The Adversary

Chapter Three

27 Eleasias, the Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR) Proskur

Farideh eyed the drinkers scattered through the taproom, marking the heavy cloaks, heavy boots, the thick skirts and padded jackets. Things were far, far worse than she’d imagined.

The cold-she’d figured it was the early morning, the higher altitude, being farther north. Maybe she shivered because she was a little ill from Sairché’s spell-she certainly didn’t feel well. But as they came down the slopes and the sun rose higher behind the clouds, the chilly air didn’t warm.

Maybe it’s just a cold snap, she thought, a strange bit of weather here and then forgotten. She said as much to Havilar. But then they’d reached Waterdeep and she saw the old snow packed against the buildings, the bits of melting ice hanging from their eaves.

Havilar didn’t seem to notice, her expression closed and her hands clinging tight to Farideh’s arm. If her thoughts had moved away from Brin, from her missing glaive, from poor Mehen left in Cormyr, she gave no sign at all. She moved as if she just wanted Farideh to get her to Tam so they could right everything again.

But could they right anything, Farideh wondered, if Sairché’s spell hadn’t merely moved them? If perhaps, it had snatched away a season when it was cast?

She couldn’t see another option, and it made her whole body jagged with fear and nerves. It was, inescapably, winter. Late winter. It was late winter and they were both frailer, thinner. And Sairché had cut their hair-to hide the loss of time? Five months, she thought, or six or seven or more? She had to find out before Havilar did, that was sure.

You will fix it, Farideh told herself. There is nothing so broken here you can’t find a way to fix it.

“Come on,” she said to Havilar, and pulled her up to the bar and the tavernkeeper. “Well met,” Farideh said. She swallowed and dropped her voice. “We need to see Master Zawad.”

The tavernkeeper’s expression was puzzled. She shook her head. “Don’t know him.”

Terror poured down Farideh’s bones. Calm, she told herself. They like their secrets. “He’s a friend,” Farideh said, “and it’s urgent. Please.”

“Can’t help you,” the tavernkeeper said. She cut her eyes to the left, to where a lean human with pale skin and freckles was watching without watching.

“Please we-”

“You going to order?” The tavernkeeper gave Farideh a pleasant smile, an empty smile.

“I need to talk to Tam, I need to talk to him right now.”

“Because if you’re not going to order,” she went on, “I think you ought to be on your way.”

“Gods damn it!” Farideh hissed. “I know he’s here! He’ll see us.” Or maybe he won’t, she thought, maybe he’s given orders to keep us away. Maybe he died. Maybe the Harpers moved. “He will,” she added softer, a plea. “He has to.”

The woman shook her head. “Don’t know who you mean,” she said, sounding apologetic. “Maybe you should try the Rusted Anchor.”

He wouldn’t be at any Rusted Anchor. If he wasn’t here, she had no idea where hewould be, and they would have no one who might help them find Mehen, find Brin. She squeezed Havilar’s hand. She reached for the necklace in the pouch at her belt-a bribe, maybe a bribe would do it. She said a silent apology to Lorcan.

“Farideh?”

She looked up to see a tall man with gray eyes and several days’ worth of stubble on his chin. He looked tired-so tired it took her a moment to recognize him.

“Dahl,” she said, almost a sigh of relief. The Harper agent had been assigned to Tam-he’d know where the priest was. If not, Dahl was the one who’d taught Farideh rituals. He knew the sending spells. He could help them. It would be all right.

But he was staring at her as if she were some terrible beast, risen up and asking politely about the weather. Her stomach clenched. They hadn’t parted angrily-she and Dahl had had their share of clashes, but things were settled enough between them. He had no reason to be angry at her.

Unless word had gotten back that she’d made a deal with Sairché. “Please,” she said. “Whatever Tam thinks we’ve done-”

“Nera,” Dahl said to the tavernkeeper, “I need a room. The griffon room. Send up. .” He shook his head and looked the twins over. Farideh shifted uncomfortably. “Bread, cheese, and some tea? And whiskey. A pot of it. Come on,” he said to Farideh, “I’ll take you to Tam.”

He led them to the stairs at the far end of the taproom, passing a petite woman with short dark hair. As they passed her, Farideh heard him whisper, “Go get Tam. This is the very next thing he needs to deal with.”

Farideh’s pulse was speeding. This was the next horrible step. They knew, they had to know. Her stomach churned, but she held tight to Havilar’s hand and pressed forward. What had happened had happened, she told herself. Now you just hear it and fix it.

But a little part of her was starting to worry that this time, there was too much to fix.

