Chapter Nine: Lyewkin

One could not discredit my father's business savvy. For the wretch had his own son performing his dirty work obliviously.

Stoney hid himself on that hill, under the masks he'd carefully contrived, and he buried himself beneath henchmen like Terrance that would take the fall were his dealings to be uncovered by the city's garrison.

I assumed his own blood would be immune to the milking. Alas, Antolie was most-certainly his puppet in these nightly dressing room meetings—his way of staying involved from afar. Antolie harbored not a lick of interest for this case, but Stoney needed someone to pass along word of my progress. And who better to relay such messages than his very own son.

As for my half-brother, I was quite certain that all he got from the deal was the feeling of importance. Heavens knew he wouldn't consider the possibility that he was simply being used.

The dressing room did make for quite the base. I preferred it to Terrance's suffocating bubble of a ticket office. If one wanted to sit themselves at a plush loveseat, or stare at themselves in the mirror, one might say no better meeting place existed.

I, on the contrary, preferred my spot by the door—arms folded, back resting against its frame, and a blasé mien.

For the second night in a row, we awaited Terrance as he finished dealing dust and tossing tickets about the windows of his bubble. The pitter-patter of scraggly feet sounding in the adjoined corridor—quick like pouring rain—told me he'd soon catch up.

I was right. And he was out of breath.

"My sincerest apologies," he puffed, falling onto one of the two loveseat cushions and surveying Antolie's bored mug in the mirror.

Clasped between his trembling hands was a pen and parchment, which he noticed I eyed and sprang from the loveseat, as though only now remembering why he'd brought them. "The records… as requested." Handing them off, he dipped his head in a gesture that looked like a bow. I fought the urge to kick him for it. Did nobs truly expect such reminders of their superiority?

I snatched the parchment, and he flinched.

It sported three columns. One for ticket holders, another for spirit-goers, and the last for laborers. Every laborer one could think of, ranging from minstrel to doorman.

"Fantastic," I muttered, so callous it came off satirical when I didn't mean for it to.

"What is it?" Antolie queried, sparing not a glimpse whilst powdering his face again. When I didn't respond, Terrance did so for me.

"A list, Sir."

Antolie chuckled, no doubt watching the ticketmaster fiddle with his hands through the mirror. "A list of?"

Terrance eyed me in his periphery, seeking out my approval. I simply cocked my head to one side, permission-enough for him to sputter, "Of everyone in the theater yesterevening. It's a list of potential thieves."

Again, Antolie chuckled—a provoking, cavalier sound. "And what makes you think this thief was even in the theater yesterevening?"

"Lyewkin's—" I shot a warning glance at Terrance, and he drifted, "Well, we must be thorough."

Antolie rolled his eyes, scooting his stool out and standing—not once allowing his gaze to part from the mirror. "Well!" He heaved a breath. "Wish I could be of more help in the ghost-hunt, but I've got a performance to give, and you, dear brother, are blocking the exit." He shoved past me, daring his shoulder to so much as brush against mine. The boniness of it was foreign to me, and I found myself stifling a laugh as his footfall echoed about the backstage corridor.

Terrance and I, as though sharing the same thought, waited for that footfall to grow distant before carrying on. Terrance was the first to break.

"What is the point in these nightly meetings if he up-and-leaves before so much as a musing can be shared?"

"He's skeptical," I reminded the ticket master, "Perfect for us because now we can use big words."

For the first time in knowing him—which was fair considering I'd known him less than two nights—Terrance laughed. It was shrill, like a pig, and he snorted like one. "So what do you make of the list?" He queried upon catching his breath.

I glanced over it again, the nose of my pen pointing to the first name atop the first column. "Who is Harriet Putney?"

"Harriet Putney?" Terrance looked taken aback by the haphazard query, but said, "She's just a patron. A noblewoman in her late thirties…" One meaningless detail after another, he spoke of the woman. Until finally arriving at, "She and her family come in quite regularly. They have been for a year now."

There it was.

I struck a line through her name atop the list. And the sound of pen to parchment caused Terrance's brows to jump together.

"So she's innocent," I muttered. After all, Terrance confessed to an abundance of lost jewels since he began as ticketmaster, the title he earned three years ago.

His muddle turned to recognition. "She is too recent!

