Sworn in Steel

Chapter Fourteen

I dropped into a crouch, sword across my body. Best to stay low until my night vision reawakened. Damn me for getting so close to those lamps, anyhow.

“Fowler?” I said.

No answer. I could still hear Raaz gagging, but it sounded less strained now. I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Hell, I didn’t even know if putting out the lights had helped or hurt him, but there was nothing for it now. Besides, I knew it would help me-assuming I lasted that long.

I let my gaze flick around the space, looking for the first hints of amber, the first sign that I had my edge back. Whoever had come leaping out of the darkness had been good, a true deep file. . Blade? Arm? Nighthawk? If I had to guess, I’d go with Blade, or whatever passed for an assassin in Djan, but that was almost beside the point. No matter what he called himself, his timing had been perfect: I’d been too far from the wall to interfere, but close enough to get in the way of any glimmer Raaz might have launched. That kind of luck didn’t happen by accident.

That wasn’t what had me worried, though.

What had me on edge, had me holding my breath while I waited for my night vision to awaken, was the fact that I hadn’t seen the Blade before he moved. I’d peered into the shadows, studied the darkness about us before stepping fully into the light, and noticed nothing. That didn’t happen-not to me, not in this much darkness.

And even if I had missed him somehow, that still didn’t explain the lamps and their flickering. A flickering only I had seen. Me. The one with the night vision.

I had no idea what that might mean, but I’d be damned if I was going to pretend I wasn’t scared shitless by it.

The broken lamp was the first thing to pull itself out of the darkness-jagged pieces of clay, edged in reddish gold, lying in a filmy pool of oil. The other lamp came next, on its side a short ways away, followed by a section of wall. An arch followed, then Raaz-no longer gagging, but still on the floor, still breathing roughly-then the rest of the room, all overlaid by the amber sketches and highlights of my night vision.

Fowler was lying where she had stood, her long knife halfway out of its scabbard. I couldn’t see any blood, couldn’t spot any wound, but that didn’t mean a thing. I resisted the urge to call out, to go to her and check for breath or pulse. Going to see if she lived could get me killed.

Instead, I turned my attention to the wine cellar around us.

Empty.

I let my breath out slowly. The nearest niche was a good fifteen feet away, nothing but open space between it and I. Even if the Blade was hiding there, I’d have time to react, time to see him. Whatever glimmer he’d used to help him hide from the lantern’s light hadn’t seemed to affect my night vision. I might not have been able to see him earlier, but now it was darker than night. Now it was my turn.

I looked around the space again to be sure, then shifted and rose slowly out of my crouch.

And almost lost my life in the process.

I caught the blur of movement out of the corner of my eye just in time to drop my head even as I brought up my rapier. Metal hissed on metal. I felt the breeze of the deflected blade skim through the air above me. Then a shoulder I couldn’t see connected with my own and shoved.

I slashed the air before me as I staggered back, found nothing. I struck a guard, my body low, sword angled before me and out.

I looked around, eyes wide. Raaz, Fowler, the walls, the extinguished lamps: all there, all visible to my night vision. So where the hell was the person who’d just missed taking off the top of my head?

I took a step back, felt for and found the wall behind me in the darkness. It was usually a tactic for other people-for the ones who couldn’t see what I could see. Now, though, it felt reassuring to have the stone at my back.

Another blur, this time from a bit farther away. I saw the arc of the cut, saw a hint of. . something. . behind it, moving toward me. It was enough to catch the blade on my own-one, two, three times-enough to keep me breathing for the moment. Not enough to counterthrust or kill, though.

I shifted left and drew my fighting dagger from the back of my sword belt. My hand, I noticed, was shaking.

Raaz coughed. Groaned.

“Raaz!” I yelled. “What the hell is-”

“No talking,” he croaked, barely getting the words out. “Listen!”

Good advice, considering I heard, more than saw, the next attack coming. The double scuff of a gathering step on the gritty stone floor, an amber bluish blur, and then I was deflecting a slash that still managed to carve a long, thin line in my forearm.

No way in hell I could last, not like this.

I peered out into the midnight-veiled cellar around me, trying to do something I’d never had any trouble doing before: trying to see someone with my night vision. It was unnerving. Every wall, every stone, every person was visible-except the one that mattered.

Was my vision failing? Had the magical flare Shadow set off in front of my eyes almost five months ago done that much damage? Had the flickering flames been a sign, an indication that something was wrong, that something had been done to me?

Dammit, Sebastian-why the hell did you have to die before you were able to tell me about the gift you gave me?

