The Ragpicker King (Chronicles of Castellane #2)

CHAPTER THREE

A s Second Watch began and the lamps in the Kathot were doused for the night, Lin left her house and struck out across the Sault for the House of Women.

She found Chana Dorin waiting for her in the kitchen with a mug of karak. Chana had been rubbing balm into her hands, arthritis having swelled her finger joints until they looked like knots in wood. She had already heard that the Maharam had asked to see Lin that afternoon, and she demanded a full accounting of events.

“That old fool,” she snorted, once Lin had recounted the conversation in the garden. “Did he really tell you to have patience with those unready for the Shekinah? As if I haven’t spent the past three months telling you to have patience with him. ”

Lin smiled a little. It was true. The Maharam might be the most powerful man in the Sault, but Chana clearly felt that, in the wake of Lin’s announcement, he was behaving like a petulant child.

“He offered to tell the Sanhedrin not to come and test me. I think he was trying to be kind.”

Chana snorted. “There is no kindness in telling the Sanhedrin you lied about being the Goddess Returned. You are not a liar.” She looked closely into Lin’s face. “Few know of the good you have already done for Mariam, and I believe there is so much more good you can do for our people. There is a reason you stood up in that moment at the Tevath and claimed your power. Do not let fear take that reason from you now.”

The earnestness in Chana’s voice seemed to strike at Lin’s heart. What would Chana say if she told her that she had stood up in that moment because she knew that the ships in the harbor would burn at the hour of midnight? That she had learned of the plan to burn them, in fact, in the house of the Ragpicker King, a man of distinctly low moral character? It helped that the Laws he was breaking were not Ashkar Laws, but there would still be many questions if it was found that Lin was regularly visiting the Black Mansion.

It was at the Black Mansion that she had learned of Ciprian Cabrol’s plan to burn the Roverge ships. That burning was the one reason most in the Sault credited her claim, even with hesitation: When the Goddess returns, she will come in fire. It was close enough, and how else would she have known?

She knew she could not tell Chana the truth, and it weighed upon her. Chana’s belief weighed upon her like a chain around her neck. Like Mayesh’s medallion. Though Mayesh was a different tale entirely.

“I ought to go see Mariam,” she said, and bent to kiss the older woman’s cheek. Chana smelled of karak spices and strong medicinal herbs. As Lin drew back, Chana took light hold of the sleeve of her dress.

“The Maharam is just a man,” she said. “He is not the Goddess, nor even the Exilarch. He is afraid the life he has always known is going to change, and you represent that change. All the things that have always made him important will no longer do so.”

“But if he believes in the Goddess, he must also believe in the future she brings,” said Lin. “In Aram, he would be honored for his service to her.”

Chana’s smile was mournful. “He has only ever sung our songs in a strange land,” she said. “He may fear he will find Aram foreign. The cantillations of a faraway place may not be music he can imagine.”

A faraway place. The words echoed in Lin’s head as she made her way down the hall to Mariam’s room. It was late and the lamps were low, but she would always know her way around the Etse Kebeth, even in the dark.

Aram was meant to be more than a faraway land in the heart of every Ashkar. It was meant to be an imagined perfect home, far different from the uninhabitable slag heap it was now.

Still, when Lin tried to picture Aram, she could only conjure up visions of green hills and placid sheep. A storybook land, not real. She had never truly imagined leaving the streets of Castellane. In that way, perhaps she was not so different from the Maharam.

Before Lin went into Mariam’s room, she took her brooch from her pocket and pinned it to her sleeve, close to the pulse of her wrist. The Arkhe stone in it shone, but it was the lifeless shine of reflected light. No gleam came from within the stone itself. Lin tore her gaze from it, its darkness emblematic of her failure.

She found Mariam in bed, reading a thick tome full of painted fashion plates. She sat up when Lin came in, her thin face lighting up, her blankets slipping about her shoulders. She wore a nightgown of thick needlecord despite the warmth of the night. “Lin! I’ve been missing you.”

Lin felt a wave of guilt. She knew she should be visiting Mariam more often, but between her studies of magic, her frequent trips to the Black Mansion, and her responsibilities as the Goddess Returned, she often felt she was living three lives.

Mariam must have seen something in her face. “No, don’t— don’t feel badly. I didn’t mean it that way.” She set her book down and gestured for Lin to join her on the bed. “Come. I want to hear everything you’ve been doing.”

