Chapter 25: The Ornate Dagger
“What? Throw it away?” Jared looked at me as if I’d gone completely mad. “Are you serious, Parula? This is a gentleman's blade! It's worth more than we could steal in a year. Besides, it’ll be useful.”
“Useful? It’s the murder weapon!” I hissed, my voice tight with panic. “Are you insane? If the peelers find you with that, they’ll arrest you on the spot! They'll hang you for this!”
“Then I’ll make sure they don’t see it, won’t I?” he said with a dismissive shrug that grated on my frayed nerves. “Besides, they won’t know it’s the murder weapon. After today, it’s just a knife. A very fine knife.”
“What about everyone else?” I pressed, gesturing vaguely towards the sprawling, grimy city below. “They saw what happened! What if one of them sees you with it and reports you to the constabulary?”
“And risk talking to a peeler themselves?” He let out a short, harsh laugh, a sound utterly devoid of mirth. “Not likely. The folk in the slums would rather run a mile than speak to a constable. They’d sooner cut their own tongues out. Besides, what would they say? If one of them got close enough to a peeler to snitch, they’d get a truncheon to the head for their troubles. The peelers don't solve crimes, Parula. They punish poverty.”
His words silenced me. I didn't know how to argue with a logic so alien, so brutal, yet so tragically sound. The chasm between our worldviews was vast. My perception of the police was from another lifetime, another reality—of efficient officers and inescapable justice, of a system that, for all its flaws, at least pretended to protect the innocent. But in Jared’s world, the constabulary were lazy, incompetent brutes who turned a blind eye to the truth, who preyed on the weak and were no better than the criminals they were supposed to be catching. Just another gang, only they had uniforms and the law on their side. I had a long, long way to go before I could truly understand the grim mechanics of this world.
By now, Jared had removed the rag from his face and was using it to meticulously wipe the blood from the dagger. As the crimson smeared away, I saw that he was right. The knife wasn't just fine; it was a work of art, a treasure. It was about the length of my forearm, longer than a simple dagger, more of a short sword or a main-gauche. The blade was a brilliant, almost liquid silver, and the blood wiped away from it as if from glass, leaving no stain, no trace of the horrific act it had just committed. It was so perfectly polished I could see my own wide, frightened eyes reflected in its surface. It was this mirror-like quality that had caught my eye in the crowd below. The hilt was carved from a dark, blood-red wood I didn't recognize, and was etched with intricate, flowing patterns that seemed to shift in the light. But the most stunning feature was the pommel: a single, large ruby, cut with a master’s skill, that seemed to pulse with a faint, malevolent inner light. This wasn't a tool; it was a collector's piece, a gentleman’s bauble, an aristocrat's dueling weapon. And yet, it had just been used as a brutish murder weapon in a filthy slum.
I asked Jared if I could see it. He handed it over, and the weight of it was surprising, a perfect, deadly balance in my small hand. I gently touched the edge to one of the thick grapevines on the trellis. With no pressure at all, the vine fell away, severed cleanly, the cut unnaturally smooth. The blade was sharper than any razor. And the metal itself felt strange under my fingertips, cool and smooth, unlike any steel or iron I had ever known. And then, as I stared at the beautiful, deadly object, a thought, sharp and sudden as the blade itself, pierced my mind. That killer… he was dressed in the rags of a worker.
“Wait,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “This knife… it couldn’t have been his. A poor man, a factory worker… he wouldn't use a treasure like this to kill someone. Not unless he stole it first. And even then… why risk using something so recognizable and valuable?” Any rusty piece of iron, any sharpened bit of scrap from the factories, would have done the job just as well. A man like that wouldn't own a weapon fit for a king.
My initial assumption—that this was a simple, tragic matter of a wronged worker finally taking revenge on a cruel master—crumbled into dust. No. This wasn’t that simple. This wasn't a crime of passion. It was an appointment. This was an assassination.
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