I shifted my footing, heard it echoed a moment later.

Listen, Raaz had said. But what if I wasn’t the only one listening?

Another step by myself, this time echoed by two. Were they closer or farther away?

A low, gasping mutter to my right interrupted by a cough. Raaz, speaking in a tongue I recognized but didn’t know. Speaking magic. Shit.

“No light!” I said, even as I used my voice to cover my movement. Two sloping paces right, one step forward. In the amber-edged darkness, someone I couldn’t see shifted position as well.

Right now, I realized, we were even. Whoever was out there couldn’t see me: Rather, he’d been trained to fight blind, using his opponent’s sounds to direct his actions. That’s why the attacks were so wide, why he relied on cuts and slashes-the bigger the movement, the more area you covered. As for me, while I had never fought blind, I could at least see the terrain, could catch the movement of his blade as it came in. My guess was that he’d never faced someone like me, had never had his supposed-to-be-blind target parry and riposte and react in time to foil his plans. And I sure as hell had never faced someone I couldn’t see, especially in the dark.

But if Raaz spoke up some light. . then it would all be different. Then I would become both blind and visible at once. Then I wouldn’t be able to see the Blade through the burning and flashing in my eyes, and he’d be able to stroll up and slit my throat, no matter how easy it was for everyone else in the room to see him.

So, no light-not until it was over.

Which needed to happen soon.

I took a soft step left. Someone moved with me. Shit-I couldn’t be any quieter than that.

“You are unexpected,” said a soft voice out of the darkness. A woman. “A challenge.”

I adjusted my rapier so the point was in line with the sound of her voice.

“You can talk,” she said. Djanese, but with an accent I didn’t know. “I won’t kill you as you speak. It would be. . unsporting.”

“But that won’t stop you from figuring out where I am in the meantime,” I said.

“I offer you the same advantage with my own voice.” More to my left now. I adjusted. “Although,” she added, “I don’t think you need it.”

“Maybe I’m just that good.” Ha.

“And maybe you can see in the night.”

I froze, almost dropping my dagger in my surprise. How. .?

“And yet,” she continued, “you’re not Djanese, which means you can’t be of the despot’s chosen. Can’t be a Lion.” A brief pause, complete silence. “So, then, what are you?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. In all the years since Sebastian had taken me deep into the Balsturan Forest and performed the rite that gave me his night vision, I’d considered myself unique. No rumors or tales about a similar ability had ever reached me, no claims to have heard about anyone who could push aside the night. And I’d been listening-first as a Prig and a Draw Latch on the street, and then as a Nose, I’d been keeping my ears open and my secret close. Aside from Christiana and Degan, there was no one living who knew what I could do. Jelem might suspect-but then, he’d suspect his own mother of faking his own birth-and Fowler might have guessed that my late-night luck was too good to be coincidence, but neither had said anything outright.

No, in all my years of looking and listening, no word had ever come in, no whisper had ever gone out.

Until now.

Of a sudden, I no longer wanted to kill this woman; I wanted to catch her. To question her. To, maybe, get an answer or two.

“You’re silent, I see,” she said. “I will assume I’ve struck true.”

“What I am is dangerous,” I said. “Throw your steel down or get on with this. I’ve got friends bleeding; I don’t have time for you.” As much as I might want to talk, I didn’t want to die even more.

“Nor I for you,” she said. Closer now, and to my right.

I turned my torso in that direction without shifting my feet. Took a shallow breath. Another. Then, after I was sure I was in the guard I thought stood the best chance of keeping me alive, I tapped the pommel of my dagger lightly against the base of my rapier blade.

This time, I saw her coming; or rather, saw the indication of her coming. A hint of motion, a blur of something that seemed too slippery for my night vision to catch, but still, there, just as I’d hoped.

Except she’d managed to shift silently to my left and was now coming on my open side. Damn, she was good.

I pivoted as fast as I could, bringing my dagger and rapier up on my left, one above the other, both pointing forward. Degan had liked to call it the “Wall of Steel”; I called it my best chance right about now.

I adjusted my weapons to intercept the fastest part of the approaching ripple-what I assumed to be her blade. If I was lucky, I’d be able catch the cut and perform a counter-thrust at the same moment, using her momentum to let her skewer herself. If not, well, at least I had a Wall of Steel, right?

Wrong. Turns out the assassin knew about steel walls since, just before she reached me, her blur dropped low and slid along on the floor, right at my legs.

