So I don't know why I said I'd do it.
Actually that's a lie, I do know. Because you don't say no to hocuses even when they ask you to go kill other hocuses. Who knows what that would do? This one liked to think I didn't know he was a hocus, with his gloves and everything, but the sleeves slipped and I saw the tattoos and anyway they have a way of walking they don't have a fucking clue how to hide.
I don't know how he found me, but I guess he must have heard something, and he sat down and put his elbows on the table and leaned forward all conspiratorial. "I hear," he said in a low voice, "That you have experience in assassinating wizards of the Mirador."
And I just kind of nodded and didn't let my face show anything, because fuck it, if he already knew that then there wasn't any point denying it. He looked satisfied, though. "Good. There's a wizard I want dead."
And I put my hands on the table and said flatly, "How much, because that ain't the kind of thing I'm going to do for a pittance," and he kind of smiled and pulled out this great big purse full of coins and passed it to me. And I weighed it and then tucked it away without showing anything on my face, but yeah, I was impressed. He was serious. "Right," I said, and waited.
He looked a little uneasy when I didn't talk, and then shook himself and said, "Yes, you'll need to…" And he told me where he lived, and I just kind of nodded along because I knew I could find it.
"What protection," I asked, and he asked me to repeat myself and I did slower and then he frowned.
"Nothing you can't manage, I'm sure," he said, giving me this weird look and I decided to shut up about that in case he started asking lots of questions about how I'd got Cressen then. And then I asked what the guy's name was, the one he wanted dead, because – I don't know. I wanted to hear it, who this guy someone was paying so much to murder might be.
"Felix Harrowgate," said the man, and his mouth twisted in this nasty way, and I kind of wondered if maybe it weren't something personal between them, but it was what I got paid for so I wasn't going to say no. And I just stood up and said, "Where can I find you when I'm done?" And he jerked his head in this nasty arrogant way.
"Your full pay is there. I trust I will hear about it." And he paused, and looked me over, and then said, "And I will know if it isn't, and the consequences won't be pleasant," and then he just swept right on out.
And I looked after him for a couple minutes and then went to see what I could find out about this job. And that was how I was on my way there now, prepared the same way I'd been a couple years before but less nervous because it wasn't at all personal this time, it was just because I'd been bought and paid for.
The hocuses liked to say the Mirador was the most secure fucking place ever but they were wrong, if you were quick and silent it was easy to get in without anyone seeing, and when you saw guards or hocuses to just duck your head and act subservient and they'd never look twice. Weren't like anything mattered to them.
I went around outside, though, because I'd learned before that the hallways were quiet this time of night and the occasional hocus you ran across was bound to ask awkward questions, and I didn't want to mess anything up or get in any trouble, or take the chance that anyone would recognize me, by some weird twist of bad luck.
So I edged around the side to where I could see the window I'd identified as belonging to this Harrowgate hocus I was going to kill, and I just kind of settled into that calm determined place I went to kill people, and started climbing. I'd brought some rope and everything, and not to brag but I've always been good at climbing, finding footholds where you'd think there weren't any.
I got up to his window, anyway, and hooked my elbow over the ledge to get my hand down where I could hold the wire I'd brought as I picked the window open. I looked into the room first to get an idea of what I was facing.
It was a nice room. All lit up with candles and lush with carpets and chairs and a crackling fire in the hearth, shelves of books on the walls. I didn't see the hocus I was after at first, for a bit, and so I took the moment of quiet to myself to pry the window open, and that was just as easy as anything. Stupid didn't seem to even have any alarms on his room the way Cressen had. Probably arrogant enough to think he didn't need them.
So I hauled myself up on the ledge and vaulted quiet into the room and looked around, holding my garroting wire and looking for my target. And then he slipped into the room, back still fortunately to me and I took a second just looking at him because he was one of the weirdest hocuses I'd seen.
He dyed his hair red; bright red, darker even than mine was naturally, and he was taller than anyone I'd seen ever; over me by at least a couple heads, really lanky and kind of weirdly awkward in a way. And he didn't seem to have the least idea I was there, running a hand through his hair and frowning at the bookshelves, so I kind of told myself do it, Millyfox, you've got a chance right there, don't waste it, and crept forward and damn if it wasn't easy to flip the wire over his head even if he was taller than me and draw it tight.
And obviously I was right that he hadn't expected it because at first he just went all tense like this wasn't happening and was obviously a mistake, and only after that did he start trying to fight, but like an idiot he didn't even go after me he went after the wire, fingers slipping on it trying to get a grip, and by the time he figured out that wasn't doing any good he was half done anyway.
