The Lies of Locke Lamora

1

“NINETEEN THOUSAND,” SAID Bug, “nine hundred and twenty. That’s all of it. Can I please kill myself now?”

“What? I’d have thought you’d be enthusiastic about helping us tally the loot, Bug.” Jean sat cross-legged in the middle of the dining area in the glass cellar beneath the House of Perelandro; the table and chairs had been moved away to make room for a vast quantity of gold coins, stacked into little glittering mounds that circled Jean and Bug, nearly walling them in completely.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be hauling it home in tyrins.”

“Well, white iron is dear. Nobody’s going to hand out five thousand crowns in it, and nobody’s going to be dumb enough to carry it around like that. Meraggio’s makes all of its big payouts in tyrins.”

There was a rattling noise from the entrance passage to the cellar; then Locke appeared around the corner, dressed as Lukas Fehrwight. He whipped his false optics off, loosened his cravats, and shrugged out of his wool coat, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor. His face was flushed, and he was waving a piece of folded parchment affixed with a blue wax seal.

“Seventy-five hundred more, my boys! I told him we’d found four likely galleons, but that we were already having cash flow problems-bribes to be paid, crews to be called back and sobered up, officers to be placated, other cargo-shippers to be chased off…And he just handed it right over, smiling all the while. Gods. I should’ve thought this scam up five years ago. We don’t even have to bother setting up fake ships and paperwork and so forth, because Salvara knows the Fehrwight part of the game is a lie. There’s nothing for us to do except relax and count the money.”

“If it’s so relaxing, why don’t you count it, then?” Bug jumped to his feet and leaned backward until his back and his neck made a series of little popping noises.

“I’d be happy to, Bug.” Locke took a bottle of red wine out of a wooden cupboard and poured himself half a glass, then watered it from a brass pitcher of lukewarm rainwater until it was a soft pink. “And tomorrow you can play Lukas Fehrwight. I’m sure Don Salvara would never notice any difference. Is it all here?”

“Five thousand crowns delivered as twenty thousand tyrins,” said Jean, “less eighty for clerking fees and guards and a rented dray to haul it from Meraggio’s.”

The Gentlemen Bastards used a simple substitution scheme for hauling large quantities of valuables to their hideout at the House of Perelandro. At a series of quick stops, strongboxes of coins would vanish from one wagon and barrels marked as common food or drink would roll off on another. Even a decrepit little temple needed a steady infusion of basic supplies.

“Well,” said Locke, “let me get rid of poor Master Fehrwight’s clothes and I’ll give you a hand dumping it all in the vault.”

There were actually three vaults tucked away at the rear of the cellar, behind the sleeping quarters. Two of them were wide Elderglass-coated shafts that went down about ten feet; their original purpose was unknown. With simple wooden doors mounted on hinges set atop them, they resembled nothing so much as miniature grain-storage towers sunk into the earth and filled to a substantial depth with coins of every sort.

Silver and gold in large quantities went into the vaults; narrow wooden shelves around the periphery of the vault room held small bags or piles of more readily useful currency. There were cheap purses of copper barons, fine leather wallets with tight rolls of silver solons, and small bowls of clipped half-copper bits, all of them set out for the rapid taking for any scam or need one of the gang might face. There were even little stacks of foreign coinage; marks from the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows, solari from Tal Verrar, and so forth.

Even back in the days of Father Chains there had been no locks on these vaults or on the room that held them. This was not merely because the Gentlemen Bastards trusted one another (and they did), nor because the existence of their luxurious cellar was a closely guarded secret (and it certainly was). The primary reason was one of practicality-not one of them, Calo or Galdo or Locke or Jean or Bug, had anything they could conceivably do with their steadily growing pile of precious metal.

Outside of Capa Barsavi, they had to be the wealthiest thieves in Camorr; the little parchment ledger set aside on one of the shelves would list more than forty-three thousand full crowns when Don Salvara’s second note was turned into cold coin. They were as wealthy as the man they were currently robbing, and far wealthier than many of his peers.

Yet so far as anyone knew, the Gentlemen Bastards were an unassuming gang of ordinary sneak thieves; competent and discreet enough, steady earners, but hardly shooting stars. They could live comfortably for ten crowns apiece each year, and to spend much more than that would invite the most unwelcome scrutiny imaginable, from every authority in Camorr, legal or otherwise.