I dipped my rapier’s tip even as I tried to jump up and avoid what I assumed was meant to be a sweep. Neither action was wholly unsuccessful on my part, but neither were they complete failures.

I felt my sword’s tip skip and then grab, biting and then sliding along flesh at the last moment. At the same time, the front of my feet were struck in midair by something solid and muscular, causing me to tumble forward. My rapier twisted itself out of my grasp, and I let it go-better to drop a weapon than break your fingers trying to keep hold of it. Besides, I needed that hand to try and break my fall.

It did. Sort of. It also managed to wrench two of my fingers back as I hit the stone floor and half rolled, half collapsed onto my right side. I made sure to keep my dagger hand, and the blade it held, far out to my left as I fell.

That last bit is what saved my life.

Metal struck on metal as I landed, assassin’s blade to Prince’s dagger, deflecting whatever backhand or follow-up cut she had planned. She hit hard, sending reverberations down my arm, nearly forcing the dagger from my grip, but I held on. A moment later, I felt a hand on my right calf. The grip was weak. I kicked it off, then lashed out with my foot again as I scrambled away. Fleeting contact, a gasp, the sound of metal skittering across the floor.

I shimmied back on my elbows and heels, then gathered my legs beneath me and stood up. I kept my dagger in my left hand, drew my boot knife with the working fingers and thumb of my right, and hoped like hell she didn’t come after me. Close fighting is ugly enough, but in the dark, where you can’t see, against an opponent who is trained to do just that? No, thank you.

I heard a deep breath come from where I had fallen, followed by a hiss of pain.

“No, not a Lion,” she said, her voice tight now. I heard movement-loud for her, I expected, and soft for anyone else. “But good enough in some ways, and worse in others.” A soft scuff, and my rapier skittered across the floor in my direction, stopped at my feet. Another hiss of pain.

“I give you today as a gift, jeffer ani,” she said softly. ‘Fortunate ghost.’ “But I would advise you to not rest too easily. You are marked.”

Then soft sounds, fading, gone. I was across the space and kneeling over Fowler before they had completely faded.

“What. .?” croaked Raaz in the darkness.

“She left,” I said, not looking up from my examination of Fowler. There was blood on the side of her head, and she was responding weakly at best.

“Left?” His voice was still rough, still more a gasp than speech, but even that couldn’t hide the genuine astonishment in it. “How did you-?”

“If I were you, I’d give more thought to answering questions than asking them right about now.”

A brief silence. “Yes, of course. I. . it’s just that I didn’t expect. .” He coughed and looked back into the darkness, in the direction of the wall he’d been casting the shadows against. “To have one of them show up here, to see one of my masters killed through my magic. I-”

“Raaz,” I said, my tone sharp. “I need you with me. Fowler’s hurt.”

I watched him bow his head, then nod. “Yes, of course. What do you need?”

“Can you speak anything over her to help?” Jelem had used magic to heal me once, but that was special, and that was Jelem. I had no idea how patching glimmer might translate to Raaz. It wasn’t the kind of thing most Kin could afford, or most Mouths could pull off.

Another cough. “Perhaps. Wait.” Words spoken, power gathered, and there was light in the darkness.

Thankfully it was weak, but I still found myself looking away. Amber-tinted darkness turned into a too-bright wine vault, the bricks and stone reflecting light almost as if they were mirrors, each one directed at my eyes. I blinked, squinted, and ducked my head farther into my shoulder.

Behind me, I heard Raaz crawl over to us, settle down on the opposite side of Fowler. He turned her to better face him. I realized I was holding her hand, and that doing so hurt like hell. My strained fingers didn’t like the idea of trying to hold on to anything just now. Screw them: I didn’t let go.

“It’s a single blow to the temple,” he rasped. “Very precise.”

I blinked against the light, not quite ready to turn around yet. “How bad?” I said.

Sounds of movement, a gasp from Fowler. Then, “I can’t tell.” Raaz spoke a series of low, broken words. The words were followed by a gust of cool air that made the hairs on my arm stand up.

I risked a look over my shoulder. A small magical flame flickered over the spilled lamp oil on the floor, floating just off the surface. Raaz was on his knees next to Fowler, leaning over her. Her hair had ice crystals in it now, and there was a thin coating of frost over the blood and swelling. As I watched, he ran his right hand over the wound, his fingers skimming the air just above her skin. Vapor filled the space between his skin and hers, and when he pulled away, the frost seemed thicker.

“That’s the best I can manage,” he said. “If she doesn’t wake up soon, I’d suggest a physician. Or even if she does. Head wounds.” He made a face.