It struck me as funny, that he didn't try using any magic. Course I'd taken care of that, Cressen had tried like crazy to hex me, but he didn't even try, didn't seem to think of it. He just thrashed like a fish on a line making those weird little choking sounds that I just shut out because fuck, I don't need to hear it again. And he kind of tried to kick at me but by that time this hocus was already swooning and losing it and I brought my hands in to pull it tighter because the quicker it was done the quicker I could leave and I didn't like staying in that place more than I had to, not at all.
And for some reason I kind of stopped because I could feel his pulse going like crazy under my thumbs, and for some reason it bothered me a little, and my hands loosened. I heard him try to take a breath and realized what I was doing and stopped it. Hard.
He stopped breathing a little after that, going limp on me, but I waited until I couldn't feel his pulse anymore on my hands before letting go and shoving him off.
Hocuses are just like anyone else, dead. This one I was curious about, though, for some reason, so I glanced toward the door and it was still quiet so I turned him over with a foot so I could see his face. And then I froze.
Because it was me there on the floor. And at first I thought it was some kind of hocus trick but then I realized that there were differences – longer nose, little sharper cheekbones, that kind of thing – it was still my face, though, basically, and I realized that maybe he didn't dye his hair, maybe that's just how it was normally…
And I don't know, all of a sudden I started feeling a little weird about the whole thing, and I panicked a little and zipped out of the window and off the grounds in a hurry, and I remember thinking that wasn't it funny no one was moving even as I slipped back into the Lower City, because when I'd killed Cressen there'd been an uproar right away and I'd barely gotten out at all.
I went to a tavern I found Cardenio at sometimes hoping to find him, but since he wasn't there I just had a drink alone, and weighed the purse I'd got in my right hand and thought to wonder why that hocus – the other hocus, not the one I'd killed who looked like me – would want that one dead.
And I don't know, but I was coming up empty.
Then I remembered that my mother'd been a whore before the Fire, and how maybe I wasn't the first kid she'd sold, and how maybe…
And that just made me feel even worse.
**
Next morning it was all anyone could talk about, how Lord Felix Harrowgate'd been murdered, and that's when I learned that he was Shannon Teverius's lover apparently – the Shannon Teverius, and I saw his face when they came asking questions in the Lower City so I don't think it was anything little either.
And everyone had their theories and no one was looking at me but I could tell they wanted to, and I just kind of sat there quiet and thought about the way I'd felt his heartbeat under my fingers and wondered if I'd murdered my brother.
I learned who the man who hired me was, too. I saw him with some of the Dogs, asking questions, his expression cool as you please because of course it wasn't like he cared, it was just for form. One of them called him Lord Robert. It made my fingers itch the way he looked smug, and wasn't that stupid.
I kept my head down and kept walking and no one noticed me. There wasn't nothing to connect me to a murder in the Mirador, after all – me or anyone, but you could tell the hocuses were spooked.
A few of them came down in the evening, though, when I'd found Cardenio and was trying to figure out how to tell him things and they swept in, laughing amongst themselves, and of course it was that name I'd been hearing all day that caught my attention-
"Felix? Oh, darling, if you'd heard what I have…he's had it coming for a long time. Frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't sooner."
"I think," said one of them, hailing the bartender with that easy arrogance all of them had, "That we shouldn't be hunting out his murderer to punish them." The third laughed and flashed a grin I didn't like at all.
"What do you think, send him flowers?"
"Mildmay?" Cardenio asked, and I realized I was staring at them like blue murder and wasn't that even stupider than they were. I shook myself and looked back down, and went back to trying not to think about it. I don't know, it was stupid. It shouldn'tve bothered me, even if and that was a big if the hocus was my half-brother. Who knew how many I had? It wasn't like this one was special just because he was the first one I'd found.
Wasn't like I should let it bother me that no one other than Shannon seemed too upset that he'd been strangled to death. Wasn't like I didn't wonder if maybe no alarm had been raised because no one cared enough to keep an eye on him.
I was just having water, so I took a sip of that and looked past Cardenio. Trying to figure out how to say it. Trying to figure out why it was bothering me so much, because that was the real problem, it was bothering me and while it wasn't like I never felt bad about killing people it was different this time, like being sick rather than just feeling stupid for killing someone because I'd been paid to do it.
Eventually I just told him the truth, wondering what a hocus other hocuses hated might be like, and kind of thinking, maybe like Zephyr, and that just made me feel even worse.
"Last night," I said slowly, quietly, "I think I killed my brother."
And Cardenio just kind of looked at me for a long time and then said, "All right, tell me the rest," and I did.