Jewel put down her pen with a small groan of discomfort, and reached a hand up to rub her wrist and the palm of her hand. After hours of ceaseless work, her hands had started to cramp, and it appeared it was about time for her to call it a night.
Still rubbing her sore hand, the girl sighed and turned to the large, dark window that defined the west wall of Lain’s apartment. For nearly three weeks now, she had lived with the thief-turned-guide-turned-friend.
After her luck with finding strong opportunities for both Lain and Bors to profit off her knowledge, more freehands and small businesses had been willing to allow Jewel the time to peruse their books and offer them similar advice–for a fee Lain always aggressively negotiated.
It wasn’t a particularly exciting life–but Jewel nonetheless found herself content with it. No, more than content. Satisfied.
The work may have been boring–and often tedious and repetitive–but she was doing it for herself, not for the benefit of anyone else. And without her father breathing down her neck, her brother pointing out her mistakes, or her tutors undercutting her every success with snide comments, Jewel honestly found the work somewhat fulfilling. At the very least, she ended most days confident that she had managed to, in some small way, improve the lot of a few Lowrunners.
Reluctantly, Jewel gave up for the night, finally standing from her stool, taking a few moments to stretch her back and legs. She groaned as she loosened her tight muscles, and idly pulled the tie from her hair, letting out her ponytail and allowing her hair to fall down her shoulders in a pile of crimson curls. The thief didn’t have any real writing desk, so Jewel had just lugged a stool up the stairs to the apartment and started to work at the counter in Lain’s little kitchen. It worked well enough, but a few hours bent over and writing in tight script was enough to leave the girl stiff all over.
She moved to Lain’s massive window and looked out at the city sprawled out below. It was still early, just past the ninth bell, and the city was still brightly lit, even the domestic neighborhoods still bustling. The view was, perhaps, her favorite part of Lain’s loft. It reminded her in some ways of her oriel window back ho–back in the Brooker manor, but it was so much larger, and immersed in the center of the city.
Jewel smiled to herself. It wasn’t so long ago that ninth bell signalled that it was time for bed, that the guards would soon be reporting any lights in her room to her father, but of late, she rarely went to bed before midnight.
It was often laughable to consider just how much her life had changed in not even three weeks. Each day, “Jewel” felt more and more comfortable to the runaway, more so than Julia or Julianna ever had. Alleghy, the grumpy healer whose records she had spent the night working on, was her eleventh customer. With monthly follow-ups to each of the businesses she had worked with, she would soon have a comfortably full schedule; a life busy enough to keep her occupied and well-paid, yet sedate enough to allow her to relax.
Lowrun was far from everything she had hoped for, but it was also much less terrifying than she had initially feared. The city was dangerous, sure, but it was dangerous in the way of a broken bottle–so long as you handled it with care and weren’t foolish, it was unlikely to give you any more than mild cuts.
Humming under her breath, the girl finally turned from the view, idly wandering the apartment. She grabbed a book–a new ring novel she had picked up a few days before–and plopped down on a cushion in the center of the room, but after only a few pages, she found herself restless.
Time passed slowly as Jewel tried to occupy herself, her books, her writing, her wine, her view, and her bed all doing little to soothe the slowly growing unease in the back of her head. Outside, the ringing guard bells proclaimed it tenth bell now, and Jewel’s aimless steps had turned into anxious pacing.
This was only the second job Lain had gone out on since Jewel had started staying with her, and the girl had absolutely no idea how to deal with the nerves of having her host and friend out on such a dangerous errand.
Logically, she knew that Lain had been robbing and thieving and burgling for years before Jewel had ever met the rogue. Lain was a professional, a master thief with more jobs than she bothered to count under her belt, and she had, to the best of Jewel’s knowledge, never been caught. Bors even seemed to think that the woman was, perhaps, the most skilled thief left in all of Lowrun.
Yet that didn’t ease Jewel’s worries. She knew, with the perfect clarity of someone who had never done anything so risky, how dangerous Lain’s jobs were, and she couldn’t help but fear for the woman.
She could already be arrested, a voice in the back of Jewel’s head whispered. She could be rotting in a warden cell right now, or worse. She could be captured by one of the crime lords, or simply dead. They could be on their way to the apartment right now, to loot anything she had left here.
Jewel jumped, a creak just outside the door making her spin around, the brand on her thigh itching. She lifted a trembling hand, staring at the door, shivers running through her whole body.
Then there was another creak–from the wall to her left. Jewel shifted her weight a little, and a sharper, louder creak came from the floorboards underfoot.
The girl lowered her hands, feeling her cheeks heat up. “Calm down, Jewel,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just the house settling. Everything is fine.”
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Is it, though? her brain asked.
“Yes. Quiet, you.”
Jewel blew out a breath, and turned back to the window, looking down at the twinkling, flickering lights of the sprawling city below, trying to distract herself from her anxiety.
Inevitably, perhaps, her eyes were drawn up, out, and past Lowrun itself. A few high lights, mast lanterns, showed the docks, and past them, the world fell off into inky blackness. The bay, and the Vast beyond it, that endless ocean speckled only with the occasional island. The view may have been different than that from her old oriel window, but it was just as comforting, a distraction that Jewel’s anxiety was free to escape into.
