The Republic of Thieves

1

WEAK SUNLIGHT AGAINST his eyelids drew him out of sleep. The brightness intruded, grew, made him blink groggily. A window was open, letting in mild afternoon air and a freshwater smell. Not Camorr. Sound of waves lapping against a sand beach. Not Camorr at all.

He was tangled in his sheets again, light-headed. The roof of his mouth felt like sun-dried leather. Chapped lips peeled apart as he croaked, “What are you …”

“Shhhh. I didn’t mean to wake you. The room needed some air.” A dark blur on the left, more or less Jean’s height. The floor creaked as the shape moved about. Soft rustle of fabric, snap of a coin purse, clink of metal. Locke pushed himself up on his elbows, prepared for the dizziness. It came on punctually.

“I was dreaming about her,” he muttered. “The times that we … when we first met.”

“Her?”

“Her. You know.”

“Ah. The canonical her.” Jean knelt beside the bed and held out a cup of water, which Locke took in his shaking left hand and sipped at gratefully. The world was slowly coming into focus.

“So vivid,” said Locke. “Thought I could touch her. Tell her … how sorry I am.”

“That’s the best you can manage? Dreaming of a woman like that, and all you can think to do with your time is apologize?”

“Hardly under my control—”

“They’re your dreams. Take the reins.”

“I was just a little boy, for the gods’ sakes.”

“If she pops up again move it forward ten or fifteen years. I want to see some blushing and stammering next time you wake up.”

“Going somewhere?”

“Out for a bit. Making my rounds.”

“Jean, there’s no point. Quit torturing yourself.”

“Finished?” Jean took the empty cup from him.

“Not nearly. I—”

“Won’t be gone long.” Jean set the cup on the table and gave the lapels of his coat a perfunctory brushing as he moved to the door. “Get some more rest.”

“You don’t bloody listen to reason, do you?”

“You know what they say about imitation and flattery.”

The door slid shut and Jean was gone, out into the streets of Lashain.

2

LASHAIN WAS famous as a city where anything could be bought and anything could be left behind. By the grace of the regio, the city’s highest and thinnest order of nobility (where a title that could be traced back more than two generations qualified one for the old guard), just about anyone with cash in hand and enough of a pulse to maintain semiconsciousness could have their blood transmuted to a reasonable facsimile of blue.

From every corner of the Therin world they came—merchants and criminals, mercenary captains and pirates, gamblers and adventurers and exiles. As commoners they entered the chrysalis of a countinghouse, shed vast quantities of precious metal, and as newborn peers of Lashain they emerged into daylight. The regio minted demibarons, barons, viscounts, counts, and even the occasional marquis, with styles largely of their own invention. Honors were taken from a list and cost extra; “Defender of the Twelvefold Faith” was quite popular. There were also half a dozen meaningless orders of knighthood that looked marvelous on a coat lapel.

Because of the novelty of this purchased respectability to those who brokered it for themselves, Lashain was the most violently manners-conscious city Jean Tannen had ever visited. Lacking centuries of aristocratic descent to assure them of their worth, the neophytes of Lashain overcompensated with ceremony. Their rules of precedence were like alchemical formulae, and dinner parties killed more of them each year than fevers and accidents combined. It seemed that little could be more thrilling for those who’d just bought their family names than to risk them (not to mention their mortal flesh) over minor insults.

The record, as far as Jean had heard, was three days from countinghouse to dueling green to funeral cart. The regio, of course, offered no refunds to relations of the deceased.

As a result of this nonsense, it was difficult for those without titles, regardless of the color of their coin, to gain ready access to the city’s best physikers. They were made such status symbols by their noble clients that they rarely had to scamper after gold from other sources.

The taste of autumn was in the cool wind blowing off the Amathel, the Lake of Jewels—the freshwater sea that rolled to the horizon north of Lashain. Jean was conservatively dressed by local standards, in a brown velvet frock coat and silks worth no more than, say, three months’ wages for an average tradesman. This marked him instantly as someone’s man and suited his current task. No gentleman of consequence did his own waiting at a physiker’s garden gate.

Scholar Erkemar Zodesti was regarded as the finest physiker in Lashain, a prodigy with the bone saw and the alchemist’s crucible. He’d also shown complete disinterest, for three days straight, in Jean’s requests for a consultation.

Today Jean once again approached the iron-barred gate at the rear of Zodesti’s garden, from behind which an elderly servant peered at him with reptilian insolence. In Jean’s outstretched hand was a parchment envelope and a square of white card, just like the three days previous. Jean was getting testy.

The servant reached between the bars without a word and took everything Jean offered. The envelope, containing the customary gratuity of (far too many) silver coins, vanished into the servant’s coat. The old man read or pretended to read the white card, raised his eyebrows at Jean, and walked away.

The card said exactly what it always did—Contempla va cora frata eminenza. “Consider the request of an eminent friend,” in the Throne Therin that was the polite affectation for this sort of gesture. Rather than giving an aristocrat’s name, this message meant that someone powerful wished to pay anonymously to have someone else examined. This was a common means of bringing wealth to bear on the problem of, say, a pregnant mistress, without directly compromising the identity of anyone important.

Jean passed the long minutes of his wait by examining the physiker’s house. It was a good solid place, about the size of a smaller Alcegrante mansion back in Camorr. Newer, though, and done up in a mock Tal Verrar style that labored to proclaim the importance of its inhabitants. The roof was tiled with slats of volcanic glass, and the windows bordered with decorative carvings that would have better suited a temple.

From the heart of the garden itself, closed off from view by a ten-foot stone wall, Jean could hear the sounds of a lively party. Clinking glasses, shrieks of laughter, and behind it all the hum of a nine-stringed viol and a few other instruments.

“I regret to inform your master that the scholar is presently unable to accommodate his request for a consultation.” The servant reappeared behind the iron gate with empty hands. The envelope, a token of earnestness, was of course gone. Whether into the hands of Zodesti or this servant, Jean couldn’t say.

“Perhaps you might tell me when it would be more convenient for the scholar to receive my master’s petition,” said Jean, “the middle of the afternoon for half a week now being obviously unsuitable.”

“I couldn’t say.” The servant yawned. “The scholar is consumed with work.”

“With work.” Jean fumed as the sound of applause drifted from the garden party. “Indeed. My master has a case which requires the greatest possible skill and discretion—”

“Your master could rely upon the scholar’s discretion at all times,” said the servant. “Unfortunately, his skill is urgently required elsewhere at the moment.”

“Gods damn you, man!” Jean’s self-control evaporated. “This is important!”

“I will not be spoken to in a vulgar fashion. Good day.”

Jean considered reaching through the iron bars and seizing the old man by the throat, but that would have been counterproductive. He wore no fighting leathers under his finery, and his decorative shoes would be worse than bare feet in a scuffle. Despite the pair of hatchets tucked away under his coat, he wasn’t equipped to storm even a garden party by choice.

“The scholar risks giving offense to a citizen of considerable importance,” growled Jean.

“The scholar is giving offense, you simple fellow.” The old man chuckled. “I tell you plainly, he has little interest in the sort of business arranged in this fashion. I don’t believe a single citizen of quality is so unfamiliar with the scholar that they need fear to be received by the front door.”

“I’ll call again tomorrow,” said Jean, straining to keep his composure. “Perhaps I might name a sum that will penetrate even your master’s indifference.”

“You are to be commended for your persistence, if not for your perception. Tomorrow you must do as your master bids. For now, I have already said good day.”

“Good day,” growled Jean. “May the gods cherish the house wherein such kindness dwells.” He bowed stiffly and left.

There was nothing else to be done at the moment, in this gods-damned city where even throwing envelopes of coins was no guarantee of attracting attention to a problem.

As he stomped back to his hired carriage, Jean cursed Maxilan Stragos for the thousandth time. The bastard had lied about so much. Why, in the end, had the damned poison been the one thing he’d chosen to tell the truth about?

3

HOME FOR the time being was a rented suite in the Villa Suvela, an unadorned but scrupulously clean rooming house favored by travelers who came to Lashain to take the waters of the Amathel. Those waters were said to cure rheumatism, though Jean had yet to see a bather emerge leaping and dancing. The rooming house overlooked a black sand beach on the city’s northeast shore, and the other lodgers kept to themselves.

“The bastard,” said Jean as he threw open the door to the suite’s inner apartment. “The motherless Lashani reptile. The greedy son of a piss-bucket and a bad fart.”

“My keen grasp of subtle nuance tells me you might be frustrated,” said Locke. He was sitting up, and he looked fully awake.

“We’ve been snobbed off again,” said Jean, frowning. Despite the fresh air from the window the inner apartment still smelled of old sweat and fresh blood. “Zodesti won’t come. Not today, at least.”

“To hell with him, then, Jean.”

“He’s the only physiker of repute I haven’t got to yet. Some of the others were difficult, but he’s being impossible.”

“I’ve been pinched and bled by every gods-damned lunatic in this city who ever shoved a bolus down a throat,” said Locke. “One more hardly signifies.”

“He’s the best.” Jean flung his coat over a chair, set his hatchets down, and removed a bottle of blue wine from a cabinet. “An alchemical expert. A real smirking rat-fucker, too.”

“It’s all for the good, then,” said Locke. “What would the neighbors say if I consulted a man who screws rodents?”

“We need his opinion.”

“I’m tired of being a medical curiosity,” said Locke. “If he won’t come, he won’t come.”

“I’ll call again tomorrow.” Jean poured two half-glasses of wine and watered them until they were a pleasant afternoon-sky color. “I’ll have the self-important prick here one way or another.”

“What would you do, break his fingers if he won’t consult? Might make things ticklish for me. Especially if he wants to cut something off.”

“He might find a solution.”

“Oh, for the gods’ sake.” Locke’s frustrated sigh turned into a cough. “There is no solution.”

“Trust me. Tomorrow is going to be one of my unusually persuasive days.”

“As I see it, it’s cost us only a few pieces of gold to discover how unfashionable we are. Most social failures incur far greater expense, I should think.”

“Somewhere out there,” said Jean, “must be an illness that makes its sufferers meek, mild, and agreeable. I’ll find it someday, and see that you get the worst possible case.”

“I’m sure I was born immune. Speaking of agreeable, will that wine be arriving in my hands anytime this year?”

Locke had seemed alert enough, but his voice was slurring, and weaker than it had been even the day before. Jean approached the bed uneasily, wineglasses held out like a peace offering to some unfamiliar and potentially dangerous creature.

Locke had been in this condition before, too thin and too pale, with weeks of beard on his cheeks. Only this time there was no obvious wound to tend, no cuts to bandage. Just Maxilan Stragos’ insidious legacy doing its silent work. Locke’s sheets were spotted with blood and with the dark stains of fever-sweat. His eyes gleamed in bruised sockets.

Jean pored over a pile of medical texts each night, and still he didn’t have adequate words for what was happening to Locke. He was being unknit from the inside; his veins and sinews were coming apart. Blood seeped out of him as though by some demonic whim. One hour he might cough it up, the next it would come from his eyes or nose.

“Gods damn it,” Jean whispered as Locke reached for the wineglass. Locke’s left hand was red with blood, as though his fingers had been dipped in it. “What’s this?”

“Nothing unusual.” Locke chuckled. “It started up while you were gone … from under my nails. Here, I can hold the glass with my other one—”

“Were you trying to hide it from me? Who else changes your gods-damned sheets?”

Jean set the glasses down and moved to the table beneath the window, which held stacks of linen towels, a water jug, and a washing bowl. The bowl’s water was rusty with old blood.

“It doesn’t hurt, Jean,” muttered Locke.

Ignoring him, Jean picked up the bowl. The window overlooked the villa’s interior courtyard, which was fortunately deserted. Jean heaved the old bloody water out the window, refilled the bowl from the jug, and dipped a linen cloth into it.

“Hand,” said Jean. Locke sulkily complied, and Jean molded the wet cloth around his fingers. It turned pink. “Keep it elevated for a while.”

“I know it looks bad, but it’s really not that much blood.”

“You’ve little left to lose!”

“I’m also in want of wine.”

Jean fetched their glasses again and carefully placed one in Locke’s right hand. Locke’s shakes didn’t seem too bad for the moment, which was pleasing. He’d had difficulty holding things lately.

“A toast,” said Locke. “To alchemists. May they all be stricken with the screaming fire-shits.” He sipped his wine. “Or strangled in bed. Whatever’s most convenient. I’m not picky.”

At his next sip, he coughed, and a ruby-colored droplet spiraled down into his wine, leaving a purplish tail as it dissolved.

“Gods,” said Jean. He gulped the rest of his own wine and set the glass aside. “I’m going out to fetch Malcor.”

“Jean, I don’t need another damned dog-leech at the moment. He’s been here six or seven times already. Why—”

“Something might have changed. Something might be different.” Jean grabbed his coat. “Maybe he can help the bleeding. Maybe he’ll finally find some clue—”

“There is no clue, Jean. There’s no antidote that’s going to spring from Malcor or Kepira or Zodesti or any boil-lancing fraud in this whole tedious shitsack of a city.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Dammit, Jean, save the money!” Locke coughed again, and nearly dropped his wine. “It’s only common sense, you brick-skulled tub! You obstinate—”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“… obstinate, uh, something … something … biting and witty and thoroughly convincing! Hey, if you leave now, you’ll miss me being thoroughly convincing! Damn it.”

Whatever Locke might have said next, Jean closed the door on it. The sky outside was now banded in twilight colors, orange at the horizons giving way to silver and then purple in the deep bowl of the heavens. Purple like the color of blood dissolving in blue wine.

A low gray wall sliding in to the north, from out of the Amathel, seemed to promise an oncoming storm. That suited Jean just fine.

4

SIX WEEKS had passed since they’d left the little port of Vel Virazzo in a forty-foot yacht, fresh from a series of more or less total disasters that had left them with a fraction of the vast sum they’d hoped to recoup for two years invested in a complex scheme.

As he walked out into the streets of Lashain, Jean ran his fingers over a lock of curly dark hair, tightly bound with leather cords. This he always kept in a coat pocket or tucked into his belt. Of all the things he’d lost recently, the money was the least of his concerns.

Locke and Jean had discussed sailing east, back toward Tamalek and Espara … back toward Camorr. But most of the world they’d known there was swept away, and most of their old friends were dead. Instead they’d gone west. North and west.

Following the coast, straining their lubberly skills to the utmost, they had skirted Tal Verrar, swept past the blackened remains of once-luxurious Salon Corbeau, and discussed making far north for Balinel, in the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows. Both of them spoke Vadran well enough to do just about anything while they sought some new criminal opportunity.

They left the sea and headed inland, up the wide River Cavendria, which was Eldren-tamed and fit for oceangoing vessels. The Cavendria flowed west from the Amathel, Lake of Jewels, the inland sea that separated the ancient sister-cities of Karthain and Lashain. Locke and Jean had once hoped to buy their way into the ranks of Lashain’s nobility. Their revised plan had merely been to weigh their boat down with stores for the voyage up to Balinel.

Locke’s symptoms revealed themselves the day they entered the Cavendria estuary.

At first it had been nothing more than bouts of dizziness and blurred vision, but as the days passed and they slowly tacked against the current, he began bleeding from his nose and mouth. By the time they reached Lashain, he could no longer laugh away or hide his increasing weakness. Instead of taking on stores, they’d rented rooms, and against Locke’s protests Jean began to spend nearly every coin they had in pursuit of comforts and cures.

From Lashain’s underworld, which was tolerably colorful if nowhere near the size of Camorr’s, he’d consulted every poisoner and black alchemist he could bribe. All had shaken their heads and expressed professional admiration for what had been done to Locke; the substance in question was beyond their power to counteract. Locke had been made to drink a hundred different purgatives, teas, and elixirs, each seemingly more vile and expensive than the last, each ultimately useless.

After that, Jean had dressed well and started calling on accredited physikers. Locke was explained away as a “confidential servant” of someone wealthy, which could have meant anything from secret lover to private assassin. The physikers too had expressed regret and fascination in equal measure. Most had refused to attempt cures, instead offering palliatives to ease Locke’s pain. Jean fully grasped the meaning of this, but paid no heed to their pessimism. He simply showed each to the door, paid their exorbitant fees, and went after the next physiker on his list.

The money hadn’t lasted. After a few days, Jean had sold their boat (along with the resident cat, essential for good luck at sea), and was happy to get half of what they’d paid for it.

Now even those funds were running thin, and Erkemar Zodesti was just about the only physiker in Lashain who had yet to tell Jean that Locke’s condition was hopeless.

5

“NO NEW symptoms,” said Malcor, a round old man with a gray beard that curled out from his chin like an oncoming thunderhead. Malcor was a dog-leech, a street physiker with no formal training or license, but of all his kind available in Lashain he was the most frequently sober. “Merely a new expression of familiar symptoms. Take heart.”

“Not likely,” said Locke. “But thanks for the hand job.”

Malcor had poulticed the tips of Locke’s fingers with a mixture of corn meal and honey, then tied dry linen bandages around the fingers, turning Locke’s left hand into a padded lump of uselessness.

“Heh. Well, the gods love a man who laughs at hardship.”

“Hardship is boring as all hell. Gotta find laughs if you can’t stay drunk,” said Locke.

“So the bleeding is nothing new? Nothing worse than before?” asked Jean.

“A new inconvenience, yes.” Malcor hesitated, then shrugged. “As for the total loss to his body’s sanguine humors … I can’t say. A close examination of his water could, perhaps—”

“You want a bowl full of piss,” said Locke, “you can uncork your private reserve. I’ve given quite enough since I came here.”

“Well, then.” Malcor’s knees creaked like rusty hinges as he stood up. “If I won’t scry your piss, I won’t scry your piss. I can, however, leave you with a pill that should bring you excellent relief for twelve to twenty-four hours, and perhaps encourage your depleted humors to rekindle—”

“Splendid,” said Locke. “Will it be the one composed primarily of chalk, this time? Or the one made of sugar? I’d prefer sugar.”

“Look … I say, look here!” Malcor’s seamy old face grew red. “I might not have Collegium robes, but when I go to the gods they’ll know that I gave an honest damn about lending ease to my patients!”

“Peace, old man.” Locke coughed and rubbed his eyes with his un-bandaged hand. “I know you mean the best. But spare me your placebo.”

“Have your friend remove your bandages in a few hours,” said Malcor testily, shrugging back into a worn frock coat that was spattered with dark stains. “If you drink, drink sparingly. Water your wine.”

“Rest assured, my friend here waters my wine like a virgin princess’ nervous chaperone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jean, as he showed Malcor outside. “He’s difficult when he’s ill.”

“He’s got two or three days,” said the old man.

“You can’t be—”

“Yes, I can. The bleeding is worse. His enervation is more pronounced. His humors are terminally imbalanced, and I’m certain an examination of his water would show blood. I tried to hearten him, but your friend is obviously undeceived.”

“But—”

“As should you be.”

“There must be someone who can do something!”

“The gods.”

“If I could convince Zodesti—”

“Zodesti?” Malcor laughed. “What a waste of a gift in that one. Zodesti treats only two ailments, wealth and prominence. He’ll never condescend to do so much as take your friend’s pulse.”

“So you’ve no other clues? No other suggestions?”

“Summon priests. While he’s still lucid.” Jean scowled, and the aged dog-leech took him gently by the shoulders. “I can’t name the poison that’s killing your friend. But the one that’s killing you is called hope.”

“Thank you for your time,” growled Jean. He shook several silver coins out of his purse. “If I should have further need of these marvelous insights—”

“A single duvesta will be quite adequate,” said Malcor. “And despite your mood now, know that I’ll come whenever you require. Your friend’s discomfort is more likely to wax than wane before the end.”

The sun was gone, and the roofs and towers of the city were coming alive with specks of fire against the deepening night. As he watched Malcor vanish down the street, Jean wanted more than anything to have someone to hit.

6

“FAIR DAY to you,” said Jean, approaching the garden gate again. It was the second hour of the afternoon, the next day, and the sky overhead was a boiling mess of gray. The rain had yet to fall, but it was coming, certain and soon. “I’m here for my usual petition.”

“How completely unexpected,” said the old man behind the iron bars.

“Is it a convenient time?” From inside the garden, Jean could hear laughter again, along with a series of echoing smacks, as though something were being thrown against a stone wall. “Or is the scholar consumed—”

“By work. Stranger, has the conversation we had yesterday fled your memory?”

“I must beg you, sir.” Jean put as much passionate sincerity as he could into his voice. “A good man lies dying, in desperate need of aid. Did your master not take oath as a physiker of the Collegium?”

“His oaths are no business of yours. And many good men lie dying, in desperate want of aid, in Lashain and Karthain and every other place in the world. Do you see the scholar saddling his horse to seek them out?”

“Please.” Jean shook a fresh envelope, jingling the coins within. “At least carry the message, for the love of all the gods.”

Wearing half a scowl and half a smirk, the servant reached through the bars. Jean dropped the envelope, seized the man by the collar, and slammed him hard against the gate. An instant later Jean flourished a knife in his free hand.

It was a push-dagger, the sort wielded with a thrusting fist rather than a fencer’s grip. The blade seated against Jean’s knuckles was half a foot long and curved like an animal’s claw.

“There’s only one use for a knife like this,” whispered Jean. “You see it? You try to call out or pull away, and you’ll be wearing your belly-fat for an apron. Open the gate.”

“You’ll die for this,” hissed the servant. “They’ll skin you and boil you in salt water.”

“And what a consolation that will be for you, eh?” Jean prodded him in the stomach with his knife. “Open the gate or I’ll take the keys from your corpse.”

With a shaking hand, the old man opened the gate. Jean threw it aside, grabbed the servant again, and turned him around. The knife was now at the small of the man’s back.

“Take me to your master. Stay composed. Tell him that an important case has come up and that he will want to hear my offer.”

“The scholar is in the garden. But you’re mad.… He has friends in the highest places … urk!”

Jean poked him again with the blade, urging him forward.

“Of course,” said Jean. “But do you have any friends closer than my knife?”

At the heart of the garden, a short, solid man of about thirty-five was sharing a hearty laugh with a woman who had yet to see twenty. Both of them wore light breeches, silk shirts, and padded leather gloves. That explained the rhythmic noise from before. They’d been using a cleared section of stone wall for pursava, the “partner chase,” an aristocratic cousin of handball.

“Sir, madam, a thousand pardons,” said the servant at another poke from Jean. Jean stood half a pace behind the man, where neither Zodesti nor his guest could see the true means of his entry into the garden. “A very urgent matter, sir.”

“Urgent?” Zodesti had a mop of black curls, now slick with sweat, and the remains of an upper-class Verrari accent. “Who does this fellow come to speak for?”

