The Lies of Locke Lamora

1

WHEN LOCKE AWOKE, he was lying on his back and looking up at a fading, grime-covered mural painted on a plaster ceiling. The mural depicted carefree men and women in the robes of the Therin Throne era, gathered around a cask of wine, with cups in their hands and smiles on their rosy faces. Locke groaned and closed his eyes again.

“And here he is,” said an unfamiliar voice, “just as I said. It was the poultice that answered for him; most uncommonly good physik for the enervation of the bodily channels.”

“Who the hell might you be?” Locke found himself in a profoundly undiplomatic temper. “And where am I?”

“You’re safe, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say comfortable.” Jean Tannen rested a hand on Locke’s left shoulder and smiled down at him. Usually rather fastidious, he was now several days unshaven, and his face was streaked with dirt. “And some former patients of the renowned Master Ibelius might also take issue with my pronouncement of safety.”

Jean made a quick pair of hand gestures to Locke: We’re safe; speak freely.

“Tut, Jean, your little cuts are fine repayment for the work of the past few days.” The unfamiliar voice, it seemed, came from a wrinkled, birdlike man with skin like a weathered brown tabletop. His nervous dark eyes peeped out from behind thick optics, thicker than any Locke had ever seen. He wore a disreputable cotton tunic, spattered with what might have been dried sauces or dried blood, under a mustard-yellow waistjacket in a style twenty years out of date. His spring-coils of curly gray hair seemed to sprout straight out from the back of his head, where they were pulled into a queue. “I have navigated your friend back to the shores of consciousness.”

“Oh, for Perelandro’s sake, Ibelius, he didn’t have a crossbow quarrel in his brain. He just needed to rest.”

“His warm humors were at a singularly low ebb; the channels of his frame were entirely evacuated of vim. He was pale, unresponsive, bruised, desiccated, and malnourished.”

“Ibelius?” Locke attempted to sit up and was partially successful; Jean caught him by the back of his shoulders and helped him the rest of the way. The room spun. “Ibelius the dog-leech from the Redwater district?”

Dog-leeches were the medical counterparts of the black alchemists; without credentials or a place in the formal guilds of physikers, they treated the injuries and maladies of the Right People of Camorr. A genuine physiker might look askance at treating a patient for an axe wound at half past the second hour of the morning, and summon the city watch. A dog-leech would ask no questions, provided his fee was paid in advance.

The trouble with dog-leeches, of course, was that one took one’s chances with their abilities and credentials. Some really were trained healers, fallen on hard times or banished from the profession for crimes such as grave-robbing. Others were merely improvisers, applying years’ worth of practical knowledge acquired tending to the results of bar fights and muggings. A few were entirely mad, or homicidal, or-charmingly-both.

“My colleagues are dog-leeches,” sniffed Ibelius. “I am a physiker, Collegium-trained. Your own recovery is a testament to that.”

Locke glanced around the room. He was lying (wearing nothing but a breechclout) on a pallet in a corner of what must have been an abandoned Ashfall villa. A canvas curtain hung over the room’s only door; two orange-white alchemical lanterns filled the space with light. Locke’s throat was dry, his body still ached, and he smelled rather unpleasant-not all of it was the natural odor of an unwashed man. A strange translucent residue flaked off his stomach and sternum. He poked at it with his fingers.

“What,” said Locke, “is this crap on my chest?”

“The poultice, sir. Varagnelli’s Poultice, to be precise, though I hardly presume your familiarity with the subject. I employed it to concentrate the waning energy of your bodily channels; to confine the motion of your warm humors in the region where it would do you the most good. To wit, your abdomen. We did not want your energy to dissipate.”

“What was in it?”

“The poultice is a proprietary conglomeration, but the essence of its function is provided by the admixture of the gardener’s assistant and turpentine.”

“Gardener’s assistant?”

“Earthworms,” said Jean. “He means earthworms ground in turpentine.”

“And you let him smear it all over me?” Locke groaned and sank back down onto the pallet.

“Only your abdomen, sir-your much-abused abdomen.”

“He’s the physiker,” said Jean. “I’m only good at breaking people; I don’t put them back together.”

“What happened to me, anyway?”

“Enervation-absolute enervation, as thorough as I’ve ever seen it.” Ibelius lifted Locke’s left wrist while he spoke and felt for a pulse. “Jean told me that you took an emetic, the evening of Duke’s Day.”

“Did I ever!”

“And that you ate and drank nothing afterward. That you were then seized, and severely beaten, and nearly slain by immersion in a cask of horse urine-how fantastically vile, sir, you have my sympathies. And that you had received a deep wound to your left forearm; a wound that is now scabbing over nicely, no thanks to your ordeals. And that you remained active all evening despite your injuries and your exhaustion. And that you pursued your course with the utmost dispatch, taking no rest.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar.”

“You simply collapsed, sir. In layman’s terms, your body revoked its permission for you to continue heaping abuse upon it.” Ibelius chuckled.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days and two nights,” said Jean.

“What? Gods damn me. Out cold the whole time?”

“Quite,” said Jean. “I watched you fall over; I wasn’t thirty yards away, crouched in hiding. Took me a few minutes to realize why the bearded old beggar looked familiar.”

“I have kept you somewhat sedated,” said Ibelius. “For your own good.”

“Gods damn it!”

“Clearly, my judgment was sound, as you would have had no will to rest otherwise. And it made it easier to use a series of fairly unpleasant poultices to greatly reduce the swelling and bruising of your face. Had you been awake, you surely would have complained of the smell.”

“Argh,” said Locke. “Tell me you have something at hand I can drink, at least.”

Jean passed him a skin of red wine; it was warm and sour and watered to the point that it was more pink than red, but Locke drank half of it down in a rapid series of undignified gulps.

“Have a care, Master Lamora, have a care,” said Ibelius. “I fear you have little conception of your own natural limitations. Make him take the soup, Jean. He needs to regain his animal strength, or his humors will fade again. He is far too thin for his own good; he is fast approaching anemia.”

Locke devoured the proffered soup (boiled shark in a milk-and-potato stew; bland, congealed, many hours past freshness, and positively the most splendid thing he could recall ever having tasted), and then stretched. “Two days, gods. I don’t suppose we’ve been lucky enough to have Capa Raza fall down some stairs and break his neck?”

“Hardly,” said Jean. “He’s still with us. Him and his Bondsmage. They’ve been very busy, those two. It might interest you to know that the Gentlemen Bastards are formally outcast, and I’m presumed alive, worth five hundred crowns to the man that brings me in. Preferably after I stop breathing.”

“Hmmm,” said Locke. “Dare I ask, Master Ibelius, what keeps you here smearing earthworms on my behalf when either of us is your key to Capa Raza’s monetary favor?”

“I can explain that,” said Jean. “Seems there was another Ibelius, who worked for Barsavi as one of his Floating Grave guards. A loyal Barsavi man, I should say.”

“Oh,” said Locke. “My condolences, Master Ibelius. A brother?”

“My younger brother. The poor idiot; I kept telling him to find another line of work. It seems we have a great deal of common sorrow, courtesy of Capa Raza.”

“Yes,” said Locke. “Yes, Master Ibelius. I’m going to put that fucker in the dirt as deeply as any man who’s ever been murdered, ever since the world began.”

“Ahhh,” said Ibelius. “So Jean says. And that’s why I’m not even charging for my services. I cannot say I think highly of your chances, but any enemy of Capa Raza is most welcome to my care, and to my discretion.”

“Too kind,” said Locke. “I suppose if I must have earthworms and turpentine smeared on my chest, I’m very happy to have you…ah, overseeing the affair.”

“Your servant, sir,” said Ibelius.

“Well, Jean,” said Locke, “we seem to have a hiding place, a physiker, and the two of us. What are our other assets?”

“Ten crowns, fifteen solons, five coppers,” said Jean. “That cot you’re lying on. You ate the wine and drank the soup. I’ve got the Wicked Sisters, of course. A few cloaks, some boots, your clothes. And all the rotting plaster and broken masonry a man could dream of.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes, except for one small thing.” Jean held up the silver mesh mask of a priest of Aza Guilla. “The aid and comfort of the Lady of the Long Silence.”

“How the hell did you arrange that?”

“Right after I dropped you off at the edge of the Cauldron,” said Jean, “I decided to row back to the Temple District and make myself useful.”

2

THE FIRE within the House of Perelandro had yet to finish burning when Jean Tannen threw himself down, half-dressed, at the service entrance to the House of Aza Guilla, two squares northeast of the temple the Gentlemen Bastards had called their home.

Elderglass and stone could not burn, of course, but the contents of the House of Perelandro were another matter. With the Elderglass reflecting and concentrating the heat of the flames, everything within the burrow would be scorched to white ash, and the rising heat would certainly do for the contents of the actual temple. A bucket brigade of yellowjackets milled around the upper temple, with little to do but wait for the heat and the hideous death-scented smoke to cease boiling out from the doors.

Jean banged a fist on the latched wooden door behind the Death Goddess’ temple and prayed for the Crooked Warden’s aid in maintaining the Verrari accent he had too rarely practiced in recent months. He knelt down, to make himself seem more pathetic.

After a few minutes, there was a click, and the door slid open a fraction of an inch. An initiate, in unadorned black robes and a simple silver mask, so familiar to Jean, stared down at him.

“My name is Tavrin Callas,” said Jean. “I require your aid.”

“Are you dying?” asked the initiate. “We can do little for those still in good health. If you require food and succor, I would suggest the House of Perelandro, although there seem to be…difficulties, this evening.”

“I’m not dying, and I do require food and succor. I am a bound servant of the Lady Most Kind, an initiate of the Fifth Inner Mystery.”

Jean had judged this lie carefully; the fourth rank of the order of Aza Guilla was full priesthood. The fifth would be a realistic level for someone assigned to courier important business from city to city. Any higher rank, and he would be forced to deal with senior priests and priestesses who should have heard of him.

“I was dispatched from Tal Verrar to Jeresh on the business of our order, but along the way my ship was taken by Jeremite raiders. They took my robes, my seals of office, my papers, and my Sorrowful Visage.”

“What?” The initiate, a girl, bent down to help Jean up. She was a quarter of his weight, and the effort was slightly comical. “They dared interfere with an envoy of the Lady?”

“The Jeremites do not keep the faith of the Twelve, little sister,” said Jean, who allowed himself to be dragged up to his knees. “They delight in tormenting the pious. I was chained to an oar for many long days. Last night, the galley that captured me weighed anchor in Camorr Bay; I was assigned to dumping chamber pots over the side while the officers went ashore to debauch themselves. I saw the fins of our Dark Brothers in the water; I prayed to the Lady and seized my opportunity.”

One thing the brothers and sisters of Aza Guilla rarely advertised to outsiders (especially in Camorr) was their belief that sharks were beloved of the Goddess of Death, and that their mysterious comings and goings and their sudden brutal attacks were a perfect encapsulation of the nature of the Lady Most Kind. Sharks were powerful omens to the silver-masked priesthood. The High Proctor of Revelation House had not been joking with his suggestion that Jean feel free to swim in the ocean after dark. Only the faithless, it was said, would be attacked in the waters beneath Revelation House.

“The Dark Brothers,” said the initiate with rising excitement. “And did they aid you in your escape?”

“You mustn’t think of it as aid,” said Jean, “for the Lady does not aid, she allows. And so it is with the Dark Brothers. I dove into the water and felt their presence around me; I felt them swimming beneath my feet, and I saw their fins cutting the surface of the water. My captors screamed that I was mad; when they saw the Brothers, they assumed that I was soon to be devoured, and they laughed. I laughed, too-when I crawled up onto the shore, unharmed.”

“Praise the Lady, Brother.”

“I do, I have, and I shall,” said Jean. “She has delivered me from our enemies; she has given me a second chance to fulfill my mission. I pray, take me to the steward of your temple. Let me meet with your Father or Mother Divine. I need only a Visage, and robes, and a room for several nights while I put my affairs in order.”

3

“WASN’T THAT the name you apprenticed under,” said Locke, “all those years ago?”

“It was indeed.”

“Well, won’t they send messages? Won’t they make inquiries and find out that Tavrin Callas was moved by divine curiosity to fling himself off a cliff?”

“Of course they will,” said Jean. “But it’ll take weeks to send one and get a reply…and I don’t mean to keep the disguise for quite that long. Besides, it’ll be a bit of fun for them. When they eventually discover Callas is supposed to be dead, they can proclaim all sorts of visions and miracles. A manifestation from beyond the shadelands, as it were.”

“A manifestation straight from the ass of a magnificent liar,” said Locke. “Well done, Jean.”

“I suppose I just know how to talk to death priests. We all have our little gifts.”

“I say,” interrupted Ibelius, “is this wise? This…flaunting of the robes of office of the priests of the Death Goddess herself? Tweaking the nose of…of the Lady Most Kind?” Ibelius touched his eyes with both hands, then his lips, and then entwined his fingers over his heart.

“If the Lady Most Kind wished to take offense,” said Jean, “she has had ample opportunity to crush me flatter than gold leaf for my presumptions.”

“Furthermore,” said Locke, “Jean and I are sworn into the divine service of the Benefactor, Father of Necessary Pretexts. Do you hold with the Crooked Warden, Master Ibelius?”

“It never hurts to have a care, in my experience. Perhaps I do not light hearth candles or give coin, but…I do not speak unkindly of the Benefactor.”

“Well,” said Locke, “our mentor once told us that the initiates of the Benefactor are strangely immune to consequences when they find they must pass as members of other priesthoods.”

“Made to feel strangely welcome, I’d say,” added Jean. “And, in the present circumstances, there are precious few practical disguises for a man of my size.”

“Ah. I do see your point, Jean.”

“It seems that the Death Goddess has been very busy of late,” said Locke, “with a great many people other than ourselves. I’m quite awake now, Jean, and very comfortable, Master Ibelius. No need to get up-I’m quite positive my pulse is right where I left it, safe inside my wrist. What else can you tell me, Jean?”

“The situation is tense and bloody, but I’d say Capa Raza’s carried it. Word’s out that all of us are dead, except myself, with that pretty price on my head. Supposedly, we refused to swear allegiance to Raza and tried to fight back on Barsavi’s behalf, and were justly slain in the process. All the other garristas are sworn; Raza didn’t wait three days before he hit. The most recalcitrant got their throats slit tonight; five or six of them. Happened a few hours ago.”

“Gods. Where do you hear this from?”

“Some from Ibelius, who can get around a bit provided he keeps his head down. Some from ministering. I happened to be in the Wooden Waste when a lot of people suddenly turned up needing death prayers.”

“The Right People are in Raza’s pockets, then.”

“I’d say so. They’re getting used to the situation. Everyone’s like to pull knives at the drop of a pin or the bite of a mosquito, but he’s got them coming round. He’s operating out of the Floating Grave, same as Barsavi did. He’s keeping most of his promises. It’s hard to argue with stability.”

“And what about our…other concern?” Locke made the hand gesture for Thorn of Camorr. “Heard anything about that? Any, ah, cracks in the facade?”

“No,” whispered Jean. “Seems like Raza was content to kill us off as sneak thieves and leave us that way.”

Locke sighed in relief.

“But there’s other strangeness afoot,” said Jean. “Raza hauled in about half a dozen men and women last night, from different gangs and different districts. Publicly named them as agents of the Spider.”

“Really? You think they were, or is it another damn scheme of some sort?”

“I think it’s likely they were,” said Jean. “I got the names from Ibelius, and I had a good long ponder, and there’s just nothing linking them all. Nothing that signifies to me, anyway. So, Raza spared their lives, but exiled them. Said they had a day to put their affairs in order and leave Camorr for good.”

“Interesting. I wish I knew what it meant.”

“Maybe nothing, for once.”

“That would certainly be pleasant.”

“And the plague ship, Master Lamora!” Ibelius spoke up eagerly. “A singular vessel. Jean has neglected to speak of it so far.”

“Plague ship?”

“A black-hulled vessel from Emberlain; a sleek little piece of business. Beautiful as all hell, and you know I barely know which part of a ship goes in the water.” Jean scratched his stubble-shadowed chin before continuing. “It pulled into plague anchorage the very night that Capa Raza gave Capa Barsavi his own teeth lessons.”

“That’s a very interesting coincidence.”

“Isn’t it? The gods do love their omens. Supposedly, there’s twenty or thirty dead already. But here’s the very odd part. Capa Raza has assumed responsibility for the charitable provisioning.”

“What?”

“Yes. His men escort the proceedings down to the docks; he’s giving coin to the Order of Sendovani for bread and meat. They’re filling in for the Order of Perelandro since, well, you know.”

“Why the hell would his men escort food and water down to the docks?”

“I was curious about that myself,” said Jean. “So last night I tried to poke around a bit, in my official priestly capacity, you see. It’s not just food and water they’re sending out.”

4

THE SOFTEST rain was falling, little more than a warm wet kiss from the sky, on the night of Throne’s Day-the night following the ascension of Capa Raza. An unusually stocky priest of Aza Guilla, with his wet robes fluttering in the breeze, stood staring out at the plague ship moored in Camorr Bay. By the yellow glow of the ship’s lamps, it seemed that the priest’s mask glowed golden bronze.

A decrepit little boat was bobbing in the gentle water beside the very longest dock that jutted out from the Dregs; the boat, in turn, had a rope leading out to the plague ship. The Satisfaction, anchored out at the edge of bow-shot, was looking strangely skeletal with its sails tightly furled. A few shadowy men could be seen here and there on the ship’s deck.

On the dock, a small team of burly stevedores was unloading the contents of a donkey-cart into the little boat, under the watch of half a dozen cloaked men and women, obviously armed. No doubt the entire operation could be seen by looking-glass from any of the guard stations surrounding Old Harbor. While most of those stations were still manned (and would stay that way, as long as the plague ship remained), not one of them would much care what was sent out to the ship, provided nothing at all was sent back.

Jean, on the other hand, was very curious about Capa Raza’s sudden interest in the welfare of the poor seafarers from Emberlain.

“Look, best just turn right around and get your ass back…oh. Ah, beg pardon, Your Holiness.”

Jean took a moment to savor the obvious disquiet on the faces of the men and women who turned at his approach; they seemed like tough lads and lasses, proper bruisers, seasoned in giving and taking pain. Yet the sight of his Sorrowful Visage made them look as guilty as children caught hovering too close to the honey crock.

He didn’t recognize any of them; that meant they were almost certainly part of Raza’s private gang. He tried to size them up with a glance, looking for anything incongruous or unusual that might shed light on their point of origin, but there was very little. They wore a great deal of jewelry; earrings, mostly-seven or eight of them per ear in one young woman’s case. That was a fashion more nautical than criminal, but it still might not mean anything.

“I merely came to pray,” said Jean, “for the intercession of the Lady Most Kind with those unfortunates out there on the water. Pay me no heed, and do continue with your labors.”

Jean encouraged them by putting his back mostly to the gang of laborers; he stood staring out at the ship, listening very carefully to the sounds of the work going on beside him. There were grunts of lifting and the tread of footfalls; the creaking of weathered, water-eaten boards. The donkey-cart had looked to be full of little sacks, each about the size of a one-gallon wineskin. For the most part, the crew handled them gingerly, but after a few minutes-

“Gods damn it, Mazzik!” There was a strange clattering, clinking noise as one of the sacks hit the dock. The overseer of the labor gang immediately wrung his hands and looked over at Jean. “I, uh, begging your pardon, Your Holiness. We, uh, we swore…we promised we would, uh, see these supplies safely to the plague ship.”

Jean turned slowly and let the man have the full, drawn-out effect of his faceless regard. Then he nodded, ever so slightly. “It is a penitent thing you do. Your master is most charitable to undertake the work that would ordinarily fall to the Order of Perelandro.”

“Yeah, uh…that really was too bad. Quite the, uh, tragedy.”

“The Lady Most Kind tends the mortal garden as she will,” said Jean, “and plucks what blossoms she will. Don’t be angry with your man. It’s only natural, to be discomfited in the presence of something…so unusual.”

“Oh, the plague ship,” said the man. “Yeah, it, uh, gives us all the creeps.”

“I shall leave you to your work,” said Jean. “Call for us at the House of Aza Guilla if the men aboard that ship should chance to need us.”

“Uh…sure. Th-thank you, Your Holiness.”

As Jean walked slowly along the dock, back toward shore, the crew finished loading the small boat, which was then unlashed from its mooring.

“Haul away,” bellowed one of the men at the end of the dock.

Slowly, the rope tautened, and then as the little black silhouettes aboard the Satisfaction picked up the rhythm of their work, the boat began to draw across Old Harbor toward the frigate at good speed, leaving a wavering silver wake on the dark water.

Jean strolled north into the Dregs, using the dignified pace of a priest to give himself time to roll one question over and over in his mind.

What could a ship full of dead and dying men reasonably do with bags of coins?

5

“BAGS OF coins? You’re absolutely sure?”

“It was cold spending metal, Locke. You may recall we had a whole vault full of it, until recently. I’d say we both have a pretty keen ear for the sound of coins on coins.”

“Hmmm. So unless the duke’s started minting full crowns in bread since I fell ill, those provisions are as charitable as my gods-damned mood.”

“I’ll keep nosing about and see if I can turn anything else up.”

“Good, good. Now we need to haul me out of this bed and get me working on something.”

“Master Lamora,” cried Ibelius, “you are in no shape to be out of bed, and moving around under your own volition! It is your own volition that has brought you to this enervated state.”

“Master Ibelius, with all due respect, now that I am conscious, if I have to crawl about the city on my hands and my knees to do something useful against Capa Raza, I will. I start my war from here.”

He heaved himself up off the sleeping pallet and tried to stand; once again, his head swam, his knees buckled, and he toppled to the ground.

“From there?” said Jean. “Looks damned uncomfortable.”

“Ibelius,” said Locke, “this is intolerable. I must be able to move about. I require my strength back.”

“My dear Master Lamora,” said Ibelius, reaching down to help pick Locke up. Jean took Locke’s other side, and the two of them soon had him back atop the sleeping pallet. “You are learning that what you require and what your frame may endure can be two very different things. If only I could have a solon for every patient who came to me speaking as you do! ‘Ibelius, I have smoked Jeremite powders for twenty years and now my throat bleeds, make me well!’ ‘Ibelius, I have been drunk and brawling all night, and now my eye has been cut out! Restore my vision, damn you.’ Why, let us not speak of solons, let us instead say a copper baron per such outburst…I could still retire to Lashain a gentleman!”

“I can do precious little harm to Capa Raza with my face planted in the dust of this hovel,” said Locke, his temper flaring once again.

“Then rest, sir; rest,” snapped Ibelius, his own color rising. “Have the grace not to lash your tongue at me for failing to carry the power of the gods about in my fingertips! Rest, and regain your strength. Tomorrow, when it is safe to move about, I shall bring you more food; a restored appetite will be a welcome sign. With food and rest, you may achieve an acceptable level of vigor in but a day or two. You cannot expect to skip lightly away from what you’ve endured. Have patience.”

Locke sighed. “Very well. I just…I ache to be about the business of keeping Capa Raza’s reign short.”

“And I yearn to have you about it as well, Master Lamora.” Ibelius removed his optics and polished them against his tunic. “If I thought you could slay him now, with little more strength in you than a half-drowned kitten, why, I’d put you in a basket and carry you to him myself. But that is not the case, and no poultice in my books of physik could make it so.”

“Listen to Master Ibelius, Locke, and quit sulking.” Jean gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Look on this as a chance to exercise your mind. I’ll gather what further information I can, and I’ll be your strong arm. You give me a plan to trip that fucker up and send him to hell. For Calo, Galdo, and Bug.”

6

BY THE next night, Locke had recovered enough of his strength to pace about the room under his own power. His muscles felt like jelly, and his limbs moved as though they were being controlled from a very great distance-the messages transmitted by heliograph, perhaps, before being translated into movements of joint and sinew. But he no longer fell on his face when he stood up, and he’d eaten an entire pound of roast sausages, along with half a loaf of bread slathered in honey, since Ibelius had brought the food in the late afternoon.

“Master Ibelius,” said Locke as the physiker counted off Locke’s pulse for what Locke suspected must be the thirteen thousandth time. “We are of a like size, you and I. Do you by chance have any coats in good care? With suitably matching breeches, vests, and gentleman’s trifles?”

“Ah,” said Ibelius, “I did have such things, after a fashion, but I fear…I fear Jean did not tell you…”

“Ibelius is living with us here for the time being,” said Jean. “Around the corner, in one of the villa’s other rooms.”

“My chambers, from which I conducted my business, well…” Ibelius scowled, and it seemed to Locke that a very fine fog actually formed behind his optics. “They were burned, the morning after Raza’s ascension. Those of us with blood ties to Barsavi’s slain men…we have not been encouraged to remain in Camorr! There have already been several murders. I can still come and go, if I’m careful, but…I have lost most of my finer things, such as they were. And my patients. And my books! Yet another reason for me to earnestly desire that some harm should befall Raza.”

“Damnation,” said Locke. “Master Ibelius, might I beg just a few minutes alone with Jean? What we have to discuss is…well, it is of the utmost privacy, and for very good reason. You have my apologies.”

“Hardly necessary, sir, hardly necessary.” Ibelius rose from his seat and brushed plaster dust from his waistjacket. “I shall conceal myself outside, until required. The night air will be invigorating for the actions of the capillaries; it will quite restore the full flush of my balanced humors.”

When he had gone, Locke ran his fingers through his greasy hair and groaned. “Gods, I could do with a bath, but right now I’d take standing in the rain for half an hour. Jean, we need resources to take on Raza. The fucker took forty-five thousand crowns from us; here we sit with ten. I need to kick the Don Salvara game back into life, but I’m deathly afraid it’s in tatters, what with me being out of it for these past few days.”

“I doubt it,” said Jean. “I spent some coin the day before you woke up for a bit of stationery and some ink. I sent a note to the Salvaras by courier, from Graumann, stating that you’d be handling some very delicate business for a few days and might not be around.”

“You did?” Locke stared at him like a man who’d gone to the gallows only to have a pardon and a sack of gold coins handed to him at the last minute. “You did? Gods bless your heart, Jean. I could kiss you, but you’re as covered in muck as I am.”

Locke circled around the room furiously, or as close to furiously as he could manage, still jerking and stumbling as he was. Hiding in this damned hovel, suddenly torn away from the advantages he’d taken for granted for many years-no cellar, no vault full of coins, no Wardrobe, no Masque Box…no gang. Raza had taken everything.

Packed up with the coins from the vault had been a packet of papers and keys, wrapped in oilcloth. Those papers were documents of accounts at Meraggio’s countinghouse for Lukas Fehrwight, Evante Eccari, and all the other false identities the Gentlemen Bastards had planted over the years. There were hundreds of crowns in those accounts, but without the documents, they were beyond mortal reach. In that packet, as well, were the keys to the Bowsprit Suite at the Tumblehome Inn, where extra clothing suitable to Lukas Fehrwight was neatly set out in a cedar-lined closet…locked away behind a clockwork box that no lock-charmer with ten times the skill Locke had ever possessed could tease open.

“Damn,” said Locke. “We can’t get to anything. We need money, and we can get that from the Salvaras, but I can’t go to them like this. I need gentleman’s clothes, rose oil, trifles. Fehrwight has to look like Fehrwight, and I can’t conjure him for ten crowns.”

Indeed, the clothes and accessories he’d worn when dressed as the Vadran merchant had easily come to forty full crowns-not the sort of sum he could simply tease out of pockets on the street. Also, the few tailors that catered to appropriately rarefied tastes had shops like fortresses, in the better parts of the city, where the yellowjackets prowled not in squads but in battalions.

“Son of a bitch,” said Locke, “but I am displeased. It all comes down to clothes. Clothes, clothes, clothes. What a ridiculous thing to be restrained by.”

“You can have the ten crowns, for what it’s worth. We can eat off the silver for a long time.”

“Well,” said Locke, “that’s something.” He heaved himself back down on the sleeping pallet and sat with his chin resting on both of his hands. His eyebrows and his mouth were turned down, in the same expression of aggrieved concentration Jean remembered from their years as boys. After a few minutes, Locke sighed and looked up at Jean.

“If I’m fit to move, I suppose I’ll take seven or eight crowns and go out on the town tomorrow, then.”

“Out on the town? You have a plan?”

“No,” said Locke. “Not even a speck of one. Not the damnedest idea.” He grinned weakly. “But don’t all of my better schemes start like this? I’ll find an opening, somehow…and then I suppose I’ll be rash.”

1

LOCKE LAMORA STOOD before the steps of Meraggio’s Countinghouse the next day, just as the huge Verrari water-clock inside the building’s foyer chimed out the tenth hour of the morning. A sun shower was falling; gentle hot rain blown in beneath a sky that was mostly blue-white and clear. Traffic on the Via Camorrazza was at a high ebb, with cargo barges and passenger boats dueling for water space with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for battlefield maneuvers.

One of Jean’s crowns had been broken up to furnish Locke (who still wore his gray hair and a false beard, trimmed down now to a modest goatee) with acceptably clean clothing in the fashion of a courier or scribe. While he certainly didn’t look like a man of funds, he was the very picture of a respectable employee.

Meraggio’s Countinghouse was a four-story hybrid of two hundred years’ worth of architectural fads; it had columns, arched windows, facades of stone and lacquered wood alike, and external sitting galleries both decorative and functional. All these galleries were covered with silk awnings in the colors of Camorr’s coins-brownish copper, yellowish gold, silver-gray, and milky white. There were a hundred Lukas Fehrwights in sight even outside the place; a hundred men of business in lavishly tailored coats. Any one of their ensembles was worth five years of pay to a common artisan or laborer.

And if Locke set an unkind finger on so much as a coat sleeve, Meraggio’s house guards would boil out the doors like bees from a shaken hive. It would be a race between them and the several squads of city watchmen pacing this side of the canal-the winner would get the honor of knocking his brains out through his ears with their truncheons.