Dahl led them into one of the rooms. As they entered, Farideh felt the faint itch of a spell cast over it. There was a bed, a table with four chairs, and a writing desk with a soot-smudged painting of a griffon tearing into a sahuagin over it. Dahl opened the heavy curtains wider to let in more of the cold, bleached light. He lit candles. He moved the table out of the way. He wouldn’t look at Farideh again.

Farideh kept Havilar’s hand in a firm grip. When she found out that they’d lost half a year, she would be frantic. Furious. She wouldn’t understand the perils of the devils that could be after her, not right away. Farideh steeled herself for the inevitable fight.

Dahl finally ran out of things to fuss with and turned to the twins again.

“Do you want to sit?” he asked. “He’ll be a moment.”

Farideh would rather have stood, but Havilar dropped into a chair, and it was easier to land beside her, still holding her hand. She didn’t like the way Dahl was watching them. They couldn’t know about Sairché, she reasoned. Why would Brin tell the Harpers anything, after all?

“Thank you,” she said.

Dahl nodded absently. “Where have you been?” he asked after another interminable pause.

Farideh swallowed against the pulse in her throat. “It’s a long story.”

“What do you mean?” Havilar asked. “Where should we have been?”

“Well,” Dahl said carefully, “the last I heard. . people seemed to believe that you had died. On the way to Cormyr.”

Farideh drew a sharp breath. For Dahl to have heard would have taken time-time for Brin to give up, time for him to get to somewhere he could get a message to Waterdeep, time for that to filter down to Dahl.

She was right. Sairché had snatched them away. A whole summer, a whole winter just gone.

Havilar squeezed her hand tighter, and Farideh could not look at her. “Where did you hear that?” she asked. “How did you hear that? We’ve only been gone a month.”

Dahl eyed her again with a puzzled expression. “It’s longer, isn’t it?” Farideh said.

Dahl seemed to struggle to answer. “Yes.”

The door opened, and Tam entered, his irritation evident even beneath the patina of peace he exuded. Farideh’s heart stopped cold as he smiled pleasantly at Dahl. “I hear there’s something terribly important to-” Farideh stood up, and he stopped in his tracks.

When they’d left Waterdeep, the Calishite priest’s dark hair and beard had been liberally scattered with threads of gray. Now every hair on his head shone silver as his goddess’s emblem. That doesn’t happen in a few months, Farideh thought, her head spinning. The world felt as if it were closing down on her. Even Havilar noticed-she tensed, pulling her sister nearer.

“Shar pass us over.” Tam shut the door behind him, his eyes never leaving the twins. “You’re alive.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Havilar asked, sounding as if she dreaded the answer. “How long have we been gone?”

“She thinks it’s been a month,” Dahl said.

A pretty number, don’t you think? Sairché had said. I’ll protect you and your sister from death and from devils, until you turn twenty-seven. Farideh couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t slow her pulse. She looked at Tam, at Dahl, at Havilar. They weren’t just tired. They weren’t just thinner. It hadn’t been months. It can’t be, she thought. It can’t be.

“How long?” Havilar repeated, firmer.

“They turned up in the taproom,” Dahl said. “Nera had given the signal to throw them out.”

Tam shook his head. “Lucky timing.”

“How long,” Havilar demanded, “have we been gone?”

“It’s ten years,” Farideh said, hardly more than a whisper. She looked up at Tam, at Dahl. “It’s been ten years, hasn’t it?”

“Seven,” Dahl said, “and a half.” Farideh sat back down, all the blood draining away. That wasn’t better.

Havilar stared at Tam and Dahl, as if either might contradict Farideh, might say this was all a prank or a misunderstanding. They looked back, sadly.

She let out a breath, half a cry, and yanked her hand from Farideh’s. “Seven years,” she repeated. “Seven. Karshoji. Years.”

“I didn’t know,” Farideh said, shaking her head. She felt as if her whole body would turn itself inside out if she twisted wrong. “I didn’t think-”

“Of course you didn’t!” Havilar said. “You never think!”

There was a tap at the door-the tavernkeeper with the food. Dahl poured a few fingers of whiskey for each of the women, and some for himself. Farideh watched, feeling as if these things were happening on the other end of the world. When he handed her a glass, she took it with numb hands and only held it, cupped in her lap.

Every fiber of her being was coiled tight, vibrating with the knowledge of how badly she’d erred, how completely she’d destroyed so many lives, because Sairché was cleverer than she. Every bit of her hurt.

Only a tiny part of her mind clung screaming to the fact that seven and a half years meant her deal with Sairché wasn’t done. That she’d see Sairché again.