“An eminent friend,” said Jean. “In the usual fashion. It would not be appropriate to discuss these matters in front of your young—”

“By the gods, I’ll say what’s appropriate or not in my own garden! This fellow has some cheek, Loran. You know my preferences. This had better be in earnest.”

“Dire earnest, sir.”

“Let him leave his particulars. If I find them suitable he may call again after dinner.”

“Now would be better,” said Jean, “for everyone.”

“Who in all the hells do you think you are? Shit on your dire earnest! Loran, throw this—”

“Refusal noted and cordially declined.” Jean shoved Loran to the turf. Half a second later he was upon Zodesti, with a meaty forearm wrapped around the physiker’s throat and his blade held up so the young woman could see it. “Cry out for help and I will use this, madam. I would hate to have an injury to the scholar resting upon your conscience.”

“I … I …” she said.

“Babble all you like, so long as you don’t scream. As for you—” Jean squeezed the man’s windpipe to demonstrate his strength, and the physiker gasped. “I’ve tried to be civil. I would have paid well. But now I’ll teach you a new way of doing business. Do you have a kit you would bring to a case of poisoning? Materials you’d need for a consultation?”

“Yes,” choked Zodesti. “In my study.”

“We’re going to calmly walk into your house, all of us. On your feet, Loran. You have a carriage and driver on the grounds, Scholar?”

“Yes,” said Zodesti.

“Inside, then, as though nothing is amiss. If any of you give me any trouble, by the gods, I’ll start practicing throat surgery.”

7

THE TICKLISH part was getting them all into Zodesti’s study, past the curious eyes of a cook and a kitchen-boy. But none of Jean’s hostages caused a scene, and soon enough the study door was between them and any interference. Jean shot the bolt, smiled, and said, “Loran, would you—”

At that moment, the old man found the courage for a last desperate struggle. Foul as his temper was, Jean didn’t truly have the heart to stab the poor idiot, and he smashed the edge of his knife hand into Loran’s jaw instead. The servant hit the floor senseless. Zodesti darted to a desk in the corner and had a drawer open before Jean collared him and flung him down beside Loran. Jean glanced into the drawer and laughed.

“Going to fight me off with a letter-opener? Take a seat, both of you.” Jean indicated a pair of armchairs against the rear wall. While Zodesti and his companion sat there, wide-eyed as pupils awaiting punishment from a tutor, Jean cut down one of the drapes that hung beside the study’s shuttered window. He slashed it into strips and tossed them to Zodesti.

“I don’t quite understand—”

“Your young friend offers a problem,” said Jean. “Meaning no particular offense to you, madam, but one hostage is difficult enough to handle, let alone two. Particularly when they’re clumsy amateur hostages, unused to their roles and expectations. So we’ll leave you in that fine big closet over there, where you won’t be found too late or too soon.”

“How dare you,” said the young woman. “I’ll have you know that my uncle is—”

“Time is precious and my knife is sharp,” said Jean. “When some servant finally opens that closet, do they find you alive or dead?”

“Alive,” she gulped.

“Gag her, Scholar,” said Jean. “Then tie some good, firm knots. I’ll check them myself when you’re done. After she’s secure, do the same for old Loran.”

As Zodesti worked to tie up his pursava partner (if that was indeed the limit of their partnership), Jean tore down another drape and cut it into more strips. His eyes wandered to the room’s glass-fronted cabinets. They contained a collection of books, glass vessels, herbal samples, alchemical powders, and bizarre surgical instruments. Jean was heartened; if Zodesti’s esoterica reflected his actual ability, he might just have an answer after all.

8

“THIS WILL do,” said Jean.

“Michel,” said Zodesti, leaning out the window on his side of the carriage, “pull up here.”

The carriage rattled to a halt, and the driver hopped down to open the door. Jean, knife half-concealed by the wide cuff of his coat, gestured for Zodesti to step out first. The scholar did, carrying a leather bag and a bundle of clothing.

A light rain had begun to fall, for which Jean was grateful. It would drive bystanders from the streets, and the overcast sky gave the city the look of twilight rather than midafternoon. A kidnapper could ask for no more.

Jean had ordered the halt about two blocks from the Villa Suvela, in front of an alley that would lead there by twists and turns with a dozen other possible destinations branching off along the way.

“The scholar will require several hours,” said Jean, passing a folded slip of parchment to the driver. “Wait at this address until we meet you again.”

The address on the parchment was a coffeehouse in Lashain’s mercantile district, a half-mile distant. The driver frowned.

“Is this well with you, sir? You’ll miss dinner—”

“It’s fine, Michel,” said Zodesti with a hint of exasperation. “Just follow directions.”

“Of course, sir.”

Once the carriage had clattered down the street, Jean pulled Zodesti into the alley and said, “You may live through this yet. Get dressed as we discussed.”

The pile of clothing included a battered hat and a rain-stained cloak, both belonging to Loran, who was a fair match in size for his master. Zodesti threw the cloak on, and Jean pulled a strip of slashed drapery from his pocket.

“What the hell is this, now?” said Zodesti.

“Did you really imagine I’d go to all this trouble and let you see where I’m taking you? I thought you’d prefer blindfolded to unconscious.”

Zodesti stood still as Jean blindfolded him, pulled up the cloak’s hood, and pushed the hat down on top of it. It was a good effect. From more than a few feet away, the blindfold would be concealed by the hat or lost in the shadows of the hood.

From Zodesti’s medical bag, Jean withdrew a bottle of wine. He pulled the cork (Jean had found the bottle in Zodesti’s study, half empty), splashed some on the physiker, poured the rest on the ground, and pressed the empty bottle into Zodesti’s right hand. From the smell that wafted up around them, Jean guessed he’d just wasted a very valuable kameleona.

“Now,” said Jean, “you’re my drunk friend, being escorted to safety. Keep your head down.” Jean pressed Zodesti’s bag into the physiker’s left hand. “I’ve got my arms around you to keep you from stumbling, and my knife closer than you’d like.”

“You’ll boil alive for this, you son of a bitch.”

“Let’s keep my mother out of this. Mind your feet.”

It took about ten minutes for them to stumble to the rooming house together. There were no complications. The few people out in the rain had better things to pay attention to than a pair of drunks, it seemed.

Once safely inside their suite, Jean locked the front doors, shoved Zodesti into a chair, and said, “Now we’re well away from anyone else. If you try to escape, or raise your voice, or call attention to yourself in any way, I’ll hurt you. Badly.”

“Stop threatening me and show me your damned patient.”

“In a moment.” Jean opened the doors to the inner apartment, saw that Locke was awake, and quickly gestured in their private sign language:

Don’t use any names.

“What am I,” muttered Locke, “an idiot? I knew he wasn’t coming back here of his own free will.”

“How—”

“You wore your fighting boots and left your dress shoes by the wardrobe. And all of your weapons are missing.”

“Ah.” Jean tore off Zodesti’s blindfold and disguise. “Make yourself comfortable and get to work.”

The physiker hefted his satchel and, sparing a hateful glance for Jean, moved to Locke’s bedside. He stared at Locke for a few moments, then pulled a wooden chair over and sat down.

“I smell wine,” said Locke. “Kameleona, I think. I don’t suppose you’ve brought any with you?”

“Only what your friend bathed me with,” said Zodesti. He snapped his fingers a few times in front of Locke’s eyes, then took his pulse from both wrists. “My, you are in a sad state. You believe you’ve been poisoned?”

“No,” said Locke with a cough. “I fell down some fucking stairs.

What’s it look like?”

“Can’t you ever be polite to any of your physikers?” said Jean.

“You’re the one who bloody well kidnapped him.”

“Since I appear to have no choice,” said Zodesti, “I’m going to give you a thorough examination. This may cause some discomfort, but don’t complain. I won’t be listening.”

Zodesti’s first examination took a quarter of an hour. Ignoring Locke’s grumbling, he poked and prodded at his joints and limbs, working from the top of his arms to his feet.

“You’re losing sensation in your extremities,” said Zodesti at last.

“How the hell can you tell?”

“I just stuck a lancet into each of your large toes.”

“You poked holes in my feet?”

“I’m adding teardrops to a river, given the blood you’re losing elsewhere.” Zodesti fumbled in his bag, removed a silk case, and from this extracted a pair of optics with oversized lenses. Wearing them, he pulled Locke’s lips back and examined his gums and teeth.

“Ahm naht a fckhng horth,” said Locke.

“Quiet.” Zodesti held the clean portion of one of Locke’s discarded bandages to his gums for several seconds, pulled it away, and frowned at it.

“Your gums are seeping blood. And I see your fingernails are trim,” said Zodesti.

“What of it?”

“Were they trimmed on a Penance Day?”

“How the hell should I remember?”

“Trimming the nails on any day but a Penance Day weakens the blood. Tell me, when you were first taken with your symptoms, did you think to swallow an amethyst?”

“Why would I have had one close at hand?”

“Your pig-ignorance of basic medicine is your own misfortune. You sound like an easterner, though, so I can’t say I’m surprised.”

The rest of the physiker’s work took an hour, with Zodesti performing increasingly esoteric tests and Jean hovering behind him, alert for any sign of treachery. Finally, Zodesti sighed and rose to his feet, wiping his bloody hands on Locke’s sheets.

“You have the unfortunate distinction,” said Zodesti, “of being poisoned by a substance beyond my experience. Given the fact that I have a Master’s Ring in alchemy from the Therin Collegium—”

“Gods damn your jewelry,” said Jean. “Can you do anything?”

“In the early stages of the poisoning, who could have said? But now …” Zodesti shrugged.

“You maggot!” Jean grabbed Zodesti by his lapels, whirled, and slammed him against the wall beside Locke’s bed. “You arrogant little fraud! You’re the best this city has? DO SOMETHING!”

“I can’t,” said Zodesti with a new firmness in his voice. “Think whatever you like, do whatever you like. He is beyond my powers of intervention. I daresay that puts him beyond anyone’s.”

“Let him go,” said Locke.

“There must be something—”

“Let him go!” Locke retched, spat up more blood, and broke into a coughing fit. Jean released Zodesti, and the physiker slid away, glaring.

“Shortly after the poison was administered,” said the physiker, “I could have tried a purgative. Or filled his stomach with milk and parchment pulp. Or bled him to thin out the venom. But this thing has been with him for too long now.

“Even with known poisons,” he continued, returning his instruments to his bag, “there comes a point where the harm to organs or humors cannot be reversed. Antidotes don’t restore dead flesh. And with this, an unknown poison? His blood is pouring out of him. I can’t just put it back.”

“Gods damn it,” whispered Jean.

“The question is no longer if but when,” said Zodesti. “Look, you ugly bastard, despite the way you brought me into this mess, I’ve given him my full and fair attention.”

“I see.” Jean slowly walked over to the linen table, took up a clay cup, and filled it with water from the jug. “Do you have anything with you that can bring about a strong sleep? In case his pain should worsen?”

“Of course.” Zodesti removed a small paper pouch from his bag. “Have him take this in water or wine and he won’t be able to keep his eyes open.”

“Now wait just a damn minute,” said Locke.

“Give it here,” said Jean. He took the packet, poured its contents into the water, and shook the cup several times. “How long will it last?”

“Hours.”

“Good.” Jean passed the cup to Zodesti and gestured at it with a dagger. “Drink up.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you running off to the first constable you can find as soon as I dump you on the street.”

“Don’t think I would be so foolish as to try and run from you—”

“Don’t think I give a damn. Drink the whole thing or I’ll break your arms.”

Zodesti quickly gulped the contents of the cup. “How I’m going to laugh when they catch you, you son of a bitch.” He tossed the cup down carelessly on Locke’s bed and sat with his back against the wall. “All the justices of Lashain are my patients. Your friend’s too sick to run. If he’s still alive when they catch you, they’ll draw and quarter him just to give you something to watch while you wait for your own exe … execution.…”

A few seconds later his head rolled forward and he began snoring.

“Think he’s pretending?” said Locke.

Jean shoved the tip of his dagger into the calf of Zodesti’s outstretched right leg. The physiker didn’t stir.

“I hate to say that I told you so,” said Locke, settling back against his cushions and folding his hands in front of him. “Wait, no I don’t. I could use a bottle of wine, and don’t add any water this—”

“I’ll get Malcor,” said Jean. “I’ll have him stay the night. Constant attention.”

“Damn it, Jean, wake up.” Locke coughed and pounded on his chest. “What a reversal this is, eh? I wanted to die in Vel Virazzo and you pulled me back to my senses. Now I really am dying and you’re bereft of yours.”

“There’s—”

“No more physikers, Jean. No more alchemists, no more dog-leeches. No more rocks to pry up looking for miracles.”

“How can you just lie there like a fish washed up on shore, with no fight at all?”

“I suppose I could flop around a bit, if you thought it would help.”

“The Gray King sliced you like a veal cutlet and you came back from that, twice as aggravating as ever.”

“Sword cuts. If they don’t turn green, you can expect to heal. It’s the nature of things. With black alchemy, who the hell knows?”

“I’ll give you wine, but I want you to take it with two parts water, like Malcor said. And I want you to eat tonight, everything you can. Keep your strength up—”

“I’ll eat, but only to give the wine some ballast. There’s no other point to it, Jean. There’s no cure forthcoming.”

“If you can’t be cured, you’ll have to endure. Outlast it, until it breaks like a fever.”

“The poison’s more likely to last than I am.” Locke coughed and dabbed at his mouth with one of his sheets. “Jean, you’ve called down some trouble by stealing this little weasel out of his house. Surely you can see that.”

“I was very careful.”

“You know better! He’ll remember your face, and Lashain’s not so very big. Look, take the money that’s left. Take it and get out of town tonight. You can slip into a dozen trades at will, you speak four languages, you’ll be wealthy again in—”

“Incomprehensible babble.” Jean sat on the edge of the bed and gently pushed Locke’s sweat-slick hair out of his eyes. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Jean, I know you. You’ll kill half a city block when your blood’s up, but you’ll never slit the throat of a sleeping man who’s done us no real harm. That means constables will kick our doors down sooner or later. Please don’t be here when they do.”

“You brought this upon yourself when you cheated that antidote into my glass. The consequences are yours to—”

“Like hell. You would have robbed me of that choice, too! Gods, all this maneuvering for moral advantage! You’d think we were married.” Locke coughed and arched his back. “The gods must truly have it in for you, to make you my nurse,” he said quietly. “Not once but twice, now.”

“Hell, they made me your nurse when I was ten years old. You can knock down kingdoms on a whim. What you need is someone to make sure you don’t get hit by a carriage when you cross the street.”

“That’s all over now, though. And it might have been kinder for you if I had been hit by a carriage—”

“You see this?” Jean took the tightly bound lock of dark, curly hair out of his coat pocket and held it up. “You see this, you bloody bastard? You know where it came from. I’m done losing. Do you fucking hear me? I am done losing. Spare me your precious self-pity, because this isn’t a stage and I didn’t pay two coppers to cry my eyes out over anyone’s death speech. You don’t fucking get one, understand? I don’t care if you cough up buckets of blood. Buckets I can carry. I don’t care if you howl like a dog for months. You’re going to eat and drink and keep fighting.”

“Well,” said Locke after a few moments had passed in silence. He smiled wryly. “If you are going to be an intractable son of a bitch, why don’t you uncork that wine so we can start with the part about drinking?”

9

JEAN LEFT Zodesti in an alley about three blocks west of the Villa Suvela, taking care to conceal him well and cover his bag with trash. He wouldn’t be at all pleased when he awoke, but at least he’d be alive.

Locke’s condition changed little that night; he slept in fits and starts, sipped wine, grudgingly chewed cold beef and soft bread, and continued bleeding. Jean fell asleep sitting up and managed to spill ale over a useless treatise on poisons. Most of their nights had been like this, recently.

The rain kept up well into the next night, enfolding the city in murk. Just before the unseen sundown Jean went out to fetch fresh supplies. There was a merchants’ inn not ten minutes from the Villa Suvela that was used to dealing in necessities at odd hours.

When Jean came back, the front door was completely unmarked. He had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss, until he glanced down in the entry and saw the great mess of water that had recently been brought across the threshold.

Movement on both sides—too many attackers, too prepared. A basket of food and wine was no weapon at all. Jean went down under a press of bodies. With desperate strength he smashed a nose, kicked a foot, tried to claw out the space he needed to pull and use his hatchets—

“Enough,” said a commanding voice. Jean looked up. The door to the inner apartment was open, and there were men standing over Locke’s bed.

“No!” Jean yelled, ceasing his fight. Four men seized him and dragged him into the inner room, where he counted at least five more visible opponents. One of them grabbed a towel from the linens table and held it up to his bleeding nose.

“I’m sorry,” said Locke, hoarsely. “They came right after you left—”

“Quiet.” The speaker was a rugged man about Locke and Jean’s age, with a brawler’s scarred jaw and a nose that looked like it had been used to break a hard fall. His hair was scraped down to stubble, and he wore quality fighting leathers under a long black coat. Had Jean been thinking straight, he would have realized that the consequences of Zodesti’s abduction might come back to them from directions other than the Lashani constabulary. “How’s your head, Leone?”

“Broge my fuggin node,” said the man holding a towel to his face.

“Builds character.” The man in the black coat picked up a chair, set it down in front of Jean, then kicked him in the stomach, good and fast, barely giving him time to flinch before the pain hit. Jean groaned, and the four men holding him bore down on him with all of their weight, lest he try anything stupid.

“Wait,” coughed Locke. “Please—”

“If I have to say ‘quiet’ again,” said the black-coated man, “I’ll cut your fucking tongue out and pin it to the wall. Now shut up.” He sat down in the chair and smiled. “My name is Cortessa.”

“Whispers,” said Jean. This was much worse than the constabulary. Whispers Cortessa was a top power in the Lashani underworld.

“So they call me. I presume you’re Andolini.”

That was the name Jean had given when renting their rooms, and he nodded.

“If it’s real I’m the king of the Seven Marrows,” said Cortessa. “But nobody cares. Can you tell me why I’m here?”

“You ran out of sheep to fuck and went looking for some action?”

“Gods, I love Camorri. Constitutionally incapable of doing things the easy way.” Cortessa slapped Jean hard enough to make his eyes water. “Try again. Why am I here?”

“You heard,” Jean gasped, “that we’d finally discovered the cure for being born with a face like a stray dog’s ass.”

“No. If that were true you would have used it.” Cortessa’s next blow was no slap, but a backhanded bruise-maker. Jean blinked as the room swam around him.

“Now, I would love to sit here and paint the floor with your blood. Leone would probably love it even more. But I think I can save us all a lot of time.” Cortessa beckoned, and one of the men standing over Locke’s bed lifted a club. “What does your friend lose first? A knee? A few toes? I can be creative.”

“No. Please.” Jean would have bent his head to Cortessa’s feet if he hadn’t been restrained. “I’m the one you want. I won’t waste any more of your time. Please.”

“You’re the one I want, suddenly? Why would I want you?”

“Something about a physiker, I’d guess.”

“There we are. That wasn’t so hard after all.” Cortessa cracked his knuckles. “What did you think might happen when someone like Zodesti came home from the shit you pulled yesterday?”

“Certainly would have been nice if he’d never said anything at all.”

“Don’t be simple. Now, I know you’re a friend of the friends. I hear things. When you first came to Lashain you knew your business. Kept the peace, made your gifts, behaved. You clearly understand how things work in our world. So do you think Zodesti ran up and down the streets, screaming that he’d been stolen away like a child? Or do you think he sent a few private messages to people who know people?”

“Shit,” said Jean.

“Yeah. So, I got the job and I thought to myself … wasn’t there a big man looking for alchemists and dog-leeches just last week? What might they have to say about him? Oh? A bad poisoning? A man bleeding to death in bed at the Villa Suvela?” Cortessa spread his arms and smiled beatifically. “Some problems just solve themselves.”

“How can I make amends?” said Jean.

“You can’t.” Cortessa stood up, laughing.

“Please don’t do anything to my friend. He had nothing to do with the physiker. Do whatever you like with me. I’ll cooperate. Just—”

“My, you’ve gone from hard to soft, big man. You’ll cooperate? Of course you’ll fucking cooperate, you’ve got four of my men sitting on you.”

“There’s money,” said Jean. “Money, or I could work for you—”

“You’ve got nothing I want,” said Cortessa. “And that’s your problem. But I have a serious problem of my own.”

“Oh?”

“Ordinarily, this is the part where we’d make soup out of your balls and watch you drink it. Ordinarily. But we have what you might call a conflict of interest. On the one hand, you’re an outlander and you touched a Lashani with all the right friends. That says we fucking kill you.

“On the other hand, it’s plain you are or were some sort of connected man in Camorr. Big Barsavi might not be with us anymore, gods rest his crooked soul, but nobody in their right mind wants to fuck with the capas. You could be somebody’s cousin. Who knows? A year or two from now, maybe someone comes looking for you. Asks around town. Whoops! Someone tells them to look on the bottom of the lake. And who gets sent back to Camorr in a box to pay the debt? Yours truly. That says we don’t fucking kill you.”

“Like I said, I have some money,” said Jean. “If that can help.”

“It’s not your money anymore. But what does help is that your friend here is already dying … and from the looks of it, he’ll be pretty damn glad to go.”

“Look, if you’ll just let him stay, he needs rest—”

“I know. That’s why I’m kicking your asses out of Lashain.” Cortessa waved his hands at his people. “Strip the place. All the food, all the wine. Blankets, bandages, money. Take the wood out of the fireplace. Throw the water out of the jug. Pass word to the innkeeper that these two fucks are under the interdict.”

“Please,” said Jean. “Please—”

“Shut up. You can keep your clothes and your weapons. I won’t send you out completely naked. But I want you gone. By sunrise, you’re out of the city or Zodesti gets to cut your ears off himself. Your friend can find somewhere else to die.” Cortessa gave Locke a pat on the leg. “Think fondly of me in hell, you poor bastard.”

“You might not be long in getting there yourself,” said Locke. “I’ll have a big hug waiting for you.”

Cortessa’s people ransacked the suite. They carefully piled Jean’s weapons on the floor; everything else was taken or smashed. Locke was left on the empty bed in his bloodstained breeches and tunic. Jean’s private purse and the one that had contained their general funds were both emptied. A few moments later, one of Cortessa’s men stuffed the empty purses into his pockets as well.

“Oh,” said Cortessa to Jean as the tumult was winding down, “one thing more. Leone gets a minute alone with you in the corner. For his nose.”

“Bleth you, bothss,” muttered Leone, gingerly poking at the swollen bruises that had spread to his lips.