Seven white iron crowns, twenty silver solons, and a few coppers jingled in Locke’s coin purse. He was completely unarmed. He had only the vaguest idea of what he would do or say if his very tentative plan went awry.

“Crooked Warden,” he whispered, “I’m going into this countinghouse, and I’m going to come out with what I need. I’d like your aid. And if I don’t get it, well, to hell with you. I’ll come out with what I need anyway.”

Head high, chin out, he began to mount the steps.

2

“PRIVATE MESSAGE for Koreander Previn,” he told the guards on duty just inside the foyer as he ran a hand through his hair to sweep some of the water out of it. There were three of them, dressed in maroon velvet coats, black breeches, and black silk shirts; their gold-gilded buttons gleamed, but the grips on the long fighting knives and clubs sheathed at their belts were worn from practice.

“Previn, Previn…,” muttered one of the guards as he consulted a leather-bound directory. “Hmmm. Public gallery, fifty-five. I don’t see anything about him not receiving walk-ins. You know where you’re going?”

“Been here before,” said Locke.

“Right.” The guard set down the directory and picked up a slate, which served as a writing board for the parchment atop it; the guard then plucked a quill from an inkwell on a little table. “Name and district?”

“Tavrin Callas,” said Locke. “North Corner.”

“You write?”

“No, sir.”

“Just make your mark there, then.”

The guard held out the slate while Locke scratched a big black X next to TEVRIN KALLUS. The guard’s handwriting was better than his spelling.

“In with you, then,” said the guard.

The main floor of Meraggio’s Countinghouse-the public gallery-was a field of desks and counters, eight across and eight deep. Each heavy desk had a merchant, a money-changer, a lawscribe, a clerk, or some other functionary seated behind it; the vast majority also had clients sitting before them, talking earnestly or waiting patiently or arguing heatedly. The men and women behind those desks rented them from Meraggio’s; some took them every working day of the week, while others could only afford to alternate days with partners. Sunlight poured down on the room through long clear skylights; the gentle patter of rain could be heard mingled with the furious babble of business.

On either side, four levels of brass-railed galleries rose up to the ceiling. Within the pleasantly darkened confines of these galleries, the more powerful, wealthy, and established business-folk lounged. They were referred to as members of Meraggio’s, though the Meraggio shared no actual power with them, but merely granted them a long list of privileges that set them above (both literally and figuratively) the men and women at work on the public floor.

There were guards in every corner of the building, relaxed but vigilant. Dashing about here and there were waiters in black jackets, black breeches, and long maroon waist-aprons. There was a large kitchen at the rear of Meraggio’s, and a wine cellar that would have done any tavern proud. The affairs of the men and women at the countinghouse were often too pressing to waste time going out or sending out for food. Some of the private members lived at the place, for all intents and purposes, returning to their homes only to sleep and change clothes, and then only because Meraggio’s closed its doors shortly after Falselight.

Moving with calm self-assurance, Locke found his way to the public gallery desk marked “ 55.” Koreander Previn was a lawscribe who’d helped the Sanzas set up the perfectly legitimate accounts of Evante Eccari several years previously. Locke remembered him as having been a near match for his own size; he prayed to himself that the man hadn’t developed a taste for rich food in the time since.

“Yes,” said Previn, who thankfully remained as trim as ever, “how can I help you?”

Locke considered the man’s loosely tailored, open-front coat; it was pine green with yellow-gold trimmings on the flaring purple cuffs. The man had a good eye for fashionable cuts and was apparently as blind as a brass statue when it came to colors.

“Master Previn,” said Locke, “my name is Tavrin Callas, and I find myself possessed of a very singular problem, one that you may well be able to lay to rest-though I must warn you it is somewhat outside the purview of your ordinary duties.”

“I’m a lawscribe,” said Previn, “and my time is usually measured, when I am sitting with a client. Do you propose to become one?”

“What I propose,” said Locke, “would put no fewer than five full crowns in your pocket, perhaps as early as this afternoon.” He passed a hand over the edge of Previn’s desk and caused a white iron crown to appear there by legerdemain; his technique might have been a little bit shaky, but Previn was apparently unacquainted with the skill, for his eyebrows rose.

“I see. You do have my attention, Master Callas,” said Previn.

“Good, good. I hope that I shall shortly have your earnest cooperation, as well. Master Previn, I am a representative of a trade combine that I would, in all honor, prefer not to name. Although I am Camorri-born, I live and work out of Talisham. I am scheduled tonight to dine with several very important contacts, one of them a don, to discuss the business matter I have been sent to Camorr to see through. I, ah…this is most embarrassing, but I fear I have been the victim of a rather substantial theft.”

“A theft, Master Callas? What do you mean?”

“My wardrobe,” said Locke. “All of my clothing, and all of my belongings, were stolen while I slept. The tavern-master, why, confound the bastard, he claims that he can bear no responsibility for the crime, and he insists I must have left my door unlocked!”

“I can recommend a solicitor that would suit, for such a case.” Previn opened a desk drawer and began hunting through the parchments that lay within. “You could bring the tavern-master before the Common Claims court at the Palace of Patience; it might take as little as five or six days, if you can get an officer of the watch to corroborate your story. And I can draw up all the documents necessary to-”

“Master Previn, forgive me. That is a wise course of action; in most other circumstances I would gladly pursue it, and ask you to draw out whatever forms were required. But I don’t have five or six days; I fear I have only hours. The dinner, sir, is this evening, as I said.”

“Hmmm,” said Previn. “Could you not reschedule the dinner? Surely your associates would understand, with you facing such an extremity.”

“Oh, if only I could. But Master Previn, how am I to appear before them, asking them to entrust tens of thousands of crowns to the ventures of my combine, when I cannot even be entrusted to vouchsafe my own wardrobe? I am…I am most embarrassed. I fear I shall lose this affair, let it slip entirely through my fingers. The don in question, he is…he is something of an eccentric. I fear he would not tolerate an irregularity such as my situation presents; I fear, if put off once, he would not desire to meet again.”

“Interesting, Master Callas. Your concerns may be…valid. I shall trust you to best judge the character of your associates. But how may I be of assistance?”

“We are of a like size, Master Previn,” said Locke. “We are of a like size, and I very much appreciate your subtle eye for cuts and colors-you have a singular taste. What I propose is the loan of a suitable set of clothing, with the necessary trifles and accoutrements. I shall give you five crowns as an assurance for their care, and when I am finished with them and have returned them, you may keep the assurance.”

“You, ah…you wish me to loan you some of my clothes?”

“Yes, Master Previn, with all thanks for your consideration. The assistance would be immeasurable. My combine would not be ungrateful, I daresay.”

“Hmmm.” Previn closed the drawer of his desk and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, frowning. “You propose to pay me an assurance worth about one-fourth of the clothing I would be loaning you, were you to be attending a dinner party with a don. One-fourth, at a minimum.”

“I, ah, assure you, Master Previn, that with the sole exception of this unfortunate theft, I have always thought of myself as the soul of caution. I would look after your clothing as though my life depended upon it-indeed, it does. If these negotiations go amiss, I am likely to be out of ajob.”

“This is…this is quite unusual, Master Callas. Quite an irregular thing to ask. What combine do you work for?”

“I-I am embarrassed to say, Master Previn. For fear that my situation should reflect poorly on them. I am only trying to do my duty by them, you understand.”

“I do, I do, and yet it must be plain to you that no man could call himself wise who would give a stranger thirty crowns in exchange for five, without…something more than earnest assurances. I do beg your pardon, but that’s the way it must be.”

“Very well,” said Locke. “I am employed by the West Iron Sea Mercantile Combine, registered out of Tal Verrar.”

“West Iron Sea Mercantile…hmmm.” Previn opened another desk drawer and flipped through a small sheaf of papers. “I have Meraggio’s Directory for the current year, Seventy-eighth Year of Aza Guilla, and yet…Tal Verrar…there is no listing for a West Iron Sea Mercantile Combine.”

“Ah, damn that old problem,” said Locke. “We were incorporated in the second month of the year; we are too new to be listed yet. It has been such a bother, believe me.”

“Master Callas,” said Previn, “I sympathize with you, I truly do, but this situation is…you must forgive me, sir, this situation is entirely too irregular for my comfort. I fear that I cannot help you, but I pray you find some means of placating your business associates.”

“Master Previn, I beg of you, please-”

“Sir, this interview is at an end.”

“Then I am doomed,” said Locke. “I am entirely without hope. I do beseech you, sir, to reconsider…”

“I am a lawscribe, Master Callas, not a clothier. This interview is over; I wish you good fortune, and a good day.”

“Is there nothing I can say that would at least raise the possibility of-”

Previn picked up a small brass bell that sat on one edge of his desk; he rang it three times, and guards began to appear out of the nearby crowd. Locke palmed his white iron piece from the desktop and sighed.

“This man is to be escorted from the grounds,” said Previn when one of Meraggio’s guards set a gauntleted hand on Locke’s shoulder. “Please show him every courtesy.”

“Certainly, Master Previn. As for you, right this way, sir,” said the guard as Locke was helped from his seat by no fewer than three stocky men and then enthusiastically assisted down the main corridor of the public gallery, out the foyer, and back to the steps. The rain had ceased to fall, and the city had the freshly washed scent of steam rising from warm stones.

“It’d be best if we didn’t see you again,” said one of the guards. Three of them stood there, staring down at him, while men and women of business made their way up the steps around him, patently ignoring him. The same could not be said for some of the yellowjackets, who were staring interestedly.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, and he set off to the southwest at a brisk walk. He would cross one of the bridges to the Videnza, he told himself, and find one of the tailors there…

3

THE WATER-CLOCK was chiming the noon hour when Locke returned to the foot of Meraggio’s steps. The light-colored clothing of “Tavrin Callas” had vanished; Locke now wore a dark cotton doublet, cheap black breeches, and black hose; his hair was concealed under a black velvet cap, and in place of his goatee (which had come off rather painfully-someday he would learn to carry adhesive-dissolving salve with him as a matter of habit) he now wore a thin moustache. His cheeks were red, and his clothing was already sweated through in several places. In his hands he clutched a rolled parchment (blank), and he gave himself a hint of a Talishani accent when he stepped into the foyer and addressed the guards.

“I require a lawscribe,” said Locke. “I have no appointment and no associates here; I am content to wait for the first available.”

“Lawscribe, right.” The familiar directory guard consulted his lists. “You might try Daniella Montagu, public gallery, desk sixteen. Or maybe…Etienne Acalo, desk thirty-six. Anyhow, there’s a railed area for waiting.”

“You are most kind,” said Locke.

“Name and district?”

“Galdo Avrillaigne,” said Locke. “I am from Talisham.”

“You write?”

“Why, all the time,” said Locke, “except of course when I’m wrong.”

The directory guard stared at him for several seconds until one of the guards standing behind Locke snickered; the symptoms of belated enlightenment appeared on the directory guard’s face, but he didn’t look very amused. “Just sign or make your mark here, Master Avrillaigne.”

Locke accepted the proffered quill and scribed a fluid, elaborate signature beside the guard’s GALLDO AVRILLANE, then strolled into the countinghouse with a friendly nod.

Locke rapidly cased the public gallery once again while he feigned good-natured befuddlement. Rather than settling into the waiting area, which was marked off with brass rails, he walked straight toward the well-dressed young man behind desk twenty-two, who was scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment and currently had no client to distract him. Locke settled into the chair before his desk and cleared his throat.

The man looked up; he was a slender Camorri with slicked-back brown hair and optics over his wide, sensitive eyes. He wore a cream-colored coat with plum purple lining visible within the cuffs. The lining matched his tunic and his vest; the man’s ruffled silk cravats were composed in layers of cream upon dark purple. Somewhat dandified, perhaps, and the man was a few inches taller than Locke, but that was a difficulty relatively easily dealt with.

“I say,” said Locke in his brightest, most conversational I’m-not-from-your-city tone of voice, “how would you like to find your pockets laden down with five white iron crowns before the afternoon is done?”

“I…that…five…sir, you seem to have me at a disadvantage. What can I do for you, and indeed, who are you?”

“My name is Galdo Avrillaigne,” said Locke. “I’m from Talisham.”

“You don’t say,” said the man. “Five crowns, you mentioned? I usually don’t charge that much for my services, but I’d like to hear what you have in mind.”

“Your services,” said Locke, “your professional services, that is, are not what I’ll be requiring, Master…”

“Magris, Armand Magris,” said the man. “But you, you don’t know who I am and you don’t want my-”

“White iron, I said.” Locke conjured the same piece he’d set down on Koreander Previn’s desk two hours before. He made it seem to pop up out of his closed knuckles and settle there; he’d never developed the skill for knuckle-walking that the Sanzas had. “Five white iron crowns, for a trifling service, if somewhat unusual.”

“Unusual how?”

“I have had a streak of rather ill fortune, Master Magris,” said Locke. “I am a commercial representative of Strollo and Sons, the foremost confectioner in all of Talisham, purveyor of subtleties and sweets. I took ship from Talisham for a meeting with several potential clients in Camorr-clients of rank, you understand. Two dons and their wives, looking to my employers to liven up their tables with new gustatory experiences.”

“Do you wish me to draw up documents for a potential partnership, or some sale?”

“Nothing so mundane, Master Magris, nothing so mundane. Pray hear the full extent of my misfortune. I was dispatched to Camorr by sea, with a number of packages in my possession. These packages contained spun sugar confections of surpassing excellence and delicacy; subtleties the likes of which even your famed Camorri chefs have never conceived. Hollow sweetmeats with alchemical cream centers…cinnamon tarts with the Austershalin brandy of Emberlain for a glaze…wonders. I was to dine with our potential clients, and see that they were suitably overcome with enthusiasm for my employer’s arts. The sums involved for furnishing festival feasts alone, well…the engagement is a very important one.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Magris. “Sounds like very pleasant work.”

“It would be, save for one unfortunate fact,” said Locke. “The ship that brought me here, while as fast as had been promised, was badly infested with rats.”

“Oh dear…surely not your-”

“Yes,” said Locke. “My wares. My very excellent wares were stored in rather lightweight packages. I kept them out of the hold; unfortunately, this seems to have given the rats an easier time of it. They fell upon my confections quite ravenously; everything I carried was destroyed.”

“It pains me to hear of your loss,” said Magris. “How can I be of aid?”

“My wares,” said Locke, “were stored with my clothes. And that is the final embarrassment of my situation; between the depredations of teeth and of, ah, droppings, if I may be so indelicate…my wardrobe is entirely destroyed. I dressed plainly for the voyage, and now this is the only complete set of clothes to my name.”

“Twelve gods, that is a pretty pickle. Does your employer have an account here at Meraggio’s? Do you have credit you might draw against for the price of clothes?”

“Sadly, no,” said Locke. “We have been considering it; I have long argued for it. But we have no such account to help me now, and my dinner engagement this evening is most pressing; most pressing indeed. Although I cannot present the confections, I can at least present myself in apology-I do not wish to give offense. One of our potential clients is, ah, a very particular and picky man. Very particular and picky. It would not do to stand him up entirely. He would no doubt spread word in his circles that Strollo and Sons was not a name to be trusted. There would be imputations not just against our goods, but against our very civility, you see.”

“Yes, some of the dons are…very firmly set in their customs. As yet I fail to see, however, where my assistance enters the picture.”

“We are of a similar size, sir, of a fortuitously similar size. And your taste, why, it is superlative, Master Magris; we could be long-lost brothers, so alike are we in our sense for cuts and colors. You are slightly taller than I am, but surely I can bear that for the few hours necessary. I would ask, sir, I would beg-aid me by lending me a suitable set of clothing. I must dine with dons this evening; help me to look the part, so that my employers might salvage their good name from this affair.”

“You desire…you desire the loan of a coat, and breeches, and hose and shoes, and all the fiddle-faddle and necessaries?”

“Indeed,” said Locke, “with a heartfelt promise to look after every single stitch as though it were the last in the world. What’s more, I propose to leave you an assurance of five white iron crowns; keep it until I have returned every thread of your clothing, and then keep it thereafter. Surely it is a month or two of pay, for so little work.”

“It is, it is…it is a very handsome sum. However,” said Magris, looking as though he was trying to stifle a grin, “this is…as I’m sure you know, rather odd.”

“I am only too aware, sir, only too aware. Can I not inspire you to have some pity for me? I am not too proud to beg, Master Magris-it is more than just my job at stake. It is the reputation of my employers.”

“No doubt,” said Magris. “No doubt. A pity that rats cannot speak Therin; I wager they’d offer forth a very fine testimony.”

“Six white iron crowns,” said Locke. “I can stretch my purse that far. I implore you, sir…”

“Squeak-squeak,” said Magris. “Squeak-squeak, they would say. And what fat little rats they would be after all that; what round little miscreants. They would give their testimony and then beg to be put back on a ship for Talisham, to continue their feasting. Your Strollo and Sons could have loyal employees for life; though rather small ones, of course.”

“Master Magris, this is quite-”

“You’re not really from Talisham, are you?”

“Master Magris, please.”

“You’re one of Meraggio’s little tests, aren’t you? Just like poor Willa got snapped up in last month.” Magris could no longer contain his mirth; he was obviously very pleased with himself indeed. “You may inform the good Master Meraggio that my dignity doesn’t flee at the sight of a little white iron; I would never dishonor his establishment by participating in such a prank. You will, of course, give him my very best regards?”

Locke had known frustration on many occasions before, so it was easy enough to stifle the urge to leap over Magris’ desk and strangle him. Sighing inwardly, he let his gaze wander around the room for a split second-and there, staring out across the floor from one of the second-level galleries, stood Meraggio himself.

Giancana Meraggio wore a frock coat in the ideal present fashion, loose and open, with flaring cuffs and polished silver buttons. His coat, breeches, and cravats were of a singularly pleasing dark blue, the color of the sky just before Falselight. There was little surface ostentation, but the clothes were fine, rich and subtle in a way that made their expense clear without offending the senses. It had to be Meraggio, for there was an orchid pinned at the right breast of his coat-that was Meraggio’s sole affectation, a fresh orchid picked every single day to adorn his clothes.

Judging by the advisors and attendants who stood close behind the man, Locke estimated that Meraggio was very close in height and build to himself.

The plan seemed to come up out of nowhere; it swept into his thoughts like a boarding party rushing onto a ship. In the blink of an eye, he was in its power, and it was set out before him, plain as walking in a straight line. He dropped his Talishani accent and smiled back at Magris.

“Oh, you’re too clever for me, Master Magris. Too clever by half. My congratulations; you were only too right to refuse. And never fear-I shall report to Meraggio himself, quite presently and directly. Your perspicacity will not escape his notice. Now, if you will excuse me…”

4

AT THE rear of Meraggio’s was a service entrance in a wide alley, where deliveries came in to the storage rooms and kitchens. This was where the waiters took their breaks, as well. Newcomers to the countinghouse’s service received scant minutes, while senior members of the staff might have as long as half an hour to lounge and eat between shifts on the floor. A single bored guard leaned on the wall beside the service door, arms folded; he came to life as Locke approached.

“What business?”

“Nothing, really,” said Locke. “I just wanted to talk to some of the waiters, maybe one of the kitchen stewards.”

“This isn’t a public park. Best you took your stroll elsewhere.”

“Be a friend,” said Locke. A solon appeared in one of his hands, conveniently held up within the guard’s reach. “I’m looking for a job, is all. I just want to talk to some of the waiters and stewards, right? The ones that are off duty. I’ll stay out of everyone else’s way.”

“Well, mind that you do.” The guard made the silver coin vanish into his own pockets. “And don’t take too long.”

Just inside the service entrance, the receiving room was unadorned, low-ceilinged, and smelly. Half a dozen silent waiters stood against the walls or paced; one or two sipped tea, while the rest seemed to be savoring the simple pleasure of doing nothing at all. Locke appraised them rapidly, selected the one closest to his own height and build, and quickly stepped over to the man.

“I need your help,” said Locke. “It’s worth five crowns, and it won’t take but a few minutes.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Locke reached down, grabbed one of the waiter’s hands, and slapped a white iron crown into it. The man jerked his hand away, then looked down at what was sitting on his palm. His eyes did a credible imitation of attempting to jump out of their sockets.

“The alley,” said Locke. “We need to talk.”

“Gods, we certainly do,” said the waiter, a bulldog-faced, balding man somewhere in his thirties.

Locke led him out the service door and down the alley, until they were about forty feet from the guard, safely out of earshot. “I work for the duke,” said Locke. “I need to get this message to Meraggio, but I can’t be seen in the countinghouse dressed as myself. There are…complications.” Locke waved his blank parchment pages at the waiter; they were wrapped into a tight cylinder.

“I, ah, I can deliver that for you,” said the waiter.

“I have orders,” said Locke. “Personal delivery, and nothing less. I need to get on that floor and I need to be inconspicuous; it just needs to be for five minutes. Like I said, it’s worth five crowns. Cold spending metal, this very afternoon. I need to look like a waiter.”

“Shit,” said the waiter. “Usually, we have some spare togs lying around…black coats and a few aprons. We could fix you up with those, but it’s laundry day. There’s nothing in the whole place.”

“Of course there is,” said Locke. “You’re wearing exactly what I need.”

“Now, wait just a minute. That’s not really possible…”

Locke grabbed the waiter’s hand again and slid another four white iron crowns into it.

“Have you ever held that much money before in your life?”

“Twelve gods, no,” the man whispered. He licked his lips, stared at Locke for a second or two, and then gave a brief nod. “What do I do?”

“Just follow me,” said Locke. “We’ll make this easy and quick.”

“I have about twenty minutes,” said the waiter. “And then I need to be back on the floor.”

“When I’m finished,” said Locke, “that won’t matter. I’ll let Meraggio know you’ve helped us both; you’ll be off the hook.”

“Uh, okay. Where are we going?”

“Just around the corner here…We need an inn.”

The Welcoming Shade was just around the block from Meraggio’s Countinghouse. It was tolerably clean, cheap, and devoid of luxuries-the sort of place that hosted couriers, scholars, scribes, attendants, and lesser functionaries rather than the better classes of businessfolk. The place was a two-story square, built around an open central space in the fashion of a Therin Throne villa. At the center of this courtyard was a tall olive tree with leaves that rustled pleasantly in the sunlight.

“One room,” said Locke, “with a window, just for the day.” He set coins down on the counter. The innkeeper scurried out, key in hand, to show Locke and the waiter to a second-story room marked “ 9.”

Chamber nine had a pair of folding cots, an oiled-paper window, a small closet, and nothing else. The master of the Welcoming Shade bowed as he left, and kept his mouth shut. Like most Camorri innkeepers, any questions he might have had about his customers or their business tended to vanish when silver hit the counter.

“What’s your name?” Locke drew the room’s door closed and shot the bolt.

“Benjavier,” said the waiter. “You’re, ah, sure…this is going to work out like you say it is?”

In response, Locke drew out his coin purse and set it in Benjavier’s hand. “There’s two more full crowns in there, above and beyond what you’ll receive. Plus quite a bit of gold and silver. My word’s as good as my money-and you can keep that purse, here, as an assurance until I return.”

“Gods,” said Benjavier. “This is…this is all so very odd. I wonder what I’ve done to deserve such incredible fortune?”

“Most men do nothing to deserve what the gods throw their way,” said Locke. “Shall we be about our business?”

“Yes, yes.” Benjavier untied his apron and tossed it to Locke; he then began to work on his jacket and breeches. Locke slipped off his velvet cap.

“I say, gray hair-you don’t look your age, in the face, I mean.”

“I’ve always been blessed with youthful lines,” said Locke. “It’s been of some benefit, in the duke’s service. I’ll need your shoes, as well-mine would look rather out of place beneath that finery.”

Working quickly, the two men removed and traded clothing until Locke stood in the center of the room, fully garbed as a Meraggio’s waiter, with the maroon apron tied at his waist. Benjavier lounged on one of the sleeping pallets in his undertunic and breechclout, tossing the bag of jingling coins from hand to hand.

“Well? How do I look?”

“You look right smart,” said Benjavier. “You’ll blend right in.”

“Good. You, for your part, look right wealthy. Just wait here with the door locked; I’ll be back soon enough. I’ll knock exactly five times, savvy?”

“Sounds fine.”

Locke closed the door behind him, hurried down the stairs, across the courtyard, and back out into the street. He took the long way around to return to Meraggio’s, so he could enter via the front and avoid the guard at the service entrance.

“You’re not supposed to come and go this way,” said the directory guard when Locke burst into the foyer, red-cheeked and sweating.

“I know, sorry.” Locke waved his blank roll of parchment at the man. “I was sent out to fetch this for one of the lawscribes; one of the private gallery members, I should say.”

“Oh, sorry. Don’t let us keep you; go right through.”

Locke entered into the crowd on the floor of Meraggio’s for the third time, gratified by how few lingering looks he received as he hurried on his way. He wove deftly between well-dressed men and women and ducked out of the path of waiters bearing covered silver trays-he was careful to give these men a friendly, familiar nod as they passed. In moments, he found what he was looking for-two guards lounging against a back wall, their heads bent together in conversation.

“Look lively, gentlemen,” said Locke as he stepped up before them; either one of them had to outweigh him by at least five stone. “Either of you lads know a man named Benjavier? He’s one of my fellow waiters.”

“I know him by sight,” said one of the guards.

“He’s in a heap of shit,” said Locke. “He’s over at the Welcoming Shade, and he’s just fucked up one of Meraggio’s tests. I’m to fetch him back; I’m supposed to grab you two for help.”

“One of Meraggio’s tests?”

“You know,” said Locke. “Like he did to Willa.”

“Oh, her. That clerk in the public section. Benjavier, you say? What’s he done?”

“Sold the old man out, and Meraggio’s not pleased. We really should do this sooner rather than later.”

“Uh…sure, sure.”

“Out the side, through the service entrance.”

Locke positioned himself very carefully to make it seem as though he was confidently walking along beside the guards when in fact he was following their lead through the kitchens, the service corridors, and finally the receiving room. He slipped into the lead, and the two guards were on his heels as he stepped out into the alley, waving casually at the lounging guard. The man showed no signs of recognizing him; Locke had seen dozens of waiters already with his own eyes. No doubt a stranger could pass as one for quite some time, and he didn’t even need quite some time.

A few minutes later, he rapped sharply on the door of chamber nine at the Welcoming Shade, five times. Benjavier opened the door a crack, only to have it shoved open all the way by a stiff arm from Locke, who called up some of the manner he’d used when he’d lectured Don Salvara as a “Midnighter.”

“It was a loyalty test, Benjavier,” said Locke as he stalked into the room, his eyes cold. “A loyalty test. And you fucked it up. Take him and hold him, lads.”

The two guards moved to restrain the half-naked waiter, who stared at them in shock. “But…but I didn’t…but you said-”

“Your job is to serve Meraggio’s customers and sustain Master Meraggio’s trust. My job is to find and deal with men that don’t sustain his trust. You sold me your gods-damned uniform.” Locke swept white iron crowns and the coin purse up from the bed; he dropped the loose coins into the leather bag as he spoke. “I could have been a thief. I could have been an assassin. And you would have let me walk right up to Master Meraggio, with the perfect disguise.”

“But you…oh, gods, you can’t be serious, this can’t be happening!”

“Do these men look less than serious? I’m sorry, Benjavier. It’s nothing personal, but you made a very poor decision.” Locke held the door open. “Right, out with him. Back to Meraggio’s, quick as you can.”

Benjavier kicked out, snarling and crying, “No, no, you can’t, I’ve been loyal all my-” Locke grabbed him by the chin and stared into his eyes.

“If you fight back,” said Locke, “if you kick or scream or continue to raise a gods-damned fuss, this matter will go beyond Meraggio’s, do you understand? We will bring in the watch. We will have you hauled to the Palace of Patience in irons. Master Meraggio has many friends at the Palace of Patience. Your case might fall between the cracks for a few months. You might get to sit in a spider cage and ponder your wrongdoing until the rains of winter start to fall. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” sobbed Benjavier. “Oh, gods, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to. Now, like I said, let’s get him back quickly. Master Meraggio’s going to want a word with him.”

Locke led the way back to the countinghouse, with Benjavier sobbing but quiescent. Locke strolled into the receiving room, right past the startled service-door guard, and bellowed, “Clear this room. Now.”

A few of the lounging waiters looked as though they might offer argument, but the sight of Benjavier, half-dressed and firmly held by the two guards, seemed to convince them that something was deeply amiss. They scuttled from the room, and Locke turned to the guards.

“Hold him here,” said Locke. “I’m going to fetch Master Meraggio; we’ll return in a few moments. This room is to stay clear until we return. Let the waiters take their ease somewhere else.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” The service-door guard poked his head into the receiving room.

“If you value your job,” said Locke, “keep your eyes out there in that alley, and don’t let anyone else in. Meraggio’s going to be down here soon, and he’s going to be in a mood, so it’d be best not to catch his attention.”

“I think he’s right, Laval,” said one of the guards holding Benjavier.

“Uh…sure, sure.” The service-door guard vanished.

“As for you,” said Locke, stepping close to Benjavier, “like I said, it’s nothing personal. Can I give you a bit of advice? Don’t play games. You can’t lie to Meraggio. None of us could, on our best day. Just confess, straight out. Be totally honest. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” sniffed Benjavier. “Yes, please, I’ll do anything…”

“You don’t need to do anything. But if you hope for Master Meraggio to be at all lenient or sympathetic, then by the gods, you fucking confess and you do it in a hurry. No games, remember?”

