The Republic of Thieves #1

Chapter FOUR


ACROSS THE AMATHEL

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 foreward, 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 f*ck’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 word. 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-f*cking 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 was some gardening tools and a little creativity; what you actually did was rain fire from the f*cking 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, any time 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 a*sholes 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 kind-hearted, moral side of your little guild, is that what we should understand?” said Locke.

“Kind-hearted? 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:

Isas Scholastica

Isle of Scholars



—Archedama, it’s not like you to keep us waiting—

(private citadel of the magi of Karthain)

—is it because—

… feeling of resigned annoyance …

—Falconer—

(damn that obvious and inevitable question)

… sound of footsteps on smooth marble …

—can well understand—

His presence has nothing to do with my tardiness.

—would feel the same in your place—

As if I’d hide from my duties because of him.

(gods above, did I earn five rings by being meek?)

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.

—pardon, did not mean to offend—

… the warm air of the Sky Chamber, already packed with …

I will not take the wall to my own son!

—no need to get annoyed, I was merely—

… there he sits, waiting.

(watching, watching, like his damned bird)

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.

(watching, watching, like his damned bird)

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:

-Patience-Providence-

-Foresight-Temperance-

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:

—We return to the matter of the black contract proposed by Luciano Anatolius of Camorr.—

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 myself 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 f*ck 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, etcetera,” 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 home-grown?”

“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 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 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 f*ckin’ 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 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 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 counting house, 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 f*cking 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.”
II


CROSS-PURPOSES

When the rose’s flash to the sunset

Reels to the rack and the twist,

And the rose is a red bygone,

When the face I love is going

And the gate to the end shall clang,

And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”—

Maybe I’ll tell you then

some other time.

—Carl Sandburgfrom

“The Great Hunt”

INTERLUDE


STRIKING SPARKS

1

IT WAS COOL and dark in the Elderglass burrow of the Gentlemen Bastards, and far quieter than usual, when Locke awoke with the certain knowledge that someone was staring at him. He caught his breath for an instant, then mimicked the deep, slow breathing of sleep. He squinted and scanned the gray darkness of the room, wondering where everyone was.

Down the hall from the kitchen there were four rooms, or, more appropriately, four cells. They had dark curtains for doors. One belonged to Chains, another to Sabetha, the third to the Sanzas, and the fourth to Locke and Jean. Jean should have been on his cot against the opposite wall, just past their little shelf of books and scrolls, but there was no sound from that direction.

Locke listened, straining to hear over the thudding of his pulse. There was a whisper of bare skin against the floor, and a flutter of cloth. He sat up, left hand outstretched, only to find another warm set of fingers entwined around his, and a palm in the middle of his chest pushing him back down.

“Shhhh,” said Sabetha, sliding onto the cot.

“Wha … where is everyone?”

“Gone for the moment,” she whispered into his ear. Her breath was warm against his cheek. “We don’t have much time, but we do have some.”

She took his hands and guided them to the smooth, taut muscles of her stomach. Then she slid them upwards until he was cupping her breasts—she’d come into the room without a tunic.

One thing the bodies of sixteen-year-old boys (and that was more or less what Locke was) don’t do is respond mildly to provocation. In an instant he was achingly hard against the thin fabric of his breeches, and he exhaled in mingled shock and delight. Sabetha brushed aside his blanket and slid her left hand down between his legs. Locke arched his back and uttered a noise that was far from dignified. Luckily, Sabetha giggled, seeming to find it endearing.

“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I do feel appreciated.” She pressed down firmly but gently and began to squeeze him to the rhythm of their breathing, which was growing steadily louder. At the same time, she slid his other hand down from her breast, down her stomach, down to her legs. She was wearing a linen breechclout, the sort that could be undone with just a tug in the right place. She pressed his hand between her thighs, against the intriguing heat just behind the fabric. He caressed her there, and for a few incredible moments they were completely caught up in this half-sharing, half-duel, their responses to one another becoming less controlled with every ragged breath, and it was delicious suspense to wonder who would snap first.

“You’re driving me mad,” he whispered. The heat from her skin was so intense he imagined he could see it as a ghost-image in the dark. She leaned forward, and her breath tickled his cheeks again; he drew in the scents of her hair and sweat and perfume and laughed with pleasure.

“Why are we still wearing clothes?” she said, and they rolled apart to amend the situation, fumbling, struggling, giggling. Only now the soft heat of her skin was fading, and the gray shadows of the room loomed more deeply around them, and then Locke was kicking out, spasming in a full-body reflex as she slipped from his grasp like a breath of wind.

That cruelest of landlords, cold morning reality, finished evicting the warm fantasy that had briefly taken up residence in his skull. Muttering and swearing, Locke fought against his tangled blanket, felt his cot tipping away from the wall, and failed in every particular to brace himself for his meeting with the floor. There are three distinct points of impact no romantically excited teenage boy ever hopes to slam against a hard surface. Locke managed to land on all three.