“And you get to take it, outlander. Lift so much as a finger and I’ll have your friend gutted.” Cortessa patted Jean on the cheek and turned to leave. “Sunrise. Get the fuck out of Lashain. Or our next conversation takes place in Scholar Zodesti’s cellar.”

10

“JEAN,” WHISPERED Locke as soon as the last of Cortessa’s bruisers had left. “Jean! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Jean was huddled where the linens table had been before Cortessa’s men removed it. Leone had been straightforward but enthusiastic, and Jean felt as though he’d been thrown down a rocky hillside. “I’m just … enjoying the floor. It was kind enough to catch me when I fell.”

“Jean, listen. I took some of the money when we got here on the boat.… I hid it. Loosened a floorboard under the bed.”

“I know you did. I unloosened it. Took it back.”

“You eel! I wanted you to have something to get away with when you—”

“I knew you’d try it, Locke. There weren’t many hiding places available within stumbling distance of the bed.”

“Argh!”

“Argh, yourself.” Jean heaved himself over on his back and stared at the ceiling, breathing shallowly. Nothing felt broken, but his ribs and everything attached to them were lined up to file complaints. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll go out and find some blankets for you. I can get a cart. Maybe a boat. Get you out of here somehow, before the dawn. We’ve got a lot of darkness to use.”

“Jean, you’ll be watched until you leave. They’re not going to let you”—Locke coughed several times—“steal anything big. And I’m not going to let you carry me.”

“Not let me carry you? What are you going to fend me off with, sarcasm?”

“You should have had a few thousand solari to work with, Jean. Could have gone anywhere … done anything with it.”

“I did exactly what I wanted to do with it. Now, you go with me. Or I stay here to die with you.”

“There’s no reasoning with you.”

“You’re such a paragon of compromise yourself. Pig-brained gods-damned egotist.”

“This isn’t a fair contest. You have more energy for big words than I do.” Locke laughed. “Gods, look at us. Can you believe they even took our firewood?”

“Very little surprises me these days.” Jean slowly stood up, wincing all the way. “So, inventory. No money. Clothes on our backs. Mostly my back. Some weapons. No firewood. Since I doubt we’ll be allowed to lift anything in the city, looks like I’ll have to do some highway work.”

“How do you plan on halting carriages?”

“I’ll throw you in the road and hope they stop.”

“Criminal genius. Will they be stopping out of heartfelt sympathy?”

“Revulsion, more likely.”

There was a knock at the front door.

Locke and Jean glanced at one another uneasily, and Jean picked up a dagger from the small pile of weapons that had been left to him.

“Maybe they’re back for the bed,” said Locke.

“Why would they bother knocking?”

Jean kept most of his body behind the door as he opened it, and he tucked the dagger just out of sight behind his back.

It wasn’t Cortessa, or a dog-leech, or even the master of the Villa Suvela, as Jean had expected. It was a woman, dressed in a richly embroidered oilcloak streaming with water. She held an alchemical globe in her hands, and by its pale light Jean could see that she was not young.

Jean scanned the curb behind her. No carriage, no litter, no escort of any sort—just misty darkness and the patter of the rain. A local? A fellow guest of the Villa Suvela?

“I, uh … can I be of assistance, madam?”

“I believe we can be of assistance to one another. If I might come in?” She had a soft and lovely voice, with something very close to a Lashani accent. Close, but not exact.

“We are … that is, I’m sorry, but we have some difficulty at the moment. My friend is ill.”

“I know they took your furniture.”

“You do?”

“And I know that you and your friend didn’t have much else to begin with.”

“Madam, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.”

“And you seem to have me out in the rain.”

“Um.” Jean shuffled the dagger and made it vanish up his tunic sleeve. “Well, my friend, as I said, is gravely ill. You should be aware—”

“I don’t mind.” She entered the instant Jean’s resolution wavered, and gracefully got out of the way as he closed the door behind her. “After all, poison is only contagious at dinner parties.”

“How the hell … are you a physiker?”

“Hardly.”

“Are you with Cortessa?”

The woman only laughed at that, and threw back the hood of her oilcloak. She was about fifty, the well-tended sort of fifty that only wealth could make possible, and her hair was the color of dry autumn wheat with currents of silver at the temples. She had a squarish face, with disconcertingly wide, dark eyes.

“Here, take this.” She tossed the alchemical globe to Jean, who caught it by reflex. “I know they took your lights, too.”

“Um, thank you, but—”

“My, my.” The woman unclasped her cloak and spun it off her shoulders as she strolled into the inner apartment. Her coat and skirts were richly brocaded with silver threads, and puffs of silver lace from beneath her cuffs half-covered her hands. She glanced at Locke. “Ill would seem to be an understatement.”

“Forgive me for not getting up,” said Locke. “And for not offering you a seat. And not being dressed. And for not … giving a damn.”

“Down to the last dregs of your charm, I see.”

“Down to the last dregs of my everything. Who are you, then?”

The woman shook out her oilcloak, then threw it over Locke like a blanket.

“Th-thank you.”

“It’s difficult to have a serious conversation with someone whose dignity is compromised, Locke.”

The next sound in the room was that of Jean slamming home the bolt on the front door. In an instant he returned to the inner apartment, knife in hand. He tossed the light-globe onto the bed, where Locke prevented it from bouncing onto the floor.

“In faith,” said Jean, “my patience for mysterious shit went out that door with the money and the furniture. So you explain how you know that name, and I won’t have to feel guilty for—”

“I doubt you’d survive what would happen if you acted on that impulse, Jean Tannen. I know your pride wouldn’t. Put your blade away.”

“Like hell!”

“Poor Gentlemen Bastards,” said the woman softly. “So far from home. But always in our sight.”

“No,” said Jean in a disbelieving whisper.

“Oh, gods,” said Locke. He coughed and closed his eyes. “It’s you. I suspected you’d kick our door down sooner or later.”

“You sound disappointed.” The woman frowned. “As though you’d just failed to avoid an awkward social call. Would you really find death preferable to a little conversation, Locke?”

“Little conversations with Bondsmagi never end well.”

“You’re the reason we’re here,” growled Jean. “You and your games in Tal Verrar. Your damned letters!”

“Not entirely,” said the woman.

“You didn’t scare us in the Night Market.” Jean’s grip tightened on the hilt of his blade, and the pain of his recent beating was entirely forgotten. “You don’t fucking scare us now!”

“Then you don’t know us at all.”

“I think I do. And I don’t give a damn about your gods-damned rules!”

He was already in motion, and her back was to him. She had no chance to speak or gesture with her hands; his left arm went around her neck and he slammed the dagger home as hard as he could, directly between her shoulder blades.

11

THE WOMAN’S flesh was warm and solid beneath Jean’s arm one moment, and in the next his blade bit empty air.

Jean had faced many fast opponents in his life, but never one that dissolved instantly at his touch. That wasn’t human speed; it was sorcery.

His chance was gone.

He inhaled sharply, and a cold shudder ran down his back, the old familiar sensation of a misstep made and a blow about to fall. His pulse beat like a drum inside his skull, and he waited for the pain of whatever reprisal was coming—

“Oh yes,” said their visitor mildly from somewhere behind him. “That would have been very clever of me, Jean Tannen. Leaving myself at the mercy of a strong man and his grudges.”

Jean turned slowly, and saw that the woman was now standing about six feet to his left, by the window where the linens table had once been.

“I hold your true name like a caged bird,” she said. “Your hands and eyes will deceive you if you try to harm me.”

“Gods,” said Jean, suddenly overcome by a vast sense of weary frustration. “Must you play with your food?” He sat down on the edge of Locke’s bed and threw his knife at the floor, where it stuck quivering in the wood. “Just kill me like a fucking normal person. I won’t be your toy.”

“What will you be?”

“I’ll stand still and be boring. Get it over with.”

“Why do you keep assuming I’m here to kill you?”

“If not kill, then something worse.”

“I have no intention of murdering either of you. Ever.” The woman folded her hands in front of her chest. “What more proof do you need than the fact that you’re still alive? Could you have stopped me?”

“You’re not gods,” said Locke, weakly. “You might have us at your mercy, but we’ve had one of you at ours before.”

“Is that meant to be some poor cousin to a threat? A reminder that you just happened to be present when the Falconer’s terrible judgment finally got the best of him?”

“How is dear Falconer these days?” asked Locke.

“Well kept. In Karthain.” The woman sighed. “As he was when agents of Camorr brought him home. Witless and comatose.”

“He didn’t seem to react well to pain,” said Jean.

“And you imagine it was your torture that drove him mad?”

“Can’t have been our conversation,” said Locke.

“His real problem is self-inflicted. You see, we can deaden our minds to any suffering of the flesh. But that art requires caution. It’s extremely dangerous to use it in haste.”

“I’m delighted to hear that,” said Locke. “You’re saying that when he tried to escape the pain—”

“His mind jailed itself, in a haze of his own making,” said the woman. “And so we’ve been unable to correct his condition.”

“Marvelous,” said Locke. “I don’t really care how or why it happened, I’m still glad that it did. In fact I encourage the rest of you to use that power in haste.”

“You do many of us an injustice,” said the woman.

“Bitch, if I had the power I’d pull your heart out of your chest and use it for a handball,” said Locke, coughing. “I’d do it to all of you. You people kill anyone you like and fuck with the lives of those that treat you fairly for it.”

“Despising us must be rather like staring into a mirror, then.”

“I despise you,” said Locke, straining to heave himself up, “for Calo and Galdo, and for Bug, and for Nazca and Ezri, and for all the time we … wasted in … Tal Verrar.” Red-faced and shuddering, he fell back to the empty bed.

“You’re murderers and thieves,” said the woman. “You leave a trail of confusion and outrage wherever you go. You’ve brought down at least one government, and prevented the destruction of another for sentimental reasons. Can you really keep a straight face when you damn us for doing as we please?”

“We can,” said Jean. “And I can take the matter of Ezri very personally.”

“Would you even have met the woman if we hadn’t intervened in your affairs? Would you have gone to sea?”

“That’s not for any of us to say—”

“So we own your misfortunes entirely, yet receive no credit for happier accidents.”

“I—”

“We’ve interfered here and there, Jean, but you’re flattering yourself if you imagine that we’ve drawn such an intricate design around you. The woman died in battle, and we had nothing to do with that. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Are you capable of feeling sorry for anything?”

The woman came toward Jean, reaching out with her left hand, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to fling himself away. He rose to his feet and stared fiercely down at her as she set warm fingers gently against his cheek.

“Time is precious,” she said. “I lift my ban upon you, Jean Tannen. This is my real flesh against yours. I might be able to stop you if you try to harm me, but now the matter is much less certain. So what will you do? Must we fight now, or can we talk?”

Jean shook; the urge to take her at her word, to smash her down, was rising hot and red within him. He would have to strike as fast as he ever had in his life, as hard as muscle and sinew could allow. Break her skull, throttle her, bear her down beneath his full weight, and pray to the gods he did enough damage to postpone whatever word or gesture she would utter in return.

They stood there for a long, tense moment, perfectly still, with her dark eyes meeting his unblinkingly. Then his right hand darted up and closed around her left wrist, savagely tight. He could feel thin bones under thin skin, and he knew that one good sharp twist—

The woman flinched. Real fear shone out from the depths of those eyes, the briefest flash before her vast self-possession rolled in again like resurging waters to drown her human weakness. But it had been there, genuine as the flesh beneath his fingers. Jean loosened his grip, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I don’t think you’re lying.”

“This is very important,” she whispered.

Jean kept his right hand where it was, and reached up with his left to push back the silver lace that sprouted from her jacket cuff. Black rings were tattooed around her wrist, precise lines on pale skin.

“Five rings,” said Locke. “All I ever heard was that more is better. Just how many can one of you people have, anyway?”

“This many,” said the woman with a hint of a smirk.

Jean released her arm and took a step back. She held her left hand up beside her head and stroked the tattoos gently with the fingers of her other hand. The blackness became silver, rippling silver, as though she wore bracelets of liquid moonlight.

As he stared at the eerie glow, Jean felt a cold itch behind his eyes, and a hard pressure against the fingertips of his right hand. Reeling, he saw images flash in his mind—fold upon fold of pale silk, needles punching in and out of delicate lace, the rough edge of a cloth unraveling into threads—the pressure on his fingers was an actual needle, moving up and down, in an endless steady dance across the cloth.…

“Oh,” he muttered, putting a hand to his forehead as the sensations receded. “What the hell was that?”

“Me,” said the woman. “In a manner of speaking. Have you ever recalled someone by the scent of their tobacco, or a perfume, or the feel of their skin? Deep memories without words?”

“Yeah,” said Locke, massaging his temples. Jean guessed that he’d somehow shared the brief vision.

“In my society, we speak mind to mind. We … announce ourselves using such impressions. We construct images of certain memories or passions. We call them sigils.” She hitched her laced sleeve back up over her wrist, where the black rings had entirely lost their ghostly gleam, and smiled. “Now that I’ve shared mine with you, you’re less likely to jump out of your skin if I ever need to speak mind to mind, rather than voice to ear.”

“What the hell are you?” said Jean.

“There are four of us,” said the woman. “In an ideal world, the wisest and most powerful of the fifth-circles. If nothing else, we do get to live in the biggest houses.”

“You rule the Bondsmagi,” said Locke, incredulously.

“Rule is too strong a term. We do occasionally manage to avert total chaos.”

“You have a name?”

“Patience.”

“What, you have some rule against telling us now?”

“No, it’s what I’m called. Patience.”

“No shit? Your peers must think pretty highly of you.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, any more than a girl named Violet needs to be purple. It’s a title. Archedama Patience. So, have we decided that nobody’s going to be murdering anyone here?”

“I suppose that depends on what you want to talk about,” said Jean.

“The pair of you,” said Patience. “I’ve been minding your business for some time now. Starting with the fragments I could pull out of the Falconer’s memories. Our agents retrieved his possessions from Camorr after he was … crippled. Among them a knife formerly belonging to one of the Anatolius sisters.”

“A knife with my blood on it,” said Jean.

“From that we had your trail easily enough.”

“And from that you fucked up our lives.”

“I need you to understand,” said Patience, “just how little you understand. I saved your lives in Tal Verrar.”

“Funny, I don’t recall seeing you there,” said Jean.

“The Falconer has friends,” said Patience. “Cohorts, followers, tools. For all of his flaws he was very popular. You saw their parlor tricks in the Night Market, but that was all I permitted. Without my intervention, they would have killed you.”

“You can call that mess ‘parlor tricks,’ ” said Jean. “That interference in Tal Verrar still made a hell of a problem for us.”

“Better than death, surely,” said Patience. “And kinder by far than I might have been, given the circumstances.”

“Circumstances?”

“The Falconer was arrogant, vicious, misguided. He was acting in obedience to a contract, which we consider a sacred obligation, but I won’t deny that he amplified the brutality of the affair beyond what was called for.”

“He was going to help turn hundreds of people into empty shells. Into gods-damned furniture. That wasn’t brutal enough?” said Jean.

“They were part of the contract. You and your friends were not.”

“Well, if this is some sort of apology, go to hell,” said Locke, coughing. “I don’t care what a humane old witch you think you are, and I don’t care how or why the Falconer went wrong in the head. If I’d had more time I would have used every second of it to bleed him. All he got was the thinnest shred of what he really deserved.”

“That’s more true than you know, Locke. Oh, so much truer than you know.” Patience folded her hands together and sighed. “And no one comprehends it quite as well as I do. After all, the Falconer is my son.”

INTERLUDE: THE UNDROWNED GIRL

1

“MERCIFUL GODS,” SAID Locke. To Jean’s eyes, he seemed genuinely taken aback. “Your actual flesh-and-blood son? By, ah, traditional means?”

“I certainly didn’t brew him in a cauldron.”

“Well, come now,” said Locke, “as though we’d know one way or the other—”

“There are no means but traditional means for such an undertaking.”

“Damn,” said Locke. “And I thought this was an awkward conversation before.”

“The Falconer’s heart is still beating. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

“You expect us to believe that?” said Jean. His defensive instincts, sharpened over years of alternating triumphs and disasters, came hotly to life. Even if Patience chose to pose no immediate threat, surely wheels were turning somewhere inside her mind. “His friends would have killed us, but you can just wave the whole mess off with a sad smile?”

“You two didn’t get along,” said Locke.

“Very mildly put,” said Patience. She looked down at her feet, a gesture that struck Jean as totally outside her usual character. “Even before he earned his first ring … the Falconer was my antagonist in all philosophies, magical or otherwise. If our positions were reversed he certainly wouldn’t feel bound to vengeance on my account.”

Now Patience slowly raised her head until her dark eyes met Jean’s, and he was able to really study them for the first time. Certain people had what Jean privately thought of as archer’s eyes—a steady coolness, a detached precision. People with eyes like that could sort the world around them into targets, pick their first shot before those nearby even knew the time for talk had passed. Eyes like that had killers behind them, and Patience for-fucking-sure had a pair.

“He and I live with the consequences of the decisions we made before he took the contract in Camorr,” she said, her voice firm. “Whether or not I choose to explain those decisions is my business.”

“Fair enough,” said Jean, taking an instinctive half-step back and raising his hands.

“Indeed. Take it easy.” Locke stifled a cough. “Well, you could murder us, yet supposedly you don’t want to. Your son pickled his own mind, but you say you don’t really give a shit. So what’s the story, Patience? Why are you in Lashain, lending me your cloak?”

“I’ve come to offer the two of you a job.”

“A job?” Locke laughed, then broke into more painful-sounding coughs. “A job? I hope you need someone to line a casket for you, you poor Karthani witch, because that’s the only job I’m presently qualified for.”

“Until you finally lose the strength for sarcasm, Locke, I wouldn’t hire any mourners.”

“I’m on my way.” Locke pounded on his chest a few times. “Believe me, I’ve ducked out of paying this bill before, but this time I’m pretty sure the house is going to make me settle. You should have tried, I don’t know, not fucking revealing my plans to the gods-damned Archon of Tal Verrar so he could fucking well poison me! Maybe then my schedule for the immediate future would be a tad more … open.”

“I can remove the poison from your body.”

Nobody spoke for several seconds. Jean was dumbstruck, Locke merely scowled, and Patience let the words hang in the empty air without further adornment. The timbers of the roof creaked faintly at the touch of the wind.

“Bullshit,” Locke muttered at last.

“You keep presuming that my powers are infinite where they concern your discomfort. Why not credit me with an equivalent capacity to render aid?” Patience folded her arms. “Surely some of the black alchemists you consulted must have passed on hints …”

“I’m not talking about your damned sorcery. I mean, I see the game now. It’s bullshit. Act one, those Lashani bastards trash the place. Act two, a mysterious savior appears out of the night, and we buy whatever you’re selling. You arranged this whole mess.”

“I had nothing to do with Cortessa. Jean brought the Lashani down on your heads when he mishandled the physiker yesterday.”

“What an eminently reasonable excuse! Good gods, woman, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?” Locke erupted into a coughing fit, and just as quickly brought it under control by evident force of will. “I ought to know a setup when it lands right on top of my head!”

“Locke, calm down.” Jean felt his heartbeat all the way to the base of his throat. “Think about this for a moment.” It had to be a trick, a plan, a scheme of some sort, but by all the gods, what was that against the total certainty of death? Jean sent a silent plea to the Crooked Warden to give Locke just a few moments of lucid reason.

“I have no money,” said Locke. “No resources. No treasure. And I’m too sick now to even stand up. That leaves me just one single thing you can still take.”

“We need to consider—”

“You want my name, don’t you?” Locke’s voice was hoarse and teasing. He sounded triumphant at having something to fuel a real argument; evidently the god of thieves had no common sense available for lending at the moment. “You knock everything out from under me, then show up at the last minute, waving a reprieve. And all you’d need is my real name, right? Oh, you want leverage, that’s for sure. You haven’t forgiven anyone for what happened to the Falconer.”

“You’re dying,” said Patience. “Do you really think I’d take these pains just to turn the screws on you? Gods be gracious, how much more pressure could I possibly apply?”

“I believe you’d do anything, if you wanted your hooks in me bad enough.” Locke wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and Jean could see that his spit was blood-tinged. “I know a thing or two about revenge, and you have powers I can only dream of. So I must believe you’d do anything.”

“Why bother when I could have your real name anytime I wanted it?”

“Now that’s so much arrogant bull—”

“It would simply be a question,” Patience continued, “of how long you could watch Jean Tannen suffer before you would beg for the privilege of telling me.”

“You’re no different than the Falconer,” said Locke. “Same fucking—”

“Locke,” said Jean, very loudly. “—attitude toward … yeah?”

“Kindly shut the hell up,” said Jean, enunciating every word as though teaching the phrase to a small child for the first time. Locke’s slack-jawed stare was gratifying.

“She’s right,” continued Jean, unable to keep a growing excitement out of his voice. “If your true name was all she wanted, why not torture me? I’m compromised, I’m bloody helpless. It would be quick and simple. So why aren’t I screaming right now?”

“Because if these people were any good at ‘quick and simple’ the Falconer would have killed us back in Camorr.”

“No, dammit. Think harder.”

“Because you have such a sweet and innocent face?”

“Because if she doesn’t want your real name the easy way—”

“Then she has some other motive. Sweet dancing donkey shit, Jean!” Locke rolled back toward Patience, but closed his eyes and rubbed at them. “She wants me to stick my own head in the noose, of my own free will. Get it? She wants me to step off the cliff. Cut my own wrists so she can gloat … humiliate—” Locke broke into another severe coughing fit, and Jean sat down on the bed and pounded gently on his back. The rhythmic movement did nothing good for Jean’s collection of fresh aches and bruises, but it calmed Locke rapidly.

“What we’re discussing,” said Patience, “is employment, not compulsion. Credit me with enough wit to recall the fate of Luciano Anatolius and Maxilan Stragos. Coercing you two never seems to work. We’re willing to trade service for service.”

“Patience,” said Jean, “can you really get rid of this poison? Can you do it without using his real name?”

“If we hurry, yes.”

“If you’re lying,” said Jean, “if you’re leaving anything out, I’ll try to kill you again. Understand? I’ll give it everything I have, even if it forces you to slay me on the spot.”

Patience nodded.

“Then let’s talk business.”

“Let’s not,” snarled Locke. “Let’s show this bitch to the door and refuse to be puppets.”

“Shut up.” Jean pushed firmly down on Locke’s shoulders, foiling his attempt to roll out of bed. “Tell us about this job.”

Locke drew in a rasping breath to spew some more damn fool craziness. Jean, with the reflexes that kept him alive when blades were drawn, clamped a hand over Locke’s mouth before he could speak and pushed his head back down against his pillow. “I can’t agree to anything on Locke’s behalf, but I want us to hear your proposal. Tell us what the job is.”

