Champion Kevintor Neverloss's Arc

Chapter 7 of 42

Kevintor came up the ladder behind Lina and out into a back lot at dusk. He pulled the messenger hood low and kept his head down. The list was folded in his shirt. The scrap with the one name was in his pocket, soft as cloth now from being opened and closed for months. He needed to find the fat man with the scrolls before the fat man heard he had walked out of the chamber alive. Quiet was the whole job. Quiet was the part he could not buy. He turned the first corner and a boy pointed at him. The boy was eight and held a wooden toy belt, painted gold, the kind hawkers sold for a copper at every festival. Every child in the lane had one strapped over a tunic. The boy shouted his name. Two women turned. A fruit seller stood up off his crate. Kevintor pulled the hood tighter and walked faster and heard his name climb the street behind him like a rumor with feet. He ducked into an alley and Lina caught his sleeve. "You can't ask after Bookster like this," she said. "By the time you reach his door, he'll be three roofs gone." She was right. Six titles had bought him a face that could not move. He pulled the scrap out and looked at the worn paper. The creases had gone yellow. The ink was still black. He needed someone whose face the street did not know. He found her at a noodle stand two blocks over, eating standing up. Maylyn Rave. Pink and blue hair, dragon up her ribs, no interest in his trouble. He told her he needed a fat man who sold old books, kept a shop below ground, and probably had a back door. He told her there was a debt in it if she went and he stayed out of sight. She chewed. She swallowed. "What did he do." Kevintor said, "He sends fighters to die." Maylyn set the bowl down. "Address by sundown," she said, and was gone before he could thank her. He waited under an awning two streets from the noodle stand. Roxy Fisk found him there. She had come into the city for her Friday bout and tracked him by the noise of his own name. She stood close so the awning hid her mouth. "You left before my fight," she said. "I know." "I wanted to say it before you walked. You taught me the cross. I never told you." He looked at her. He said, "Win Friday." She nodded once and went. Maylyn came back at dusk with a slip of paper. An address. A shop sign painted with a stack of books. A stair down to a long room of shelves under the street. "Side door opens on a drain," she said. "He's inside now. Alone." Kevintor put the slip in the pocket with the scrap. The street still shouted his name behind him. The fat man did not yet know he was coming.