“All right,” Tam said, shaken. “All right. You’ll stay here. That’s easiest. We have healers. A wizard who can. . Right.”

Havilar drained her cup. “I want my own room.”

That drove the last of the air from Farideh. “What?” Havilar did not look at her.

“Of course,” Tam said. “You’ll need to answer questions. Be checked. We need to be sure this isn’t something bigger.”

“It’s not,” Farideh said, but she could hardly get the words out. “It’s only us.”

Tam sat down in the desk’s chair. “We need to make sure you’re well enough, too. I’ll stay with you.” He turned to Dahl. “Send for Mehen. Right now.” He hesitated before adding, “Brin too.”

Farideh clung to the cup as if it might be an anchor, and shut her eyes tight as the world started swimming. She had to fix this. She had to make Sairché fix what she’d wrought.

There were, Dahl thought, standing before the closed door, a hundred other things he could be doing. That sending to Everlund. Re-sorting the handler’s reports. Attempting to contact Sembia again. Get Tam an hour or so to get his hair cut and his beard trimmed. He took a mouthful of whiskey from the flask in his pocket, rubbed a thumb nervously over the card case in his hand, and then knocked anyway.

Khochen had been on him the very breath the door to the guest room had closed, but Dahl had brushed her off, unable to form an appropriate answer to any of her questions: Who are they? How do they know Tam? What’s going on? He couldn’t fathom the full answer to that last one in particular, even as Tam repeated the wizards’ and healers’ findings, the twins’ answers to the same questions.

“They’re remarkably healthy,” Tam said. “Aside from a little muscle weakness, a little slowness of the reflexes. Aside from losing seven and a half years of memories.”

“They just volunteered that it was a deal with a devil?” Dahl asked.

Tam studied his desk. “Could be worse, I’m sorry to say. At least it seems to be an isolated event, not some harbinger of a new invasion. Another front to the wars.”

Dahl held his response in-not wanting to disagree, not wanting to be wrong, not wanting to be right-until he was quite sure he might burst. “But why would a devil just set a person-set people aside for over seven years? There has to be more to it.”

“That I won’t doubt,” Tam said. “But it’s not either of their doing. Neither one has the sort of mark such evil leaves. Perhaps it was some kind of punishment.”

“Or a small step in a greater plan?” Dahl suggested. “I’m not saying she’s wicked, but you’re not going to argue in Lorcan’s favor.” He thought of the devil Farideh had an agreement with, the smirking human face he’d worn the last time Dahl had seen him, the last time Dahl had left a gift for Farideh. If Dahl was a prat, that one was a straight bastard.

Tam sighed. “I would argue he has moments of goodness, and I suspect he’s not the sort to lead an invasion of the mortal plane. But I wouldn’t trust him to black my boots, no.” He paused. “When will Mehen arrive?”

“The day after tomorrow. Earliest appointment for the portal.”

“So you have that long to tease anything useful out of them then,” Tam said. “Once Mehen’s here, I doubt he’ll let anyone near them for a time, and if you’re right. . well, it might be too late.”

“I don’t-” Dahl stopped himself and tried again. “Is that the wisest course? Surely there’s someone else. Someone they’re more likely to talk to.”

“You and I are the only souls in this building-maybe even in this whole city-who they know,” Tam had said, in a way that said he would hear no argument. “And as you are so fond of pointing out, I am terribly overextended. This is your task.”

This is my next failure, Dahl thought, standing in front of the door to Farideh’s room. His chest was a knot of guilt and fear and anger-a snarl of feelings all pulled up and pressed together into something new and unnameable and awful.

She hated me, he thought, considering the grain of the door. She convinced me to do things I still regret. Or did he have it all jumbled-did she try to save him and he scorned her? Was she more a herald bearing the god’s message than a devil sent to vex him? He couldn’t deny-not even in his worst moments-that he’d been the one to lead her into terrible dangers, that he’d had good reason to wonder if he bore a portion of the blame for her rumored death. But he thought surely he could remember Farideh laughing, smiling, talking in a serious but comradely way. So which way was he wrong?

After more than seven years, Dahl still wasn’t sure.

He was sure, however, that if he couldn’t get a little information out of someone he knew Tam would be right to throw him out of the Harpers. “Farideh?” Dahl called through the door. “Are you in?” There was no answer. She does remember, he thought. You were the worse one. He turned to go. Maybe Havilar was still awake.

The door cracked open, and Farideh peered out, her silver eye framed in the gap of the door. “Yes?”

