The Assassin’s Ruse tells the story of the Assassin Without a Name and Elizabeth West's first meeting. As anyone who's read my books knows, these sorts of meetings never go as planned. Forced to work together, these two central characters in my Assassin Without a Name series experience intrigue, mystery, danger, and, yes, even a little romance.
Chapter 1: The Museum
The museum’s corridors stretched before me, the marble floors and vaulted ceilings designed to make visitors feel small in the presence of history. Gas lamps lined the walls at regular intervals, their brass fixtures polished to a mirror shine, casting pools of amber light that left deep shadows between them. Columns of pale stone rose to support archways carved with geometric patterns—remnants of a classical style that predated the Fall of the Old Gods, though whether the architecture was authentic or an imitation of it, I couldn’t say. Display cases lined the outer walls, their glass panels reflecting the flickering light. Ceremonial blades. Crumbling tablets etched with forgotten scripts. Jewelry whose gems had gone dark centuries ago. Placards beside each piece offered scholarly explanations written in the owner’s own hand, the kind of self-congratulatory prose that transformed simple artifacts into monuments to the collector’s refined taste. Everything about Volarin’s Museum of Antiquities screamed wealth and self-importance—much like its owner.
I navigated the halls unerringly because I’d taken them multiple times over the past three days. Under different circumstances, I might have learned the lay of the place by disguising myself as a curious scholar or a maintenance worker. Someone whose appearance wouldn’t elicit a second thought. This time, however, I chose a different disguise altogether. One that allowed me to learn every exit, every blind spot, every corridor where shadows gathered thick enough to hide a man with murder on his mind.
Tonight, like most nights, that man was me.
“Everything check out?” the lead guardsman—and my superior—asked as I rounded the corner and entered the private gallery.
“Everything checked out, boss. Pretty quiet.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” he said. “Take position with the others.”
The private gallery lay at the heart of the museum, accessible only to staff and Mr. Volarin’s most trusted associates. I joined three others already on duty, taking my post in the corner farthest from the door as instructed. One guard gave me a nod. I returned it. Three days of shared shifts had earned that much familiarity.
My attention shifted to the main entry.
Volarin had made enemies over the years—outbid the wrong collector, acquired items through unsavory means that left others holding empty purses and wounded pride. One of those enemies had paid handsomely to see him dead. The details of their grievance meant nothing to me. In my profession, they never did. I provided a service, nothing more. I didn’t involve myself in the reasons why, didn’t ask questions beyond the ones necessary to complete the job, and never considered the mark anything other than a target. Men like Mr. Volarin made that last bit exceptionally easy.
The contract specified tonight. Volarin planned to sell a rare artifact to a buyer willing to pay a fortune for it. A private transaction, away from prying eyes, conducted in the heart of his own museum, where he believed himself untouchable. Some clients didn’t care about such details. This one did. The job had come to me via an intermediary, a broker of sorts. So while I didn’t know my client’s identity, I had to assume, based on my instructions, that this was personal. It almost always was.
Footsteps approached—multiple sets. The other guards straightened, adopting the stiff postures of men eager to demonstrate competence when their employer arrived.
The door opened.
Volarin entered first, thin and pale as a winter morning, gold glittering on his fingers and at his throat. His beard framed features built for sneering, and he scanned the gallery as if he cataloged his possessions. The guards. The relics. All of it belonged to him.
Not for much longer.
Two personal guards flanked Volarin, better armed than the rest of us. Behind them came another man—presumably the buyer. Middle-aged, wearing the understated clothes of someone with money who didn’t need to advertise it. He carried a leather case at his side and moved with the careful steps of a man who trusted no one present. Smart. He shouldn’t.
Volarin led the buyer on a circuit of the room, gesturing at protective vitrines and launching into lectures about each piece they passed. A ceremonial dagger from the Temple of Khorath. Stone tablets recovered from the Sunken City off the coast of the Steel Islands. A bronze mask, which Volarin claimed once belonged to a priest-king whose name time had forgotten. Marek Volarin had assembled quite a collection. Nearly half of it arrived through channels that wouldn’t survive legal scrutiny. The buyer nodded when appropriate, his expression suggesting he’d endured similar speeches before and found them tedious. I sympathized. Volarin’s voice made you want to stab yourself just to have something more interesting to think about.