Lin settled onto the worn coverlet, legs drawn up under her. She and Mariam had spent hours of their adolescence like this, trading bits of gossip and fantasy and imagination. Stories they had heard or invented. Places they wished to travel; whether they wanted to marry someday, and if so, to whom. Whether, if magic really worked, they’d rather have the power to fly or become invisible. But what could she tell Mariam now? As you know, I have been trying to teach myself magic using the books from the Shulamat, but I keep running into the same walls over and over again. Or: I am terrified of what will happen when the Exilarch comes. Or: I do most of my work in the Black Mansion of the Ragpicker King, but I pretend I am out visiting patients.

“I was at House Alleyne,” she said instead. “With Antonetta.”

Mariam’s eyes flew wide. “You were up on the Hill? Is there any news about the Prince’s engagement? It’s all anyone’s talking about in the city.”

Lin wished she had taken Chana up on her offer of tea. Her mouth was dry. She said, “Antonetta didn’t mention it. To be honest...” She leaned in conspiratorially. “We were discussing a different wedding. Antonetta’s fiancé is arriving in Castellane soon.”

Mariam wrinkled up her nose. “Is she still marrying the toad?”

“Alas, yes. And her mother is throwing an engagement party to celebrate the toad. And—Antonetta asked me if I would come.”

“I thought you swore you’d never go to another party on the Hill.”

“I know, but...” Lin threw up her hands. “I just can’t leave Antonetta to face it all alone. I’m not sure there’s anyone else in her life who understands.”

“You’re a good friend,” said Mariam. “As I have cause to know.”

“I’m not sure I am Antonetta’s friend,” Lin mused. “I am her physician. Though I am fairly sure she keeps our appointments because she wishes to talk, not because there’s anything wrong with her.”

“I would say that makes you her friend,” said Mariam. “But I am no expert on such distinctions. I am, however, an expert in the field of fashion.” Her eyes sparked in her thin face. “What will you wear to your second party among the nobility of Castellane?”

“Oh. Ugh. I don’t care what I wear,” Lin said. “I’m not interested in impressing any of those vacuous popinjays on the Hill.”

“But you are the Goddess now,” Mariam said. “You represent the Ashkar and the people of the Sault. You cannot go to the Hill in a burlap sack.”

“My grandfather represents the Ashkar and the people of the Sault.”

“Mayesh represents what we are,” said Mariam. “You represent what we can be. Our strength.”

Her eyes were shining, and Lin could not help but think of Mariam’s past—of what had happened to her in Malgasi, how her family and community had been destroyed for the crime of being Ashkar. How much it meant for Mari to think of the people of the Sault as protected. As safe.

“All right,” Lin said. “I’ll let you dress me like a doll. I know you want to.”

“I do, ” Mariam agreed.

“But first—” Lin held up a hand. “Before we are sidetracked into talk of frills and furbelows, it’s time again, Mari.”

“Now?” Mariam tugged at the cuffs of her dressing-gown. “The same thing again?”

“I’ll try to do it quickly. It isn’t hurting you, is it?”

Mariam shook her head. “No. And I always feel better afterward. But it is... odd.” She raised her chin as if in defiance of her own illness. “I’m ready.”

“Lie down,” Lin said, and Mariam did, arms straight at her sides. She gazed at Lin trustingly as Lin placed a hand over Mariam’s heart. She was so thin, Lin could feel the bones of her rib cage. Mariam’s heart pulsed under her fingers, a steady beat.

Look within. That was what all the books said: This was the first step. To reach within oneself, to find the power inherent in every soul.

But it was not enough. The sorcerers of old had augmented their abilities with the use of Arkhes, Source-Stones, which were able to store power, like water in a reservoir. When great magic needed to be done, they could draw on that stored power rather than draining their souls to destruction.

Lin was blessed to have a Source-Stone, the Arkhe in the brooch at her wrist. But despite her access to the books in the Shulamat, despite all her studies, she had been unable to determine how to store power into the stone. It was meant to glow like a lamp, suffused with energy, but it remained dead and blank as a fish’s eye.

