Ghost Relics by Jonathan Moeller

Ghost Relics

    Caina had been the Ghost circlemaster of Istarinmul for little over a year, and she had built up a small circle of allies and informants. Some of them were wealthy and powerful, like an Anshani silk merchant who owed her a favor, or an officer of the watchmen she had saved from a bribery charge. Most of them were men and women of common means and birth, like an elderly widow of the Old Quarter Caina had rescued, or a freed gladiator she had befriended. 
    And a few of her informants were simply insane. 
    One such informant was a one-eyed elderly man with seven fingers who supported himself by selling cakes and tea on the streets to the various clerks and scribes who worked for the hakims and the wazirs of the Padishah’s government. The old man muttered a constant stream of sing-song doggerel, but apparently had a perfect memory. After Caina had helped him drive off some robbers, he was more than happy to tell Caina everyone who came and went from the Padishah’s Golden Palace, knowledge which had proven useful often. 
    Perhaps the most capable and the maddest of Caina’s allies was Nerina Strake. She was a wraithblood addict, a widow, and the best locksmith in Istarinmul and perhaps anywhere else. Nerina had accompanied Caina into Grand Master Callatas’s Maze, and had been so disturbed by the things she had seen in the Master Alchemist’s laboratory that she had joined the Ghosts. She had taken a wound during the escape, and Caina wanted to check on her.
    So Caina donned a disguise and went to Nerina’s shop in the Cyrican Quarter.

    ###

    One of the pleasant things about visiting Nerina was that Caina could actually dress as a woman.
    She spent most of her time wearing men’s clothing and pretending to be man, using the freedom of movement that granted her. Callatas had placed an absolutely enormous bounty upon her head, but he thought that the Balarigar, the master thief that had terrorized the Slavers’ Brotherhood, was a man. Neither Callatas nor the Slavers’ Brotherhood nor the Grand Wazir nor any of the other powerful men she had crossed had any idea that she was a woman.
    So she hoped. 
    Yet constantly masquerading as a man, disguising her voice and changing her mannerisms and gestures was more exhausting than she had thought. She could never quite relax, could never lower her guard. Given the number of assassins and bounty hunters hunting for her, that was likely a good thing. 
    But Nerina knew she was a woman, so to disguise herself Caina needed only to don a blue dress, a matching headscarf, a set of sandals, and leather boots. The dress’s sleeves were loose enough to hide throwing knives, and she concealed a pair of daggers in the boots’ hidden sheaths. 
    She made her way unnoticed through the streets of Istarinmul and came to Nerina’s shop. It occupied a street lined with blacksmiths, the air sharp with the smells of coal smoke and hot metal. Nerina owned a three-story building, and unlike most of the shops, she kept her workshop on the second floor and used the ground level for storage. Likely her quarters were on the top floor, but from what Caina had seen of Nerina, the woman went without sleep for days at a time.
    The front door stood ajar.
    Caina frowned, one hand dipping into a sleeve to grip a throwing knife. Nerina never left her door ajar. Thieves were a constant problem in Istarinmul, and both Nerina’s debts and her utter tactlessness had earned her numerous enemies. Caina drew a throwing knife, concealing the weapon in her palm, and glided up the front steps in silence. Beyond the front door lay a small sitting room, dusty and disused, with wooden steps leading up to the second floor. Caina heard voices from above, both Nerina’s and the voice of a man she did not recognize. Most likely Nerina was meeting with a client. 
    But Caina had not survived this long by discarding caution.
    She climbed the stairs to Nerina’s workroom in silence.
    The workroom had not