Kole laughed, a deep, throaty, sour laugh that had his shoulders bouncing. Arms folded like the man he faced, he squared off his stance and allowed the laughter to die. "Another deal? After you failed to keep the first?" Kole cocked his head. "A deal assumes there is a choice. Accept or don't. Die or live."

"Suffer or not," the man suggested, he stepped closer. "You always have a choice. Yours are just" —he shrugged—"unfortunate."

"And you think your own fortunes so favorable?"

Hard eyes and a straight mouth regarded him. Did nothing affect this man? Did nothing sway him? Kole swore he would find the chip in the sword, the crack in the armour, or he would make it himself.

Kole narrowed his eyes. "So what now? I found your territory. I found your lair–"

"Did you?"

"Your man not tell you?" A narrowing of eyes. "I know you weren't in the city. I know you fled." The words were clipped with anger and accusation.

"I flee for nothing. From no one." The man sneered, his silver eyes flashing indignation. "I charged you with finding me, and you failed."

"You challenged me with finding you within the city." Kole dropped his arms and stepped forward. "I found your bookkeeper instead. He had a pretty tale to tell. Although he struggled to gain enough breath to breathe let alone talk, but I can be convincing."

Silver Eyes seemed to consider the words, and looked down at Kole over the length of his nose.

"But I know you were in the city, no matter what your man said. I know your game," Kole sneered. It was something he had kept to himself. Too afraid that if the words were spoken aloud, the crystal tower of conjectures and possibilities would shatter and tumble from the tremors. "I can see your hand."

"Oh?"

"The Northies. That was you." Many dead, most crew leaders, and yet no one gained territory.

Silver Eyes' brow arched, slow and steady towards his shaven temple.

"You've been busy. Perhaps not obviously so, but I can see beyond the blood and violence. This is all part of a scheme."

"Assumptions are a fool's truth."

Kole snorted. "Then call me a fool, but my assumptions are closer to the truth than you'd like to admit. And it is an assumption of mine that tells me you are not here to honour your side of the deal."

This time, it was Silver Eyes that laughed. "A bold assumption."

"No," Kole shook his head. "You can shake it off all you want, but I'm useful to you—alive. Your bookkeeper said as much, and from the men that hide beyond that roof's peak, I'd say you are here to talk more than fight. If you were going to kill me, you'd want an audience, but your words are not meant for ears besides my own."

The man looked over his shoulder, in the direction Kole had jutted his jaw and grunted, impressed. "For the first time since we have met, Kole, you have proven to me you deserved your title while you held it."

"I have other ways I can prove it to you," Kole gripped the daggers in his hands tighter. "Facing me alone was unwise."

"A bruised and battered dream facing a strong and coiled reality." Silver Eyes shook his head. "You are in no state to fight. Not with me."

That was true. The Withania and Devil's Claw had long since faded, and his bruises and pains reminded him of the drawbacks of the numbing herbs. Knowing you were hurt was something far removed from feeling it. No man was meant to not feel pain. Pain was a warning to back-off, slow down, and wait. Pain was part of a survival kit, born in each man, woman and child, along with fear. Fear was the spiked wall that stood between life and death. Cross my borders, it yelled, and life will no longer be certain. But when was life ever certain? Never, if you were a thief.

It had never been certain for Kole, and standing there in front of this silver-eyed, coiled snake, Kole realized his life was no longer his own, and he needed to start playing along to earn the chance to regain it.

"I will not beg you for what is rightly mine," Kole tucked his chin to his chest so that he was glaring up through his brows. "I won't give up without a fight."

"You may find," the man said, stalking Kole, "that I can be quite persuasive myself. Do I need to remind you just how persuasive?"

"Sooner or later you are going to run out of threats," Kole sneered.

"You have plenty in your life to threaten."

Kole felt his heart stutter but hid it with a smirk. "If there is one lesson I learnt killing my mentor, it was to never trust another enough to call him a friend."

