Chase's Story - Nine Lives

[Author's note: this story makes more sense if you read Chase's previous Patreon story, the Lady and the Tiger, first (though it's not strictly necessary!). This Chase is markedly different from the Chase you know from the game. For one thing, he's younger--this story takes place about 8-10 years in the past--and this relationship and story changed him deeply. DO NOT read this story if you want to avoid content that 1) features a current RO in a past relationship or 2) features a toxic, manipulative, emotionally-abusive relationship. Other content warnings: graphic descriptions of death and violence, a brief mention of torture, depictions of hanging.]

Something was wrong with Saya, and for the life of him, Chase could not figure out what.

She had been avoiding him for several days now, sending him glares every time she happened to pass through the warehouse, curling her lip whenever he offered to do something helpful. He racked his brains, but could not fathom what he had done wrong this time: he often did things wrong, it seemed, sometimes even on purpose, but this felt… different somehow. Colder. More furious, as if he’d done something to betray her rather than simply annoy.

His mind treaded over the usual territories, puzzling the matter over the way he might peer into the mechanisms of a new lock. Saya was a fickle creature, and her anger sometimes seemed like an act of deliberation: something she chose to do rather than a natural reaction. What could she be punishing him for this time? Her birthday was in Leph, months from now; he had not missed that. He hadn’t stolen anything from her recently, and anyway he’d thought that a friendly competition, playful: they made a habit of nicking each other’s things and putting them somewhere else, subtly, so the other knew of the tampering and the skill with which it had been done. But she’d participated in that with enthusiasm, or so he’d thought—sometimes her moods could change like the wind.

It had been a year since he’d joined the Guild, he remembered; a year since Saya had pulled him from blood and flame and saved his life, dragging him out of the ruins of a botched job and into the arms of Thieves Guild. A year since he’d found—well, her, and a sense of purpose to go along with her. His entire life, he’d either been neglected or exploited—and when he wasn’t that, he’d been a drifter, wandering the Continent aimlessly, taking jobs that struck his fancy but not knowing what all the money and work was going toward. An empty existence, an automaton’s, full of ceaseless motion without meaning.

Now, here, he’d found… Saya. And a family. Something to work toward, to protect and defend. Here he was admired, appreciated, relied upon—an entirely new feeling that still sent queasy butterflies churning through his stomach. He liked it, of course, but sometimes it made him feel a little giddy. A little stupid. It was a dangerous thing, like love, a weakness and a vulnerability—but still, he welcomed it.

Could Saya be angry with him because he’d forgotten the date, the “anniversary” of his joining Thieves Guild? Had she expected something from him, more thanks than he’d already given her? Ought he ask her about it, or would that only spark another argument if this was about something else entirely? He—

“—Chase? Am I doing this right?”

He blinked and came back to himself, then smiled. Kato was holding the pistol wrong, his arm too stiff, more flag-waver than sharpshooter. He adjusted the younger man’s grip, forcing it to slacken. “You’ve got to be loose, you know, relaxed—not sloppy, exactly, but something like that, like you don’t even really care whether you’ll hit it or not. If you’re all rigid, your hand’s going to shake, and then your aim will always be off. See?”

He demonstrated with his own revolver, more ornate and gold-wrought than Kato’s plain iron firearm. He slung his arm up, almost lazily, barely took aim, and then fired; the rope holding up the suspended sandbag frayed and spun with the first shot, then snapped with the second, sending the ballast crashing to the floor with a dull whump.

Kato clapped admiringly, and Chase laughed. The younger man was a natural shot, potentially even the best in the Guild—but he lacked confidence. Malachi had picked him up as a common pickpocket, and no one had thought to give him a gun until Chase noticed his ability to hit glass bottles with rocks. Now they were training, particularly for scenarios where Kato would either need to create distractions or take out multiple enemies with one or two shots.

“You’re kind of scrawny,” Chase explained, “so it’s better to look around for ways to let other, bigger things deal with the Vice Guards for you. You see some barrels? Kick those bastards over and send ‘em rolling. Even wagons, carts—if they’re hitched to anything, you give that thing a slap on the arse and send it charging. Run the mutis over.”

“You’re kind of scrawny too, Chase.”

“Hey! Any backtalk and I have you polishing my boots until you go blind, got it?”

Kato grinned at his mocking tone, then glanced again at his decorated gun. “How’d you learn all of this, anyway? Shooting like this and the like? Did Malachi teach you?”

Chase kept the smile on his face as he bent and began to tie his dropped sandbag to the pulley system they’d fashioned in the back yard of their current hideout, a warehouse that smelled of salted salmon and aged wood. He tried not to let the old darkness overtake his mind, like a cloud skimming over the sun. No, the Thieves Guild leader had not taught him how to shoot, or wield a knife, or kill. He’d already been plenty good at that on his own.

“I was a gun-for-hire, before,” he said lightly, rising from his crouch and dusting his hands off from the sandbag. He did not like to use the word assassin—it was a bit heavy for his tastes. “That’s what I did when—before.”

“I thought you were a pirate?”

“It was after that. Didn’t know how to function on land, so I had to find some other way to ply my trade.”

Kato nodded slowly. “Must have made a lot of money doing that.”

Chase shrugged. “I suppose.”

“So why’d you stop and take up thieving?”