In four years, they’d brought off three huge scores and were currently working on their fourth; for four years, the vast majority of the money had simply been counted and thrown down into the darkness of the vaults.

The truth was, Chains had trained them superbly for the task of relieving Camorr’s nobility of the burden of some of its accumulated wealth, but had perhaps neglected to discuss the possible uses of the sums involved. Other than financing further theft, the Gentlemen Bastards really had no idea what they were eventually going to do with it all.

Their tithe to Capa Barsavi averaged about a crown a week.

2

“REJOICE!” CRIED Calo as he appeared in the kitchen, just as Locke and Jean were moving the dining table back to its customary position. “The Sanza brothers are returned!”

“I do wonder,” said Jean, “if that particular combination of words has ever been uttered by anyone, before now.”

“Only in the chambers of unattached young ladies across the city,” said Galdo as he set a small burlap sack down on the table. Locke shook it open and perused the contents-a few lockets set with semiprecious stones, a set of moderately well-crafted silver forks and knives, and an assortment of rings ranging from cheap engraved copper to one made of threaded gold and platinum, set with flecks of obsidian and diamond.

“Oh, very nice,” said Locke. “Very likely. Jean, would you pick out a few more bits from the Bullshit Box, and get me…twenty solons, right?”

“Twenty’s good and proper.”

While Locke gestured for Calo and Galdo to help him set chairs back in place around the dining table, Jean walked back to the vault room, where there was a tall, narrow wooden chest tucked against the left-hand wall. He threw back the lid on its creaky hinges and began rummaging inside, a thoughtful expression on his face.

The Bullshit Box was filled to a depth of about two feet with a glittering pile of jewelry, knickknacks, household items, and decorative gewgaws. There were crystal statues, mirrors in carved ivory frames, necklaces and rings, candleholders in five kinds of precious metal. There were even a few bottles of drugs and alchemical draughts, wrapped in felt to cushion them and marked with little paper labels.

Since the Gentlemen Bastards could hardly tell the Capa about the true nature of their operations, and since they had neither the time nor the inclination to actually break into houses and clamber down chimneys, the Bullshit Box was one of the pillars of their ongoing deception. They topped it off once or twice a year, going on buying sprees in the pawnshops and markets of Talisham or Ashmere, where they could get whatever they needed openly. They supplemented it only slightly and carefully with goods picked up in Camorr, usually things stolen on a whim by the Sanzas or secured by Bug as part of his continuing education.

Jean selected a pair of silver wine goblets, a pair of gold-framed optics inside a fine leather case, and one of the little wrapped bottles. Clutching all of this carefully in one hand, he then counted twenty small silver coins off a shelf, kicked the Bullshit Box shut, and hurried back out to the dining room. Bug had rejoined the group and was ostentatiously walking a solon across the knuckles of his right hand; he’d mastered the trick only weeks previously, after long months of watching the Sanzas, who could each do both hands at once, reversing directions in perfect unison.

“Let us say,” said Jean, “that we have had a somewhat slothful week. Nobody expects much from second-story men when the nights are wet like this anyway; we might look out of place if we haul in too much. Surely His Honor will understand.”

“Of course,” said Locke. “Quite a reasonable thought.” He reached out and took the felt-wrapped bottle for close examination; his handwritten label identified it as sugared milk of opium, a rich ladies’ vice made from dried Jeremite poppies. He removed the label and the felt, then tucked the faceted glass bottle with its brass stopper into the burlap sack. The rest of the loot followed.

“Right! Now, is there any speck of Lukas Fehrwight still clinging to me? Any makeup or mummery?” He stuck out his arms and twirled several times; Jean and the Sanzas assured him that he was entirely Locke Lamora for the moment.

“Well, then, if we’re all our proper selves, let’s go pay our taxes.” Locke lifted the sack of “stolen” items and tossed it casually to Bug; the boy yelped, dropped his coin, and caught the sack with a muffled clatter of shaken metal.

“Good for my moral education, I suppose?”

“No,” said Locke, “this time I really am just being a lazy old bastard. At least you won’t have to work the barge-pole.”

3

IT WAS the third hour of the afternoon when they set out from the Temple of Perelandro, via their assorted escape tunnels and side entrances. A warm drizzle was falling from the sky, which was neatly divided as though by some ruler and stylus of the gods-low dark clouds filled the north, while the sun was just starting downward in the bright, clear southwest. The pleasant scent of fresh rain on hot stone welled up everywhere, briefly washing the usual city miasmas from the air. The Gentlemen Bastards gathered once again at the southwestern docks of the Temple District, where they hailed a gondola-for-hire.