His outflung right hand failed to do anything useful, but it did snatch the opaque cover from his cot-side alchemical globe, bathing the cell in soft golden light for him to gasp and writhe by. A carelessly stacked pile of books toppled loudly to the floor, then took several similar piles with it in a fratricidal cascade.

“Gods below,” muttered Jean, rolling away from the light. Jean was definitely in his proper place, and their cell was once again the cluttered mess of daily life rather than the dark private stage of Locke’s dream.

“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh,” said Locke. It didn’t help much, so he tried again. “Arrrrrrrrrrr—”

“You know,” said Jean, yawning irritably, “you should burn some offerings in thanks for the fact that you don’t actually talk in your sleep.”

“ …rrrrrrgh. What the hell do you mean?”

“Sabetha’s got really sharp ears.”

“Nnngh.”

“I mean, it’s pretty gods-damned obvious you’re not dreaming about calligraphy over there.”

There was a loud knock on the wall just outside their cell, and then the curtain was swept aside to reveal Calo Sanza, long hair hanging in his eyes, working his way into a pair of breeches.

“Good morning, sunshines! What’s with all the noise?”

“Someone took a tumble,” muttered Jean.

“What’s so hard about sleeping on a cot like a normal person, ya f*ckin’ spastic dog?”

“Kiss my ass, Sanza,” Locke gasped.

“Heyyyyyyyyy EVERYBODY!” Calo pounded on the wall as he shouted. “I know we’ve got half an hour yet to sleep, but Locke thinks we should all be up right now! Find your happy faces, Gentlef*cker Bastards, it’s a bright new day and we get to start it EARLY!”

“Calo, what the hell is wrong with you?” hollered Sabetha, somewhere down the hall.

Locke put his forehead against the floor and moaned. It was the height of the endless steaming summer of the seventy-eighth Year of Preva, Lady of the Red Madness, and everything was absolutely screwed up to hell.

2

SABETHA DARTED in, parried Locke’s attempt at a guard, and smacked the outside of his left knee with her chestnut wood baton.

“Ow,” he said, hopping up and down while the sting faded. Locke wiped his forehead, lined up again in the duelist’s stance, and touched the tip of his baton to Sabetha’s. They were using the sanctuary of the Temple of Perelandro as a practice room, under Jean’s watchful eye.

“High diamond, low square,” said Jean. “Go!”

This was more an exercise in speed and precision than actual fighting technique. They slammed their batons together in the patterns demanded by Jean, and after the final contact they were free to swipe at one another, scoring touches against arms or legs.

Clack! Clack! Clack! The sound of their batons echoed across the stone-walled chamber.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Clack! Clack! Thump!

“Yeow,” said Locke, shaking his left wrist, where a fresh red welt was rising.

“You’re faster than this, Locke.” Sabetha returned to her starting position. “Something distracting you this morning?”

Sabetha wore a loose white tunic and black silk knee-breeches that left nothing about her lithely-muscled legs to the imagination. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair pulled tightly back with linen cord. If she’d heard anything specific about the disturbance he’d kicked off to start the day, at least she wasn’t saying much.

“More than one something?” she said. “Any of them attached to me?”

So much for the lukewarm comfort of uncertainty.

“You know I’m attached to you,” said Locke, trying to sound cheerful as they touched batons again.

“Or might like to be, hmmm?”

“Middle square,” yelled Jean, “middle square, middle diamond! Go!”

They wove their pattern of strikes and counter-strikes, rattling their batons off one another until the end of the sequence, when Sabetha flicked Locke’s weapon down and smacked a painful crease into his right bicep. Sabetha’s only commentary on this victory was to idly twirl her baton while Locke rubbed at his arm.

“Hold it,” said Jean. “We’ll try a new exercise. Locke, stand there with your hands at your sides. Sabetha, you just hit him until you get tired. Be sure to concentrate on his head so he won’t feel anything.”

“Very funny.” Locke lined up again. “I’m ready for another.”

He was nothing of the sort. At the end of the next pattern, Sabetha slapped him on the right bicep again. And again, following the pattern after that, with precision that was obviously deliberate.

“You know, most days you can at least manage to hit back,” she said. “Want to give it up as a bad job?”

“Of course not,” said Locke, trying to be subtle about wiping the nascent tears from the corners of his eyes. “Barely getting started.”

“Have it your way.” She lined up again, and Locke couldn’t miss the coldness of her poise. Ah, gods. When Sabetha felt she was being trifled with, she had a way of radiating the same calm, chilly regard that Locke imagined might pass from executioner to condemned victim. He knew all too well what it meant to be the object of that regard.

“High diamond,” said Jean warily, apprehending the change in Sabetha’s mood. “Middle square, low cross. Go.”