He thought of Saya, sharp-edged and beautiful, her dark hair cut at a razor line at her throat. As brittle as a shard of glass and just as captivating, when she caught the light. Not many of the thieves knew the true circumstances of how she’d found him, the broken and helpless state in which he’d first arrived to the guild. It was better to keep it that way: he trusted his thieves with his life, but information had an ugly way of getting to the wrong ears fast. “I like thieving better,” Chase said, casual. He shrugged. “Less guilt involved—and less blood. It was always a pain in the ass, the blood. Ruined some of my best clothes.”

Kato nodded again, seeming to accept this pithy answer. “Huh.”

“Yup.”

Malachi came out of the warehouse then, turning his collar up against the wind. To an outsider, he might have looked like any Haven businessman: he was tall, broad, lightly-bearded, and somewhere in his thirties or early forties, with laugh lines radiating out from his brown eyes and a genial, good-natured expression. His brown hair was tied neatly back, and his clothes and shoes looked immaculate as he pulled black gloves on, stamping his feet to stave off the cold.

Chase had seen those very same clothes splattered with blood and gore, though; how those same patient brown eyes had been dead and cold while Malachi cut the fingers off of a rival purse-snatcher who’d refused to play by the rules. No matter the man’s unassuming appearance, Chase pitied the person who ever decided to underestimate the leader of the strongest Thieves Guild on the Continent. He certainly hadn’t, and never would. He knew his place in the pecking order and liked it.

Malachi smiled, catching sight of them practicing, and sauntered over. “Teaching your protégé your secret shooting techniques, Chase?” He clapped Kato on the shoulder. “You know he makes you swear a vow of silence at the end of your training?”

“It’s that or cutting their tongues out,” Chase said contentedly, ignoring Kato’s nervous look. “They seem to prefer the vows.”

Malachi laughed. “Think he’s ready to join you on one of your heists?”

Chase had gained Malachi’s trust enough to curate a specialized team of thieves to work with him on jobs he couldn’t handle by himself; the only other person in the guild with that privilege was Saya, Malachi’s top lieutenant. “I think we’ll take him out on a test run at the end of the week and see.”

Malachi stroked his short beard. “That the job with the marquis’ palace? That’ll be tough work; you’ll have to move quick.”

“Kato can handle it,” Chase said confidently.

Malachi’s smile widened; he ruffled Chase’s carefully-tousled hair, apparently in one of his avuncular moods. “Well, I trust you. Keep up the good work.”

He waved and began to stroll away, towards the docks, where he often conducted business. Saya, Chase remembered, was waiting for him there for some business or another. A thought struck him then, and he waved at Kato to continue training before hurrying after the thief-lord, catching him at the end of the street.

Malachi turned an expectant eye towards him without slowing; it was clear that he had been expecting Chase to follow him. “Walk with me,” he said, jerking his head towards the badly-cobbled road that led to the waterfront. “Saya and I are meeting with a prospective new member; we could use your input.”

“I think I’d better not,” Chase said, tucking his hands into his pockets as he matched Malachi’s stride. “She seems to be giving me a wide berth recently.”

He normally would never consider involving Malachi, who was like a father to Saya, in the troubles of their relationship (although she loathed that word—relationship, not troubles. Chase often joked that it was because ‘relations’ did not capture the breadth of what they accomplished together, particularly in the bedroom, but she hated that, too). But it had occurred to him suddenly that Saya’s avoidance of him had begun right around the time she’d last gone out with Malachi for a job. Had Malachi told her something about him, warned her off for some reason, as a father might a wayward daughter? She held his regard in the highest esteem; sometimes Chase teased that she’d jump off a bridge if Malachi told her to. Saya’s acidic response was always that she had before, and would do it again.

“Ah,” Malachi said, with a tone of regret. “That’s my fault, I expect. I said something to her that I probably shouldn’t have—we were toasting our success at the old Iron Maid, and I was a little drunk. I’ll speak to her.”

Chase frowned, though he kept his gaze ahead, scanning the street for anyone who looked out-of-place. There were plenty of rivals to Thieves Guild who would love to take out Malachi—the so-called Bandit King—and his pseudo-protégé Chase. The only reason it hadn’t happened yet was because Malachi was smarter, crueler, and more experienced than anyone else in Haven—but that wouldn’t last forever. Chase had to watch his back. “What did you say?”

Malachi shook his head. “Nothing—no, I swear it,” he said at Chase’s skeptical glance. “Nothing disparaging, no dire insult that would require you to duel me over her—not that you would get anywhere with me, you ankle-biter. It was just… a stupid thing to say. She’s upset, understandably, but it’s more with me than with you.”

“She isn’t avoiding you.”

“Well, no, but I’m her boss, she can’t really rid herself of me. You, though, she can punish indefinitely: she’s got you trailing after her like a fish on a hook, you know that?” He grinned knowingly at Chase. “Trust in me. I’ll speak to her, and it’ll be fine.”

Chase blew out an unconvinced breath, but he nodded and began to fall back, waving at Malachi and heading back towards the base. He had that hot itching feeling in his heart, the one that told him that trouble was approaching, that he would need to explode into motion and reaction soon, the way he felt when there was a bullet trained on his back—but when he scanned the rooftops, looking for the danger, the looming threat, he could find nothing. He went home with a cold sense of unease.

