Rewrite That Witch
CH215 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 215: Skeleton Fingers

Black Hammer sent the servers back to their work and led Theo to the second floor.

The room cost twenty-five copper royals a night and offered value commensurate with the price: a smell like old moisture baked repeatedly into wood, a narrow bed with bedding that had not been aired in a season or longer, a table missing one corner where the gap had been filled with something dark and compacted by years of use. Theo sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

“You disappeared for a while,” Black Hammer said, settling into the one chair. A grin, the comfortable kind of a man who finds other people’s misfortunes mildly entertaining. “Since Sir Naji took your position—why didn’t you come drink with us? You’re not in charge of anything anymore, but that’s no reason to vanish.”

His nickname was accurate: he was built for it. Watchman of the Covert Trumpeter, member of the Skeleton Fingers, one of the King’s City underground’s mid-tier operators. His name suggested menace and delivered competence—which was perhaps the best outcome available in his line of work. The rats divided the city into territories and business operations; they ranged from disciplined to chaotic depending on whoever held the reins, and they were all, without exception, available to whoever paid well. Loyalty was a professional concept here, not a personal one.

“Tonight,” Theo said, “you’ll call Hillwei, Swineherd, Silver Ring, and Pott to the tavern. I have something I need done.”

Black Hammer blinked. “Those four alone? You think that’s enough?”

“I said this is a good business opportunity. I came to you because you’ve been reliable before.”

The rats operated by a logic that was actually quite transparent once you understood it: the employer found a connector, the connector evaluated the job, the job went to suitable personnel, and the connector kept the books. No contracts. No witnesses. No guarantee of outcome—though the more prestigious operations understood that reputation was their only real asset, which kept the failure rate lower than outsiders expected. Theo had spent years on the patrol managing this balance: offering work to rats that the city guard couldn’t officially touch, keeping them productive enough to be useful, keeping them hungry enough not to overreach. He understood the system the way you understand a tool you’ve used until the grip conforms to your hand.

He had chosen Skeleton Fingers because they were not, by street-rat standards, particularly bad.

“Hillwei and Swineherd,” Black Hammer said, after a pause that lasted exactly long enough. “They’re gone.”

“What happened?”

“Winter conflict. Dreamland Water moved in on the northern district—poppy, dying fern, the usual—and Casas led us to drive them back.” He said it without drama, the way men in this business discussed injury and death: as weather. “Hillwei took a knife in the throat. Swineherd went into the canal.”

Theo kept his expression level. The patrol knew about these conflicts and usually let them run their course; controlling the rats’ numbers was part of the reason. “Pick replacements from the tavern’s people.”

“Who do you work for now?” A careful question. Black Hammer’s voice had adjusted—professional curiosity, not aggression.

Instead of answering, Theo pointed his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the palace.

It was true enough. After he left the patrol, the common understanding had been that he’d entered palace service. He had, in fact, been assigned to the fourth prince and followed that prince west to Border Town—but the distinction between the palace and Roland Wimbledon was one that no one in King’s City needed to know. The royal family was more than Timothy. He hadn’t lied.

Black Hammer’s expression settled. “All right. But Hillwei and Swineherd are unavailable, as I said. My picks?”

“Your picks. As long as they’re regulars from this tavern.”

The summer air hit Theo like something he had been rationing. He stood outside the Covert Trumpeter and breathed it—hot, yes, and carrying the particular urban smell of dust and animals and close-packed living, but at least it moved. The mold in that room had been sitting in his lungs.

Black Hammer had offered him wine and a seat while he waited for nightfall. Theo had declined. A confined room with one exit was not a comfortable proposition in a city where people he used to know were dead.

He found an inn in the inner city and booked a room for the night. The soldiers outside the walls were experienced enough to make camp without supervision; he didn’t need to check on them.

At nightfall he returned.

The Covert Trumpeter was running its regular business by then—a thin stream of customers in and out, the low roar of cheap conversation, the kind of noise that gathered around bad ale like a cloud. Theo watched from across the street for a time, marking who came and went, before walking in.

He spotted them without difficulty. A table against the wall, a white finger bone in the center of it, the specific posture of people waiting while trying to look like they weren’t. When he crossed the room toward them, someone stood to give him a seat.

“Good evening,” Silver Ring and Pott said, nearly in unison.

“These are the new people.” Black Hammer indicated the woman beside him—small, the kind of person who looked like any child from any street—and then the young man across from her. “Little Finger, and Hill Fawkes. Fawkes is recently joined.”

Fawkes. The surname registered—uncommon in this business, where most people shed family names as a matter of routine. Theo looked at him. Mid-twenties, perhaps, with the particular hollowness of a man who had been through a rapid fall: the former life still visible in the set of the shoulders, the educated hands, the eyes that hadn’t quite learned to go flat the way the others’ had.

“Gambled until nothing was left,” Black Hammer said, reading Theo’s attention. “Wife left, house sold, found his way here. Used to live in the Northern District—used to drink here sometimes.”

Theo held Fawkes’ gaze for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. Something in those eyes that he couldn’t name. Not danger—he would have named that. Something subtler. He filed it without resolution.

It doesn’t matter. The first task is just moving people. No complexity.

“All right,” he said, turning back to the table. “Here’s the work. The people above want the refugee numbers outside the city to decrease—grain is running low, and if it goes on much longer, there will be trouble. They’ve decided to redirect those people west.”

“How?” Silver Ring asked.

“You spread a message. The wasteland in the Western Territory is being reclaimed, and the local lords are accepting settlers. Food, housing, wages. A fleet is coming to the canal pier in three days to escort them. Your job is to make sure everyone in the refugee camp hears this—in as much appealing detail as you choose to add. The more convincing it sounds, the better your results.”

Silver Ring frowned. “If the fleet doesn’t actually come—”

“The fleet comes. The mercenaries come. The offer is real.” Theo let that land, then added: “How you choose to think about what happens to those people once they’re in the Western Territory is your own business. Your job is just to get them moving.”

Black Hammer had already worked it out. “What happens to them is the lords’ problem,” he told Silver Ring, and tapped the side of his head. “That’s not our concern.” He looked back at Theo. “Not a difficult task. But the rate?”

Theo raised two fingers. “Double the usual. My employer has money and wants results quickly. The cost isn’t his concern.” He looked around the table. “I told you this was a good opportunity.”

Discussion

Suggest a change