They flew through the patterns with furious speed, Sabetha setting the pace and Locke straining to match her. The instant the last stroke of the formal exercise was made, Locke flew into a guard position that would have deflected any blow aimed at his much-abused right bicep. Sabetha, however, was actually aiming for a point just above his heart, and the hotly stinging slap nearly knocked him over.

“Gods above,” said Jean, stepping between them. “You know the rules, Sabetha. No cuts at anything but arms or legs.”

“Are there rules in a tavern brawl or an alley fight?”

“This isn’t a damned alley fight. It’s just an exercise for building vigor!”

“Doesn’t seem to be working for one of us.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into you, Jean? Are you going to stand in front of him for the rest of his life?”

“Hey, hey,” said Locke, stepping around Jean and attempting to hide a considerable amount of pain behind a disingenuous smile. “All’s well, Jean.”

“All’s not well,” said Jean. “Someone is taking this far too seriously.”

“Stand aside, Jean,” said Sabetha. “If he wants to stick his hand in a fire, he can learn to pull it out himself.”

“He is right here, thank you very much, and he is fine,” said Locke. “It’s fine, Jean. Let’s have another pattern.”

“Sabetha needs to calm down.”

“Aren’t I calm?” said Sabetha. “Locke can have quarter any time he asks for it himself.”

“I don’t choose to yield just yet,” said Locke, with what he hoped was a charming, devil-may-care sort of grin. Sabetha’s countenance only darkened in response. “However, if you’re concerned about me, you can back off to any degree you prefer.”

“Oh, no.” Sabetha was anything but calm. “No, no, no. I don’t withdraw. You yield! Deliberately. Or we keep going until you can’t stand up.”

“That might take a while,” said Locke. “Let’s see if you have the patience—”

“Damn it, when will you learn that refusing to admit you’ve lost isn’t the same as winning?”

“Sort of depends on how long one keeps refusing, doesn’t it?”

Sabetha scowled, an expression that cut Locke more deeply than any baton-lash. Staring fixedly at him, she took her baton in both hands, snapped it over her knee, and bounced the pieces off the floor.

“Forgive me, gentlemen,” she said. “I seem to be unable to conform to the intended spirit of this exercise.”

She turned and left. When she’d vanished into the rear hall of the temple, Locke let out a dejected sigh.

“Gods,” he said. “What the hell is going on between us? What happened, just now?”

“She has a cruel streak, that one,” said Jean.

“No more than any of us!” said Locke, more hotly than he might have intended. “Well, we’ve got some … philosophical differences, to be sure.”

“She’s a perfectionist.” Jean picked up the broken halves of Sabetha’s baton. “And you’re a real idiot from time to time.”

“What did I do, besides fail to be a master baton duelist?” Locke massaged some of the tender reminders Sabetha had left him of her superior technique. “I didn’t train with Don Maranzalla.”

“Neither did she.”

“Well, come on, how does that make me an idiot?”

“You’re no Sanza,” said Jean, “but you can certainly be one sharp stab in the ass. Look, you’d have stood here and let her slap you into paste just for the sake of being in the same room with her. I know it. You know it. She knows it.”

“Well, uh—”

“It’s not endearing, Locke. You don’t court a girl by inviting her to abuse you from sunrise to sunset.”

“Really? That sounds an awful lot like courtship in every story I’ve ever read—”

“I mean literally abused, as in getting pounded into bird shit with a wooden stick. It’s not charming or impressive. It just makes you look silly.”

“Well, she doesn’t like it when I beat her at anything. She’s certainly not going to respect me if I give up! So just what the hell can I do?”

“No idea. Maybe I see some things clearer than you because I’m not bloody infatuated, but what to actually do with the pair of you, gods know.”

“You’re a deep well of reassurance.”

“On the bright side,” said Jean, “I’m sure you’re higher in her esteem right now than the Sanzas.”

“Sweet gods, that’s sickly praise.” Locke leaned against a wall and stretched. “Speaking of Sanzas, did you see Chains’ face when we woke him up this morning?”

“I wish I hadn’t. He’s going to break those two over his knee like Sabetha’s stick.”

“Where do you think he stomped off to?”

“No idea. I’ve never seen him leave angry before the sun was even up.”

“What in all the hells is going on with us?” said Locke. “This whole summer has been one long exercise in getting everything wrong.”

“Chains muttered to me a few nights ago,” said Jean, fiddling with the broken baton. “Something about awkward years. Said he might have to do something about us being all pent up together.”

“Hope that doesn’t mean more apprenticeships. I’m really not in the mood to go learn another temple’s rituals and then pretend to kill myself.”

