The God Catcher

SEVEN

"Let's go," Nestrix said. "It's dark."

"The sun just went down. Be patient," Tennora said, not breaking her concentration. She threw another carvestar. Thwack! It sank solidly into the back of her door. She took up another.

"You said to wait until it was dark. It's dark," Nestrix said. Tennora threw the carvestar. Thwack! "You'll ruin your door," Nestrix said. "Let's just leave now, and you can practice throwing them at the antiquary."

Tennora ignored her. She didn't intend to throw the carvestars at anyone. It was a hobby. It was something to keep her mind off Master Halnian's decision, to keep her mind off the fact that she'd been robbed twice that day.

Thwack!

To keep her mind off the fact that she was planning to commit a burglary in less than an hour.

Her aim had improved over the last few hours, and though she still occasionally lost her grip and sent a blade flying into the wall or the floor or the bookshelves behind her, Tennora's confidence had improved as well.

If someone did try and harm her, they'd be sorry…

No, she thought, tugging the carvestars loose. No and no. They would wait until night was good and settled before breaking in. She had practiced with the lockpicks on her own door until the placement of the pins was as easy as slipping into a familiar handshake. She knew plenty about spotting wards and spells. They would sneak in, sneak out, and no one would know they'd been there until the next morning.

She glanced over at Nestrix-the woman was so overcome with nervous energy she practically vibrated. How Nestrix had spent her day, Tennora still didn't know. The dragon had been in the apartment when she left and again when she came home, but she'd gained a good deal of information on where they were heading. And some boots.

"They feel strange," she'd complained. "All the toes are touching."

"You're probably unused to them still. Perhaps you should leave them here-"

"No," Nestrix had said, admiring the shiny black leather. "You said I was noticeable in bare feet. I can't be noticeable when we take the mask, right? So I wear them." By the charmed look on her face, Tennora suspected it had more to do with the fact that Nestrix liked owning something again.

"Don't you need to read your spellbook?" Nestrix said.

"I told you," Tennora said. "I'm not a wizard."

"And I'm not a knight," Nestrix countered. "But that doesn't mean I won't pick up a damned sword if I need to. Leave the door alone for an hour and learn your spells."

Nestrix had a point. It was better to be prepared. Tennora thought of her spellbook, nestled on its own shelf beside her bed. She hadn't opened it since being expelled. As she went to retrieve it, her stomach twisted with unease.

What was she so nervous about? She knew the spells-most of them. She had been confident-reasonably confident-about casting them less than two days before. Master Halnian's decision didn't change that.

Even so, her stomach flipped as she pulled her spellbook down.

"I need a little time," she said. She sat at the table and opened the book. Most of it was blank pages-pages that would probably never be filled, Tennora thought grimly.

She started with a few cantrips-simple spells she learned when she first began attending the House of Wonder. A spell to make light seemed useful; a spell to transport something through the air doubly so. They were so ingrained in her memory that Tennora wondered if she could forget them if she tried.

"I should tell you something," Nestrix suddenly said.

Tennora kept her eyes on the page. "Hmmm?"

"I…" Nestrix started, then sighed heavily through her nose. "I wanted to tell you that… this is a good thing you're doing."

Tennora looked up from her book, puzzled. "I beg your pardon? Breaking into a shop is a good thing?"

"No-that part's… irrelevant." She seemed to collect her thoughts and said, "Helping… with this… is… that is, I… appreciate what you're doing."

Tennora smiled. "Do you mean, 'Thank you, Tennora, for helping me'?"

Nestrix scowled. "Yes. That. Although I could do it myself. I'd just rather not."

"You're welcome," Tennora said.

Tennora chose another spell, mentally going through the steps that would bring power along the broken paths of the Weave and into being as small bursts of acid. A trickier spell-when it worked, it knocked Tennora's thoughts so far off kilter that she couldn't find the path to casting it again. But it was powerful destruction magic.