#

He was playing cards with some of the other thieves when Saya came storming back into the hideout, her green eyes sparking with anger. Chase half-started to rise and follow her to their room at the back of the warehouse, but abruptly she diverted her path and made a beeline towards their little card table, standing over them like a prioress who’d caught her charges stealing candy. Everyone sat in uncomfortable silence as Saya scanned their faces in turn, saying nothing: the only one the thieves feared more than her was Malachi himself, and at least he was generally predictable. You could never tell when Saya was going to give you a kiss or a black eye.

Finally, she sat abruptly, displacing Brecker, who had been sitting there before. “Deal me in.”

Kato dealt her a hand without question: no one ever stood up to Saya, besides Chase. She was lieutenant, Malachi’s right and left hand. It just wasn’t done.

Chase looked around at all the bowed, startled faces and saw that no one was going to point out the obvious. “You can’t be dealt in during the middle of a duel,” he said languidly, keeping his body language relaxed and lolling. She was clearly in a mood, and if she wanted to be a part of the game, she was probably looking to have it out with him here and now—he would not allow himself to be overly-concerned, since that was what she probably wanted. “You’ll have to wait until an open match.”

Saya did not look at him. “Deal me in.”

“I, uh, already did,” Kato said in a high voice. Saya snatched her cards up and, without looking at anybody, began to play.

The game proceeded in tense silence, the other thieves looking at Chase in a bewildered and pleading manner. He ignored them and concentrated on his cards: they were playing Cross and Pile, which was complicated enough without Saya’s unordered presence in the mix. He flicked his gaze over the cards on the table: Kato had placed down a Moon card, which could only be beat by a Star, a Sun, two Earths, or the God card, and Hiteke had passed, indicating that she didn’t have anything higher than a Cloud. If Saya was dealt six cards, that meant she had a chance of having a Sun, but not two Earths, so he could set those down and assure that she couldn’t bluff her way out of the next few turns…

It went on like this for some time, the pile of chips on Chase’s corner of the table steadily growing into a heap, and then a mountain. Finally Saya threw her cards down and said, very flatly, “You’re cheating.”

Chase wagged a finger at her before dragging his chips towards him by the armful; he was feeling quite recalcitrant tonight. Maybe she wasn’t the only one rearing for an argument. “Not so. I do cheat, but I didn’t tonight. Special for you.”

She glared at him. “You always cheat. That’s your entire story—you’re a goddamn cheater. You never win anything legitimately—you never work for it. You just—cut your way in front of everything, without caring about the people who were there first!”

Uneasy silence fell at the card table at that.

“So is this what you’ve been so bothered about?” Chase asked politely. “This idea that I’m—what, dishonorable? You are aware we’re thieves, correct?”

“There is still honor among thieves,” Saya spat.

“So what have I done that’s so reprehensible?”

“Should we go?” Kato asked then.

“Yes.”

“No,” Saya said viciously, causing everyone to freeze mid-rise. “Stay. Play some more. Don’t let us interrupt all the fun.”

Chase sighed. “Saya—”

“Stay.” She shot a glare at the other thieves, and they sat down hurriedly and began to deal out more cards. Saya caught Chase’s eye and jerked her head; he rose and followed her to the narrow corridor, out of the main room. As soon as they were out of earshot, Saya hissed: “Don’t act all innocent. I hate when you do that.”

“I don’t know what it is I did, Saya. I’m only acting innocent because I don’t know what it is I’m guilty of.”

She glared at him. “For one thing,” she said in a low voice, “I’ve noticed you’ve never told any of the other thieves how you came here. You lie. What, too ashamed to tell them the truth? That a woman saved your arse and had to carry you here, broken and bleeding? You don’t want to admit that?”

Chase stared. Whatever he’d been expecting, it was not that. “I don’t lie,” he began. “You never said anything, either. I followed your lead.”

“Because I was waiting for you to do the right thing!” Saya exploded.

Chase’s head spun with all of the things he could rebut with, but in the face of her anger, he found that all he could do was flail, like a drowner lost at sea. That was another thing he didn’t like about himself, about their relationship (there was that hated word again)—it always made him feel out of his depth. He’d always been deft, quick on his feet, smooth even when he felt off-kilter. But now he only felt—stupid.

“So, what,” he said, “you were testing me? Waiting to see if I’d tell the truth when you hadn’t? For what purpose? Who does it help? You just want, what, the credit?”

Saya growled in frustration. “You just don’t get it,” she said, her jaw setting in that stubborn way. “I need all the credit I can get in this damnable place!”

Chase felt like he wanted to plunge his head into an ice bath. “What are you talking about?”

“You got a little too close to Malachi,” she said. “And now you’re lauded like you’re some great hero, when you haven’t done shit. You wouldn’t even be here if not for me! He—I’m his lieutenant, you know. Me! Not you! You never earned the fucking right! He hasn’t even given you the title! I’m the one who spent years slaving after him, doing every little thing he said, fetching things for him like a fucking dog. I’m the lynchpin in all of this!”

Her voice rose steadily as she said all of this in a rush, two red spots appearing high on her cheekbones. She looked like a wildcat, ready to shred him with needle-like claws and teeth—just like the weapons she favored so much.

Chase stared. He had never seen Saya quite so angry: she could be toweringly aggravated, yes, but not like this. She looked ready to kill someone. “Wait, what did I do?”

“That’s the point,” Saya spat. “You’ve done nothing. I’m the one who’s done it all! I’m the one who gathers recruits—I’m the one who does the inventory, keeps everyone fed—what do you do? Nothing—not without me! Without me, you would never have even found this fucking place, would never have been accepted without my good word! Malachi wouldn’t have even given you a glance if I hadn’t vouched for you, begged for him to give you treatment! You were just a nobody, a half-dead burnt-up rat! Without me, you’re nothing, and it’s not fair!”