“O-okay, yes, anything…”

“I shall return very shortly,” said Locke, and he spun on his heel and made for the door. As he left the receiving room, he allowed himself a brief smirk of pleasure; the guards pinning Benjavier now looked almost as frightened of him as the waiter did. It was strange, how readily authority could be conjured with nothing but a bit of strutting jackassery. He made his way through the service passages and kitchens, and back out onto the public floor.

“I say,” said Locke to the first guard he came across, “is Master Meraggio in the members’ galleries?” Locke waved his blank rolled parchment as though it were pressing business.

“Far as I know,” said the guard, “I think he’s up on the third level, taking reports.”

“Many thanks.”

Locke climbed the wide black iron stairs that led up to the first members’ gallery, nodding at the pair of guards at its base. His uniform seemed to be a sufficient guarantee of gallery privileges, but he kept the parchment clutched visibly in both hands, as an added assurance. He scanned the first-floor galleries, found no sign of his quarry, and continued upward.

He found Giancana Meraggio on the third floor, just as the guard had indicated. Meraggio stood staring out at the public gallery, abstractly, as he listened to a pair of finnickers behind him read from wax tablets figures that meant very little to Locke. Meraggio didn’t seem to keep a bodyguard near his person; apparently he felt safe enough within the bounds of his commercial kingdom. So much the better. Locke stepped right up beside him, relishing the arrogance of the gesture, and stood waiting to be noticed.

The finnickers and several nearby gallery members started muttering to themselves; after a few seconds Meraggio turned and let the full power of his storm-lantern glare rest on Locke. It took only a moment for that glare to shift from irritation to suspicion.

“You,” said Meraggio, “do not work for me.”

“I bring greetings from Capa Raza of Camorr,” said Locke, in a quiet and respectful voice. “I have a very serious matter to bring to your attention, Master Meraggio.”

The master of the countinghouse stared at him, then removed his optics and tucked them in a coat pocket. “So it’s true, then. I’d heard Barsavi had gone the way of all flesh… And now your master sends a lackey. How kind of him. What’s his business?”

“His business is rather congruent with yours, Master Meraggio. I’m here to save your life.”

Meraggio snorted. “My life is hardly in danger, my improperly dressed friend. This is my house, and any guard here would cut your balls off with two words from me. If I were you, I’d start explaining where you got that uniform.”

“I purchased it,” said Locke, “from one of your waiters, a man by the name of Benjavier. I knew he was tractable, because he’s already in on the plot against your life.”

“Ben? Gods damn it-what proof have you?”

“I have several of your guards holding him down by your service entrance, rather half-dressed.”

“What do you mean you have several of my guards holding him? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Capa Raza has given me the job of saving your life, Master Meraggio. I mean exactly what I said. And as for who I am, I happen to be your savior.”

“My guards and my waiters-”

“Are not reliable,” hissed Locke. “Are you blind? I didn’t purchase this at a secondhand clothier; I walked right in through your service entrance, offered a few crowns, and your man Benjavier was out of his uniform like that.” Locke snapped his fingers. “Your guard at the service door slipped me in for much less-just a solon. Your men are not made of stone, Master Meraggio; you presume much concerning their fidelity.”

Meraggio stared at him, color rising in his cheeks; he looked as though he was about to strike Locke. Instead, he coughed and held out his hands, palms up.

“Tell me what you came to tell me,” said Meraggio. “I’ll take my own counsel from there.”

“Your finnickers are crowding me. Dismiss them and give us a bit of privacy.”

“Don’t tell me what to do in my own-”

“I will tell you what to do, gods damn it,” Locke spat. “I am your fucking bodyguard, Master Meraggio. You are in deadly danger; minutes count. You already know of at least one compromised waiter and one lax guard; how much longer are you going to prevent me from keeping you alive?”

“Why is Capa Raza so concerned for my safety?”

“Your personal comfort likely means nothing to him,” said Locke. “The safety of the Meraggio, however, is of paramount importance. An assassination contract has been taken out against you, by Verrari commercial interests who wish to see Camorr’s fortunes diminished. Raza has been in power for four days; your assassination would shake the city to its foundations. The Spider and the city watch would tear Raza’s people apart looking for answers. He simply cannot allow harm to come to you. He must keep this city stable, as surely as the duke must.”

“And how does your master know all of this?”

“A gift from the gods,” said Locke. “Letters were intercepted while my master’s agents were pursuing an unrelated matter. Please dismiss your finnickers.”

Meraggio pondered for a few seconds, then grunted and waved his attendants away with an irritated wrist-flick. They backed off, wide-eyed.

“Someone very nasty is after you,” said Locke. “It’s a crossbow job; the assassin is Lashani. Supposedly, his weapons have been altered by a Karthani Bondsmage. He’s slippery as all hell, and he almost always hits the mark. Be flattered; we believe his fee is ten thousand crowns.”

“This is a great deal to swallow, Master…”

“My name isn’t important,” said Locke. “Come with me, down to the receiving room behind the kitchens. You can talk to Benjavier yourself.”

“The receiving room, behind the kitchens?” Meraggio frowned deeply. “As yet, I have no reason to believe that you yourself might not be trying to lure me there for mischief.”

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “you are wearing silk and cotton, not chain mail. I have had you at dagger-reach for several minutes now. If my master wished you dead, your entrails would be staining the carpet. You don’t have to thank me-you don’t even have to like me-but for the love of the gods, please accept that I have been ordered to guard you, and one does not refuse the orders of the Capa of Camorr.”

“Hmmm. A point. Is he as formidable a man as Barsavi was, this Capa Raza?”

“Barsavi died weeping at his feet,” said Locke. “Barsavi and all of his children. Draw your own conclusions.”

Meraggio slipped his optics back onto his nose, adjusted his orchid, and put his hands behind his back.

“We shall go to the receiving room,” he said. “You lead the way.”

5

BENJAVIER AND the guards alike looked terrified when Meraggio stormed into the receiving room behind Locke; Locke guessed they were more attuned to the man’s moods than he was, and what they saw on his face must have been something truly unpleasant.

“Benjavier,” said Meraggio, “Benjavier, I simply cannot believe it. After all I did for you-after I took you in and cleared up that mess with your old ship’s captain…I haven’t the words!”

“I’m sorry, Master Meraggio,” said the waiter, whose cheeks were wetter than the sloped roof of a house in a storm. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it…”

“Didn’t mean anything by it? Is it true, what this man has been telling me?”

“Oh yes, gods forgive me, Master Meraggio, it’s true! It’s all true, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…please believe me-”

“Be silent, gods damn your eyes!”

Meraggio stood, jaw agape, like a man who’d just been slapped. He looked around him as though seeing the receiving room for the first time, as though the liveried guards were alien beings. He seemed ready to stagger and fall backward; instead he whirled on Locke with his fists clenched.

“Tell me everything you know,” he growled. “By the gods, everyone involved in this affair is going to learn the length of my reach, I swear it.”

“First things first. You must live out the afternoon. You have private apartments above the fourth-floor gallery, right?”

“Of course.”

“Let us go there immediately,” said Locke. “Have this poor bastard thrown into a storeroom; surely you have one that would suffice. You can deal with him when this affair is over. For the now, time is not our friend.”

Benjavier burst into loud sobs once again, and Meraggio nodded, looking disgusted. “Put Benjavier in dry storage and bolt the door. You two, stand watch. And you-”

The service-door guard had been peeking his head around the corner again. He flushed red.

“Let another unauthorized person, so much as a small child, in through that door this afternoon, and I’ll have your balls cut out and hot coals put in their place. Is that clear?”

“P-perfectly clear, M-master Meraggio, sir.”

Meraggio turned and swept out of the room, and this time it was Locke at his heels, hurrying to keep up.

6

GIANCANA MERAGGIO’S fortified private apartments were of a kind with the man’s clothing: richly furnished in the most subtle fashion. The man clearly preferred to let materials and craftsmanship serve as his primary ornaments.

The steel-reinforced door clicked shut behind them, and the Verrari lockbox rattled as its teeth slid home within the wood. Meraggio and Locke were alone. The elegant miniature water-clock on Meraggio’s lacquered desk was just filling the bowl that marked the first hour of the afternoon.

“Now,” said Locke, “Master Meraggio, you cannot be out on the floor again until our assassin is sewn up. It is not safe; we expected the attack to come between the first and fourth hour of the afternoon.”

“That will cause problems,” said Meraggio. “I have business to look after; my absence on the floor will be noticed.”

“Not necessarily,” said Locke. “Has it not occurred to you that we are of a very similar build? And that one man, in the shadows of one of the upper-level galleries, might look very much like another?”

“You…you propose to masquerade as me?”

“In the letters we intercepted,” said Locke, “we received one piece of information that is very much to our advantage. The assassin did not receive a detailed description of your appearance. Rather, he was instructed to put his bolt into the only man in the countinghouse wearing a rather large orchid at the breast of his coat. If I were to be dressed as you, in your customary place in the gallery, with an orchid pinned to my coat-well, that bolt would be coming at me, rather than you.”

“I find it hard to believe that you’re saintly enough to be willing to put yourself in my place, if this assassin is as deadly as you say.”

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “begging your pardon, but I plainly haven’t made myself clear. If I don’t do this on your behalf, my master will kill me anyway. Furthermore, I am perhaps more adept at ducking the embrace of the Lady of the Long Silence than you might imagine. Lastly, the reward I have been promised for bringing this affair to a satisfactory close…Well, if you were in my shoes, you’d be willing to face a bolt as well.”

“What would you have me do, in the meantime?”

“Take your ease in these apartments,” said Locke. “Keep the doors tightly shut. Amuse yourself for a few hours; I suspect we won’t have long to wait.”

“And what happens when the assassin lets fly his bolt?”

“I am ashamed to have to admit,” said Locke, “that my master has at least a half dozen other men out on the floor of your countinghouse today-please don’t be upset. Some of your clients are not clients; they’re the sharpest, roughest lads Capa Raza has, old hands at fast, quiet work. When our assassin takes his shot, they’ll move on him. Between them and your own guards, he’ll never know what hit him.”

“And if you aren’t as fast as you think you are? And that bolt hits home?”

“Then I’ll be dead, and you’ll still be alive, and my master will be satisfied,” said Locke. “We swear oaths in my line of work as well, Master Meraggio. I serve Raza even unto death. So what’s it going to be?”

7

LOCKE LAMORA stepped out of Meraggio’s apartments at half past one dressed in the most excellent coat, vest, and breeches he had ever worn. They were the dark blue of the sky just before Falselight, and he thought the color suited him remarkably well. The white silk tunic was as cool as autumn river-water against his skin; it was fresh from Meraggio’s closet, as were the hose, shoes, cravats, and gloves. His hair was slicked back with rose oil; a little bottle of the stuff rested in his pocket, along with a purse of gold tyrins he’d lifted from Meraggio’s wardrobe drawers. Meraggio’s orchid was pinned at his right breast, still crisply fragrant; it smelled pleasantly like raspberries.

Meraggio’s finnickers had been appraised of the masquerade, along with a select few of his guards. They nodded at Locke as he strolled out into the fourth-floor members’ gallery, sliding Meraggio’s optics over his eyes. That was a mistake; the world went blurry. Locke cursed his own absentmindedness as he slipped them back into his coat-his old Fehrwight optics had been clear fakes, but of course Meraggio’s actually functioned for Meraggio’s eyes. A point to remember.

Casually, as though it were all part of his plan, Locke stepped onto the black iron stairs and headed downward. From a distance, he certainly resembled Meraggio well enough to cause no comment; when he reached the floor of the public gallery, he strolled through rapidly enough to gather only a few odd looks in his wake. He plucked the orchid from his breast and shoved it into a pocket as he entered the kitchen.

At the entrance to the dry-storage room, he waved to the two guards and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Master Meraggio wants you two watching the back door. Give Laval a hand. Nobody comes in, just as he said. On pain of, ah, hot coals. You heard the old man. I need a word with Benjavier.”

The guards looked at one another and nodded; Locke’s presumed authority over them now seemed to be so cemented that he supposed he could have strolled back here in ladies’ smallclothes and gotten the same response. Meraggio had probably used a few special agents in the past to whip his operations into shape; no doubt Locke was now riding on the coattails of their reputations.

Benjavier looked up as Locke entered the storage room and slid the door shut behind him. Sheer bewilderment registered on his face; he was so surprised when Locke threw a coin purse at him that the little leather bag struck him in the eye. Benjavier cried out and fell back against the wall, both hands over his face.

“Shit,” said Locke. “Beg pardon; you were meant to catch that.”

“What do you want now?”

“I came to apologize. I don’t have time to explain; I’m sorry I dragged you into this, but I have my reasons, and I have needs that must be met.”

“Sorry you dragged me into this?” Benjavier’s voice broke; he sniffed once and spat at Locke. “What the fuck are you talking about? What’s going on? What does Master Meraggio think I did?”

“I don’t have time to sing you a tale. I put six crowns in that bag; some of it’s in tyrins, so you can break it down easier. Your life won’t be worth shit if you stay in Camorr; get out through the landward gates. Get my old clothes from the Welcoming Shade; here’s the key.”

This time Benjavier caught what was thrown at him.

“Now,” said Locke. “No more gods-damned questions. I’m going to grab you by the ear and haul you out into the alley; you make like you’re scared shitless. When we’re around the corner and out of sight, I’m going to let you go. If you have any love for life, you fucking run to the Welcoming Shade, get dressed, and get the hell out of the city. Make for Talisham or Ashmere; you’ve got more than a year’s pay there in that purse. You should be able to do something with it.”

“I don’t-”

“We go now,” said Locke, “or I leave you here to die. Understanding is a luxury; you don’t get to have it. Sorry.”

A moment later, Locke was hauling the waiter into the receiving room by the earlobe; this particular come-along was a painful hold well known to any guard or watchman in the city. Benjavier did a very acceptable job of wailing and sobbing and pleading for his life; the three guards at the service door looked on without sympathy as Locke hauled the waiter past them.

“Back in a few minutes,” said Locke. “Master Meraggio wants me to have a few more words with this poor bastard in private.”

“Oh, gods,” cried Benjavier, “don’t let him take me away! He’s going to hurt me…please!”

The guards chuckled at that, although the one who’d originally taken Locke’s solon didn’t seem quite as mirthful as the other two. Locke dragged Benjavier down the alley and around the corner; the moment they were cut off from the sight of the three guards, Locke pushed him away. “Go,” he said. “Run like hell. I give them maybe twenty minutes before they all figure out what a pack of asses they’ve been, and then you’ll have hard men after you in squads. Go!”

Benjavier stared at him, then shook his head and stumbled off toward the Welcoming Shade. Locke toyed with one of the ends of his false moustache as he watched the waiter go, and then he turned around and lost himself in the crowds. The sun was pouring down light and heat with its usual intensity, and Locke was sweating hard inside his fine new clothes, but for a few moments he let a satisfied smirk creep onto his face.

He strolled north toward Twosilver Green; there was a gentlemen’s trifles shop very near to the southern gate of the park, and there were other black alchemists in various districts who didn’t know him by sight. A bit of adhesive dissolver to get rid of the moustache, and something to restore his hair to its natural shade…With those things in hand, he’d be Lukas Fehrwight once again, fit to visit the Salvaras and relieve them of a few thousand more crowns.

1

“OH, LUKAS!” DOÑA Sofia’s smile lit up her face when she met him at the door to the Salvara manor. Yellow light spilled out past him into the night; it was just past the eleventh hour of the evening. Locke had hidden himself away for most of the day following the affair at Meraggio’s, and had dispatched a note by courier to let the don and the doña know that Fehrwight would pay them a late visit. “It’s been days! We received Graumann’s note, but we were beginning to worry for our affairs-and for you, of course. Are you well?”

“My lady Salvara, it is a pleasure to see you once again. Yes, yes-I am very well, thank you for inquiring. I have met with some disreputable characters over the past week, but all will be for the best; one ship is secured, with cargo, and we may begin our voyage as early as next week in it. Another is very nearly in our grasp.”

“Well, don’t stand there like a courier on the stair; do come in. Conté! We would have refreshment. I know, fetch out some of my oranges, the new ones. We’ll be in the close chamber.”

“Of course, m’lady.” Conté stared at Locke with narrowed eyes and a grudging half-smile. “Master Fehrwight. I do hope the night finds you in good health.”

“Quite good, Conté.”

“How splendid. I shall return very shortly.”

Almost all Camorri manors had two sitting rooms near their entrance hall; one was referred to as the “duty chamber,” where meetings with strangers and other formal affairs would be held. It would be kept coldly, immaculately, and expensively furnished; even the carpets would be clean enough to eat off of. The “close chamber,” in contrast, was for intimate and trusted acquaintances and was traditionally furnished for sheer comfort, in a manner that reflected the personality of the lord and lady of the manor.

Doña Sofia led him to the Salvaras’ close chamber, which held four deeply padded leather armchairs with tall backs like caricatures of thrones. Where most sitting rooms would have had little tables beside each chair, this one had four potted trees, each just slightly taller than the chair it stood beside. The trees smelled of cardamon, a scent that suffused the room.

Locke looked closely at the trees; they were not saplings, as he had first thought. They were miniatures, somehow. They had leaves barely larger than his thumbnail; their trunks were no thicker than a man’s forearms, and their branches narrowed to the width of fingers. Within the twisting confines of its branches, each tree supported a small wooden shelf and a hanging alchemical lantern. Sofia tapped these to bring them to life, filling the room with amber light and green-tinted shadows. The patterns cast by the leaves onto the walls were at once fantastical and relaxing. Locke ran a finger through the soft, thin leaves of the nearest tree.

“Your handiwork is incredible, Doña Sofia,” he said. “Even for someone well acquainted with the work of our Planting Masters…We care mostly for function, for yields. You possess flair in abundance.”

“Thank you, Lukas. Do be seated. Alchemically reducing the frame of larger botanicals is an old art, but one I happen to particularly enjoy, as a sort of hobby. And, as you can see, these are functional pieces as well. But these are hardly the greatest wonders in the room-I see you’ve taken up our Camorri fashions!”

“This? Well, one of your clothiers seemed to believe he was taking pity on me; he offered such a bargain I could not in good conscience refuse. This is by far the longest I’ve ever been in Camorr; I decided I might as well attempt to blend in.”

“How splendid!”

“Yes, it is,” said Don Salvara, who strolled in fastening the buttons of his own coat cuffs. “Much better than your black Vadran prisoner’s outfits. Don’t get me wrong-they’re quite the thing for a northern clime, but down here they look like they’re trying to strangle the wearer. Now, Lukas, what’s the status of all the money we’ve been spending?”

“One galleon is definitely ours,” said Locke. “I have a crew and a suitable cargo; I’ll supervise the loading myself over the next few days. It will be ready to depart next week. And I have a promising lead on a second to accompany it, ready within the same time frame.”

“A promising lead,” said Doña Sofia, “is not quite the same as ‘definitely ours,’ unless I am very much mistaken.”

“You are not, Doña Sofia.” Locke sighed and attempted to look as though he were ashamed to bring up the issue once again. “There is some question…That is, the captain of the second vessel is being tempted by an offer to carry a special cargo to Balinel-a relatively long voyage but for a very decent price. He has, as yet, to commit to my offers.”

“And I suppose,” said Don Lorenzo as he took a seat beside his wife, “that a few thousand more crowns might need to be thrown at his feet to make him see reason?”

“I fear very much, my good Don Salvara, that shall be the case.”

“Hmmm. Well, we can speak of that in a moment. Here’s Conté; I should quite like to show off what my lady has newly accomplished.”

Conté carried three silver bowls on a brass platter; each bowl held half an orange, already sliced so the segments of flesh within the fruit could be drawn out with little two-pronged forks. Conté set a bowl, a fork, and a linen napkin down on the tree-shelf to Locke’s right. The Salvaras looked at him expectantly while their own orange halves were laid out.

Locke worked very hard to conceal any trepidation he might have felt; he took the bowl in one hand and fished out a wedge of orange flesh with the fork. When he set it on his tongue, he was surprised at the tingling warmth that spread throughout his mouth. The fruit was saturated with something alcoholic.

“Why, it’s been suffused with liquor,” he said, “something very pleasant. An orange brandy? A hint of lemon?”

“Not suffused, Lukas,” said Don Lorenzo with a boyish grin that had to be quite genuine. “These oranges have been served in their natural state. Sofia ’s tree manufactures its own liquor and mingles it in the fruit.”

“Sacred Marrows,” said Locke. “What an intriguing hybrid! To the best of my knowledge, it has yet to be done with citrus…”

“I only arrived at the correct formulation a few months ago,” said Sofia, “and some of the early growths were quite unfit for the table. But this one seems to have gone over well. Another few generations of tests, and I shall be very confident of its marketability.”

“I’d like to call it the Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo. “The Sofia orange of Camorr-an alchemical wonder that will make the vintners of Tal Verrar cry for their mothers.”

“I, for my part, should like to call it something else,” said Sofia, playfully slapping her husband on his wrist.

“The Planting Masters,” said Locke, “will find you quite as wondrous as your oranges, my lady. It is as I said: perhaps there is more opportunity in our partnership than any of us have foreseen. The way you seem to make every green thing around you malleable…I daresay that the character of the House of bel Auster for the next century could be shaped more by your touch than by our old Emberlain traditions.”

“You flatter me, Master Fehrwight,” said the doña. “But let us not count our ships before they’re in harbor.”

“Indeed,” said Don Lorenzo. “And on that note, I shall return us to business. Lukas, I fear I have unfortunate news for you. Unfortunate, and somewhat embarrassing. I have had…several setbacks in recent days. One of my upriver debtors has reneged on a large bill; several of my other projections have proven to be overly optimistic. We are, in short, not as fluid at the moment as any of us might hope. Our ability to throw a few thousand more crowns into our mutual project is very much in doubt.”

“Oh,” said Locke. “That is…that is, as you say, unfortunate.”

He slid another orange slice into his mouth and sucked at the sweet liquor, using it as an artificial stimulus to tilt the corners of his lips upward, quite against his natural inclination.

2

ON THE waterfront of the Dregs, a priest of Aza Guilla glided from shadow to shadow, moving with a slow and patient grace that belied his size.

The mist tonight was thin, the damp heat of the summer night especially oppressive. Streams of sweat ran down Jean’s face behind the silver mesh of his Sorrowful Visage. Camorri lore held that the weeks before the Midsummer-mark and the Day of Changes were always the hottest of the year. Out on the water, the now-familiar yellow lamps glimmered; shouts and splashes could be heard as the men aboard the Satisfaction hauled out another boat full of “charitable provisions.”

Jean doubted he could learn anything more about the items going out on those boats unless he did something more obvious, like attacking one of the loading crews-and that would hardly do. So tonight he’d decided to focus his attention on a certain warehouse about a block in from the docks.

The Dregs weren’t quite as far gone as Ashfall, but the place was well on its way. Buildings were falling down or falling sideways in every direction; the entire area seemed to be sinking down into a sort of swamp of rotted wood and fallen brick. Every year the damp ate a little more of the mortar between the district’s stones, and legitimate business fled elsewhere, and more bodies turned up loosely concealed under piles of debris-or not concealed at all.

While prowling in his black robes, Jean had noticed gangs of Raza’s men coming and going from the warehouse for several nights in a row. The structure was abandoned but not yet uninhabitable, as its collapsed neighbors were. Jean had observed lights burning behind its windows almost until dawn, and parties of laborers coming and going with heavy bags over their shoulders, and even a horse-cart or two.

But not tonight. The warehouse had previously been a hive of activity, and tonight it was dark and silent. Tonight it seemed to invite his curiosity, and while Locke was off sipping tea with the quality, Jean aimed to pry into Capa Raza’s business.

There were ways to do this sort of thing, and they involved patience, vigilance, and a great deal of slow walking. He went around the warehouse block several times, avoiding all contact with anyone on the street, throwing himself into whatever deep darkness was at hand and keeping his silver mask tucked under his arm to hide the glare. Given enough shadow, even a man Jean’s size could be stealthy, and he was certainly light enough on his feet.

Circling and sweeping, circling and sweeping; he established to his satisfaction that none of the roofs of nearby buildings held concealed watchers, and that there were no street-eyes either. Of course, he thought to himself as he pressed his back up against the southern wall of the warehouse, they could just be better than I am.

“Aza Guilla, have a care,” he mumbled as he edged toward one of the warehouse doors. “If you don’t favor me tonight, I’ll never be able to return this fine robe and mask to your servants. Just a consideration, humbly submitted.”

There was no lock on the door; in fact, it hung slightly ajar. Jean donned his silver mask again, then slipped his hatchets into his right hand and pushed them up the sleeve of his robe. He’d want them ready for use, but not quite visible, just in case he bumped into anyone who might still be awed by his vestments.

The door creaked slightly, and then he was into the warehouse, pressed up against the wall beside the door, watching and listening. The darkness was thick, crisscrossed by the overlying mesh of his mask. There was a strange smell in the air, above the expected smell of dirt and rotting wood-something like burnt metal.

He held his position, motionless, straining for several long minutes to catch any sound. There was nothing but the far-off creak and sigh of ships at anchor, and the sound of the Hangman’s Wind blowing out to sea. He reached beneath his robe with his left hand and drew out an alchemical light-globe, much like the one he’d carried beneath the Echo Hole. He gave it a series of rapid shakes, and it flared into incandescence.

By the pale white light of the globe he saw that the warehouse was one large open space. A pile of wrecked and rotted partitions against the far wall might have been an office at one time. The floor was hard-packed dirt, and here and there in corners or against walls were piles of debris, some under tarps.

Jean carefully adjusted the position of the globe, keeping it pressed close against his body so that it threw out light only in a forward arc. That would help to keep his activity unseen; he didn’t intend to spend more than a few minutes poking around in this place.

As he slowly paced toward the northern end of the warehouse, he became aware of another unusual odor, one that raised his hackles. Something had been dumped in this place and left to rot. Meat, perhaps…but the odor was sickly-sweet. Jean was afraid he knew what it was even before he found the bodies.

There were four of them, thrown under a heavy tarp in the northeastern corner of the building-three men and one woman. They were fairly muscular, dressed in undertunics and breeches, with heavy boots and leather gloves. This puzzled Jean until he peered at their arms and saw their tattoos. It was traditional, in Camorr, for journeymen artisans to mark their hands or arms with some symbol of their trade. Breathing through his mouth to avoid the stench, Jean shifted the bodies around until he could be sure of those symbols.

Someone had murdered a pair of glasswrights and a pair of goldsmiths. Three of the corpses had obvious stab wounds, and the fourth, the woman…she had a pair of raised purple welts on one cheek of her waxy, bloodless face.

Jean sighed and let the tarp settle back down on top of the bodies. As he did, his eye caught the glimmer of reflected light from the floor. He knelt down and picked up a speck of glass, a sort of flattened drop. It looked as though it had hit the ground in a molten state and cooled there. A brief flick of the light-globe showed him dozens of these little glass specks in the dirt around the tarp.

“Aza Guilla,” Jean whispered, “I stole these robes, but don’t hold it against these people. If I’m the only death-prayer they get, please judge them lightly, for the sorrow of their passing and the indignity of their resting place. Crooked Warden, if you could back that up somehow, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

There was a creak as the doors on the northern wall of the building were pushed open. Jean started to leap backward, but thought better of it; his light was no doubt already seen, and it would be best to play the dignified priest of Aza Guilla. His hatchets remained up his right sleeve.

The last people he expected to walk through the north door of the warehouse were the Berangias sisters.

Cheryn and Raiza wore oilcloaks, but the hoods were thrown back and their shark’s-teeth bangles gleamed by the light of Jean’s globe. Each of the sisters held a light-globe as well. They shook them, and a powerful red glare rose up within the warehouse, as though each woman were cupping fire in the palms of her hands.

“Inquisitive priest,” said one of the sisters. “A good evening to you.”

“Not the sort of place,” said the other, “where your order usually prowls without invitation.”

“My order is concerned with death in every form, and in every place.” Jean gestured toward the tarp with his light-globe. “There has been a foul act committed here; I was saying a death prayer, which is what every soul is due before it passes into the long silence.”

“Oh, a foul act. Shall we leave him to his business, Cheryn?”

“No,” said Raiza, “for his business has been curiously concerned with ours these past few nights, hasn’t it?”

“You’re right, Sister. Once or twice a-prowling, that we might excuse. But this priest has been persistent.”

“Unusually persistent.” The Berangias sisters were coming toward him, slowly, smiling like cats advancing on a crippled mouse. “On our docks and now in our warehouse…”

“Do you dare suggest,” said Jean, his heart racing, “that you intend to interfere with an envoy of the Lady of the Long Silence? Of Aza Guilla, the Goddess of Death itself?”

“Interfering’s what we do professionally, I’m afraid,” said the sister on his right. “We left the place open just in case you might want to stick your head in.”

“Hoped you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“And we know a thing or two about the Lady Most Kind ourselves.”

“Although our service to her is a bit more direct than yours.”

With that, red light gleamed on naked steel; each sister had drawn out a curved, arm-length blade-thieves’ teeth, just as Maranzalla had shown him so many years earlier. The Berangias twins continued their steady approach.

“Well,” said Jean, “if we’re already past the pleasantries, ladies, allow me to quit this masquerade.” Jean tossed his light-globe on the ground, reached up, pulled back his black hood, and slipped off his mask.

“Tannen!” said the sister on his right. “Well, holy shit. So you didn’t go out through the Viscount’s Gate after all.” The Berangias sisters halted, staring at him. Then they began circling to his left, moving in graceful unison, giving themselves more space to take action.

“You have some cheek,” said the other, “impersonating a priest of Aza Guilla.”

“Beg pardon? You were going to kill a priest of Aza Guilla.”

“Yes, well, you seem to have saved us from that particular blasphemy, haven’t you?”

“This is convenient!” said the other sister. “I never dreamed it’d be this easy.”

“Oh, whatever it is,” said Jean, “I guarantee it won’t be easy.”