“No idea what it means, but—”

“Hey, you two!” Galdo Sanza appeared out of the rear corridor, the spitting image of Calo, save for the fact that his skull was shaven clean of every last speck of hair. “Tubby and the training dummy! Chains is back, wants us in the kitchen with a quickness. And what’d you do to Sabetha this time?”

“I exist,” said Locke. “Some days that’s enough.”

“You should make some friends at the Guilded Lilies, mate,” said Galdo. “Why fall on your face trying to tame a horse when you can have a dozen that are already saddled?”

“So now you like to f*ck horses,” said Jean. “Bravo, baldy.”

“Laugh all you will, we’re in demand over there,” said Galdo. “Favorite guests. Command performances.”

“I’m sure you’re popular,” said Jean with a yawn. “Who doesn’t like getting paid for fast, easy work?”

“I’ll say a prayer for you next time I’m having it with two at once,” said Galdo. “Maybe the gods will hear me and let your stones drop. But, seriously, Chains came in the river entrance, and I think we’re all about to die.”

“Well, hurrah,” said Locke. “When the weather’s like this, who honestly wants to live?”

3

THE FATHER Chains waiting in the glass burrow’s kitchen wasn’t wearing any of his usual guises or props. No canes or staves to lean on, no robes, no look of sly benevolence on that craggy, bearded face. He was dressed to be out and about in the city, heavily sweated with exertion, and all the furrows in his forehead seemed to meet in an ominous valley above his fierce dark eyes. Locke was unsettled; he’d rarely seen Chains glower like that at an enemy or a stranger, let alone at his apprentices.

Locke noticed that everyone else was keeping a certain instinctive distance from Chains. Sabetha sat on a counter, well away from anyone, arms folded. The Sanzas sat near one another more out of old habit than present warmth. Their appearances were divergent; Calo with his long, oiled, well-tended tresses and Galdo scraped smooth as a prize-fighter. The twins shared no jokes, no gestures, no small talk.

“I suppose it’s only fair to begin,” said Chains, “by apologizing for having failed you all.”

“Um,” said Locke, stepping forward, “how have you failed us, exactly?”

“My mentorship. My responsibility to not allow our happy home to turn into a seething pit of mutual aggravation … which it has.” Chains coughed, as though he’d irritated his throat merely by bringing such words out. “I thought I might ease up on the regimen of previous summers. Fewer lessons, fewer errands, fewer tests. I hoped that without constraints, you might blossom. Instead you’ve rooted yourselves deep without flowering.”

“Hold on,” said Calo, “it hasn’t been such an unwelcome break, has it? And we’ve been training. Jean’s seen to it that we’ve kept up with battering one another about.”

“That’s hardly your principal form of exercise these days,” said Chains. “I’ve heard things from the Lilies. You two spend more time in bed than invalids. Certainly more than you spend planning or practicing our work.”

“So we haven’t run a game on anyone for a few weeks,” said Calo. “Is the f*ckin’ Eldren-fire falling? Who gives a damn if we take some ease? What should we be doing, sir, learning more Vadran? More dances? A seventeenth way to hold knives and forks?”

“You snot-nosed grand duke of insolence,” said Chains, growing louder with each word, “you ignorant, wet-eared, copper-chasing shit-barge puppy! Do you have any idea what you’ve been given? What you’ve worked for? What you are?”

“What I am is tired of being yelled at—”

“Ten years under my roof,” said Chains, looming over Calo like an ambulatory mountain, suffused with moral indignation, “ten years under my protection, eating at my table, nurtured by my hand and coin. Have I beaten you, buggered you, put you out in the rain?”

“No,” said Calo, cringing. “No, of course not—”

“Then you can stand one gods-damned rebuke without flapping your jaw.”

“Of course,” said Calo, most meekly. “Sorry.”

“You’re educated thieves,” said Chains. “No matter how you might think it profits you to feign otherwise, you are not ordinary. You can pass for servants, farmers, merchants, nobles; you have the poise and manners for any station. If I hadn’t let you grow so callow, you might realize what an unprecedented personal freedom you all possess.”

Locke reflexively opened his mouth to deliver some smooth assuagement, but the merest half-second flick of Chains’ glare was more than enough to keep him mute.

“What do you think this is all for?” said Chains. “What do you suppose it’s all been in aid of? So you can laze around and work the occasional petty theft? Drink and whore and dice with the other Right People until you get called out or hung? Have you seen what happens to our kind? How many of your bright-eyed little chums will live to see twenty-five? If they scrape thirty they’re gods-damned elders. You think they have money tucked away? Villas in the country? Thieves may prosper night by night, but there’s nothing for them when the lean times come, do you understand?”