She knew plenty of spells, of course, that could be used to hurt others-but to be honest, she had never had cause to use them for such a purpose. Dummies, targets, and the back of her door were one thing. A person was quite another.

"One thing at a time," she muttered under her breath, and turned the page.

The antiquary's shop was deep in the Trades Ward, to the southwest of where the God Catcher slept. In the depth of the night, not a street or alley seemed to be in its right place. Every path seemed either to be too full of shadows and threats or too full of lights and watching eyes. Searching street signs and dodging meant it took the better part of an hour to find Jembril Street.

The Timehands rang the hour before deepnight.

Tennora's heart pounded as hard as the hammers on the bells, but thrice as fast, as she stood in the shadows across the street from Treasures of the Ages, a modest and neatly painted shop. A pair of enchanted lamps flickered heatlessly with a pattern that had nothing to do with the draft that blew down the way. The interior was faintly lit by the cool, unwavering light of a few glowballs.

"That's it?" Nestrix said almost reverently.

"Yes," Tennora said. She rubbed a thumb over the lumpy silhouettes of the lockpicks in the pack strapped to her belt. No one came in or out of the shop. No one moved in the light of the glowballs. They had no reason to turn back, she thought.

Nestrix started to cross the street, but Tennora caught her arm.

"Wait. We have to do this quickly," she said.

"What way is quicker than going now?"

Tennora scowled at her. "I'll do the door. You watch the street. If someone comes…" She licked her lips. "We can't be caught doing this."

"I am not stupid either," Nestrix said. "I'll watch. If someone comes, I'll take care of it."

They slipped through the light of the street lamp and into the shadows beside the door. Tennora let out a breath as she stepped back into the safety of the darkness.

I can still go back, she thought.

She stayed, pressed against the wall of the antiquary's shop, just out of the reach of the lamps. After this, she would be a criminal. Even if they never caught her, never suspected her, she would be a thief. If she didn't steal the mask, if she bolted and ran back to the God Catcher, she had a chance.

She glanced over at Nestrix.

Spells first, she thought, and slid into the light to face the door. The lock was heavy and brutally obvious-she hoped the spell was the same.

She reached out her senses and felt for the changes, the reorganization of the threads that would show her how the spell hung on the entry.

Nothing.

She waved her fingers over the doorway. Still nothing.

There was no ward on the door.

Tennora frowned and tried to feel for it again. The door was dead.

Anxiety trilled through her thoughts. A shop that sold antiques should have a ward or two in addition to the heavy lock. If Tennora couldn't sense one, perhaps the ward it had was stronger than she could detect… but detecting magic was something Tennora was actually quite good at. It would have to have been a massive, expensive spell. One the antiquary shouldn't have spent coin on.

So-which was more likely? The antiquary was wealthy and paranoid, or the antiquary was lax about the state of his or her wares?

She said a little prayer to the goddess of luck that it was the latter and slid the kit out from under her cloak.

Tennora slipped the turning tool out of its pocket and into the keyhole. Nothing tripped. Her hands shook and her fingers didn't want to keep hold of the pick. She gripped it in her fist and took a long slow breath.

Focus, she told herself, and slid the pick into the keyhole.

The lock was complicated. Eight pins, as far as she could feel, and they were set so straight that she worried there would be nothing to bind the tumblers. Tennora willed herself to relax, to stay steady as she lifted the pins one by one into their homes.

"Someone's coming," Nestrix whispered, and a second later footsteps rang on the cobbles. Tennora cursed under her breath, and her hands started shaking.

"Get into the shadows," Nestrix ordered.

"Just a moment," Tennora whispered back, as another pin clicked into place. "I'm so close."

"Now!"

"Distract him!" Another pin clicked into place. If she stood, Tennora would have to let go of the tension and lose all her progress. She scraped along the top of the keyhole, hunting for the last two pins. The first one rose and fell easily. Tennora swore and went for the second.

Nestrix growled. From the second pouch around her neck, she pulled a packet of greased paper. She turned it over, shaking the contents into her cupped hand.