A flood of fear rushed through him-without realizing, he’d been hoping she wouldn’t open the door. “Well met,” he said. She eased the door wider. Her face was red and swollen from crying-ah, gods. “I thought you should know. Mehen will be here the day after tomorrow.”

Whatever sorrow she’d pushed down threatened to burst free for a moment, but she looked down, overcame it. “Oh.”

Gods, don’t make her cry, he thought. “He’s well. If you’re worried about that. Not. . not a Harper. I think he thinks we’re all making things harder than they have to be.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I was surprised, when I first met him, you know? I didn’t know your father was a dragonborn.”

“Is he angry?” she asked, and in that moment, Dahl couldn’t imagine why he’d ever cast her as a devil.

“No,” he said gently. “Not at you, anyway.” He hesitated. “I assume. . he’s going to be mad at Lorcan.”

She gave him a strange look he couldn’t read. “Lorcan didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Oh. Well. . whoever it was,” Dahl said, “do you think they’re likely to come after you?”

Farideh shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have any idea what. . the devil wants? Why they took you? Why they brought you back?”

She swallowed hard. “I said before. I don’t know.”

Stop asking, he told himself. Just go. This is not the time.

He held the card case out instead. “Here. They’re Wroth cards,” he added as she took them from him. “I was trying to buy just a playing set. That’s what they had. They’re meant for fortune-telling, but you can divide the numbers and it will work.”

“Thank you,” she said, sounding reflexive.

“There’s a reason. I mean, do you know Deadknight?” he asked. She shook her head. “It’s a card game. You play it alone. When my father died. . It’s hard not to just sink into all that sadness. I was starved for things to distract me, to keep my hands occupied. I played a lot of Deadknight.” He stared at the case, all too aware of that sick, sad feeling creeping up on him. Whiskey worked a lot better than Deadknight these days. “I wished someone had told me about that. Before.”

“I don’t think cards will fix this,” she said, her voice catching.

“No,” he said. “They just make it easier to sort through. Slow it down.”

She blew out a heavy breath. “Give them to Havilar.”

He took the second deck from his pocket. “I have one for her too.”

She stared at him. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Dahl said and regretted it immediately. It might be what he wished someone had said to him, but it wasn’t what she needed to hear.

“Thank you for the cards,” she said after a moment, her voice softer, smaller. She turned the deck over in her hand. “Is there anything else? I’d. .” She swallowed again. “I don’t really want to talk.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Sorry. I’ll check back another time. But can I say-”

She slammed the door before he could finish and a moment later. . a heart-wrenching wail, muffled so he wouldn’t hear. Dahl shut his eyes and stood before the door, wanting so badly to be anywhere else, but finding a perverse penance in listening.

You didn’t cause this, he told himself. You couldn’t have. Whatever you regret, whatever you were afraid happened. .

He shouldn’t have stayed so long. He should have left her alone. At least, he thought, as he went to Havilar’s room, he hadn’t managed to apologize-that had been a foolish plan.

His life had gone on, snarled and frayed as it was, but hers had stopped. He tried to imagine what it felt like-if it was anything remotely like how it felt to have fallen.

Gods, he thought as he knocked on Havilar’s door, either no more whiskey or enough to shut you up. Two makes you maudlin.

Havilar wasn’t much happier to see him. She took the cards as if they were some sort of trap. “Brin is coming too. Isn’t he?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Dahl said. That might smooth things over and it might start everything up again. “Do you want to talk about what happened, before they-”

“My pothac sister made a deal with a devil,” Havilar interrupted. “That’s what happened.”

“What did the devil have you do in exchange?”

Havilar scowled. “I didn’t do anything but get sucked into her stupid decisions. This aithyas isn’t my fault.”

“I wasn’t blaming you,” Dahl said.

“Well, don’t. Go bother Farideh. She’s the one who has to fix this mess.” Havilar slammed the door in his face.

Dahl sighed. You still have tomorrow, he told himself. He could show them each the rules to Deadknight, get them talking. He wandered back down the stairs, through the twisting corridors. He was already dreading it.

The sound of an off-key lute drifted through the hallway and he stopped beside a small alcove, where two battered chairs faced each other. Khochen had draped herself across one.

“Are you going to tell me?” Khochen asked, not looking up from her instrument.

“Tell you what?”

“The tiefling. The one with the odd eye.” She plucked a string, frowning as she tweaked the pins to raise the pitch. “Although, I’m curious about the other one too. She just seems to be less interesting, when it comes to you.”

“Oghma’s bloody paper cuts, Khochen,” Dahl said. “Stop trying to invent me a love life you can gossip about.”

