A Flight of Ravens by John Conroe (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

Brona glanced at me, her mouth twitching, then she deliberately took the bait, leaning close to study the smallish girl.

“Left forearm?” she guessed, frowning.

“No, Highness.”

“Okay, then I don’t see any.  Where?”

“Primary blades are in sheaths on both thighs.  My pants pockets have pass-throughs to my legs and are baggy enough to hide them.  I also have a throwing knife hanging down the back of my shirt, and a small, extremely sharp blade in a special pants pocket at the small of my back.”

“Formidable, but you’ll be wearing dresses?”

“I usually do.  I have a number of special sheaths and harnesses for dresses.”

“Your people are well equipped,” Brona said to me.

“Soshi and Jella designed most of them, Highness, and Mrs. Newberry sews them,” Rose said.  “All of the girls at the Knife and Needle have been trained and have at least two knives.”

“Taking such good care of your ladies, Savid,” Brona teased me.  Rose blushed slightly as she caught the innuendo.

“Okay, that’ll have to do.  I actually don’t have any more time,” the princess said.

“Right.  We’ll head out then,” I said, satisfied that she was satisfied.  As I closed the door behind us, she caught my eye, mouthing a silent thank you.  What do you get a princess who has everything?  Brona loved nothing more than a new spy.  Now it was time to see about acquiring one for myself.

Chapter 6

Trell seemed a little nervous as we approached the target, which had me wondering.  He had taken relatively well to the world of intelligence; bard training being heavily geared toward information gathering as it was.  But he still wasn’t all that good at physical confrontations despite the workouts we were putting him through.  But somehow, today’s nerves didn’t seem like they were a fear of violence but rather something else.

The restaurant was quite nice, located on the other side of Haven from the Knife and Needle. In fact, it was almost as far away as you could physically be from my inn and still be inside the city borders.

I couldn’t be certain our target was here, the material I had to Find from being almost nil.  Just a tea mug that the target had briefly touched.  Trell had taken it from the shop where it belonged, showing excellent instincts.  I would have thought the touch on a mug wouldn’t have worked, but it did.  Again, I wondered if Trell himself wasn’t part of that reason.

Cautiously, we entered the Velvet Egg, which was rumored to have the best egg-based cuisine in Haven, even for dinner entrees.  Trell went first, while I hung back. The dining room was bright and clean, polished oak flooring, white-washed tabletops, and lots of afternoon sunlight flooding in the windows.  Upscale and inviting.  The owner himself met Trell, but the musician explained he was meeting someone and could already see her sitting at a table by herself.

Moving quickly, Trell stepped over to a table with a very attractive young woman with jet black hair who looked up, shocked.  He sat in a smooth motion, using the grace he displayed while dancing, rather than the awkwardness that characterized his attempts at combat.

The girl froze, her whole body tense, then she slowly turned her head and spotted me by the entrance.  I nodded and waited.  She didn’t glance around as most operatives would, instead holding my eyes for a moment while Trell spoke rapidly.  After a moment, she nodded, eyes still locked on me.  Now I approached the table.  The owner started to intercept me, recognized me, but stopped when I waved him off.

“Hi. Kassa, is it?” I said, pulling out a chair and sitting.

“Captain DelaCrotia,” she said, her tone extremely cautious.

“Please call me Savid.  We’re just hoping for a moment to chat.  Your friend Trell here spoke for you, but I wanted to meet you myself.”

She nodded but didn’t speak, her eyes flicking side to side.

“It’s just the two of us.  No one else,” I said, knowing she would Read the truth of my words.

She looked at Trell, then back at me.  A microfrown flashed across her pretty brow.  “You have a Finder?” she asked.

“You are adept at hiding,” I said, not fully answering her question.

Sneaking up on a Reader is hard.  Trell had told me what she had said when my murder had rescued him from a questioning that she had been hired to help out with.  Our standard anti-eslling shielding techniques had worked fine, removing our minds from the bodies around us.  But they had also left a kind of blank hole in the thought patterns of people around the building where he was being kept. Kassa had actually detected those blanks.  Kind of extraordinary, really; I doubt even Oscar would have noticed that.  So we had used a slightly different approach today, bringing two of the girls from the Knife and Needle as cover, like we were on dates or something.  A bit of playacting to keep our minds focused on fun thoughts, even as I followed the traces Kassa had left on the mug and perhaps on Trell himself.

Terry and Corell were enjoying maple sugar treats at the confectioners across the street, neither of them ever knowing our mission, which left only two minds to alert Kassa.  Trell, at my suggestion, had concentrated on the words to a song he was composing while I ran a list of financial numbers through my head as we got closer to Kassa’s spot.

“Captain, may we offer you something?” the owner asked, having decided he couldn’t ignore the opportunity.  In a lot of ways, being out of favor socially had been a boon to my true trade as a Shadow.  Being a minor celebrity in Haven has numerous downfalls.

“Just caffe, if you have any fresh, good sir.  We will only be intruding on your lovely customer for a few moments,” I said.

He nodded and backed away, picking up on my desire for privacy.

“I would have been fine without your personal attention to this,” Kassa said, eyes locked on