The footsteps were getting closer. Tennora risked a glance back. A young man in a heavily embroidered cloak of amethyst purple was walking down the street, still several buildings down.

Nestrix looked down at her. "Appreciate this, dokaal," she said, and stepped around Tennora.

She tossed the powder she had held in her hand into the air above her. As it drifted down, the silvery motes caught the light before settling on their skin. Tennora's skin prickled, and she nearly dropped the tools to scratch it.

"Don't speak," Nestrix whispered. "He can still hear you."

Which was when Tennora realized she couldn't see Nestrix any longer. Where Nestrix had stood, there was no one and nothing but the cool night air. She was still there, however-her strong hand clasped Tennora's shoulder.

"Keep working."

Tennora lifted the pick with a sudden jerk. The second pin locked. She hissed.

The sound of the young man's footsteps stopped. Nestrix's grip tightened on her shoulder.

Tennora dared not move, dared not breathe. He came a few steps toward them. Nestrix's grip relaxed, as if she meant to have her hand free, and the smell of storms billowed off her.

Please, Tennora thought, run away.

"Ahoy?" the man said. "Coins bright? Is someone there?"

Neither woman spoke. The man stood there watching for what felt like an eternity. Tennora's hands cramped around the lockpicks.

He spat loudly and muttered a curse under his breath, before his footsteps continued off into the night.

Bless us, Tymora, Tennora thought, and let that be the worst we encounter.

"What was that powder?" she whispered to Nestrix as she released the tension on the tumblers just a hair.

"The last of the wizard's gifts."

The pin dropped, like a blessing from above, and Tennora eased a little more tension back into the tumbler. This time it clicked into place without much trouble. Tennora breathed a sigh of relief and, despite still wanting to cast a fireball at him, silently thanked Sovann for the lesson. She went after the last pin.

"What wizard?"

"The one in Cormyr," Nestrix said. "He wasn't using it."

Click. Tennora looked up at Nestrix, who was slowly fading back into sight. "It's not a gift if you take it."

"Fine," Nestrix said with a cold smile. "Spoils."

Inside the shop the walls were lined with iron cases set with panes of glass that revealed within golden bowls, chains, and goblets; jewel-studded collars and belts; and delicate statues of gods and kings. Faint light shone from a trio of caged glowballs, and the metal reflected it coldly.

"What in the-" Nestrix said. Tennora hushed her. Nestrix scowled. "There's something strange here," she whispered.

"A trap?"

"No," Nestrix said. "These treasures-"

"Then let it wait," Tennora whispered.

There was a door at the back of the shop-a heavy, windowless door. Tennora crept toward it, scanning the floor for inconsistencies.

Aha! There before the doorway-just where a person would have to kneel to pick the lock-the boards had been cut away in a square and reset. The edge blended into the grain and the grooves of the rest of the floor, but when Tennora felt gingerly along the suspected edge, there was the faintest gap around it. She bit her lip.

From the looks of it, pressure would set off the trap. She unrolled her kit and picked through the various tools until she found a stout rod with a tapered tip-not too unlike the turning tool. She wedged the tip under the edge of the panel and eased back. It lifted away from the floor. Tennora felt something tugging back on the panel-the mechanism beneath. From the way it didn't want to ride up more than a hairbreadth or so, the trap had to be connected fairly close to the edge.

"Nestrix," Tennora hissed. She couldn't let the panel fall, and she couldn't lever it up against the other side without chancing engaging the mechanism beneath. She glanced behind her. Nestrix stood before a display of brooches, making a face.

Tennora called her twice more before Nestrix looked up.

"We have to lift both sides of this." She shifted her weight enough to kick the open kit toward Nestrix. "Give me a hand."

Nestrix kneeled down beside her and picked out another stiff, tapered rod, a little slimmer than Tennora's. "Did you see those brooches?" she whispered.

"No," Tennora said. "Tell me later. I can't hold this up forever."