“Did you like our work, in your little glass cellar?” The sister on the left spoke now. “Your two friends, the Sanza twins. Twins done in by twins, same wounds to the throat, same pose on the floor. Seemed appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” Jean felt new anger building like pressure at the back of his skull. He ground his teeth together. “Mark my words, bitch. I’ve been wondering how I’d feel when this moment finally came, and I have to say, I think I’m going to feel pretty fucking good.”

The Berangias sisters shrugged off their cloaks with nearly identical motions. As the oilcoth fluttered to the floor, they threw down their light-globes and drew out their other blades. Two sisters; four knives. They stared intently at Jean in the mingled red-and-white light and crouched, as they had a hundred times before crowds of screaming thousands at the Shifting Revel. As they had a hundred times before pleading victims in Capa Barsavi’s court.

“Wicked sisters,” said Jean, as he let the hatchets fall out of his right robe sleeve and into his hand, “I’d like you to meet the Wicked Sisters.”

3

“BUT DON’T take it too amiss, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia as she set her hollowed-out orange back down on her shelf. “We have a few possible remedies.”

“We might only be out of the necessary funds for a few days,” said Don Lorenzo. “I have other sources I can tap; I do have peers who would be good for the loan of a few thousand. I even have some old favors I can call in.”

“That…that is a relief, my lord and lady, quite a relief. I am pleased to hear that your…situation need not ruin our plan. And I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, not at all. If anyone knows about financial hardship, why, it would be the House of bel Auster.”

“I shall speak to several of my likely sources of a loan next Idler’s Day-which is, of course, the Day of Changes. Have you ever been to any formal celebration of the festival, Lukas?”

“I’m afraid not, Don Lorenzo. I have, previously, never been in Camorr at the Midsummer-mark.”

“Really?” Doña Sofia raised her eyebrows at her husband. “Why don’t we bring Lukas with us to the duke’s feast?”

“An excellent idea!” Don Lorenzo beamed at Locke. “Lukas, since we can’t leave until I’ve secured a few thousand more crowns anyway, why not be our guest? Every peer in Camorr will be there; every man and woman of importance from the lower city-”

“At least,” said Doña Sofia, “the ones that currently have the duke’s favor.”

“Of course,” said Lorenzo. “Do come with us. The feast will be held in Raven’s Reach; the duke opens his tower only on this one occasion every year.”

“My lord and lady Salvara, this is…quite an unexpected honor. But though I fear very much to refuse your hospitality, I also fear that it might possibly interfere with my ongoing work on our behalf.”

“Oh, come, Lukas,” said Lorenzo. “It’s four days hence; you said you’d be supervising loading the first galleon for the next few days. Take a rest from your labors and come enjoy a very singular opportunity. Sofia can show you around while I press some of my peers for the loans I need. With that money in hand, we should be able to set out just a few days after that, correct? Assuming you’ve told us of every possible complication?”

“Yes, my lord Salvara, the matter of the second galleon is the only complication we face other than your, ah, loss of fluidity. And, at any rate, even its cargo for Balinel will not be in the city until next week. Fortune and the Marrows may be favoring us once again.”

“It’s settled, then?” Doña Sofia linked hands with her husband and smiled. “You’ll be our guest at Raven’s Reach?”

“It’s accounted something of an honor,” confided the don, “to bring an unusual and interesting guest to the duke’s celebration. So we are eager to have you with us for several reasons.”

“If it would give you pleasure,” said Locke. “I fear that I am not much for celebrations, but I can set aside my work for a night to attend.”

“You won’t be sorry, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia. “I’m sure we’ll all think back very fondly on the feast when we begin our voyage.”

4

IN MANY ways, two was the worst possible number of multiple opponents in a close-quarters fight; it was nearly impossible to lead them into crowding and interfering with one another, especially if they were experienced at working together. And if anyone in Camorr was any good at fighting in tandem, it was the Berangias sisters.

Jean accounted his scant advantages as he twirled his hatchets and waited for one of the sisters to make the first move. He’d seen them in action at least a dozen times, at the Shifting Revel and in the Floating Grave. It might not do him much good, since he didn’t happen to be a shark, but it was something.

“We’ve heard that you’re supposed to be good,” said the sister on his left, and just as she spoke, the one on the right exploded forward, one knife out in a guard position and the other held low to stab. Jean sidestepped her lunge, blocked the thrusting knife with his left hatchet, and whipped the other one toward her eyes. Her second blade was already there; the hatchet rebounded off the studded handguard. She was as impossibly fast as he’d feared. So be it; he kicked out at her left knee, an easy trick he’d used to break a dozen kneecaps over the years.

Somehow, she sensed the blow coming and bent her leg to deflect it. It struck her calf, pushing her off balance but accomplishing little else. Jean disengaged his hatchets to swing at where she should be falling, but she turned her sideways fall into a whirlwind kick; she swiveled on her left hip faster than his eyes could follow, and her right leg whipped around in a blurred arc. That foot cracked against his forehead, right above his eyes, and the whole world shuddered.

Chasson. Of course. He could really learn to hate the art.

He stumbled backward; drilled instinct alone saved him from her follow-up-a straight thrust that should have punched through his solar plexus and buried her blade to the hilt. He swung his hatchets down and inward-a maneuver Don Maranzalla had jokingly referred to as the “crab’s claws”; he hooked her blade with his right-hand hatchet and yanked it sideways. That actually surprised her-Jean took advantage of her split-second hesitation to ram the tip of his other hatchet into the base of her neck. He didn’t have time for an actual swing, but he could give a pretty forceful poke. She stumbled back, coughing, and he suddenly had a few feet of space once again. He stepped back another yard. The wall of the warehouse was looming behind him, but at a range of scant inches those knives were greatly superior to his own weapons. He needed reach to swing.

The left-hand Berangias dashed forward as the one on the right faded back, and Jean swore under his breath. With his back to the wall they couldn’t try to take him from opposite sides, but he couldn’t run-and they could trade off attacks, one falling back to recover while the other sister continued to wear him down.

His temper rose again. Bellowing, he tossed both of his hatchets at his new opponent. That caught her by surprise. She sidestepped with speed that matched her sister, and the weapons whirled past on either side, one of them catching at her hair. But Jean hadn’t been in earnest with his gentle throw; he charged at her, hands outstretched-empty hands would do better against thieves’ teeth when opponents were close enough to kiss. The sister before him spread her blades again, confident of a quick kill, yet it was easy to underestimate Jean’s own speed if one hadn’t seen it up close before. His hands clamped down on her forearms. Putting his strength and mass to good use, he spread her arms forcefully; as expected, she raised one of her legs to give him a sharp kick.

Digging his fingers into the hard muscle of her forearms, keeping her blades firmly to the outside, he yanked as hard as he could. She flew forward, and with a smack that echoed in the warehouse, her nose met Jean’s forehead. Hot blood spattered; it was on his robes, but he hoped Aza Guilla might eventually forgive him that little indignity. Before his opponent could recover, Jean let her arms go, cupped her entire face in one of his hands, and pushed from the hip with all of his might, like a shot-putter at the Therin Throne games of old. She flew into her sister, who barely got her blades out of the way in time to avoid skewering her sibling, and the Berangias twins toppled against the tarp-covered pile of corpses.

Jean ran to the center of the warehouse floor, where his hatchets lay on the dirt. He picked them up, twirled them once, and quickly worked at the little clasp that held his robe together beneath the collar. While the sisters recovered themselves, Jean shrugged out of his robe and let it fall to the ground.

The Berangias twins advanced on him again, about ten feet apart, and now they looked distinctly upset. Gods, Jean thought, most men would take a broken nose as a sign to run like hell. But the sisters continued to bear down on him, malice gleaming in their dark eyes. The eerie red-and-white light was at their back, and it seemed to outline them in eldritch fire as they spread their blades for another pass at him.

At least he had room to maneuver now.

Without a word between them, the Berangias sisters took to their heels and rushed at him, four knives gleaming. It was their own professionalism that saved Jean this time. He knew before it happened that one would feint and one would strike home. The sister on his left, the one with the broken nose, attacked a split second before the one on his right. With his left-hand hatchet raised as a guard, he stepped directly into the path of the one on his left. The other sister, eyes wide in surprise, lunged at the space he’d just slipped out of, and Jean swung his right-hand hatchet in a backhand arc, ball first, that caught her directly atop her skull. There was a wet crack, and she hit the floor hard, knives falling from her nerveless fingers.

The remaining sister screamed, and Jean’s own mistake caught up with him at that moment; a feint can become a killing strike once more with very little effort. Her blades slashed out just as he was raising his right-hand hatchet once again; he caught and deflected one with his raised hatchet, but the other slid agonizingly across his ribs just beneath his right breast, laying open skin and fat and muscle. He gasped, and she kicked him in the stomach, staggering him. He toppled onto his back.

She was right on top of him, blood streaming down her face and neck, eyes full of white-hot hate. As she lunged down, he kicked out with both of his legs. The air exploded out of her lungs and she flew back, but there was a sharp pain in his right biceps, and a line of fire seemed to erupt on his left thigh. Damn, she’d had her blades in him when he pushed her back! She’d slashed open a ragged line along the top of his thigh, with his help. He groaned. This had to end quickly, or blood loss would do for him as surely as the blades of the surviving sister.

She was back on her feet already; gods, she was fast. Jean heaved himself up to his knees, feeling a tearing pain across his right ribs. He could feel warm wetness cascading down his stomach and his legs; that wetness was time, running out. She was charging at him again; red light gleamed on steel, and Jean made his last move.

His right arm didn’t feel strong enough for a proper throw, so he tossed his right-hand hatchet at her, underhand, directly into her face. It didn’t have the speed to injure, let alone kill, but she flinched for a second, and that was long enough. Jean whipped his left-hand hatchet sideways and into her right knee; it broke with the most satisfying noise Jean could recall hearing in his life. She staggered; a rapid yank and a backhand whirl, and his blade bit deep into the front of her other knee. Her blades came down at him then, and he threw himself sideways. Steel whistled just past his ears as its wielder toppled forward, unable to bear weight on her legs any longer. She screamed once again.

Jean rolled several times to his right-a wise decision. When he stumbled up to his feet, clutching at his right side, he saw the surviving sister dragging herself toward him, one blade still held tightly in her right hand.

“You’re bleeding hard, Tannen. You won’t live out the night, you fucking bastard.”

“That’s Gentleman Bastard,” he said. “And there’s a chance I won’t. But you know what? Calo and Galdo Sanza are laughing at you, bitch.”

He wound up with his left arm and let his remaining hatchet fly, a true throw this time, with all the strength and hatred he could put behind it. The blade struck home right between the Berangias sister’s eyes. With the most incredible expression of surprise on her face she fell forward and sprawled like a rag doll.

Jean wasted no time in reflection. He gathered his hatchets and threw on one of the sisters’ oilcloaks, putting up the hood. His head was swimming; he recognized all the signs of blood loss, which he’d had the misfortune to experience before. Leaving the bodies of the Berangias sisters in the light of the fallen glow-globes, he stumbled back out into the night. He would avoid the Cauldron, where some sort of trouble was sure to lurk, and make a straight run across the north of the Wooden Waste. If he could just make it to the Ashfall hovel, Ibelius would be there, and Ibelius would have some trick up his sleeves.

If the dog-leech attempted to use a poultice on him, however, Jean was likely to break his fingers.

5

IN HER solarium atop Amberglass tower, Doña Vorchenza spent the midnight hour in her favorite chair, peering at the evening’s notes. There were reports of the ongoing strife from the Gray King’s ascension to Barsavi’s seat; more thieves found lying in abandoned buildings with their throats slashed. Vorchenza shook her head; this mess was really the last thing she needed with the affair of the Thorn finally coming to a head. Raza had identified and exiled half a dozen of her spies among the gangs; that in itself was deeply troubling. None of them had been aware of one another, as agents. So either all of her agents were clumsier than she’d suspected, or Raza was fantastically observant. Or there was a breach in her trust at some level above the spies on the street.

Damnation. And why had the man exiled them, rather than slaying them outright? Was he trying to avoid antagonizing her? He’d certainly not succeeded. It was time to send him a very clear message of her own-to summon this Capa Raza to a meeting with Stephen, with forty or fifty blackjackets to emphasize her points.

The elaborate locks to her solarium door clicked, and the door slid open. She hadn’t been expecting Stephen to return this evening; what a fortunate coincidence. She could give him her thoughts on the Raza situation…

The man that entered her solarium wasn’t Stephen Reynart.

He was a rugged man, lean-cheeked and dark-eyed; his black hair was slashed with gray at his temples, and he strolled into her most private chamber as though he belonged there. He wore a gray coat, gray breeches, gray hose, and gray shoes; his gloves and vest were gray, and only the silk neck-cloths tied casually above his chest had color; they were bloodred.

Doña Vorchenza’s heart hammered; she put a hand to her chest and stared in disbelief. Not only had the intruder managed to open the door, and done so without taking a crossbow bolt in the back, but there was another man behind him-a younger man, bright-eyed and balding, dressed in a similar gray fashion, with only the bright scarlet cuffs of his coat to set him apart.

“Who the hell are you?” she bellowed, and for a moment that age-weakened voice rose to something like its old power. She rose from her seat, fists clenched. “How did you get up here?”

“We are your servants, my lady Vorchenza; your servants come to pay you our proper respects at last. You must forgive us our previous discourtesy; things have been so busy of late in my little kingdom.”

“You speak as though I should know you, sir. I asked your name.”

“I have several,” said the older man, “but now I am called Capa Raza. This is my associate, who styles himself the Falconer. And as for how we came to your truly lovely solarium…”

He gestured to the Falconer, who held up his left hand, palm spread toward Doña Vorchenza. The coat sleeve fell away, revealing three thick black lines tattooed at his wrist.

“Gods,” Vorchenza whispered. “A Bondsmage.”

“Indeed,” said Capa Raza, “for which, forgive me, but his arts seemed the only way to ensure that your servants would haul us up here, and the only way to ensure we could enter your sanctum without disturbing you beforehand.”

“I am disturbed now,” she spat. “What is your meaning here?”

“It is past time,” said Raza, “for my associate and I to have a conversation with the duke’s Spider.”

“What are you speaking of? This is my tower; other than my servants, there is no one else here.”

“True,” said Capa Raza, “so there is no need to maintain your little fiction before us, my lady.”

“You,” said Doña Vorchenza coldly and levelly, “are greatly mistaken.”

“Those files behind you, what are they? Recipes? Those notes beside your chair-does Stephen Reynart give you regular reports on the cuts and colors of this year’s new dresses, fresh off the docks? Come, my lady. I have very unusual means of gathering information, and I am no dullard. I would construe any further dissembling on your part as a deliberate insult.”

“I regard your uninvited presence here,” said Doña Vorchenza after a moment of consideration, “as nothing less.”

“I have displeased you,” said Raza, “and for that I apologize. But have you any means to back that displeasure with force? Your servants sleep peacefully; your Reynart and all of your Midnighters are elsewhere, prying into my affairs. You are alone with us, Doña Vorchenza, so why not speak civilly? I have come to be civil, and to speak in earnest.”

She stared coldly at him for several moments, and then waved a hand at one of the solarium’s armchairs. “Have a seat, Master Revenge. I fear there’s no comfortable chair for your associate.”

“It will be well,” said the Falconer. “I’m very fond of writing desks.” He settled himself behind the little desk near the door, while Raza crossed the room and sat down opposite Doña Vorchenza.

“Hmmm. Revenge, indeed. And have you had it?”

“I have,” said Capa Raza cheerfully. “I find it’s everything it’s been made out to be.”

“You bore Capa Barsavi some grudge?”

“Ha! Some grudge, yes. It could be said that’s why I had his sons murdered while he watched, and then fed him to the sharks he so loved.”

“Old business between the two of you?”

“I have dreamed of Vencarlo Barsavi’s ruin for twenty years,” said Raza. “And now I’ve brought it about, and I’ve replaced him. I’m sorry if this affair has been…an inconvenience for you. But that is all that I am sorry for.”

“Barsavi was not a kind man,” said Vorchenza. “He was a ruthless criminal. But he was perceptive; he understood many things the lesser capas did not. The arrangement I made with him bore fruit on both sides.”

“And it would be a shame to lose it,” said Raza. “I admire the Secret Peace very much, Doña Vorchenza. My admiration for it is quite distinct from my loathing for Barsavi. I should like to see the arrangement continued in full. I gave orders to that effect, on the very night I took Barsavi’s place.”

“So my agents tell me,” said Doña Vorchenza. “But I must confess I had hoped to hear it in your own words before now.”

“My delay was unavoidable,” said Raza. “But there we are; I have terrible manners, to which I readily admit. Allow me to make it up to you.”

“How so?”

“I should greatly enjoy a chance to attend the duke’s Day of Changes feast; I am capable of dressing and acting rather well. I could be introduced as a gentleman of independent means-I assure you, no one in Raven’s Reach would recognize me. I gazed up at these towers as a boy in Camorr. I should like to pay my proper respects to the peers of Camorr just once. I would not come without gifts; I have something rather lavish in mind.”

“That,” said Doña Vorchenza slowly, “may be too much to ask. Our worlds, Capa Raza, are not meant to meet; I do not come to your thieves’ revels.”

“Yet your agents do,” he said cheerfully.

“No longer. Tell me, why did you order them exiled? The penalty for turncoating among your people is death. So why didn’t they merit a knife across the throat?”

“Would you really prefer them dead, Doña Vorchenza?”

“Hardly. But I am curious about your motives.”

“I, for my part, thought they were transparent. I need to have a measure of security; I simply cannot leave your agents lying about underfoot, as Barsavi did. Of course, I didn’t want to antagonize you more than necessary, so I presumed letting them live would be a friendly gesture.”

“Hmmm.”

“Doña Vorchenza,” said Raza, “I have every confidence that you will begin the work of inserting new agents into the ranks of my people almost immediately. I welcome it; may the most subtle planner win. But we have set aside the main point of this conversation.”

“Capa Raza,” said the doña, “you do not seem to be a man who needs sentiments wrapped in delicacy to salve his feelings, so let me be plain. It is one thing entirely for the two of us to have a working relationship, to preserve the Secret Peace for the good of all Camorr. I am even content to meet with you here, if I must, assuming you are properly invited and escorted. But I simply cannot bring a man of your station into the duke’s presence.”

“That is disappointing,” said Capa Raza. “Yet he can have Giancana Meraggio as a guest, can he not? A man who utilized my predecessor’s services on many occasions? And many other captains of shipping and finance who profited from arrangements with Barsavi’s gangs? The Secret Peace enriches every peer of Camorr; I am, in effect, their servant. My forbearance keeps money in their pockets. Am I truly so base a creature that I cannot stand by the refreshment tables a while and merely enjoy the sights of the affair? Wander the Sky Garden and satisfy my curiosity?”

“Capa Raza,” said Doña Vorchenza, “you are plucking at strings of conscience that will yield no sound; I am not the duke’s Spider because I have a soft heart. I mean you no insult, truly, but let me frame it in these terms; you have been Capa now for barely one week. I have only begun to form my opinion of you. You remain a stranger, sir; if you rule a year from now, and you maintain stability among the Right People, and preserve the Secret Peace, well then-perhaps some consideration could be given to what you propose.”

“And that is how it must be?”

“That is how it must be-for now.”

“Alas,” said Capa Raza. “This refusal pains me more than you could know; I have gifts that I simply cannot wait until next year to reveal to all the peers of this fair city. I must, with all apologies, refuse your refusal.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Falconer…”

The Bondsmage stood up at Doña Vorchenza’s writing desk; he’d taken a quill in his hands and set one of her sheets of parchment out before him. “Doña Vorchenza,” he said as he wrote in a bold, looping script; “Angiavesta Vorchenza, is it not? What a lovely name…what a very lovely, very true name…”

In his left hand the silver thread wove back and forth; his fingers flew, and on the page a strange silver-blue glow began to arise; ANGIAVESTA VORCHENZA was outlined in that fire, and across the room the Doña moaned and clutched her head.

“I am sorry to press my case by less than amiable means, Doña Vorchenza,” said Capa Raza, “but can you not see that it would be to the duke’s very great advantage to have me as his guest? Surely you would not want to deny him those gifts which I would place at his feet, with all due respect.”

“I…I cannot say…”

“Yes,” said the Falconer. “Oh yes, you would be very pleased to accept this idea; to ensure that Capa Raza was invited to the Day of Changes feast, in the most cordial spirit of good fellowship.”

The words on the parchment in his hands glowed more brightly.

“Capa Raza,” said Doña Vorchenza slowly, “you must…of course…accept the duke’s hospitality.”

“You will not be denied,” said the Falconer. “Capa Raza must agree to accept your invitation; you simply will not settle for a refusal.”

“I will not…take no…for an answer.”

“And I will not give it,” said Raza. “You are most kind, Doña Vorchenza. Most kind. And my gifts? I have four exquisite sculptures I should like to give to the duke. I have no need to intrude on his affairs; my men can simply leave them somewhere at the feast, with your cooperation. We can bring them to his attention when he is less pressed for time.”

“How lovely,” said the Falconer. “You are very fond of this suggestion.”

“Nothing…would please me more…Capa Raza. Very…proper of you.”

“Yes,” said Capa Raza, “it is very proper of me. It is only just.” He chuckled, then rose from his seat and waved to the Falconer.

“Doña Vorchenza,” said the Bondsmage, “this conversation has pleased you greatly. You will look forward to seeing Capa Raza at the Day of Changes, and to lending him every assistance in bringing his important gifts into Raven’s Reach.” He folded the parchment and slipped it into a waistcoat pocket, then made a few more gestures with his silver thread.

Doña Vorchenza blinked several times, and breathed deeply. “Capa Raza,” she said, “must you really go? It has made for a pleasant diversion, speaking to you this evening.”

“And I, for my part, have found you the most charming of hostesses, my lady Vorchenza.” He bowed from the waist, right foot forward in perfect courtly fashion. “But business is pressing everywhere; I must be about mine, and leave you to yours.”

“So be it, dear boy.” She began to rise, and he gestured for her to stay seated.

“No, no; don’t trouble yourself on our account. We can find our way back down your lovely tower on our own; pray return to whatever you were doing before I interrupted.”

“It was hardly an interruption,” said Doña Vorchenza. “I shall see you, then, on the Day of Changes? You will accept the invitation?”

“Yes,” said Capa Raza. He turned and favored her with a smile before he stepped out through the solarium door. “I gladly accept your invitation. And I shall see you on the Day of Changes, at Raven’s Reach.”

1

“CAN YOU ASSURE me,” said Ibelius, “that you will take better care for yourself than you did previously, or that your friend Jean has taken for himself, this past week?”

“Master Ibelius,” said Locke, “you are our physiker, not our mother. And as I have already told you a dozen times this afternoon, I am entirely prepared-body and mind-for this affair at Raven’s Reach. I am the soul of caution.”

“La, sir, if that is the case, I should hope never to meet the soul of recklessness.”

“Ibelius,” groaned Jean, “let him alone; you are henpecking him without having the decency to marry him first.”

Jean sat upon the sleeping pallet, haggard and rather scruffy; the darkness of the hairs thickening on his face only emphasized his own unnatural pallor. His injuries had been a close thing. A great wad of cloth was tied around his naked chest, and similar bandages wrapped his leg beneath his breeches and his upper right arm.

“These physikers are handy things,” said Locke, adjusting his (formerly Meraggio’s) coat cuffs, “but I think next time we should pay a bit extra for the silent version, Jean.”

“And then you may dress your own wounds, sir, and apply your own poultices-though I daresay it would be quicker and easier for the pair of you to simply dig your own graves and take your ease in them until your inevitable transition to a more quiet state of affairs!”

“Master Ibelius,” said Locke, grasping the old man by the arms, “Jean and I are more grateful than we can say for your aid; I suspect that we would both be dead without your intervention. I mean to repay you for the time you’ve endured with us here in this hovel; I expect to come into a few thousand crowns in very short order. Some of it is yours; you shall have a new life far from here with very full pockets. And the rest will be used to put Capa Raza under the earth; take heart. Look what Jean has already done to his sisters.”

“A feat I’m in no condition to perform again,” said Jean. “Take care of yourself, Locke; I won’t be able to come running to the rescue if something goes awry tonight.”

“Though I have no doubt you would try,” muttered Ibelius.

“Don’t worry, Jean. It’ll be nothing but a routine evening with the duke and his entire fucking court, assembled in a glass tower six hundred feet in the air. What could possibly go wrong?”

“That sarcasm sounds halfhearted,” said Jean. “You’re really looking forward to this, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am, Jean. Chains would be beside himself with glee if he were alive; I’m going to play Lukas Fehrwight in front of the gods-damned duke, not to mention all the other peers of our acquaintance. The de Marres, the Feluccias, old Javarriz…Glory to the Crooked Warden, it’s going to be fantastic fucking fun. Assuming I’m on top of my game. And then…money in our pockets. And then revenge.”

“When are you expected at the Salvara manor?”

“Third hour of the afternoon, which means I’ve no more time to dawdle. Jean, Ibelius…how do I look?”

“I would hardly recognize the man we laid on that sickbed not so many days ago,” said Ibelius. “I’ll confess, you’ve a surprising degree of professional skill; I’d never conceived of such a thing as this false-facing of yours.”

“That’s to our advantage, Master Ibelius,” said Jean. “Very few have. You look ready for the evening, Master Fehrwight. Now, you’re going to take the long way round to the Isla Durona, right?”

“Gods, yes. I’m only mad to a certain measure. I’ll go north through the graveyards and up through the Quiet; I expect I won’t see a soul once I’m out of Ashfall.”

As he spoke, he draped himself with the oilcloak Jean had brought back from his encounter with the Berangias sisters, despite the sweltering heat. It would conceal his fine garments from sight until he reached the Hill of Whispers. A man dressed in evening best might attract too much attention from some of the lurkers in the dark places of Ashfall.

“I’m for Raven’s Reach, then,” said Locke. “Until much later, Jean; rest up. Master Ibelius, favor Jean with your motherly attention; I hope to return with very good news.”

“I shall be grateful if you return at all,” said Ibelius.

2

MIDSUMMER-MARK; the Day of Changes, the seventeenth of Parthis in the Seventy-eighth Year of Aza Guilla, as the Therin Calendar would have it. On the Day of Changes, the city of Camorr went mad.

A Shifting Revel commanded the wide circular pond of the market, but this one was smaller and more ragged than the formal monthly Revels. The centerpiece of this one was a floating handball court made from a number of flat-topped barges lashed together. Teams of commoners had selected colors from out of a barrel; now randomly matched, they were mauling one another drunkenly as a crowd composed entirely of commoners cheered. When a team scored, a small boat with a beer keg lashed amidships would pull alongside the playing court and ladle out a drink for every man on that team. Naturally, the matches got wilder and dirtier as they progressed; quite a few players were flung into the water, there to be fished out by a crew of diligent yellowjackets who wouldn’t otherwise dream of interfering.

Commoners ruled the streets of lower Camorr on the Day of Changes. They held wandering picnics, hauling ale barrels and wine bags around with them. Streams of celebrants would cross paths, jostle, join, and split; a gods’-eye view of the affair would have shown disorderly men and women circulating through the city streets like blood through the vessels of an inebriated man.

In the Snare, business was bountiful. The celebration sucked in sailors and visitors from foreign shores like a tidal pool drawing downward; a few hours of Camorri hospitality and the guest revelers were unlikely to be able to tell their asses from their eardrums. There would be few ships setting out from port the next day; few would have the able manpower necessary to raise so much as a flag pennant, let alone a sail.

In the Cauldron and the Narrows and the Dregs, Capa Raza’s people celebrated their new ruler’s largesse. By his order, dozens upon dozens of casks of cheap red wine had been rolled out in dog-carts. Those gangs that were too poor or too lazy to journey to the crossroads of wickedness that was the Snare drank themselves silly on their own doorsteps. Raza’s garristas passed through the neighborhoods he claimed as his own with baskets of bread, passing them out to anyone who asked for them. It turned out that each loaf had either a copper piece or a silver piece baked into it, and when these hidden gifts were revealed (by means of a few unlucky broken teeth), not a single loaf of bread was safe from depredation south of the Temple District.

Raza’s Floating Grave was open for visitors; several of his garristas and their gangs amused themselves with a game of cards that grew to epic size; at its height, forty-five men and women were bickering and shuffling and drinking and screaming at one another on the floor above the dark waters of the Waste-the waters that had eaten Capa Barsavi and his entire family.

Raza was nowhere to be seen; Raza had business in the north that evening, and he told none outside his close circle of original servants that he would be at the duke’s court, looking down on them from the tower of Raven ’s Reach.

In the Temple District, the Day of Changes was celebrated in a more restrained fashion. Each temple’s full complement of priests and initiates traded places with another in an ever-shifting cycle. The black-robes of Aza Guilla’s house conducted a stately ritual on the steps of Iono’s temple; the servants of the Father of Grasping Waters did likewise at theirs. Dama Elliza and Azri, Morgante and Nara, Gandolo and Sendovani; all the delegations of the divine burned candles and sang to the sky before a different altar, then moved on a few minutes later. A few extra benedictions were offered at the burnt-out House of Perelandro, where a single old man in the white robes of the Lord of the Overlooked, recently summoned from Ashmere, pondered the mess of a temple that had been thrust into his care. He had no idea how to begin composing his report to the chief divine of Perelandro on the destruction he’d found in an Elderglass cellar-the existence of which he’d not been informed of before his journey.

In the North Corner and Fountain Bend, well-to-do young couples made for Twosilver Green, where it was thought to be good luck to make love on the eve of the Midsummer-mark. It was said that any union consummated there before Falselight would bring the couple whatever they most desired in a child. This was a pleasant bonus, if true, but for the time being most of the men and women hidden away among the crushed-stone paths and rustling walls of greenery desired only one another.

