Still, it seemed foolish for Emory to pride himself on having a thieves' court free of magic.
It also made it dangerously easy to slip past his brutes at the front door of The Yawning Pig. I sported a soft glamour, a recent one I'd devised just in case any of Emory's men were familiar with my old disguises. I was younger looking, with an overly round face and a minor case of boils decorating a patchy blond beard on my jaw. Just plain enough in appearance for me to be ignored by the women Emory kept on hand, and not notable enough to be stared at either.
I was only here for a little light surveillance. It was better to keep the occasional eye on Emory first hand than to trust the rumors that swam upstream to me, even when they came from the likes of Griffin or Scrapper. And I wanted to know if my hunch regarding Bryony's would-be murderer was right or not. If it was, it made our places in the game much clearer.
As King of Thieves, I had to expect threats to my crown. I was nearing fifty. That was bound to make me look vulnerable to a young idiot like Emory. I'd been considering his rivalry as a potential replacement to my own throne. But if he was responsible for any harm to the princess, even unsuccessfully so, that put us squarely as enemies.
I stepped into the Yawning Pig, pausing briefly in the doorway. The Wing and Rook welcomed its share of debauchery. Always from the willing, everyone with one eye on their company's pocket and one hand on their own. We were not saints, my court and I. No one deserved to be stolen from more than a careless thief.
But we didn't prey on one another the way they did at the Yawning Pig. I ducked out of the way of two men grappling at one another's throats, a screaming woman seated on a table barely restraining her victorious grin between her cries for someone to break the pair up. Meanwhile, another woman—young, like Bryony—was bent over a table, her cheek scratching the surface as she stared blankly ahead of her as a man rutted against her ass.
I didn't like to deal in flesh, but the few girls who passed through the Wing and Rook in a professional capacity took on their work for the joy of the act until they bored of it or fell in love. Emory seemed to prefer his whores cunning or mentally absent.
I'd nearly made it to the bar where the best gossip would be exchanged between the stalwarts who'd claimed their front row seats at the beginning of the night, when I stopped and made an impulsive dodge to the right, sliding into a booth where a woman was moaning robotically as she rode a man who stared at me in consideration for a moment—was I a rival for the woman, or an observer—before going back to fixing his gaze to her bouncing tits.
In the booth just behind me was the so-called king himself, Emory, not alone but with Bryony's new steward, the bastard Farraque son. The one who'd tried to accuse me at the festival. Interesting. Openly suspicious. Possibly outright conspiracy.
"Yes, well, I never expected the old bastard to show up to the party," Emory grunted, seated just on the other side of the wooden bench as me.
The man across the table from me pulled up the whore's skirt, glancing at me briefly and letting his eyebrows bounce. Ah, I was meant to be grateful for him revealing her pocked and swat-reddened ass. I nodded to him and pretended to be riveted as I listened to the conversation.
"Her head guard is now looking at me like I'm part of an assassination plot, Em." Farraque's voice was considerably softer, lower. Emory was a bit of a loudmouth as if he always meant for the entire room to hear him speak, even when it was something better to be whispered, but Farraque made me strain to listen. I risked a little bit of magic, fueled by another pebble, to make him out more clearly.
"This would all be a lot less of a bother if you'd started fucking her by now," Emory huffed.
Either Farraque didn't answer or he was simply too quiet, and I clamped down on the bench as I mulled over the words.
"If it were me—"
"I know," Farraque said, and I couldn't tell if that was a note of scoffing or laughter.
"I'd have her screaming and tearing her sheets begging for more," Emory boasted.
I was caught somewhere between wanting to chuckle and getting up off this bench to go and pummel Emory into a pulp. Maybe Farraque too.
So Bryony had a spy in her midst. From Emory's court?
"You know while you're here hiding from the other princess bitch, yours is getting ready to host the council? Ah, you didn't. See what cowardice gets you, Danny Boy? Lord Roderick will have plenty to say if you aren't at least somewhat attached to her skirts when he arrives tomorrow."
"Fuck."
I grinned, and the man across the table from me grunted, his head falling back. With his eyes off her, the woman's focus drifted until she looked over her shoulder at me and winked.
"You next, love?"
"Just watching," I said, and she shrugged and went back to her work.
"I'll leave first thing in the morning," Farraque said in his rasp.
"Why'd you agree to take the position if you're so reluctant to get the work done?"
"I'm not reluctant. You know what the queen's line is supposed to be like. I assumed she'd be the same."
"All women are the same."
I rolled my eyes at that statement and wished Bry—Charlotte—any woman for that matter, was with me to hear that idiocy.
"Not this one," Farraque muttered.
"Perhaps you're too much of a gentleman after all, Danny. Throw the girl down to the floor, put your cock in her and—"
"And then get it chopped off by the royal guard? No, thank you, Emory. She's not one of your whores."
"All women are the same," Emory growled.
My hands were ready to burst with flames, itching to grab my blade, to slit Emory's throat and then make quick work of Farraque before he could scurry away. Bryony was smart enough to see through as blatant a carrot dangling in front of her face as Farraque must've been, but that didn't mean he wouldn't get impatient.
Anger was interrupted by the sudden dig of the table into my stomach as the man across from me finally snapped, pushing the whore down and then rutting merrily on top of her with great groans and grunts. I grimaced, and the woman winced, forcing out enthusiastic squeals until he finally ceased.
"Oh, good work, Jimmy," she said, panting. "Very good work."
He stumbled away, barely holding his pants closed, and she sighed.
"Sure you don't want a turn? I'm still wet," she asked, blinking upside down at me.
"No, thank you," I said, winking back at her, jostling the table forward enough to slip out.
"Quit worrying about what Roderick has me doing and worry more about the fact that they caught that man you hired," Farraque grumbled.
"Pft. Martin will be easy, old piece of shit. Anyway, the rules of succession are a great deal simpler in our kingdom. I'll cut his crown off soon enough," Emory growled.
I punched my hands into my pockets and marched for the door. I'd heard enough for one night. Emory could come for my crown if he liked. He had the right. Just as when he did, I would have the right to slit his nasty little throat.
4
Bryony
“Where have you been?" I hissed, hands on my hips.