“It’s political,” said Patience.

“Mmmmph mmph,” said Locke, struggling in vain against Jean’s arm. “Mmmph fckhnnng fmmmph!”

“He wants to hear more,” said Jean. “He says he’s very excited to hear the whole thing.”

2

“I NEED an election adjusted.”

“How adjusted?”

“As a cautious estimate?” Patience turned to the window and stared out into the rain. “I need it rigged from top to bottom.”

“Government affairs are a bit beyond our experience,” said Jean.

“Nonsense. You’ll feel right at home. What is government but theft by consent? You’ll be moving in a society of kindred spirits.”

“What sort of election are we supposed to be mucking about with here?”

“Every five years,” said Patience, “the citizens of Karthain elect an assembly, the Konseil. Nineteen representatives for nineteen city districts. This dignified mess runs the city, and I need a majority of their seats to go to the faction of my preference.”

“This is what you want us for?” Locke finally slipped Jean’s hand aside and managed to speak. “My dead ass! With your powers, you’d have to be out of your gods-damned minds to settle for anything Jean and I could pull off! You could wiggle your fingers and make them elect cats and dogs, for fuck’s sake.”

“No,” said Patience. “In public, the magi stand completely aloof from the government of the city. In private, we are forbidden to use any of our arts. Not on the poorest citizen of Karthain, not for a single vote.”

“You won’t use your sorcery on the people of Karthain?” said Jean. “Not at all?”

“Oh, Karthain is our city, through and through. We’ve adjusted everything to suit our needs, and that includes the inhabitants. It’s this contest we can’t touch. The election itself.”

“Seems awkward as all hell. Why the limitation?”

“You’ve seen some of our arts. You opposed the Falconer. You survived Tal Verrar.”

“In a manner of speaking,” muttered Locke.

“Imagine a society of men and women where those powers are universal,” said Patience. “Imagine … sitting down to dinner with four hundred people, each of whom has a loaded crossbow set beside their wineglass. Some very strict rules will have to be enforced if anyone wants to live long enough to see the last course.”

“I think I get it,” said Jean. “You have some sort of rule about not shitting where you eat?”

“Magi must never work magic against one another,” said Patience. “We’re as human as you are, as complicated, as insecure, as driven to argument. The only difference is that any one of us, out of the mildest irritation, could make someone evaporate into smoke with a gesture.

“We don’t duel,” she continued. “We don’t so much as tease one another with our arts. We forcefully separate ourselves from any situation where our crossed purposes might tempt us to do so.”

“Situations like this election,” said Jean.

“Yes. We do need to control the Konseil, one way or another. Once the election is over, the new government becomes a general tool. We adjust its members by consensual design. But during the contest itself, when our blood is up, we need to keep our arts entirely out of the situation. We need to be pure spectators.”

Patience raised both of her hands, palms up, as though presenting two invisible objects for weighing.

“There are two major factions among my people. Two major parties in Karthani politics. We battle by proxy. Each side is allowed to choose agents. Enterprising individuals, never magi. We set them loose to fight on our behalf. In the past we’ve favored orators, political organizers, demagogues. This time, I’ve convinced my people to hire someone with a more unusual portfolio of achievement.”

“Why?” said Jean.

“Some people play handball,” said Patience, smiling. “Some people play Catch-the-Duke. This is our sport. The election diverts much of the frustration our factions come to feel for one another, and brings prestige to the side that backs the winner. It’s become a highly anticipated tradition.”

“I’ve imagined you people must run the show in Karthain,” said Locke. “I just never would have suspected this. What a joke on all the poor saps lining up to vote every five years.”

“They get an orderly city regardless of the winner,” said Patience. “In Karthain, nobody empties the treasury and vanishes. Nobody holds grand masques every night while the streets fill with night soil and dead animals. We see to that.”

“Would a city of puppets really give a damn if you didn’t?” said Locke, wheezing. He cleared his throat. “You want us to work fraud in the service of order and public sanitation. What a thought!”

“Isn’t theft theft? Aren’t lies lies? Isn’t this exactly the sort of opportunity you’d spend years chasing if it was your own idea? Besides, the job serves you as much as anyone. Accepting it will save your life.”

“How long would you need us?” said Locke.

“The election is in six weeks.”

“What about resources? Clothes, money, lodging—”

“We have complete identities prepared for you, all possible comforts, and a large pool of funds to dispose of on business.”

“Only business?” said Locke.

“You’ll be treated luxuriously for six weeks. What more could you want?”

“Perelandro’s balls, a little incentive to win would be nice.”

“Incentive? Life itself isn’t sufficient? You’ll be well-dressed, you’ll recover your health, and you’ll be in a greatly improved position from which to resume your … career. If you win, our gratitude might easily extend so far as comfortable transportation to the city of your choice.”

“And if we lose?”

“You can’t expect us to reward failure. You’ll still be free to leave, but you’ll do it on foot.”

“I can only speak for myself,” said Locke, and Jean’s heart sank. “I meant what I said. I have no idea what your full powers are. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust this situation, and I have no reasonable chance to catch you if you’re lying. If you’re not sincere, this is a trap, and if you are sincere it’s some kind of bizarre pity-fuck.”

“And all the years you might have had coming? All the things you have yet to do?”

“Spare me. You’re not my mother. If Jean will take the job, you won’t find a better man anywhere. He can do anything I could, and he’s better at keeping himself in one piece. Thanks for coming all this way to entertain me, but leave me alone.”

“Hold on—” Jean began.

“I’m disappointed,” said Patience. “I would have thought you had at least one more thing to live for. Can you honestly say you’ve never hoped for any chance of a reunion with Sabetha, somewhere out there in the—”

“You go fuck yourself,” snarled Locke. “I don’t care what you think you know. That’s one subject you don’t get to presume anything about.”

“As you like.” Patience flexed her right hand and Jean noticed the gleam of silver thread woven between the fingers. “It seems I’ve wasted our time. Shall I expect you in Karthain when your friend is dead, Jean?”

“Hold!” said Jean. “Patience, please, give us time to talk. In private.”

Patience nodded curtly and moved the knuckles of her right hand. Light shifted on the silvery gleam of her cat’s cradle. Jean blinked, and in that instant thread and woman alike vanished into thin air.

“Great,” said Jean. “Fucking magnificent. I think you’ve finally managed to really piss her off.”

“Nice to know I still have the knack,” said Locke.

“Are you really, truly out of your gods-damned mind? She could save your life.”

“She could do a lot of things.”

“Take the chance, Locke.”

“She’s up to something.”

“What a revelation! What an amazing deduction! I’m sorry, remind me again what your other options are?”

“She wants something from me, damn it, more than she’s letting on! But she’s already got everything she can take from you, right? You said it yourself. If she’s out to get you, she’ll get you. But if she does right by you, then you’ll be in a strong position to move on.”

“It works that way for both of us.”

“I won’t be that witch’s toy,” said Locke. “Not for all the money in Karthain. She’s not human. None of them are.”

Jean glared coldly at Locke. He lay under Patience’s cloak, his wild aspect incongruous next to the fine oilcloth. A cornered animal, preparing to die, huddled under delicate material worth several years of a skilled laborer’s life. The whites of his eyes were turning pink.

“Patience was right,” Jean said quietly. “She has wasted our time. You’ll die choking on your own blood. Today, tomorrow. Doesn’t matter. And you’ll be so happy with yourself. Because somehow dying has become an achievement.”

“Jean, wait—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” The resentments and frustrations of the past few weeks seemed to boil up as Jean spoke. The old familiar temper, snapping like a rope frayed down to a single strand, the rage like a hot pressure under his skin, pulsing from his skull to his fingertips. Only it was worse than usual, because there was nothing he could hit. Zodesti, Cortessa—Jean would have snapped their bones like badly fired pottery. Patience, even—he would have gone for her throat, dared her sorcery. But with Locke he was limited to words, so he weighted them with scorn and let fly. “What the hell have I done but wait? Wait on the boat to see if you got sick. Wait here, week after week, watching you get worse. Day and night, chasing any hope this fucking city could offer, while you—”

“Jean, I am telling you, every instinct I have says this is a setup.”

“No shit. And since we know they mean to use us, why can’t we use them as well, for everything we can get out of the deal?”

“Give me up, Jean. Let me go and their fun vanishes. Then they’ll have that much less reason to play you false.”

“Oh, marvelous. Fucking masterful. You’ll be dead and they’ll be inconvenienced. Maybe even mildly disappointed. What a worthy trade! Like slashing your throat just before your opponent can take a piece in Catch-the-Duke.”

“But—”

“Shut it. Just shut it. You know, when you’re healthy, you’ll laugh the gods right in their faces. But when you’re convalescing, sweet hell, you are a miserable bastard.”

“I’ve always admitted—”

“No. You’ve never admitted this. You don’t stand still, Locke. I played along in Tal Verrar when we talked about retiring on our money, but that was bullshit and we both knew it. You don’t retire. You don’t even take holidays. You move from scheme to scheme, jumping around like a spider on a hot skillet. And when you’re forced to stand still, when you don’t have a thousand things going on to keep you distracted from your own thoughts, you actually want to die. I see that now. I’m so gods-damned slow and stupid I see it for the first time!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You and I, in the boat, after we torched the glass burrow. After we killed Bug’s murderer. Do you remember what we talked about? What you were like? And Vel Virazzo. You tried to finish the Gray King’s work by drowning yourself in wine. Now this. You’re not just cranky when you’re ill, Locke, you have the … look, it’s called Endliktgelaben. It’s a High Vadran word. I learned about it when I was studying as an initiate of Aza Guilla. It means, ah, death-love, death-desire. It’s hard to translate. It means you have moods where you absolutely want to destroy yourself. Not as some self-pitying idle notion, either. As a certainty!”

“For Perelandro’s sake, Jean, I wouldn’t want this if I had a fucking choice!”

“You don’t want it up here,” said Jean, pointing to his own head. “You want it somewhere deeper, so deep you can’t recognize it. You think you’ve got some logical, noble excuse for showing Patience the door. But it’s really that darkness inside, trying to fuck you over once and for all. Something has you so scared you’re seeing everything backwards.”

“What is it, then? If you’re so smart, what is it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Patience can read thoughts like a book, but I sure as hell can’t. However, I can tell you what the hell I’m scared of—being alone. Being the very last one of us standing, all because you’re a selfish, stubborn coward.”

“Not fair,” wheezed Locke.

“No, it isn’t. A lot of good people have died to bring you this far. You keep this shit up and you’ll be seeing them soon. What are you going to tell Calo and Galdo and Bug? Chains? Nazca?” Jean leaned over and all but whispered his next words down at Locke. “What are you going to tell the woman I loved? The woman who burned so you could have the slightest chance in hell of even being here in the first place?”

All the faint color left in Locke’s face had drained out; he moved his lips but seemed unable to convince any words to get that far past his throat.

“If I can get up and live with that every gods-damned day, then so can you, you son of a bitch.” Jean stepped away from the bed. “I’ll be outside. Make your choice.”

“Jean … call her back.”

“Are you just humoring me?”

“No. Please. Call Patience back.”

“Are you ashamed?”

“Yes! Yes, how couldn’t I be, you ass?”

“And you’ll do it? Whatever it takes, whatever Patience requires to keep you alive?”

“Get her back in the room. Get her back! By the gods, I need her to fix me so I can punch your guts into soup.”

“That’s the spirit. Patience!” Jean yelled, turning toward the apartment’s door. “Patience! Are you—”

“Of course.”

Jean whirled. She was already in the room, standing behind him. “I didn’t say I was going far,” she said, cutting off his question before it was spoken. “You’ll both do it?”

“Yes, we’ll—”

“There are going to be some conditions,” interrupted Locke.

“Dammit, Locke,” said Jean.

“Trust me.” Locke coughed and shifted his gaze from Jean to Patience. “First, I want it clear that our obligation to you begins and ends with this election. That’s our side of the bargain in full. No hidden surprises. No snake-bite double-dealing Bondsmage bullshit.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Patience.

“You heard me.” Locke’s voice was still hoarse, but to Jean it seemed infused with genuine strength. Or anger, which was as good for the time being. “I don’t want one of you people popping out of my ass five years from now and implying that I’m still on the hook for having my life spared. I want to hear it from you, right to our faces. Once this is done, we don’t owe you shit.”

“What a high art you’ve made of insolence,” said Patience. “If that’s the game you feel you have to play, so be it. Service for service and a clean severance, just as I said.”

“Good. I want another privilege, too.”

“Our side of the bargain is already exceptionally generous.”

“Who do you think you’re haggling with, a fucking pie vendor? If you’d rather lose your election—”

“State your request.”

“Answers. I want the answer to any question I ask, when I ask, to the best of your ability. I don’t want you to wave your hands and give me any bullshit about how great and terrible and incomprehensible everything is.”

“What questions?”

“Anything. Magic, Karthain, yourself, Falconer. Anything that comes to mind. I’m tired of the gods-damned shadow dance you people call conversation. If I’m going to work for you, I want you to explain some things.”

Patience considered this for some time.

“I have a private life and a professional life,” she said at last. “I may be prepared to discuss the latter. If you fail to respect the former, you will earn … consequences.”

“Good enough.” Locke wiped his mouth on his tunic sleeve, adding new blood to old stains. “Okay, Jean, do you still want the job?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Locke. “I do too. You’ve hired us, Patience. Now do your thing. Get this shit out of me.”

“I can’t work here,” said Patience. “We’ll need to move, and quickly. A ship is waiting at the docks to take us across the Amathel; everything I need is on board.”

“All right,” said Jean. “I’ll go out and call a—”

Patience snapped her fingers, and the outer door fell open. A carriage was waiting on the street outside, its yellow lamps glowing softly in the drizzle, its quartet of horses standing in silent readiness.

“Aren’t you theatrical as hell,” said Locke.

“We’ve lost enough time taming your pride, Locke. We need every moment we can steal back if you’re going to survive what comes next.”

“Hold it,” said Jean. “What do you mean, ‘survive what comes next’?”

“It’s partly my fault. I waited to approach you. I should have done it before you had a chance to start kidnapping physikers. Now Locke’s condition is worse than precarious, and this would be hard enough for someone in perfect health.”

“But you—”

“Stand down, Jean, it’s the same hard sell we use,” said Locke. “Astonishing promises first, important disclaimers second. Just get on with it, Patience. Do your worst. I’m pissed off enough to take any sorcery you can throw at me.”

“Jean must have said something very interesting to shame you into finding your courage again.” Patience clapped her hands, and two tall men strode in through the front door. They wore broad-brimmed hats and long black leather coats, and carried a folding litter between them. “Keep that shame burning if you want to live.”

Patience touched Locke briefly on the forehead, and then she beckoned her coachmen over to roll him onto the litter. Jean watched warily but let them handle the work alone, as they seemed steady and careful enough.

“The only thing I can promise with absolute certainty,” said Patience as she watched this delicate process, “is that what I need to do when we reach the ship will be one of the worst things that’s ever happened to you.”

INTERLUDE: THE BOY WHO CHASED RED DRESSES

INTERSECT (I): FUEL

IN THE NO-TIME no-space of thought, conspiracy could have no witnesses. The old man’s mind reached out across one hundred and twenty miles of air and water. Child’s play for the wearer of four rings. His counterpart answered immediately.

It’s done, then?

The Camorri have accepted her terms. As I told you they would.

We never doubted. It’s not as though she wants for persuasiveness.

We’re moving now.

Is Lamora that ill?

The archedama put this off too long. A genuine mistake.

And not her first. If Lamora dies?

Your exemplar would crush Tannen alone. He’s formidable, but he already carries a weight of mourning.

Could you not … assist Lamora to an early exit?

I told you I won’t go that far. Not right under her eyes! My life still means something to me.

Of course, brother. It was an unworthy suggestion. Forgive me.

Besides, she didn’t choose Lamora just to boil your blood. There’s something about him you don’t understand yet.

Why are you dropping hints instead of information?

I can’t risk letting this loose. Not this. Be assured, this is deeper than the five-year game, and Patience means for you to know it all soon enough.

Now, THAT worries me.

It shouldn’t. Just play the game. If we manage to save Lamora, your exemplar will have a busy six weeks.

Our reception is already prepared.

Good. Look after yourself, then. We’ll be in Karthain tomorrow, whatever happens.

From start to finish, the conversation spanned three heartbeats.

1

THE SKY ABOVE the harbor of Lashain was capped with writhing clouds the color of coal slime, sealing off any speck of light from stars or moons. Jean remained at Locke’s side as Patience’s attendants carried his cot down from the carriage and through the soft spattering rain, toward the docks and a dozen anchored ships whose yards creaked and swayed in the wind.

While there were Lashani guards and functionaries of various sorts milling about, none of them seemed to want anything to do with the business of the procession around Locke. They carried him to the edge of a stone pier, where a longboat waited with a red lamp hung at its bow.

Patience’s attendants set the cot down across the middle of several rowing benches, then took up oars. Jean sat at Locke’s feet, while Patience settled alone at the bow. Beyond her Jean could see low black waves like shudders in the water. To Jean, who had grown accustomed to the smell of salt water and its residues, there seemed something strangely lacking in the fresher odors of the Amathel.

Their destination was a brig floating a few hundred yards out, at the northern mouth of the harbor. Its stern lanterns cast a silvery light across the name painted above its great cabin windows, Sky-Reacher. From what Jean could see of her she looked like a newer vessel. As they came under her lee Jean saw men and women rigging a crane with a sling at the ship’s waist.

“Ahhh,” said Locke weakly. “The indignity. Patience, can’t you just float me up there or something?”

“I could bend my will to a lot of mundane tricks.” She glanced back without smiling. “I think you’d rather have me rested for what’s going to happen.”

The crane’s harness was a simple loop of reinforced leather, with a few strands of rope hanging loose. Using these, Jean lashed Locke into the harness, then waved to the people above. Hanging like a puppet, Locke rose out of the boat, knocked against the side of the brig once or twice, and was hauled safely into the ship’s waist by several pairs of hands.

Jean pulled himself up the boarding net and arrived on deck as Locke was being untied. Jean nudged Patience’s people aside, pulled Locke out of the harness himself, and held him up while the harness went back down for Patience. Jean took a moment to examine the Sky-Reacher.

His first impressions from the water were reinforced. She was a young ship, sweet-smelling and tautly rigged. But he saw very few people on deck—just four, all working the crane. Also, it was an unnaturally silent vessel. The noises of wind and water and wood were all there, but the human elements, the scuttling and coughing and murmuring and snoring belowdecks, were missing.

“Thank you,” said Patience as the harness brought her up to the deck. She stepped lightly out of the leather loop and patted Locke on the shoulder. “Easy part’s done. We’ll be down to business soon.”

Her attendants came up the side, unpacked the folding cot once more, and helped Jean settle Locke into it.

“Make for open water,” said Patience. “Take our guests to the great cabin.”

“The boat, Archedama?” The speaker was a stout gray-bearded man wearing an oilcloak with the hood down, evidently content to let the rain slide off his bald head. His right eye socket was a disquieting mass of scar tissue and shadowed hollow.

“Leave it,” said Patience. “I’ve cut things rather fine.”

“Far be it from me to remind the archedama that I suggested as much last night, and the night—”

“Yes, Coldmarrow,” said Patience, “far be it from you.”

“Your most voluntary abject, madam.” The man turned, cleared his throat, and bellowed, “Put us out! North-northeast, keep her steady!”

“North-northeast, keep her steady, aye,” said a bored-sounding woman who detached herself from the group breaking down the crane.

“Are we going to take on more crew?” said Jean.

“What ever for?” said Patience.

“Well, it’s just … the wind’s out of the north-northeast. You’re going to be tacking like mad to make headway, and as near as I can see, you’ve only got seven or eight people to work the ship. That’s barely enough to mind her in harbor—”

“Tacking,” said the man called Coldmarrow, “what a quaint notion. Help us get your friend into the stern cabin, Camorri.”

Jean did so. Sky-Reacher’s aft compartment wasn’t flush with the main deck; Locke had to be carried down a narrow passage with treacherous steps. Whatever the ship had been constructed for, it wasn’t the easy movement of invalids.

The cabin was about the same size as the one Locke and Jean had possessed on the Red Messenger, but far less cluttered—no weapons hung on the bulkheads, no charts or clothes were strewn about, no cushions or hammocks. A table formed from planks laid over sea chests was in the center of the room, lit by soft yellow lanterns. The shutters were thrown tight over the stern windows. Most strikingly, the place had a deeply unlived-in smell, an aroma of cinnamon and cedar oils and other things people threw into wardrobes to drive out staleness.

While Jean helped Locke onto the table, Coldmarrow somehow produced a blanket of thin gray wool and handed it over. Jean wiped the rain from Locke’s face, then covered him up.

“Better,” whispered Locke, “moderately, mildly, wretchedly better. And … what the—”

A small dark shape detached itself from the shadows in a corner of the cabin, padded forward, and leapt up onto Locke’s chest.

“Gods, Jean, I’m hallucinating,” said Locke. “I’m actually hallucinating.”

“No, you’re not.” Jean stroked the silky black cat that was supposed to be long gone from their lives. Regal was exactly as Jean remembered, down to the white spot at his throat. “I see the little bastard too.”

“He can’t be here,” muttered Locke. The cat circled his head, purring loudly. “It’s impossible.”

“What a myopic view you have on the splendors of coincidence,” said Patience, coming down the steps. “It was one of my agents that purchased your old yacht. It lay briefly alongside the Sky-Reacher a few weeks ago, and this little miscreant took the opportunity to change residences.”

“I don’t get it,” said Locke, gently tugging at the scruff of Regal’s neck. “I never even liked cats all that much.”

“Surely you realize,” said Patience, “that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.”

“Kin to Bondsmagi, perhaps?” said Jean. “So what do we do now?”

“Now,” said Patience, “we speak plainly. What’s going to happen, Jean, will be hard for you to watch. Possibly too hard. Some … ungifted cannot bear close proximity to our workings. If you wish to go into the middle deck, you’ll find hammocks and other accommodations—”

“I’m staying,” said Jean. “For the whole damn thing. That’s not negotiable.”

“Be resolved, then, but hear me. No matter what happens, or seems to happen, you cannot interfere. You cannot interrupt. It could be fatal, and not just for Locke.”

“I’ll behave,” said Jean. “I’ll bite my damn knuckles off if I have to.”

“Forgive me for reminding you that I know the nature of your temper—”

“Look,” said Jean, “if I get out of hand, just speak my gods-damned name and make me calm down. I know you can do it.”

“It may come to that,” said Patience. “So long as you know what to expect if you cause trouble. Speaking of which, remove our little friend and take him forward.”