On the waters of Old Harbor, the frigate Satisfaction floated at anchor, yellow flags flying atop its masts, yellow lanterns shining even by day. A dozen figures moved on its deck, surreptitiously going about the business of preparing the ship for night action. Crossbows were racked at the masts, and canvas tarps flung over them. Antiboarding nets were hauled out below the rails on the ship’s upper deck and set there for rapid rigging, out of sight. Buckets of sand were set out to smother flames; if the shore engines let fly, some of them would surely hurl alchemical fire, against which water would be worse than useless.

In the darkened holds beneath the ship’s upper deck, another three dozen men and women ate a large meal, to have their stomachs full when the time for action came. There wasn’t an invalid among them; not so much as an ague fever.

At the foot of Raven’s Reach, home and palace of Duke Nicovante of Camorr, a hundred carriages were parked in a spiraling fashion around the tower’s base. Four hundred liveried drivers and guards milled about, enjoying refreshments brought to them by scampering men and women in the duke’s colors. They would be there waiting all night for the descent of their lords and ladies. The Day of Changes was the only day of the year when nearly every peer of Camorr-every lesser noble from the Alcegrante islands and every last member of the Five Families in their glass towers-would be crammed together in one place, to drink and feast and scheme and intrigue and offer compliments and insults while the duke gazed down on them with his rheumy eyes. Each year the coming generation of Camorr’s rulers watched the old guard gray a bit more before their eyes; each year their bows and curtsies grew slightly more exaggerated. Each year the whispers behind their hands grew more poisonous. Nicovante had, perhaps, ruled too long.

There were six chain elevators serving Raven’s Reach; they rose and fell, rose and fell. With each new cage that creaked open at the top of the tower, a new flurry of people in colored coats and elaborate dresses was disgorged onto the embarkation terrace to mingle with the chattering flood of nobles and flatterers, power brokers and pretenders, merchants and idlers and drunkards and courtly predators. The sun beat down on this gathering with all of its power; the lords and ladies of Camorr seemed to be standing on a lake of molten silver, at the top of a pillar of white fire.

The air rippled with waves of heat as the iron cage holding Locke Lamora and the Salvaras swung, clattering, into the locking mechanisms at the edge of the duke’s terrace.

3

“HOLY MARROWS,” said Locke, “but I have never seen the like. I have never been this high in the air; by the Hands Beneath the Waters, I have never been this high in society! My lord and lady Salvara, pardon me if I cling to you both like a drowning man.”

“Sofia and I have been coming here since we were children,” said Lorenzo. “Every year, on this day. It’s only overwhelming the first ten or eleven times you see it, believe me.”

“I shall have to take you at your word, my lord.”

Attendants in black and silver livery, with rows of polished silver buttons gleaming in the sunlight, held the cage door open for them as Locke followed the Salvaras onto the embarkation terrace. A squad of blackjackets marched past, in full ceremonial dress, with rapiers carried over their shoulders in silver-chased scabbards. The soldiers wore tall black fur hats with medallions bearing the crest of the Duchy of Camorr just above their eyes. Locke winced to think at how those must have felt, marching back and forth beneath the sun’s merciless consideration for hours on end. His own clothes were working up a healthy sweat, but he and his hosts had the option of moving inside the tower at will.

“Don Lorenzo and Doña Sofia? My lord and lady Salvara?”

The man who approached them from the edge of the crowd was very tall and wide-shouldered; he stood a full head above most of the Camorri present, and his angular features and singularly fair hair were the mark of the oldest, purest sort of Vadran blood. This man had roots in the far northeast, in Astrath or Vintila, the heartlands of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows. Curiously, he was dressed in Nightglass Company black, with a captain’s silver collar pips, and his voice was pure upper-class Camorr without the hint of any other accent.

“Why, yes,” said Don Lorenzo.

“Your servant, my lord and lady. My name is Stephen Reynart; Doña Vorchenza, I believe, should have mentioned me to you.”

“Oh, of course!” Doña Sofia held out her hand; Reynart bent at the waist with his right foot forward, took her hand, and kissed the air just above it. “So pleased to make your acquaintance at last, Captain Reynart. And how is dear Doña Vorchenza this afternoon?”

“She is knitting, my lady,” said Reynart, with a smirk that told of some private joke. “She has commandeered one of the duke’s sitting rooms for herself; you know how she feels about large, noisy gatherings.”

“I must, of course, find her,” said Sofia. “I should love to see her.”

“I’m sure the feeling will be mutual, my lady. But may I presume? Is this Master Fehrwight, the merchant of Emberlain I was told you would be bringing?” Reynart bowed again, just the neck this time, and in heavily accented Vadran he said, “May the Marrows run sweet and the seas run calm, Master Fehrwight.”

“May the Hands Beneath the Waves carry you to good fortune,” Locke replied in his own much smoother Vadran, genuinely surprised. He switched back to Therin for the sake of politeness. “One of my countrymen, Captain Reynart? In the service of the duke of Camorr? How fascinating!”

“I am most definitely of the Vadran blood,” said Reynart, “but my parents died when I was an infant, on a trading mission to this city. I was adopted and raised by Doña Vorchenza, the countess of Amberglass-the bright golden tower over there. She had no children of her own. Although I cannot inherit her title and her properties, I have been allowed to serve in the duke’s Nightglass Company.”

“Astonishing! I must say, you look exceedingly formidable-the image of the kings of the Marrows themselves. I’d wager the duke is only too pleased to have you in his service.”

“I hope with all my heart for that to be true, Master Fehrwight. But come; I’m holding you up. I beg pardon, my lord and lady Salvara; I am hardly a worthy topic of conversation. Let me show you into the tower, by your leave.”

“By all means,” said Sofia. She leaned close to Locke’s ear and whispered, “Doña Vorchenza is a dear old thing, something like a grandmother to all of us Alcegrante ladies. She is the arbiter of all our gossip, you might say. She is not well-she is more and more distant with every passing month-but she is still very close to us. I hope you will have the chance to make her acquaintance.”

“I shall look forward to it, my lady Salvara.”

Reynart ushered them into the tower of Raven ’s Reach itself, and the sight that met Locke’s eyes drew an unwilling gasp from his mouth.

From the outside, Raven’s Reach was opaque silver. From the inside, at least on the levels he could see, it was nearly transparent. A smoky haze seemed to live within the glass, cutting out the glare of the sun, reducing it to a plain white circle overhead that the naked eye could easily bear to regard. But in all other ways it let in the view as though it were not there at all. The hilly countryside and the wide Angevine lay to the north, while all the islands of the lower city lay spread like illustrations on a map to the south. Locke could even make out the thin black shapes of ships’ masts bobbing past the southern edge of the city. His stomach fluttered with the thrill of vertigo.

On the level of the tower just above them, the Sky Garden began; there were said to be a hundred tons of rich earth in the pots and troughs atop that roof. Vines cascaded down the sides; well-tended bushes and full-sized trees sprouted from the apex of the tower-a little round forest in miniature. In the branches of one of those trees, facing south to the Iron Sea, was a wooden chair that was regarded as the very highest point in Camorr any sane person could reach. The Sky Garden would be full of children; it was where all the youngest nobles would be released to amuse themselves while their parents tended to the business of the court beneath their feet.

The floor they stood on did not cover the full hundred-foot width of the tower; it was a hemisphere, covering only the north half of the tower’s diameter. Locke grasped a rail at the southern edge of the floor and looked down; there were four other hemispherical galleries beneath them, each about twenty feet below the one above, and each one full of men and women. The vertigo threatened to swallow him again. Staring down at least eighty feet to “ground,” with the transparent side of the tower and that mind-twisting southern view spread out before him, he felt almost as though the world were tilting on its axis. The hand of Don Salvara on his shoulder brought him back to the present.

“You’ve got Raven’s Reach disease, Lukas,” the don laughed. “You’re clutching that rail like a lover. Come have some refreshments; your eyes will sort out the views in time, and it will all come to seem perfectly normal.”

“Oh, my lord Salvara, if only that should prove to be the case! But I would be glad to visit the banquet tables.”

The don led him through the press of silks and cottons and cashmeres and rare furs, nodding here and waving there. Sofia had vanished, along with Reynart.

The banquet tables (or perhaps these were merely the appetizer tables; the light afternoon refreshments at a feast like this could rival the main course from any lesser occasion) were laid out with silver-trimmed linen cloths, fifty feet from end to end. Guild Chefs-the masters of the Eight Beautiful Arts of Camorr-stood at attention in their cream-yellow ceremonial robes and black scholars’ caps with hanging gold cords behind their ears. Each chef, male or female, had intricate black tattoos on each of the four fingers of their hands; every design representing mastery of one of the Eight Gourmet Forms.

At one end of the banquet table were desserts (the Fifth Beautiful Art): cherry cream cakes encased in shells of gold leaf that were intended to be eaten; cinnamon tarts painstakingly assembled with honey-paste glue into the shape of sailing vessels, a whole fleet of little ships with white marzipan sails and raisins for crewmen. There were hollowed-out pears, their cores replaced with cylinders of river-melon fruit or brandy creams; there were shaved river-melons, their green exteriors scraped down to reveal the pink flesh inside. Every exposed pink face bore a relief sculpture of the crest of Camorr, and alchemical globes set within the melons made them glow with an inviting pink light.

At the other end of the table were meats. Each one of the silver platters held a phantasmavola: an Impossible Dish, an imaginary animal formed by joining the halves of two separate creatures during preparation and cooking. Locke saw a roast boar with the head of a salmon, resting on a pile of black caviar. Nearby there was a pig’s head, complete with a marsh apple in its mouth, with a roast capon for a body. The whole affair was covered in brown caramel sauce and figs, and Locke gave in to the growling sensation at the bottom of his stomach. He let one of the chefs slice him a fair portion of the pig/capon, which he ate from a silver dish with a little silver fork; it came apart in his mouth with the texture of butter, and the flavors set his head whirling. He hadn’t tasted anything so magnificent in weeks, and he knew that it would have taken all of his powers, with the help of the Sanza brothers at their peak, to prepare something so fine in his old glass cellar. But that thought stole some of the savor from his meal, and he finished quickly.

The bullock’s head with the body of a squid, he was happy to avoid.

At the center of the banquet tables was the crowning glory (of this particular level, at least). It was a massively unsubtle subtlety, eight feet in length: an edible sculpture of the city of Camorr. The islands were baked sweetbread on little raised metal platforms; the channels between those platforms ran deep with some blue liquor that was being ladled out in cups by a chef at the right side of the diorama. Each major bridge in the city was represented by a crystallized-sugar replica; each major Elderglass landmark was given a tiny analog, from the Broken Tower in the south to the House of Glass Roses to the Five Towers overlooking everything. Locke peered very closely. There was even a tiny frosted chocolate galleon little bigger than an almond, floating on a brown pudding Wooden Waste.

“How are you faring, Lukas?”

Don Salvara was beside him again, wineglass in hand; a black-coated attendant plucked Locke’s used dish from his fingers the moment he turned to speak to the don.

“I am overwhelmed,” said Locke, without much exaggeration. “I had no idea what to expect. By the Marrows, perhaps it is well that I had no preconceptions. The court of the king of the Marrows must be like this; I can think of nowhere else that would possibly compare.”

“You honor our city with your kind thoughts,” said Lorenzo. “I’m very pleased you decided to join us; I’ve just been around chatting with a few of my peers. I’ll have a serious talk with one of them in about an hour; I think he’ll be good for about three thousand crowns. I hate to say it, but he’s rather malleable, and he’s very fond of me.”

“Lukas,” cried Doña Sofia as she reappeared with Reynart at her heels, “is Lorenzo showing you around properly?”

“My lady Salvara, I am quite astounded by the spectacle of this feast; I daresay your husband could leave me sitting in a corner with my thumb in my mouth, and I would be adequately entertained all evening.”

“I would do no such thing, of course,” laughed Don Salvara. “I was just off speaking to Don Bellarigio, love; he’s here with that sculptor he’s been patronizing these past few months, that Lashani fellow with the one eye.”

A team of liveried attendants walked past, four men carrying something heavy on a wooden bier between them. The object was a gold-and-glass sculpture of some sort-a gleaming pyramid crested with the arms of Camorr; it must have had alchemical lamps within it, for the glass glowed a lovely shade of orange. As Locke watched, the color shifted to green, and then to blue, and then to white, and back to orange again.

“Oh, how lovely!” Doña Sofia was clearly enamored with all things alchemical. “The shifting hues! Oh, those adjustments must be precise; how I would love to see inside! Tell me, can Don Bellarigio’s Lashani sculpt me one of those?”

Three more teams of men hauled three more sculptures past; each one shifted through a slightly different pattern of changing colors.

“I don’t know,” said Reynart. “Those are gifts for the duke, from one of our…more unusual guests. They’ve been cleared with my superiors; they certainly do look lovely.”

Locke turned back to the banquet table and suddenly found himself six feet away from Giancana Meraggio, who had an orchid at his breast, a silver plate of fruit in one hand, and a gorgeous young woman in a red gown on the other. Meraggio’s gaze passed over Locke, then whirled back; those penetrating eyes fixed on him, and on the clothes he wore. The master money-changer opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and then opened it again.

“Sir,” said Meraggio in a cold voice, “I beg your pardon, but-”

“Why, Master Meraggio!” Don Salvara stepped up beside him. At the sight of a don, Meraggio shut his mouth once again and bowed politely, from the waist, though not very deeply.

“Don Salvara,” said Meraggio, “and the lovely Doña Sofia. What a pleasure to see you both! Greetings to you as well, Captain Reynart.” He dismissed the tall Vadran from his consideration with a shift of his head and peered at Locke again.

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke. “Why, what a fortunate coincidence! It is a pleasure to meet you at last; I have looked for you at your countinghouse, many times, and I am afraid I have never had a chance to pay my proper respects.”

“Indeed? Why, I was just about to ask…who might you be, sir?”

“Master Meraggio,” said Don Salvara, “allow me to present Lukas Fehrwight, merchant of Emberlain, servant of the House of bel Auster. He has come down to discuss the import of a certain quantity of small beer; I’d like to see how those Emberlain ales fare against our native best. Lukas, this is the honorable Giancana Meraggio, master of the countinghouse that bears his name, known by many as the Duke of White Iron, for very good reason. All finance whirls around him like the constellations in the sky.”

“Your servant, sir,” said Locke.

“Of Emberlain? Of the House of bel Auster?”

“Why yes,” said Doña Sofia, “he’s here at the feast as our special guest.”

“Master Meraggio,” said Locke, “I hope I do not presume too much, but do you find the cut of my coat pleasing? And the fabric?”

“A singular question,” said Meraggio, scowling, “for both seem strangely familiar.”

“And well they should,” said Locke. “On the advice of the Salvaras, I secured for myself a single suit of clothes cut in your Camorri style. I requested of the tailor that he select a cut that was especially favored by the best-known taste in the entire city. And who should he name but yourself, sir; this suit of clothes is fashioned after your very own preferences! I hope you will not find me forward if I say that I find it most excellently comfortable.”

“Oh, no,” said Meraggio, looking terribly confused. “Oh, no. Not too forward at all-very flattering, sir, very flattering. I, um…I do not feel entirely well; the heat, you see. I believe I shall avail myself of some of the punch from that subtlety. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Fehrwight. If you will excuse me, Doña Sofia, Don Lorenzo.”

Meraggio moved off, peering back over his shoulder at Locke and then shaking his head. Oh, Crooked Warden, thought Locke, you’re one funny son of a bitch, aren’t you?

“Lukas,” said Doña Sofia, “have you had enough food for the time being?”

“I believe I shall keep rather well, my lady.”

“Good! Why not hunt down Doña Vorchenza with me; she’s hiding down on one of the other galleries, hunched over her knitting. If she’s lucid today, you’ll love her, I guarantee it.”

“Doña Vorchenza,” said Reynart, “is in the northernmost apartment of the western gallery, two floors down. Do you know the place I speak of?”

“Oh, yes,” said Sofia. “What do you say, Lukas? Let us pay our respects; Lorenzo can circulate and work on the important affairs he should be looking into.”

“The matter has not slipped my mind, darling,” said Don Lorenzo with mock irritation. “Master Fehrwight, I for my part hope the old doña is speaking Therin this evening; you may find yourself being introduced to the equivalent of a stone statue. Or perhaps she merely behaves that way when I’m in the room.”

“I wish I could say that it was entirely an affectation, my lord Salvara,” said Reynart. “I should circulate for a while and try to look as though I’m actually on duty. Give my affection to Doña Vorchenza, my lady Sofia.”

“Of course, Captain. Are you coming, Lukas?”

The doña led him to one of the wide Elderglass staircases with lacquered wooden banisters. Softly glowing alchemical lamps in ornate casings gleamed at the foot of the stairs; they would be lovely after dark. The layout of the floor was the same as that of the one above; there was another fifty-foot banquet table crowded with delicacies and wonders, and one of the strangely beautiful glass-and-gold pyramids had been set down beside it. Curious, thought Locke.

“My lady Salvara,” he said, smiling and pointing, “perhaps a few attendants could be convinced to borrow one of those sculptures when we leave, and you could have your peek inside?”

“Oh, Lukas. If only-but one does not repay the duke’s hospitality by borrowing his decorative fixtures on a whim. Come, we need to go down to the next level. Lukas? Lukas, what’s the matter?”

Locke had frozen, looking straight at the staircase that led down to the level below. Someone was just coming up that staircase-a lean and fit-looking man in a gray coat, gray gloves, and gray breeches. His vest and four-cornered hat were black, his neck-cloths were rich scarlet, and on his left hand he wore a very familiar ring, over the leather of his glove; Barsavi’s ring, the black pearl of the Capa of Camorr.

Locke Lamora matched gazes with Capa Raza, his heart beating like a war galley’s drum. The lord of Camorr’s underworld halted, dumbfounded; sheer bewilderment fluttered across his face-a look that made mirth rise up from the bottom of Locke’s soul. Then for the briefest second there was hatred; Raza ground his teeth together and the lines of his face tautened. Finally he seemed to have control of himself. He twirled a gold-capped swagger stick of lacquered black witchwood, stuck it beneath his left arm, and strolled casually toward Locke and Doña Sofia.

4

“SURELY,” SAID Capa Raza, “surely, you must be a doña of Camorr; I do not believe I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, gracious lady.” He swept off his hat and bent from the waist at the ideal angle, right foot out before his left.

“I am Doña Sofia Salvara, of the Isla Durona,” she said. She held out her hand; he took it and kissed the air above it.

“Your servant, my lady Salvara. I am Luciano Anatolius; charmed, my lady, quite charmed. And your companion? Have we met?”

“I do not believe so, sir,” said Locke. “You look strangely familiar, but I’m sure I would recall if we had met before.”

“Master Anatolius, this is Lukas Fehrwight, a merchant of Emberlain, of the House of bel Auster,” said Sofia. “My personal guest here at the duke’s feast.”

“A merchant of Emberlain? Greetings to you, sir; why, you must be very resourceful, to make it all the way up here, into such rarefied circles.”

“I do what I must, sir, I do what I must. I have some unusually good friends in Camorr; they often bring me unexpected advantages.”

“I don’t doubt it. The House of bel Auster, you say? The famous liquor merchants? How grand; I’m as fond of a good draught as the next man. In fact, I prefer to make all of my purchases by the cask.”

“Indeed, sir?” Locke smiled. “Why, that is the specialty of my firm; a great many wonderful and surprising things come out of our casks. We pride ourselves on always giving satisfaction-on always delivering full value for value received. Like for like, if you take my meaning.”

“I do,” said Capa Raza, with a grim smile of his own. “An admirable business practice; one near to my own heart.”

“But surely,” said Locke, “I remember now why you must be familiar, Master Anatolius. Do you not have a sister? Perhaps a pair of them? I seem to recall having met them, at some occasion-the resemblance seems very striking.”

“No,” said Capa Raza, scowling, “I’m afraid you’re very much mistaken; I have no sisters. Doña Sofia, Master Fehrwight, it has been a distinct pleasure making your acquaintance, but I fear I have pressing business elsewhere; I wish you both much pleasure at the feast this evening.”

Locke held out his hand and put on an innocent friendly smile. “It is always a pleasure to make new acquaintances, Master Anatolius. Perhaps we shall see each other again?”

Capa Raza glared down at Locke’s outstretched hand, then seemed to remember himself; he could hardly refuse such a courtesy without causing a great stir. His strong hand clasped Locke’s forearm, and Locke returned the gesture. The fingers of Locke’s other hand twitched; if only his stiletto had not been inconveniently hidden in a boot, he would now be tempted beyond all rational thought. “You are very good, Master Fehrwight,” said Capa Raza with a placid face, “but I very much doubt it.”

“If I have learned anything about this city, Master Anatolius,” said Locke, “I have learned that it is quite full of surprises. A very good evening to you.”

“And to you,” said Raza, “merchant of Emberlain.”

He moved quickly away into the crowd; Locke watched him all the way. Raza turned once and their eyes locked yet again, and then the Capa was gone, up the stairs to the next level, gray coat fluttering in his wake.

“Lukas,” said Doña Sofia, “did I miss something?”

“Miss something?” Locke gave her another innocent Fehrwight smile. “I don’t believe so, my lady. It is just that that man greatly resembled someone I once knew.”

“A friend from Emberlain?”

“Oh no,” said Locke. “Not a friend. And the man in question is dead-he is very, very dead.” Aware that he was clenching his teeth, he let ease return to his countenance. “Shall we go find your Doña Vorchenza, my lady?”

“Why, yes,” said Sofia. “Yes, let’s be about it. Do follow me.”

She led him down the stairs Raza had come up, down to yet another gallery packed rim to rim with the quality: “blue bloods and gold bloods,” as Father Chains might have put it. Instead of a banquet table, this level held a bar-forty feet of polished witchwood staffed by two dozen men and women in the duke’s livery. Behind them, on tables and shelves, rose thousands upon thousands of glass bottles. Alchemical lamps had been placed behind them, and they bathed the gallery in cascading ribbons of color. Huge pyramids of wineglasses and beer glasses were set off to the sides of the bar, cordoned off behind velvet ropes; one unprofessional gesture would send hundreds of crowns worth of fine crystal crashing to the floor. Blackjackets stood at stiff attention beside the glass-pyramids, as an added assurance. And speaking of pyramids-another one of the lovely pyramid sculptures had been set out here, a few feet to the right of the bar, behind one of the velvet ropes.

Doña Sofia led him to the west, past the bar and the long line of nobles waiting to take in the liquid courage of their choice; some of them were already obviously impaired in the fine art of standing up straight. On the western wall of the gallery there was a heavy witchwood door bearing the silver seal of Duke Nicovante’s personal arms. Doña Sofia pushed this door open and led him into a curving hallway lit by the soft silver glow of alchemical lanterns. There were three doors in this hall, and Doña Sofia brought him to the one at the far end, near what Locke supposed was the northern wall of the tower.

“Now,” said Doña Sofia with a smirk, “it will either be Doña Vorchenza, or it will be a pair of young people doing something they should not…”

She slid the door open and peeked inside, and then tugged on Locke’s sleeve. “It’s quite all right,” she whispered. “It’s her.”

Locke and Sofia were looking into a nearly square chamber with a slightly curved outer wall; unlike the public galleries, the Elderglass surface in this part of the tower was opaque. A single window was on the northern wall, its wooden shade cracked open to let in the sunlight and the warm air of the late afternoon.

There was a single tall-backed wooden chair in the room, and it held a single hunchbacked old lady; she was bent over a pair of glittering needles, utterly fixated on the unidentifiable object that was flowing into her lap from her efforts. A few rolls of black wool yarn lay at her feet. She was eccentrically dressed, in a man’s black coat and a pair of dark purple pantaloons such as cavalry officers traditionally wore; her little black slippers curved up at the ends like something from a fairy story. Her eyes seemed to be clear behind her half-moon optics, but they didn’t look up from her knitting when Doña Sofia led Locke into the center of the room.

“Doña Vorchenza?” Sofia cleared her throat and raised her voice.

“Doña Vorchenza? It’s Sofia, my lady… I’ve brought someone for you to meet.”

Snick-snick, went Doña Vorchenza’s needles, snick-snick. But those eyes did not look up.

“Doña Angiavesta Vorchenza,” said Sofia to Locke, “dowager countess of Amberglass. She, ah…she comes and goes.” Sofia sighed. “Might I beg you to stay here with her for just a moment? I’m going to the bar; she often takes white wine. Perhaps a glass of it will bring her back to us.”

“Of course, Doña Sofia,” said Locke cheerfully. “I would be very honored to wait on the countess. Fetch her whatever you feel proper.”

“Can I bring you anything, Lukas?”

“Oh, no, you are too kind, my lady. I shall have something later, perhaps.”

Sofia nodded and withdrew from the room, closing the door with a click behind her. Locke paced for a few moments, hands behind his back.

Snick-snick, went the needles, snick-snick. Locke raised an eyebrow. The object flowing forth from those needles remained a perfect mystery. Perhaps it wasn’t yet near completion. He sighed, paced a bit more, and turned to stare out the window.

The green-and-brown hills spread out to the curving horizon north of the city; Locke could see the brown lines of roads, and the particolored roofs of small buildings, and the gray-blue of the Angevine, all fading into heat-haze and distance. The sun suffused everything in hot white light; there wasn’t a cloud to be seen.

There was a sudden vicious stabbing pain at the back of his neck, on the left side.

Locke whirled and slapped a hand to the site of the pain; there was a bit of wetness beneath his fingers. Doña Angiavesta Vorchenza, dowager countess of Amberglass, stood before him, drawing back the knitting needle she had just plunged into the back of his neck. Now her eyes were lively behind those half-moon optics, and a smile broke out of the network of lines on her lean face.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaah-owwwwww!” He rubbed at the back of his neck and maintained his Vadran accent only with the greatest difficulty. “What the hell was that?”

“Grief-willow, Master Thorn,” said Doña Vorchenza. “The poison of the grief-willow tree, which I’m sure you’ve heard of. You have but a few minutes to live…and now I should very much like to spend them speaking to you.”

5

“YOU…YOU…”

“Stabbed you in the neck. Yes, well, I must confess it gave me pleasure, dear boy. What can I say? You have led us on a trying chase.”

“But…but…Doña Vorchenza, I do not understand. How have I given offense?”

“You may abandon the Vadran accent. It’s excellent, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to smile and bluff your way out of this one, Master Thorn.”

Locke sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Doña Vorchenza, if that needle was really poisoned, why the hell should I bother telling you anything?”

“Now that’s a sensible question.” She reached down the front of her tunic and drew out a little glass vial, capped with silver. “In exchange for your cooperation, I’m prepared to offer you the antidote. You will, of course, come peacefully with me. You’re hundreds of feet in the air, and every one of my Midnighters is currently here, dressed as staff. You’d be rather ignominiously treated if you tried to run so much as ten feet past that hallway.”

“Your…Midnighters…You mean-you must be fucking kidding. You’re the Spider?”

“Yes,” she said, “and by the gods, it feels good to finally fling that in the face of someone who can appreciate it.”

“But,” said Locke, “the Spider is…or at least I thought the Spider was-”

“A man? You and all the rest of this city, Master Thorn. I have always found the presumptions of others to be the best possible disguise-haven’t you?”

“Hmmm.” Locke chuckled morosely. A tingling numbness was spreading around the wound; it definitely wasn’t just his imagination. “Hanged by my own rope, Doña Vorchenza.”

“You must be brilliant, Master Thorn,” said Doña Vorchenza. “I shall give you that; to do what you’ve done, to keep my people guessing these past few years…Gods, I wish I didn’t have to put you in a crow’s cage. Perhaps a deal could be arranged, once you’ve had a few years to think it over. It must be very new, and very odd, to finally have someone spring such a trap on you.”

“Oh, no.” Locke sighed and put his face in his hands. “Oh, Doña Vorchenza, I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but the list of people that haven’t outsmarted me seems to be getting smaller all the fucking time.”

“Well,” said Doña Vorchenza, “that can’t be pleasant. But come, you must be feeling rather strange by now; you must be unsteady on your feet. Just say yes. Give me the location of the funds you’ve stolen, and perhaps those years in the Palace of Patience can be mitigated. Give me the names of your accomplices, and I’m sure an accommodation can be reached.”

“Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke forcefully, “I have no accomplices, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell you who they were.”

“What about Graumann?”

“Graumann is a hireling,” said Locke. “He thinks I’m really a merchant of Emberlain.”

“And those so-called bandits in the alley beside the Temple of Fortunate Waters?”

“Hirelings, long since fled back to Talisham.”

“And the false Midnighters, the ones who visited the Salvaras?”

“Homunculi,” said Locke. “They crawl out of my ass every full moon; they’ve been a problem for years.”

“Oh, Master Thorn…grief-willow will still that tongue of yours rather permanently. You don’t have to speak your secrets now; just surrender so I can give you this vial, and we can continue this conversation in more pleasant surroundings.”

Locke stared at Doña Vorchenza for several long seconds; he locked his gaze with those ancient eyes of hers and saw the obvious satisfaction in them, and his right hand curled into a fist of its own accord. Perhaps Doña Vorchenza was so used to her aura of privilege she forgot their disparity in ages; perhaps she’d simply never conceived that a man of apparent refinement, even a criminal, could do what Locke did next.

He punched her square in the teeth, a whirling right that would have been comical had he thrown it against a younger, sturdier woman. But it snapped Doña Vorchenza’s head back; her eyes rolled up and she buckled at the knees. Locke caught her as she toppled, carefully plucking the vial from her fingers while he did so. He heaved her back into her chair, then uncapped the vial and poured its contents down his throat. The warm fluid tasted like citrus; he gulped it eagerly and threw the vial aside. Then, working with the utmost haste, he took off his coat and used it to tie Doña Vorchenza into her chair, knotting the sleeves several times behind her back.