“Find someone,” I said.

“There’s a charity hospital not too far away, founded by the despot’s twelfth son, Padishah Shar-”

“No,” I said. “Find someone who can glimmer her.”

“Where?” he said, looking pointedly around the room, his voice turning even more ragged. “My masters have other concerns right now, and there’s no saying the neyajin won’t return with help. We have to leave.”

He was right. Of course he was right. I shook my head, trying to clear away the post-fight comedown that seemed to be settling in faster than usual.

Between us, Fowler moaned and shifted on the floor, her hand pulling weakly against mine. I almost gasped in pain and decided to let go after all. I was amused to see that, even like this, her hand tried to find its way to where her knife hung at her belt.

“Fine,” I said. “Then take us to a Carver you trust.”

“A. .?”

“A surgeon,” I said. “Or a street physicker. Or even a barber. Someone who can check her over, at least.”

“I told you,” said Raaz. “There’s a hospital over-”

“No,” I said. “No Quack Shacks. I don’t want some mask-wearing herb crumbler cutting at Fowler while he burns incense and packs her wound with ground dog bones that he swears came from a griffin. I’ve seen enough of their shows to know the only thing they cure is their own empty pockets.”

“Quack Sha. .?” said Raaz. Then he barked a short laugh, which turned into a rough cough. Looking, I noticed a puckered grayish line running across. . no, around. . his neck that hadn’t been there before the lights went out. That explained his sudden change in voice. I tried to catch a brief glimpse of his hand, but it was hidden by his body. I got the feeling that wasn’t by accident.

“Listen,” said Raaz after the coughing had subsided, “I don’t know what you’re used to in your empire, but there are no dogs, or even their bones, in our hospitals. They’re a public duty-a requirement of the nobility to found, fund, and oversee.” Raaz leaned forward. “Do you think a great sheikh, let alone one of the despot’s sons, would let something he’s attached his name to bring shame upon him through poor practices? Do you think the physicians working there would risk the ire of their patron by failing in their duties? Fowler will be in better hands there than I can hope to provide here.”

I glowered at him for a moment. It wasn’t that I’d never heard of Djanese physickers, or even their hospitals, but they were more stories than reality in Ildrecca. Back home, unless you had the ready to pay for the best, hospitals were largely for dying in. Quacks and backdoor surgeons and, if you were lucky enough to suffer from plague or leprosy, the Sisters of the Benign Fellowship, were the options for most. A little more money might get you an apothecary or maybe a Cutter, and a fistful of hawks would buy their discretion along with the treatment. But true medical help? Honest physicking? Unless you happened to know the location of one of Margalit’s disciples, you were better off taking to the street than putting yourself on a cot at the local Blood Ken.

Hospitals were for either the rich or the desperate back home, and where you ended up depended on which category you fell under. Except, I had to keep reminding myself, this wasn’t Ildrecca. And we were desperate.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll try it your way.”

I stood and went to retrieve my rapier. As I bent down, a glint of silver in the shadows caught my attention. I tensed, then relaxed once I realized it was a blade lying on the floor.

It was a dagger-the assassin’s-finely crafted, with a gently forward-curving blade. The crosspiece was made of twisted metal, the steel pommel and bone handle echoing the spiral design of the guard. But what gave me pause was the blade itself: While it resembled a typical piece of forged and honed steel, when I picked it up, I saw what looked like shadow lingering along the inside of the curve.

I brought the blade back into the light. The shadow resolved itself into a faintly smoking line running along the steel. Metal slowly gave way to something else-a wavering, almost insubstantial other-that lingered where the edge should be. It was if the dagger were dissolving into its own shadow. . if that shadow could somehow exist without light or substance.

I looked from the dagger to the wall where the shadows of the magi had fallen, to Raaz and his still-hidden fingers. I pulled off my kaffiyeh, wrapped the dagger in it, and slid it into my boot.

I examined the wound on my arm as I walked back to Raaz and Fowler. It burned, but didn’t seem to be bleeding badly. A shallow cut. Good.

Raaz had gone back to staring at the wall and the knife groove it now sported. I left him be for the moment.

“Fowler?” I said, bending down beside her and touching her shoulder.

Her eyelids futtered. “Whum?” she said.

“I have to get you out of here. Can you sit up?”

“Hrmn tr,” she said, and began to sit up. I caught her a moment later as she fell back.

“Looks like you get to ride a prince,” I said as I shifted her and slid her over my shoulder. “Too bad. . Angels!. . it isn’t the way I’d like.”