“Off you go, kid.” Jean plucked Regal up before the cat realized he’d been targeted for transportation. The smooth bundle of fur yawned and nestled into the crook of Jean’s right elbow.

Jean carried his passenger to the main deck, where he was surprised to find the vessel already moving under topsails, although he’d heard no shouting or struggling from above to get them down. He ran up the stairs leading to the quarterdeck, from which he could see the rain-blurred lights of Lashain already dwindling behind the dark shapes bobbing in her harbor. The boat they’d abandoned was barely visible, a tiny silhouetted slat on the waves.

The woman who’d been at the crane was now at the helm, just abaft the mainmast where it marked the forward boundary of the quarterdeck. Her face was only half-visible within the hood of her cloak, but she seemed lost in thought, and Jean was startled to see that she wasn’t actually touching the wheel. Her left hand was raised and slightly cupped, and from time to time she would spread her fingers and move it forward, as though pushing some unseen object.

Lightning broke overhead, and by the sudden flash Jean could see the other members of the crew scattered across the deck, also cloaked and hooded, standing at silent attention with their hands similarly raised.

As thunder rolled across the Amathel, Jean walked over to stand beside the woman at the wheel.

“Excuse me,” he said, “can you talk? What’s our current heading?”

“North … northeast,” said the woman dreamily, not moving to face him when she spoke. “Straight on for Karthain.”

“But that’s dead into the wind!”

“We’re using … a private wind.”

“Fuck me sideways,” Jean muttered. “I, uh, I need somewhere to stow this cat.”

“Main deck hatch … to the middle hold.”

Jean carried his fuzzy comrade to the ship’s waist and found an access hatch, which he slid open. A narrow ladder led six or seven feet down to a dimly lit space, where Jean could see straw on the floor and pallets of some soft material.

“Perelandro’s balls, little guy,” whispered Jean, “what ever gave me the idea I could get the best of people who make their own fucking weather?”

“Mrrrrwwwww,” said the cat.

“You’re right. I am desperate. And stupid.” Jean let Regal go, and the cat landed lightly on a pallet in the semi-darkness below. “Keep your head down, puss. I think shit’s about to break weird all over the place.”

2

“CLOSE THE door firmly,” said Coldmarrow when Jean returned.

“Bolt it?”

“No. Just keep the weather out where it belongs.”

Patience was pouring pale yellow liquid from a leather skin into a clay cup as Jean came down the steps.

“Well, Jean,” said Locke, “if nothing else, at least I get a drink before I go.”

“What’s that?” said Jean.

“Several somethings for the pain,” said Patience.

“So Locke’s going to sleep through this?”

“Oh no,” said Patience. “No, he won’t be able to sleep an instant, I’m afraid.”

She held the cup to Locke’s lips, and with her assistance he managed to gulp the contents down.

“Agggggh,” he said, shaking his head. “Tastes like a dead fishmonger’s piss, siphoned out of his guts a week after the funeral.”

“It is a rather functional concoction,” allowed Patience. “Now relax. You’ll feel it take hold swiftly.”

“Ohhh,” sighed Locke, “you’re not wrong.”

Coldmarrow set a bucket of water beside the table. He then pulled Locke’s tunic off, exposing the pale skin and old scars of his upper body. It was obvious that vigor had fled from every slack strand of muscle. Coldmarrow dampened a cloth and carefully cleaned Locke’s chest, arms, and face. Patience folded and resettled the gray blanket over his lower half.

“Now,” said Patience, “certain requirements.” She retrieved an ornamented witchwood box from a corner of the cabin. At a wave from her hand, it unlocked itself and slid open, revealing nested trays of small objects, rather like a physiker’s kit.

Patience took a slim silver knife out of the box. With this, she sliced off several lengths of Locke’s damp hair, and placed them in a clay bowl held out by Coldmarrow. As the bearded man moved, his sleeves fell back far enough for Jean to see that he had four rings on his left wrist.

“Just a few deductions,” said Patience. “The outermost flourishes. Surely he could use the trimming.”

Coldmarrow held another bowl under Locke’s right hand as Patience whittled slivers from his nails. Locke murmured, rolled his head back, and sighed.

“Blood, too,” said Patience, “what little he can spare.” She pricked two of Locke’s fingers with the blade, eliciting no response from him. Jean, however, grew more and more anxious as Coldmarrow collected red drops in a third bowl.

“I hope you’re not planning to keep any of that, after this … thing is finished,” said Jean.

“Jean, please,” said Patience. “He’ll be lucky to be alive after this thing is finished.”

“We won’t do anything untoward,” said Coldmarrow. “Your friend is a valuable asset.”

“Is he now?” growled Jean. “An asset? An asset’s something you can put on a shelf or write down on a ledger, you spooky bastard. Don’t talk about him like—”

“Jean,” said Patience sharply. “Command yourself or be commanded.”

“Hey, I’m calm. Placid as pipe-smoke,” said Jean, folding his arms. “Just look at how placid I can be. What’s that you’re doing now?”

“The last thing I need,” said Patience, “is a wisp of breath.” She held a ceramic jar at Locke’s mouth for some time, then capped it and set it aside.

“Fascinating, I’m sure,” said Locke groggily. “Now get this shit out of me.”

“I can’t just will it so,” said Patience. “Life is far more easily destroyed than mended. Magic doesn’t change that. In fact, you shouldn’t think of this as a healing at all.”

“Well, what the hell is it?” said Jean.

“Misdirection,” said Patience. “Imagine the poison as a spark smoldering in wood. If the spark becomes flame, Locke dies. We need to make it expend itself somewhere else, destroy something else. Once that power is drawn from it, the spark goes out.”

Jean watched uneasily for the next quarter of an hour as Patience and Coldmarrow used a strange-smelling black ink to paint an intricate network of lines across Locke’s face and arms and chest. Although Locke muttered from time to time, he didn’t appear to be in any greater discomfort than before.

While the ink dried, Coldmarrow fetched a tall iron candelabrum, which he set between the table and the shuttered stern windows. Patience produced three white candles from her box.

“Wax tapers, made in Camorr,” she said. “Along with an iron candle-stand, also from Camorr. All of it stolen, to establish a more powerful sympathy with your unfortunate friend.”

She rolled one candle back and forth in her hands, and its surface blurred and shimmered. Coldmarrow used Patience’s silver knife to transfer Locke’s blood and hair and nail-trimmings to the surface of the wax. There, rather than running messily down the sides as Jean would have expected, the “certain requirements” vanished smoothly into the candle.

“Effigy, I name you,” said Patience. “Blood-bearer, I create you. Shadow of a soul, deceiving vessel, I give you the flesh of a living man and not his heart-name. You are him, and not him.”

She placed the taper in the candelabrum. Then she and Coldmarrow repeated the process exactly with the two remaining candles.

“Now,” said Patience softly, “you must be still.”

“I’m not exactly fuckin’ dancing,” said Locke.

Coldmarrow picked up a coil of rope. He and Patience used this to bind Locke to the table by a dozen loops of cord between his waist and his ankles.

“One thing,” said Locke as they finished. “Before you begin, I’d like a moment alone with Jean. We’re … adherents of a god you might not want to be associated with.”

“We can respect your mysteries,” said Patience. “But don’t dawdle, and don’t disturb any of the preparations.”

She and Coldmarrow withdrew from the cabin, closing the door behind them, and Jean knelt at Locke’s side.

“That slop Patience gave me made things fuzzy for a moment, but I think I’ve got some wits back,” said Locke. “So—have I ever looked more ridiculous?”

“Have you ever looked not ridiculous?”

“Fuck you,” said Locke, smiling. “That end-likt-ge-whatever—”

“Endliktgelaben.”

“Yeah, that Endliktgelaben shit you brought up … were you just trying to piss me off, or were you serious?”

“Well … I was trying to piss you off.” Jean grimaced. “But did I mean it? I suppose. Am I right about it? I don’t know. I really hope not. But you are one gods-damned miserable brat when you decide to feel guilty about everything. I’d like that read into the record.”

“I have to tell you, Jean … I don’t really want to die. Maybe that makes me some kind of chickenshit. I meant what I said about the magi; I’d sooner piss in their faces than take gold from their hands, but all the same, I don’t want to die … I don’t!”

“Easy there,” said Jean. “Easy. All you have to do to prove it is not die.”

“Give me your left hand.”

The two of them touched hands, palm to palm. Locke cleared his throat.

“Crooked Warden,” he said, “Unnamed Thirteenth, your servant calls. I know I’m a man of so many faults that listing them here would only detain us.” Locke coughed and wiped fresh blood from his mouth. “But I meant what I said … I don’t want to die, not without a real fight, not like this. So if you could just find it in your heart to tip that scale for me one more time— Hell, if not for me, do it for Jean. Maybe his credit’s better than mine.”

“This we pray with hopeful hearts,” said Jean. He rose to his feet again. “Still scared?”

“Shitless.”

“Less chance you’ll make a mess on the table, then.”

“Bastard.” Locke closed his eyes. “Call them back. Let’s get on with this.”

3

JEAN WATCHED, moments later, as Patience and Coldmarrow took up positions on either side of Locke.

“Unlock the dreamsteel,” said Patience.

Coldmarrow reached down the front of his tunic and pulled out a silvery pendant on a chain. At his whisper of command, pendant and chain alike turned to brightly rippling liquid, which ran in a stream down his fingers, coalescing in a ball that quivered in his cupped hand.

“Quicksilver?” said Jean.

“Hardly,” said Patience. “Quicksilver poisons the wits of those who handle it. Dreamsteel is something of ours. It shapes itself to our thoughts, and it’s harmless as water … mostly.”

The magi spread their arms over the table. Slender threads of dreamsteel sprouted from the shimmering mass in Coldmarrow’s hand and slid forward, falling through the gaps between his fingers. They landed on Locke’s chest, not with careless splashing but with uncanny solidity. Though the stuff ran like water, the flow was slow and dreamlike.

The thin silvery streams conformed to the black lines painted across Locke’s upper body. Steadily, sinuously, the threads of liquid metal crept across the design, into every curve and whorl. When at last the delicate work was complete and the final speck of dreamsteel fell from Coldmarrow’s hand, every line on Locke’s skin had been precisely covered with a minuscule layer of rippling silver.

“This will feel rather strange,” said Patience.

She and Coldmarrow clenched their fists, and instantly the complex tracery of dreamsteel leapt up in a thousand places, exploding off Locke’s skin. Locke arched his back, only to be pressed gently back down by the hands of the magi. The dreamsteel settled as a forest of needles.

Like the victim of a mauling by some metallic porcupine, Locke now had countless hair-thin silver shafts embedded bloodlessly in his skin, running along the painted lines.

“Cold,” said Locke. “ ’That’s awfully damn cold!”

“The dreamsteel is where it needs to be,” said Patience. She picked up the jar she had used to catch Locke’s exhaled breath and approached the candelabrum.

“Effigy, I kindle you,” she said, opening the jar and wafting it past the three candles. “Breath-sharer, I give you the wind of a living man but not his heart-name. You are him, and not him.”

She gestured with her right hand, and the wicks of the three candles burst into flickering white flame.

She then resumed her place at Locke’s side. She and Coldmarrow put their right hands together, fingertip to fingertip, over Locke’s chest. The silver thread that Patience had used earlier reappeared, and by deft movements Jean could barely follow the two magi bound their hands together in a cat’s cradle. Jean shuddered, remembering that the Falconer had wielded a silver thread of his own.

Patience and Coldmarrow then placed their free hands on Locke’s arms.

“Whatever happens now, Locke,” said Patience, “remember your shame and anger. Stay angry with me, if you must. Hate me and my son and all the magi of Karthain with everything you’ve got, or you won’t live to get up off this table.”

“Quit trying to scare me,” said Locke. “I’ll see you when this is over.”

“Crooked Warden,” murmured Jean to himself, “you’ve heard Locke’s plea, now hear mine. Gandolo, Wealth-Father, I was born to merchants and beg to be remembered. Venaportha, Lady With Two Faces, surely you’ve had some fun with us before. Give us a smile now. Perelandro, forgiving and merciful, we might not have served you truly, but we put your name on every set of lips in Camorr.

“Aza Guilla,” he whispered, feeling a nervous trickle of sweat slide down his forehead, “Lady Most Kind, I peeked up your skirts a little, but you know my heart was in the right place. Please have urgent business elsewhere tonight.”

There was an itch at the back of Jean’s neck; the same eerie sensation he had felt before in the presence of the Falconer, and when the magi had tormented him and Locke in the Night Market of Tal Verrar. Patience and Coldmarrow were deep in concentration.

“Ah,” gasped Locke. “Ah!”

A metallic taste grew in Jean’s mouth, and he gagged, only to discover that his throat had gone dry. The top of his mouth felt as raspy as paper. What had happened to his spit?

“Hells,” said Locke, arching his back. “Oh, this is … this is worse than cold.…”

The timbers of the cabin bulkheads creaked, as though the ship were being tossed about, though all of Jean’s senses told him the Sky-Reacher was plodding along as slowly and smoothly as ever. Then the rattling began, faintly at first, but soon the yellow alchemical lanterns were shaking and the shadows in the room wobbled.

Locke moaned. Patience and Coldmarrow leaned forward, keeping Locke’s arms pinned, while their joined hands intricately wove and unwove the silver thread. The sight would have been mesmerizing in calm circumstances, but Jean was far from calm. His stomach roiled as though he had eaten rotten oysters and they were clamoring for release.

“Dammit,” Jean whispered, and bit on his knuckles just as he’d promised. The pain helped drive back the rising tide of nausea, but the atmosphere of the room was growing stranger. The lanterns rattled now like kettles on a high boil, and the white flames of the candles flared and danced to an unfelt breeze.

Locke moaned again, louder than before, and the thousand silvery points of light embedded in his upper body made eerie art as he strained at his ropes.

There was a sizzling sound, then a whip-like crack. The alchemical lanterns shattered, spraying glass across the cabin along with puffs of sulfurous-smelling vapor. Jean flinched, and the Bondsmagi reeled as lantern fragments rattled onto the floor around them.

“I’ve been poisoned a lot,” muttered Locke, for no apparent reason.

“Help,” hissed Coldmarrow in a strained voice.

“How? What do you need?” Jean was caught in another shuddering wave of nausea, and he clung to a bulkhead.

“Not … you.”

The cabin door burst open. One of the attendants who had carried Locke on the cot stomped down the stairs, discarding his wet cloak as he came. He put his hands against Coldmarrow’s back and settled his feet as though bracing the old man against a physical force. Shadows reeled wildly around the cabin as the candle flames whirled, and Jean’s nausea grew; he went down to his knees.

There was an uncanny vibration in the air, in the deck, in the bulkheads, in Jean’s bones. It felt as though he were leaning against a massive clockwork machine with all of its gears turning. Behind his eyes, the vibration grew past annoyance to pain. Jean imagined a maddened insect trapped inside his skull, biting and scrabbling and beating its wings against whatever it found in there. That was too much; bludgeoned by awful sensations, he tilted his head forward and threw up on the deck.

A thin dark line appeared beside the vomit as he finished—blood from his nose. He coughed out a string of profanities along with the acidic taste of his last meal, and though he couldn’t find the strength to heave himself to his feet, he did manage to tilt his head back far enough to see what happened next.

“This is your death, effigy. You are him,” cried Patience, her voice cracking, “and not him!”

There was a sound like marrow bones cracking, and the three candle flames surged into conflagrations large enough to swallow Jean’s hands. Then the flames turned black—black as the depths of night, an unnatural hue that caused actual pain to behold. Jean flinched away from the sight, his eyes gushing hot tears. The light of the black fires was pallid gray, and it washed the cabin with the tint of stagnant graveyard water.

Another shudder passed through the timbers of the ship, and the young Bondsmage at Coldmarrow’s back suddenly reeled away from the table, blood pouring from his nose. As he toppled, the woman who’d been on the quarterdeck came through the door, hands up to shield her eyes from the unearthly glare. She stumbled against a bulkhead but kept her feet, and began to chant rapidly in a harsh unknown language.

Who the hell is steering the ship? thought Jean, as the sickly gray light pulsed with a speed to match his own heartbeat and the very air seemed to thicken with a fever heat.

“Take this death. You are him,” gasped Coldmarrow, “and not him! This death is yours!”

There was a sound like nails on slate, and then Locke’s moans turned to screams—the loudest, longest screams Jean had ever heard.

4

PAIN WAS nothing new to Locke, but pain was an inadequate term for what happened when the two Bondsmagi pressed him down and squeezed him between their sorceries.

The room around him became a whirl of confusion—white light, rippling air. His eyes blurred with tears until even the faces of Patience and Coldmarrow bled at the edges like melting wax. Something shattered, and hot needles stung his scalp and forehead. He saw a strange swirl of yellow vapors, then gasped and moaned as the silver needles in his upper body suddenly came alive with heat, driving away all concern for his surroundings. It felt like a thousand coal-red flecks of ash were being driven into his pores.

Stabbed, he thought, clenching his teeth and swallowing a scream. This is nothing. I’ve been stabbed before. Stabbed in the shoulder. In the wrist. In the arm. Cut, smashed, clubbed, kicked … drowned … nearly drowned. Poisoned.

He cast his memory back across the long catalog of injuries, realizing with some deeper and still vaguely sensible part of his mind that counting inflictions of pain to take his mind off the infliction of pain was both very stupid and very funny.

“I’ve been poisoned a lot,” he said to himself, shuddering in a paroxysm born of the struggle between laughter and the hot-needle pain.

There was noise after that, the voices of the Bondsmagi, and Jean—then creaking, moaning, slamming, banging. It all went hazy while Locke fought for self-control. Then, after an unguessable interval, a voice penetrated his misery at last, and was more than a voice. It was a thought, shaped by Patience, whose touch he now instinctively recognized in the word-shapes that thrust themselves to the center of his awareness:

“You are him … and not him!”

Beneath the hornet-stings of the dreamsteel needles, something moved inside Locke, some pressure in his guts. The quality of the light and the air around him changed; the white glow of the candles turned black. Like a snake, the force inside him uncoiled and slid upward, under his ribs, behind his lungs, against his pulsating heart.

“F-fuck,” he tried to say, so profoundly disquieted that no air moved past his lips. Then the thing inside him surged, frothed, ate—like tar heated instantly to a boil, scalding the surface of every organ and cavity between his nose and his groin. All of those never-thought-of crevices of the body, suddenly alive in his mind, and suddenly limned in pure volcanic agony.

Stop oh please oh please stop just let the pain end, he thought, so far gone that his previous resolution was forgotten beneath sheer animal pleading. Stop the pain stop the pain—

“You are him … and not him!” The thought-voice was a weak echo above the cresting tide of internal fire. Coldmarrow? Patience? Locke could no longer tell. His arms and legs were numb, dissolving into meaningless sensory fog beyond the hot core of his agony. The Bondsmagi and everything beyond them faded into haze. The table seemed to fall away beneath him; blackness rose like the coming of sleep. His eyelids fluttered shut, and at last the blessed numbness spread to his stomach and chest and arms, smothering the hell that had erupted there.

Let that be it. I don’t want to die, but gods, just let that be the last of the pain.

The outside world had gone silent, but there was still some noise in the darkness—his own noise. The faint throb of a heartbeat. The dry shudder of breath. Surely, if he were dead, all that business would have ended. There was a pressure on his chest. A sensation of weight—someone was pushing down on his heart, and the touch felt cold. Surprised at the amount of will it required, Locke forced his eyes partly open.

The hand above his heart was Bug’s, and the eyes staring down from the dead boy’s face were solid black.

“There is no last of the pain,” said Bug. “It always hurts. Always.”

Locke opened his mouth to scream, but no sound moved past his lips—just a barely perceptible dry hissing. He strained to move, but his limbs were lead. Even his neck refused to obey his commands.

This can’t be real, Locke tried to say, and the unspoken words echoed in his head.

“What’s real?” Bug’s skin was pale and strangely loose, as though the flesh behind it had collapsed inward. The curls had come out of his hair, and it hung limp and lifeless above his dead black eyes. A crossbow quarrel, crusted with dry blood, was still buried in his throat. The cabin was dark and empty; Bug seemed to be crouching above him, but the only weight Locke could feel was the cold pressure of the hand above his heart.

You’re not really here!

“We’re both here.” Bug fiddled with the quarrel as though it were an annoying neck-cloth. “You know why I’m still around? When you die, your sins are engraved on your eyes. Look closely.”

Unable to help himself, Locke stared up into the awful dark spheres, and saw that their blackness was not quite unbroken. It had a rough and layered quality, as though made up of a countless number of tiny black lines of script, all running together into a solid mass.

“I can’t see the way out of this place,” said Bug softly. “Can’t find the way to what’s next.”

You were twelve fucking years old. How many sins could you have—

“Sins of omission. Sins of my teachers and my friends.” The chilling weight above Locke’s heart pressed down harder.

That’s bullshit, I know better, I’m a divine of the Crooked Warden!

“How’s that working out for you?” Bug wiped at the trails of blood running down his neck, and the blood came away on his pale fingertips as a brown powder. “Doesn’t seem to have done either of us much good.”

I’m a priest, I’d know how this works, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! I’m a priest of the Unnamed Thirteenth!

“Well … I could tell you how far you’ll get trusting people when you don’t even know their real name.” Again the pressure on Locke’s chest grew.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. It’s just a dream.

“You’re dreaming. You’re dying. Maybe they’re the same thing.” The corners of Bug’s mouth twitched up briefly in a weak attempt at a smile. The sort of smile, thought Locke, that you give someone when you can see they’re in deep shit.

“Well, you’ve made all your decisions. Nothing left for you to do but see which one of us is right.”

Wait, wait, don’t—

The pain in Locke’s chest flared again, spreading sharply outward from his heart, and this time it was cold, deathly cold, an unbearable icy pressure that squeezed him like a vise. Darkness swept in behind it, and Locke’s awareness broke against it like a ship heaved onto rocks.

INTERLUDE: ORPHAN’S MOON

1

EVERYTHING THAT WAS wrong came to a crescendo at once: Locke’s screams, Jean’s crippling vertigo, and the surging black candle flames, filling the cabin with their ghastly grave-water un-light.

There was a bone-rattling vibration in the hot air, a sensation that something vast and unseen was rushing past at high speed. Then the black flames died, casting the room into real darkness. Locke’s screams trailed off into hoarse sobs.

Jean’s strength failed. Pressed down by nausea that felt like a weighted harness, he tumbled forward, and his chin hit the deck hard enough to bring back memories of his less successful alley brawls. He resolved to rest for just a handful of heartbeats; heartbeats became breaths became minutes.