I let him put the pieces together. Then I handed him back the parchment and pen. "Strike through everyone newer than—say—two years." Terrance nodded, eager for the task that would keep him up nights, sifting through years-worth of ledgers and records. I, on the other hand, had another date at the bar that I'd been anticipating all day. With a cocktail… and Esselle.

As though reading my mind, Terrance out-and-out summoned, "Why did you query about Esselle's whereabouts yesterevening?" He stood from the loveseat, stalking me, at last maintaining eye contact for longer than a breath. "Are you suspicious of her?"

He'd been so helpful the evening prior, digging up that information of her garnish-buying in the Port Markets every midweek afternoon. Yet, now he appeared almost guilty. His eyes were tinted in sackcloth and ashes, like he'd fed her to the wolves by informing me of her frequents.

Not a far off concern, I suppose.

But was I suspicious of her? Yes. And no.

"Perhaps," I muttered. It was the only word that fit.

"Why?"

I huffed a sigh. Would it sound loony to admit that, as of now, my only person of suspicion was one at all because she mixed spirits well?

Indeed she was a bar-maiden that mixed spirits well.

No, it was beyond well—it was magical, the way she had the canteen shook, the bitters poured, and the lime sliced over one edge in a matter of three or four breaths.

And when I sat there, gaping at the brandy, equally confused as to why I couldn't seem to predict a thing the girl would do or say, all I could see were her hands.

Like a medley of images and memories I'd unintentionally squared away, washing over me at once. The way she'd managed five—ten thirsting nobs at one time, whilst her blonde friend just stood there, drunkenly teasing and sucking up tips. The way Esselle was the one to log my name and beverage onto the levy parchment, without so much as asking my name, for she instead snagged it during my chat with Blondie.

She remembered my order. She was attentive. She was gutsy enough to speak her mind, and she had a flare unmatched by nobs and wharfs alike. All traits one smooth enough to steal my pendant would undoubtedly have.

And yet, our only encounter prior to my pendant's disappearance was hardly long enough for me to get a good look at the girl. Was I supposed to believe she could steal from me in such a short time, and whilst my gaze was absorbing her every move?

But if it was magic…

My mind was running in circles.

"Lyewkin?" Terrance waved a hand over my eyes, as if I'd been elsewhere—trapped in a daze. I had been.

"I have my reasons."

"I just—and forgive me if it isn't my place—but… I don't see Esselle being capable of stealing. She has been one of my only friends for as long as I can remember, and not only that… she is a lady." With the way his forehead crinkled slightly, and the way he emphasized "lady", he may as well have queried flat-out, do you really think a lady sharp enough to be our thief?

"You're right," I muttered, "It isn't your place." He took a step back, panic flashing across his features. "You must put aside what you think you know about everyone and everything. This case has already proven to be unpredictable."

"Forgive me, then," he barely more than whispered. And when silence ate away at the ticketmaster, causing his eyes and hands to flail about, I decided to put him out of his misery, let him rejoin the conversation.

"I followed her through the Port Markets today," I said.

"You did?" His eyes grew in size, "And? Anything unusual? Did you… catch her in the act?"

Everything about the girl was unusual, and damn near impossible to read. She was nothing like a nob, for there was no condescending nature about her. No lack of character or surplus coin in those cheap linens that she wore.

But she wasn't much of a wharf, either. I knew she could speak like a debutante, if not more articulate than the most well-read of debutantes. She walked with a straightness, an elegance.

Plus she read books. Only the rich and conniving could afford to read books. And in that cutesy bistro that her lovelorn puppy-friend—who wouldn't leave her alone—dragged her into, she whipped out The Adventures of a Globetrotter: Millad, the first novel I'd ever read. The novel that gave me hope of unselfish cities beyond that of Pale.

It was my favorite book.

Part of me wanted to take her puppy-friend's seat, listen to her read with a back to the coddled milksops arm-wrestling behind us and an eyeful of the brilliant blue expanse of ocean before us. Another part of me wanted to pound her follower's arm against the table—show everyone in that bistro what true strength could do to such flabby limbs and elbows.

What was it Terrance queried again? Ah, yes—if I'd caught her stealing anything…

"No," I bluntly remarked. Then I turned to leave without so much as a goodbye, heading for the bar. Not yet, anyway, I thought to myself on the way out of those corridors.