“Give me the reason that I shouldn’t have you killed.”

I sat across the table from Orly, the ales set in front of us untouched, rolling a dart between my fingers. I might manage to throw it if he had the two men standing behind me attack, but I didn’t like my chances afterward. The tavern was one of his, and everyone in the place would defend him.

The soft sounds of a single lute cut through the other voices in the Lonely Cross. The musician played near one end of the tavern, near the door leading up to the inn. I’d already learned the man playing the lute was one of Orly’s, and the lute somehow a weapon that he could use.

The door to the outside was to my left, but I would need to fight through a tableful of men dicing, each seemingly drunk. The stiff way that most of them sat told me that they were less intoxicated than they appeared.

Even the serving girl posed a risk. She carried a long, slender blade beneath her serving tray and made a point to come to the table often and check if we needed anything.

Orly had agreed to the meet, but wanted it in public. I knew coming in that what he considered public meant I would die if I made a wrong move.

“You need me,” I said. I wasn’t sure that it was true, not after what I’d done, but figured it was the safest answer.

Orly leaned back and his mouth cocked into a half-grin. He ran a hand across his short, gray hair and shook his head. “I need an assassin who won’t kill? Galen, I think that you overestimate your talents. There are dozens of assassins within the city who I could use. You were chosen for your reliability. Now that seems to no longer be the case.”

I cocked my wrist, prepared to fling the dart if something changed. Like most of my kind, I was taller than Orly, and with my reach, I could practically stretch across the table and pierce him with the dart. He knew that, which was his reason for all the protection around him.

I couldn’t see the two men behind me, but they loomed close enough that I could practically feel them. Orly counted on the threat they suggested, and on the fact that I would miss with my attack were they to close in. I wondered what he would do if he knew how much I was willing to sacrifice?

“You chose me because there isn’t another with my skill. If you push this, Orly, the other assassins will die. Every one of them.”

His eyes narrowed slightly and I caught the way his mouth twitched. There was a hint of uncertainty there. Enough that I could use it.

“Do you think that I care about the other assassins?” he asked.

I nodded toward the men behind me. “You can’t accomplish what you want in the city with men like this.” I made a purposeful motion, waving toward the lute player. “He is skilled, but there are only so many places where his skill is truly useful. And those men,” I nodded, motioning toward the table near the door, “are too brutish for what you would want.”

I forced a smile. Were I quick enough, I figured I could handle five or six of them if they attacked. It wasn’t the short supply of darts that put me in danger; it was the close quarters and the fact that the way out lay through all of them. I might be able to make it through a half dozen, but I still didn’t like my chances.

Orly made a subtle motion with his hands, telling the men standing behind me to split around us and come to stand next to him. They split around us and came to stand next to him. I’d seen one of the men before. He was burly and carried a thick club that I didn’t doubt would be brutally effective were he to strike me. The other worried me somewhat more. He was thin and short for someone of Eban, and had a narrow scar running along his chin. There seemed a simple grace in the way that he walked that suggested he would be deadly with the sword he carried. A Neelish sellsword. I wondered how much Orly had to pay to acquire one of the famed swordsmen. More money than I would ever see, likely.

But he saw the value in the man, I suspected. After the promise that I’d made on behalf of Carth, Orly had every reason to need someone like the sellsword. If it came down to blades, he alone might be able to prevent me from reaching Orly. With me, it never came down to blades alone.

“Tell me what it is that you think that I want?” Orly said.

This would be the tricky part. Carth had shown me what Orly intended, and convinced me that the way he had drawn her to Eban was part of some greater plan of his. With Orly, I never doubted that there was another plan beyond what he shared. I had been hired to capture Carth, a woman I learned was more skilled than I could ever imagine, a woman who had simply played me, guiding me through the streets of Eban as if I were some piece in a game. In many ways, that was exactly what I had been for her. But she had shown me compelling reasons to break the contract I’d taken with Orly, enough for me to risk exposing myself to the most dangerous man in Eban, and enough that it forced me to remain in Eban to ensure that Carth and her people remained safe. It was more than I had ever expected to do.

“I don’t know what you want to do,” I said. “I only know that Carth cannot be a part of it. And the women she controls will not be a part of it.”

The women were the part I least understood. I hadn’t known about a network of women spies throughout Eban until meeting Carth. It took my friend Talia to share her role in the network for me to really understand. Orly thought to control that network, to use it to gain power, but I’d seen what he’d been willing to do for that control, the way that he had placed a bounty on the prostitutes to draw Carth to Eban in the first place. I couldn’t let him harm another woman for his plans.

I leaned toward him, needing to make this point completely clear. “You will leave them alone.”