Sometimes, when she used her own energy to do the small magic that she could, she could feel the stone reaching out, as if it were searching for something—a source of power, or another stone like itself? Once the world had been full of them; now, as far as she knew, hers was the only one in existence. She felt almost as if she were failing the stone in her brooch, consigning it to a lonely existence without power or companionship.

Do not think about your failures, she told herself. Think about Mariam. Think of the words you would use to describe Mariam. Fall into that sea of words, as the Goddess fell into a sea of stars.

Mariam. Friend. Sister. Loyal. Promise.

Heal.

Slowly, Lin’s vision softened. The shadows in the room thickened, and the points of light—Mariam’s single candle in its silver holder by her bed, the faint illumination that came through the curtained window—grew brighter and more blurred. The talismans—all for health and life—bound to Mariam’s wrists, around her throat, began to glow like points of blue fire.

Lin slowed her own breathing, letting her concentration on Mariam sharpen. She repeated Qasmuna’s words to herself, memorized from her most precious possession: the book the Prince had given her. They made a soft litany:

The Word is the sum of human will. Magic cannot exist without the Word because it cannot exist without will.

Of course, the Word had been lost long ago, wiped from the memory of the world after the Sundering. But will and volition—those still existed, and Lin focused all of hers on Mariam. Between one blink and another, her vision changed. She saw words written across the scene in front of her, as if they had been scrawled on a painting. Words like sickness, pain, and poison.

She reached out with her mind, using all her will to erase those words. To replace them with other words: healing, and cure, and remedy.

Mariam’s body arched as smoke poured between Lin’s fingers. It seemed to rise out of Mariam’s body, from her heart, curling upward through the air: a dark, acrid, diffuse stuff that Lin called smoke because she could think of no other word for it. Mariam exhaled as the smoke left her.

And it was over. The world had gone back to what it was, a place of ordinary light and shadow. Lin drew her hand back from Mariam’s chest; her palm was red, as if she had held it over a fire, the result of drawing on her own life energy to heal Mariam. She knew from experience that it would hurt for some hours before subsiding.

“Ugh.” Mariam sat up, her thin brown hair tumbling around her face. Her color was already better, her movements easier. Her expression, though, was resigned. “I hate knowing that stuff was inside me.”

“Don’t think of it like that.” Lin had explained before: This was Mariam’s sickness she was drawing out. It did not live inside Mariam in this form; it took on this dark, shadowy aspect when forced into the open. “How do you feel?”

“Better.” Mariam took Lin’s hand. She held it tightly; Lin forced herself not to react to the pain as her palm stung. “I don’t mean to complain. I know that what you are doing for me is— It’s a miracle, Lin. I would have been dead months ago if not for you.”

“It needs to be a better miracle.” Lin could hear the harshness in her own voice; she could not stop it. It was half a miracle at best, she thought, if such a thing was possible. She had to draw the smoke from Mariam’s lungs every fortnight, or she would sicken badly again. She simply did not have enough power within herself to do more, not without extinguishing her own life. “I need to make sure you are entirely better and can manage without my interventions.”

Mariam only smiled. “Well, that’s true. If the Prince is getting married again, my services will be sorely needed to make dresses. Think of the parties and parades! So if you could make the miracle happen in the next, oh, fortnight or so, that would be awfully convenient.”

“I don’t think miracles work quite like that,” said Lin, but she was smiling, because Mariam always made her smile. Mariam believed in her not for the reasons Chana did—because she yearned for the return of the Goddess in her lifetime—but because she had always believed in Lin. If Lin said she was the Goddess, it must be true, because it was Lin saying it. And Mariam’s faith did not weigh Lin down; it was not something for her to carry. Rather, it had always carried her.

Ji-An drove as if Gentleman Death himself were at her heels, and Jerrod, Merren, and Kel, crouched inside the carriage, were flung repeatedly into one another. Kel was fairly positive Merren was praying—though to whom, he wasn’t sure.

Raimon indeed appeared to have appropriated Montfaucon’s carriage, Kel noted—a steel-blue calash driven by matched bays. It was much lighter than their own, but they had reached the city traffic now. Even if Raimon had demanded the driver go hell-for-leather, the crowded streets would have prevented it. Ji-An slowed down, bringing their carriage in behind Montfaucon’s, to the undoubted gratitude of Andreyen’s horses.