They stopped before an empty pedestal in the gallery’s center. Volarin faced his guest, hands clasped behind him in the manner of a man about to deliver important news. “What I am about to show you is not merely rare but unique. A relic, ancient in origin, dedicated to a god whose name has faded into history.” He paused for effect. “The Eye of the Void.”
The buyer’s posture shifted—a subtle straightening that suggested genuine interest beneath the cultivated disinterest. “I’d like to see it.”
“Of course.” Volarin snapped his fingers at one of his personal guards. “Bring it.”
The guard disappeared through a side door. He returned carrying a velvet-lined box, which he placed on the pedestal with the exaggerated care of someone who knew exactly how much his employer paid for it.
Volarin lifted the lid with theatrical reverence.
The crystal inside was the size of a man’s fist, cut into a prism shape with edges so precise they seemed to slice the surrounding air. Dark—darker than black, if such were possible. The gas lamps throughout the gallery flickered as their light approached the artifact’s surface, bending toward it like water circling a drain before vanishing. The crystal didn’t reflect. Didn’t refract. The crystal swallowed illumination the way a starving man swallows food, greedily and absolutely, giving nothing back. Even at a distance, something about it set me on edge, like standing at the edge of a cliff in absolute darkness, knowing the drop was there even if you couldn’t see it. The hairs on my arms rose, and I fought the urge to retreat a step. Assassins don’t spook easily. We can’t afford to. But seeing the crystal, I understood why it had faded into obscurity. Pity Mr. Volarin couldn’t have left it alone.
“Magnificent,” Marek breathed, his assessment not shared by anyone else in the gallery. Even the buyer, as he leaned in for a closer inspection, blanched and averted his gaze.
“I’ll need to authenticate it,” the buyer stammered.
Marek’s grin tightened. “You doubt my word?”
“I doubt everyone’s word. It’s why I’m still in business.” The buyer opened his leather case and withdrew a brass device bristling with gears and glass lenses—some kind of detection apparatus, alchemical from the look of it. Runes etched along its surface pulsed with faint light as he activated it. “You understand.”
Mr. Volarin stepped aside, waving in grudging permission. “Do what you must.”
The buyer held the device over the crystal. Gears clicked and whirred. The lenses rotated, focusing and refocusing on the artifact below. A needle on the device swung left, then right, searching for a value it couldn’t find until settling into position with a finality that made Volarin’s jaw tighten.
The buyer frowned. “This isn’t the Eye of the Void.”
Silence. The guards shifted uncomfortably. I shifted with them out of curiosity, watching Volarin cycle through confusion, disbelief, and fury in the span of a heartbeat—the progression of a man whose world had tilted sideways.
“Impossible,” he breathed.
“The resonance is wrong.” The buyer’s voice carried no accusation—only the flat certainty of a man stating facts. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s not what I came here to purchase. You’re trying to sell me a forgery.”
“I am not—” Marek snatched the device from the buyer, staring at the readings as if willing them to change. The needle didn’t move. “There must be some malfunction. Some error in your instrument.”
“My instruments do not malfunction, Mr. Volarin. I’ve authenticated over two hundred pieces with this device. It has never been wrong.”
Marek held the crystal to the nearest light. “See how it drinks the illumination? Only a genuine relic of darkness exhibits such behavior.”
“That may be so, Mr. Volarin,” the buyer said. “But this forgery does as well. Now, I made this appointment in good faith, and you’ve wasted my evening.” The buyer reached for his case, snapping it shut with the practiced motion of a man who’d abandoned bad deals before.
“Wait.” Marek grabbed his arm. “We had an agreement!”
“The agreement was for the Eye of the Void. Not a worthless fake.” The buyer squirmed free. “I take my leave, sir.”
“No one leaves,” Volarin said. His voice shook with barely contained rage. “Not until I understand what’s happened here. Guards!”
The word cracked through the room like a whip. Every man in uniform straightened, hands dropping to weapons. My contract called for discretion—a clean kill whose responsibility might fall on any number of enemies Volarin had made over the years. Though I hadn’t planned this evening’s meeting, a private transaction gone wrong provided the perfect cover. But a hostage situation? Witnesses who might talk? The plan was to take Marek out immediately after the deal. This complicated matters.