Another of Patience’s cohorts pushed the cabin door open at last and came down the steps with a lantern. By that wobbling yellow light, Jean was able to take in the scene.

Patience and Coldmarrow were still standing, still conscious, but clutching one another for support. The two younger Bondsmagi were on the floor, though whether alive or dead Jean couldn’t muster the will to care.

“Archedama!” said the newcomer with the lantern.

Patience brushed the woman off with a shaky wave.

Jean rose to one knee, groaning. The nausea was still like ten hangovers wrapped around a boot to the head, but the thought that Patience was upright stung his pride enough to lend him strength. He blinked, still feeling a prickly inflammation at the edges of his eyes, and coughed. The candelabrum was charred black and wreathed in vile-smelling smoke. The woman with the lantern flung the stern windows open, and blessedly fresh lake air displaced some of the miasma.

Another few moments passed, and Jean finally stumbled to his feet. Standing beside Coldmarrow, he clung to the table and shook Locke’s left arm.

Locke moaned and arched his back, to Jean’s immense relief. The ink and dreamsteel ran off Locke’s pale skin in a hundred black-and-silver rivulets, forming a complete mess, but at least he was breathing. Jean noticed that Locke’s fingers were curled tightly in against his palms, and he carefully eased them apart.

“Did it work?” Jean muttered. When neither of the magi responded, Jean touched Patience on the shoulder. “Patience, can you—”

“It was close,” she said. She opened her eyes slowly, wincing. “Stragos’ alchemist knew his business.”

“But Locke’s all right?”

“Of course he’s not all right.” She extricated herself from the silver thread that bound her to Coldmarrow. “Look at him. All we can promise is that he’s no longer poisoned.”

Jean’s nausea subsided as the night breeze filled the room. He wiped some of the silvery-black detritus from under Locke’s chin and felt the fluttering pulse in his neck.

“Jean,” Locke whispered. “You look like hell.”

“Well, you look like you lost a fight with a drunken ink merchant!”

“Jean,” said Locke, more sharply. He seized Jean’s left forearm. “Jean, gods, this is real. Oh, gods, I thought … I saw—”

“Easy now,” said Jean. “You’re safe.”

“I …” Locke’s eyes lost their focus, and his head sank.

“Damnation,” muttered Patience. She wiped more of the black-and-silver mess from Locke’s face and touched his forehead. “He’s so far gone.”

“What’s wrong now?” said Jean.

“What you and I just endured,” said Patience, “was a fraction of the shock he had to bear. His body is strained to its mortal limits.”

“So what do you do about it? More magic?”

“My arts can’t heal. He needs nourishment. He needs to be stuffed with food until he can’t hold another scrap. We’ve made arrangements.”

Coldmarrow groaned, but nodded and staggered out of the cabin.

He returned carrying a tray. This bore a stack of towels, a pitcher of water, and several plates heaped with food. He set the tray on the table just above Locke’s head, then cleaned Locke’s face and chest with the towels. Jean took a pinch of baked meat from the tray, pulled Locke’s chin down, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Come now,” said Jean. “No falling asleep.”

“Mmmmph,” Locke mumbled. He moved his jaw a few times, started to chew, and opened his eyes once more. “Whhhgh hgggh fgggh igh hhhhgh,” he muttered. “Hgggh.”

“Swallow,” said Jean.

“Mmmmph.” Locke obeyed, then gestured for the water.

Jean eased Locke onto his elbows and held the pitcher to his lips. Coldmarrow continued to wipe the ink and dreamsteel away, but Locke took no notice. He gulped water in undignified slurps until the pitcher was empty.

“More,” said Locke, turning his attention to the food. The mage with the lantern set it down, took the pitcher, and hurried out.

The stuff on the tray was simple fare—baked ham, rough dark bread, some sort of rice with gravy. Locke attacked it as if it were the first food the gods had ever conjured on earth. Jean held a plate for him while Locke pushed the bread around with shaking hands, scooped everything else into his mouth, and barely paused to chew. By the time the water pitcher returned, he was on his second plate.

“Mmmm,” he mumbled, and a number of other monosyllables of limited philosophical utility. His eyes were bright, but they had a dazed look. His awareness seemed to have narrowed to the plate and pitcher. Coldmarrow finished cleaning him off, and Patience stretched a hand out above his legs. The rope that had bound him to the table unknotted itself and leapt into her grasp, coiling itself neatly.

The first tray of food—enough to feed four or five hungry people—was soon gone. When the attending mage brought a second, Locke attacked it without slowing. Patience watched him alertly. Coldmarrow, meanwhile, tended to the young magi who had collapsed during the ritual.

“They alive?” said Jean, at last finding a residue of courtesy if nothing more. “What happened to them?”

“Ever tried to lift a weight that was too heavy?” Coldmarrow brushed his fingers against the forehead of the unconscious young woman. “They’ll be fine, and wiser for the experience. Young minds are brittle. Oldsters, now, we’ve had some disappointments. We’ve set aside the notion that we’re the center of the universe, so our minds bend with strain instead of meeting it head-on.”

Coldmarrow’s knees popped as he stood.

“There,” he said, “on top of all our other services this evening, some philosophy.”

“Jean,” Locke muttered, “Jean, where the hell … what am I doing?”

“Trying to fill a hole,” said Patience.

“Well, was I …? I seem to have lost myself just now. I feel gods-damned strange.”

Jean put a hand on Locke’s shoulder and frowned. “You’re getting warmer,” he said. He set his palm against Locke’s forehead and felt a fever-heat.

“Certainly doesn’t feel like it on my side of things,” said Locke. Shivering, he reached for the blanket on his legs. Jean grabbed it for him and draped it across his shoulders.

“You back to your senses, then?” asked Jean.

“Am I? You tell me. I just … I’ve never felt so hungry. Ever. Hell, I’d still be eating, but I think I’m out of room. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It will come over you again,” said Patience.

“Oh, lovely. Well, this may be a stupid question,” said Locke, “but did it work?”

“If it hadn’t, you’d have died twenty minutes ago,” said Patience.

“So it’s out of me,” muttered Locke, staring down at his hands. “Gods. What a mess. I feel … I don’t know. Other than the hundred tons I just shoved into my stomach, I can’t tell if I’m actually feeling any better.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell feeling better,” said Jean.

“I’m cold. Hands and feet are numb. Feels like I’ve aged a hundred years.” Locke slid off the table, drawing the blanket more tightly around himself. “I think I can stand up, though!”

He demonstrated the questionable optimism of this pronouncement by falling on his face.

“Damn,” he muttered as Jean picked him up. “Sure you can’t do anything about this, Patience?”

“Master Lamora, you full-blooded ingrate, haven’t I worked enough miracles on your behalf for one night?”

“Purely as a business investment,” said Locke. “But I suppose I should thank you nonetheless.”

“Yes, nonetheless. As for your strength, everything now falls to nature. You need food and rest, like any other convalescent.”

“Well,” said Locke, “uh, if it’s no trouble, I’d like to speak alone with Jean.”

“Shall I have the cabin cleared?”

“No.” Locke stared at the unconscious young magi for a moment. “No, let your apprentices or whatever sleep off their hangovers. A walk on deck will do me some good.”

“They do have names,” said Patience. “You’ll be working for us; you might as well accept that. They’re called—”

“Stop,” said Locke. “I’m bloody grateful for what you’ve done here, but you’re not hauling me to Karthain to be anyone’s friend. Forgive me if I don’t feel cordial.”

“I suppose I should take your restoration to boorishness as a credit to my arts,” said Patience with a sigh. “I’ll give instructions to have more food and water set out for you.”

“I doubt I could eat another bite,” said Locke.

“Oh, wait a few minutes,” said Patience. “I’ve been with child. Rely on my assurance that you’ll be ruled by your belly for some time to come.”

2

“I TELL you, Jean, he was there. He was there looking down at me, closer than you are right now.”

Locke and Jean leaned against the Sky-Reacher’s taffrail, watching the soft play of the ghost-lights that gave the Lake of Jewels its name. They gleamed in the black depths, specks of cold ruby fire and soft diamond white, like submerged stars, far out of human reach. Their nature was unknown. Some said they were the souls of the thousand mutineers drowned by the mad emperor Orixanos. Others swore they must be Eldren treasures. In Lashain, Jean had even read a pamphlet in which a Therin Collegium scholar argued that the lights were glowing fish, imbued with the alchemical traces that had spilled into the lake in the decades since the perfection of light-globes.

Whatever they were, they were a pretty enough distraction, rippling faintly beneath the ship’s wake. Smears of gray at the horizon hinted the approach of dawn, but a low ceiling of dark clouds still occluded the sky.

Locke was shaky and feverish, wearing his blanket like a shawl. In between sentences, he munched nervously at a piece of dried ship’s biscuit from the small pile he carried wrapped in a towel.

“Given what was happening to you, Locke, I think the safest bet by far would be that you imagined it.”

“He spoke to me in his own voice,” said Locke, shuddering. Jean gave him a friendly squeeze on the shoulder, but Locke went on. “And his eyes … his eyes … did you ever hear anything like that, at the temples you entered? About a person’s sins being engraved on their eyes?”

“No,” said Jean, “but then, you’d know more inner ritual of at least one temple than I would. Is it treading on any of your vows to ask if you—”

“No, no,” said Locke. “It’s nothing I ever learned in the order of the Thirteenth.”

“Then you did imagine the whole mess.”

“Why the hell would I imagine something like that?”

“Because you’re a gods-damned guilt-obsessed idiot?”

“Easy for you to be glib.”

“I’m not. Look, do you really think the life beyond life is such a farce that people wander around in spirit with their bodies mutilated? You think souls have two eyes in their heads? Or need them?”

“We see certain truths manifested in limited forms for our own apprehension,” said Locke. “We don’t see the life after life as it truly is, because in our eyes it conforms to our mechanics of nature.”

“Straight out of elementary theology, just as I learned it. Several times,” said Jean. “Anyway, since when are you a connoisseur of revelation? Have you ever, at any point in your life since you became a priest, been struck by the light of heavenly clarity, by dreams and visions, by omens, or anything that made you quake in your breeches and say, ‘Holy shit, the gods have spoken!’ ”

“You know I would have told you if I had,” said Locke. “Besides, that’s not how things work, not as we’re taught in our order.”

“You think any sect isn’t told the exact same thing, Locke? Or do you honestly believe that there’s a temple of divines out there somewhere constantly getting thumped on the head by bolts of white-hot truth while the rest of you are left to stumble around on intuition?”

“Broadening the discussion, aren’t you?”

“Not at all. After so many years, so many scrapes, so much blood, why would you suddenly start having true revelations from beyond the grave now?”

“I can’t know. I can’t presume to speak for the gods.”

“But that’s precisely what you’re doing. Listen, if you walk into a whorehouse and find yourself getting sucked off, it’s because you put some money on the counter, not because the gods transported a pair of lips to your cock.”

“That’s … a really incredible metaphor, Jean, but I think I could use some help translating it.”

“What I’m saying is, we have a duty to accept on faith, but also a duty to weigh and judge. Once you insist that some mundane thing was actually the miraculous hand of the gods, why not treat everything that way? When you start finding messages from the heavens in your breakfast sausages, you’ve thrown aside your responsibility to use your head. If the gods wanted credulous idiots for priests, why wouldn’t they make you that way when you were chosen?”

“This didn’t happen while I was eating breakfast, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, it happened while you were this far from death.” Jean held up his thumb and forefinger, squeezed tightly together. “Sick, exhausted, drugged, and under the tender care of our favorite people in the world. I’d find it strange if you didn’t have a nightmare or two.”

“It was so vivid, though. And he was so—”

“You said he was cold and vengeful. Does that sound like Bug? And do you really think he’d still be there, wherever you imagined him, hovering around years after he died just to frighten you for half a minute?”

Locke stuffed more biscuit into his mouth and chewed agitatedly.

“I refuse to believe,” said Jean, “that we live in a world where the Lady of the Long Silence would let a boy’s spirit wander unquiet for years in order to scare someone else! Bug’s long gone, Locke. It was just a nightmare.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” said Locke.

“Worry about something else,” said Jean. “I mean it, now. The magi came through on their end of our deal. We’ll be expected to make ourselves useful next.”

“Some convalescence,” said Locke.

“I am glad as hell to see you up and moping on your own two feet again. I need you, brother. Not lying in bed, useless as a piece of pickled dogshit.”

“I’m gonna remember all of this tender sympathy next time you’re ill,” said Locke.

“I tenderly and sympathetically didn’t heave you off a cliff.”

“Fair enough,” said Locke. He turned around and glanced across the lantern-lit reaches of the deck. “You know, I think my wits might be less congealed. I’ve just noticed that there’s nobody in charge of this ship.”

Jean glanced around. None of the magi were visible anywhere else on deck. The ship’s wheel was still, as though restrained by ghostly pressure.

“Gods,” said Jean. “Who the hell’s doing that?”

“I am,” said Patience, appearing at their side. She held a steaming mug of tea and gazed out across the jewel-dotted depths.

“Gah!” Locke slid away from her. “My nerves are scraped raw. Must you do that?”

Patience sipped her tea with an air of satisfaction.

“Have it your way,” said Locke. “What happened to all of your little acolytes?”

“Everyone’s shaken from the ritual. I’ve sent them down for some rest.”

“You’re not shaken?”

“Nearly to pieces,” she said.

“Yet you’re moving this ship against the wind. Alone. While talking to us.”

“I am. Nonetheless, I’d wager that you’re still going to misplace your tone of respect whenever you speak to me.”

“Lady, you knew I was poison when you picked me up,” said Locke.

“And how are you now?”

“Tired. Damned tired. Feels like someone poured sand in my joints. But there’s nothing eating at my insides … not like before. I’m hungry as all hell, but it’s not … evil. Not anymore.”

“And your wits?”

“They’ll serve,” said Locke. “Besides, Jean’s here to catch me when I fall.”

“I’ve had the great cabin cleaned for you. There’s a wardrobe with a set of slops. They’ll keep you warm until we reach Karthain and throw you to the tailors.”

“We can’t wait,” said Locke. “Patience, are we in any danger of running aground or something if we ask you a few questions?”

“There’s nothing to run aground on for a hundred miles yet. But are you sure you don’t want to rest?”

“I’ll collapse soon enough. I can feel it. I don’t want to waste another lucid moment if I can help it,” said Locke. “You remember what you promised us in Lashain? Answers, I mean.”

“Of course,” she said. “So long as you recall the limitation I set.”

“I’ll try not to get too personal.”

“Good,” said Patience. “Then I’ll try not to waste a great deal of effort by setting you on fire if my temper runs short.”

3

“WHY DO you people serve?” said Locke. “Why take contracts? Why Bondsmagi?”

“Why work on a fishing boat?” Patience breathed the steam from her tea. “Why stomp grapes into wine? Why steal from gullible nobles?”

“You need money that badly?”

“As a tool, certainly. Its application is simple and universally effective.”

“And that’s it?”

“Isn’t that good enough for your own life?”

“It just seems—”

“It seems,” said Patience, “that what you really want to ask is why we care about money at all when we could take anything we please.”

“Yes,” said Locke.

“What makes you think we would behave like that?”

“Despite your sudden interest in my welfare, you’re scheming, skull-fucking bastards,” said Locke, “and your consciences are shriveled like an old man’s balls. Start with Therim Pel. You did burn an entire city off the map.”

“Any few hundred people sufficiently motivated could have destroyed Therim Pel. Sorcery wasn’t the only means that would have sufficed.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Locke. “Let’s allow that maybe all you theoretically needed were some gardening tools and a little creativity; what you actually did was rain fire from the fucking sky. If your lot couldn’t rule the world with that …”

“Are you smarter than a pig, Locke?”

“On occasion,” said Locke. “There are contrary opinions.”

“Are you more dangerous than a cow? A chicken? A sheep?”

“Let’s be generous and say yes.”

“Then why don’t you go to the nearest farm, put a crown on your head, and proclaim yourself emperor of the animals?”

“Uh … because—”

“The thought of doing anything so ridiculous never crossed your mind?”

“I suppose.”

“Yet you wouldn’t deny that you have the power to do it, anytime you like, with no chance of meaningful resistance from your new subjects?”

“Ahhh—”

“Still not an attractive proposition, is it?” said Patience.

“So that’s really it?” said Jean. “Any half-witted bandit living on bird shit in the hinterlands would make himself emperor if he could, but you people, who actually can do it at will, are such paragons of reason—”

“Why sit in a farmyard with a crown on your head when you can buy all the ham you like down at the market?”

“You’ve banished ambition completely?” said Jean.

“We’re ambitious to the bone, Jean. Our training doesn’t give the meek room to breathe. However, most of us find it starkly ludicrous that the height of all possible ambition, to the ungifted, must be to drape oneself in crowns and robes.”

“Most?” said Locke.

“Most,” said Patience. “I did mention that we’ve had a schism over the years. You might not be surprised to hear that it concerns you.” She crooked two fingers on her left hand at Locke and Jean. “The ungifted. What to do with you. Keep to ourselves or put the world on its knees? Nobility would no longer be a matter of patents and lineages. It would be a self-evident question of sorcerous skill. You would be enslaved without restraint to a power you could never possess, not with all the time or money or learning in the world. Would you like to live in such an empire?”

“Of course not,” said Locke.

“Well, I have no desire to build it. Our arts have given us perfect independence. Our wealth has made that freedom luxurious. Most of us recognize this.”

“You keep using that word,” said Locke. “ ‘Most.’ ”

“There are exceptionalists within our ranks. Mages that look upon your kind as ready-made abjects. They’ve always been a minority, held firmly in check by those of us with a more conservative and practical philosophy, but they have never been so few as to be laughed off. These are the two factions I spoke of earlier. The exceptionalists tend to be young, gifted, and aggressive. My son was popular with them, before you crossed his path in Camorr.”

“Great,” said Locke. “So those assholes that came and paid us a visit in Tal Verrar, on your sufferance, don’t even have to leave the comforts of home for another go at us! Brilliant.”

“I gave them that outlet to leaven their frustration,” said Patience. “If I had commanded absolute safety for you, they would have disobeyed and murdered you. After that, I would have had no answer to their insubordination short of civil war. The peace of my society balances at all times on points like this. You two are just the most recent splinter under everyone’s nails.”

“What will your insubordinate friends do when we get to Karthain? Give us hugs, buy us beer, pat us on our heads?” said Jean.

“They won’t trouble you,” said Patience. “You’re part of the five-year game now, protected by its rules. If they harm you outright, they call down harsh retribution. However, if their chosen agents outmaneuver you, then they steal a significant amount of prestige from my faction. They need you to be pieces on the board as much as I do.”

“What if we win?” said Jean. “What will they do afterward?”

“If you do manage to win, you can naturally expect the goodwill of myself and my friends to shelter under.”

“So we’re working for the kindhearted, moral side of your little guild, is that what we should understand?” said Locke.

“Kindhearted? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Patience. “But you’re a fool if you can’t believe that we’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on the moral questions of our unique position. The fact that you’re even here, alive and well, testifies to that reflection.”

“And yet you hire yourselves out to overthrow kingdoms and kill people.”

“We do,” said Patience. “Human beings are afflicted with short memories. They need to be reminded that they have valid reasons for holding us in awe. That’s why, after very careful consideration, we still allow magi to accept black contracts.”

“Define ‘careful consideration,’ ” said Locke.

“Any request for services involving death or kidnapping is scrutinized,” said Patience. “Black work needs to be authorized by a majority of my peers. Even once that’s done, there needs to be at least one mage willing to accept the task.”

Patience cupped her left hand, and a silver light flashed behind her fingers. “You curious men,” she said. “I offer you the answers to damn near anything, secrets thousands of people have died trying to uncover, and you want to learn how we go about paying our bills.”

“We’re not done pestering you,” said Locke. “What are you doing there?”

“Remembering.” The silver glow faded, and a slender spike of dreamsteel appeared, cradled against the first two fingers of her hand. “You’re bold enough in your questions. Are you bold enough for a direct answer?”

“What’s the proposal?” said Locke, nibbling half-consciously at a biscuit.

“Walk in my memories. See through my eyes. I’ll show you something relevant, if you’ve got the strength to handle it.”

Locke swallowed in a hurry. “Is this going to be as much fun as the last ritual?”

“Magic’s not for the timid. I won’t offer again.”

“What do I do?”

“Lean forward.”

Locke did so, and Patience held the silver spike toward his face. It narrowed, twisted, and poured itself through the air, directly into Locke’s left eye.

He gasped. The biscuits tumbled from his hand as the dreamsteel spread in a pool across his eye, turning it into a rippling mirror. A moment later droplets of silver appeared in his right eye, thickening and spreading.

“What the hell?” Jean was torn between the urge to slap Patience aside and the sternness of her earlier warning not to interfere with her sorcery.

“Jean … wait …” whispered Locke. He stood transfixed, tied to Patience’s hand by a silver strand, his eyes gleaming. The trance lasted perhaps fifteen seconds, and then the dreamsteel withdrew. Locke wobbled and clutched the taffrail, blinking furiously.

“Holy hells,” he said. “What a sensation.”

“What happened?” said Jean.

“She was … I don’t know, exactly. But I think you’ll want to see this.”

Patience turned to Jean, extending the hand with the silver needle. Jean leaned forward and fought to avoid flinching as the narrow silver point came toward him. It brushed his open eye like a breath of cold air, and the world around him changed.

4

FOOTSTEPS ECHOING on marble. Faint murmur of conversation in an unknown language. No, not a murmur. Not a noise at all. A soft tickle of thoughts from a dozen strangers, brushing against an awareness that Jean hadn’t previously known he’d possessed. A flutter like moth wings against the front of his mind. The sensation is frightening. He tries to halt, is startled to discover that the vaporous mass of his body refuses his commands.

Ah, but these aren’t your memories. The voice of Patience, inside his head. You’re a passenger. Try to relax, and it will grow easier soon enough.

“I don’t weigh anything,” Jean says. The words come from his lips like the weakest half-exhalation of a man with dead stones for lungs. Squeezing them out takes every ounce of will he can muster.

It’s my body you’re wearing. I’m leaving some things hazy for your peace of mind. You’re here for a study in culture, not anatomy.

Warm light on his face, falling from above. His thoughts are buoyed from below by a sensation of power, a cloud of ghostly whispers he can’t seem to grab meaningful hold of. He rides atop these like a boat bobbing on a deep ocean.

My mind. My deeper memories, which are quite irrelevant, thank you. Concentrate. I’ll make you privy to my strongest, most deliberate thoughts from the moments I’m revealing.