Jewel didn't know how much time had passed when the door creaked open behind her, but it was enough that her heart had slowed, her mind had relaxed a little, and she turned slowly to greet Lain with a small smile.
The thief woman looked the same as ever, dressed only in her tight, dark green leather jacket, and loose fitting pants bound tight around her waist and ankles.
Lain tilted her head, a reflection of Jewel’s own smile on her face.
“Hey Jewel,” she said, sliding into the apartment in perfect silence. “Miss me?”
“Of course not,” Jewel replied, her own eyes sparkling as she quickly approached the thief– before stopping short a few steps away, her arms awkwardly half-lifted.
Had she been about to rush to Lain to wrap her in a hug? Where had that come from? She had never greeted her friend like that before…
Thankfully, Lain had turned to close the door, missing the aborted gesture, and by the time she turned around, Jewel had crossed her arms and instead stood casually, her head cocked to one side.
“I’ll admit,” Jewel said teasingly, “it was a little boring in your absence.”
“Got tired of Alleghy’s papers?” Lain asked. “I figured that’d keep you busy all night.”
Jewel blew out a breath, following Lain into the tiny kitchen, giving the healer’s records a brief look. “I’ve got a little more writing to do, but I’ve already figured out what he needs.”
“Hmm?” Lain hummed in absent curiosity as she fetched a glass of the potent, bright green wine she preferred out of the chill box, one dextrous hand popping the cork out of the bottle even as the other snagged a clean glass off the counter.
“He needs a couple wards or employees,” Jewel explained. “An Apprentice alchemist would easily reduce his overhead on potions, and another animist on staff would let him expand his operating hours, take more customers.”
Lain snorted, pouring herself a shallow glass. “The old goat’ll never go for it. He hates people.”
“An odd trait in a healer,” Jewel commented, grabbing her own glass and holding it out for Lain to fill.
The thief snorted and poured a couple fingers into Jewel’s glass. She knew that Jewel didn’t have the stomach for much more drink than that. “And now you know why his business is so slow.”
Jewel shrugged. “That’s his problem. I’ll make my recommendations and show him my evidence. What he wants to do from there is up to him.”
“Fair enough,” Lain agreed laconically, throwing back her own glass.
“So how did your night go?” Jewel asked idly, trying not to let her full curiosity show through.
Lain hesitated, frowned for a moment. “Jewel… You know I don’t like talking about my jobs.”
Jewel rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking for the who’s and what’s, Lain. I’m just curious.”
Lain pursed her lips, considering that a moment, then sighed. “It was easy enough,” she finally said. “I got a lead that a schooner down by the east docks had a smuggler’s hold hidden under its grain.”
Jewel made a soft sound. “Aren’t schooners fairly small vessels?”
“They are.”
“And don’t captains generally sleep aboard their vessels? With some sailors on watch? Particularly if they’re smugglers?”
Lain considered that for a beat too long before agreeing, “All correct, yes.”
“And yet you, by yourself, managed to get to a concealed smuggler’s hold, one buried underneath a load of grain, and get out without getting caught?”
Lain lifted her hands with an exasperated sound. “I mean… I’m good at my job, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Jewel couldn’t help a little giggle, and for some reason, it made Lain look away, the thief suddenly oddly reticent.
Almost as if…
Jewel thought of her books, of what it meant when someone blushed and turned away so sharply, and her lips curved into a small smile. “Hey, you wanna go out? It’s still early.”
Lain’s brow furrowed, and she turned to the window thoughtfully. “Yeah… I’m good for a drink or two.”
“Great!” Jewel said, already turning towards the loft, where she had her dresses hung. “Oh,” she added, like an afterthought, “I’d rather not go to the Claw, though.”
Jewel could feel Lain’s eyes on her back just as easily as she could hear the frown in her voice. “Yeah? Where were you thinking then?”
Jewel got to the top of the stairs, and went far enough into the loft that she wouldn’t be visible from where Lain stood below. “How about the Mast and Rose? That wine club you took me by?”
Lain snorted. “I’m not so sure about that, Jewel. That place is a little…”
Lain’s words trailed off, and Jewel found herself smiling even wider, out of Lain’s sight.
“Romantic?” Jewel suggested, moving as quickly as she could. “Intimate?”
“Ah… yes,” Lain finally said, her voice more subdued than normal. “All those things.”
Jewel emerged from the loft before she answered, walking down the steps slowly, letting Lain see the dress she had bought that afternoon, while Lain was out scouting for her job.
The dress was nowhere near as fine as those Julia had often worn uphill, but it felt much more natural to Jewel. It was a uniform shade of dark red, a single sheath that dropped down to just below her knees, hugging her bust tightly but flaring a bit below the waist. Long gloves of supple, untanned leather covered her arms up to the elbow, and she wore sandals of the same variety. Over that, she had slung her somewhat battered purple cloak, the same one she had taken from her room the day she fled Highwalk, making the outfit just conservative enough to pass at a place like the Mast and Rose.
Lain opened her mouth as she saw Jewel–and it stayed like that, lips parted, hanging just an inch or so open as she stared at the scribe.
Jewel cocked the rogue a smirk. “The Mast and Rose,” she repeated.
Lain finally managed to close her mouth and swallow, needing a moment before she managed to croak, “Alright. The Mast and Rose it is.”
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