That stung more than if she’d slapped him, and finally Chase felt his anger, slow to rouse, beginning to bridle low in his stomach. “I’m not a fan of riddles,” he said quietly, keeping his voice calm in that way that he knew unnerved people. It didn’t work on Saya, but it made him feel slightly better. “So you can speak plainly and tell me what’s actually wrong, or you can walk away. I don’t have the patience to be yelled at if you’re not going to explain what it is you’re yelling for.”

Saya stepped up to him so that they were toe-to-toe, noses nearly touching. This close he could smell her perfume, heady and amber-scented, and see her dark hair brushing her cheekbones. The narrow, angular beauty of her face. The dim light caught her green eyes, the spangles of yellow in them, the way the pupils had contracted like a cat’s. In any other person, this posture would have been a threat, a reason for him to gear up to defend himself. Instead, he stayed still, watching her eyes. Her lips.

Saya jabbed her finger in his chest: clearly whatever he was thinking about was the farthest thing from her mind at that moment. “I’ll tell you what you did,” she said softly, her nail a hard, sharp point at his heart. “Malachi got drunk and let it slip: he wants you to take over the Guild when he steps down. He wants to name you heir. You, not me. Even though you’ve only been here for a year, and—” Briefly, the rage entered her eyes again before she mastered herself. “I thought perhaps he was only rambling—that it was the mere fantasies of a drunk. But he confirmed it again tonight. He means to make it official next week.”

Chase stared. And stared, and stared. Suddenly all of the angry responses he’d been winding up to throw at Saya vanished, dissipating like smoke; now his thoughts were a thundering blankness.

“Me?” he echoed. “That makes no sense. I’ve only been here for a year. That’s never happened before.”

Saya looked like she wanted to throttle him. “I know.” She took a step back, hugging her arms so tightly it looked like she was gouging her own flesh.

Chase shook his head. “Why not you?” She’d been with the Thieves Guild for years, had served Malachi loyally for nearly a decade.

Saya scoffed. “Who the fuck knows? Because I’m a woman? Because he favors you? Because you always have things land in your lap, without having to work for them, cheating your way to the top prize while I’m stuck slaving away with no reward?”

He could not think of what to say. “Saya, you have to know I never intended this. I don’t even want the title. I like things as they are. I’ll talk to him, tell him no.”

She shoved past him, heading for the door leading out into the street. “Don’t bother,” Saya said over her shoulder. “He’s already told others—everyone knows, now. You can’t just take it back, undo it. That’s not the way things work around here, Chase. That’s what you still don’t understand.” She shook her head, said it like a mantra. “It’s just not the way things work.”

#

He had it out with Malachi that night, though the thief-leader looked more amused by his rejection than annoyed.

“I’ll quit,” Chase threatened. “I’ll leave the guild. Do not make me leader.”

“You will not,” Malachi returned, lounging at his ease at his makeshift desk in his office, where he’d been counting coins before Chase stormed in. “Not with Saya still here.”

“We’ll both leave. Think you can afford to lose both of us?”

“You’re full of shit. And anyway, where would you go? Join another Thieves Guild? They won’t have you if they know I’ve already claimed you. What then? Strike out on your own? How well did that work for you last time?” He raised his hands in a placating gesture at Chase’s glare. “Relax. She’s going to be fine, given time to process it. She should be happy for you: she was the one who found you, after all.”

Chase shook his head; how could Malachi not see what a terrible insult he’d dealt to Saya? “How could you do this to her? You know she’s wanted—expected—to take over your mantle for years.”

Malachi sighed, seemed to look somewhere in the middle distance. “That’s the problem,” he said. “She wants it too much. There’s—” He glanced quickly at Chase, then seemed to change his mind. “It’s better for someone who doesn’t want it to take over. They’ll do better, won’t let it go to their head. That’s you.”

Chase shook his head. “That makes no sense at all, Malachi.”

The thief-leader smirked. “Doesn’t it?” He shook his head as well, then began to light a cigar of charch, puffing on it meditatively. “And anyway, I don’t know why everyone’s got their britches in such a twist. This is a formality, but I’m still here. I don’t expect to step down for another five, seven years. Maybe even ten. You’ve got plenty of time to take to it, to learn. And she’s got plenty of time to adjust.”

Chase groaned. They went in circles over it for a while, but in the end, Malachi won out, as he always did: no one argued with the leader of Thieves Guild for very long.

“My decision stands,” Malachi said, stretching and cracking the vertebrae in his neck with a sickening, satisfying pop. “That’s the end of it. I’ll give you time to mull it over, but I expect you and Saya to get on board soon. No more arguing about it—let’s handle this like adults, yes?”

Hearing that, Chase despaired. Had Malachi intentionally done this to drive a wedge between them? He had to know Saya would never forgive him—or Chase, no matter how unwitting a role he’d played in all this. Or was he simply underestimating the depth of her ire?

Seeing that was the end of it, he turned to leave. Before he left the room, though, he paused at the threshold of the door and looked back. “What was it that you were going to say, before?” he asked. “About Saya?”

Malachi looked up from his ponderance of his cigar. “What?”

“You were going to say something. You said she wants it too much, and then you changed your mind about what you were going to say next. What was it?”