Her head lolled forward and she groaned; Locke gave her a pat on the shoulder. On an impulse, he ran his hands quickly (and as politely as possible) through her waistcoat; he grunted in satisfaction when he turned up a little silk purse, jingling with coins. “Not what I was hoping for,” he said, “but we’ll call it fair payment for a gods-damned needle in the neck, hmmm?”

Locke stood up and paced for a few moments. He turned back to Doña Vorchenza, knelt before her, and said, “My lady, it wounds me to have to treat someone such as yourself so crudely; the truth is, I admire you very much and at any other time I’d be very curious to hear just where I fucked up and tipped you off. But you must admit, I’d have to be crazy to go with you; the Palace of Patience simply does not suit. So thank you for the very interesting afternoon, and give my regards to Don and Doña Salvara.”

With that, he pushed the wooden shutter as wide as it would go and stepped out the window.

The exterior of Raven’s Reach, considered up close, was actually covered with irregularities, with little indentations and ledges, circling the tower at virtually every level. Locke slipped out onto a slender ledge about six inches wide; he pressed his stomach up against the warm glass of the tower and waited for the pounding of the blood within his temples to cease sounding like a pummeling from a heavy man’s fists. It didn’t, and he sighed.

“I am the king idiot,” he muttered, “of all the world’s fucking idiots.”

The warm wind pushed at his back as he inched to his right; the ledge grew wider a few moments later, and he found an indentation in which to place his hand. Confident that he was in no immediate danger of falling, Locke glanced downward over his shoulder, and immediately regretted it.

Seeing Camorr spread out behind glass offered a layer of insulation between the viewer and the vista; out here, it seemed as though the whole world fell away in a vast arc. He wasn’t six hundred feet in the air, he was a thousand, ten thousand, a million-some incomprehensible number of feet that only the gods were fit to dare. He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched at the glass wall as though he could pour himself into it, like mortar into stones. The pork and capon in his stomach made enthusiastic inquiries about coming up in a nauseous torrent; his throat seemed to be on the verge of granting the request.

Gods, he thought, I wonder if I’m on one of the transparent sections of the tower? I must look pretty fucking funny.

There was a creaking noise from overhead; he looked up and gasped.

One of the elevator cages was coming down toward him; it would be in line with him on the face of the tower, and it would pass by about three feet from the wall he was clinging to.

It was empty.

“Crooked Warden,” Locke whispered, “I’ll do this, but the only thing I ask, the only thing, is that when this is done, you make me fucking forget. Steal this memory out of my head. And I will never climb more than three feet off the ground as long as I draw breath. Praise be.”

The cage creaked down; it was ten feet above him, then five feet, and then its bottom was even with his eyes. Breathing in deep, ragged, panicky gasps, Locke turned himself around on the tower, so that his back was against the glass. The sky and the world beneath his feet both seemed too big to fit into his eyes; gods, he didn’t want to think about them. The cage was sliding past; its bars were right there, three feet away over fifty-some stories of empty air.

He screamed, and pushed himself off the glass wall of the tower. When he hit the blackened iron sidebars of the cage, he clung as desperately as any cat ever clung to a tree branch; the cage swayed back and forth, and Locke did his best to ignore the incredible things that did to the sky and the horizon. The cage door; he had to slip the cage door. They closed tight but didn’t have elaborate locks.

Working with hands that shivered as though the air were freezing, Locke slipped the bolt on the cage’s door and let it fall open. He then swung himself gingerly around the corner, from the exterior to the interior, and with one last burst of dreadful vertigo reached out and slammed the door shut behind him. He sat down on the floor of the cage, gasping in deep breaths, shaky with relief and the aftereffects of the poison.

“Well,” he muttered, “that was fucking hideous.”

Another elevator cage full of noble guests drew upward, twenty feet to his right; the men and women in the cage looked at him very curiously, and he waved.

He half dreaded that the cage would lurch to a halt before it reached the ground and start to draw back up; he decided if it did that he would take his chances with the Palace of Patience. But the cage continued all the way down; Vorchenza must still be tied to her chair, out of the action. Locke was on his feet when the cage settled against the ground; the liveried men who opened the door peered in at him with wide eyes.

“Excuse me,” said one of them, “but were you…did you…were you in this cage when it left the embarkation platform?”

“Of course,” said Locke. “That shape you saw, darting out from the tower? Bird. Biggest gods-damned bird you ever saw. Scared the piss right out of me, let me tell you. I say, are any of these carriages for hire?”

“Go to the outer row,” said the footman, “and look for the ones with the white flags and lanterns.”

“Much obliged.” Locke rapidly perused the contents of Doña Vorchenza’s coin purse; there was a very satisfactory quantity of gold and silver inside. He tossed a solon apiece to the liveried men beside the cage as he stepped out. “It was a bird, right?”

“Yes, sir,” said the other man with a tip of his black cap. “Biggest gods-damned bird we ever saw.”

6

THE HIRED carriage left him at the Hill of Whispers; he paid very well-the “forget you made this run” sort of well-and then he walked south through Ashfall on his own. It was perhaps the sixth hour of the evening when he returned to the hovel, bursting through the curtained door, yelling as he came-

“Jean, we have one hell of a fucking problem-”

The Falconer stood in the center of the little room, smirking at Locke, his hand folded before him. Locke took in the tableau in a split second: Ibelius lay motionless against the far wall, and Jean lay slumped at the Bondsmage’s feet, writhing in pain.

Vestris perched upon her master’s shoulder; she fixed him with those black-and-gold eyes, then opened her beak and screeched triumphantly. Locke winced at the noise.

“Oh yes, Master Lamora,” said the Falconer. “Yes, I’d say you do have one hell of a fucking problem.”

1

THE FALCONER MOVED his fingers, and Locke Lamora fell to his knees, gripped by an all-too-familiar pain that burned within his bones. He toppled onto the floor of the hovel, beside Jean.

“What a pleasure,” said the sorcerer, “to see that you survived our little arrangement at the Echo Hole. I am impressed. Even despite your reputation, I had imagined we were too clever for you. Only this afternoon I thought it was Jean Tannen alone that I sought; but this is something finer by far.”

“You,” spat Locke, “are a twisted fucking animal.”

“No,” said the Bondsmage, “I obey the orders of my paying client. And my orders are to make sure the murderer of my client’s sisters takes his time in dying.” The Falconer cracked his knuckles. “You I regard as a windfall.”

Locke screamed and reached out toward the Bondsmage, willing himself forward through the pain, but the Falconer muttered under his breath, and the racking, stabbing sensations seemed to multiply tenfold. Locke flopped onto his back and tried to breathe, but the muscles behind and beneath his lungs were as solid as stones.

When the Bondsmage released him from this torment, he slumped down, gasping. The room spun.

“It’s very strange,” said the Falconer, “how the evidence of our victories can become the instruments of our downfall. Jean Tannen, for example-you must be a fantastic fighter to have taken my client’s sisters, though I see you suffered in doing so. And now they’ve struck back at you from the shadelands. A great many divinations are possible when one of my kind can get his hands on the physical residue of another man-fingernail parings, for example. Locks of hair. Blood on the edge of a knife.”

Jean groaned, unable to speak from pain.

“Oh, yes,” said the Falconer. “I was certainly surprised to see who that blood led me to. In your shoes, I’d have been in the first caravan to the other side of the continent. You might even have been left in peace.”

“Gentlemen Bastards,” hissed Locke, “do not abandon one another, and we do not run when we owe vengeance.”

“That’s right,” said the Bondsmage. “And that’s why they also die at my feet in filthy fucking hovels like this one.”

Vestris fluttered from his shoulder and settled into another corner of the room, staring balefully down at Locke, twitching her head from side to side in excitement. The Falconer reached inside his coat and drew out a sheet of parchment, a quill, and a small bottle of ink. He uncapped the bottle and set it down atop the sleeping pallet; he wet the quill and smiled down at Locke.

“Jean Tannen,” said the Falconer. “What a simple name; easy to write. Easier even than it was to stitch.”

His quill flew across the parchment; he wrote in great looping whorls, and his smile grew with every letter. When he was finished, his silver thread snaked out around the fingers of his left hand, and he moved them with an almost hypnotic rhythm. A pale silver glow arose from the page in his hands, outlining the curves of his face.

“Jean Tannen,” said the Falconer. “Arise, Jean Tannen. I have a task for you.”

Shuddering, Jean rose first to his knees and then to his feet. He stood before the Falconer; Locke, for his part, still found it impossible to move.

“Jean Tannen,” said the Bondsmage, “take up your hatchets. Nothing would please you more at this moment than to take up your hatchets.”

Jean reached beneath the sleeping pallet and took out the Wicked Sisters; he slipped one into either hand, and the corners of his mouth drew upward.

“You like to use those, don’t you, Jean?” The Falconer shifted the silver threads in his left hand. “You like to feel them biting into flesh… You like to see the blood spatter. Oh, yes…don’t worry. I have a task you can set them to.”

With the sheet of paper in his right hand, the Falconer gestured down at Locke.

“Kill Locke Lamora,” he said.

Jean shuddered; he took a step toward Locke, then hesitated. He frowned and closed his eyes.

“I name your given name, Jean Tannen,” said the Bondsmage. “I name your given name, the truthful name, the name of the spirit. I name your name. Kill Locke Lamora. Take up your hatchets and kill Locke Lamora.”

Jean took another halting step toward Locke; his hatchets rose slowly. He seemed to be clenching his jaws. A tear rolled out of his right eye; he took a deep breath, and then another step. He sobbed, and raised the Wicked Sisters above his shoulders.

“No,” said the Falconer. “Oh, no. Wait. Step back.”

Jean obliged, backing off a full yard from Locke, who sent up silent prayers of relief, mingled with dread for whatever might come next.

“Jean’s rather soft-hearted,” said the Falconer, “but you’re the real weakling, aren’t you? You’re the one who begged me to do anything to you as long as I left your friends alone; you’re the one who went into the barrel with his lips closed when he could have betrayed his friends, and perhaps lived. I know how to make this right. Jean Tannen, drop your hatchets.”

The Wicked Sisters hit the ground with a heavy thud, bounced, and landed just beside Locke’s eyes. A moment later, the Bondsmage spoke in his sorcerous tongue and shifted the threads in his left hand; Jean screamed and fell to the ground, shaking feebly.

“It would be much better, I think,” said the Falconer, “if you were to kill Jean, Master Lamora.”

Vestris screeched down at Locke; the sound had the strange mocking undertones of laughter.

Oh, fuck, Locke thought. Oh, gods.

“Of course,” said the Falconer, “we already know your last name is a sham. But I don’t need a full name; even a fragment of a true name will be quite enough. You’ll see, Locke. I promise that you’ll see.” His silver threads disappeared; he dipped his quill once again and wrote briefly on the parchment.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. You may move again.” And as he spoke, it was so; the paralysis lifted, and Locke twitched his fingers experimentally. The Bondsmage wiggled his silver thread once more; Locke felt a strange something seem to form in the air around him, a sort of pressure, and the parchment glowed again.

“Now,” said the Falconer. “I name your name, Locke. I name your given name, the truthful name, the name of the spirit. I name your name, Locke. Arise. Arise and take up Jean Tannen’s hatchets. Arise and kill Jean Tannen.”

Locke pushed himself up to his knees and rested on his hands for a moment.

“Kill Jean Tannen.”

Shaking, he reached out for one of Jean’s hatchets, slid it toward himself, and crawled forward with it clutched in his right hand. His breathing was ragged; Jean Tannen lay at the Bondsmage’s heels, just three or four feet away, on his face in the plaster dust of the hovel.

“Kill Jean Tannen.”

Locke paused at the Falconer’s feet and turned his head slowly to stare at Jean. One of the big man’s eyes was open, unblinking; there was real terror there. Jean’s lips quivered uselessly, trying to form words.

Locke pushed himself up and raised the hatchet; he bellowed wordlessly.

He jabbed up with the heavy ball of the hatchet; the blow struck home right between the Falconer’s legs. The silver thread and the parchment fluttered from the Bondsmage’s hands as he gasped and fell forward, clutching at his groin.

Locke whirled to his right, expecting instant attack from the scorpion hawk, but to his surprise the bird had fallen from its perch and was writhing on the hovel floor, wings beating uselessly at the air, a series of choked half screeches issuing from its beak.

Locke smiled the cruelest smile he’d ever worn in his entire life as he rose to his feet.

“It’s like that, is it?” He grinned fiercely at the Bondsmage as he slowly raised the hatchet, ball-side down. “You see what she sees; each of you feels what the other feels?”

The words brought him a warm sense of exultation, but they nearly cost him the fight; the Falconer managed to find concentration enough to utter one syllable and curl his fingers into claws. Locke gasped and staggered back, nearly dropping the hatchet. It felt as though a hot dagger had been shoved through both of his kidneys; the sizzling pain made it impossible to act, or even to think.

The Falconer attempted to stand up, but Jean Tannen suddenly rolled toward him and reached up, grabbing him by the lapels. The big man yanked hard, and the Falconer crashed back down, forehead-first, against the floor of the hovel. The pain in Locke’s guts vanished, and Vestris screeched once again from the floor beside his feet. He wasted no further time.

He whipped the hatchet down in a hammer-blow, breaking Vestris’ left wing with a dry crack.

The Falconer screamed and writhed, flailing hard enough to briefly break free from Jean’s grasp. He clutched at his left arm and hollered, his eyes wide with shock. Locke kicked him in the face, hard, and the Bondsmage rolled over in the dust, spitting up the blood that was suddenly running from his nose.

“Just one question, you arrogant fucking cocksucker,” said Locke. “I’ll grant the Lamora part is easy to spot; the truth is, I didn’t know about the apt translation when I took the name. I borrowed it from this old sausage dealer who was kind to me once, back in Catchfire before the plague. I just liked the way it sounded.

“But what the fuck,” he said slowly, “ever gave you the idea that Locke was the first name I was actually born with?”

He raised the hatchet again, reversed it so the blade side was toward the ground, and then brought it down with all of his strength, severing Vestris’ head completely from her body.

The sound of the bird’s suddenly interrupted screech echoed and merged with the screams of the Falconer, who clutched at his head and kicked his legs wildly. His cries were pure madness, and it was a mercy to the ears of Locke and Jean when they died, and he fell sobbing into unconsciousness.

2

THE FALCONER of Karthain awoke to find himself lying spread-eagled, arms and legs out on the dusty floor of the hovel. The smell of blood was in the air-Vestris’ blood. He closed his eyes and began to weep.

“He is secure, Master Lamora,” said Ibelius. When the dog-leech had awoken from whatever spell the Bondsmage had flung at him, he’d been only too eager to help tie the Karthani down. He and Jean had scavenged some metal stakes from the other side of the structure; these were pounded into the floor, and the Bondsmage was lashed to them by long strips of bedding, tied tight around his wrists and ankles. Smaller strips had been tied around his fingers and had been used to pad between them, immobilizing them.

“Good,” said Locke.

Jean Tannen sat on the sleeping pallet, looking down at the Bondsmage with dull, deeply shadowed eyes. Locke stood at the sorceror’s feet, staring down at him with undisguised loathing.

A small oil fire burned in a glass jar; Ibelius crouched beside it, slowly heating a dagger over it. The thin brown smoke curled up toward the ceiling.

“You are fools,” said the Falconer between sobs, “if you think to kill me. My brethren will take satisfaction; think on the consequences.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” said Locke. “I’m going to play a little game I like to call ‘scream in pain until you answer my fucking questions.’”

“Do what you will” said the Falconer. “The code of my order forbids me to betray my client.”

“Oh, you’re not working for your client anymore, asshole,” said Locke. “You’re not working for your client ever again.”

“It’s ready, Master Lamora,” said Ibelius.

The Bondsmage craned his neck to stare over at Ibelius. He swallowed and licked his lips, his wet, bloodshot eyes darting around the room.

“What’s the matter?” Locke reached out and carefully took the dagger from the dog-leech’s hand; its blade glowed red. “Afraid of fire? Why ever should that be?” Locke grinned, an expression utterly without humor.

“Fire’s the only thing that’s going to keep you from bleeding to death.”

Jean rose from the sleeping pallet and knelt on the Falconer’s left arm. He pressed it down at the wrist, and Locke slowly came over to stand beside him, hatchet in one hand and glowing knife in the other.

“I heartily approve, in theory,” said Ibelius, “but in practice I believe I shall…absent myself.”

“By all means, Master Ibelius,” said Locke.

The curtain swished, and the dog-leech was gone.

“Now,” said Locke, “I can accept that it would be a bad idea to kill you. But when I finally let you slink back to Karthain, you’re going as an object lesson. You’re going to remind your pampered, twisted, arrogant fucking brethren about what might happen when they fuck with someone’s friends in Camorr.”

The blade of Jean’s hatchet whistled down, severing the Bondsmage’s little finger of his left hand. The Falconer screamed.

“That’s Nazca,” said Locke. “Remember Nazca?”

He swung down again; the ring finger of the left hand rolled in the dirt, and blood spurted.

“That’s Calo,” said Locke.

Another swing, and the middle finger was gone. The Falconer writhed and pulled at his bonds, whipping his head from side to side in agony.

“Galdo, too. Are these names familiar, Master Bondsmage? These little footnotes to your fucking contract? They were awfully real to me. Now this finger coming up-this one’s Bug. Actually, Bug probably should have been the little finger, but what the hell.” The hatchet fell again; the index finger of the Falconer’s left hand joined its brethren in bloody exile.

“Now the rest,” said Locke, “the rest of your fingers and both of your thumbs, those are for me and Jean.”

3

IT WAS tedious work; they had to reheat the dagger several times to cauterize all the wounds. The Falconer was quivering with pain by the time they’d finished; his eyes were closed and his teeth clenched. The air in the enclosed room stank of burnt flesh and scalded blood.

“Now,” said Locke, sitting on the Falconer’s chest. “Now it’s time to talk.”

“I cannot,” whispered the Bondsmage. “I cannot…betray my client’s secrets.”

“You no longer have a client,” said Locke. “You no longer serve Capa Raza; he hired a Bondsmage, not a fingerless freak with a dead bird for a best friend. When I removed your fingers, I removed your obligations to Raza. At least, that’s the way I see it.”

“Go to hell,” the Falconer spat.

“Oh, good. You’ve decided to do it the hard way.” Locke smiled again and tossed the now-cool dagger to Jean, who set it over the flame and began to heat it once again. “If you were any other man, I’d threaten your balls next. I’d make all sorts of cracks about eunuchs; but I think you could bear that. You’re not most men. I think the only thing I can take from you that would truly pain you to the depths of your soul would be your tongue.”

The Bondsmage stared at him, his lips quivering. “Please,” he croaked hoarsely, “have pity, for the gods’ sakes. Have pity. We had a contract. I was merely carrying it out.”

“When that contract became my friends,” said Locke, “you exceeded your mandate.”

“Please,” whispered the Falconer.

“No,” said Locke. “I will cut it out; I will cauterize it while you lay there writhing. I will make you a mute-I’m guessing you might eventually be able to conjure some magic without fingers, but without a tongue?”

“No! Please!”

“Then speak,” said Locke. “Tell me what I want to know.”

“Gods,” sobbed the Falconer, “gods forgive me. Ask. Ask your questions.”

“If I catch you in a lie,” said Locke, “it’s balls first, and then the tongue. Don’t presume on my patience. Why did Capa Raza want us dead?”

“Money,” whispered the Falconer. “That vault of yours; I spied it out while I was first making my observations of you. He’d intended just to use you as a distraction for Capa Barsavi; when we discovered how much money you’d already stolen, he wanted to have it-to pay for me. Almost another month of my services. To help him finish his tasks here in the city.”

“You murdered my fucking friends,” said Locke, “and you tried to murder Jean and myself, for the metal in our vault?”

“You seemed the type to hold a grudge,” coughed the Falconer. “Isn’t that funny? We figured we’d be better off with all of you safely dead.”

“You figured right,” said Locke. “Now Capa Raza, the Gray King, whoever the fuck he is.”

“Anatolius.”

“That’s his real name? Luciano Anatolius?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Fuck you, Falconer, answer my questions. Anatolius. What was his business with Barsavi?”

“The Secret Peace,” said the Bondsmage.

“What about it?”

“The Secret Peace was not achieved without a great deal of bloodshed…and difficulty. There was one rather powerful merchant, with the resources to discover what Barsavi and the duke’s Spider had put together; not being of noble blood, he was rather upset at being excluded.”

“And so…Barsavi killed him?” said Locke.

“Yes. Avram Anatolius, a merchant of Fountain Bend. Barsavi murdered him and his wife, and his three younger children-Lavin, Ariana, and Maurin. But the three older children-they escaped with one of their master’s maids. She protected them, pretending they were her own. She took them to safety in Talisham.”

“Luciano,” said Locke. “Luciano, Cheryn, and Raiza.”

“Yes…the oldest son and the twin sisters. They have been rather consumed with the idea of vengeance, Master Lamora. You’re an amateur by comparison. They spent twenty-two years preparing for the events of the past two months; Cheryn and Raiza returned eight years ago, under an assumed name; they built their reputations as contrarequialla and became Barsavi’s most loyal servants.

“Luciano, on the other hand…Luciano went to sea, to train himself in the arts of command and to amass a fortune. A fortune with which to purchase the services of a Bondsmage.”

“Capa Raza was a freighter captain?”

“No,” said the Falconer. “A buccaneer. Not the ragged sort of idiot you find down on the Sea of Brass; he was quiet, efficient, professional. He struck rarely and he struck well; he took good cargo from the galleons of Emberlain. He sank the ships and left no one alive to speak his name.”

“Gods damn it,” said Jean. “Gods damn it; he’s the captain of the Satisfaction.”

“Yes, the so-called plague ship,” chuckled the Falconer. “Odd how easy it is to keep people away from your ship when you really want to, isn’t it?”

“He’s been sending his fortune out to it as ‘charitable provisions,’” said Jean. “It must be all the money he stole from us, and everything he took from Capa Barsavi.”

“Yes,” said the Bondsmage sadly. “Only now it belongs to my order, for services rendered.”

“We’ll just see about that. So what now? I saw your master Anatolius at Raven’s Reach a few hours ago; what the fuck does he think he’s doing next?”

“Hmmm.” The Bondsmage fell silent for several moments; Locke prodded him in the neck with Jean’s hatchet, and he smiled strangely. “Do you mean to kill him, Lamora?”

“Ila justicca vei cala,” said Locke.

“Your Throne Therin is passable,” said the Bondsmage, “but your pronunciation is excrement. ‘Justice is red,’ indeed. So you want him, more than anything? You want him screaming under your knife?”

“That’d do for a start.”

Unexpectedly, the Falconer threw back his head and began to laugh-a high-pitched noise, tinged with madness. His chest shook with mirth, and fresh tears ran from his eyes.

“What?” Locke prodded him again with the hatchet. “Quit being deliberately freakish and give me my fucking answer.”

“I’ll give you two,” said the Falconer, “and I’ll give you a choice. It’s guaranteed to cause you pain, either way. What hour of the evening is it?”

“What the hell does it matter to you?”

“I’ll tell you everything; please, just tell me what the hour is.”

“I’d wager it’s half past seven,” said Jean. The Bondsmage began chuckling once again. A smile grew on his haggard face, impossibly beatific for a man who’d just lost his fingers and thumbs.

“What the fuck is it? Spit out a real answer or you lose something else.”

“Anatolius,” said the Falconer, “will be at the Floating Grave. He’ll have a boat behind the galleon; he can reach it through one of Barsavi’s escape hatches. At Falselight, the Satisfaction will turn on her anchor chain and put out to sea; she’ll tack first to the east, sweeping past the south end of the Wooden Waste, where it opens to the ocean. His crew in the city has been sneaking out to the ship, one or two at a time, in the provision boat. Like rats leaving a sinking vessel. He’ll stay until the last; it’s his style. Last out of danger. They’ll pick him up south of the Waste.”

“His crew in the city,” said Locke. “You mean his ‘Gray King’s men,’ the ones who’ve been helping him all along?”

“Yes,” said the Bondsmage. “Time your entrance properly…and you should have him to yourself, or very close, before he sets off in the boat.”

“That doesn’t cause me pain,” said Locke. “That thought brings me pleasure.”

“But here’s the second point. The Satisfaction puts out to sea just as the greater part of Anatolius’ plan goes into effect.”

“Greater part?”

“Think, Lamora. You can’t truly be this dense; Barsavi slew Avram Anatolius, but who allowed it to happen? Who was complicit?”

“Vorchenza,” said Locke slowly. “Doña Vorchenza, the duke’s Spider.”

“Yes,” said the Falconer. “And behind her, the man who gave her the authority to make such decisions?”

“Duke Nicovante.”

“Oh yes,” whispered the sorcerer, genuinely warming to his subject. “Oh, yes. But not just him, either. Who stood to benefit from the Secret Peace? Who did the arrangement shield, at the expense of men like Avram Anatolius?”

“The nobility.”

“Yes. The peers of Camorr. And Anatolius wants them.”

“Them? Which ‘them’?”

“Why, all of them, Master Lamora.”

“How the fuck is that possible?”

“Sculptures. Four unusual sculptures delivered as gifts to the duke. Currently placed at various points within Raven’s Reach.”

“Sculptures? I’ve seen them-gold and glass, with shifting alchemical lights. Your work?”

“Not my work,” said the Falconer. “Not my sort of thing at all. The alchemical lights are just a bit of mummery; they are beautiful, I suppose. But there’s a lot of room left inside those things for the real surprise.”

“What?”

“Alchemical fuses,” said the Falconer. “Set for a certain time; small clay pans of fire-oil, intended to be set off by the fuses.”

“But that can’t be all.”

“Oh no, Master Lamora.” Now the sorcerer positively smirked. “Before he hired me, Anatolius spent part of his considerable fortune to secure large amounts of a rare substance.”

“No more games, Falconer-what the hell is it?”

“Wraithstone.”

Locke was silent for a long moment; he shook his head as though to clear it. “You can’t be fucking serious.”

“Hundreds of pounds of it,” said the Falconer, “distributed in the four sculptures. All the peers of Camorr will be crammed into those galleries at Falselight; the duke and his Spider and all their relatives and friends and servants and heirs. Do you know anything about Wraithstone smoke, Master Lamora? It’s slightly lighter than air. It will spread upward until it fills every level of the duke’s feast; it will pass out through the roof vents and it will fill the Sky Garden, where all the children of the nobility are playing as we speak. Anyone standing on the embarkation platform might escape…but I very much doubt it.”

“At Falselight,” said Locke in a small voice.

“Yes,” hissed the sorcerer. “So now you have your choice, Master Lamora. At Falselight, the man you want to kill more than anyone in the world will be briefly alone at the Floating Grave. And at Falselight, six hundred people at the top of Raven’s Reach will suffer a fate worse than death. Your friend Jean looks to be in very poor health; I doubt he can help you with either task. So the decision is yours. I wish you joy of it.”

Locke arose and tossed Jean his hatchet. “It’s no decision at all,” he said. “Gods damn you, Falconer, it’s no decision at all.”

“You’re going to Raven’s Reach,” said Jean.

“Of course I am.”

“Have a pleasant time,” said the Falconer, “convincing the guards and the nobility of your sincerity; Doña Vorchenza herself is rather convinced that the sculptures are completely harmless.”

“Well,” said Locke, grinning wryly and scratching the back of his head. “I’m kind of popular at Raven’s Reach at the moment; they might be glad to see me.”

“How do you expect to get back out?” asked Jean.

“I don’t know,” said Locke. “I don’t have the first fucking clue; but it’s a state of affairs that’s served me well in the past. I need to run. Jean, for the love of the gods, hide near the Floating Grave if you must, but don’t you dare go in there; you’re in no condition to fight.” Locke turned to the Bondsmage. “Capa Raza-how is he with a blade?”

“Deadly,” said the Falconer with a smile.

“Well, look, Jean. I’ll do what I can at Raven’s Reach; I’ll try to get to the Floating Grave somehow. If I’m late, I’m late; we’ll follow Raza and we’ll find him somewhere else. But if I’m not late, if he’s still there…”

“Locke, you can’t be serious. At least let me come with you. If Raza has any skill with a blade at all, he’ll kick the shit out of you.”

“No more arguments, Jean; you’re hurt too badly to be of much use. I’m fit, and I’m obviously crazy. Anything could happen. But I have to go, now.” Locke embraced Jean, stepped to the doorway, and turned back. “Cut this bastard’s fucking tongue out.”

“You promised!” yelled the Falconer. “You promised!”

“I didn’t promise you shit. My dead friends, on the other hand-I made them certain promises I intend to keep.”

Locke whirled and went out through the curtain; behind him, Jean was setting the knife over the oil flame once again. The Falconer’s screams followed him down the debris-strewn street, and then faded into the distance as he turned north and began to jog for the Hill of Whispers.

4

IT WAS well past the eighth hour of the evening before Locke set foot on the flagstones beneath the Five Towers of Camorr once again. The journey north had been problematic. Between bands of drunken revelers with obliterated senses (and sensibilities) and the guards at the Alcegrante watch stations (Locke finally managed to convince them that he was a lawscribe heading north to meet an acquaintance leaving the duke’s feast; he also slipped them a “Midsummer-mark gift” of gold tyrins from a little supply concealed up his sleeve), he felt himself fortunate to make it at all. Falselight would rise within the next hour and a quarter; the sky was already turning red in the west and dark blue in the east.

He made his way past the rows and rows of carriages in close array. Horses stamped and whinnied; a great many of them had relieved themselves onto the lovely stones of the largest courtyard in Camorr. Locke snorted; horses were not Verrari water-engines, to be left standing decorating the place until needed. Footmen and guards and attendants mingled in groups, sharing food and staring up at the Five Towers, where the glory of the coming sunset painted strange, fresh colors on their Elderglass walls.