“Fuf yh.”

She was small, but that didn’t make carrying her any easier. I was surprised to find myself staggering a bit as I straightened my knees and headed for the door. After one last look at the wall, Raaz got to his feet and followed me.

“I’m going to need some help going up,” I said.

“I wish I could, but. . ” He lifted his left arm slightly. Raaz had let his robe’s sleeve hang down, covering most of his hand, but I still managed to catch a glimpse of what looked like gray, curled flesh. I noted that the edges of his fingers seemed to drift in the breeze of his action, just like the edge of the dagger in my boot. He hid his hand quickly again, then opened the door.

“What the hell happened, anyhow?” I said, angling myself so that Fowler wouldn’t hit the doorway as I slipped through.

“A mistake,” croaked Raaz’s voice, already moving up the stairs. “A trap. A disaster. Take your pick.”

“I pick an actual fucking answer,” I said. I wrapped my left hand around the rope handrail that ran its way up the stairs, its length held in place by iron loops spaced along the wall. The trick, I knew, was going to be getting into a rhythm once I started. I held my position, waiting for Raaz to get farther along so I’d have a clear path up.

“And you deserve one,” he said. Then, after a moment, added, “As do I.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I can’t. . ah! She killed Turgay, left him lying in the doorway. She must have followed us here.”

“At least we know she wasn’t lying in wait,” I said, “which means you don’t have to worry about someone having whispered the location of the meeting.”

“Small comfort, but likely true.”

“What was she, anyhow?”

Dragging and grunting sounds drifted down from above. “An assassin,” said Raaz between grunts. “But a special breed.”

“How special?”

“Neyajin. It’s said they walk unseen in the night. They’re hard to find and harder to hire. To have one turn up here. .”

“I get the idea.” I settled Fowler more securely on my shoulder and began to half walk, half drag myself up the stairs. Unseen assassins-as if the regular kind weren’t bad enough. “She mentioned something about the despot’s chosen and Lions. What was she talking about?”

“Stories, mostly. Hen-tales and old fantasies best shared over sweet wine and briny olives.”

“Try me.”

“Very well.” Raaz cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice had changed timbre, resonating and rasping its way down to me with a storyteller’s rhythm. I recalled his performance on the street and wondered how much he did out of obligation to the despot, and how much came from his own personal enjoyment. “It is said that long ago, when the hands of the Seven Caliphs still held sway over the lives of men and the language of the djinn had not been forgotten, there were magi who knew how to take on certain aspects of the djinn and wear them as you or I might wear a garment.”

“Aspects?” I said.

“Abilities. Curses. Call them what you like. Borrowed powers, drawn from spirits of smoke and fire and brewed into mystic unguents. To apply these oils to different parts of your body was to take on a different aspect of various djinn for a day and a night: on the arms for strength, on the legs for flight, over the heart for fire or fear. Each djinni was different, meaning each use could vary. But with all of them, one thing was constant: Any who wore the aspect of a djinni gained the spirits’ ability of mystic sight.

“It’s said that only a handful of the greatest magi can craft the oils anymore, and that their efforts are but pale shadows of the magic that was. Where once a wearer could fly, now he can but leap a high wall; where a swordsman glistening with oil used to be able to stand off whole armies, now he is just that much faster than those he faces. Impressive, yes, but not the stuff of legend-if it ever was.”

“And the djinn sight?” I said as I looked up and saw the light shining through the door at the top of the stairs. Thank the Angels. My thighs were burning, and sweat was running down the inside of my shirt. The cut the Blade-the neyajin-had given me was beginning to ache from all the work my left arm was doing pulling on the rope of the handrail.

“A cat’s vision in the dark,” said Raaz. “The ability to see at night as others would during the day. Or so I’m told. Only the despot has access to the oils anymore, and he parcels them out sparingly. Rumors are cheap currency, especially among yazani, and especially at the despotic court. But I do know this: Where other assassins and spies have failed to get past those anointed with the unguent, one group succeeds. Not always, and not without loss, but of the handful of thieves and agents who have broached the despot’s various palaces, all have been said to be able to move unseen, even by the djinn’s sight.”

“The neyajin.”

“Even so. And now you understand my concern at her presence-and my appreciation of your achievement.”

“I got lucky is all,” I said as my eyes drew level with the door. Only a little farther, Drothe.

“Luck?” said Raaz. He was sitting on the steps on the opposite side of the small chamber-the ones that led out to the street. A bloody smear covered the short flight of steps on my side, ending at the body of Turgay, who lay in the depression between us. “I’d say it takes more than simple luck to fend off a neyajin in the dark.”