Malachi stared at him for a moment, mouth twitching. Then he said heavily: “There’s a darkness in her, Chase. Maybe you don’t see it; you’re too in love. But it comes out, sometimes. I don’t like it.”

Chase thought of blood, of flame and ruin and burnt flesh, storm and sea and drowning ships, all the dead eyes he’d ever caused staring up at him. Malachi had it all wrong, he thought. He shook his head. “You’re looking at the wrong person,” he said. “It’s me the darkness is in, not her. You’ve got it wrong.”

Malachi studied him, did not smile. “No,” he said after a long moment, with finality. “I don’t think I do.”

#

Saya stayed away from the base for three days. It wasn’t unprecedented: she sometimes disappeared for solo jobs or just to get away from the crush of bodies warming the chilly warehouse, so Chase went about his business and tried not to worry. He got Kato shooting well enough that he could take down a dangling sandbag in one shot, though the other thief nervously commented that conditions would be different in a real-life scenario. He oiled his tools and lockpicks in preparation for the raid on the marquis’ palace. He tried not to think too much about anything. The other thieves smiled at him, sent congratulatory nods and nudges his way, and he did not know whether to be solemn or smiling in return. He did not even allow himself to think about whether he even wanted to be leader. He thought no. But whether that was out of concern for Saya or himself, he didn’t know.

Stop thinking, he told himself, sternly. It was always something he’d been good at, so he disconnected those parts of his brain, filled them with looseness and insouciance the way he might fill his pockets with jingling change, and then he went about his days.

At dawn on the fourth day, he awoke to a warm, lithe body slithering into his hammock. Instantly Chase’s brain leapt to wakefulness, and he reached for the knife he kept under his pillow; in the same instance, he registered a familiar amber scent, the brush of soft lips on his face.

He stirred and whispered, “Saya?”

She nodded, and for a moment they stayed like that, silent, suspended in space together. Finally she said, “I heard you had it out with Malachi.”

Chase grunted, then carefully wrapped his arms around her; Saya allowed it and relaxed into his torso. “Fat lot of good it did,” Chase said, noticing how his voice was still thick with sleep. “I wasn’t able to convince him to change his mind. Maybe if we see him together—”

She pressed a fingertip to his lips; he kissed her knuckles, and again they swung a while in silence. Saya whispered, “Just that you told him you didn’t want it—that’s good enough for me. I’m sorry that I took it out on you. I know you didn’t… intend it. Any of it. You didn’t plot for it, or anything. I know that. Just… I couldn’t believe it. That he would do that, that it would happen like this. But here we are.”

Chase said nothing for a moment, blinking rapidly in the darkness. Saya never apologized, it was a well-known fact—for a moment he wondered if he was still caught in a dream. He said, figuring he ought to go along with it: “What do we do now?”

Saya kissed him. “Wedon’t do anything,” she said. “Once Malachi’s made up his mind, there’s no changing it. Ever. He means for you to be leader, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

More silence; Chase kept his eyes open in the dark, tried to press this moment into his memory. Saya had been outside somewhere; she was warmer than he was, but the edges of her were chilly, chapped with wind and cold. After a moment she continued: “I’ve got an idea.”

Chase made a humming sound, carding his fingers through her short dark hair.

Saya looked up at him, her eyes glinting like coins in the gloom. “I think you’d better get on his good side again,” she said. “If you really are going to be leader, you need to get things started on the right foot. Make all of this up to him. I’d do it, but you’re his protégé now—it’s more necessary that it comes from you. Show him that you’re all-in.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Saya toyed with the buttons of his shirt. “I was planning to surprise him,” she began, “for his birthday. You know that ambassador from the Sesz Isles?”

“Mm, the blowhard.”

“Right. Well, rumor has it that he’s going to be staying in the embassy palace in a few days’ time—and he’s brought something special with him, from the islands, to present to the Autarch. The Jewel of Crysada, a ruby said to give its holder long and healthy life.”

Chase pondered it for a moment. “So you want to steal this jewel and present it to Malachi as a surprise for his birthday?”

“I want you to steal the jewel and present it to Malachi as a surprise for his birthday.”

He turned it over in his mind, picturing the exits, the amount of people he’d need. “Embassy palace is a big job. I’ll need my whole team, and a heap of good luck besides. Are you sure it’s a smart idea to do such a high-profile job behind his back?”

She laughed, the sound silvery and low, sending a thrill darting along his nerves. “For his birthday? Of course,” she answered. “I’ve done it before. And I thought you’d be more grateful—it’s my idea, I’ve been planning it for a long time. And now I’m giving it to you, out of the generosity and goodness of my heart.”

He smiled crookedly. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

They talked for a while, going over the details of the heist: it was true that Saya seemed to have it all mapped out, as if she’d been planning it for some time. In theory, it should be simple, an in-and-out job. The ambassador would be attending a party at some Consortium politician’s house, and surely he would leave the jewel in his apartments, guarded by the few token palace guards who patrolled the embassy grounds. It was a foreign dignitary’s item, so he would not keep it in the Autarch’s vaults. Working with a coordinated team, Chase could vault the face of the building, break in through the apartment window, crack the safe, and make it out with the jewel long before the ambassador ever returned. The only reason he needed the team was because the grounds were so sprawling; they needed a chain of lookouts to keep an eye on the moving guards and notify Chase of their positions.

