Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
I hadn’t counted on the kids being watched. That altered things.
The oldest girl led the three younger children to the latrine, then brought them back. The boy crawled onto his bunk and sat there, watching the weasel-face. He was eleven or twelve, thin, small, with dark tan skin, short brown hair, and very dark eyes. From where I knelt on the floor, his irises looked almost black.
I kept scrubbing.
Derog and his revolting crew showed up in the second book, in one of the later chapters. A talented young thief who went by River Fog traveled to Kair Toren at the request of a prominent noble family. They hired him to steal a child from Derog. It was a particular child, and Derog had referred to her as a “custom order for a special customer.” The family had tried to purchase her, but the slavemonger refused to sell her even at a sky-high price, which meant whoever had hired him to obtain the child in the first place had to be powerful enough to scare him.
A lot of that chapter revolved around River Fog scouting the house and remembering all the terrible shit that happened there, because years ago, he, too, was one of the children sold through it. At some point he encountered Talpot on the street, and it took all of River Fog’s will not to murder him. He stopped only because it would jeopardize his job, and he took pride in being a thief who never failed. He could pick any lock, steal the object he wanted, and vanish without a trace.
In his reminiscing, River Fog also shared that he had once run into another of Derog’s child victims. The man, by then an adult, told him that he had loosened a board in the latrine and dug a hole through the wall into Derog’s escape tunnel. He worked on it for weeks, removing the board to work on his tunnel, then sliding it back in place until one night he realized that only a single stone stood between him and the escape. A good push would have knocked the stone free and opened the way to freedom, but he was exhausted, and it was almost morning. He decided to make his escape the next night. But during the day one of Derog’s roughnecks noticed the loose board and nailed it in place, never realizing there was a tunnel behind it.
Every night for the next week the boy would go to the latrine and stare at the board. He was too weak to pry it free, so he would have to break it. It was old and would splinter from a kick, but the sound of the snapping board would bring Derog’s guards. He never got the courage to kick the board and several days later he was shipped out to a country estate, where his life became a living hell.
That should have been a big obvious clue that the children were watched, but I had read right over it. I thought he just had an irrational fear. In my defense, I usually skipped that chapter during my rereads because in the end, once River Fog delivered the child to the prearranged place, an assassin murdered him and the girl. The whole thing was one giant setup by River Fog’s employer, who had wanted the child dead.
I hated reading about child abuse and murder. I could read about horrible crap as long as it happened to adults, but crimes against children skeeved me out, so I had only read that chapter two or three times. As far as I could remember, Derog, his nephew Talpot, and the bookkeeper, Lasa, were the only people mentioned by name. I had no idea who the guy guarding us was.
I was reasonably sure the escape hole was already dug, because the man who’d made it mentioned it was during the cholera outbreak. The city had been under quarantine, which was why he had been stuck with Derog for so long. The outbreak had happened four years ago.
I had to find the tunnel and figure out how to break the board without alerting the asshole in the chair.
I wrung the rag out, straightened, and lifted the bucket.
The oldest girl jumped off her bunk. “I’ll help you.”
Perfect.
She grabbed the other side of the bucket’s handle. Together we carried it to the latrine, passing the boy on his bunk. He glanced at us and went back to mad dogging at the guard.
The latrine had a sink and a simple shower on the left and a wooden box on the right with three holes cut out, one for an adult butt and two others smaller. We set the bucket down. I turned, trying to bring the guard into my view without looking obvious. He was conducting a fascinating study of his own nails.