The boat was long and shallow and heavily weathered, with a freshly killed rat lashed to the bow spar just beneath a small wooden idol of Iono; this was allegedly a peerless ward against capsizing and other misfortunes. The poleman perched at the stern like a parrot in his red-and-orange striped cotton jacket, protected from the rain by a broad-brimmed straw hat that drooped out past his skinny shoulders. He turned out to be a canal-jumper and purse-cutter of their acquaintance, Nervous Vitale Vento of the Gray Faces gang.

Vitale rigged a mildewy leather umbrella to keep some of the drizzle off his passengers, and then began to pole them smoothly east between the high stone banks of the Temple District and the overgrown lushness of the Mara Camorrazza. The Mara had once been a garden maze for a rich governor of the Therin Throne era; now it was largely abandoned by the city watch and haunted by cutpurses. The only reason honest folk even ventured into its dangerous green passages was that it was the heart of a network of footbridges connecting eight other islands.

Jean settled in to read from a very small volume of verse he’d tucked into his belt, while Bug continued practicing his coin manipulation, albeit with a copper-piece that would look much less incongruous in public. Locke and the Sanza brothers talked shop with Vitale, whose job, in part, was to mark particularly lightly guarded or heavily loaded cargo barges for the attention of his fellows. On several occasions, he made hand signals to concealed watchers on shore while the Gentlemen Bastards politely pretended not to notice.

They drew close to Shades’ Hill; even by day those heights were steeped in gloom. By chance the rain stiffened and the old kingdom of tombs grew blurred behind a haze of mist. Vitale swung the boat to the right. Soon he was pushing them southward between Shades’Hill and the Narrows, aided by the current of the seaward-flowing canal, now alive with the spreading ripples of raindrops.

Traffic grew steadily thinner and less reputable on the canal as they sped south; they were passing from the open rule of the duke of Camorr to the private dominion of Capa Barsavi. On the left, the forges of the Coalsmoke district were sending up columns of blackness, mushrooming and thinning out beneath the press of the rain. The Duke’s Wind would push it all down over Ashfall, the most ill-looking island in the city, where gangs and squatters contended for space in the moldering, smoke-darkened villas of an opulent age now centuries past.

A northbound barge moved past on their left, wafting forth the stench of old shit and new death. What looked to be an entire team of dead horses was lying in the barge, attended by half a dozen knackers. Some were slicing at the corpses with arm-length serrated blades while others were frantically unrolling and adjusting bloodstained tarps beneath the rain.

No Camorri could have asked for a more appropriate match for the sight and stink of the Cauldron. If the Dregs were poverty-racked, the Snare disreputable, the Mara Camorrazza openly dangerous, and Ashfall dirty and falling apart, the Cauldron was all of these things with a compound interest of human desperation. It smelled something like a keg of bad beer overturned in a mortician’s storage room on a hot summer day. Most of this district’s dead never made it as far as the pauper’s holes dug by convicts on the hills of the Beggar’s Barrow. They were tipped into canals or simply burned. No yellowjackets had dared enter the Cauldron save in platoons even before the Secret Peace; no temples had been maintained here for fifty years or more. Barsavi’s least sophisticated and restrained gangs ruled the Cauldron’s blocks; brawlers’ taverns and Gaze dens and itinerant gambling circles were packed wall to wall with families crammed into ratholes.

It was commonly held that one in three of Camorr’s Right People were crammed into the Cauldron-a thousand wasters and cutthroats bickering endlessly and terrorizing their neighbors, accomplishing nothing and going nowhere. Locke had come out of Catchfire, Jean from the comfortable North Corner. Calo and Galdo had been Dregs boys prior to their stay in Shades’ Hill. Only Bug had come out of the Cauldron, and he had never once spoken of it, not in the four years he’d been a Gentleman Bastard.

He was staring at it now, at the sagging docks and layered tenements, at the clothes flapping on washlines, soaking up water. The streets were brown with the unhealthy haze of sodden cookfires. Its floodwalls were crumbling, its Elderglass mostly buried in grime and piles of stone. Bug’s coin had ceased to flow across his knuckles and stood still on the back of his left hand.