The buyer retreated toward the exit. “You can’t hold me against my will.”
“I can do whatever I please. This is my museum, isn’t it? And someone has stolen from me. For all I know, it was you, sir.”
The buyer clutched his briefcase to his chest. “Why would I steal the artifact when I intended to buy it?”
“A ruse, perhaps!” Marek cried. “No matter. I will get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I ever do. Captain! Secure this room! Then begin your search. Find the thief who has stolen from me!”
The captain barked orders. Men responded, throwing the gallery into chaos as they ran in all directions. Some moved to block the exits. Others ran from the gallery to search for the perpetrator.
I needed to move. Now.
I grasped a hidden knife beneath my uniform. Two steps would bring me within striking distance. One clean thrust between the ribs, angled upward toward the heart. Volarin would drop before anyone understood what had happened. The burgeoning chaos provided the perfect cover for my escape.
Or would have if a figure in black hadn’t just burst through a side door.
Lithe. Fast. A dark mask obscured everything but a pair of feminine eyes that swept the room. The figure crossed the gallery in three strides, snatched the Eye from its velvet box, and bolted for the main entrance before anyone reacted. In the next second, she was gone.
“The Eye!” Volarin shrieked. “Stop her, you fools!”
Never mind that it was a fake. While the guards surged forward, the buyer took advantage of the distraction to flee, vanishing through the side door with his leather case still clutched to his chest.
My window of opportunity had closed—the chaos I hoped to take advantage of, usurped by another. I considered waiting until the guards had fled the room in pursuit, leaving Marek alone and vulnerable. But the others’ movement herded me along as part of the pursuit. Stopping would draw the wrong kind of attention. So, wondering if I might still have time to circle back once the confusion had settled to finish the job, I put my contract aside and joined the chase.
I let the others dash down the corridor and funnel into a stairwell ahead of me. Their boots thundered on the marble steps, the sound echoing off the walls in a cacophony of noise. The thief was already two flights above us, a flash of black disappearing around the curve of the stairs.
Whoever she was, she was good.
The stairwell ended at a heavy door that the lead guards threw open with more enthusiasm than sense. Night air rushed in, cold and sharp with the odor of coal smoke from the city’s chimneys. We piled through the doorway, emerging onto the museum’s roof, a broad expanse of slate tiles punctuated by dormers, ventilation shafts, and the skeletal frames of maintenance walkways. The moon hung fat and yellow above Alchester’s skyline, casting long shadows that stretched across the rooftop like haunting apparitions. The thief stood at the roof’s far edge, silhouetted against the glow of gas lamps from the street below. She’d run herself into a corner.
Maybe not so good, after all.
The guards spread out in a loose semicircle to cut off any escape. Six of them now, with more likely on the way. The odds looked bad. Little did I know that the guards should have brought more men.
“Nowhere to run,” the captain said, drawing his sword with the theatrical flourish of a man who enjoyed the sound of steel clearing leather. “Hand over what you stole, and Mr. Volarin may show mercy.”
I stayed near the back of the group, curious to see how this played out.
The thief tilted her head, considering. Her mask concealed her expression, but her posture suggested amusement rather than fear.
“Mercy,” she repeated, her voice light and clear. “From Volarin. Now there’s a thought.”
“Last chance.”
“For you or me?”
The captain let out a roar and lunged. She wasn’t there. She’d read his movement before he’d finished making it, sidestepping with such grace that his move looked clumsy by comparison. Her boot caught his ankle as he passed, sending him sprawling across the slate tiles with a grunt of surprise. The other guards rushed her. The first to reach her swept his arm wide, more intent on catching her than landing a clean blow. She ducked beneath his swing, drove her elbow into his ribs, and shoved him into the path of the second. They went down in a tangle of limbs and curses. The third swooped in low, trying to tackle her around the waist. She vaulted over him, using his back as a springboard, and landed in a crouch behind the fourth, who spun too slowly to stop a drawn knife from opening a shallow cut across his ribs. He dropped his weapon with a yelp. Before the one she leaped over could react, she smashed her elbow into his face, sending the man staggering onto his heels to trip over his captain.