Nestrix harrumphed and slid around to the other side of the board. Tennora lowered her side-very slowly, very slightly-until Nestrix could jam the second wedge into the gap.

"Lift slowly," Tennora warned. Together they moved the panel out of its spot, until the bottom showed over the floor's surface.

Tennora tugged upward slightly-it was still attached to the trap beneath.

"Hrast," she swore under her breath. Without heavier pry bars, they wouldn't be able to remove it. She didn't dare let it drop back down-it would surely trip the mechanism. If they could only hold it there…

"Wait," Tennora said, eyeing the shape of the hole. "Hold it there." She pressed her thumb to one corner and pushed toward the side so that the panel turned around its center. The mechanism beneath squealed slightly, but it did not trip.

And the panel sat, balanced on its corners, stable and unmoving.

The door beyond was warded-as heavily as Tennora had expected and then some. She traced the pattern of the spell with her mind's eye. A complex, knotty ward. An alarm combined with a nasty and explosive burst of acid. And something else… though what wasn't clear. Just the fact that the spell veered ever so slightly into the frayed remnants of the Weave in a direction she didn't expect.

"This is going to take me a while," she whispered. "Look around and make certain we're alone."

Tennora felt her way through the first of the spell's defenses, smooth threads of magic retwined into a neat web. No matter what Master Halnian said, Tennora knew she was more than a mere dabbler. She sensed the effort in the spell, the care with which its caster had brought the broken magic together. She sensed the fragile points, the joining of one bit to the next-and with her own whispered spells, she teased loose the connections. First the alarms unhooked bit by bit. Sparks of green light spat and nipped her fingertips.

The trap was more complicated-the magic knotted and snarled around more compact spells. The shop, the treasures, the sound of Nestrix's footfalls as she paced the shop floor-all vanished in Tennora's mind, replaced by the spell that sang with the dirge of the dead goddess.

And for a moment, that song was Tennora. She smiled.

The spell shimmered and came undone. Tennora opened the door.

"Nestrix," she said. "We're in."

Gold, platinum, gems-the room beyond was no larger than Tennora's apartment, but shimmering treasures draped every inch. A shelf ran along three walls, heaped with sealed parchment and elaborately stamped books. There was a table in the center of the room, noticeable only for the regular shape of the pile in the middle.

Nestrix's eyes roamed the vault with unbridled greed. If she'd started salivating, Tennora wouldn't have been surprised. Falling to one knee, Nestrix ran a light hand over the glittering scales of a platinum-plated mermaid, entwined around a silver column.

"This one," she murmured. "I want this one."

"No," Tennora said. "We're looking for a mask, Aundra said."

"We could take this too. No one said only take the mask."

" I said it. We're not thieves."

"Of course. We're just people who take things but not other things," Nestrix said, but left the statue to search the piles of treasure for Aundra's mask.

Tennora shoved aside a stack of gold chains and a pile of rubies. What had Aundra said? A gold-feathered mask in a case.

"Don't you think this is peculiar?" Nestrix said.

"Later," Tennora said.

A moment later, Nestrix spoke again. "We should find the mask and get out."

Tennora fought the urge to snap at her. Hadn't she said that already? Of course, Nestrix didn't listen to anyone but Nestrix.

"You're right," she said. "Keep looking."

"We're not…" Nestrix started to say, but broke off with a frown at a pile of books and another of her distant stares.

The case lay beneath a bolt of silk and a shield emblazoned with a rearing griffon. It was flat, hardly thicker than her wrist, and made of a heavily waxed wood without any ornament. Tennora nearly discounted it out of hand, but not wanting to leave any stone unturned, she opened the case.

Nestled against a layer of watered silk lay the mask.

It was shaped like the face of a woman with full lips and a tapered chin. But instead of a smooth plane of skin, delicate feathers sculpted by a master's hand layered her cheeks and forehead. Tennora lifted it from the case. It was heavier than it looked, and as her hands closed on the mask she felt the trill of enchantment.