“But there’s garristas,” said Galdo, “and the Capa, and a lot of older types at the Floating Grave—”

“Indeed,” said Chains. “Capas and garristas don’t go hungry, because they can take scraps from the mouths of their brothers and sisters. And how do you suppose you get to grow old in the Capa’s service? You guard his doors with an alley-piece, like a constable on the beat. You watch your friends hang, and die in the gutters, and get called up for teeth lessons because they said the wrong thing in their cups or held back a few silvers one f*cking time. You put your head down and shut up, forever. That’s what earns you some gray hair.

“No justice,” he continued sourly. “No true fellowship. Vows in darkness, that’s all, valid until the first time someone goes hungry or needs a few coins. Why do you think I’ve raised you to wink at the Secret Peace? We’re like a sick dog that gnaws its own entrails, the Right People are. But you’ve got a chance to live in real trust and fellowship, to be thieves as the gods intended, scourging the swells and living true to yourselves. I’ll be damned before I’ll let you forget what a gift you’ve been given in one another.”

No smart remark ever made could stand before the gale of this sort of chastisement. Locke noted that he wasn’t the only one with a sudden overwhelming compulsion to stare at the floor.

“And so, I need to apologize for my own failure.” Chains drew a folded letter from his coat. “For allowing us to reach this pretty state of affairs, falling out with one another and forgetting ourselves. It’s a bad time for all of you. You’re confused bundles of nerves and passion, cooped up down here where you can do maximum damage to your mutual regard. You’ve certainly been disagreeable company for me. I’ve decided I need a vacation.”

“Well then,” said Jean, “where will you be going?”

“Going? Drinking, I suppose. Perhaps I’ll go see old Maranzalla. And I’ve a mind to hunt down some chamber music. But forgive me if I’ve been unclear. I require a vacation from all of you, but I’m not leaving Camorr. You five will be making a journey to Espara. I’ve arranged work there to keep you busy for several months.”

“Espara?” said Locke.

“Yes. Isn’t it exciting?” The room was quiet. “I thought that might be your response. Look, I tucked a pin into my jacket for this very moment.”

Chains drew a silver pin from one of his lapels and tossed it into the air. It hit the floor with the faintest chiming clatter.

“One of those expressions I’ve always wanted to put to the test,” said Chains. “But seriously, you’re out. All of you. Evicted. There’s a wagon caravan leaving from the Cenza Gate on Duke’s Day. You’ve got two days to make yourselves part of it. After that, it’s a week and a half to Espara.”

“But,” said Calo, “what if we don’t want to go to bloody Espara?”

“Then leave, and don’t come back to this temple,” said Chains. “Forfeit everything. In fact, leave Camorr. I won’t want to see you again, anywhere.”

“What’s in Espara that’s so important?” said Sabetha.

“Your partnership. It’s past time it was put to a real test, far beyond my reach. Take all your years of training and make something of them. False-face together, rely upon one another, and come back alive. Prove that we haven’t been wasting our time down here. Prove it to me … and prove it to yourselves.”

Chains held up the folded letter.

“You’re going to Espara to enjoy a career on the stage.”

4

“AFTER MY soldiering ended,” continued Chains, “and before I came back to Camorr, I indulged in several vices, not the least of which was acting. I fell in with a troupe in Espara run by the single unluckiest thick-skulled son of a bitch that ever crawled out of a womb. Jasmer Moncraine. I saved his life by design and he saved mine by accident. We’ve kept in touch across the years.”

“Oh gods,” said Sabetha, “you’re sending us in payment of a debt!”

“No, no. Jasmer and I are square. The favor is mutual. I need the five of you occupied elsewhere. Jasmer has desperate need of players, and an equally desperate need to avoid paying them.”

“So it is questionable circumstances, then.”

“Oh, never doubt. I get the impression from his letters that he’s one mistake away from being chained up for debt. I’d appreciate you preventing that. He wants to do Lucarno’s Republic of Thieves. Your story will be that you’re a band of up-and-coming thespians from Camorr; I sent a letter ahead of you telling him how to play the angles right. The rest is entirely up to you.”

“Do you have a copy of the letter for us?” said Locke.

“Nah.”

“Well, then, what should we do about—”

Chains tossed a jingling bag at Locke’s head. Locke barely managed to pluck it out of the air before it struck his nose.

“Oh, look, a bag of money. That’s all the help you’ll be getting from me, my boy.”

“But … aliases, travel arrangements—”

“Your problem, not mine.”

“We don’t know anything about the stage!”

“You know about costumes, makeup, elocution, and deportment. Everything else, you can learn once you get there.”

“But—”

“Look,” said Chains. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the day interrupting your questions, so I’m going to temporarily forget how to make words come out of my mouth. I’ll be nursing a chilled bottle of Vadran white over at the Tumblehome until further notice. Remember the caravan. Two days. You can be part of it, or you can leave the Gentlemen Bastards. Your time is henceforth your own.”

He left the kitchen in a state of extreme self-satisfaction. A few moments later, Locke heard the creak and slam of the burrow’s concealed river-side exit. Locke and his cohorts traded a sincere set of bewildered looks.