“Say whatever you want,” I said as I staggered through the doorway. “All I know is I had the longer blade and managed to put it in the right place at the right time.”

“Um,” said Raaz. His gaze was a little too searching, his tone a little too contemplative, for my comfort. I needed to change the subject.

“So,” I said, “how about you tell me what’s inside Jelem’s package that’s so damn important?”

That got him. The Mouth sat up and made a point of looking at anything but me. “What?” he said.

“You heard me.” I adjust Fowler’s drape across my shoulder and considered the blood-smeared steps before me. Damn, but it was hot in here. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and inched my foot forward, as if testing for thin ice. “If the neyajin are as rarified as you say, I can’t imagine she was there on my account. So what’s that leave us?”

“It’s tribal business,” said Raaz, a bit too quickly. “Or, at the least, tal related. Either way, to think that someone would pay the price demanded by a neyajin to steal a-”

“A what?” I said. “What happened here wasn’t about a blood feud, and we both know it. When you go hunting for vengeance, you do it with your own people, with your own hands. You want to see and feel and taste the blood, to make sure it was done right.” I’d spent enough time on Ildrecca’s streets, and seen enough vengeance in the Raffa Na’ir cordon back home, to know that there were certain values the Djanese and the Kin shared when it came to getting your own. “You don’t hire this kind of thing done-not if it matters. You stay in the clan.” You stayed in the organization.

Raaz didn’t answer.

My legs were trembling by now. I took another look at the steps, thought better of it, and bent down to ease Fowler off my shoulders.

“Ow,” she murmured as she half slid, half fell onto the steps. Then, softly, “Asshole.”

That was a good sign. I took a breath and sat down on the steps beside her, mindless of the blood. I turned my gaze back to Raaz.

“Listen,” I said, leaning forward and putting my elbows on my knees. My head felt loose. “We both know what happened down there was about more than me getting into the Old City. Shadow magic? Assassins? I’m not nobody, but that’s more of a party than I deserve, especially here. Which means it had to be something else, and the only other thing down there besides you, me, and Fowler was the package Jelem sent. So, what is it?”

He continued to look away.

“Secrets?” I said. No reaction. “Maps?” Nothing. I swallowed, now worried. “Glimmer?”

A flick of the yazani’s eyes, a tensing of his shoulders.

I felt my stomach go sour.

Shit!

There was only one kind of magic Jelem would be sending into Djan; one kind of swag that would warrant this much attention. In a place as steeped in magic as the Despotate, I could only think of one thing the empire had that anyone here would want when it came to glimmer. The empire’s secret weapon.

Imperial magic.

Angels! What had Jelem been thinking? No, scratch that. I knew what he’d been thinking: If anyone knew how to slip something across the border, it was me. I’d been smuggling imperial relics out of the empire for years-hell, the first time I’d met Jelem, it was when one of my early smuggling attempts had gone wrong and we’d been forced to hole up for three days while Imperial and Djanese border troops fought over who would get to kill us. He knew I knew how to move swag.

But to use me-me! — to smuggle Imperial glimmer into Djan; magic I’d given him in the first place. Magic the emperor was so jealous of he’d wiped out an entire cordon to keep it secret. Magic that, up until a few months ago, no one but the Imperial Paragons had ever studied, let alone known how to use. People had vanished over the years for thinking too hard about the damn stuff, never mind possessing it.

And here I was, walking around with some of it my pocket. Again.

Jelem, you bastard.

I raised a shaking hand and ran it through my hair.

“Are you all right?” Raaz was staring at me, a strange, blurry look on his face.

“No, I’m not all right,” I said. “I just found out I got used. Plus, I’m angry. And tired. And still don’t have a way to get my people into the Old City in a week’s time. But mostly, I’m angry.” I looked at my hand. “And tired.”

“No, not that,” said the yazani, still staring. He pointed. “I mean the cut on your forearm. How did you get it?”

“This?” I said, plucking at my bloody sleeve with my left hand. “I got it from the neyajin. I didn’t quite catch her blade in the dark and-”

“What?” said Raaz, leaping to his feet. Funny how I hadn’t noticed the stars trailing after his movements before this. “By the Wandering Family of-why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why?” I said. “It’s just. . ” I stopped, looked at the cut, then thought of my own poisoned blade in my wrist sheath. Of course. No wonder Fowler had seemed so damn heavy.

“Well, hell,” I slurred.

Then I passed out.