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The Amber Comb was full of hot-blooded bodies and candlelight, and it seemed that everyone wanted to wish Sorin a hale and hearty 21st birthday. Between stopping for niceties with the regulars and acquiescing to calls for them to play a song, and then to play just one more, it had taken them over an hour to pass through the bar. When the opportunity to extricate themself arose in the form of the Belling twins climbing up on their table, lute and flute in hand, Sorin took it eagerly.
The mingled music and good cheer that followed Sorin up the narrow stairway was just short of raucous, and the comparatively quiet solitude that followed the shutting of the apartment door was a relief. They did their usual perimeter check of the three rooms, confirming the windows were all still locked, and lighting the lamps with a snap of their fingers. Only when they were sure that they were alone did they set down their violin case and lower their mask with a soft exhalation.
For some months, these rooms above the Comb had been their refuge, and they had come into adulthood here. It was a reasonably safe place, and nearly a home, in the ways that mattered. They would miss its comforts. Of course, before this place, there had been other rooms and other places. But wherever they had gone, they had gone with Talent Knowing. For nearly six years, he had been their teacher, their partner in con-work, their mastermind. In Sorin's heart, Talent was nearly family, in the way that mattered most.
And as exacting as his expectations had been—as terribly harsh as his lessons could be—as volatile as his changeable moods might become—he had never let them fall so far behind that they couldn't catch up. He had looked out for them, and he had taught them everything he knew, as a teacher should. Perhaps he had even cared for them, in his own way. It was almost a shame, then, to betray him as they would that night.
They had, at minimum, a quarter of an hour before they could expect him for their private celebration. It could be as long as another hour, and the later that he showed up, the more drunk he would be when he arrived. But he would come, making the time as he did every year. Regardless of his state on arrival, he was unlikely to turn down another drink or three when there was a reason to celebrate. Particularly when the wine on offer was the fine bottle that Sorin pulled from its hiding place in the hollow base of a statue of some god or other, which had served as a cloak rack as long as this place had been their home base.
They set about their preparations. They fluffed the pillows on the settee, wiped dust from Talent's goblet, got a fire going, and lit a stick of sweet-spicy incense. Most crucially, they retrieved the treasure from the false bottom of the oak chest in their room, where it had waited for this day alongside forged documents and a couple of sentimental trinkets. They wrapped it in a length of fabric the same deep blue as Talent's eyes, focusing on the task to slow their breathing and still their trembling hands.
When their mentor arrived a half-hour after they had, his cheeks flushed with good cheer and his jaw rough with stubble, Sorin's mask was back in place. Their hands were unshaking as they greeted him, adding his night-cooled cloak to the god's burden and leading him to sit by the fire. He nodded in approval as they uncorked the Pinot noir and filled his goblet, and chuckled around his first sip when they presented him with the gift.
"You're gifting me on your birthday? I'm not going to stop you," Talent said, setting his goblet down on the low table and taking the wrapped object with both hands, "but it makes me wonder what you're buttering me up for."
"I just can't wait any longer for you to see it," Sorin said, letting a touch of youthful glee shine through their typically cool affect as they made a slow lap of the room. "You'll understand why when you open it."
With Talent's attention on the gift, Sorin ran their left hand along the back of the settee while their right dipped into their pocket. They grasped the tiny glass vial, warm with their body heat, and stopped their roving behind Talent, as if watching the unveiling from over his shoulder. They slid the vial free of their pocket and punctured the thin skin over the top with their thumbnail. Then, before they could hesitate, they raised the vial and drew its liquid into their mouth.
As Talent tugged the last knot of the wrapping, the fabric fell away and revealed a crystal-top case and the stiletto dagger within, and the empty vial went back into Sorin's pocket. He glanced over his shoulder so that they could exchange smiles, his knowing and theirs self-satisfied, the secret in their mouth hidden behind their curved lips.
"You little devil. Lord Harkspear's own, isn't it?" They nodded, breathing through their nose as they maintained their composure and focused on not swallowing a drop. He laughed in wicked delight. "He must be missing this dearly. How very fitting that it has made its way back into my hands."
