from a distance. She couldn’t find one named Karia Naille. She began discreetly asking dockworkers and other passersby if they had heard of such a ship; most seemed to know nothing. She felt frustrated and confused. Why ask her to meet them at a ship that didn’t exist? It didn’t make sense, but then again, most of this didn’t make sense. Perhaps she was simply asking in the wrong place. Wroat was a large city, after all, and whatever Tristam and his associates were up to, they would likely keep to themselves. Even so, it wouldn’t matter how discreet they wished to be, a ship couldn’t dock in Wroat and not announce itself to the Watch. However, that meant talking to the Watch. For a known thief like Seren, that was a tricky sort of undertaking.
Luckily she soon found a watchman whose face she didn’t recognize. “Pardon me,” she said in as meek a voice as she could muster. “Do you know where I might find a ship called Karia Naille?”