“Well, this is a fist-f*ck and a flaming oil bath,” said Calo.

“Is there anyone here,” said Locke quietly, “who’d rather leave the gang than go to Espara?”

“There’d better not be,” said Galdo.

“The billiard ball’s right for once,” said Calo. “It’s not as though I’m enthusiastic about this, but anyone who wants to leave can do it headfirst off the temple roof.”

“Good,” said Locke. “Then we need to talk. Get some ink and parchment.”

“Count the money,” said Sabetha.

“I’ll fetch some wine,” said Jean. “Strong wine.”

5

THEY WERE far from comfortable together. The Sanzas sat on opposite sides of the table, and Sabetha leaned against a chair pushed away from everyone else. Yet they all seemed to grasp the urgency of their situation; over the course of two bottles of Verrari lemon wine they hashed out mostly civil arguments and scratched up lists of supplies and responsibilities.

“Right, then,” said Locke when his glass was empty and his note-pages full. “Sabetha will try to scare up any portions of The Republic of Thieves from the shops and scribes, so we can all have a look at it on the road.”

“I’ve got some other Lucarno plays I’ll pack,” said Jean. “And some Mercallor Mentezzo dross I’m not so fond of, but we should all study them and pick up some lines.”

“Jean and I will find a wagon and get us in with a caravan master,” said Locke. He passed one of his lists over to Galdo. “The Sanzas will pack the common goods and supplies.”

“We need aliases,” said Sabetha. “We can smooth out our stories on the way, but we should have our game names ready to use.”

“Who do you want to be, then?” said Jean.

“Hmmmm. Call me … Verena. Verena Gallante.”

“Lucaza,” said Locke. “I’ll be Lucaza … de Barra.”

“Must you?” said Sabetha.

“Must I what?”

“You always have to choose an alias that starts with ‘L,’ and Jean nearly always goes for a ‘J.’ ”

“Keeps things simple,” said Jean. “And now, just because you’ve said that, I’ll be … Jovanno. Hell, Locke and I can be first cousins. I’ll be Jovanno de Barra.”

“False names are fun,” said Calo. “Call me Beefwit Smallcock.”

“These are aliases, not biographical sketches,” said Galdo.

“Fine then,” said Calo. “Lend me a hand. There’s a masculine form of Sabetha, isn’t there?”

“Sabazzo,” said Galdo, snapping his fingers.

“Yeah, Sabazzo. I’ll be Sabazzo.”

“Like hell you will,” said Sabetha.

“Hey, I know,” said Galdo. “I’ll be Jean. You can call yourself Locke.”

“You two will crap splinters for a month after I make you eat this table,” said Jean.

“Well, if you put it like that,” said Calo. “Why don’t we use our middle names? I’ll be Giacomo, and you can be Castellano.”

“Might work,” said Galdo grudgingly. “Need a last name.”

“Asino!” said Calo. “It’s Throne Therin for ‘donkey.’ ”

“Gods lend me strength,” said Sabetha.

6

“MASTER DE Barra,” said Anatoly Vireska two nights later, looking up with a smile that put every gap in his teeth on display, like archery ports in a crumbling fortress wall. The rangy, middle-aged Vadran caravan master gave the Gentlemen Bastards’ wagon a friendly thump as Jean brought their team of four horses to a halt. “And company. You picked a good time to show up.”

“I’ve seen this place when it’s busy.” Locke glanced backward at the Millfalls District and the Street of Seven Wheels, which lay under the strange particolored haze of fading Falselight. Traffic on the cobbled road itself was sparse, since few business travelers came or went from the Cenza Gate as darkness was falling. “Figured we might get a jump on the chaos.”

“Just so. Pull up anywhere in the commons beneath the wall. Now, if you want more than half-assed shelter, there’s the Andrazi stable down the lane to the right, and the Umbolo stable just yonder, the one with all the mules. Andrazi tips me a few coppers a week to point people her way, but I wouldn’t take the money if I didn’t think her place was the better bargain, hey?”

“Duly noted,” said Jean.

“Want me to send a boy around to help with your horses? I could have my outfitter check your packing, too.”

“I’m sure we’re fine, thanks,” said Locke.

“Glad to hear it. Just so we’re clear, though, my guards don’t stand to duty until we line up all our ducklings tomorrow morning. As long as we’re behind walls, your security is your own business. Given that you’re bedding down twenty yards from a watch barracks, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Nor shall we.” Jean waved farewell, and convinced the horses to take them into the shadow of Camorr’s walls. Rickety overhanging panels topped about a hundred yards worth of barren common space in the lee of the wall, where those unwilling or unable to pay for service at the commercial stables could pull in. Sabetha, Calo, and Galdo piled out of the back of the open-topped wagon as it rolled to a stop.