Merren and Kel peeled themselves off the carriage floor. Merren groaned about his bruises as Kel peered out the window. A low red moon hung over the city, tinting the streets a pale cerise color. The Broken Market was in full swing, and the Ruta Maestra was crammed with stalls, naphtha torches blazing as buyers wandered the wide avenue, hunting for bargains.

They had slowed to a crawl, and Kel cranked the window down, trying to catch sight of their quarry. The steel-blue carriage had come to a halt at the side of the road. As Merren demanded to know what was going on, Kel realized it had paused before one of the Story-Spinners.

A hand emerged from Montfaucon’s carriage, and a shower of silver talents caught the naphtha light. Kel heard male laughter, the crack of a whip, then the bay horses started off again. Kel barely had time to catch hold of the window frame before their own carriage was once again lurching over the cobblestones, twisting this way and that to avoid pedestrians while keeping the calash in view.

“If Ji-An flattens any pedestrians,” wondered Merren, “do you think they’ll be able to trace it to us?”

They hurtled onto Ruta Taur, which cut up through the Silver Streets. The noise of the Ruta Magna fell away; here, among the placid homes of guildmasters and shopkeepers, there were far fewer foot travelers. The carriage slowed, Ji-An keeping a sedate pace so as not to alert Raimon.

Ruta Taur meant “street of towers,” and indeed, the tall, thin houses showcased fanciful towers along the edges of the rooflines. They were built in rows, their sides close up against each other, with no space between them.

Montfaucon’s carriage had come to a halt in front of one of the row houses. It disgorged Raimon, who descended swiftly, after exchanging what looked like angry words with the driver. As soon as the door closed, the calash hurried off.

Their own carriage was only a little way behind, and Kel waited for Raimon to look back at them. But he didn’t turn his head, only went up the front stairs, unlocked the front door, and slammed it behind him.

“We needn’t have hurried,” Merren said, picking himself up off the floor again. “He was only going home in a snit.”

“He might not have been,” Kel pointed out, though he, too, would have bruises tomorrow.

Ji-An rapped her whip against their window, presumably to quiet them. She led the Ragpicker King’s carriage silently around the corner and onto a darkened side street of smaller houses. On the corner was a shophouse, the lower floor selling copper pots and pans.

There was a flash of movement; Ji-An had leaped down from the driver’s seat. The carriage door opened, spilling Merren and Kel out onto the paving stones. Jerrod, somehow, had regained his seat and was able to descend the steps of the carriage in relative dignity. Kel stretched, relieved at no longer being tossed around the carriage’s interior like a child’s bouncing ball.

“Thank you,” he said to Ji-An. “I have long been hoping someone would shatter my legs into multiple discrete pieces.”

“I am pleased to make your dream a reality.” Ji-An didn’t have a hair out of place, somehow. She looked as neat as ever, and even a bit smug, the collar of her closely fitted silk jacket flipped up around her pointed chin.

Merren sat down on the curb and put his head between his knees. “Is that how carriages are driven in Chosun?” he said weakly.

“It is how carriages are driven in Castellane,” Ji-An retorted. “Get up, Merren.”

“Let him sit,” said Jerrod. “Kel and I will do a bit of Crawling. See what we can see through the windows.” He cracked his knuckles, grinning in Kel’s direction. “Ji-An, you and Merren stand watch. If Raimon tries to leave his house or anything suspicious happens, whistle like a mockingbird.”

“I’m a city boy,” Merren complained. “I’ve no idea what a mockingbird sounds like.”

“It sounds however it wishes to.” Jerrod glanced around the side of the shophouse. “Kel, are you ready?”

Kel was not ready, but it seemed the time had come to put his lessons to use. “Merren and Ji-An, try not to stand out or do anything peculiar to attract attention.”

Kel and Jerrod slipped around the corner to the Ruta Taur. All was as it had been before, except now lamplight spilled from the upper windows of Raimon’s house, casting a dull illumination across the pavement.

“Now,” Jerrod said, “like we practiced,” and he began to scramble up the facade of the house. Kel followed, digging his fingers into the gaps between the bricks. As the street fell away below them, he tried to recall the varied instructions Jerrod had given him in the Black Mansion. Do not expect to dangle from your fingers; that will get you killed. Let your body lean into the wall. It’s all about how you distribute your weight. You can balance on a single nail if you hold yourself correctly. And don’t behave like a fool.