Tennora laid the mask back in the case and snapped it shut. "I have it," she said to Nestrix.

"Hsst!" Nestrix stood stock still, staring at the door like a dog that has sensed a robber's movement beyond. Tennora held perfectly still, listening for the sound that disturbed Nestrix's happy looting.

Nothing.

Nestrix made a sharp gesture for Tennora to get behind her. Tennora drew a pair of carvestars and held one ready to throw.

Still nothing.

"Come on," Nestrix murmured. She crept toward the door.

The shop beyond was silent as the grave.

They stood there, quiet and searching the gloom. Nothing but the shapes of the cabinets and cases. Not a sound but their own breath.

Nestrix eased out of the doorway, step by careful step. Tennora followed, careful to shift her weight gently across the floorboards.

A pale but steady light suddenly illumined the room from the far comer.

The silhouettes of four people stood out against the faint light, the edges of their weapons reflecting glimmers.

The light grew brighter, revealing two men carrying short axes and a woman with a sling. The man farthest away-the owner, by his well-cut suit and expensive gloves-held two knives so sharp they could have cut Tennora's gasp to ribbons.

"Well, well, well," he said. "What a pretty pair of thieves. You picked the wrong shop to break into, my little magpies."

"Run," Nestrix growled, and shoved Tennora away from the treasure room. She stumbled and scrambled toward the door.

Out of the darkness, a knife flew across Tennora's path-just inches from her throat. Blind instinct seized her, and Tennora twisted away from the blade, falling back to the ground behind a display of tarnished silver. She landed hard on one hip and glanced up at the knife, quivering in the framework of a cabinet.

Nestrix still stood a few steps from the treasure room. Between the tables and cabinets, Tennora could make out three of the men advancing. She pulled herself to her knees and over the top of the silver display, readied her carvestar in a shaking hand.

Just as Nestrix's dragonfear flooded the room.

Later, Tennora would wonder what had made the difference-before, had the dragonfear been an accident of Nestrix's mood? Had she really been angry? Had she ever been angry before that night in the antiquary's shop?

For out of nothing, terror wrapped an icy hand around Tennora's heart and she knew by the way the men froze stiff that it had them as well. She risked a glance at Nestrix. She had drawn herself up like a striking serpent. Her fingernails seemed sharp as blades, her bared teeth iron, her dark hair violent whips. Tennora shook to the core of her heart, watching as something terrible climbed out of her friend's skin-something that looked and sounded like Nestrix and not at all like Nestrix. Something that thundered and wailed like a windstorm with its very presence, and screamed for all of their blood.

"Who dares?" she said in a voice like the storm's. "Who dares threaten me?"

Tennora squeezed her eyes shut. It is Nestrix, she told herself. This isn't real. This is the dragonfear. Fight it, damn it. Fight it.

Trembling with adrenaline, she opened her eyes again and saw that the axe men were petrified where they stood. The slinger had collapsed.

The man with the knives clung to a post and watched Nestrix with astonishment plain on his face.

But not fear, no. If he'd felt it, he'd mastered it as Tennora had.

"Do not interfere in my business," Nestrix rumbled. "Flee, before-Ow!" She broke off as a knife caught her in the thigh. The dragonfear drained out of the room.

"Another player for the game?" the man with the knives said. He called to the others, "They seek to depose your master! Kill them!"

Tennora whipped the carvestar at the two axe men. It missed, but chimed against one's axe, taking his attention off Nestrix. He swung around toward Tennora with a wicked grin. So big he had to have ogre blood in him, he had little trouble wading over the displays. Tennora scuttled backward toward the door, fumbling for another carvestar.

Nestrix wrenched the blade from her leg and claimed it as her own-what little good it would do her against the axe, Tennora thought.

Her own attacker was closing in on her, his axe ready. Instead of the carvestar, she raised a hand.

"Ziastayix," she said, and sent two bolts of silver speeding toward the massive axe wielder. Both struck him, and he ducked down behind a row of cabinets, having learned his lesson.