Sorin walked out from behind the settee to stand in front of Talent, continuing to watch as he unlatched the lid and pulled free the dagger. Their lips tingled as if rubbed raw and their heart pounded sickeningly. The blade itself was a gaudy thing, its pommel inset with a ruby the size of a robin's egg and its hilt a basket of golden bands. It matched well with his vest of burgundy velvet, and his eyes glittered with gratification as he looked upon it, turning it in his hands.
They took a seat in the chair facing the settee. It was overwarm next to the fire, and they felt a droplet of sweat slide down their spine.
"Well, then. This was not an easy lift. A bit of thievery worth boasting, I'd say."
Such praise should have made their heart soar, but this moment, they could feel only the vibrato of anxious suspense. Some of their hair slipped out from behind their ear as they reached for Talent's wine, and they gave him as convincing a smile as they could manage from behind the partial curtain of it, but he was focused on testing the blade's point against the pad of his thumb. Now was the moment.
Their pulse crashed like waves in their ears as they brought the goblet to their mouth, and their heart beat so hard and fast that they felt as if he must know. A part of them was certain that he would knock the cup from their hands, grip their jaw between his fingers, and force them to swallow that burning secret. When he looked up from the gleaming distraction of a blade and met their eyes over the cup, Sorin's heart skipped a beat.
But all they could do was keep going. As they tipped the goblet enough to mime drinking, it was not suspicion that they saw in their mentor's eyes. It was something else, something that he had only let them glimpse shadowed suggestions of before now. Appraisal, perhaps, mingling with something kin to appreciation, but darker and keener—the sort of thing that could be very dangerous, if used against him. Sorin let their lashes drop a fraction, so that their gaze would darken to match his, and maintained eye contact. As they let the poison spill from their mouth to mingle with the deep red vintage, the exact moment of transfer was hidden behind a last lift of the goblet. They let the wine splash back against their lips, for a convincing touch to their mock swallow, and then passed the cup to Talent.
"Then I will boast." Their tongue was tingling now, too, and they were surprised that their words didn't slur. They winked as they continued, "To my own self, the quickest hands that this city hasn't seen."
Talent took the goblet without sparing it a glance, because he was still looking at them. Sorin knew what he saw. Their face limned by the bright glow of the fireplace, their beauty as appealing as sin and their countenance as proud as his own; the loose waves of their hair around their shoulders, gold as the blade's hilt in the firelight; the wide plunge of their shirt displaying sun-kissed skin. No longer were they a pitiable urchin child. They were what he made of them: a perfected project, admirable in body and spirit and skill, and they let him look as he drank deeply.
When he tipped the cup to empty it with one last bob of his throat, it was not only relief that made Sorin feel lightheaded. Their sensitized mouth and the numbness of their tongue was evidence enough that the poison was affecting them, and when everything went a little hazy at the edges, they weren't surprised. It was the cost of success, because a move so foolhardy was the only thing that a poisoner as proficient as Talent would not suspect. As long as they kept their wits enough to follow through, they would still win the night. The thought of it made them want to dance, to cheer, to rub their victory in his face as he succumbed to their secret.
But they didn't. They just waited, and it didn't take long. Six seconds, at most. They watched the blade and cup fall from his hands as his eyes rolled back, lashes fluttering. To his credit, he didn't go down easy. He gave a low gasp, fingers twitching and mouth moving soundlessly as he resisted the pull of the poison. And then he slumped into deep sleep and toppled over. Sorin caught him before he fell to the floor and settled him onto his side.
They had done it. They had tricked the trickster, grifted the grifter. They should move, now, because nothing was guaranteed, and because they couldn't be certain that one of Talent's many connections wouldn't come looking for him, even at this late hour. But the poison had turned their thoughts to warm honey, and their birthday had always made them susceptible to sentimentality. As much as they hated this man for what he had done, they loved him. He had made sure of that.
And so they spent a long, inadvisable moment brushing his hair back from his face, admiring the sparse glint of silver amongst the dark, and watching the slow lift and fall of his chest. And when they did rise to their feet, head still hazy and the key to his lockbox in hand, they left the blade. Considering all that they would take from him that night, and the dangerous position in which he would find himself on waking, it seemed the least that they could do—a parting gift, for the man who made them what they were.