Jerrod was a great deal like Jolivet, come to think of it—at least as far as instructional technique went.

The sand-lime bricks were rough under Kel’s fingers. He leaned into them, imagining that the wall was lying flat on the ground and he was Crawling across it, gravity pulling his body toward the house’s facade. He passed a window, unlit, and glanced inside: He could see the shapes of furniture, an unlit fireplace along one wall. Several more windows went by, though there was nothing interesting to be observed: a kitchen with copper pots, a tepidarium with tiled walls.

“Here,” he heard Jerrod whisper. He was balanced on an ironwork railing just above him; it was very small, just wide enough for the two of them to stand on, but not wide enough for Kel not to feel faintly sick when he glanced down at the street below. Apparently, he’d forgotten his last lesson: Don’t look down.

He soon saw why Jerrod had paused. They were just below a window from which lamplight spilled; Jerrod was gazing inside with an impassive expression. Kel, balanced beside him, looked through the glass.

Inside was a bedroom, decorated in shades of red. Raimon had changed out of his party clothes and was pacing the room wearing only a pair of simple drawstring cotton trousers. Thick ropes of pinkish-white scars scored his shoulders, back, and legs—the mark of his previous life as a professional fighter. And on his throat, clearer now that Kel was closer to it, the brand of the Tully. As they watched, he stopped, rubbed his forehead unhappily, and returned to pacing.

“Now what?” Kel whispered to Jerrod.

Jerrod shrugged, a complicated maneuver while still clinging to the building’s facade. “Now we go in.”

Kel hesitated. “He knows me. At least, he knows I was at the party.”

“We’ll be very subtle,” Jerrod said. “I’m a Crawler. I’m an expert at moving without a trace of noise. He won’t even know we’re here until we’re on him.”

“All right,” Kel said. “Let’s go, then.”

Jerrod peered down at the sill below them and drew back one of his feet with care. He closed one eye as if sighting the distance, then swung his foot at the windowpane, which shattered with a sound loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood.

“Without a trace of noise?” muttered Kel. Raimon had turned with alarm toward the sound.

“Direct approach is sometimes best,” Jerrod grunted, and threw his entire body through the window into the bedroom beyond. Kel followed Jerrod, taking as much care as he could not to tear his clothes or his hands on the broken glass remaining in the frame. He rolled across the floor and came up quickly on his feet, only to discover that Raimon had turned and fled.

Kel exchanged a startled look with Jerrod. Raimon had been a vicious fighter in the Arena, vicious enough to be gifted with a nickname synonymous with death. So why had he run? Wouldn’t he stand and fight to defend his own home?

But there was no point hesitating. Kel raced after Raimon, Jerrod close on his heels.

The house was tall but narrow, and it was quickly obvious that Raimon had nowhere to run but up or down; thankfully, Kel could hear him clattering about below. It sounded as if he was descending the sharply curving stairs two at a time. Kel and Jerrod raced after him. They were younger and lighter on their feet, but the former gladiator was shockingly quick for his size, and they were unable to get a hand on him as they corkscrewed their way down the spiral steps.

They burst into the ground-floor receiving room—a wide space with a fireplace taking up much of one wall. Uncomfortable-looking gilded chairs were set about as if ready to receive guests, though they were dusty, as if they had not been used in a long time, if ever. Over the fireplace hung a battered assortment of weapons, the kind often used in Arena fighting: a hand-axe, a longsword, a wicked-looking flail.

Raimon stood in the middle of the room, a bronze spear gripped in his hand. From the way he carried himself and the way he held his weapon, Kel could tell he knew how to use it.

“Stop.” Kel flung up his hands. Jerrod, at his side, was breathing hard. “We just want to talk to you.”

Raimon sneered. “Do you think I don’t know—”

He broke off, staring, and Kel realized he was getting his first real look at who had broken into his house. His gaze slid from Jerrod to Kel and back again, and a look flashed across his face. One that surprised Kel.

Relief.

Who did he think we were? Clearly, Raimon had expected an attack. He hadn’t been surprised, but he had been terrified. Now, though—

He gave a hoarse laugh and raised the spear. “Idiots,” he said. “You’re idiots. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I’d say we’re pretty clear on it.” Jerrod’s voice was calm, but he had rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, ready to rush at Raimon.