A few minutes later, Locke was privately relieved to slip past the heart of the Cauldron and reach the high, thin breakwater that marked the eastern edge of the Wooden Waste. Camorr’s maritime graveyard seemed positively cheerful by comparison once the boat had put the Cauldron to its stern.

A graveyard it was; a wide sheltered bay, larger than the Shifting Market, filled with the bobbing, undulating wrecks of hundreds of ships and boats. They floated hull-up and hull-down, anchored as well as drifting freely, some merely rotting while others were torn open from collisions or catapult stones. A layer of smaller wooden debris floated on the water between the wrecks like scum on cold soup, ebbing and resurging with the tide. When Falselight fell, this junk would sometimes ripple with the unseen passage of creatures drawn in from Camorr Bay, for while tall iron gates shuttered every major canal against intrusion, the Wooden Waste was open to the sea on its south side.

At the heart of the Waste floated a fat, dismasted hulk, sixty yards long and nearly half as wide, anchored firmly in place by chains leading down into the water; two at the bow and two at the stern. Camorr had never built anything so heavy and ungainly; that vessel was one of the more optimistic products of the arsenals of distant Tal Verrar, just as Chains had told Locke many years before. Wide silk awnings now covered its high, flat castle decks; beneath those canopies parties could be thrown that rivaled the pleasure pavilions of Jerem for their decadence. But at the moment the decks were clear of everything but the cloaked shapes of armed men, peering out through the rain-Locke could see at least a dozen of them, standing in groups of two or three with longbows and crossbows at hand.

There was human movement here and there throughout the Waste; some of the less damaged vessels housed families of squatters, and some of them were being openly used as observation points by more teams of hard-looking men. Vitale navigated through the twisting channels between larger wrecks, carefully making obvious hand gestures at the men on guard whenever the gondola passed them.

“Gray King got another one last night,” he muttered, straining against his pole. “Lots of twitchy boys with big murder-pieces keeping an eye on us right now, that’s for damn sure.”

“Another one?” Calo narrowed his eyes. “We hadn’t heard yet. Who got it?”

“Tall Tesso, from the Full Crowns. They found him up in Rustwater, nailed to the wall of an old shop, balls cut off. His blood ran out, is what it looked like.”

Locke and Jean exchanged a glance, and Nervous Vitale grunted.

“Acquainted, were you?”

“After a fashion,” said Locke, “and some time ago.”

Locke pondered. Tesso was-had been-garrista of the Full Crowns; one of Barsavi’s big earners, and a close friend of the capa’s younger son, Pachero. Nobody in Camorr should have been able to touch him (save only Barsavi and the Spider), yet that damned invisible lunatic calling himself the Gray King had touched him in no uncertain terms.

“That’s six,” said Jean, “isn’t it?”

“Seven,” said Locke. “There haven’t been this many dead gods-damned garristas since you and I were five years old.”

“Heh,” said Vitale, “and to think I once envied you, Lamora, even with this tiny little gang of yours.”

Locke glared at him, willing the puzzle to come together in his head and not quite succeeding. Seven gang leaders in two months; all of them given the distance, but otherwise having little in common. Locke had long taken comfort in his own lack of importance to the capa’s affairs, but now he began to wonder. Might he be on someone’s list? Did he have some unguessed value to Barsavi that the Gray King might want to end with a crossbow bolt? How many others were between him and that bolt?

“Damn,” said Jean, “as if things needed to get more complicated.”

“Maybe we should take care of…current business.” Galdo had shifted against the side of the gondola and was looking around as he spoke. “And then maybe we should get lost for a while. See Tal Verrar, or Talisham…or at least get you out, Locke.”

“Nonsense.” Locke spat over the side of the boat. “Sorry, Galdo. I know it seems like wisdom, but do the sums. The capa would never forgive our running out in his desperate hour. He’d rescind the distance and put us under the thumb of the most graceless pig-hearted motherfucker he could find. We can’t run as long as he stays. Hell, Nazca would break my knees with a mallet before anyone else did anything.”

“You have my sympathy, boys.” Vitale shifted his pole from hand to hand, using precise shoves to warp the gondola around a chunk of debris too large to ignore. “Canal work ain’t easy, but at least nobody wants me dead for more’n the usual reasons. Did you want me to leave you at the Grave or at the quay?”

“We need to see Harza,” said Locke.

“Oh, he’s sure to be in a rare mood today.” Vitale began poling hard for the northern edge of the Waste, where a few stone docks jutted out before a row of shops and rooming houses. “The quay it is, then.”