“I’ve got a map,” Saya said. “I’ve even got everyone’s positions planned out to minimize visibility and maximize eyesight. It’s all laid out. You just need to say yes.”

If it would make Saya happy, he’d dance into the embassy palace wearing nothing but a sock on his head. “I’ll do it.”

He felt her smile against his neck. “Good.”

They swung together again, staring up at the cracked ceiling, so shrouded in darkness now that it looked like a gaping void—or a starless sky, depending on the romanticism of the moment. Chase said softly: “I thought about us leaving, you know. Together. Going someplace else, starting anew. Did you ever think about that?”

For a moment, Saya didn’t speak. “Yes,” she said. But her tone was so unreadable that he almost felt it was a lie, to appease him. But Saya never lied: she always said what was exactly on her mind, even if it hurt him. He’d always that was admirable, in its own way.

He decided to let it rest, for now. “Everything will work out,” he said to the black and staring ceiling. “I believe that. We don’t have anything to worry about.”

She kissed him again, and for a while, all was right with the world.

“I love you,” Chase said.

As usual, Saya did not answer.

#

A few nights later, Chase crouched behind the shadow of a gargoyle, studying the ambassador’s apartment windows from a few buildings away. Behind him, Kato shifted nervously, listening for the owl calls and cricket chirps of the other thieves that indicated that all was clear—for now.

Chase frowned. Maybe it was Kato’s obvious apprehension, but he also felt something like nervousness. He couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe it was the sparseness of the guards below, the laziness of their patrols—or maybe it was the way the moons shone down on them, full-force, like spotlights.

But the windows of the Sesz ambassador’s apartments were dark and still, just as Saya had said they’d be. And his limbs were loose and limber; he felt powerful, vigorous, eager. He was going to get this jewel, repair things between Malachi and Saya, and all would be right with the world. He’d be sure to give his lover her due credit, too, when all of this was over—he wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

“What are you fidgeting with, over there?” he asked Kato softly. He was waiting for the green light to make his final approach to the ambassadorial palace; in the meantime, Kato’s twitching was distracting him.

In answer, Kato briefly flashed him a glass flask tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket.

Chase startled. “Good God, man, are you insane? What did you bring that for?”

“In case I needed it,” Kato answered nervously.

“What, did you think you’d be taking on the Autarch’s whole army?”

“It’s just a precaution!”

“Give it here, you’re going to kill us both if you keep messing with that.”

Sighing, the younger thief passed him the flask, and Chase tucked it into his jacket pocket with a shake of his head. Obviously contraband, the “fire flask” was a liquid explosive developed by Mages and fueled with the power of elemental magic. It was extremely temperamental, devastatingly effective, and he could not imagine why Kato would bring such a thing on a heist, which required speed and precision and stealth. Chase had no particular fear of danger or even really death, but this was just stupid: one wrong jostle and they could all be blown sky-high. He was going to have to make the idiot run laps after this.

There was the soft cooing sound of a dove from far off: the signal that it was time for Chase to move. He nodded at Kato, who would remain here as the last link in the lookout chain, and then surged across the rooftops, putting strength and bounding forward energy into his steps. He leapt off the rooftop of the last building, sprang into a treetop, swung it back around, and then used the momentum to fling himself at the window ledge like a slingshot, catching the sill of the window lightly with the gripped fingertips of his gloves.

He stayed there for just a moment, listening for any warning calls, before he swung silently up onto the window ledge and began to work on getting inside. Only a few stealthy moments had passed, and even if they had miscalculated the patrols, anyone below would only see a tree wavering slightly in the night wind. He eased the window open, confident, waited another moment for another call, and then flowed down onto the plush carpet of the ambassador’s suite with the grace and fluidity of a cat.

He crept through the darkened halls, listening for any wandering servants who might decide it was a good time to clean, with the ambassador away at his party. He’d been surprised by too many shrieking maids to let that happen to him again. Then, after ascertaining that nothing was moving within the apartment, he slunk into the ambassador’s office—the most likely place the jewel would be kept—and crouched behind the desk, examining the floor safe tucked between a shelf and the thick red carpet. A tricky little thing, but nothing that would slow him down for more than a few minutes. He slipped his toolset out of his jacket, unrolled it with a silent flourish, and then began his work.

Something creaked in the hallway outside, and all the hairs on his neck stood at attention.

Without even pausing, Chase dove, rolled, and popped up again with his gun in his hand, firing a silenced shot at the figure in the corridor. Through the half-open door, he saw his bullet meet its mark—someone slumped against the opposite wall, groaning—and then a series of shouts and stomping footsteps broke out.

“Get him! Tell the others to move, now!”

Time slowed. Chase understood several things at once, with that lightning-quick awareness—that cool, disconnected battle-calm—that always overtook him when his life was in danger.

One: there were a lot of Vice Guards in that corridor outside. How he knew them as Vice Guards, he didn’t know; it was something in their smell, or their voices, or something.

Two: they were about to very shortly swarm into the room and arrest or kill him, and there was not a lot he could do about it. There was no window in the office, and they’d crept up on the only door that would allow him to escape. How? Silencing magic, muffled shoes? He didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Three: they’d known that he was going to be here, at this exact time, in this exact manner. This was an ambush. And from the sounds of it, they had more people in place to get the jump on the other thieves, too.