“One quarter of a mile down, a mere two hundred to go,” said Locke. The humid air was heavy with the smells of old hay, animal sweat, and droppings. Other travelers were lighting lanterns, laying out bedrolls, and starting cooking fires; there were at least a dozen wagon parties stopped beside the wall. Locke wondered idly how many of them were bound for Espara as part of Vireska’s caravan.

“Let’s get you fixed up for the night, boys.” Jean hopped down from the wagon and gave a reassuring pat to the flank of the nearest cart-horse. Jean had spent several months in the role of a teamster’s apprentice two years earlier, and had assumed responsibility for driving and tending their animals without complaint. The team represented a significant portion of the money Chains had given them, but could be resold in Espara to flesh out their temporarily thinned finances.

“Sweep beneath the wagon, would you, Giacomo?” said Galdo. “Don’t want turds for pillows.”

“Sweep it your f*ckin’ self, Castellano,” said Calo. “Nobody put you in charge.”

“Mind yourself,” whispered Sabetha, grabbing Calo by the arm. “We’ve got ten days on the road ahead of us. Do they have to be a miserable trial for no good reason?”

“I’m not his damn valet,” said Calo.

“That’s right.” Locke stepped between the Sanzas, thinking quickly. “None of us are. We’ll share sweeping duties, all of us. Calo starts tonight—”

“I’m Giacomo.”

“Right, sorry. Giacomo starts tonight. Other brother when we stop tomorrow. I’ll take the night after that, and so on. A fair rotation. Good enough?”

“I can live with it,” muttered Calo. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. Just won’t have him putting on airs.”

Locke ground his teeth together. The Sanzas had spent the last several months steadily discarding their old habits of synchronicity in action and appearance. They took pains to distinguish themselves from one another, and their differences in grooming were the merest outward flourishes of the phenomenon. Locke would never have begrudged the twins an individualistic phase, but their timing was awkward as hell, and their ongoing spats were like fresh wood heaped on an already rising fire.

“Look,” said Locke, realizing that the gang’s mechanisms of fellowship needed oiling rather badly, “with so many taverns close at hand, I don’t see any need for us to torture ourselves with boiled beef and bag water. I’ll fetch us something more pleasing.”

“We have the coin for that sort of luxury?” said Sabetha.

“I might have cut a purse or two while I was out this morning. Just for the sake of, ah, financial flexibility.” Locke shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. “You want to come with?”

“You need me to?”

“Well … I’d like you to.”

“Hmmm.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, during which Locke experienced the curious sensation of his heart apparently sinking several inches deeper into his chest. Then she shrugged.

“I suppose.”

They left Jean with the horses, Galdo watching their supplies, and Calo gingerly cleaning the ground beneath the wagon. There was a well-lit tavern at the end of the lane beside the wall, just past the Andrazi stable, and by unspoken mutual consent they headed toward it in the gathering darkness. Locke stole a glance at Sabetha as they walked.

Her tightly-bound hair was further packed beneath a close-fitting linen cap, and all of her clothing was long and loose, disguising her curves. It was the sort of dress a prudent, mild, and unassertive young woman would choose for the road, and as such it suited Sabetha not at all. Still, she wore it as well as anyone could, as far as Locke’s eyes were concerned.

“I was, ah, hoping I could talk to you,” he said.

“Easily done,” said Sabetha. “Open your mouth and let words come out.”

“I—Look, can you not … can you please not be glib with me?”

“Requesting miracles now, are we?” Sabetha looked down and kicked a stone out of her path. “Look, I’m sorry. Contemplating ten days stuck together on the road. And the brothers being … you know. The whole thing has me feeling like a hedgehog, rolled up with my spikes out. Can’t help myself.”

“Oh, a hedgehog is absolutely the last thing I would ever compare you to,” said Locke with a laugh.

“Interesting,” said Sabetha, “that I mention my own feelings, and you seem to think that what I’m after is reassurance concerning your perceptions.”

“But …” Locke felt another knot in his chest. Conversations with Sabetha always seemed to call his attention to malfunctioning internal mysteries he hadn’t previously known he possessed. “Look, come on, do you have to dissect everything I say, pin it up like an anatomist and sift through it?”

“First I’m too glib, now I’m cutting too fine. Surely you should be pleased to be receiving such close attention to what you’re actually saying?”

“You know,” said Locke, feeling his hands shake nervously with the thought of what he was about to put in the open, “you know that when I’m around you I find it very easy to shove my foot into my mouth. Sometimes both feet. And you do see it.”

“Mmmmm,” she said.

“More than that. You make use of the advantage.”

“I do.” She looked at him strangely. “You fancy me.”

“That,” said Locke, feeling thunderstruck, “that is … really … not how I would have …”

“Not as grand in plain speech as it is up here?” She tapped her forehead.