4

THE PAWNSHOP of No-Hope Harza was one of the major landmarks of the reign of Capa Barsavi. While there were many shops that paid slightly more and a great many with less surly proprietors, there were no others located a bare stone’s throw from the very seat of the capa’s power. Right People cashing in their creatively acquired loot with Harza could be sure that their presence would be reported to Barsavi. It never hurt to reinforce the impression that one was an active, responsible thief.

“Oh, of course,” said the old Vadran as Jean held the barred and armored door open for the other four Gentlemen Bastards. “Figures only the least important garristas would dare show their faces on a day like this. Come in, my ill-looking sons of Camorri bitches. Rub your oily Therin fingers on my lovely merchandise. Drip water on my beautiful floors.”

Harza’s shop was always closed up like a coffin, rain or shine. Dusty canvas sheets were drawn over the narrow, barred windows; and the place smelled of silver polish, mildew, stale incense, and old sweat. Harza himself was a snow-skinned old man with wide, watery eyes; every seam and wrinkle on his face seemed to be steadily sliding toward the ground, as though he’d been shaped by a slightly drunk god who’d pressed the mortal clay just a little too far down. No-Hope had earned his moniker with his firm policy against extending credit or loaning coin; Calo had once remarked that if he ever took an arrow in the skull he’d sit around and wait for it to fall out on its own before he’d pay a physiker for so much as a gauze scrap.

In the right-hand corner of the shop a burly, bored-looking young man with cheap brass on all of his fingers and greasy ringlets hanging in his eyes shifted his position on the tall wooden stool he occupied. An iron-studded club swung from a loop at his belt, and he nodded slowly at the visitors, unsmiling, as though they were too stupid to comprehend his function.

“Locke Lamora,” said Harza. “Perfume bottles and ladies’ smallclothes. Tableware and drinking goblets. Scraped and dented metal I can’t sell to anyone with any class ever again. You breakers and second-story boys think you’re so clever. You’d steal shit from a dog’s asshole if you had the right sort of bag to bring it home with you.”

“Funny you should say that, Harza, because this bag here”-Locke plucked the burlap sack from Bug’s hands and held it up-“happens to contain-”

“Something other than dogshit; I can hear it jingling. Give over and let’s see if you accidentally brought in anything worth buying.”

Harza’s nostrils flared as he opened the sack and slid it along a leather pad atop his shop counter, gently spilling the contents. The appraisal of stolen goods seemed to be the only form of sensual gratification left to the old man, and he dove into the task with enthusiasm, long crooked fingers wiggling.

“Crap.” He lifted the three lockets secured by Calo and Galdo. “Fucking alchemical paste and river agates. Not fit for goat feed. Two coppers apiece.”

“Harsh,” said Locke.

“Fair,” said Harza. “Yes or no?”

“Seven coppers for all three.”

“Two times three is six,” said Harza. “Say yes or go twist a shark’s balls, for all I care.”

“I suppose I’ll say yes, then.”

“Hmmm.” Harza perused the silver goblets Jean had selected from the Bullshit Box. “Dented, of course. You idiots never see a pretty silver thing you don’t want to stuff inside a scratchy fucking bag. I suppose I can polish them and send them upriver. One solon three coppers apiece.”

“One solon four per,” said Locke.

“Three solons one copper total.”

“Fine.”

“And this.” Harza picked up the bottle of opium milk, unscrewed the cap, sniffed, grunted to himself, and sealed the vial once again. “Worth more than your life, but I can’t hardly do much with it. Fussy bitches like to make their own or get an alchemist to do it for them; they never buy premixed from strangers. Maybe I can pass it off on some poor fucker that needs a vacation from grapes or Gaze. Three solons three barons.”

“Four solons two.”

“The gods wouldn’t get four and two from me. Morgante himself with a flaming sword and ten naked virgins yanking at my breeches might get four solons one. You get three and four and that’s final.”

“Fine. And only because we’re in a hurry.”

Harza was keeping a running total with a goose quill and a scrap of parchment; he ran his fingers over the small pile of cheap rings from Calo and Galdo and laughed. “You can’t be serious. This crap is as welcome as a pile of severed dog cocks.”

“Oh come on…”

“I could sell the dog cocks to the knackers, at least.” Harza flung the brass and copper rings at the Gentlemen Bastards one by one. “I’m serious. Don’t bring that crap around; I’ve got boxes on boxes of the fucking things I won’t sell this side of death.”

