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

since she’d learned from Lysander. If the golden ganymede was adept, however, Tyford was a master, handling the wires and other tools as if they were parts of his own body. He had promised to teach her about unusual locks as well, such as those that required more than one key, or locks that opened only when a certain combination of panels, levers and knobs were turned or twisted. Puzzle locks, he called them, but he’d said those were for later. “When you don’t handle those picks like meat-axes.”
    “You know,” he remarked casually, as if she weren’t scrambling from rope to rope a heart-stopping height over a very hard floor, “posing as a servant to get inside a house is one of the oldest tricks in the world.” He was always engaging her in conversation in the middle of an exercise, trying to trip her up. Usually he was critiquing her work inside the manor house of Ivan Eusbius. Retired from the Grey he might be, but he’d heard the story. “You’re lucky that the house steward didn’t have the wits the gods gave a pile of manure or it never would have worked.”
    “Yes, I was...very lucky,” she grunted, catching hold of the next rope. Years of working in Noam’s kitchens had firmed up her arms, but these exercises reminded her there were muscles she’d never known existed. She paused for a long moment, hands on one rope, feet lodged against the knot on the other, and when she was sure her grip was solid, she let go with her legs. The rope swung back and forth and the floor below spun as she scrabbled for a hold with her feet, finally finding one.  
    Tyford grinned up at her, exposing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “So how’d you know where in the house you’d find the dagger?”
    She hung until the rope began to settle. Tyford told her over and over again that thievery was all about patience and the wait, so she would wait. “I got some...inside information,” she replied without looking down. Best not to mention Brenn’s name here, and even if she had she doubted that Tyford would be impressed that most of her inside information came from a ganymede.  
    “Had a map, did you?”
    She shifted, the rope digging into her legs and side. She still had marks from the last time she’d tried this. “Not exactly,” she managed, “but I knew the third floor was the place to look.”
    “Anywhere on the third floor? How much time’d you waste going from room to room? You check them all?”
    “No,” she snapped, reaching for the next rope. “Once I got up there I found the art gallery pretty easily. Big wooden doors with columns on either side are...” she snagged the cord and pulled it over “...hard to miss.”  
    He chuckled. “And all this wandering around didn’t bring any guards? Or did you just go invisible like Naria of the Dark?”  
    She swung over to the next rope, finding her hold more smoothly this time. “My accomplice,” she grunted between reaches, “distracted the guards.”
    “Accomplice?” Tyford barked derisive laughter. “If I had a sou for every accomplice who’s turned on his boss, I wouldn’t need to dip into your purse.” Duchess said nothing, concentrating on reaching the far wall one rope-grip at a time. “Lesson number one,” Tyford proclaimed from the ground, “a distraction shouldn’t be able to talk. You throw a stone to make a guard look the other way, or roll some marbles, loose a mouse, but nothing that can turn you in.”  
    She swung to the next rope, irked at his smug certainty but refusing to show it. The old thief had to know what he was talking about, or else he wouldn’t be an old thief. Besides, she couldn’t risk offending him, not today. Her offhand intention to make Pollux dead was easier said than done. She’d no idea of how she might pull it off. Hells, first she’d actually have to get to him. Takkis’ hold in Temple was well guarded, and infiltrating it would be far more difficult than entering Eusbius’ manor. Tyford would