“Sabetha, I … I value your good opinion more than anything in the world. It kills me not to have it. It kills me not to know whether I have it. We’ve lived together all these years, and still there’s this fog between us. I don’t know what I did to put it there, but I would throw myself under a cart to lift it, believe me.”

“Why do you assume it’s something you’ve done, and something you can undo at will? I’m not some arithmetic problem just waiting for you to show your work properly, Locke. Did you ever think that I might … gods, you’ve got me stumbling now. That I might be actively contributing to this … to our awkwardness?”

“Actively contributing?”

“Yes, as though I might have warm-blooded motives of my own, being as I’m not an oil painting, or some other decorative object of desire—”

“Do you like me?” said Locke, shocked at himself for blurting the question out. It was an invitation to have his heart laid out and smashed on an anvil, and there were a thousand things she could say that would do the hammer’s work. “At all? Do I ever please you with my company? Am I at least preferable to an empty room?”

“There are times when the empty room is a sore temptation.”

“But—”

“Of course I like you,” she said, raising her hands as though to touch him reassuringly. She didn’t complete the gesture. “You can be clever, and enterprising, and charming, though rarely all three at once. And … I do sometimes admire you, if it helps you to hear it.”

“It means everything to hear it,” he said, feeling the tightness in his chest turn to buoyant warmth. “It’s worth a thousand embarrassments, just to hear it. Because … because I feel the same way. About you.”

“You don’t feel the same way about me,” she said.

“Oh, but I do,” he said. “Without qualifying remarks, even.”

“That’s—”

“Hey there!”

A polished club came down on Locke’s shoulder, a gentle tap, yet impossible to ignore. The club was attached to a heavyset man in the leather harness and mustard-yellow coat of the city watch, attended by a younger comrade carrying a lantern on a pole.

“You’re in the middle of a lane,” said the big yellowjacket, “not a bloody drawing-room. Move it elsewhere.”

“Oh, of course, sir,” said Locke in one of his better respectable-citizen voices (this constable, not being agitated, didn’t require the use of Locke’s very best). He and Sabetha moved off the lane and into the shadows beneath the wall, where fireflies sketched pale green arcs against the darkness.

“No one thinks of anyone else without qualifying remarks,” said Sabetha. “I love Chains dearly, and still he and I have … disappointed one another. I’ll always be fond of the Sanzas, but right now I wish they’d go away for a year. And you—”

“I’ve frustrated you, I know.”

“And I’ve returned the favor.” She did touch him now, gently, on his upper left arm, and it took most of his self-control not to jump out of his shoes. “Nobody admires anyone else without qualification. If they do they’re after an image, not a person.”

“Well,” said Locke, “in that case, I harbor a great many resentments, reservations, and suspicions about you. Does that please you better?”

“You’re trying to be charming again,” she said softly, “but I choose not to be charmed, Locke Lamora. Not with things as they stand.”

“Can I make amends for whatever I’ve done to frustrate you?”

“That’s … complicated.”

“I like to think that I take hints as well as anyone,” said Locke. “Why not throw some at my head?”

“Going to be a lot of time to kill between here and Espara, I suppose.”

“Can we … speak again tomorrow night? After we’ve stopped?”

“The gentleman requests the favor of a personal engagement, tomorrow evening?”

“At the lady’s pleasure, before the dancing and iced wine, immediately following the grand sweep beneath the wagon for stray horseshit.”

“I may consent.”

“Then life is worth living.”

“Don’t be a dunce,” she said. “We should do our business at the tavern and get back before the Sanzas try to sneak off to the Guilded Lilies one last time.”

They came away from the tavern with cold boiled chicken, olives, black bread, and two skins of yellow wine with a flavor somewhere between turpentine and wasp piss. Simple as it was, the meal was ducal indulgence compared to the salted meat and hardtack waiting in crates on the back of their wagon. They ate in silence, distracted by the sight of the Five Towers shining in the oncoming night, and by hungry insects.

Jean volunteered to sit first watch (no Camorri ever born, least of all one who’d made it out of Shades’ Hill, would blithely trust to providence even in the literal shadow of a city watch barracks). After acknowledging this noble sacrifice, the other four curled up beneath the wagon, sweaty and mosquito-plagued, to bed down.

It occurred to Locke that this was technically the first time he and Sabetha had ever slept together in any sense of the term, even if they were separated by nothing less than a complete pair of Sanza twins.

“We crawl before we walk,” he sighed to himself. “We walk before we run.”

“Hey,” whispered Galdo, who was curled against his back, “you don’t fart in your sleep, do you?”

“How would you be able to detect a fart over your natural odor, Sanza?”

“For shame,” said Galdo. “There’s no Sanzas here, remember? I’m an Asino.”

“Oh yes,” said Locke with a yawn. “Yes, you certainly are.”