Saya’s map, he thought, and at the same time: I have to warn the others. He pushed away the other feelings that wanted to bubble to the forefront of his mind like bile, the panicky animal thoughts that threatened to turn him blank and stupid and slow—no, he could not think about how this had happened, or why, or who—

I have to warn them!

He fired another shot, and then another, but even his gun was too damn quiet to be heard beyond the next few rooms, let alone wherever Kato was outside. He needed something big, something flashy and unmistakable—

His hand touched the cold glass of the fire flask in his pocket.

You’re going to die, a tiny voice whispered to him—the last vestige of his sanity and self-preservation.

Chase pulled the flask out of his pocket, and he watched the eyes of the Vice Guards widen, their jaws going slack. You wouldn’t, their expressions seemed to say.

He grinned, wicked and sharp, feeling like the devil.

“Try me,” he said.

He threw, and everything vanished into a halo of light and heat and flame.

#

…

…

…

“—luckiest son of a kisich I’ve ever seen. How’d he live while Yekol and the others ate it?”

“This here’s what we call a black cat. He’s high up in their food chain: a prince of thieves. Nine lives, he’s got.”

“Not for long. He for the gallows?”

“Sure. Hangs at dawn.”

“Catch any others?”

“Fuck no. They saw the explosion and were off like a shot before anyone could get the bag on ‘em.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“Not for long.”

…

…

…

#

“…Chase?”

He cracked open an eye and immediately shut it again, groaning. The sound sent a wave of agony blazing through his body; his throat felt raw and bloody, and so did most of his right side, especially his arm. When he looked again, he saw the ugly sight of his burned skin oozing clear pus, his sleeve in tatters, and he groaned again. This was his favorite jacket.

“Chase? You okay, boss?”

“—ook uff.”

“What?”

“Fuck off.”

He lay there for a while in silence as whoever it was conversed with each other in worried mutters. Eventually he managed to muster the strength to look around, feeling as weak and feeble as an infant as he did it. He was in some sort of dusty prison cell, shackled hand and foot to a metal bracket set into the far stone wall. Golden light filtered in through a high window, more a slit only big enough to poke a few fingers through, and there was a heavy iron door leading out of the cell, but those were the only openings in the entire room. They’d given him the star treatment, then.

Two worried pairs of eyes peered down at him from the little slit, apparently at ground level for people outside. Eventually Chase managed to piece together his scrambled thoughts: it was Kato and Brecker, two of his thieves from the heist the night before.

A thought occurred to him then. “How long’s it been?” His voice sounded foreign to him, a hoarse wheeze that sounded like it came from a torn bellows and not a man.

Kato’s face appeared, smashed in an undignified way against the bars of the little opening. “Two days, boss,” he said. “We couldn’t get to you the whole time—we had to bribe one of the guards more than his weight in gold, just for these few minutes. They’ve got people everywhere, keeping their eyes on you. You killed about a half dozen of their finest, so they’re rearing to see you hang. Can you stand?”

Chase flopped against the ground experimentally. “Not anytime soon. Where’s the rest?”

“We all got away, thanks to you, boss.” He hesitated, and Brecker said something to him in a vicious whisper. Kato shook his head and said, “Any ideas how we’re going to get you out of here, boss? We haven’t got much time, and there aren’t many of us. If we’re going to move, it has to be now.”

Chase shut his eyes again, and it seemed for a moment that he fell asleep, because his thoughts went black and still. When he came to again, Brecker was saying, “He can’t even stay conscious—how is he going to get out of here with just us?”

“I thought he’d have a plan,” Kato said, a bit helplessly. “He always does. He’s got out of the noose at least eight times.”

Not this time, Chase thought, but he croaked, “Malachi here? Saya?”

Even as he said it, said the name, the pain threatened to dwarf him again, rising in one great wave that crashed down and stole away his most coherent thoughts so that there was only no, no, no, it’s not true, it can’t be true, it’s not, it’s a misunderstanding, it’s a fluke, it’s a tragic accident and you are not thinking what you’re thinking you fucking idiot—

“Malachi’s dead, boss,” Kato said softly. “We got back to base and he was already…” He trailed off with a shuddering breath; he loved Malachi as much as the rest of them.

Brecker took over, his voice hard and flat. “Saya took over,” he said, rough. “It was a two-pronged scheme. Get rid of us, the ones loyal to you, and take out Malachi while we were all gone and not able to defend him. The other thieves answer to her now; she thought we’d all be arrested with you, but your signal took care of that, and we got away instead. Still too many of them, though; she told us in no uncertain terms that if any of us showed up there again, she’d have us lined up outside and shot like dogs.”

You’re lying, Chase thought, but he was too tired suddenly to say it, his heart sick and limping against the stone floor like it was on its last legs. He did not want to look at the other thing inside him, that bead of knowledge that had struck as soon as he’d realized the Vice Guard were waiting for him. If he did not acknowledge it, did not look at it, it would not be true, and he could stave off the devastation creeping through him like a fever for a little while longer. He felt it burning there though, simmering and stewing, and he knew that it would kill him when it finally did consume his body, worse than the fire flask would have. His brain already felt as if it was on fire. He couldn’t think.

“You’ve got to get up, boss,” Kato said, pleading now. “We’ve got to get you out of here, and then we’ll go back to base, face her down together—”

“No,” Chase said.

“Please—Malachi wanted you to be leader, not her! We need you!”

“No.”

“We need you, Chase,” Brecker said again.