Jean tries to relax, tries to open himself to this experience, and the impressions tumble in, piece by piece, faster and faster. He is struck by a disorienting jumble of information—names, places, descriptions, and, threaded through it all, the thoughts and sigils of many other magi:

There is a plain wooden door before Jean, the door to the Sky Chamber, the seat of what passes for government among the magi of Karthain. The door will not open by touch. Anyone attempting to turn the handle will stand dumbfounded as their hand fails again and again to find it, plainly visible though it is. Jean feels a flutter of power as he/Patience sends his/her sigil against the door. At this invisible caress, the door falls open.

The Sky Chamber is a vault of illusion that would make the artificers of Tal Verrar weak-kneed with envy. It is the first object of free-standing, honest-to-the-gods sorcery that Jean has ever seen. The room is circular, fifty yards in diameter, and Jean knows from Patience’s penumbra of knowledge that the domed ceiling is actually twenty feet beneath the ground. Nonetheless, across the great glass sweep of that dome is a counterfeit sky, like a painting brought to life, perfect in every detail. It shows a stately early evening, with the sun hidden away behind gold-rimmed clouds.

The magi await Patience in high-backed chairs, arranged in rising tiers like the Congress of Lords from the old empire—a congress long since banished to ashes by the men and women who emulate them. They wear identical hooded robes, a soft dark red, the color of roses in shadow. This is their ceremonial dress. Gray or brown robes might have been more neutral, more restful, but the progenitors of the order didn’t want their inheritors to grow too restful in their deliberations.

One man sits in the foremost rank of chairs, directly across from Jean/Patience as the door slides shut behind him/her. Perched on one robed arm, statue-still, is a hawk that Jean recognizes instantly. He has looked directly into its cold, deadly eyes before, as well as those of its master.

A bombardment of questions and greetings and sigils comes on like a crashing wave, then steadily fades. Order is called for, and relative silence descends, a relief to Jean. And then:

Mother.

The greeting comes a moment too late to be polite. It is sharp and clear as only the thoughts of a blood relative can be. Behind it is an emotional grace note, artfully subdued—the wide bright sky, a sensation of soaring, a feeling of wind against the face. The absolute freedom of high flight.

The sigil of the Falconer.

Speaker, she/Jean replies.

Must we be such prisoners of formality, Mother?

This is a formal occasion.

Surely we’re alone in our thoughts.

You and I are never alone.

And yet we’re never together. How is it we can both mean the exact same thing by those statements?

Don’t wax clever with me, Speaker. Now isn’t the time for your games—This is as much your game as it is mine—I WILL NOT BE INTERRUPTED.

There is strength behind that last thought, a pulse of mental muscle the younger mage cannot yet match. A vulgar way to punctuate a conversation, but the Falconer takes the point. He bows his head a fraction of a degree, and Vestris, his scorpion hawk, does the same.

At the center of the Sky Chamber is a reflecting pool of dreamsteel, its surface a perfect unrippled mirror. Four chairs surround it; three are occupied. The magi have little care for the ungifted custom of setting the highest-ranked to gaze upon their inferiors. When so much business is transacted in thought, physical directions begin to lose even symbolic meaning.

Jean/Patience takes the open seat, and reaches out to the other three arch-magi. It’s as easy as joining flesh-and-blood hands. Archedons and archedamas pool energies, crafting a joined sigil, an ideogram that fills the room for an instant with the thought-shape of four names:

The names are meaningless, traditional, having nothing to do with the personal qualities of their holders. The fused sigil proclaims the commencement of formal business. The light in the chamber dims in response; the early-evening sky is replaced by a bowl of predawn violet with a warm line of tawny gold at the horizon. Archedon Temperance, seniormost of the four, sends forth:

There is a twist, a wrench in Jean’s perceptions. Patience, the here-and-now Patience, adjusts her memories, shifts them to a context he can better understand. The thought-voices of the magi take on the quality of speech.

“We remain divided on whether or not the consequences of this proposal exceed the allowances of our guiding Mandates—first, the question of self-harm. Second, the question of common detriment.”

Temperance is a lean man of seventy, with brown skin the texture of wind-whipped tree bark. His hair is gray, and his clouding eyes are milky agates in deep, dark sockets. Yet his mind remains vigorous; he has worn five rings for half his life.

“With respect, Archedon, I would call on the assembly to also consider the question of higher morality.” This from a pale woman in the first row of seats. Her left arm is missing, and a fold of robe hangs pinned at that shoulder like a mantle. She stands, and with her other hand sweeps her hood back, revealing thin blonde hair woven tightly under a silver mesh cap. This gesture is the privilege of a Speaker, announcing her intention to take the floor and attempt to influence the current discussion.

Jean knows this woman from Patience’s subtle whispers—Navigator, three rings, born on a Vadran trading ship and brought to Karthain as a child. Her private obsession is the study of the sea, and she is closely identified with Patience’s allies.

“Speaker,” says Jean/Patience, “you know full well that no proposed contract need be proven against anything broader than our own Mandates.”

Patience gets this out quickly, to create an impression of neutrality that is not entirely honest and to stress the obvious before someone with a more belligerent outlook can seize the chance to make a fiercer denunciation.

“Of course,” says Navigator. “I have no desire to challenge the law provided by our founders in all their formidable sagacity. I am not suggesting that we test the proposed contract on my terms, but that we have an obligation to test ourselves.”

“Speaker, the distinction is meaningless.” Foresight speaks now, youngest of the arch-magi, barely forty. She and the Falconer are associates. She is also the most aggressive of the five-ring magi, her will as hard as Elderglass. “We are divided on questions of clear and binding law. Why do you muddle this deliberation with nebulous philosophy?”

“The point is hardly nebulous, Archedama. It bears directly upon the first Mandate, the question of self-harm. The sheer scope of the slaughter this Anatolius proposes risks some diminishment of ourselves if we agree to it. We are discussing the single greatest bloodbath in the history of our black contracts.”

“Speaker, you exaggerate,” says Foresight. “Anatolius has been clear concerning his plans for the nobility of Camorr. Few, if any, would actually be killed.”

“Candidly, Archedama, you surprise me with your dissembling. Surely we are not such children as to delude ourselves that someone reduced to the state of a living garden decoration by Wraithstone poisoning has not, by any practical measure, been murdered!”

There is a brightening in the artificial sky as the sun peeks above the horizon. Regardless of the justice of Navigator’s argument, the assembly approves of the manner in which she’s making it. The ceiling responds to the mental prodding of the magi in attendance. The sun literally shines on those that capture general approval, and visibly sets on those that stumble in their arguments.

“Sister Speaker,” says the Falconer, rising calmly and pushing his own hood back. Jean feels another chill at the uncovering of his familiar features—the receding hairline, the bright dangerous eyes and easy air of command. “You’ve never been coy about the fact that you oppose black contracts on general principle, have you?”

Jean draws knowledge from Patience’s whispers. There are about half a dozen Speakers at any time, popular and forthright magi, chosen by secret ballots. They have no power to make or contravene laws, but they do have the right to intrude on Sky Chamber discussions and indirectly represent the interests of their supporters.

“Brother Speaker, I’m not aware of having been coy about anything.”

“What, then, is the full compass of your objection? Is it all higher morality?”

“Wouldn’t that be sufficient? Isn’t the question of whether we might be found wanting at the weighing of our souls an adequate basis for restraint?”

“Is it your only basis?”

“No. I also put forth the question of our dignity! How can we not do it an injury when we reduce ourselves to paid assassins for the ungifted?”

“Is that not the very credo by which we work? Incipa veila armatos de—‘we become instruments,’ ” says the Falconer. “To serve the client’s design, we make ourselves tools. Sometimes that makes us weapons of murder.”

“Indeed, a murder weapon is a tool. But not all tools are murder weapons.”

“When our prospective clients want us to find lost relatives or summon rain, do we not take the contracts? Such is the condition of the world, however, that they tend to want our assistance in matters which are regrettably more sanguine.”

“We are not helpless in the choosing of the contracts proposed to—”

“Sister Speaker, your pardon. I interrupt because I fear that we are prolonging this discussion unnecessarily. Allow me to lay your points to rest, so that we may return to cutting our previous knot. You say it’s the scope of this particular contract that earns your strenuous objection. How do you suggest that we scale it down to a more agreeably moral operation?”

“Scale it down? The whole enterprise is so bloodthirsty and reckless that I can hardly conceive of how we might mitigate it by sparing a few victims among the crowd.”

“How many would we have to spare for such mitigation as would please you?”

“You know as well as I, Brother Speaker, that this is not a question of simple arithmetic.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve listened to proposals for many black contracts over the years, contracts involving the removal of individuals, gangs, even families. You might have objected in principle, but you never made any attempt to have them disallowed.”

“A contract for a single murder, while an undignified thing in itself, is at least more precise than the wholesale destruction of an entire city-state’s rulers!”

“I see. Can we agree, then, on a point at which ‘precise’ becomes ‘wholesale’? How many removals tip the balance? Are fifteen corpses moral, but sixteen excessive? Or seventeen? Or twenty-nine? Surely we must be able to compromise. The low triple digits, perhaps?”

“You are deliberately reducing my argument past the point of absurdity!”

“Wrong, Sister Speaker. I take your points very seriously. They have been treated seriously in our laws and customs for centuries! And they have been treated thus: Incipa veila armatos de! We become instruments. Instruments do not judge!”

The Falconer spreads his arms. Vestris flaps her wings, hops to his left shoulder, and settles back into comfortable stillness.

“That has been our way for centuries, precisely because of situations like this. Precisely because we are not gods, and we are not wise enough to sift the worthy from the unworthy before we take action on behalf of our clients!”

Jean has to admire the Falconer’s cheek—appealing to humility in defense of an argument that magi should be free to slaughter without remorse!

“It is madness to try,” continues the Falconer. “It leads to sophistry and self-righteousness. Our founders were correct to leave us so few Mandates by which to weigh the proposals we receive. Will we harm ourselves? This we can answer! Will we harm the wider world, to the point that our interests may be damaged? This we can answer! But are the men and women we might remove penitent before the gods? Are they good parents to their children? Are they sweet-tempered? Do they give alms to beggars, and if so, does this compel us to stay our hands? How can we possibly begin to answer such questions?

“We make ourselves instruments! Anyone we kill as instruments, we deliver to a judgment infinitely wiser than our own. If the removal be a sin, it weighs upon the client who commands it, not those who act under the bond of obedience!”

“Well put, Speaker.” Archedama Foresight is unable to suppress a smile; the sun has risen while the Falconer has made his arguments, and the chamber is flush with a soft golden glow. “I call to my fellow arch-magi for binding. We have no time for the diversion of philosophy. The subject of a specific contract divided us this morning. It divides us now. One way or another, we should end that division, working firmly within the context of the law.”

“Agreed,” says Temperance. “Binding.”

“Reluctantly agreed,” says Providence. “Binding.”

Jean/Patience feels a warm glow of gratitude. Providence has bent a point of etiquette, speaking his judgment before that of the more senior Patience, but in so doing he has confirmed the verdict, three out of four. Patience, whatever her actual thoughts on the subject, is now free to conceal them and do a small kindness to Navigator.

“Abstain,” Jean/Patience says.

“Binding,” says Foresight.

“Bound, then,” says Temperance. “All further discussion outside the Mandates is set aside.”

Navigator pulls her hood up, bows, and sits. The assembly is restored to its previous stalemate. Providence has refused to sanction the proposed contract, while Foresight has endorsed it. Temperance and Patience have yet to express their opinions.

“You have more for us, Speaker?” Temperance directs his question at the Falconer, who remains standing.

“I do,” says the young man, “if I don’t strain your patience in continuing.”

Jean is struck by the ambiguity of his insight into this affair. Is it possible to make puns in thought-speech? Was that the Falconer’s design? Or is Patience, in translation, highlighting nuances her son didn’t intend? Whatever the truth, none of the arch-magi take exception.

“I bear no particular love for the people of Camorr. Neither do I bear them any particular ill-will,” says the Falconer. “The proposed contract is drastic, yes. It will require deftness and discretion, and the removal of many people. It will have consequences, but I would argue that none of them are relevant to us.

“Let us look to the first Mandate, the question of self-harm. Do we have any particular attachment to the current rulers of Camorr? No. Do we have any properties or investments in the city we can’t protect? No! Do we invite trouble for Karthain by causing upheaval two thousand miles away? Please … as if our presence here couldn’t protect the interests of Karthain, even were Camorr two miles down the road!”

“You talk of investments.” Archedon Providence speaks now, a disarmingly mild man about Patience’s age, a staunch ally of hers. “Anatolius casts a wide net with this scheme. Any feast at Raven’s Reach will command the presence of the city’s money, including Meraggio himself. We do maintain accounts at his house, and others.”

“I’ve researched them,” says the Falconer. “But do these people run countinghouses or trade syndicates by themselves? Any one of them will have family, advisors, lieutenants. Capable and ambitious inheritors. The money in the vaults won’t go anywhere. The letters of credit won’t vanish. The organizations will continue operating under new authorities. At least that’s my conclusion. Do you find it to be in error, Archedon?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Nor I,” says Foresight. “Our few ties to Camorr are secure, our obligations to it nonexistent. Who can name a single concrete injury we would do ourselves if we accepted the Anatolius contract?”

The chamber is silent.

“I trust we may consider the first Mandate dispensed with,” says the Falconer. “Let’s give due airing to the second. What Anatolius proposes—and offers to pay a fair, which is to say, exorbitant price for—is that we engineer an opportunity for him to work his revenge against the nobility of Camorr and against its foremost criminal family. Now, I am merely being exact. I’m not attempting to disguise the magnitude of his intentions.

“With our aid, Anatolius will likely succeed, and hundreds of the most powerful men and women in Camorr will be gentled. Our sister Navigator is correct to point out the foolishness of dancing around this point. These men and women will never again have a single meaningful thought. They won’t be able to wipe the filth from their own asses. Their fate will be tantamount to murder.

“I would certainly not wish that on anyone I knew or cared for, but then, we are here to consider, as the archedama put it, the concrete injuries of our actions, not to hone our sympathy for distant persons. We must measure whether the disruption this would inflict could be so widespread as to compromise our own interests, and our freedom of action.”

“Forgive my suspicion,” says Jean/Patience, “that the Speaker has come to this assembly well-armed with conclusions to aid us in that measurement.”

“Archedama, I would be a poor advocate indeed if I dared to speak extemporaneously on such a crucial matter. I’ve given this contract a great deal of thought since it was first proposed.”

“If it were carried out,” says Archedama Foresight, “what would happen to Camorr?”

“I think it impossible,” says the Falconer, “that literally every noble in Camorr could be caught in this trap. There must inevitably be those too ill to attend, those out of favor at court, and those traveling abroad. There will also be those that leave too early or arrive too late. Dozens of them are sure to survive. Anatolius understands this. His point is made regardless.

“Camorr possesses a standing army of several companies, along with a rather infamous constabulary. At the end of the night, the survivors would retain a disciplined force to keep the peace.”

“That’s what they’d be used for, then?” Archedon Providence adopts a tone of mock surprise. “Certainly not to settle old scores? Camorri are so famous for their deep sense of restraint where lingering grudges are concerned.”

“I’m not trying to be fatuous, Archedon,” says the Falconer, “or unduly optimistic. But our information—and our information is better than the duke of Camorr’s—is that the duke’s standing forces are reasonably loyal to the throne and to Camorr itself. Of course there’d be blood on the walls. Doors kicked in, alley fights, that personal Camorri touch. Yet I think it likely the army and constabulary would stand aside from these affairs until the strongest survivors restored a legitimate chain of command.”

“Are you seriously arguing,” says Providence, “that Camorr would, after a few knife-fights in the dark, suffer no further instability from the sudden and rather horrific subtraction of several hundred nobles?”

“Of course not. Archedon, you do me a rhetorical injustice. Camorr will lose much—its present ambitions, its particular relations with other city-states, its high culture. If Anatolius has his way, he’ll wipe out most of the old dogs who won the Thousand Days and put down the Mad Count’s rebellion.

“Camorr will be severely tested. Tal Verrar, we must assume, will poke every visible wound. But will Camorr collapse? Will there be riots in the streets? Will its soldiers throw down their pikes and run to the wilds? Gods be gracious, no. And will it lash out? At whom? Anatolius intends to make it generally known, if his plan is successful, that what took place was an act of vengeance by Camorri, upon Camorri. There’ll be no foreign phantoms to chase.”

“They will try,” says Temperance, musingly. “And they’ll hunt Anatolius to the ends of creation. Assassins will be lined up at the city gates for work.”

“I agree,” says the Falconer. “But that would be Anatolius’ problem, and he’s eager to have it. He knows how to reach our agents if he wishes to discuss the price of making himself vanish.”

There is a good-humored murmur from around the chamber. The sun has climbed higher; the warm golden glow is steady.

“I believe the chaos unleashed by Anatolius’ plan would be brief, local, and easily contained,” says the Falconer. “It is, of course, the place of the arch-magi to determine whether or not I’ve been convincing. But I would say one thing more—a decision here is only the first requirement for a contract to be placed into action. It must also have a mage willing to become its instrument. I am no hypocrite! If the arch-magi allow it, I would be the first to request the honor of the assignment.”

Jean feels a strange flare of emotion from somewhere below the surface of the memories he rides. It isn’t anger, or even surprise. Rather … satisfaction? Anticipation? The hint of feeling vanishes quickly, pushed back behind the curtains of Patience’s mental stage.

“Are there any further arguments to be made,” says Temperance, “against the Anatolius proposal, on the basis of the second Mandate?”

Silence around the room.

“We call the question.” Temperance raises his left hand, a gesture that allows his sleeve to fall back just far enough to reveal his five rings. “Have these arguments changed the opinions already offered by my peers?”

“I still can’t deem it acceptable,” says Providence.

“I can,” says Foresight.

“Then the time has come for Patience and me to make our declarations.” Temperance broods before continuing. “I agree that this is a proposal without precedent. I agree that it seems a singular and sinister thing, and I am no enemy of black contracts. But our custom compels a duty to fact, not to vague impressions. I find no valid reason in law to disqualify the proposal.”

A critical moment. Temperance has handed Patience the most meaningful decision of the entire assembly. If she refuses the proposal, agents of the Bondsmagi will politely inform Luciano Anatolius that his proposition has not been found convenient. If she allows the proposal, the Falconer will go to Camorr to work an act of butchery.

“I share the qualms of the honorable Navigator, and our esteemed Archedon Providence,” Jean/Patience says at last. “I also share the Archedon Temperance’s respect for the strictness of our Mandates. I too lack any valid reason to disallow the contract.”

Jean is chilled to the core of his vaporous body as he feels this statement come from his/Patience’s lips. Of all the curious privileges he has ever been granted in life, surely this is among the most awful—the chance to speak the words that sent the Falconer to Camorr, to slaughter the Barsavi family, to cause the deaths of Calo and Galdo and Bug, to come within a hair’s width of killing himself and Locke.

“The proposal is accepted,” says Temperance. “I think it no small justice that the task should be yours, Falconer. We know you have the stomach for black contracts. Now we’ll see if your subtlety is any match for your enthusiasm.”

The Falconer has been handed a double-edged opportunity, a chance to crown his relatively early success with a contract unlike any other. A chance to fail spectacularly if he lacks the nerve to pull it off.

“This assembly is adjourned,” says Temperance. Jean’s perception shifts again; in mid-sentence, the sound of the eldest archedon’s voice transmutes to the sensation of thoughts. Patience has returned to her natural perspective.

Like a theater audience with no applause, the magi rise and begin to file out of the Sky Chamber. A hundred private discussions continue, but there is no need to form conversational knots and clusters when they are taking place in the swift silence of thought.

The other arch-magi rise to leave, but Jean/Patience lingers, staring at the pool of dreamsteel in the middle of the chamber. He/she can feel the Falconer’s eyes from across the room.

I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you to make that allowance, Mother.

If you’re no hypocrite, neither am I.

Jean/Patience waves a hand across the surface of the dreamsteel; currents of warmth pulse up and down the ghostly fingers. The silvery metal ripples birth slender shapes. The sculpting takes a few moments, and is far from perfect, but soon enough Jean/Patience has beckoned the dreamsteel into a caricature of the Camorr skyline, with the Five Towers looming over islands studded with smaller buildings.

Having no excuse to forbid this isn’t the same as condoning it.

Frame it as you like.

Is there any point to my offering a piece of advice?

If it’s truly advice, I’ll be surprised.

Don’t go to Camorr. This contract isn’t just complex, it’s dangerous.

I thought as much. Dangerous? I don’t recall my name being on Luciano Anatolius’ list of enemies.

Not merely dangerous for the ungifted. Dangerous for you.

Oh, Mother. I hardly know whether your game is too deep or too shallow for me. Is this your legendary prescience again? Curious how you seem to cite it whenever you have an obvious reason to slow me down.

The Falconer stretches forth a hand, and the Five Towers sink. In seconds the liquid-sculpture buildings dissolve back into their primordial silver ooze. The dreamsteel quivers, then becomes mirror-smooth once again. The Falconer grins.

Someday, Speaker, you may have cause to regret the intensity of your self-regard.

Yes, well, perhaps we can continue to explore your rather thorough catalog of my faults when I return from Camorr. Until then—

I doubt we’ll ever have the opportunity. Farewell, Falconer.

Farewell, Mother. Rest assured I do look forward to enjoying the last word, whenever it comes.

He turns toward the door. As he walks away, Vestris cocks her head slightly, stares with cold hunter’s eyes, and makes the slightest squawk. The bird’s equivalent of a disdainful laugh.

The Falconer departs on his mission to Camorr two days later. When he returns, months will have passed, and he will be in no condition to enjoy any words at all.

5

“GODS ABOVE,” whispered Jean as the deck of the Sky-Reacher became real beneath his feet again. His eyes felt as though he’d been staring into a bitter wind. It was a deep relief to find himself back in the familiar shape and mass of his own body. “That was insane.”

“The first time isn’t easy. You bore it well enough.”

“You people do that often?” asked Jean.

“I wouldn’t go so far as ‘often.’ ”

“You can just pass your memories back and forth,” said Locke, shaking his head. “Like an old jacket.”

“Not quite. The technique requires preparation and conscious guidance. I couldn’t simply give you the sum total of my memories. Or teach you to speak Vadran with a touch.”

“Ka spras Vadrani anhalt.”

“Yes, I know you do.”

“Falconer,” muttered Jean, rubbing his eyes. “Falconer! Patience, you could have stopped him. You were inclined to stop him!”

“I was,” said Patience. She stared out at the Amathel, the cooling dregs of her tea forgotten.