She raised her eyebrows as she adjusted another string. “I didn’t say love life.”

“But were you about to. Honestly-say no and I’ll owe you an ale.”

Khochen looked up at him and smiled. “What’s her name?”

“Farideh,” he said. “And Havilar. They’re. . they know Tam. And one of the Suzail agents.”

“And you.”

“And me,” he agreed. “It’s not that interesting, I promise.”

“Don’t tell me what’s interesting,” Khochen chided. “If she hadn’t gotten into a shouting match with Nera, I would’ve guessed they were agents, maybe you were assigned together at some point. You and Tam both hopped-to, casting sendings and summoning the wizards, not even once suggesting this is a trick of Shade or Thay or Vaasa or who-in-the-Hells-can-even-predictanymore, so she’s-”

“They’re,” Dahl said.

“-someone you trust and care a little about. If she weren’t a tiefling, I’d guess old lover and be done.”

Dahl rolled his eyes. “There we are. She’s not. Not even close.”

Khochen waggled her fingers at him. “You say that, but you’re loitering around her room with gifts?”

“I got both of them gifts.”

“I’ll spare you the obvious ribbing about twins,” Khochen said dryly, and Dahl scowled. “I’ve never heard of you going for anything more complicated than a half-elf, so it’s not that.”

“It’s not that, because I said it’s not that.”

“So I’m left with two options,” Khochen went on. “Either your mother had a tumble with a devil-child at some point and those are your misbegotten sisters, or you have a very good story you’re not sharing with me. And I know you’ll tell me your mother is practically Chauntea come to mortal flesh.” Khochen patted the seat beside her. “So do you want to tell me, or shall I just keep guessing?”

Dahl stayed standing. “It’s personal.”

“Everything is personal with you, Dahl. That’s part of your problem.” When he didn’t speak, Khochen rolled her eyes. “I figured out about Oghma and your fall,” she said. “I’ll figure this out too.”

“Please don’t,” he said.

“You’re upset,” she said. “So you’re feeling guilty, I suspect. Embarrassed. It’s old, because you’re not angry-and you, poppet, stay angry a long time. You’ve had time to cool off and realize this might actually have been your fault and not hers or the world’s. Which means it’s something rather bad, isn’t it? Accidental though-you can be thoughtless but never cruel.”

“Stop.” But Dahl knew there would be no stopping Khochen, and his heart was too close to the surface to ignore. He dropped into the opposite seat. “Look, it’s complicated. It’s terribly complicated, and embarrassing, and it’s not for gossip, all right?”

Khochen’s brown eyes met his. “I’ll trade you,” she said solemnly. “I’ll tell you something personal, and you tell me this.”

Dahl snorted. “Be serious. You’ll tell me some fancy full of shocking details that I can’t verify-or won’t dare to. Nothing’s personal with you, Khochen.” He sighed. “Which is probably quite wise of you.”

“Poor Dahl,” she said. She regarded him a long moment. “I’ve started sleeping with Vescaras.”

Dahl waited for the jest, the sly mockery to come. But Khochen watched him, as if she’d done no more than remark on the possibility of finding currants in the market this time of year.

“You have not.”

“Have so,” she said. “You know how it is-you carry out a mission, you get to talking, one thing leads to the next. Naturally, we’ve agreed it’s no one’s business but ours-Tam would have opinions. Vescaras’s family would rather he settle down. And I lose a certain amount of. . effectiveness if my network gets word I take a man who wears silk smallclothes to my bed and he leaves keeping all his coin.” She snickered as Dahl looked away. “But,” she added, “now it’s your business too. So trade me.”

Dahl tried to tell her that wasn’t fair, he hadn’t agreed. He tried to tell her that wasn’t such a terrible secret, not worth his own. He tried to ask her what in the world she saw in Vescaras.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “I didn’t know. I should have kept my tongue about him.”

Khochen waved him off. “Oh, why? You’re not sleeping with him. Come on, out with it. Or I’ll start telling you more personal things.”

“Gods.” Dahl rolled his eyes. “Shortly after I joined the Harpers,” he said. “They assigned me to Tam, and. . I don’t think I ever got the full story, but he was watching out for the twins. Only I convinced Farideh to go to this revel. And the host-do you remember Adolican Rhand?”

Khochen frowned. “The mission that-” She bit off what she’d been about to say, a skip so quick and subtle anyone else might have missed it. But Dahl knew what she meant: the mission that broke you.

“-you were on before you were pulled into the house?” she finished. “What was the twist? Something unpleasant.”