A bullet from the sling retorted. The glass pane of the carved cabinet behind her shattered, sending splinters of glass into her path, and Tennora let out a shriek of surprise. The axe man took his chance and rushed her.

The words of a spell rose up quickly in her mind and flowed out of her mouth as her hands reached toward the axe man.

The spell flew from Tennora's hand, wobbling and spreading unevenly into a spider's web. It hit the man with the axe, wrapping his free arm and sticking to a column. Tennora sprinted past him toward Nestrix.

The edge of the axe caught her jacket and tore through the quilting, nicking the skin beneath. A shallow cut, but gods, it burned.

And bled. She pressed her left hand to the wound and felt a trickle of blood seeping through her fingers.

The momentary distraction slowed her down, and the man in the well-cut suit was suddenly between her and Nestrix. Without thinking, she threw the second carvestar.

It was utter luck that it caught him in the arm that held the knife. He cried out and clutched the wound. Tennora raised her hand, and a fireball bloomed from it. She cringed away, but the blaze still caught the edge of her sleeve.

Fortunately, she saw as she smothered the burning cuff with her cloak, the bulk of it had swept over the man with the knives, charring his leathers and throwing him backward. He fell against one of the heavy iron cabinets, and it toppled over, pinning him. He did not get up. Heart in her throat, she sped past him to Nestrix.

Nestrix ducked the axe that swept toward her neck. It lodged instead in the wall. She darted forward with the stolen knife and caught the man just under his collarbone, plunging the knife up to its hilt. He screamed and stumbled, trying to pull out the dagger. It wouldn't budge, caught against bone or gristle.

Tennora fell back a step at the sight. Blood spurted from the wound. Nestrix rounded on her, eyes sharp. She grabbed Tennora's arm and yanked her back into the doorway as another bullet whizzed past.

"There," she said, pointing into the darkness. "Spell!"

Tennora obediently raised a shaking finger. "Ziastayix." Two more bolts of silver shot across the room, briefly illuminating the woman with the sling before slamming into her.

The axe man fell to the floor, still bleeding, still trying to pull the dagger free. Blood wheezed from his mouth. The knife was in his lung.

Nestrix looked down at him, a puzzled expression on her face. She reached down and wrenched the man's head. His neck popped. His legs kicked once. Then he lay still and twisted.

"Oh gods," Tennora said. She took another step back toward the exit.

"Tennora!" Nestrix shouted.

The urn that had been on the iron cabinet caught under her feet and she fell backward over it.

Just as the blade of the broad-shouldered man's axe sliced through the air where she had been. It came down instead on the handle of his fellow's axe, snapping the haft. He hauled the heavy blade back up and turned to Tennora, trapped on the ground.

Nestrix snarled-a hideous, animal sound-and she picked up the broken half of the axe handle. With a roar, she tackled him, knocking him off his feet. The broken axe handle came down hard on his head, over and over again. Tennora scrambled to her feet. The man's skull cracked with a sound too like an egg's shell. Blood spattered against the tarnished silver.

Tennora grasped Nestrix's arm before the handle could come down again. "Come on!" she said. "While we have the chance!"

Nestrix looked up at her with an animal's incomprehension, as if she didn't know Tennora. As if she didn't know why she should stop beating in the man's head.

"He's dead," Tennora said, and her voice shook as she said it. She tugged hard on Nestrix's arm until Nestrix dropped the club.

"I…" Nestrix said, hesitantly. "I don't… We should go."

"Yes!" Tennora said. "Now! Please!" She pulled Nestrix to her feet and grabbed the case with the mask.

They ran off into the night.

Shattered glass glittered on the floor. The broken carcasses of more than one wooden cabinet lay splintered and spilling out their entrails of treasures. The ceiling sagged above the cracked column. His lackey's blood and brains clung to the better part of a set of silver.