“But the Falconer was one of your exceptionalists, right?” said Locke. “Along with what’s-her-name, Foresight. And here you had a contract, a mission, to go and really fuck things up, Therim Pel style. If he’d actually pulled it off—and he came gods-damned close, let me tell you—isn’t that just the sort of thing that would have given more prestige to his faction?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you let him go anyway.”

“I thought of abstaining, until he announced his willingness to take the contract. No, his intention of taking the contract. Once he’d done so, I realized that he wouldn’t be coming back safely from Camorr.”

“What, you had some sort of premonition?”

“After a fashion. It’s one of my talents.”

“Patience,” said Locke, “I would like to ask you something deeply personal. Not to antagonize you. I ask because your son helped kill four close friends of mine, and I want to know … I guess …”

“You want to know why we don’t get along.”

“Yes.”

“He hated me.” Patience wrung her hands together. “Still does, behind the fog of his madness. He hates me as much as he did when we parted that day in the Sky Chamber.”

“Why?”

“It’s simple. And yet … rather hard to explain. The first thing you should understand is how we choose our names.”

“Falconer, Navigator, Coldmarrow, et cetera,” said Jean.

“Yes. We call them gray names, because they’re mist. They’re insubstantial. Every mage chooses a gray name when their first ring is tattooed on their wrist. Coldmarrow, for example, chose his in memory of his northern heritage.”

“What were you, before you were Patience?” said Jean.

“I called myself Seamstress.” She smiled faintly. “Not all gray names are grandiose. Now, there’s another sort of name. We call it the red name, the name that lives in the blood, the true name which can never be shed.”

“Like mine,” muttered Jean.

“Just so. The second thing you need to understand is that magical talent has no relation to heredity. It doesn’t breed true. Many decades of regrettable interference in the private lives of magi made this abundantly clear.”

“What do you do,” said Jean, “with, ah, ‘ungifted’ children when you have them?”

“Cherish them and raise them, you imbecile. Most of them end up working for us, in Karthain and elsewhere. What did you think we’d do, burn them on a pyre?”

“Forget I asked.”

“And gifted children?” said Locke. “Where do they come from, if they’re not homegrown?”

“A trained mage can sense an unschooled talent,” said Patience. “We usually catch them very young. They’re brought to Karthain and raised in our unique community. Sometimes their original memories are suppressed for their own comfort.”

“But not the Falconer,” said Locke. “You said he was your flesh-and-blood son.”

“Yes.”

“And for him to have the power … how rare is that?”

“He was the fifth in four hundred years.”

“Was his father a mage?”

“A master gardener,” said Patience softly. “He drowned on the Amathel six months after our son was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Of course you’re not.” Patience moved her fingers slightly and her tea mug disappeared. “I suppose I might have gone mad, if not for the Falconer. He was my solace. We became so close, that little boy and I. We explored his talents together. Ultimately, though, for magi to be born of magi is more curse than blessing.”

“Why?” said Jean.

“You’ve been Jean Tannen all your life. It’s what your mother and father called you when you were learning how to speak. It’s engraved on your soul. Your friend here also has a red name, but, to his great good fortune, he stumbled into a gray name for himself at an early age. He calls himself Locke Lamora, but deep down inside, when he thinks of himself, he thinks something else.”

Locke smiled thinly and nibbled a biscuit.

“The very first identity that we accept and recognize as us, that’s what becomes the red name. When we grow from the raw instincts of infancy and discover that we exist, conscious and separate from the things around us. Most of us acquire red names from what our parents whisper to us, over and over, until we learn to repeat it in our own thoughts.”

“Huh,” said Locke. An instant later, he spat crumbs. “Holy shit. You know the Falconer’s true name because you gave it to him!”

“I tried to avoid it,” said Patience. “Oh, I tried. But I was lying to myself. You can’t love a baby and not give him a name. If my husband had lived, he would have given the Falconer a secret name. That was the procedure … other magi might have intervened, would have if I hadn’t deceived them. I wasn’t thinking straight. I needed that private bond with my boy so desperately … and, inevitably, I named him.”

“He resented you for it,” said Jean.

“A mage’s deepest secret,” said Patience. “Never shared, not between masters and students, closest friends, even husbands and wives. A mage who learns another mage’s true name wields absolute power over them. My son has bitterly resented me since the moment he realized what I held over him, whether or not I ever chose to use it.”

“Crooked Warden,” said Locke. “I guess I should be able to find it in my heart to have some sympathy for the poor bastard. But I can’t. I sure as hell wish you’d had a normal son.”

“I think I’ve said enough for the time being.” Patience moved away from the taffrail and turned her back to Locke and Jean. “You two rest. We can dispose of any further questions when you awake.”

“I could sleep,” admitted Locke. “For seven or eight years, I think. Have someone kick the door in at the end of the month if I’m not out yet. And Patience … I guess … I am sorry for—”

“You’re a curious man, Master Lamora. You bite on reflex, and then your conscience bites you. Have you ever wondered where you might have acquired such contradictory strains of character?”

“I don’t repent anything I said, Patience, but I do occasionally remember to try and be civil after the fact.”

“As you said, I’m not dragging you to Karthain to be anyone’s friend. Least of all mine. Go take some rest. We’ll talk after.”

6

JEAN HADN’T realized just how exhausted the long night had left him, and after settling into his hammock he tumbled into the sort of sleep that squashed awareness as thoroughly as a few hundred pounds of bricks dropped on the head.

He woke, groggy and disoriented, to the smell of baked meat and crisp lake air. Locke was sitting at a smaller version of the makeshift table on which he’d been subjected to the cleansing ritual, hard at work on another small mountain of ship’s fare.

“Nnngh.” Jean rolled to his feet and heard his joints creak and pop. His bruises from the encounter with Cortessa would smart for a few days, but bruises were bruises. He’d had them before. “What’s the time?”

“Fifth hour of the afternoon,” said Locke around a mouthful of food. “We should be in Karthain just before dawn, they say.”

Jean yawned, rubbed his eyes, and considered the scene. Locke was dressed in loose clean slops, evidently chosen from an open chest of clothing set against the bulkhead behind him.

“How do you feel, Locke?”

“Bloody hungry.” He wiped his lips against the back of his hand and took a swig of water. “This is worse than Vel Virazzo. Wherever we go, I seem to get thinner and thinner.”

“I’d have thought you’d still be sleeping.”

“I had a will for it, but my stomach wouldn’t be put off. You, if you’ll forgive me, look like a man desperately in search of coffee.”

“I don’t smell any. Suppose you drank it all?”

“Come now, even I’m not that much of a scoundrel. Never was any aboard. Seems Patience is big on tea.”

“Damn. Tea’s no good for waking up civilized.”

“What’s boiling in that muddled brain of yours?”

“I suppose I’m bemused.” Jean took one of the two empty chairs at the table, picked up a knife, and used it to slide some ham onto a slab of bread. “And dizzy. Our Lady of the Five Rings has spun our situation well beyond anything I expected.”

“That she has. You think it’s odd from where you’re sitting!”

“It is.” Jean ate, and studied Locke. He’d cleaned up, shaved, and pulled the lengthening mass of his hair into a short tail. The removal of his beard made the marks of his convalescence plain. He was pale, looking far more Vadran than Therin for a change, and the creases at the edges of his mouth were graven a bit deeper, the lines beneath his eyes more pronounced. Some invisible sculptor had been at work the past few weeks, carving the first real hints of age into the face Jean had known for nearly twenty years. “Where on the gods’ fair earth are you putting all that food, Locke?”

“If I knew that I’d be a physiker.”

Jean took another look around the cabin. A copper tub had been set near the stern windows, and beside it a pile of towels and oil bottles.

“Wondering about the tub?” said Locke. “Water’s fresh—they replaced it after I was done. They don’t expect us to go diving in the lake to make ourselves presentable.”

There was a knock at the cabin door. Jean glanced at Locke, and Locke nodded.

“Come,” yelled Jean.

“I knew you were awake,” said Patience. She came down the steps, made a casual gesture, and the door shut itself behind her. She settled into the third chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Are we proving ourselves adequate hosts?”

“We seem to be well-kept,” said Jean with a yawn, “excepting a barbaric absence of coffee.”

“Endure for another day, Master Tannen, and you’ll have all the foul black misuse of water you can drink.”

“What happened to the last person you hired to rig this little game of yours, Patience?” said Jean.

“Straight to business, eh?” said Locke.

“I don’t mind,” said Patience. “It’s why I’m here. But what do you mean?”

“You do this every five years,” said Jean. “You choose to work through agents that can’t be Bondsmagi. So what happened to the last set you hired? Where are they? Can we speak to them?”

“Ah. You’re wondering whether we tied weights around their ankles and threw them into the lake when it was over.”

“Something like that.”

“In some cases, we traded services. In others we offered payments. All of our former exemplars, regardless of compensation, left our service freely and in good health.”

“So, you ruthlessly protect every aspect of your privacy for centuries, but every few years you pick a special friend, answer any questions they might have, show them your fuckin’ memories, begging your pardon, and then you just send them off when you’re finished, with a cheerful wave?”

“None of our previous exemplars ever crippled a Bondsmage, Jean. None of them were ever shown what you were. But you needn’t flatter yourself that you’ve been made privy to some shattering secret that can only be preserved by the most extreme measures. When this is over, we expect confidentiality for the rest of your lives. And if that courtesy isn’t granted, you both know that we’ll never have any difficulty tracking at least one of you down.”

“I guess that works,” said Jean sourly. “So who took the ribbon, last time you did this?”

“You’re being entrusted with a winning tradition,” said Patience. “Though two victories in a row doesn’t quite make a dynasty, it’s a good basis from which to expect a third. Now, we will discuss your work in Karthain, but I made an unusual promise to get you both here. I would have it fulfilled for good and all. Have you any further questions about my people, about our arts?”

“Ask now or forever bite our tongues?” said Locke.

“I offered a brief opportunity, not a scholarly treatise.”

“As it happens,” said Locke, “I do have one last thing I want a real answer to. Jean asked about the contracts you take. He asked why, and you gave us why not? But I don’t think that cuts to the heart of things. I can’t imagine that you people actually need the money after four hundred years. Am I wrong?”

“No. I could touch sums, at an hour’s notice, that would buy a city-state,” said Patience.

“So why are you still mercenaries? Why build your world around it? Why do you call yourselves Bondsmagi without flinching? Why ‘Incipa veila armatos de’?”

“Ahhh,” said Patience. “This is a deeper draught than you might wish to take.”

“Let me be the judge.”

“As you will. When did the Vadrans start raiding the northern coasts, where the Kingdom of the Marrows is now?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Indulge me. When did they first come down from that miserable waste of theirs, whatever their word for it—”

“Krystalvasen,” said Jean. “The Glass Land.”

“About eight hundred years ago,” said Locke. “So I was taught.”

“And how long since the Therin people moved onto this continent, from across the Iron Sea?”

“Two thousand years, maybe,” said Locke.

“Eight hundred years of Vadran history,” said Patience. “Two thousand for the Therin. The Syresti and the Golden Brethren are older still. Let’s generously give them three thousand years. Now … what if I told you that we had reason to believe that some of the Eldren ruins on this continent were built more than twenty thousand years ago? Perhaps even thirty thousand?”

“That’s pretty damned wild,” said Locke. “How can you—”

“We have means,” said Patience with a dismissive wave. “They’re not important. What’s important is this—no one in recorded history has ever made a credible claim of meeting the Eldren. Whatever they were, they vanished so long ago that our ancestors didn’t leave us any stories about meeting them in the flesh. By the time we took their empty cities, only the gods could know how long they’d been deserted.

“Now, one glance at these cities tells us they were masters of a sorcery that makes ours look like an idiot’s card tricks by comparison. They built miracles, and built them to last for hundreds of centuries. The Eldren meant to tend their garden here for a very, very long time.”

“What made them leave?” said Locke.

“I used to scare myself as a kid by thinking about this,” said Jean.

“You can scare yourself now by thinking about it,” said Patience. “Indeed, Locke, what made them leave? There are two possibilities. Either something wiped them out, or something frightened them so badly that they abandoned all their cities and treasures in their haste to be gone.”

“Leave the world?” said Locke. “Where would they go?”

“We don’t have the faintest speck of an idea,” said Patience. “But regardless of how their marvelous cities were emptied in advance of our tenancy, it happened. Something out there made it happen. We have to assume that something could return.”

“Gah,” said Locke, putting his head in his hands. “Patience, you’re a regular bundle of smiles, you know that?”

“I warned you this might not be cheering.”

“This world and all its souls are the sovereign estate of the Thirteen,” said Locke. “They rule it, protect it, and tend the mechanisms of nature. Hell, maybe they were the ones that kicked the Eldren out.”

“Strange, then, that they wouldn’t mention it to us explicitly,” said Patience.

“Patience, let me reveal something from personal experience,” said Locke. “The gods tell us what we need to know, but when you start asking about things you really just want to know, you’d best expect long pauses in the conversation.”

“Inconvenient,” said Patience. “Of course it’s possible that the gods are keeping mum about what happened to the Eldren. Or they couldn’t act to stop it … or wouldn’t. We’ve spent centuries arguing these possibilities. The only sensible assumption is that we’ve got to take care on our own behalf.”

“How?” said Locke.

“The use of sorcery in a long-term fashion, in a grand and concerted manner, with many magi working together, leaves an indelible imprint upon the world. Persons and forces sensitive to magic can detect this phenomenon, just as you can look at a river and tell which direction it’s flowing, and put your hand in the water to tell how fast and warm it is. Great workings are like burning beacons on a clear dark night. Somewhere out in the darkness, we must assume, are things it would be in our best interest not to signal.

“That’s why we maintain only a handful of places like the Sky Chamber, and prefer not to spend our time building fifty-story towers out of glass. We suspect the Eldren paid for their lack of subtlety. They made themselves obvious to some power they didn’t necessarily need to cross paths with.”

“Did my … did the ritual you used to get rid of that poison—”

“Oh, hardly. It was a significant piece of work. Any mage within twenty miles would have felt it, but what I’m talking about requires a great deal more time and trouble. And that, at last, is why we’ve made our contracts such a focus of our lives. Working toward the diverging goals of thousands upon thousands of others over the years dissipates the magical consequences of concentrating our power.

“Think of us as a few hundred tiny flames, crackling in the night. By sparking randomly, at different times, in different directions, we avoid the danger of flaring together into one vast and visible conflagration.”

“I congratulate you,” said Locke. “My mind has been thoroughly bent. But I think I sort of understand. Your little guild … if what you’re saying is true, you didn’t band together just to keep the peace or any bullshit like that. This Eldren thing really spooks you.”

“Yes,” she said. “The court magicians of the last few years of the Therin Throne were out of control. Circles of pure ambition, working to undermine one another. They wouldn’t heed reason. The founders of our order brought their concerns to Emperor Talathri and were laughed off. But we knew the truth of the matter. If human sorcery is to exist at all, it must be quiet and disciplined, or we risk firsthand knowledge of the fate of the Eldren.”

“Pardon my limited understanding of your powers,” said Jean, “but what you did to Therim Pel was anything but quiet.”

“Or disciplined,” said Patience. “Yes, it was precisely the sort of focused, grand-scale will-working we can’t afford. But on that one occasion, it was a necessary risk. The imperial seat, its infrastructure, its archives—all the heritable trappings of power had to be obliterated. Without Therim Pel, any would-be restorer of the empire found the easy path to legitimacy swept away. We needed that security in our early years.”

“While you hunted down any magician that wouldn’t join you,” said Locke.

“Without mercy,” said Patience. “You’re right not to think of us as altruists. Certainly we can be hard. But perhaps you’ll grant now that our motivations are, if not philanthropic, at least … complicated.”

Locke merely grunted and spooned porridge into his mouth.

“Have I satisfied you on this matter?”

Locke nodded and swallowed. “I’m afraid that if you tell me any more I’ll never be able to sleep in a dark room again.”

“Shall we talk about our business in Karthain?” said Jean, sensing that he and Locke were both in the mood for a less disquieting subject.

“The five-year game,” said Patience. “Are the two of you ready for details?”

“My fighting spirit’s back in residence,” said Locke. “I’ve been stuck in bed for weeks. Turn me loose with a list of laws you want broken.”

“Are you sure you don’t want any tea, Jean?” said Patience.

“No,” said Jean. “Not for breaking fast. I wouldn’t say no to red wine, though. Good rugged paint-stripping stuff. Plonk with sand in it. That’s a good planning wine.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“So,” said Locke, “we work for your faction. I presume that’s you, Coldmarrow, Navigator, all you high-minded types who only slaughter people when they’ve been naughty little children. What about your fellow five-ringers? Where do they stand?”

“Providence and Temperance will be cheering for you. Foresight, as I’m sure will be no surprise, will be hoping for you to slip and break your neck.”

“Foresight and the Falconer’s lot, that’s the other team? Just two sides, no splinter factions, no lurking surprises?” said Locke.

“We only have enough major disagreements to supply two factions, I’m afraid.”

The door slipped open, and Coldmarrow entered with a tray. He set down an open bottle of red wine, several glasses, and Patience’s mug from the previous night. He then handed Patience two scrolls and withdrew as soundlessly as he’d come.

Patience took her tea mug in hand. There was a sizzling noise, and a cloud of steam wafted from the cup. Jean poured two glasses of wine and set one in front of Locke. He took a swig from his own. It tasted like something out of a tanning vat.

“Ah,” he said, “demonic ass-wash. Just the thing.”

“I’m not sure we meant that for drinking,” said Patience. “Possibly for repelling boarders.”

“Smells adequate to the task,” said Locke, adding water to his glass.

“Now, these,” said Patience, pushing the scrolls toward Locke and Jean with her free hand, “would be you.”

Jean picked up his scroll, snapped the seal, and found that it was actually several tightly rolled documents. He scanned them and saw Lashani letters of transit.

“For … Tavrin Callas!” He scowled.

“An old and comfortable piece of clothing, I should think,” said Patience with a smirk.

Beneath the letters of transit, which were a reasonably common means for travelers to prove themselves something less than total vagabonds, there was a letter of credit at one Tivoli’s countinghouse, for the sum of three thousand Karthani ducats. If he wanted to lay claim to that money, of course, he’d have to accept his old alias one more time.

“Cheer up, Jean,” said Locke. “I’m Sebastian Lazari, it seems. Never heard of the fellow.”

“I apologize if the selection of your own false faces is part of the savor for you,” said Patience. “We needed to set up those accounts and put other things into motion before we fetched you out of Lashain.”

“This is swell,” said Locke. “Don’t think we can’t start working with this, now that my nerves are more settled, but I hope this isn’t the fullness of our suckle on the golden teat.”

“Those are merely your setting-up funds, to get you through your first few days. Tivoli will put you in control of your working treasury. One hundred thousand ducats, same as your opposition. A goodly sum for graft and other needs, but not so much that you can simply drench Karthain in money and win without being clever.”

“And, uh, if we set aside a little for afterward?” said Locke.

“We encourage you to spend these funds down to the last copper on the election itself,” said Patience, “since anything left over when the results are confirmed will disappear, as though by magic. Clear?”

“Frustratingly damn clear,” said Locke.

“How does this election work, at the most basic level?” said Jean.

“There are fourteen districts in the city, and five representing the rural manors. Nineteen seats on the ruling Konseil. Each political party stands one candidate per seat, and designates a line of seconds in case the primary candidate is embroiled in scandal or otherwise distracted. That tends to happen with curious frequency.”

“No shit,” said Locke. “What are these political parties?”

“Two major interests dominate Karthain. On one hand there’s the Deep Roots party, old aristocracy. They’ve all been legally debased out of their titles, but the money and connections are still there. On the other side you’ve got the Black Iris party—artisans, younger merchants. Old money versus new, let’s say.”

“Who are we taking care of?” said Jean.

“You’ve got the Deep Roots.”

“How? I mean, what are we to these people?”

“Lashani consultants, hired to direct the campaign behind the scenes. Your power will be more or less absolute.”

“Who’s told these people to listen to us?”

“They’ve been adjusted, Jean. They’ll defer enthusiastically to you, at least where the election is concerned. We’ve prepared them for your arrival.”

“Gods.”

“It’s nothing you don’t try to do with raw charm and fancy stories. We just work faster.”

“We’ve got six weeks, is that right?” said Locke.

“Yes.” Patience sipped at her tea. “The formal commencement of electoral hostilities is the night after tomorrow.”

“And this Deep Roots party,” said Locke, “you said they’ve won the last two elections?”

“Oh, no,” said Patience.

“You did,” said Jean. “You said we were being entrusted with a winning tradition!”

“Ah. Pardon. I meant that my faction of magi has backed the winning party of ungifted twice in a row. It’s a matter of chance, you see, which party either side gets. The Deep Roots have been rather lackluster these past ten years, but during those years fortune gave us the Black Iris. Now, alas—”

“Gods’ immaculate piss,” muttered Locke.

“What are the limits on our behavior?” said Jean.

“As far as the ungifted are concerned, not many. You’ll be working with people eager to help you break every election law ever scribed, so long as you don’t do anything bloody or vulgar.”

“No violence?” said Locke.

“Brawls are a natural consequence of enthusiasm,” said Patience. “Everyone loves to hear about a good fistfight. But keep it at fists. No weapons, no corpses. You can knock a few Karthani about, and make whatever threats you like, but you cannot kill anyone. Nor can you kidnap any citizen of Karthain, or physically remove them from the city. Those rules are enforced by my people. I should think the reasons are obvious.”

“Right. You’re not paying us to assassinate the entire Black Iris bunch and ride off into the sunset.”

“Your own situation is more ambiguous,” said Patience. “You two, and your counterpart controlling the Black Iris, should expect anything, including kidnapping. Guard your own backs. Only outright murder is forbidden in your respect.”

“Well, that’s cheery,” said Locke. “About this counterpart, what do we get to know?”

“You know quite a bit already.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s uncomfortable news,” said Patience, “but we’ve learned that at least one person within the ranks of my faction is passing information to Archedama Foresight.”

“Well, that’s bloody careless of you!”

“We’re working on the situation. At any rate, Foresight and her associates learned of my intention to hire you several weeks ago. They acquired a direct countermeasure.”

“Meaning what?”

“You and Jean have a unique background in deception, disguise, and manipulation. You’re a rare breed. In fact, there’s only one other person left in the world with intimate knowledge of your methods and training—”

Locke shot to his feet as though his chair were a crossbow and the trigger had been pulled. His glass flew, spilling watered wine across the tabletop.

“No,” he said. “No. You’re fucking kidding. No.”

“Yes,” said Patience. “My rivals have hired your old friend Sabetha Belacoros to be their exemplar. She’s been in Karthain for several days now, making her preparations. It’s a fair bet that she’s laying surprises for the two of you as we speak.”