The Fall of Ventaris by Neil McGarry, Daniel Ravipinto, Amy Houser Read Free Book Online

assured her at their first meeting. “Or, more likely, falling from them, unless those chicken arms are stronger than they look.” He plucked disdainfully at her sleeve. “But it’s your silver.” It was, and she kept handing it over in return for their nighttime lessons.
    “Up, up,” Tyford chided from below. “If you were climbing a wall in Garden you’d have already been caught by the Whites.” Duchess gritted her teeth and pulled herself up as quickly as she could.  
    It’s not like the man hadn’t warned her when they’d started.  
    “Don’t make any mistake about what we’re doing here, girlie,” he’d told her over a cup of wine. He’d poured none for her. “I’m not tutoring you in the harp or the bells. I’m teaching you how to fucking steal , and the blackarms take that kind of thing very seriously. Most thieves get caught, and when it happens to you, you don’t know me. You don’t know my name, or where I live, or why they’re asking about me.” His eyes narrowed. “The whole Highway knows you’ve been asking after me, just like they’ll know if you give me up to the ‘arms. The day that happens you lose your reputation and your cloak, and shortly after, your life. Get it?”
    “Yes, yes,” Duchess had said impatiently. “I’m not new at this, you know.” At the time she’d worn the cloak for only a few weeks, but she disliked being threatened by this annoying man. “Do you want a mark?”
    Tyford had snorted. “What part of retired from the Grey don’t you get, girl?” He laughed. “Your mark is probably worth shit to the Highway, and even less to me. Your coin’ll do. Now let’s get started before I change my mind.”  
    The long rope was made fast to a ceiling beam, and with a scream of muscles she pulled herself to the top. She swore that beam got farther from the warehouse floor every time she climbed to it. She’d barely had a chance to rest when Tyford called up from below, “Before you get too comfortable, Contessa , or whatever you call yourself, get back on that rope and swing over to the next.”  
    Not exactly a new exercise, but she’d only done it once or twice. It was also a nervous business, swinging around twenty-five feet from the floor, and Tyford didn’t put down straw to break a fall either. “You think the blackarms are going to spread out some nice silk pillows below that window you’re trying to climb to?” he’d asked when she suggested it. “You fall here and you just break something. Fall out there and you break something and wind up in jail.” All of Tyford’s warnings ended that way. “Then you fall and wind up in jail” or “Then you get backstabbed and wind up in jail” or “Then you trip over those pails you call feet and wind up in jail.” She lowered herself back to the rope — fortunately this one was knotted — and began to reach for the next.
    Tyford had a thousand little exercises. One day she’d be picking her way across a carpet of crushed walnut shells, with Tyford mocking her each time he heard a crunch. (“Sometimes it’s so dark you won’t be able to see those gods-awful big feet of yours,” he remarked, cracking another walnut and tossing the shell in with the others. “Be thankful you’ve got a light for this.”) Or she might dangle by her arms from one of the climbing ropes, hanging on so long that her muscles trembled with exhaustion. (Tyford gave her discomfort no heed. “Some day, when some guard on patrol pauses longer than he should, it’ll be your endurance against his ability to chop off your fool head when you lose your grip.”) Or she might be edging her way along a narrow ledge he’d had built fifteen feet above the floor, with a cup of water in each hand. (“I see one drop fall,” he warned her sternly from his comfortable perch below, “and I’ll send it back up to you on a stone.”)  
    Even the cranky old thief had to admit her lockpicking skills were passable, no surprise