Chase did not answer. He did not want to be needed, not anymore. Being needed had done nothing for him, that much was clear. It was a weight, an obligation, a shackle. Just another noose around his neck.

“Just get out of here,” Chase whispered into the darkness of his cell. Kato and Brecker were so silent that he could no longer tell if they were still there. “Get out of here and take the others. Start a new life somewhere else. She’ll run you out of the city if you stick around.”

A long silence. There was a sudden scrabble as Brecker seemed to run away, as if startled by some guard outside—but Kato’s voice still floated down to him.

“How could she do this to you, boss?” His voice was hopeless.

Chase shut his eyes. “That’s the shitty part, kid,” he whispered back. “I’m sure it was pretty easy. That’s just the way these things work, around here. With this life. I didn’t get it before, but I do now.”

“You can’t let her win,” Kato said desperately.

Chase half-laughed, the motion bringing tears to his eyes. “Idiot,” he said. “She already did.”

#

The walk to the gallows felt shorter than it normally did. One moment, Chase was being dragged up out of his cell; the next, he was being led into blinding white light, overwhelmed by the excited talking of onlookers who’d come to see him hang for sport; and then the next, he was standing up on the great wooden platform, his hands shackled in front of him, shivering and blinking, trying not to pant like an animal as the sun gnawed at his wounds.

He must have made a sorry sight: he could see the disappointment on some of the audience members’ faces as they took him in. His bloodied clothes, the eye welded shut, the broken slump of him. This was the great prince of thieves? some must have whispered. This was the feared criminal mastermind who’d terrorized Haven for the last year?

Something in him stung sharply, as if prodded by a needle. He winced and did not bother to hide the movement. He remembered the last few times he’d been here, he’d been debonair and dashing, fearless and rogueish, flashing the audience a winning smile and joking with the executioner as they put the rope around his neck.

It felt like a lifetime ago. The noose tightened cruelly around his throat, jerked sharply by a Vice Guard who’d been requisitioned specifically for that purpose. No doubt the man had dead friends thanks to Chase and was relishing the opportunity to watch the life go out of him in turn. He spat at Chase’s feet as he stepped back, and Chase did not look at him.

An augur came out to read him his rites: token, paltry words about how hopefully the One-God would forgive him in death, but it wasn’t a guarantee, and if it didn’t happen, no one would blame Xer. Chase tuned it out—he’d heard it quite a lot before—and looked out into the audience: he wondered if Saya would even pay him the dignity of watching him die, or if she’d already put him out of her mind, just some remnant of an ugly past.

He saw Kato in the audience, along with half a dozen of his other thieves; there was Anais, casually navigating the crowd, her eyes roving; there was Honor, leaning against a tree. Kato, he saw, was shifting anxiously with something in his hand—a gun, maybe, by the weight of it, though he was wearing long sleeves, and he wondered idly if Kato meant to shoot him and put him out of his misery before the rope either strangled him to death or broke his neck. A small mercy for their fallen leader. But bleeding out or hanging—it was all going to be over in a few minutes, anyway. He found he did not care much which way he went.

The augur turned to him, making Chase blink. “Do you have any final words?” he asked, his eyes warning Chase not to speak. They’d all done this song and dance before; normally Chase had some grandiose and theatrical monologue to unwind for the audience, some distraction to set his inevitable escape into motion. He was a bit surprised they were even giving him the opportunity at all, actually. Maybe it was a challenge, a way of saying, You can have your speech, but it won’t accomplish a thing. Not this time.

But this time he had nothing: he was empty of words and thoughts. He shrugged. “I’m fine, thanks.” His voice came out like a rusty hinge.

The augur turned smartly to the executioner. “Then: send this man to the One-God, and we shall pray for his soul.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, thanks.”

The augur huffed angrily and stepped away. Well, at least Chase would die as he lived: insufferably annoying. He could at least be grateful for that.

The hangman stepped to the lever that would release him into death, and Chase saw Kato’s arm rise, the gun pointing straight at him. His grip was slack and loose, just as Chase taught him, and he couldn’t help the flicker of pride just before the Vice Guard pulled the lever. Kato fired, fire blooming at his hand, and then—

Chase dropped.

He felt the brief, crushing pressure of the rope burning around his neck, so quick he didn’t even have time to close his eyes. And then he felt it slacken, just as suddenly, and he thought, That little bastard shot the rope. Just as if he were a sandbag. Dead weight. The thought caused him some indignity. That could not be all he was good for.

And then he felt the despair of life—the prospect of living, and what that was going to entail—crashing into him in the moment between the drop and hitting the ground. It was a strange kind of suspension, a liminal space between life and death, sadness and relief, fear and peace; a fleeting, ephemeral, in-between moment, like the quiet shared with a lover in a hammock in the pre-dawn dark. A very stupid thought came to Chase in that moment, and he felt hatred well up in him, hatred and fury and stark fear; that he would never have that moment again, and everything after this would be a reminder of that loss, nothing more. And he thought too that he had done nothing to prevent it, could do nothing now, and whatever the others thought they were accomplishing by saving him was all going to go awry. It always did, with him. He could do nothing but watch the things around him go wrong. All that was left for him to do was to make horrid, hot-eyed little promises to himself that he was going to get up and leave like everyone else did, walk out into the dark and never come back, shoot a gun into the air with bullets that never came down.

I’m so stupid, he thought. Nothing lasts forever, not even if you suffer for it.

And then he hit the ground.

He got up again after that.