Raimon drew his arm back. A shadow rose up behind him. Kel felt his eyes widen as something silver flashed at Raimon’s throat.

A metal chain. It looped his throat, jerking him backward off his feet. He fell hard, the spear clattering out of his hand. Over him stood Ji-An, holding the looped chain in her hand.

She placed a booted foot on Raimon’s chest and glared at Kel and Jerrod. “What are you waiting for?” she said. Raimon made a noise; Ji-An kicked him lightly. “Get over here and help me tie him up. I really don’t know how you two ever get anything done.”

“We’re really very sorry about this,” Merren said.

Raimon glared at him. The big man was tied to one of his own gilded chairs with Ji-An’s metal chain. To no one’s surprise, she had turned out to be a master of knots, looping the chain in such a manner that Raimon’s struggling only tightened the bonds. Upon realizing this, Raimon had gone still. He wasn’t gagged—Kel saw no point, when they wanted him to talk—but he’d been silent since they’d subdued him.

The subduing itself had not been easy. Raimon now had a black eye and a lower lip that was rapidly swelling. Kel himself had bruised knuckles, and Jerrod was limping slightly.

“No, we’re not,” Jerrod said to Merren. “We’re not sorry.”

“We broke into the man’s house,” Merren protested. “He could have fallen down the stairs and died.”

“I could have,” agreed Raimon.

“Well,” said Ji-An. “That would have been your own fault.”

“We’re very sorry,” Merren reassured Raimon.

Raimon slewed his gaze around to the others. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You two—” He indicated Kel and Merren. “I saw you at the Caravel. Thought you were nobles. But nobles don’t do their own dirty work, do they?”

“Sometimes they do,” Kel said. “But that’s not the point. I saw your face, before. You were afraid when we broke in, then you looked relieved when you got a good look at us.”

“Of course I was relieved,” said Raimon. “You have to admit, you’re not that frightening.”

“I wouldn’t continue in that vein if I were you,” said Ji-An, twirling a slim knife she’d taken from her boot.

“Let me guess,” said Raimon. “This is some trick of Lupin’s. He wants you to drag me back to the Caravel—”

“This has nothing to do with Montfaucon,” Kel interrupted. He was getting fed up. “All we need or want is information. Give us that, and we will happily leave you be.”

“And if I don’t?” Raimon snarled. In that moment, he was very much the Gray Serpent. Banked fury smoldered in his eyes, and Kel could see how he might once have dominated the Arena.

Merren had left Kel’s side. He crossed the room to a low table and began to busy himself with a lime-green glass decanter.

“If you don’t,” Kel said slowly, knowing he was taking a chance, “I might need to inform Legate Jolivet that you were involved in the Shining Gallery slaughter.”

Raimon blinked at him slowly. He was expressionless, but his hands gripped the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles had turned white as milk. “Fuck you. I’m no murderer. I don’t know who told you this horseshit, but they’re lying.”

“Did you think no one would investigate what happened?” Kel was aware his friends were staring at him, and he hoped they had the will to just go along with whatever he said. “A Princess of Sarthe and two ambassadors are murdered on Palace grounds, along with several of our own people, and you thought no one would look into it?”

“If I thought about it at all, and I’m not saying I did, I’d have thought the Vigilants would look into it,” muttered Raimon. “You don’t look like Vigilants to me.”

“We’re not,” Kel said. “We are an elite unit, tasked with discovering who committed the atrocities in the Shining Gallery. Unlike Vigilants, we can move undetected through society, gathering clues.”

Jerrod made a coughing noise. Ji-An rolled her eyes; only Merren seemed unruffled by Kel’s string of lies. He had returned, having poured red wine into a glass of Detmarch kristal. He offered the glass to Raimon, who indicated his bound hands. Merren held the glass up to Raimon’s lips, letting him drink. Loosening his tongue with wine, Kel thought; it wasn’t the worst idea.

Raimon finished the liquor in two swallows and sat back, a flush on his cheeks. He nodded at Merren—a curt acknowledgment, though not a thanks. “Elite unit or not”—he indicated Kel and the others with a jerk of his chin—“you are in over your heads.”

“No need for you to worry about that,” Jerrod said. “We want to know who’s responsible for the slaughter. Old man Gremont died with your name on his lips. The Gray Serpent. ”

Raimon barked a laugh. “The Gray Serpent died a long time ago, when he was cut from the Arena. Too old to fight, they said.” He narrowed his pale eyes. “I’m just an ex-fighter trying to get by.”