"You cannot convince me you are a sole ship, Kole. I know better. Hannah–"

"I don't claim to not care for my sister. I will die for my family, but I won't give up everything I have worked towards just because you threaten them. That title you throw so flippantly around is everything to me. It's more than a title, and if you think I will not do everything in my power to reclaim it–"

"The title?" Silver Eyes paused mid-step. "But can't you see, boy? At least in theory."

Kole faltered, his mouth dried, and he felt all his resolve and determination sputter out.

"I thought you knew my plan. I thought you assumed truths."

Kole frowned, choosing his words carefully. "You gave the Northies a choice."

"And what choice was that?"

"Join you, or die."

The man popped his neck out, a resounding click echoing between them. "More or less, but I am not foolish enough to believe you would act as my weapon. As you say, the title is everything to you."

If not to kill in his name, if not to butcher, torture and maim for another man's grip on power, what use could he possibly have for a Thief King only in name. A Thief King he neither used nor cared whether he lived or...

Kole met the silver eyes. "I won't sit back and watch you assemble my grave." There was only one reason this man would need another, fake Thief King to live, and it was all there in the black coins left on the corpses in the church.

"You will be the perfect painting within my frame," Silver Eyes smirked.

"A painting does not move or attack."

"And neither will you, knowing that whatever you do will effect Sera, your sister, or one of your friends. You may claim to have a closed heart, Kole, but you are only a man, and men seek equilibrium in others. We are all standing on the tip of a knife and it is our brethren, family, and friends that balance it below, that rectify our sways. Except with you, you are but one man holding many hilts, and your actions may send them toppling to their doom."

"Only cowards threaten the lives of innocents," Kole growled. He clenched his fists, not knowing what else to do with them. Any other time, in any other situation, he would already be on his third left hook.

"Their lives are in your hands," Silver Eyes said. He stood so still, his broad shoulders covered in a thickly furred coat emphasizing his size. A warrior stood before Kole, a trained, disciplined warrior. Doubt resurfaced, hope faded, and in its place, dread lifted its head and yawned. "I do not threaten their lives, but their comfort and well-being. It's up to you what I do."

Kole's jaw ached, his fists shook. He was cornered, again. He was trapped, besieged, and stripped of his weapons. He pushed the daggers back up his sleeve, feeling the immediate loss of their cool touch. "What do you want me to do?"

"There," Silver Eyes sighed. "Reason, finally." He chuckled and stepped forward until Kole had to lean back to hold his gaze. "I need you to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. You will be a spectator, a ghost in my version of your tale."

"Nothing? You have to be kidding me." Silver Eyes shook his head, and Kole gaped. "You'd be a fool to not...You have a weapon at your disposal and you are choosing to place me aside for blunter, less-balanced weapons?" Being set aside would make things difficult, it would tie his hands in a way being an instrument did not and in order to play the game, he had to be in it in the first place.

"You are a weapon with its own pair of teeth. I have no use for unruliness, and as much as I can force you into a cage, I cannot control what you do in that cage unless I chain you to the ground." Silver Eyes sighed. "I need you to do nothing and in exchange, I will do nothing to those you care for."

"You will leave my friends and family alone?"

Silver Eyes nodded slowly, his eyes boring into Kole's. The silence that passed built to a deafening scream until Kole broke it, stepped back, and hunched his shoulders. His mind turned, already reworking the grounds for his prison to his own advantage.

"You remind me of a life lesson I stand by," Silver Eyes said.

Kole froze, lifting his head, but turning from the man so that his back faced him. The ultimate insult.

"A movement begins with a single ripple. A ripple builds into a wave, and a wave moulds the tides, but take away the water, take away the possibility of a ripple, and all one possesses is...nothing."