“Four bodies,” Dahl said quietly. “Mutilated coin lasses. And an apprentice.” He’d found the apprentice, the freshest victim, himself, and he never had shaken the memory. She’d been one of the sources Rhand was playing him through. If he’d been quicker, if he’d found out Rhand had been feeding him false information sooner, she, at least, might have survived.

“Right.” Khochen shuddered. “You ever catch him?”

“No. He’s still in Shade for all we know. Untouchable. Seven years ago, he held a revel,” he said, “and he’d invited Farideh. He’d marked her, I suppose. She was afraid, and I needed to get into that revel. Tam was going to do something dangerous, and we were going to lose the artifacts we needed to get ahold of-I thought.” He rubbed his forehead, the tension that rose there. “I convinced her it was safe, and then as soon as I walked away, Rhand drugged her. If I hadn’t dragged her off. .”

Khochen was quiet a moment. “He liked to take pieces unevenly, as I recall. A hand. A foot. Some fingers. Let them bleed out eventually.”

It wasn’t until they’d found those bodies years later, that he’d realized what a terrible set of cards he’d dealt her. And then there were the scraps of rumors about what had happened to the twins-and no one could say, only that they’d disappeared on the road to Suzail-well within reach of Adolican Rhand.

“I wasn’t nice to her,” he said, “even after, although she was just as bitter with me. I just sort of decided she was exactly what you’d expect a tiefling to be-wicked and sharp-tongued and not half as clever as they seem. She embarrassed me once, in front of Tam, and not on purpose and that was it, I-”

“You don’t have to describe it,” Khochen said mildly. “I’ve seen you with Vescaras.”

But it was not the same as Vescaras. If Vescaras pointed out Dahl’s shortcomings, it was to put him in his place. But when Farideh had called him out-told him he thought he was so smart but that every other word out of his mouth was another assumption that wasn’t fair-she’d been right.

And it had made Dahl wonder if that was why he had fallen from Oghma’s grace, if perhaps he hadn’t failed at one of the many strictures of paladinhood but done something more fundamentally opposed to Oghma’s doctrine. For the first time in the years since he’d lost his place as one of the God of Knowledge’s paladins, Dahl had an idea of what he could remedy.

But it hadn’t been enough, and the world had yanked Dahl around like an errant hound as he tried to find the answer. He’d started to curse Farideh for even putting the thought in his head-wasn’t it just like her to get under his skin like that?

He’d nearly given up, nearly decided that he’d wasted time and energy on utter nonsense that some tiefling girl out of the mountains had poured in his ear.

And then Oghma spoke to him.

But after that, it had been the Church of Oghma’s turn to speak, and Dahl had lost his hope, his future, his father’s respect, all in one awful year. And part of him still traced the thread of heartbreaks back to a mission in the Nether Mountains and to a tiefling girl whom he couldn’t stop fighting with.

Who is she? Khochen had asked. A devil, an angel, an ally, an antagonist, a symbol, a nightmare? I don’t know, Dahl thought. I don’t know.

“So your secret shame,” Khochen said, “is that you were a smug, reckless hardjack to someone and you feel bad about it?”

“More or less,” Dahl said.

“Hmmph. That’s less interesting than I expected. I don’t think it’s worth my secret.”

She said it light and teasing, as if she meant to lighten his burden. But it wasn’t so minor-through Farideh, Dahl had lost his last hope at returning to the Church of Oghma and his faith in his skills as a Harper. The urge to prove the Oghmanytes wrong, to find the answers and regain his standing, still rose up in him from time to time-but that was what ale was for, after all. His old mentor, Jedik, sent letters, now and again, and Dahl relegated them all to a box beneath his dresser, not sure enough to burn them, hurt enough to never read them.

If Khochen said a single, witty word about any of that, he would never speak to her again.

So Dahl only smiled. “You’ll just embellish it to be more interesting, anyway.” He stood and headed toward the taproom.

“You don’t think,” Khochen called, starting another little tune on her lute, “that there’s something odd here?”

Dahl turned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s awfully convenient that this girl-these girls-that you and Tam cared about and grieved for have suddenly turned up, in the taproom of the Harper Hall, hale and whole but in need of care and comfort?”

“You think she’s someone’s agent?”

Khochen shrugged. “I think if she’d turned up looking for anyone else, you’d be the first to suggest it.” She frowned and tweaked one of the tuning pins. “At least, you would’ve a few years ago.”

Dahl hesitated. The thought had crossed his mind-he’d pushed it aside when he’d seen how sure Tam had been, when no one who’d examined the twins had noticed anything amiss. “It’d be a clever plan,” he said. “But all you have is that.”