“You have an awfully expensive house,” said Kel, “full of expensive things, for an old fighter just trying to get by.”

“I make do,” said Raimon.

“I think,” said Merren, “he’s asking you a question. How’d you make the money to pay for a mansion on the Ruta Taur?”

“What d’you think, idiot?” Raimon said. “No respectable citizen wants to hire someone who was in the Tully and fought in the Arena. Sometimes you can get work beating up drunks in the Maze, but it doesn’t pay much. You know who pays? The nobility. And they’ll spend a lot of gold to find someone to get their hands dirty on their behalf. I’ve only used what I had: contacts with mercenaries who could get things done. Ex-fighters, ex-prisoners. No one looks out for them. Someone had to do it.”

“You’re a true benefactor,” Jerrod muttered under his breath.

“So you had a reputation,” said Kel, as evenly as he could. “And someone came to you, asked you if you knew anyone who could carry out the Shining Gallery slaughter.”

Raimon rocked forward in his chair, his muscles straining against the ropes. “It wasn’t supposed to be a slaughter!” he said hoarsely. “They fucked me over. Liars! They were liars!”

“Who f—ah, who did you wrong?” asked Merren. Kel saw Jerrod hide a grin. Sailors swore, and nobles swore like sailors. The middle class—guildmasters among them—were far more prudish.

“It was just supposed to be embarrassing,” said Raimon, his gaze far away. “That’s all. Just show the little Sarthian chit that we didn’t want her folk traipsing through here, acting like they owned the place, cluttering up our harbor. She was supposed to run back to Sarthe with her tail between her legs. They came to me, asked me to round up some of my old friends from the Tully—folks living low, avoiding the Vigilants. Knew they’d be desperate for the work. Hard to get hired for much when you’ve been officially exiled.”

Raimon was almost breathless, the words spilling out of him. Kel didn’t dare interrupt him; it was almost as if he had forgotten where he was, or who he was talking to. As if he’d been desperate to spill this information to someone.

Raimon went on. “My friends, they did what they were supposed to do. Dressed up, got into the Gallery, waved their swords around. Yelled a bit. They were told... we were all told...” He struggled for the words. “There’d be a way out.”

“A way out of the Gallery?” Kel said, surprised. “But once the front doors were blocked, there’s no other entrance.”

“That’s why they fought like they did,” Raimon said hoarsely. “They were trapped. They wanted to get out.”

I don’t believe you. There was a fury rising in Kel, a rage that felt like sparks alighting through his veins, prickling his skin.

“Bullshit,” he said. “The Sarthian Princess. She was only twelve years old, and she was murdered. Pinned to a wall with a crossbow bolt. What does that have to do with escaping?”

“None of my men would have done that—”

“Who hires a pack of criminals to frighten a child, anyway? Who would expend the money, the planning, on such a thing?”

Raimon tried to shrug again. “People want all sorts of things,” he said. “And many nobles hate Sarthe. I didn’t ask questions.”

“Then you’re a fool,” said Jerrod, to Kel’s surprise. “A fool who got his friends killed. Why would you trust a noble, no questions asked?” He narrowed his eyes. “Was it Montfaucon who hired you?”

Raimon gave a hoarse laugh. “Lupin could care less about politics,” he said. “He’s my protection. Once it all happened, once my people were all dead, I realized—I was the loose end. I knew what had happened. No one was supposed to know what had happened and survive. I needed to be close to someone in power. Lupin had approached me before. He likes to shock his friends, and what could be more shocking than a branded pit fighter? He’d have taken up with a crocodile if he thought it would make for a better party.”

This struck Kel as a remarkably accurate assessment of Montfaucon. “Right,” he said. “So Lupin Montfaucon had nothing to do with the plan. But there were others who knew about it. Gremont warned me about you at the party, just after one of your mercenaries put a sword in him. He said you would come for the Prince. Was that ever a part of the plan?”

Raimon looked horrified. “Harming the Aurelians? No. Gremont was part of the group that hired me, but he got squirrelly. Thought the plan seemed dangerous. Everyone was afraid he’d crack, tell on the others. He knew about me, knew I’d provided the mercs. He must have thought I was behind the bloodshed. Stupid old fool.”

