The Axolotl Heist

The bell above the bakery door rattled in its bracket with a metallic complaint.

Laureline, who was standing behind the counter with apricot glaze up one wrist, did not immediately look up because she had reached that perilous stage of assembling dough.

“Before you say anything,” she called, wrestling a sheet pan away from the edge of the counter with her hip, “the pistachio braids are not ready, and if you ask how long on the braids, I will make up a number.”

There was no response.

A figure stood inside the doorway and set himself upright among the sugar jars and copper pans.

His hair was damp from the mist.

The city’s ultramarine glow, refracted through the rain-streaked front windows, which highlighted the lines of his dark coat.

His gaze had already taken in the glass case, the exits, the corridor beyond the counter, the floodlight over the sink, and finally landed on her with unnerving composure.

Laureline wiped her hands on her apron.

“We’re closed,” she said.

He glanced toward the window, where the blue neon sign still buzzed OPEN in pink script, though the P flickered with a neurotic inconsistency she had meant to fix for months.

“That's not what the sign says.”

“Did you hear me? We are closed.”

He took one step farther inside. The bell shivered again. “I won’t be long.”

“No,” she said, moving before she had quite decided to move, slipping from behind the counter and planting herself in the narrow space between him and the back hallway, “you absolutely will not.”

An amused expression crossed his face.

“Ms. Radia,” he said.

That stopped her for a fraction of a second. She had not used that surname in nearly three years.

“You’ve got the wrong bakery,” she said lightly. “I’m Ms. Try Me, actually. Radia retired.”

His eyes did not leave hers, entertained and frustrated simultaneously. “You have something that belongs to my family.”

A blade slid cleanly from his sheath.

Laureline crossed her arms, though she kept her weight balanced on the balls of her feet.

“People say that a lot in this city. Usually they mean ex-lovers or proprietary recipes.”

Axolotls in the Bakery

A soft, almost dainty splash sounded from the back room.

The man's gaze moved, almost imperceptibly, toward the hallway.

Laureline’s heart beat fast inside her chest.

When he took another step, she grabbed the nearest object from the prep table, and found her pastry knife settling into her palm. By the time he realized she had armed herself, the blade was pressed flat to the back of his coat.

“Do not move,” she said.

He stopped with the knowledge of a man who had learned very young how much power there was in economy.

“I doubt you’re going to use that,” he said, his grip on his own blade, ready to strike if needed.

“You have mistaken me for someone more orderly,” she responded.

Slowly, he turned his head enough to look at her over his shoulder. Up close, his eyes were not black, as she had first thought, but a smoky gray.

“Sylvester Argen,” he said. “Most people call me Sylv.”

“You,” she said, recognizing the last name.

“I have been sent by House Argen,” he said with a small smile.