Locke was so busy considering what to say to the men at the elevator hoists that he didn’t even see Conté until the taller, stronger man had one hand around the back of Locke’s neck and one of his long knives jammed into Locke’s back.

“Well, well,” he said, “Master Fehrwight. The gods are kind. Don’t say a fucking thing, just come with me.”

Conté half led and half hauled him to a nearby carriage; Locke recognized the one he’d ridden to the feast in with Sofia and Lorenzo. It was an enclosed, black-lacquered box with a window on the side opposite the door; that window’s curtains and shutters were drawn tightly shut.

Locke was thrown onto one of the padded benches within the carriage; Conté bolted the door behind him and sat down on the opposite bench, with his knife held at the ready.

“Conté, please,” said Locke, not even bothering with his Fehrwight accent, “I need to get back into Raven’s Reach; everyone inside is in terrible danger.”

Locke hadn’t known that someone could kick so hard from a sitting position; Conté braced himself against the seat with his free hand and showed him that it was possible. The bodyguard’s heavy boot knocked him back into his corner of the carriage; Locke bit down hard on his tongue and tasted blood. His head rattled against the wooden walls.

“Where’s the money, you little shit?”

“It’s been taken from me.”

“Not fucking likely. Sixteen thousand and five hundred full crowns?”

“Not quite; you’re forgetting the additional cost of meals and entertainment at the Shifting-”

Conté’s boot lashed out again, and Locke went sprawling into the opposite corner of his side of the carriage.

“For fuck’s sake, Conté! I don’t have it! It’s been taken from me! And it’s not important at the moment.”

“Let me tell you something, Master Lukas-fucking-Fehrwight. I was at Godsgate Hill; I was younger then than you are now.”

“Good for you, but I don’t give a sh-,” Locke said, and for that he ate another boot.

“I was at Godsgate Hill,” continued Conté, “too fucking young by far, the single most scared-shitless runt of a pikeman Duke Nicovante had in that mess. I was in it bad; my banneret was up to its neck in shit and Verrari and the Mad Count’s cavalry. Our horse had withdrawn; my position was being overrun. Our peers of Camorr fell back and saw to their own safety-with one fucking exception.”

“This is the single most irrelevant thing I’ve ever-,” said Locke as he moved for the door; Conté brought up his knife and convinced him back into his seat.

“Baron Ilandro Salvara,” said Conté. “He fought until his horse went down beneath him; he fought until he took four wounds and had to be hauled from the field by his legs. All the other peers treated us like garbage; Salvara nearly killed himself trying to save us. When I got out of the duke’s service, I tried the city watch for a few years; when that turned to shit, I begged for an audience with the old Don Salvara, and I told him I’d seen him at Godsgate Hill. I told him he’d saved my fucking life, and that I’d serve him for the rest of his, if he’d have me. He took me in. When he passed away, I decided to stay on and serve Lorenzo. Fucking move for that door again and I will bleed some enthusiasm out of you.

“Now Lorenzo,” said Conté with undisguised pride, “he’s more a man of business than his father was. But he’s made of the same stuff; he went into that alley with a blade in his hand when he didn’t know you, when he thought you were being attacked for real, by real fucking bandits that meant you harm. Are you proud, you fucking pissant? Are you proud of what you’ve done to that man, who tried to save your fucking life?”

“I do what I do, Conté,” said Locke with a bitterness that surprised him. “I do what I do. Is Lorenzo a saint of Perelandro? He’s a peer of Camorr; he profits from the Secret Peace. His great-great-grandfather probably slit someone’s throat to claim a peerage; Lorenzo benefits from that every day. People make tea from ashes and piss in the Cauldron while Lorenzo and Sofia have you to peel their grapes and wipe their chins for them. Don’t talk to me about what I’ve done. I need to get inside Raven’s Reach now.”

“Get serious about telling me where that money is,” said Conté, “or I’ll kick your ass so hard every piece of shit that falls out of it for the rest of your life will have my gods-damned heel print on it.”

“Conté,” said Locke, “everyone in Raven’s Reach is in danger. I need to get back up there.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Conté. “I wouldn’t fucking believe you if you told me my name was Conté. I wouldn’t believe you if you told me fire was hot and water was wet. Whatever you want, you don’t get it.”

“Conté, please, I can’t fucking escape up there. Every gods-damned Midnighter in the city is up there; the Spider is up there; the Nightglass Company is up there. Three hundred peers of Camorr are up there! I’m unarmed; haul me up there yourself. But for the love of the fucking gods, get me up there! If I don’t get up there before Falselight, it’ll be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“I don’t have the time to explain; listen to me babble to Vorchenza and it’ll all fall together.”

“Why the hell,” said Conté, “do you need to talk to that fading old crone?”

“My mistake,” said Locke. “I seem to have more of the pulse of things than you do. Look, I can’t fuck around anymore. Please, please, I’m begging you. I’m not Lukas Fehrwight; I’m a gods-damned thief. Tie my hands, put your knife to my back; I don’t care what your terms are. Please just take me back up into Raven’s Reach; I don’t care how. You tell me how we do it.”

“What’s your real name?”

“How is that important?”

“Spit it up,” said Conté, “and maybe I’ll tie your hands, and fetch some guards, and I’ll try to get you up into Raven’s Reach.”

“My name,” said Locke with a sigh of resignation, “is Tavrin Callas.”

Conté looked hard at him for a moment, then grunted.

“Very well, Master Callas. Hold out your hands and don’t move; I’m going to tie you up so tight I guarantee it’ll fucking hurt. Then we’ll take a walk.”

5

THERE WERE Nightglass soldiers near the chain elevator landings who’d been given his description; naturally, they were delighted when Conté hauled him over with his hands tied in front of him. They ascended once again; Locke with Conté at his back and a blackjacket holding him by either arm.

“Please take me to Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke. “If you can’t find her, please find one of the Salvaras. Or even a captain in your company named Reynart.”

“Shut up, you,” said one of the blackjackets. “You go where you go.”

The cage slid home into the locking mechanisms on the embarkation terrace; a milling crowd of nobles and their guests turned their attention to Locke as he was carried forward between the three men. As they passed the threshold into the first gallery within the tower, Captain Reynart happened to be standing nearby with a plate of small confectionary ships in his hands. His eyes grew wide; he took a last bite of marzipan sail, wiped his mouth, and thrust his dish into the arms of a passing waiter, who nearly toppled over in surprise.

“By the gods,” he said, “where did you find him?”

“We didn’t, sir,” said one of the blackjackets. “Man behind us says he’s in the service of Lord and Lady Salvara.”

“I caught him by the carriages,” said Conté.

“Fantastic,” said Reynart. “Take him down a level, to the eastern wing of suites. There’s an empty storeroom with no windows. Search him, strip him down to his breechclout, and throw him in there. Two guards at all times. We’ll pull him out after midnight, when the feast starts to break up.”

“Reynart, you can’t,” cried Locke, struggling uselessly against the men who held him. “I came back on my own. On my own, do you understand? Everyone here is in danger. Are you in on your adopted mother’s business? I need to talk to Vorchenza!”

“I’ve been warned to develop selective hearing when it comes to you.” Reynart gestured at the blackjackets. “Storeroom, now.”

“Reynart, no! The sculptures, Reynart! Look in the fucking sculptures!”

Locke was shouting; guests and nobles were taking an intense interest, so Reynart clapped a hand over his mouth. More blackjackets appeared out of the crowd.

“Keep making a fuss,” said Reynart, “and these lords and ladies might just see blood.” He withdrew his hand.

“I know who she is, Reynart! I know who Vorchenza is. I’ll shout it across all of these galleries; I’ll go kicking and screaming, but before I’m in that room everyone will know! Now, look at the gods-damned sculptures, please.”

“What about the sculptures?”

“There’s something in them, damn it. It’s a plot. They’re from Capa Raza.”

“They were a gift to the duke,” said Reynart. “My superiors cleared them personally.”

“Your superiors,” said Locke, “have been interfered with. Capa Raza hired the services of a Bondsmage. I’ve seen what he can do to someone’s mind.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Reynart. “I can’t believe I’m letting you conjure another fairy tale. Get him downstairs, but first let me gag him.” Reynart plucked a linen napkin from another nearby waiter’s tray and began to wad it up.

“Reynart, please, take me to Vorchenza. Why the hell would I come back if it wasn’t important? Everyone here is going to fucking die if you throw me in that storeroom. I’m tied up and under guard; please take me to Vorchenza.”

Stephen stared coldly at him, then set the napkin down. He put his finger in Locke’s face. “So be it. I’ll take you to see the doña. But if you utter so much as a single word while we’re hauling you over to her, I will gag you, beat you senseless, and put you in the storeroom. Is that clear?”

Locke nodded vigorously.

Reynart gestured for more blackjackets to join his procession; Locke was led across the gallery and down two sets of stairs with six soldiers at his side and Conté scowling just behind him. Reynart led him back to the very same hall and the very same chamber where he’d first met Doña Vorchenza. She was sitting in her chair, knitting discarded at her feet, holding a wet cloth to her lips while Doña Salvara knelt beside her. Don Salvara stood staring out the window with his leg up on the sill; all three of them looked very surprised indeed when Reynart thrust Locke into the room before him.

“This room is closed,” said Reynart to his guards. “Sorry, you, too,” he said when Conté tried to pass.

“Let the Salvaras’ man come in, Stephen,” said Doña Vorchenza. “He already knows most of it; he might as well know the rest.”

Conté stepped in, bowed to Vorchenza, and grabbed Locke by the right arm while Reynart locked the door behind them. The Salvaras gave Locke a matching pair of scowls.

“Hello, Sofia. Hey, Lorenzo. Nice to see you two again,” said Locke, in his natural voice.

Doña Vorchenza rose from her chair, closed the distance between herself and Locke with two steps, and punched him in his own mouth, a straight-arm blow with the flat of her palm. His head whirled to the right, and spikes of pain shot through his neck.

“Ow,” he said. “What the fuck is it with you, anyway?”

“A debt to be repaid, Master Thorn.”

“You stuck a gods-damned poisoned needle in my neck!”

“You most certainly deserved it,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“Well, I for one would dis-”

Reynart grabbed him by his left shoulder, spun him around, and slammed his own fist into Locke’s jaw. Vorchenza was rather impressive for someone of her age and build, but Reynart could really hit. The room seemed to go away for a few seconds; when it returned, Locke was sprawled in a corner, lying on his side. Small blacksmiths seemed to be pounding on anvils inconveniently located just above his eyes; Locke wondered how they’d gotten in there.

“I told you Doña Vorchenza was my adoptive mother,” said Reynart.

“Oh my,” said Conté, chuckling. “Now this is my sort of private party.”

“Has it occurred to any of you,” said Locke, crawling back to his feet, “to ask why the fuck I came all the way back to Raven’s Reach when I’d already made it clean away?”

“You jumped from one of the outside ledges,” said Doña Vorchenza, “and you grabbed one of the elevator cages as it went past, didn’t you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, all the other ways to the ground were too unhealthy to consider.”

“You see? I told you, Stephen.”

“Perhaps I thought it was possible,” said the Vadran, “but I just didn’t want to think it had actually been done.”

“Stephen is not fond of heights,” said Vorchenza.

“He’s a very wise man,” said Locke, “but please, please listen to me. I came back to warn you-those sculptures. Capa Raza gave you four of them. Everyone in this tower is in awful fucking danger from them.”

“Sculptures?” Doña Vorchenza stared down at him curiously. “A gentleman left four gold-and-glass sculptures as a gift for the duke.” She looked over at Stephen. “I’m sure the duke’s security men have looked into them, and approved them. I wouldn’t know; I’m just consulting in this affair as a favor to some of my peers.”

“So I’ve been told by my superiors,” said Reynart.

“Oh, quit that,” said Locke. “You’re the Spider. I’m the Thorn of Camorr. Did you meet with Capa Raza? Did you meet a Bondsmage, styling himself the Falconer? Did they speak to you about the sculptures?”

Don and Doña Salvara were staring at Doña Vorchenza; the old woman stuttered and coughed.

“Whoops,” said Locke. “You hadn’t told Sofia and Lorenzo, had you? Playing the old friend-of-a-friend angle? Sorry. But I need to talk to you as the Spider. When Falselight comes, everyone in Raven’s Reach is fucked.”

“I knew it,” said Sofia. “I knew it!” She grabbed her husband by the arm and squeezed hard enough to make him wince. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“I’m still not so sure,” said Lorenzo.

“No,” said Doña Vorchenza, sighing. “ Sofia has the truth of the matter. I am the duke’s Spider. Having said that, if it gets beyond this room, throats will be cut.”

Conté looked at her with surprise and a strange sort of approval in his eyes; Locke stumbled back to his feet.

“As for the matter of the sculptures,” said Doña Vorchenza, “I did clear them personally. They are a gift to the duke.”

“They’re a plot,” said Locke. “They’re a trap. Just open one up and you’ll see! Capa Raza means to ruin every man, woman, and child in this tower; it’ll be worse than murder.”

“Capa Raza,” said Doña Vorchenza, “was a perfect gentleman; he was almost too demure to accept my invitation to briefly join us this evening. This is another one of your fabulations, intended to bring you some advantage.”

“Oh, shit yes,” said Locke. “I marched back here after escaping and had myself cleverly tied up and hauled in here by the whole gods-damned Nightglass Company, on purpose. Now I’ve got you right where I fucking want you. Those sculptures are full of Wraithstone, Vorchenza! Wraithstone.”

“Wraithstone?” said Doña Sofia, aghast. “How can you know?”

“He doesn’t,” said Doña Vorchenza. “He’s lying. The sculptures are harmless.”

“Open one up,” said Locke. “There’s an easy remedy for this argument. Please, open one up. They catch fire at Falselight.”

“Those sculptures,” said Vorchenza, “are ducal property worth thousands of crowns. They will not be damaged on some mad whim of a known criminal.”

“Thousands of crowns,” said Locke, “versus hundreds of lives. Every peer in Camorr is going to be a drooling moron, do you understand? Can you imagine those children in that garden with white eyes like a Gentled horse? That’s what we’ll all be,” he shouted. “Gentled. That shit will eat our fucking souls.”

“Can it really hurt to check?” asked Reynart.

Locke looked up at Reynart with gratitude on his face. “No, it can’t, Reynart. Please do.”

Doña Vorchenza massaged her temples. “This is quite out of hand,” she said. “Stephen, throw this man somewhere secure until after the feast. A room without windows, please.”

“Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke, “what does the name Avram Anatolius mean to you?”

Her eyes were cold. “I couldn’t begin to say,” she said. “What do you imagine it means to you?”

“Capa Barsavi murdered Avram Anatolius twenty-two years ago,” said Locke. “And you knew about it. You knew he was a threat to the Secret Peace.”

“I can’t see what relevance this has to anything,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“You will be silent now, or I’ll have you silenced.”

“Anatolius had a son,” said Locke with desperate haste, as Stephen took a step toward him. “A surviving son, Doña Vorchenza. Luciano Anatolius. Luciano is Capa Raza. Luciano took revenge on Barsavi for the murder of his parents and his siblings-now he means to have revenge on you as well! You and all your peers.”

“No,” said Doña Vorchenza, touching her head again. “No, that’s not right. I enjoyed the time I spent with Capa Raza. I can’t imagine he would do anything like this.”

“The Falconer,” said Locke. “Do you recall the Falconer?”

“Raza’s associate,” said Vorchenza distantly. “I…I enjoyed my time with him, as well. A quiet and polite young man.”

“He did something to you, Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke. “I’ve seen him do it, right before my eyes. Did he speak your true name? Did he write something on a piece of parchment?”

“I…I…cannot…this is…” Doña Vorchenza cringed; the wrinkles of her face bent inward, as though she were in pain. “I must invite Capa Raza…It would be impolite not to invite him to the…to the feast…” She slumped against her chair and screamed.

Lorenzo and Sofia rushed to her aid; Reynart picked Locke up by the front of his vest and slammed him against the north wall, hard. Locke’s feet dangled a foot off the ground.

“What did you do to her?” bellowed Reynart.

“Nothing,” gasped Locke. “A Bondsmage cast a spell over her! Think, man-is she being rational about the sculptures? The bastard did something to her mind.”

“Stephen,” said Doña Vorchenza in a hoarse voice, “put the Thorn down. He’s right. He’s right… Raza and the Falconer…It’s like I’d forgotten, somehow. I wasn’t going to accept Raza’s request… Then the Falconer did something at the desk, and I…”

She stood up once more, assisted by Sofia. “Luciano Anatolius, you said. Capa Raza is Avram Anatolius’ son? How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I tied that Bondsmage to the floor just an hour or two ago,” said Locke as Reynart let him slide back down the wall. “I cut off his fingers to get him to talk, and when he’d confessed everything I wanted to hear, I had his fucking tongue cut out, and the stump cauterized.”

Everyone in the room stared at him.

“I called him an asshole, too,” said Locke. “He didn’t like that.”

“It’s worse than death, to slay a Bondsmage,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“He’s not dead. He’s just very gods-damned sorry.”

Doña Vorchenza shook her head. “Stephen, the sculptures. There’s one on this floor, isn’t there? Beside the bar?”

“Yes,” said Reynart, moving for the door. “What else do you know about them, Thorn?”

“They’ve got alchemical fuses,” said Locke. “And clay pots of fire-oil. At Falselight, that fire-oil goes up; this whole tower fills with Wraithstone smoke. And Anatolius sails away, laughing his head off.”

“This Luciano Anatolius,” said Sofia, “is he the one we met on the stairs?”

“One and the same,” said Locke. “Luciano Anatolius, also known as Capa Raza, also known as the Gray King.”

“If these things are alchemical,” said Sofia, “I’d better be the one to have a look at them.”

“If it’s going to be dangerous, I’m going as well,” said Lorenzo.

“And me,” said Conté.

“Great! We can all go! It’ll be fun!” Locke waved his tied hands at the door. “But hurry it up, for fuck’s sake.”

Conté took him by the arm and pushed him along at the rear of the procession; Reynart and Vorchenza led their way out past the startled blackjackets. Reynart beckoned for them to follow. They left the hallway and returned to the main gallery.

“On the other side of the bar, by the glasses,” said Locke. “Behind one of the velvet ropes, I think.”

The crowd of red-faced revelers parted as the strange procession swept through the gallery. Reynart strode up to the blackjacket standing beside the glittering pyramid of wineglasses. “This end of the bar is temporarily closed. Make it so,” he said. Turning to his other soldiers, he said, “Cordon this area off fifteen or twenty feet back. Don’t let anyone else get close, in the name of the duke.”

Doña Sofia ducked under the velvet rope and crouched beside the sculpted pyramid, which was about three feet tall. The soft lights continued to flash and shift behind the glass windows set into its faces.

“Captain Reynart,” she said, “you had a pair of gloves at your belt, I seem to recall. May I borrow them?”

Reynart passed her a pair of black leather gloves, and she slipped them on. “It’s rarely wise to take too much for granted. Contact poisons are child’s play,” she said absently, and ran her fingers across the surface of the sculpture while peering at it closely. She shifted position several times, her frown deepening with each new examination.

“I can’t see any breach in the casing,” she said, standing up again. “Not so much as a seam; the workmanship is very good. If the device is intended to issue forth smoke, I can’t imagine how the smoke would escape.” She tapped a gloved finger against one of the glass windows.

“Unless…” She tapped the window again. “This is what we call ornamental glass; it’s thin and fragile. It’s not commonly used in sculpture, and we never use it in the laboratory, because it can’t take heat…”

Her head whirled toward Locke; her almond-blonde ringlets spun like a halo. “Did you say there were pots of fire-oil in this device?”

“So I heard,” he replied, “from a man very eager not to lose his tongue.”

“That might be it,” she said. “Fire-oil could generate a great deal of heat inside a metal enclosure. It would shatter the glass-shatter the glass and let out the smoke! Captain, draw your rapier, please. I should like to use it.”

Concealing any qualms he might have had, Reynart drew his rapier and carefully passed it to her, hilt first. She examined the silver butt of the weapon, nodded, and used it to smash in the glass. It broke with a high-pitched tinkle. She reversed the rapier and used the blade to sweep away the jagged fragments from around the edges of the window, then passed it back to Reynart. There were mutters and exclamations from the watching crowd, who were barely being kept in check by Reynart’s thin arc of apologetic blackjackets.

“Careful, Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo.

“Don’t teach a sailor to shit in the ocean,” she muttered as she peered into the window, which was about eight inches wide at its base, tapering slightly toward the top. She reached in with one gloved hand and touched one of the shifting alchemical lights; she twisted her wrist and drew it out.

“Not even attached to anything,” she said as she set it on the ground beside her. “Oh, gods,” she whispered when she peeked back into the window without the light in her way. Her hand came up to her mouth and she stumbled back to her feet, shaking.

Doña Vorchenza stepped up directly beside her. “Well?”

“It’s Wraithstone,” said Doña Salvara with disgust. “The whole thing is full of it. I can see it in there-so much of it I can smell the powder.” She shuddered, as some people might when a large spider scuttles across their path. “There’s enough in just this one sculpture to do for the whole tower. Your Capa Raza wanted to be thorough.”

Doña Vorchenza stared out through the glass at the vista north of Camorr; the sky was noticeably darker than it had been even when Locke had been dragged past the bar for his second visit with Doña Vorchenza. “ Sofia,” said the Countess Amberglass, “what can you do about these things? Can you prevent their ignition?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Doña Salvara. “I couldn’t see the alchemical fuses; they must be under the Wraithstone. And it’s also possible they might ignite if they’re interfered with. Trying to disable it might be as bad as letting it burn in the first place.”

“We need to get them out of the tower,” said Reynart.

“No,” said Sofia. “Wraithstone smoke rises; it’s lighter than the air around us. I doubt we can get them far enough away by Falselight. If they go off at the bottom of Raven’s Reach, we’ll still be standing in the column of smoke as it rises. The best thing to do would be to drown them; Wraithstone is rendered impotent by the admixture of water, after a few minutes. The fire-oil would still burn, but the white smoke wouldn’t rise. If only we could fling them into the Angevine!”

“We can’t,” said Vorchenza, “but we can drop them into the Sky Garden ’s cistern; it’s ten feet deep and fifteen feet wide. Will that do?”

“Yes! Now we just need to get them up there.”

“Stephen-,” said Doña Vorchenza, but Captain Reynart was already in motion.

“My lords and ladies,” Reynart bellowed at the top of his voice. “Your assistance is urgently required, in the name of Duke Nicovante. Nightglass, to me; I require a clear path to the stairs, my lords and ladies. With all apologies, I will not be gentle with anyone in our way.”

“We need to fetch these damn things off the galleries and haul them up to the Sky Garden,” said Reynart. He grabbed one of his men by the shoulder. “Run up to the embarkation terrace and find Lieutenant Razelin. Tell him to clear the Sky Garden, on my authority. Tell him I don’t want a single child up there five minutes from now. He’ll know what to do. Act now, apologize later.”

“Free my hands,” said Locke. “Those things are heavy; I’m not terribly strong, but I can help.”

Doña Vorchenza looked at him curiously. “Why did you come back to warn us, Master Thorn? Why didn’t you simply make good on your escape?”

“I’m a thief, Doña Vorchenza,” he said quietly. “I’m a thief, and maybe even a murderer, but this is too much. Besides, I mean to kill Raza. If he wanted it, I had to foil it. Simple as that.” He held out his hands, and she nodded slowly.

“You can help, but we must speak afterward.”

“Yes, we must-hopefully without needles this time,” said Locke. “Conté, be a friend and get rid of these ropes.”

The lean bodyguard slashed through Locke’s bonds with one of his knives. “If you try to fuck around,” he growled, “I’ll put you in the cistern and have them drop the sculptures on top of you.”

Locke, Conté, Reynart, Don Salvara, and several blackjackets knelt to lift the sculpture; Sofia watched for a second or two, frowning, and then shoved her way in beside her husband to take part of his edge.

“I shall find the duke,” said Vorchenza. “I shall see that he’s notified of what’s going on.” She hurried away across the gallery.

“Well, this isn’t so bad with eight of us,” said Reynart, “but it’s going to be awkward as all hell. We’ve got quite a few steps to go up.”

Stumbling along together, they hauled the sculpture up one flight of stairs. More blackjackets were waiting on that gallery floor. “Find all of these sculptures,” Reynart yelled. “Eight men to each of them! Find them and carry them up to the Sky Garden. In the duke’s name, give a good shove to anyone who gets in your way-and by the gods, don’t drop them!”

Soon multiple parties of struggling, swearing soldiers were hauling sculptures up in the wake of Reynart’s party. Locke was panting and sweating; the others around him weren’t much better off.

“What if this thing goes off in our arms?” muttered one of the blackjackets.

“First, we’d burn our hands,” said Sofia, red-faced with exertion. “Then we’d all fall over senseless before we could take six steps, and then we’d be Gentled. And then we’d feel very silly, wouldn’t we?”

Up to the last gallery and beyond; they left the feast in their wake. Guards and servants leapt aside as they stumbled along service passages. At the very top of Raven’s Reach, a wide marble staircase wound its way up to the Sky Garden, spiraling along the inside of the smoky-transparent exterior walls. All of Camorr whirled around them as they went up spiral after spiral; the sun was just half a pale medallion, sinking below the curved western horizon. Strange dark shapes hung down from above; Locke had to stare at them for several seconds before he realized they were the dangling vines of the Sky Garden, swaying in the wind outside.

Dozens of children were running down past them, shouting, chased by blackjackets and scolded by servants. The staircase opened onto the rooftop garden, which really was a forest in miniature. Olive trees and orange trees and alchemical hybrids with rustling emerald leaves rippled in the warm wind beneath the cloudless purple sky.

“Where’s the damn cistern?” asked Locke. “I’ve never been up here.”

“On the eastern edge of the garden,” said Lorenzo. “I used to play up here.”

Beneath the dangling tendrils of a weeping willow they found the cistern-a circular pond ten feet across, as Doña Vorchenza had promised. Without preamble, they heaved the sculpture into the water; a great splash sprang up in its wake, dousing two of the blackjackets. It sank rapidly, trailing a milky white cloud in the water, and struck the bottom of the cistern with a heavy clank.

One by one the other three sculptures were tossed in on top of it, until all four were beneath the surface of the now-milky water and the Sky Garden was crowded with blackjackets.

“Now what?” Locke panted.

“Now we should clear the roof,” said Doña Sofia. “That’s still a great deal of Wraithstone; I wouldn’t want anyone near it, even with it underwater. Not until a few hours have passed.”

Everyone else on the roof was only too happy to comply with her suggestion.

6

FALSELIGHT WAS just beginning to rise when Doña Vorchenza met them on the top gallery of Raven’s Reach. The scintillating streamers of ghostly color from the Elderglass towers could just be seen through the tall door to the embarkation platform. The gathering was in an uproar around them; blackjackets were running to and fro, uttering apologies to dons and doñas as they stumbled against them.

“It’s as good as war,” she said when the Salvaras, Locke, Conté, and Reynart gathered around her. “To try something like this! Gods! Nicovante’s calling up the Nightglass, Stephen; you’re going to have a busy night.”

“Midnighters?” he asked.

“Get them all out of here,” said Vorchenza, “quickly and quietly. Assemble at the Palace of Patience; have them ready for a scrap. I’ll throw them in wherever Nicovante decides they can do the most good.

“Master Thorn,” she said, “we are grateful to you for what you’ve done; it will earn you a great deal of consideration. But now your part in this affair is over. I’ll have you taken over to Amberglass under guard. You’re a prisoner, but you’ve earned some comforts.”

“Bullshit,” said Locke. “You owe me more than that. Raza’s mine.”

“Raza,” said Doña Vorchenza, “is now the most wanted man in all Camorr; the duke intends to crush him like an insect. His domains will be invaded and the Floating Grave thrown open.”

“You idiots,” cried Locke. “Raza isn’t commanding the Right People, he’s fucking using them! The Floating Grave is empty; Raza’s escaping as we speak. He didn’t want to be Capa of Camorr; he just wanted to use the position to get Barsavi and wipe out the peerage of Camorr.”

“How do you know so much about the affairs of Raza, Master Thorn?”

“Raza forced me to help him fox Capa Barsavi, back when Raza was still calling himself the Gray King. The deal was that he’d let me go after that, but it was a double cross. He killed three of my friends and he took my money.”

“Your money?” said Don Lorenzo, curling one hand into a fist. “I daresay you mean our money!”

“Yes,” said Locke. “And everything I took from Doña de Marre, and Don Javarriz, and the Feluccias. More than forty thousand crowns-a fortune. Raza stole it from me. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t have it anymore.”

“Then you’ve nothing of further value to bargain with,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“I said I didn’t have it anymore, not that I didn’t know where it was,” said Locke. “Raza’s got it mingled with Barsavi’s fortune, ready to smuggle out of the city. It was meant to be used to pay for his Bondsmage.”

“Then tell us where it is,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“Raza’s mine,” said Locke. “I get sent back down to the ground and I go free. Raza killed three of my friends, and I mean to cut out his fucking heart; I’d trade all the white iron in Camorr for the chance.”

“Men are hanged in this city for stealing a few pieces of silver,” said Doña Vorchenza, “and you propose to go free after stealing tens of thousands of full crowns? I think not.”

“It’s a moment of truth, Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke. “Do you want the money back? I can tell you where it is; I’ll tell you right where to find it, along with Barsavi’s fortune, which has to be considerable. In exchange, all I want is Raza. I go free and I kill the man who tried to wipe out you and all your peers. Be reasonable! Now that you all know my face and my voice, I can hardly return to my old career, at least here in Camorr.”