“Not that stupid,” said Jerrod. “He led us to you. Maybe he realized in his last moments that you were the only one who would talk.”

Raimon snorted. “Or he knew you wouldn’t dare tie a Charter member to a chair and torture them for information.”

He had a point, Kel thought. “So who did hire you? Which of the Charter Families knew about this, besides the Gremonts? You must have had a contact. Someone told you Gremont was getting squirrelly. Someone who paid you.”

Raimon dipped his head. “A woman,” he said. “Called herself Magali—”

The front window exploded. Shards of glass flew, shedding illumination, a crazy-quilt of reflected fire. Raimon’s body jerked as a silver crossbow bolt slammed into his chest, pinning him to the chair. Its fletchings, three black feathers, quivered from the impact.

Kel felt a sharp sting below his ear, like a horsefly bite. He could hear Ji-An swearing and Merren asking if everyone was all right, if anyone was hurt, but he barely registered the words. He was already bolting toward the front door, his hand to his neck. He knew those fletchings. They matched the ones on the bolt that had killed Luisa.

He burst out of the house and glanced around. The shot had obviously come from across the street, probably from the roof. Without hesitation, trusting that his body would obey Jerrod’s training, he ran toward the nearest house.

His hand came away from his neck gloved in blood and he cursed to himself. A stray bit of the glass from the window must have cut his skin. There was nothing he could do about it now; he wiped his hand off on his trousers and began to scale the facade of the house.

He was fast, very fast for someone who had only been Crawling up walls a short time. But not as fast as the assassin, it seemed. He reached the roof, a flat expanse of black tiles, and pulled himself onto it. It was empty. There was no sign of movement, and he felt the sinking sensation that he’d already lost his target.

Someone slammed into him from behind, sending him crashing to the hard tile of the roof. The wind knocked out of him, Kel could only gasp for air as a dark shadow loomed over him, blotting out the moon.

A very familiar dark shadow. This was surely the same person he’d met on the roof of the Shining Gallery, the one he thought of as the Dark Assassin. He had nearly forgotten how eerie the figure was, how—covered in close-fitting black material—it seemed faceless, inhuman, a blank where an identity should have been.

At last Kel had his breath back. He started to get to his feet, but the Dark Assassin didn’t seem to like that. Kel found a booted foot on his chest, pressing him down.

And when it spoke, it was in the same guttural hiss that revealed nothing of the person speaking—man or woman, old or young. “Stop following me, Királar. ”

Flat on his back, Kel cursed the night, his choices, and the murderer who seemed to have taken a personal dislike to him. “I didn’t follow you here,” he said. “ You followed me.”

“Oh?” The Dark Assassin sounded almost amused. “Does your Prince know where you are, Sword Catcher? Should you not be by his side?”

That hurt, more than the boot to the chest. “I do not need to be beside him to protect him,” Kel said through his teeth. “Nor need you pretend you care about his fate.” He recalled the last words the Dark Assassin had spoken to him on the roof of the Shining Gallery, voice gloating: You stand upon the threshold of history, for this is the beginning of the fall of House Aurelian.

“Oh, I care about his fate very much,” purred the assassin. “And yours, for they are intertwined. You are his shield, his unbreakable armor. You die that he might live forever.”

Kel stared past the Dark Assassin, at the stars fretted across the sky like glimmering needlework. You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.

It was what Conor always said to him at the end of their litany; as he said it now, he heard Conor’s voice, the reassurance in it.

The assassin hissed a laugh. “You have been trying to find out who was responsible for the bloodbath up at the Palace.”

Kel glared silently. There was something, he thought, about the way the assassin spoke—the words were accentless but strangely formal, as if Castellani was not their first language.

“I suppose,” Kel said, “that now is the part where you tell me that I’d better stop investigating, or you’ll kill me.”

“I might kill you regardless,” said the assassin pleasantly. “In fact, you’re lucky that I have a use for you, Sword Catcher, or you would be dead already.”

“A use for me?” Kel echoed, but between one blink and another, the Dark Assassin had darted off, racing across the rooftop at great speed. Kel sat up in time to see his assailant leap to the roof of the neighboring house and from there to the house beyond. By the time Kel had clambered wearily to his feet, he had lost sight of the Dark Assassin against the night sky.