Kole crouched, looking over the roof's edge. He could not spot Sera. His eyes roamed the streets, looking for her. Perhaps if he saw her he'd find the right thing to say. One look from her and he may find the answers he so desperately needed to find. It was a foolish thing to hope for, but it was an anchor, a northern star in his miserable present. A present he saw no possible future to, only the regretful past.

"I want no ripples from you, Kole," Silver Eyes said behind him. "Do you understand."

"I said I'd do nothing," Kole said into the cold air. He raised his palms and watched the small specs of snow land and melt on his gloves. His fingertips, exposed to the air, were blue from his earlier fist clenching, and he could barely feel the biting air now.

"Do and be nothing. And to be nothing you need to be surrounded by it."

Kole frowned, dropping his hand. He stood slowly and turned. Surrounded by nothing. He means surrounded by no one.

Silver Eyes smirked. "I will not delegate how you go about it."

"Why?"

"Because I see the value in friendship and family. They are the coins most people fail to see. Weakness on one side, power on the other. A leader is no one without followers."

Alone. He wanted Kole alone. No allies. No support. No love.

Kole thought about Sera, what it would take to send her away, what it would take to keep away. He thought of his crew mates and the loyal kinship they had displayed early that morning, so eager to help. He had refused them, he thought, as hard as he could. He had tried pushing them away, tried pulling away from Sera and it had not worked. They needed him just as much as he needed them. He could not sentence Hannah to a life with no family. She would not grow up the way he did. He wouldn't allow it.

"I can't–"

"You'll find you can when you start thinking about doing what you would never consider."

Kole clamped down on his teeth and spoke through them. "People are not cattle to be herded."

"No, but they have something far better that cattle don't have. Far stronger, far easier to grab and squeeze. You'll find stabbing at weakness is always a good place to start when trying to isolate yourself."

Kole shook his head and tried to pull in air to breathe. It stuck in his throat, it choked him, and he felt tears spring to his eyes. He turned, hiding them and clasping his hands behind his back.

"Break their trust, Kole. Break her heart, or I will do it for you."

A roar built in his chest, and before he knew what he was doing, he swung around, his fist colliding with the man's jaw. A bruised, defeated dream throwing its defiance in reality's face, but reality was steadfast. Reality did not budge when it came to wisps of imagination and threads of hopes. It stood, tall and unmoving, and so did Silver Eyes. His head jerked to the side, a red mark blooming. Slowly, his head turned to face Kole again, and it may have been his imagination, but Kole could have sworn his eyes glowed fury.

Silver Eyes reached for Kole, grabbed him before Kole could jump away, and pulled him close enough to bite.

"I will grant this one lapse in judgement," he snarled. Villains in stories spat when they spoke, and they stank. This man didn't. He spoke cleanly, clearly, and his breath was odorless, his musk that of salt and spice. "Another outburst and I will have my men seek out an unwilling wench you share your bed with."

Kole tried yanking himself free, but the man's grip was strong. "For a man who does not believe in assumptions, you're doing a lot of assuming about her character."

The man's sneer changed to a smirk. "Deeds speak far louder than words, Kole. Telling her to leave is far less effective than showing her you have left."

"I take it you have never loved anyone, or been loved for that matter. It's not something that washes out." He struggled in the man's grasp and finally pulled free, stepping away from Silver Eyes. "It's going to have to be a gradual thing."

"No," Silver Eyes said coldly. "It will be done by tomorrow night."

"That's not possible," Kole growled.

Silver Eyes turned his back on Kole and began walking away.

"Did you hear me?" Kole shouted. "I cannot do it by then."

Silver Eyes paused and looked over his shoulder. "What is the one thing that would drive you from her? If you know the answer to that, you have your path."

Kole watched the man's broad back as he walked across the rooftops and finally began his descent. A part of him wanted to run after him, follow him, kill him. His eyes darted to where he saw the last signs of men, and he sneered as he watched the men follow their master. He knew a lost cause when he saw it. Silver Eyes was no fool, he was prepared for any situation.