“You presume too much.”

“Did the Spider of Camorr prevent Capa Raza from filling Raven’s Reach with enough Wraithstone to Gentle the whole fucking city? No, that was the Thorn of Camorr, thanks very much. Every man and woman and child here tonight is only alive because I have a soft fucking heart, not because you were doing your job. You owe me, Vorchenza. You owe me, on your honor. Give me Raza and you can have the money, too.”

She gave him a stare that could have turned water to ice. “On my honor, Master Thorn,” she said at last, “for services rendered to the duke and to my peers. You may go free, and if you beat us to Raza, you may have him, though if you do not, I shall not apologize. And should you resume your activities, and our paths cross again, I will have you executed without trial.”

“Seems fair. I’m going to need a sword,” said Locke. “I nearly forgot.”

To his surprise, Captain Reynart unbuckled his rapier belt and tossed it to Locke. “Get it wet,” he said. “With my compliments.”

“Well,” said Doña Vorchenza as Locke strapped the belt around his waist, over Meraggio’s excellent blue breeches. “Now the money. Where is it?”

“North of the Teeth of Camorr, there are three shit-barges at the private docks. You know the ones; they haul all the drek and excrement out of the city and take it north to the fields.”

“Of course,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“Raza’s been having his fortune hidden on one of them,” said Locke. “In wooden chests, sealed in layers of oilcloth, for obvious reasons. After he slips out of Camorr, his plan is to meet the barge up north and offload the treasure. It’s all there, underneath those heaps of shit-begging your pardon.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Doña Vorchenza.

“I didn’t say my answer was going to be pleasant,” said Locke. “Think about it. What’s the last place anyone would want to look for a cache of coins?”

“Hmmm. Which barge?”

“I don’t know,” said Locke. “I just know that it’s one of the three.”

Vorchenza looked over at Reynart.

“Well,” said the captain, “there are reasons the gods saw fit to invent the enlisted man.”

“Oh, shit,” said Locke, swallowing a lump in his throat. Make this good, he thought. Make this very good. “Doña Vorchenza, this isn’t over.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Boats, barges, escape. I’ve been thinking. The Falconer made all sorts of strange jokes when he was under my knife. He was taunting me with something; I didn’t have a chance to figure it out until now. That plague ship. The Satisfaction. You have to sink it.”

“And why would that be?”

“It belongs to Anatolius,” said Locke. “According to the Falconer, Anatolius was a pirate on the White Iron Sea, building up his fortunes so he could hire a Bondsmage and return to Camorr for his revenge. The Satisfaction is his ship. But Anatolius isn’t planning to escape on it-he’s leaving the city to the north, going up the Angevine.”

“Meaning what?”

“The Falconer was dropping hints about a backup plan,” said Locke. “That plague ship is the backup plan. It’s not full of corpses, Doña Vorchenza. It has a token crew-men who’ve survived exposure to Black Whisper, like the duke’s Ghouls. A token crew and holds full of animals-goats, sheep, donkeys. I thought the Falconer was just trying to be irreverent…but think about it.”

“Animals can carry the Whisper,” said Reynart.

“Yes,” said Locke. “It doesn’t kill them, but they can sure as hell give it to us. Sink that fucking ship, Doña Vorchenza. It’s Raza’s other stroke. If he finds out he failed to wipe out the peers, he may attempt to take his revenge on the entire city. His last chance.”

“Madness,” Doña Vorchenza whispered, but she looked half-convinced.

“Anatolius already tried to wipe out every last peer of Camorr, down to the children. He is mad, Countess Amberglass. How well do you think he’ll react to frustration? All his men have to do is beach that ship against the quay and let those animals out. If they get under way, you might not be able to stop them in time. Or maybe they’ll just toss a few sheep into the city with a catapult. Sink that fucking ship.”

“Master Thorn,” said Doña Vorchenza, “you have a curiously tender heart, for a thief of your appetites.”

“I’m a sworn brother of the Nameless Thirteenth, the Crooked Warden, the Benefactor,” said Locke. “I’m a priest. I didn’t save the people in this tower just to see my entire city die. For propriety’s sake, Doña Vorchenza, for propriety’s sake-sink that gods-damned ship. I beg you.”

She stared at him over the edges of her half-moon optics, then turned to Reynart. “Captain,” she said slowly, “go to the lantern station on the embarkation platform. Flash messages to the Arsenal and the Dregs.”

She folded her hands over her stomach and sighed. “On my authority, in the name of Duke Nicovante, sink the Satisfaction and shoot down any survivor who tries to reach shore.”

Locke sighed with relief. “Thank you, Doña Vorchenza. Now-my elevator?”

“Your elevator, Master Thorn.” She actually ground her teeth together for a second. “As promised. I’ll have one made ready for you without delay. If the gods should give you Capa Raza before my men find him…may they give you strength.”

“I’m going to miss you, Doña Vorchenza,” said Locke. “And you as well, my lord and lady Salvara-all apologies for getting most of your fortune buried under shit. I hope we can still be friends.”

“Set foot in our house again,” said Sofia, “and you’ll become a permanent fixture in my laboratory.”

7

BLUE LIGHT flashed from the embarkation platform of Raven’s Reach; even against the shifting glimmer of Falselight, it stood out well enough to be seen at the relay station atop the Palace of Patience. In moments, shutters were falling rapidly open and closed over signal lanterns; the message passed through the air over the heads of thousands of revelers and arrived at its destinations-the Arsenal, the South Needle, the Dregs.

“Holy mother of shit,” said the watch-sergeant in the tower at the very tip of the South Needle, blinking to clear his eyes, wondering if he’d counted the signal flashes right. He slipped his illicit Day of Changes wineskin beneath his chair with pangs of guilt.

“Watch-sergeant,” said his younger companion, “that ship’s up to something awful funny.”

Out on the water of Old Harbor, the Satisfaction was slowly turning to larboard; sailors could just barely be seen atop the yards of the main and foremasts, preparing to unfurl topsails. Dozens of small dark shapes were moving on deck, doubly lit by the glow of yellow lamps and the glare of Falselight.

“She’s casting, sir. She’s going to make for sea-where’d all those people come from?” said the younger watchman.

“I don’t know,” said the sergeant, “but the signal’s just gone up. Merciful gods, they’re going to sink that yellow-lit bitch.”

Pinpoints of bright orange light began to erupt around the periphery of the Dregs; each little engine-tower had emergency oil lamps that served to signal when they were both manned and ready for action. Drums beat within the Arsenal, and whistles sounded from across the city, above the low echoing murmur of the Day of Changes crowds.

One of the engines on the Dregs’ shore loosed with an echoing crash. The stone was a blurred shadow in the air; it missed by yards and raised a white fountain on the frigate’s starboard side.

The next engine to let fly hurled an arc of orange-white fire that seemed to hang in the sky, a hypnotic banner of burning light. The South Needle watchmen stared in awe as it crashed down onto the Satisfaction’s deck, spraying hot tendrils in every direction. Men ran frantically about on the deck, some of them obviously on fire. One leapt from the vessel’s side, plunging into the water like a burning cinder thrown into a puddle.

“Gods, that’s fire-oil,” said the younger watchman. “It won’t stop burning even down there.”

“Well, even sharks like cooked meat,” said the sergeant with a chuckle. “Poor bastards.”

A stone crashed against the side of the frigate, shattering wooden rails and sending splinters flying. Men whirled and screamed and fell to the deck; the fire was rising into the sails and rigging, despite the frantic efforts of the Satisfaction’s crew to control it with sand. Another fire-barrel exploded against the quarterdeck; the men and women at the wheel were engulfed in a roaring nimbus of white flame. They didn’t even have time to scream.

Stones battered the ship and tore through her few fluttering sails; fires burned out of control at her bow, her stern, and amidships. Fingers of orange and red and white capered about the decks and rose into the sky, along with smoke in several colors. Under the arc of a dozen throwing-engines, the unarmed and nearly motionless frigate never had a chance. Five minutes after the signal had flashed forth from Raven’s Reach, the Satisfaction was a pyre-a mountain of red-and-white flame reaching up from the water that rippled like a red mirror beneath the dying ship’s hull.

Archers took up position on the shore, ready to shoot down any survivors who tried to swim for it, but there were none. Between the fire and the water and the things that lurked in the harbor’s depths, arrows were unnecessary.

8

LUCIANO ANATOLIUS, the Gray King, the Capa of Camorr, the last living member of his family line, stood alone on the upper deck of the Floating Grave, beneath the silk awnings that fluttered in the Hangman’s Wind, beneath the dark sky that reflected the eerie waver of Falselight, and watched his ship burn.

He stared into the west with the red fire rippling in his eyes, and he did not blink; he stared north, to the glowing tower of Raven’s Reach, where flashing blue and red lights could be seen, where no cloud of pale white smoke was rising against the sky.

He stood alone on the deck of the Floating Grave, and he did not cry, though in his heart he desired nothing more at that moment.

Cheryn and Raiza would not have cried. Mother and Father would not have cried. They had not cried, when Barsavi’s men had kicked in their door in the middle of the night, when his father had died trying to defend them all long enough for Gisella to bundle him and the little twins out the back door.

The Satisfaction burned before his eyes, but in his mind he was running through the darkness of the gardens once again, thirteen years old, stumbling over familiar paths with branches lashing his face and hot tears streaming down his cheeks. In the villa behind them, knives were rising and falling; a small child was crying for her mother-and then that crying suddenly stopped.

“We’ll never forget,” Raiza had said, in the dark hold of the ship that had carried them to Talisham. “We’ll never forget, will we, Luciano?”

Her little hand had curled tight inside his; Cheryn slept uneasily against his other side, murmuring and crying out in her sleep.

“We’ll never forget,” he’d replied. “And we’ll go back. I promise you, someday we’ll go back.”

He stood on the deck of Barsavi’s fortress, in Camorr, and he had the power to do exactly nothing as his ship turned the waters of Old Harbor bloodred with its death.

“Capa Raza?”

There was a hesitant voice behind him; a man came up through the passage from the galleries below. One of the Rum Hounds, from the extravagant gambling circle that had grown in his throne room. He turned slowly.

“Capa Raza, this just got brought in…one of the Falselight Cutters, Your Honor. Says a man in Ashfall gave him a tyrin and told him to get this to you right away.”

The man held out a burlap sack; RAZA was scrawled on it in rough black letters-the ink still seemed to be wet.

Luciano took the bag and waved the man away; the Rum Hound ran for the passage and vanished down it, not at all pleased with what he’d seen in his master’s eyes.

The Capa of Camorr opened the bag and found himself staring down at the body of a scorpion hawk-a headless scorpion hawk. He turned the bag upside down and let the contents fall to the deck; the head and the body of Vestris bounced against the wooden planks. A folded, bloodstained piece of parchment fluttered down after them. He grabbed at it and opened it:

WE’RE COMING.

Luciano stared down at the note for an unknown interval of time. It might have been five seconds; it might have been five minutes. Then he crumpled it in his hands and let it fall. It hit the deck and rolled to a rest beside Vestris’ glassy, staring eyes.

If they were coming, they were coming. There would be time enough for escape when this last personal debt was discharged.

He went down the passage to the gallery below, into the light and the noise of the ongoing party. The smell of smoke and liquor hung in the air; his booted feet made the boards creak as he hurried down the stairs.

Men and women looked up from their cards and dice as he stalked past. Some waved and shouted greetings or honorifics; none of them received any response. Capa Raza threw open the door to his private suite of apartments (formerly Barsavi’s) and vanished inside for several minutes.

When he emerged, he was dressed as the Gray King, in his old fog-gray leather vest and breeches, in his gray sharkskin boots with the tarnished silver buckles, in his gray swordsman’s gloves creased at the knuckles from use, in his gray cloak and mantle with the hood raised. His cloak fluttered behind him as he moved forward; the lights of the Floating Grave gleamed on the naked steel of his drawn rapier.

The party died in an instant.

“Get out,” he said. “Get out and stay away. Leave the doors open. No guards. Get out while I’ll still give you the chance.”

Cards spiraled down to the deck; dice rattled across the wood. Men and women jumped to their feet, dragging drunk comrades with them. Bottles rolled and wine pooled as the general retreat progressed. In less than a minute, the Gray King stood alone at the heart of the Floating Grave.

He strolled slowly over to a bank of silver cords that hung down from the ceiling on the starboard side of the old galleon. He pulled on one and the white lights of the chandeliers died; he pulled another and the curtains over the room’s tall windows were pulled back, opening the throne room to the night. A tug on a third cord, and red alchemical globes came to life in dark niches on the walls; the heart of the wooden fortress became a cave of carmine light.

He sat upon his throne with the rapier balanced across his legs, and the red light made fires of his eyes within the shadowed hood.

He sat upon his throne and waited for the last two Gentlemen Bastards to find him.

9

AT HALF past the tenth hour of the evening, Locke Lamora entered that throne room and stood with one hand on his rapier, staring at the Gray King, seated thirty yards away in his silent audience chamber. Locke was breathing hard, and not merely from his journey south; he’d covered most of the distance on a stolen horse.

The feel of the hilt of Reynart’s blade beneath his hand was at once exhilarating and terrifying. He knew he was probably at a disadvantage in a straightforward fight, but his blood was up. He dared to imagine that anger and speed and hope could sustain him for what was coming. He cleared his throat.

“Gray King,” he said.

“Thorn of Camorr.”

“I’m pleased,” said Locke. “I thought you might have left already. But I’m sorry…you needed that frigate, didn’t you? I had my good friend, the Countess Amberglass, send it to the bottom of the fucking bay.”

“That deed,” said the Gray King in a weary voice, “will lose its savor in a few minutes, I assure you. Where’s Jean Tannen?”

“On his way,” said Locke. “On his way.”

Locke walked forward slowly, cutting the distance between them in half.

“I warned the Falconer not to toy with Tannen,” said the Gray King. “Apparently, my warning wasn’t heeded. I congratulate you both for your improbable resilience, but now I fear I’ll be doing you a favor by killing you before the Bondsmagi can take their revenge.”

“You’re assuming the Falconer is dead,” said Locke. “He’s still breathing, but he’ll, ah, never play any musical instruments again.”

“Interesting. How have you done all this, I wonder? Why does the Death Goddess scorn to snuff you like a candle? I wish I knew.”

“Fuck your wishes. Why did you do it the way you did, Luciano? Why didn’t you try for an honest accommodation with us? One might have been reached.”

“Might,” said the Gray King. “There was no room for ‘might,’ Lamora. There were only my needs. You had what I needed, and you were too dangerous to let live once I had it. You’ve made that only too clear.”

“But you could have settled for simple theft,” said Locke. “I would have given it all to keep Calo and Galdo and Bug alive. I would have given it all, had you put it to me like that!”

“What thief does not fight to hold what he has?”

“One that has something better,” said Locke. “The stealing was more the point for us than the keeping; if the keeping had been so fine, we would have found something to fucking do with it all.”

“Easy to say, in hindsight.” The Gray King sighed. “You would have said something different, when they were still alive.”

“We stole from the peers, you asshole. We stole from them exclusively. Of all the people to double-cross…You aided the nobility when you tried to wipe us out. You gave the people you hate a gods-damned gift.”

“So you relieved them of their money, Master Lamora, scrupulously refraining from taking lives in the process… Should I applaud? Name you a brother-in-arms? There’s always more money, Lamora. Theft alone would not teach them the lesson they had coming.”

“How could you do it, Luciano? How could a man who lost what you lost, who felt what you felt for Barsavi do the same to me?”

“The same?” The Gray King leapt up; the rapier was in his hand. “The same? Were your parents murdered in their beds to protect a lie, Master Lamora? Were your infant siblings put to the knife so they could never grow old enough to revenge? Thief! You don’t know what crime truly is.”

“I lost three brothers at your hands,” said Locke. “I almost lost four. You didn’t need to do it. When you thought you were finished with me, you tried to kill hundreds. Children, Luciano, children-born years after Barsavi murdered your parents. It must be nice to be righteous; from where I’m standing it looks like fucking lunacy.”

“They were sheltered by the Secret Peace,” said the Gray King. “They were parasites, guilty by birth. Save your arguments, Priest. Don’t you think I’ve had them with myself on too many nights to count over the past twenty-two fucking years?”

The Gray King took a step forward, the tip of his blade rising in Locke’s direction.

“If it were in my power,” he said, “I would knock this city to the ground and write the names of my family in its ashes.”

“Ila justicca vei cala,” Locke whispered. He stepped forward once again, until they were separated by barely two yards. He slid Reynart’s rapier out of its scabbard and stood at guard.

“Justice is red.” The Gray King faced Locke with his knees bent, the true edge of his rapier facing the ground, in the position Camorri fencers called the waiting wolf. “It is indeed.”

Locke struck out before the Gray King had finished speaking; for an eyeblink darting steel cut an afterimage in the air between the two men. The Gray King parried Locke’s thrust, forte to foible, and riposted with speed more than equal to Locke’s own. Lamora avoided a skewering only by an undignified backward lunge; he landed in a crouch with his left hand splayed out to keep himself from going ass-over-elbows on the hard wood of the deck.

Warily, Locke circled in the direction the lunge had knocked him, barely rising from his crouch. A dagger appeared in his left hand as though by legerdemain; this he twirled several times.

“Hmm,” said the Gray King. “Tell me you don’t mean to fight Verrari-style. I find the school insipid.”

“Please yourself.” Locke wiggled his dagger suggestively. “I’ll try not to get too much blood on your cloak.”

Sighing theatrically, the Gray King plucked one of two narrow-hilted daggers from his own belt, and held it out so that his blades opened in the air before him like jaws. He then took two exaggerated hops forward.

Locke flicked his gaze down to the Gray King’s feet for a fraction of a second, realizing almost too late that he was intended to do just that. He whipped himself to his right and barely managed a parry with his dagger; the Gray King’s thrust slid off and cut the air just an inch from his left shoulder. His own riposte met the Gray King’s dagger as though intended for it. Again, Anatolius was too fast by half.

For a few desperate seconds, the two men were fully engaged. Their blades wove silver ghosts in the air-crossing and uncrossing, feint and false feint, thrust and parry. Locke remained just out of reach of the Gray King’s longer, more muscular cuts while the Gray King caught and turned Locke’s every lunge with easy precision. At last they flew apart and stood panting, staring at one another with the resigned, implacable hatred of fighting dogs.

“Hmmm,” said the Gray King, “an illuminating passage.”

He flicked out almost casually with his rapier; Locke darted back once again and parried feebly, tip to tip, like a boy in his first week of training. The Gray King’s eyes glittered.

“Most illuminating.” Again, a casual flick; again, Locke jumped back.

“You’re not actually very good at this, are you?”

“It would be to my advantage if you thought so, wouldn’t it?”

At this the Gray King actually laughed. “Oh, no. No, no, no.” With one decisive gesture, he flung his cloak and mantle to the ground. A wild grin had etched deep furrows of anticipation into his lean face. “No more bluffs. No more games.”

And then he fell on Locke, his footwork a blur, his brutality unmatched by anything in Locke’s memory. Behind his blade, there were twenty years of experience and twenty years of blackest hatred. Some tiny, detached part of Locke’s mind cooly registered his own inadequacy as he desperately flailed parry after parry, chasing phantom thrusts with his eyes and hands even while the Gray King’s steel was punching through cloth and flesh.

Once, twice, three times-in between breaths, the Gray King’s blade sang out and bit Locke’s left wrist, forearm, and biceps.

Cold surprise hit Locke harder than the pain of the thrusts; then the warm blood began to flow across his sweat-slick skin, tickling devilishly, and a wave of nausea rose up from the pit of his stomach. The dagger dropped from his left hand, red with the wrong man’s blood.

“At last we come to something you cannot pretend your way out of, Master Lamora.” The Gray King flicked Locke’s blood from the tip of his rapier and watched it splash against the wooden deck in an arc. “Goodbye.”

Then he was moving again, and in the wine-colored light of the alchemical globes the full length of his blade was bright scarlet.

“Aza Guilla,” Locke whispered, “give me justice for the death of my friends. Give me blood for the death of my brothers!”

His voice rising to a shout, he thrust, missed, and thrust again, willing all of his desperate hatred and fear into each cut, driving the blade faster than he ever had in his life, and still the Gray King caught and turned his every thrust; still the Gray King displaced himself from the path of Locke’s cuts as though fighting a child.

“It seems that the final difference between us, Master Lamora,” said the Gray King between passages, “is that I knew what I was doing when I stayed here to meet you one last time.”

“No,” gasped Locke, “the difference between us is that I am going to have my revenge.”

Cold pain exploded in Locke’s left shoulder, and he stared down in horror at the Gray King’s blade, sunk three inches into his flesh just above his heart. The Gray King twisted savagely, scraping bone as he withdrew his rapier, and the sensation sent Locke tumbling to his knees, his useless left arm thrown out instinctively to break his fall.

But instinct, too, betrayed him here; his hand struck the hard deck palm-up, folded awkwardly under the full weight of his arm, and with a terrible sharp snap his left wrist broke. He was too shocked to scream. A split second later the Gray King slammed a vicious kick into the side of Locke’s head, and Locke’s world became a kaleidoscope of agony, tumbling end over end as stinging tears filled his eyes. Reynart’s rapier clattered across the deck.

Locke was conscious of the wood pressing up against his back. He was conscious of the blood that misted his vision. He was conscious of the bright, hot rings of pain that radiated from his shattered wrist, and of the slick wet agony of the hole in his shoulder joint. But most of all he was conscious of his own shame, his own terror of failure, and the great weight of three dead friends, lying unavenged, lying unquiet because Locke Lamora had lost.

He sucked in a great gasping breath, kindling new flickers of pain all across his chest and back, but now it was all one pain, all one red sensation that drove him up from the ground. Bellowing without an ounce of reason in his voice, he pulled his legs in and whipped himself up, attempting to tackle the Gray King around the stomach.

The killing thrust that had been falling toward Locke’s heart struck his left arm instead; impelled with every ounce of the Gray King’s ferocity, it punched fully through the meat of Locke’s slender forearm and out the other side. Wild with pain, Locke threw this arm forward and up as the Gray King struggled to withdraw; the edges of his rapier worked a terrible business on Locke’s flesh, but stayed caught, sawing back and forth at the muscle as the two men struggled.

The Gray King’s dagger loomed before Locke’s eyes; some animal instinct drove Locke to lash out with the only weapon available. His teeth sank into the first three fingers of the Gray King’s hand where they wrapped around the hilt; he tasted blood and felt bone beneath the tips of his teeth. The Gray King cried out and the dagger fell sideways, rebounding off Locke’s left shoulder before clattering to the deck. The Gray King jerked his hand free, and Locke spat the man’s skin and blood back at him.

“Give it up!” the Gray King screamed, punching Locke atop his skull, then across his nose. With his good right arm, Locke clutched for the Gray King’s sheathed dagger. The Gray King slapped his hand away, laughing.

“You can’t win. You can’t win, Lamora!” With every exhortation, the Gray King rained blows on Locke, who clutched at him desperately, as a drowning man might hug a floating timber. The Gray King laughed savagely as he pummeled Lamora’s skull, his ears, his forehead, and his shoulders, deliberately driving his fist down into the seeping wound. “You…cannot…beat me!”

“I don’t have to beat you,” Locke whispered, grinning madly up at the Gray King, his face streaked with blood and tears, his nose broken and his lips cracked, his vision swimming and edged with blackness. “I don’t have to beat you, motherfucker. I just have to keep you here…until Jean shows up.”

At that, the Gray King became truly desperate, and his blows fell like rain, but Locke was heedless of them, laughing the wet braying laugh of utter madness. “I just have to keep you here…until Jean…shows up!”

Hissing fury, the Gray King shook Locke’s grip off enough to make a grab for his sheathed dagger. As he tore his left hand from Locke’s right, Lamora let a gold tyrin coin fall from his sleeve into his palm; a desperate flick of his wrist sent the coin caroming off the wall behind the Gray King, echoing loudly.

“There he is, motherfucker!” Locke yelled, spraying blood across the front of the Gray King’s shirt. “Jean! Help me!”

And the Gray King whirled, dragging Locke halfway around with him; whirled in fear of Jean Tannen before he realized that Locke must be lying; whirled for just the half second that Locke would have begged from any god that would hear his prayer. Whirled for the half second that was worth Locke’s entire life.

He whirled just long enough for Locke Lamora to snake his right arm around the Gray King’s waist, and slide out the dagger sheathed there, and bury it with a final scream of pain and triumph in the Gray King’s back, just to the right of his spine.

The Gray King’s back arched, and his mouth hung open, gasping in the icy thrall of shock; with both of his arms he pushed at Locke’s head, as though by prying the smaller man off him he could undo his wound, but Locke held fast, and in an impossibly calm voice he whispered, “Calo Sanza. My brother and my friend.”

Backward, the Gray King toppled, and Locke slid the knife out of his back just before he struck the deck. Locke fell on top of him. He raised the dagger once again and brought it down in the middle of the Gray King’s chest, just beneath his rib cage. Blood spurted and the Gray King flailed, moaning. Locke’s voice rose as he worked the knife farther in: “Galdo Sanza, my brother and my friend!”

With one last convulsive effort, the Gray King spat warm coppery blood into Locke’s face and grabbed at the dagger that transfixed his chest; Locke countered by bearing down with his useless left side, batting the Gray King’s hands away. Sobbing, Locke wrenched the dagger out of the Gray King’s chest, raised it with a wildly shaking right arm, and brought it down in the middle of the Gray King’s neck. He sawed at the windpipe until the neck was half-severed and great rivers of blood were flowing on the deck. The Gray King shuddered one last time and died, his wide white eyes still fixed on Locke’s.

“Bug,” Locke whispered. “His real name was Bertilion Gadek. My apprentice. My brother. And my friend.”

His strength failed, and he slid down atop the Gray King’s corpse.

“My friend.”

But the man beneath him said nothing, and Locke was acutely aware of the stillness of the chest beneath his ears; of the heart that should have been beating against his cheek, and he began to cry-long wild sobs that racked his entire body, drawing new threads of agony from his tortured nerves and muscles. Mad with grief and triumph and the red haze of pain and a hundred other feelings he couldn’t name, he lay atop the corpse of his greatest enemy and bawled like a baby, adding saltwater to the warm blood that covered the body of the Gray King.

He lay there shaking in the light of the red lamps, in a silent hall, alone with his triumph, unable to move and bleeding to death.

10

JEAN FOUND him there just a minute or two later; the big man turned Locke over and slid him off the Gray King’s corpse, eliciting a sincere howl of pain from his half-conscious friend.

“Oh, gods,” Jean cried. “Oh, gods, you fucking idiot, you miserable fucking bastard.” He pressed his hands against Locke’s chest and neck as though he could simply will the blood back into his body. “Why couldn’t you wait? Why couldn’t you wait for me?”

Locke stared drunkenly up at Jean, his mouth a little O of concern.

“Jean,” Locke whispered gravely, “you have…been running. You were in…no condition to fight. Gray King…so accommodating. Could not refuse.”

Jean snorted despite himself. “Gods damn you, Locke Lamora. I sent him a message. I thought it might keep him around a while.”

“Bless your heart. I did…get him, though. I got him and I burnt his ship.”

“So that’s what happened,” Jean said, very gently. “I saw. I was watching the fire from the other side of the Wooden Waste; I saw you walk into the Floating Grave like you owned the place, and I came running as fast as I could. But you didn’t even need me.”

“Oh no.” Locke swallowed, grimacing at the taste of his own blood. “I made excellent use…of your reputation.”

At this Jean said nothing, and the forlorn light of his eyes chilled Locke more than anything yet.

“So this is revenge,” Locke mumbled.

“It is,” whispered Jean.

After a few seconds, new tears welled up in Locke’s eyes and he closed them, shaking his head. “It’s a shit business.”

“It is.”

“You have to leave me here.”

At this, Jean rocked back on his knees as though he’d been slapped. “What?”

“Leave me, Jean. I’ll be dead…just a few minutes. They won’t get anything from me. You can still get away. Please…leave me.”

Jean’s face turned bright red-a red that showed even by the light of the alchemical globes-and his eyebrows arched, and every line in his face drew so taut that Locke found the energy to be alarmed. Jean’s jaw clenched; his teeth ground together, and the planes of his cheeks stood out like mountain ridges under his gilding of fat.

“That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me,” he finally hissed in the flattest, deadliest voice Locke had ever heard.

“I made a mistake, Jean!” Locke croaked in desperation. “I couldn’t really fight him. He did for me before I could cheat my way out of it. Just promise…promise me that if you ever find Sabetha, you’ll-”

“You can find her yourself, half-wit, after we both get the hell out of here!”

“Jean!” Locke clutched weakly at the lapels of Jean’s coat with his good hand. “I’m sorry, I fucked up. Please don’t stay here and get caught; the blackjackets will be coming, soon. I couldn’t bear to have you taken. Please just leave me. I can’t walk.”

“Idiot,” Jean whispered, brushing away hot tears with his good hand. “You won’t have to.”

Working awkwardly but rapidly, Jean took up the Gray King’s cloak and tied it around his own neck, creating a makeshift sling for his right arm. This he slid beneath Locke’s knees, and straining mightily, he was able to pick the smaller man up and cradle him in front of his chest. Locke moaned.

“Quit sobbing, you damn baby,” Jean hissed as he began to lope back along the dock. “You must have at least a half beer glass of blood left somewhere in there.” But Locke was now well and truly unconscious, whether from pain or blood loss Jean couldn’t tell, and his skin was so pale that it almost looked like glass. His eyes were open but unseeing, and his mouth hung open, trailing blood and spittle.

Panting and shuddering, ignoring the wrenching pains of his own wounds, Jean turned and began to run as fast as he could.

The body of the Gray King lay forgotten on the deck behind him, and the red light shone on in the empty hall.