Blood Heir. Amelie Wen Zhao

for a suicide mission that had resulted in him being arrested, stripped of his ranking, and thrown into Ghost Falls.

      He’d failed Kerlan in many ways: botched the most important job of his life, left the Order without a Deputy, and left his betrayer to roam free for the duration of his imprisonment.

      He’d fix all that; with the witch’s help, he’d root out the mole in Kerlan’s ranks and claw his way back as rightful Deputy of the Order, Portmaster of Goldwater Port. And when all that was done … he would hand her over to Kerlan. To have an Affinite as powerful as her under the Order’s control would be the cherry on top of his cake.

      He’d take it back—he’d take it all back. His title. His fortune. His power.

      But Ramson hadn’t become the former Deputy of the most notorious crime network in the Empire just by luck. He was thorough and calculating in every aspect of his job, and he made an effort to understand everything down to the colors of his associates’ window curtains and bedsheets. There was nothing not worth knowing.

      And if there was any due diligence to be done in this ramshackle little dacha, it had to be on the worktable.

      The table was strewn with objects—a wealth of information. He palmed a few dusty globefires that had burned out, reduced to empty glass orbs filled with ashes, and carefully pushed aside some blank parchments and charcoal pencils.

      The first thing he discovered was a book, its cover worn to the point that he could barely make out the title: Aseatic Children’s Stories. Somebody had written several lines of a poem on the cover page inside; the elegant penmanship resembled that of a professional scribe.

       My child, we are but dust and stars.

      Ramson set the book aside.

      He picked through a dozen or so blank scrolls before he hit treasure in the form of a map.

      With practiced fingers, he wiggled it loose. The map unfurled with a sigh.

      Like the children’s book, it showed signs of wear: someone had penciled in notes all across the outline of the Empire in the same beautiful penmanship. Some of the notes were smudged with age, while others were as new as a freshly minted contract.

      The notes were brief but to the point, written in formal Cyrilian. Buzhny, one read, directly on top of where the small town of Buzhny might have been on the map. Inquiry; no sign of alchemist.

      Pyedbogorozhk, said another; Inquiry for bounty hunter. Received name from trader.

      The map was gold. The witch—if this was, indeed, her map and handwriting—had written the history of her mysterious mission all over this map like a set of footprints. Ramson set it aside carefully to scan the rest of the items on the table before he returned to it.

      His eyes caught on something at the corner of a page: the outline of half a face, peering out from the pile.

      Ramson reached for it too eagerly. His tunic sleeves caught on a scroll. The papers slid, cascading into a graceful pool on the worktable. As though they wanted to be seen.

      They were sketches. Dozens of them, fanning out over each other on the coarse surface of the table. He caught glimpses of a shaggy-haired dog, curled up by a fire; portions of a domed castle in what looked like a wintry landscape; a beautiful, doe-eyed woman with long locks …

      But his eyes landed on one, fluttering at the edge of the table as though it had a life of its own. A boy, in his teens, caught in midlaugh, the joy in his eyes nearly palpable. So much care and effort had been put into this drawing, the lines traced to perfection, every detail etched into the crinkles of his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. Still, it was incomplete, only half a face. It seemed the artist had only wanted to capture the life in the moment of the laugh.

      “Get away from there.”

      Ramson swore and spun around.

      The witch was on her feet, her outline stiff with fury. In the half-lit room, he could make out the tightness of her jaw and the glint of her narrowed eyes.

      “Put that down, unless you want me to rip you to shreds this instant.”

      Any excuses he had planned dissipated in smoke. He’d been caught red-handed before; Ramson found that the best tactic was to admit guilt and lie his way out from there. So far, he’d been lucky.

      He slid the sketches carefully back onto the table. The girl’s eyes followed his every move. “I’m sorry,” he said, injecting as much sincerity into his tone as he could. “I was looking for a map.”

      “Get away from there,” she snapped again, and he obeyed. She was at the table in an instant, her fingers scurrying across the papers, checking to make sure that nothing was missing. She snatched up the sketch of the boy and glared at Ramson, livid. For a second he thought she would change her mind and kill him on the spot. But then she took a deep breath and swiped a strand of dark hair from her face. As though she had wiped a slate, the fury in her expression was gone, replaced by cool sternness. “We made a Trade last night. You have a funny way of showing diplomacy.”

      “Well, you know what they say about diplomacy. It’s the only proper way for two parties to lie to each other’s faces and be happy about it.”

      “Don’t lecture me.”

      Ramson raised his hands. “All right, I was prying. But as you said, we made a Trade, so what’s the point of being stuck with each other for the next six weeks if we can’t trust each other?”

      Behind them, on the bed, May had sat up and was listening with her head cocked to one side. The witch’s eyes flickered to the girl and her expression softened momentarily. “All right,” she said, lowering her voice as she turned back to Ramson. “Since you mention ‘trust.’ Here.”

      Ramson took the drawing she offered him. This sketch was swathed in shadows. Whereas the others had seemed to capture moments and memories, this one had captured the subject like a portrait. He recognized the man on the page: bald, with distrustful large eyes that were set far apart from his thin nose. It was a sketch of the same man she’d shown him in prison.

      Her alchemist.

      This sketch bore the same painstaking detail as the other one, which had likely been destroyed in their waterfall escapade. Ramson studied the drawing more closely, taking in the man’s white priest’s robes and the circlet of the four Deities that hung around his neck. “This is a good start, Witch. I need you to tell me everything you know about him.”

      “He worked in the Salskoff Palace ten years ago. He disappeared and was back in … in Salskoff eleven moons ago.”

      He waited for more, but she clamped her mouth tightly shut. “That’s it?”

      “I know nothing else,” she said curtly. Her eyes burned, and her hands had curled into fists as she spoke. Whoever this man was, this girl had a debt to settle with him.

      He’d find out why soon enough. For now, Ramson settled on a different question. “An alchemist, you say,” he mused. “Was he an Affinite?”

      Many alchemists possessed unique Affinities and were hired by the upper crust of Cyrilia to lengthen and strengthen lives with their peculiar practices. Some of the most powerful alchemists, Ramson had heard, had metaphysical Affinities. Pain. Calm. Happiness. Intangibles, coveted by those who had coins to spare.

      “I’m not certain,” the witch said, looping a strand of her hair behind her ear. Ramson had already picked this up as a nervous tic of hers—like the way she fidgeted with her hood. “He brewed Deys’voshk and other elixirs.”

      Likely an Affinite, then. His mind snagged on another detail, on the Deys’krug and the prayer robes. “Was he a priest—or a devout man? Have you tried starting from there?”

      “He wasn’t a devout man,” she said bitterly, and then sighed. “I’ve tried that. I’ve looked all over the Empire for him, but I haven’t found