What the hell did Argrid need with magic anyway? Let them find some other raider to harass. Vex was done.
But getting imprisoned was the only way Vex could get the Argridian bullies off his back. He needed time to think of how to lose them for good, so he and his crew could return to their far more noble goal of buying the biggest, nicest, most well-fortified mansion on Grace Loray and staying the hell out of everyone else’s way.
Vex sighed and choked on the blood running down the back of his throat.
An hour passed before he could lower his head. Nine other prisoners were in here with him, all raiders, one so old he looked like a pile of dead rags and white hair in the corner. Magic may have been legal now, but stealing and reselling it, passing nonmagic plants as magic ones, or threatening people who refused to pay dues in syndicate territory? Still illegal, though most had to choose between that and starvation. Being an honest sailor cost a lot—your own boat, supplies, taxes. It was far easier to join up with a syndicate and let them take care of you in exchange for things you could actually give, like time and loyalty.
In New Deza, most of the raiders were part of the Mechtland syndicate headed by Ingvar Pilkvist. Not one of Vex’s favorite people. But then, none of the four raider Heads were.
Vex looked his cellmates over again, but this time, he caught one’s eye.
Damn it.
The man had greasy brown hair and tattered clothing over more tattered clothing, held up by a thick crocodile-skin belt. “What’re you looking at, Argridian trash?” he snarled.
Of all Vex’s shortcomings—not that there were many—the one he hated most was how damn Argridian he looked. He couldn’t get rid of the reddish hue to his skin or the sharp angles of his face that made people instantly classify him as one of the enemy, even if he’d been as victimized by Argrid as everyone else.
Vex smirked. “Hey, didn’t you arrest me a month ago? Aren’t you a soldier?”
The inmate’s wrist had no brand, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a raider. Just meant he hadn’t had the pleasure of going through the Church’s rehabilitation.
Vex kicked out his legs and leaned against the wall as leisurely as he could manage. He had the attention of the cell, everyone looking at him like he’d be a fun way to pass the time.
The greasy cellmate huffed. “What’re they doing now, roundin’ up Argridians? Hell, the Council lets those ones from Argrid in for peace talks, so they make up for it by arresting the dregs?” He paused. Squinted. “Wait. Aren’t you—”
“You’re almost too mangy.” Vex cut him off. “Like you’re trying to fit in. Isn’t he?”
A few of the other prisoners moved closer.
“You a soldier?”
“He’s here to spy on us! Get our confessions when we think we’re alone!”
“I AIN’T NO SOLDIER!” the man bellowed and snatched Vex upright. “Yer Devereux Bell! Saw him make off with a crate of Healica from the docks last month! It’s him!”
Shit shit shit.
Nayeli was insufferable enough when she was right. But Edda was worse.
“How long did it take ’em to notice ya? Uh-huh. I thought so. Brilliant plan, Captain.”
The rest of the prisoners twisted to Vex. The old man in the corner hadn’t moved. Yeah, he was probably dead.
“You’re Devereux Bell?” one repeated, disbelieving. “Yer so . . . young.”
Another grabbed Vex’s arm. “Head Cansu’ll have a thing or two to say to you!”
Vex hung his head. Great. Not only were raiders from Pilkvist’s syndicate in here, there were ones from the Tuncian syndicate too.
The first prisoner tugged on Vex’s collar. “No way—Head Pilkvist’ll deal with him!”
Vex could use this to his advantage, get the raiders fighting each other. But as he lifted his head to say something nasty about Pilkvist, the door to this wing of cells ground open. Half the prisoners retreated to the back of the cell. Four stayed to surround Vex.
“What’s the trouble?” a guard shouted.
Vex held his breath. The prisoners wouldn’t be stupid enough to respond, would they?
“It’s Devereux Bell!” said the one who’d claimed him for Cansu.
Vex groaned. Apparently, they were that stupid.
“It is him!” the greasy man confirmed, shaking Vex.
“They’ll take credit for finding me, and it’ll become a Council matter,” Vex whispered to the greasy man. “You won’t have a chance in hell of handing me over to Pilkvist.”
The man’s mouth dropped open. “I—uh—no, no, it ain’t him!”
“You said it was!” Cansu’s raider chirped.
Vex gave the first man a look of horror. “What did you say about his mother?”
Cansu’s raider shoved Vex aside to glare at Pilkvist’s raider. “You better shut yer mouth! The Mecht syndicate don’t know when to quit!”
The greasy prisoner gaped. “I didn’t say nothing!”
But Cansu’s raider threw a fist. Chaos caught—legs kicked, knuckles broke open lips.
Vex dropped back onto his bench. Would this be enough of a distraction to make the guards forget the prisoners’ claims? He doubted it.
The cell door flew open and a half dozen guards rushed after the rowdiest prisoners. One made for Vex, looming over him with crossed arms.
“Devereux Bell?” he asked.
Vex looked up, smiled, and batted his eyelashes. “Who?”
The soldier clamped his hand around Vex’s throat. Vex choked, and before he could remember any of the defenses Edda had taught him—something about bending the attacker’s wrist, or his own wrist, or maybe a thumb?—the soldier ripped off Vex’s eye patch.
A sheet of cold swept over Vex’s body, pinning him to the bench like a shackle. He knew what the soldier was looking at: two scars in the shape of an X through the socket where his right eye had once been. His own memento of the war.
The soldier grinned. He released Vex but kept the eye patch in one beefy fist.
You are weak came voices that Vex could never get out of his memory. You are evil.
He saw the men who had thrown him into the custody of the Church during the war. He saw the smirks on the Argridian soldiers’ faces as they delighted in purging Grace Loray’s shores of scum and impurities. He saw the monxes in the holding cells where he’d spent four months, and his throat thickened with the memory of plants, poison, forced into his body. When he finally did pray, it wasn’t for redemption—he prayed that if there was a Pious God, it would show mercy and let him die.
The eye patch dropped onto the stones at his feet. Vex snatched it up and yanked it on, and the world settled enough that he heard the soldier’s order.
“Put him in solitary till we can figure this out. Don’t need no more fights.”
Vex kept his hand over the patch as if he could weld it to his skin.
This was not an ideal situation.
2
BEN LEANED AGAINST a pavilion in Argrid’s capital, Deza, willing himself not to vomit.
He was on land, but the slosh and sway of the water lapping at ships in the wharf in front of him made his stomach spasm. Though the actual cause of his current state was the drink last night, the spicy one the barkeep had called o Golpe de Veludo do Inferno—the Velvet Punch of Hell. It was living up to its name now, in both its aftereffects and the fact that stumbling back to the palace last night, drunk off too many of those damn things, had landed Ben a shift on the Inquisitor patrols this morning.