Five down in as many heartbeats. I’d seen professional fighters who couldn’t manage half that.
But the sixth guard had circled wide during the initial rush, positioning himself between her and the roof’s edge. Now, he came at her from behind while she recovered from her last strike, his blade aimed at the small of her back in a move I could only describe as distinctly ungentlemanly. She heard him—I could tell by the way her shoulders tensed—but she’d committed to the wrong angle and couldn’t turn fast enough.
I moved without thinking, a knife flying through the air before I’d consciously decided to throw it, spinning end over end across the distance to sink into the guard’s shoulder. He screamed and dropped his sword, clutching at the wound as he staggered sideways. The thief saw the knife sticking out of the guard’s shoulder and, settling into a fighting stance, faced me across the tangle of men.
Our eyes met.
Hers were dark in the moonlight, sharp and assessing. But also curious, wondering why I helped her. No time to ask, she sprinted for the roof’s edge.
“She’s getting away!” a downed guard shouted, struggling to rise.
The thief didn’t slow. She reached the edge and leaped without hesitation, launching herself into the air above a four-story drop to the street below. I leaned over the parapet in time to see her catch a thin wire stretched between the museum and a distant building across the street, and then she slid away into the darkness, fast and controlled, the wire singing beneath her weight. She landed on the far rooftop in seconds. As she unclipped from the line, she turned to glance at me—a black figure against the yellow glow of the distant lamps. She flashed a mock salute. Then she drew her knife, cut the wire so no one could follow, and vanished into the shadows. I couldn’t help but smile at the audacity of her escape.
Several of the guards, including the captain, joined me at the roof’s edge.
“What happened?” the captain, flushed with anger and embarrassment, grumbled. “Where did she go?”
I pointed at the building across the way. “Over there. I doubt we’ll catch her now, sir.”
He followed the direction of my stare, took in the distance, and swore under his breath.
“I tried to stop her.” I gestured at the guard still whimpering over the knife in his shoulder—my knife, which I’d need to retrieve later. “Tried to bring her down. Poor Carl there got in the way. Sorry, Carl.”
Carl glared daggers of his own at me. “Maybe next time, don’t throw a knife, you arsehole.”
A reprimand died on the captain’s lips. He had bigger problems than one underperforming guard, and he knew it. He’d lost the artifact—worthless, but still—let the thief who’d stolen it escape, and now had to explain all of it to Mr. Volarin. A thief had stolen a worthless trinket tonight, but what about the next time?
“Get down to the street,” he snapped at the others. “Search the surrounding blocks. She can’t have gone far.” He turned to me. “You. Help Carl get to the nearest hospital. Then report back to me.”
I moved to help Carl, who still cursed under his breath. Together, we made our way to the stairwell. Behind us, the captain barked more orders that wouldn’t matter. The thief was long gone.
At the bottom of the stairs, Carl stopped.
“Get yer damn knife out of me.”
“You sure?”
“Just do it!”
So, I did it, yanking the knife free. Carl grunted in pain and sank against the wall. When I moved closer to help him, he waved me away. “I’ll get to the hospital myself.” Then he staggered off.
Since other guards had gone ahead of us to search the surrounding area, I followed in their wake, pretending interest in catching the thief until I was about a block away. Then I simply kept walking, leaving the search and Volarin’s Museum of Antiquities behind.
My contract would have to wait. Volarin’s security at the museum would triple after tonight, and paranoia would have him second-guessing everyone around him. I hated disappointing clients, but complications happened. The job would get done eventually—it always did.
As I made my way across Alchester with my sights set on home, it wasn’t the failed contract that occupied my thoughts. It was the thief. Three days of preparation. Three days of learning patrol routes, bribing the right people, and establishing myself as another forgettable guard. All that effort wasted because some woman in a mask had decided tonight was the night to steal a fake relic. I wondered if she knew the trouble she caused me or even if the prize she’d stolen was a forgery.
More importantly, I wondered if we’d meet again.
Anyone bold enough to steal from Marek Volarin in the middle of a private sale was someone I very much wanted to get to know.
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