The Outcast Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

blues had turned to velvet black.
    She will need protecting
.
    The note was unsigned but the hand was Alexa’s own.
    And Tycho didn’t need telling who
she
was. The sun might be denied him but his other longing remained. So he’d walked the streets for the last three evenings, from this very edge of sunset to just before the arrival of dawn. And Alexa’s note gave him the excuse for what he would have done anyway, being unable to stay away from this side of the Grand Canal and streets around Lady Giulietta’s house.
    In his year spent training with Lord Atilo, he’d learnt the matrix that made up each tiny neighbourhood, discovered which bridges were private and enforced tolls, which of the many squares were controlled by gangs.
    In the end, of course, all gangs owed allegiance to the Nicoletti or the Castellani, the red caps or the black. And Tycho suspected both were controlled at arm’s length by the Council of Ten. It was easier to control the city when one bank of the Canalasso was always ready to go to war with the other.
    Shaking his head, Tycho pushed his way into a tavern in a narrow street behind Giulietta’s house. The wine was sour, the goat on a spit so greasy that drop after drop of melting fat ignited with a whoosh. The patrons were hard-eyed Rialto stallholders who watched him with suspicion. They were talking about a demon that inhabited one of the grave islands.
    Tycho felt a shiver run down his back.
    “This tastes like piss.”
    “Drink elsewhere then.”
    “Good idea…”
    He was pushing his way out, his soul soured by more than the taste of bad wine, when he heard Giulietta scream. Everyone heard it, everyone except him ignored it.
    Colours sharpened behind his eyes, hard edges found the world around him. He became the thing he hated, the other Tycho. Anyone looking would have said he vanished. That he fluttered into nothing in the flapping of a cloak. He didn’t, he simply moved faster than their world towards the sound.
    As the second of Giulietta’s guards gurgled and died, Tycho looked down from the roof of the house he’d climbed without realising. The blade held by the assassin below was triangular in section and wickedly pointed.
    The man smiled.
    “My uncle will kill you,” Giulietta said. “You’ll be torn into quarters by wild horses on the Molo. Fifty thousand people will watch you die.”
    He laughed at her.
    “Take this.” Lady Eleanor pulled a bracelet from her wrist. It looked silver, inlaid with jet. Lady Giulietta wouldn’t have putit on, never mind believe it might buy her life. “We’ll give you everything we have.”
    “Everything?”
    Lady Eleanor blushed.
    As the man moved forward, Eleanor stepped in front of Lady Giulietta to protect her. And Tycho decided he’d seen enough. Spreading his arms, cloak billowing behind him, he stepped off the roof just as Eleanor tried to grab the blade. Twisting away, the man jabbed once and she gasped.
    “
Gesù Bambino
,” she whispered.
    The assassin’s second blow never landed.
    Behind him, a falling shadow became a black-dressed figure that crossed the courtyard so swiftly he had no time to turn. In the gap between the assassin’s wrist bones breaking and his stiletto hitting the floor, another movement… The whipcrack sound of a breaking spine.
    “I’m wounded,” Eleanor said.
    Tycho knew. He could practically taste it.
    As Lady Giulietta fumbled for her key, Eleanor began to shake as shock set in. Her olive skin paled and her eyes became unfocused. Tycho could smell fear, urine and blood. Mostly blood.
    “I’m going to die.”
    “No,” he said. “You’re not.”
    She froze as he slipped one arm under her to lift her from the ground. Her hip sharp and childlike, the tear in her gown ragged and bloody. Saliva filled Tycho’s mouth and his upper jaw began to ache.
    “The door…”
    “
I’m trying
.” Lady Giulietta fought the lock until she realised it was unlocked already and pushed her way in before