Ferremo Magli surveyed the damage to the shop as Alina bound the wound on his arm. His knee-mangled and twisted by the fallen iron cabinet-would need a healer's touch. The pain was barely contained by the anesthetic potion he'd gulped down.

It was nothing compared to what his master would do if Ferremo didn't fix things.

Another dragon shouldn't have been there, rifling through his master's seed hoard. And yet there she'd been, clad as a beggar woman and ripping his men down with her dragonfear. He'd almost been swept away by it himself, but he'd had more practice rising above it than the others.

Her lovac — for what else could she be? — was something different. A wizard's spells one moment, a thiefs slippery weapons the next, nervous as a rabbit in a fox's den, and yet always a step ahead of the blades. Tennora, the dragon had called her.

Ferremo frowned. The name itched at the back of his mind in a way he found profoundly annoying. He knew the name-now where did he know it from?

Ferremo, a voice boomed through his thoughts and sent them scattering. Report to me.

"My lord," he said reverently. "There was a break-in indeed. We caught them-two women-coming out of the treasure room and-"

What have they taken? the voice snarled.

"I do not know yet, master. We'll find out soon, but there's something more. Something important."

There had better be. I presume you did not fail me lightly.

Ferremo winced. "No. It's…"

Speak!

"There seems to be another player in the game, my lord."

He quickly related the events of the evening, descriptions of the two women, and particularly of the tall one-the one who'd flooded the room with dragonfear and killed two of his men. "She's… playing on the edge of the rules."

How did this happen, Ferremo? His patron's tone was dangerous. Rogue player or not, no one was to know we've moved into Waterdeep. How did they find out?

Ferremo started to protest his ignorance-they had taken all possible precautions. But the memory that had itched in his mind earlier crawled to the front of his thoughts, and he checked himself. He remembered where he had heard the name Tennora, and Ferremo breathed a sigh of relief.

"I have a suspicion, my lord," Ferremo said.

Rhinzen Halnian woke from a dreamless sleep to the sound of a knife scratching on its sheath and the prick of a blade settling on his throat. Nerves nearly made him sit up, right into the blade, but a hand pressed against his forehead an instant sooner.

"Well met, Master Halnian," Ferremo Magli said with exaggerated grace. "Who's Tennora?" "What?" Rhinzen gasped. "Who?"

"Tennora," the assassin said. "You spoke her name this evening, and tonight a thief with the same name ruined my master's shop. So I ask again. Who. Is. Tennora?"

"Tennora? She's… she was my student."

Ferremo's smile peeled open past his copper canines. "I'm glad to hear that. Sets my heart at ease to know you're guilty before we get on with things."

"Guilty?" Rhinzen said. He was starting to feel a bit like a trained bird. "Guilty of what? Of letting my worst apprentice go?"

"You took my master's coin," Ferremo said, "and ran off to tell his plans to another taaldarax. We don't take well to that, Master Halnian." The edge of his blade traced the prominence of Rhinzen's throat.

"Wait…" Rhinzen said, starting to make sense of things. "You think I sent Tennora to rob you? Tennora Hedare?" Rhinzen laughed. "If I were going to cheat you, I certainly would have a better plan than that. That girl is North Ward, born and bred. Proper as a portrait. And she's terrible at magic."

"Good enough to throw fire in my face. And decent with a carvestar."

"Now I know you have the wrong girl. My Tennora would be more likely to throw a book at you." Rhinzen laughed again. The press of the knife cut him short. "Look," he said, "there are probably plenty of Tennoras-"

"But not plenty who know you. And certainly not plenty who run around with dragons."

"I'll tell you where she lives. You could go and see that it's certainly not the same girl. Though," he added, wetting his lips, "if it were, you would probably find the treasure and evidence of the… the dragon."

The knife edged away a hair. Ferremo seemed to be considering it, but given what he'd learned in the last few days, Rhinzen suspected the assassin was conferring with his monstrous patron. The distant look in the man's eyes gave him away.

The knife abruptly went back into its sheath. "Very well. Where does she live?"