Page 7 of The Thief's Mark

Cal would have loved to tag along with him after the lights went out, but that would have been a bit too reckless, even for him. Alas. Perhaps their paths would cross again someday.

The creak of a door jolted him from his thoughts, and he turned to find the barkeep reemerging. Looking a touch reluctant, the barkeep waved him over.

“I think I found what you’re looking for. Come and see if it’s to your liking.”

Cal stood and, with a friendly nod to the thugs glaring at him from their spots along the wall, sauntered through the door after the barkeep. They descended a narrow set of rickety stairs to a dank cellar lined with crates and casks. Cal wrinkled his nose at the tang of mildew that hung in the air. By the Dark, he’d never get used to that smell.

The barkeep, thankfully, didn’t linger there long. He moved to the nearest cask and flicked a hidden latch nestled in its wooden side. The cask’s curved exterior swung open, revealing anotherstaircase. This one appeared even more precarious than the last, held aloft by half-rotten beams and a prayer.

Grateful for his keen sense of balance, Cal stepped carefully down the stairs past damp stone and earth until at last they emerged into briny air. The little cove sat nestled against Derimay’s cliffside, tucked away out of sight. Docks jutted out into the narrow bay while rickety buildings perched against the stone.

Cal had to hand it to Bald Locke: it was a cozy little operation he had here. Someone in Derimay Customs must have known about it—there was no way the cove had gone undetected for so long. But it was private enough to limit the number of fingers Bald Locke had to grease with gallants to get them to look the other way.

“I know where to go from here,” Cal told the barkeep. “You don’t need to come with me.”

“Yes,” the barkeep grunted. “I do. The boss doesn’t like people he doesn’t trust sticking their noses into our business.”

Cal feigned affront, clapping a hand to his chest. “This is the fourth job I’ve run for Bald Locke this year. He knows me!”

“Exactly,” the barkeep muttered, quickening his pace.

Cal hid a smirk.Touché.He let his eyes rove over the docks they passed, cataloging everything he saw. There was more activity than usual. It looked like a shipment had just come in, scores of people scurrying about a small skiff tied up to one of the docks. Whatever had arrived must’ve been important.

The barkeep eventually stopped before a closed wooden door in one of the ramshackle buildings. Nothing marked it apart from any of the others they’d passed, but when he rapped his knuckles on the wood, a gruff voice barked, “Enter” from within.

Gesturing for Cal to do so, the barkeep turned and started back without a word.

“Have a great night!” Cal called after him. “Can’t wait to do this again soon.”

The barkeep didn’t respond save a slight tightening of his shoulders.

Watching him for a moment with an amused smirk, Cal turned and opened the door, striding in with an air of confidence that had served him well growing up on the streets. If you acted like you belonged somewhere, people tended to presume you did.

“Hey there, boss,” he said, sliding into the empty chair waiting for him. “Long time, no see.”

Bald Locke was a burly brute of a man. With the bulging muscles on his forearms, he looked like he could’ve bench-pressed one of Cal in each hand without breaking a sweat. He wore a permanent pinched expression, his beady eyes containing a cold, calculating intelligence that belied his hulking form.

Cal’s eyes trailed to the lank black hair the crime boss kept tied back in a ponytail. The fact that Bald Locke was, in fact, not bald at all had always intrigued him, though he’d never quite felt suicidal enough to ask why.

“Blackjack,” Bald Locke said in his deep, rumbling voice. “You’re late. Any issues?”

Cal shook his head. “Went smooth as a Celestial’s bottom—like always.”

“Good. Then I assume you have it?”

Reaching under his shirt, Cal tapped a finger against a small tattoo emblazoned on his upper left chest. It was part of a matching set he’d paid handsomely for, though he tended to keep this one free for whatever a particular job required.

The image of a canvas sack shimmered as he infused it with a dark sheen of duskflame. It vanished from his skin an instant later, and a full-sized sack appeared in his hand. He tossed it onto the desk in front of Bald Locke.

“Your papers, as requested. Along with a few other assorted goodies.”

Bald Locke opened the sack, rummaging inside until he found the leather binder he wanted. That had been the true prize in the theater’s vault tonight. The other thefts were just more misdirection. And part of his payment, of course.

Bald Locke confirmed as much, waving a hand at Cal as he opened the binder. “You can keep the rest, like we agreed.”

Cal gave a half-hearted nod, returning the sack to his thief’s mark tattoo. Between the past heists he’d squirreled away and some of the more legitimate business he conducted under his aliases like Lord Heneford, he had more gallants than he knew how to spend in a single lifetime. These days, it was more about the thrill of the hunt than anything else: at pushing himself and proving that he could pull off the impossible. Though even that had started to lose its luster.

After a few moments, Bald Locke closed the binder with a grunt and slid it aside. “Consider your contract fulfilled.” He pulled out a bag and tossed it on the desk between them with a heavy clink of metal coin. “Fifty gallants, as agreed.”