“All I’m saying is you ought to keep an eye on them. Especially the warlock.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” Khochen looked up at him, as serious as he’d ever seen her. “Because truly, I would have guessed that little gesture-if she’s not some sweetheart you’re trying to win back-was that of a man trying to absolve himself. Trying to walk away. Which does sound like you, right now.”

Dahl gritted his teeth. Every urge to run from the overwhelming embarrassment that wrapped him like an invisible cloak at the sight of Farideh seemed to turn solid and unavoidable in his thoughts. “I know what I’m doing,” he said tensely.

“Good,” Khochen said, cheerful once more. “Did I hear you say ‘Mehen’ was coming? As in Lord Crownsilver’s bodyguard?”

“They’re his daughters,” Dahl said, still smarting.

“Interesting,” Khochen said. She strummed the lute. “You’ll have to introduce me.”

“Of course,” Dahl said. “ ‘Meet Khochen, she’s the one who started a rumor about your daughter, the Shadovar spy.’ ”

“ ‘And her torrid affair with the Shepherd’s secretary,’ ” Khochen finished cheekily. “If you’re going to tell tales, tell good ones.”

Dahl scowled at her. “Give my regards to Lord Ammakyl. And never tell me about his smallclothes again.” He turned and went down to the taproom, trying hard to ignore Khochen’s laughter.

Farideh had no sense of how long it took for the swell of grief to pass, only that it had wrung her dry. She sat up and wiped her eyes-hoping dearly no one had heard-and found Sairché standing on the other side of the small room.

“I see you discovered my little ruse,” she said.

Farideh lunged at the cambion, all fury and instinct. She felt the surge of Sairché’s shield go up, but it provided no more resistance than a stinging across her knuckles as she slammed a fist into the other woman’s jaw. Sairché’s head snapped back and Farideh’s hand exploded with pain. She didn’t care. She aimed another, more thoughtful strike at Sairché’s throat, but before it connected the shield flared again. The magic pushed back, yanking her arm against the socket and throwing her off balance. Farideh fell backward to the floor.

Sairché pressed a hand to her bleeding and rapidly swelling lip. “You little bitch,” she said, half-marveling.

“Seven years!” Farideh cried, tears streaming anew down her cheeks. “You stole seven years of my life, destroyed my sister, broke my father’s heart. And then you sent us off, without a word of what you’ve done? You’re lucky I only hit you, you miserable tiamash.”

Sairché’s golden eyes seemed to simmer. “Maybe next time you’ll think about that before you throw around insults.” Her cruel smile returned. “And really, if you think about it, it’s closer to eight years.”

Much as Farideh would have liked to tackle the devil again, to lash out and drive some of the anger out of her heart, the shield was still there, shimmering faintly. She clutched her bruised knuckles.

“Why?” she said softer.

Sairché picked Dahl’s case of cards up off the floor. “Do you play cards, Farideh?” she asked, sliding the deck out. “You cannot lay just any old suit, any value down. You must think ahead, plan for what you will need.” She fanned the painted cards out. “This fortunately is not a game of cards, and so I can keep my best plays in my pocket and take them out when they are needed. Much better than laying everything out at the start or waiting for someone else to force my hand.”

“Havilar is not yours to play!”

“Not yet. But she and I haven’t gotten to know each other yet.”

“If you go near her, I swear, I’ll-”

“What? Strike me? Throw more bolts at my shield? I’ve had all this time to prepare for your little tantrums. There is nothing you can do to me.”

“Yet,” Farideh said. “You haven’t seen what I have to play.”

Sairché laughed. “Do you want a game? Fine. The next move is yours-two days to yourself. Go ahead. Figure this out. Undo our deal.”

“Then what?”

“Then it’s my turn again.” She gave Farideh a wicked smile. “And I’ll collect on my favor.”

“I owe you nothing,” Farideh said. “You didn’t keep your end-”

“I always keep my ends up,” Sairché said. “Protect you until you’re twentyseven, isn’t that what I said? And did any devil in the Hells give you the slightest trouble these last years? Hmm? No. Not a one. And I fully intend to hold to that until the Marpenoth after this. Full circle.” She sneered. “You owe me a pair of favors, make no mistake. And I’ll collect the first in two days.”

Farideh swallowed. “And if I refuse?”

“Then your soul is mine,” Sairché said.

“You said my soul wasn’t on the table!”

“I said it wasn’t the price,” Sairché corrected. “And it’s not: it’s the forfeit. You don’t carry out your end of our deal, I get your soul. That’s standard practice-I shouldn’t have to specify that.”