Orly smiled. “She got to you.” He laughed and slapped his hands on the table. “I would have expected it with another, but of Galen? I thought you more professional than that. I didn’t think you’d allow yourself to get caught up by a beautiful woman.”

Carth might be attractive enough in her exotic way, but for Orly to call her beautiful told me that he’d never seen her. “Perhaps that is all this is. Tell me, Orly, what do you know about Carth? Why was she the assignment?”

With my Sight, the gift given to me by the Great Watcher, I saw how the corners of his eyes narrowed slightly, and the soft way that his mouth made a slight frown, but it was the increased pulse tapping in his neck that told me what I asked of him made him uncomfortable.

In my line of work, people lied to me often. Most wanted nothing more than time. Most in my position would not offer that, or if they would, there would be a price. My price was nothing more than knowledge. I had little qualms about taking a life, but it had to be the right life, for the right reason. Good people died every day; I wouldn’t be the reason for more to die.

Usually with Orly, there was truth in the assignments he gave. He rarely deceived me so completely, though he often withheld information that he thought would get in the way of me taking the job. He knew the kind of assassin I was, and he knew the requirements I imposed. Most of the time, he made a point of hiding only what he thought might prevent me from completing the task he had at hand. Rarely was he right.

The last assignment had been no different. And entirely different. After meeting with Carth, after finding out what kind of woman she was, and losing to her more than once, I understood the threat she posed for Orly. The thief-master wanted to consolidate control. That was the reason that he’d hired me several times before, often manipulating me into completing the tasks. This time might have been the same, had not Carth found a way to manipulate me even better. She had called me a piece in a game of Tsatsun. It was a game I was woefully unprepared to play.

“It seems you know more of her than I do,” Orly said softly.

“I doubt that.”

He tipped his head, his eyes darting around the tavern. I still didn’t know if I was safe or if he would decide that I needed to be neutralized. I made certain to keep the dart gripped carefully, and my pouch with the others was open, ready for me to grab them. I might not be quick enough to take down the sellsword, but a terad-tipped dart might slow him enough to give me a chance.

“Perhaps you are right, Galen. Tell me, what did she say to convince you to help her?”

“It’s not what she said.”

“Ah. Say no more. She showed you her little hospital.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that Orly knew about the injured women, and if I’d had any doubt about his involvement with what had happened to them, that was erased. That he knew about them and the healers tending to them made clear that he knew how they had come to that place.

Maybe Carth was right and that I would have to lean on Orly more than I expected. I wasn’t sure that it would work. In spite of what Carth claimed, I didn’t think that Orly feared me. From what I’d seen, Orly didn’t fear anything.

“She showed me what else you had done. That will stop.”

Orly leaned far forward, closing half the table’s distance between us. He made a point of meeting my eyes. “Will it? You think you understand the purpose behind everything that I do?”

The serving girl approached. The blade beneath her tray glimmered with reflected light from the lanterns hanging on posts throughout the tavern. I didn’t want to risk an errant poke, and I didn’t want to be forced to attack the woman. That would make me no better than Orly.

“I saw the way you had those women attacked.”

The serving girl paused. I had timed the comment intentionally. I may be a game piece, but it was a game I would need to learn how to play, especially if I was trapped between what Carth intended and what Orly did. If I wasn’t careful, I could be crushed between them.

Orly leaned back, and his smile returned. He waved away the waitress. She hesitated. It was subtle, but enough that I knew she’d heard me. It might not change anything for her today, but if she could somehow be used later, then maybe the comment had done what I needed.

“You saw what Carth wanted you to see. As she saw what I wanted her to see. You are a skilled assassin, Galen, but there are things you haven’t learned.”

In one motion, I pushed back my chair and gained my feet, the dart held between my fingers. Neither the sellsword nor the big man behind Orly would meet my eyes. “Perhaps,” I agreed. “But you will stop the attacks. The contract with Carth is cancelled and another will not accept it. If they do, they are mine. If another Binder is injured at your hand, I will return for you.” I used the term that Carth had used for the women, but didn’t know if Orly recognized it.

Orly spread his hands across the table. “Do you intend to remain in Eban?”

“I will remain.”

“How will you find work when there are none to hire you?”

I patted my pocket. More gold than I’d ever seen filled my pocket. I had Carth to thank for that. With it, I’d been able to replenish my stores and ensure that I had enough darts for nearly anything that might come.

“I’ll be fine.”

Orly smiled, then lifted his mug of ale and took a long draught. “It was good seeing you, Galen. Let’s talk again soon.”

I stared at him for another moment before making my way through the tavern, one hand rolling a dart, the other ready to grab others. No attack came, but that didn’t mean that I hadn’t been beaten. With Orly, I never really expected to win.