Farideh’s heart hung in her chest like a lead weight. If there were a way around Sairché’s deal, a secret path through the phrasing she could exploit, Sairché had already had seven and a half years to find it. Seven and a half years, and a lifetime of the machinations of the Hells. She was born to this, Farideh thought. You were not.

But that didn’t mean she could stop hunting for the answer.

“What if you fail to keep your end?”

Sairché’s expression grew stony. “Then I have my own punishments. Trust me-I won’t fail. And neither,” she added, “will you.”

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not with her soul in the balance. Not with Havilar to protect. Unless. .

“What would you take. . What would I have to do to take it all back?” she asked. “To go back. Even. . even just Havilar. If you could just put her in Proskur when-”

“I doubt even the gods would grant that deal,” Sairché said. “Much as I’d love to strike a bargain. Time isn’t to be toyed with.”

Farideh looked down at her lap. “Tell me what you’ve done with Lorcan.”

Sairché reached over and patted her cheek. “Poor girl. He has a lot of other warlocks to worry about. Maybe he’s just washed his hands of you?” She chose a ring off the necklace and slipped it over her finger. A portal opened in the air behind her, leaking fumes of brimstone and ash. “Do cheer up,” she said, before backing into the portal. “There are plenty of people in worse straits than you.”

Is it the waters of the Fountains of Memory that make the air so cold? Or is it the magic that holds them? Farideh leans over the stone basin, watching her breath curl like the unearthly fog had that first day and asks the apprentices if they know. The wizards eye her and then each other, as if they can’t decide whether it’s their place to make her leave. The brown-bearded one finally offers that it’s both-the source is frigid, the magic keeps it so. Farideh takes a pinch of the blue petals from the bowl beside the waters and crushes it into a powder that smells like heavy perfume and bitter roots as she watches the look his peers give him-they don’t know what to do with her at all.

Let them think she’s charmed by the Fountains of Memory. The fortress won’t give up its secrets, its master hides away, and the guards only smirk as she searches-the apprentices might not be so cautious. Or maybe the waters will have the answers. But not this first time.

The first vision she summons is for her own satisfaction, her own penance. The crushed petals dissolve into the clear water, lending it a momentary murkiness before the waters reflect a dragonborn man sitting in a prison cell-her father, Clanless Mehen. He has been there for two months, most of the summer. They’ve taken his armor and the falchion he prizes for reasons Farideh knows he pretends are entirely practical. The Crownsilvers have imprisoned him for kidnapping their secret scion, even though nothing of the sort has happened.

A guard stands off to the left, beside a woman with a dark bob and a stiff back, her tabard marked with the symbols of her family and her god. Mehen glares at the knight of Torm, as if waiting for an answer.

“If he doesn’t return,” Constancia Crownsilver says, “then. . we will have to decide what to do with you.”

“Clever plan,” Mehen says. “Are you going to keep me here? Feed and clothe me? Or are you going to get out the executioner’s axe for a crime you know I didn’t commit?”

“Do I know that?” Constancia asks coolly.

Mehen snorts. “Fine. You don’t know it. But your god does. How about that?”

Constancia scowls at Mehen. “He’ll come back. He’s a good boy.”

A commotion comes from where the waters don’t show-both turn to look off to the left, Constancia’s hand on her sword. Farideh hears the sound of the guard apologizing and apologizing. “Your aunt commanded it,” he explains. Constancia’s perfect brows raise and the relief on her face is clear.

“And I command you let him out,” Brin says in a voice Farideh has only heard him use once or twice-something that will grow into imperiousness given proper exercise. “No one kidnapped me, you plinth-head.” He steps into view. “Unlock this cell.”

“Where are my girls?” Mehen says, unmoved by Brin’s changed demeanor. The answer is in Brin’s drawn expression, his ragged clothes. It hurts to look at him, but Farideh keeps watching.

“Hail and well met,” Constancia says. “Where are your manners, Aubrin? You can’t just countermand Helindra.”

“You want me to stay here more than the next few breaths, yes I can.” He looks up at his cousin. “I think Helindra will be pleased I remember I have something she wants. Open the stlarning cell.”

“Where,” Mehen says, almost a roar, “are my daughters?”

And every ounce of imperiousness is gone from Brin’s face. He is young, painfully young, and Farideh’s heart aches thinking of what he’s done: he’s bought Mehen’s freedom with his own-shackling himself to his scheming family once more-not only because Mehen deserves to be free but because no one else in all the world can help him figure out what to do now.

“They’re gone,” he says, and Farideh shuts her eyes. She cannot watch the rest.