He came to the threaded gold and platinum ring with the diamond and obsidian chips. “Mmmm. This one signifies, at least. Five solons flat. Gold’s real, but the platinum’s cheap Verrari shit, genuine as a glass eye. And I crap bigger diamonds five or six times weekly.”

“Seven and three,” said Locke. “I went to pains to get that particular piece.”

“I have to pay extra because your ass and your brains switched places at birth? I think not; if that were the case I’d have heard about it before. Take your five and consider yourself lucky.”

“I can assure you, Harza, that nobody who comes to this shop considers himself particularly…”

And so it went-the apparently summary judgment, the two-way flow of abuse, the grudging assent from Locke, and the gnashing of the old man’s remaining teeth when he took each item and set it down behind the counter. In short order Harza was sweeping the last few things he had no interest in back into the burlap sack. “Well, sweetmeats, looks as though we’re quits at sixteen solons five. I suppose it beats driving a shit-wagon, doesn’t it?”

“Or running a pawnshop, yes,” said Locke.

“Very amusing!” cried the old man as he counted out sixteen tarnished silver coins and five smaller copper discs. “I give you the legendary lost treasure of Camorr. Grab your things and fuck off until next week. Assuming the Gray King doesn’t get you first.”

5

THE RAIN had faded back to a drizzle when they emerged from Harza’s shop, giggling to themselves. “Chains used to claim that there’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated,” said Locke.

“Gods, yes.” Calo rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “If we were any freer we’d float away into the sky and fly like the birds.”

From the northern edge of the Wooden Waste, a long, high wooden bridge, wide enough for two people, ran straight out to the capa’s water-bound fortress. There were four men on guard at the shore, standing around in the open with weapons clearly visible under their lightweight oilcloaks. Locke surmised there would be at least as many concealed nearby, within easy crossbow shot. He made the month’s proper hand signs as he approached with his gang behind him; everyone here knew each other, but the formalities were nonnegotiable, especially at a time like this.

“Hullo, Lamora.” The oldest man in the guard detail, a wiry old fellow with faded shark tattoos running up his neck and his cheeks all the way to his temples, reached out; they grasped left forearms. “Heard about Tesso?”

“Yeah, hullo yourself, Bernell. One of the Gray Faces told us on the way down. So it’s true? Nailed up, balls, the whole bit?”

“Balls, the whole bit. You can imagine how the boss feels about it. Speaking of which, Nazca left orders. Just this morning-next time you came by she wanted to see you. Said not to let you pay your taxes until she’d had a word. You are here for taxes, right?”

Locke shook a little gray purse; Jean’s twenty solons plus Harza’s sixteen and change. “Here to do our civic duty, indeed.”

“Good. Not passing many folks for any other reason. Look, I know you’ve got the distance and Nazca’s a friend and all, but maybe you want to take it real easy today, right? Lots of pezon around, obvious and not so obvious. Tight as it’s ever been. Capa’s making inquiries with some of the Full Crowns right now, as regards their whereabouts last night.”

“Inquiries?”

“In the grand old fashion. So mind your manners and don’t make any sudden moves, right?”

“Savvy,” said Locke. “Thanks for the warning.”

“No trouble. Crossbow bolts cost money. Shame to waste them on the likes of you.”

Bernell waved them through, and they strolled down the wooden walkway, which was about a hundred yards long. It led to the stern of the wide, motionless vessel, where the timbers of the outer hull had been cut away and replaced with a pair of iron-reinforced witchwood doors. Another pair of guards stood here, one male and one female, the dark circles under their eyes plainly evident. The woman knocked four times at their approach, and the doors swung inward just a few seconds later. Stifling a yawn, the female guard leaned back against the outer wall and pulled the hood of her oilcloak up over her head. The dark clouds were sweeping in from the north, and the heat of the sun was starting to fade.

The reception hall of the Floating Grave was nearly four times Locke’s height, as the cramped horizontal decks of the old galleon had been torn out long ago, save for the upper castle and waist decks, which now served as roofs. The floor and walls were coffee-colored hardwood; the bulkheads were hung with black and red tapestries on which shark’s-teeth border patterns were embroidered in gold and silver thread.

A half dozen bravos stood facing the Gentlemen Bastards, crossbows leveled. These men and women wore leather bracers and leather doublets over silk tunics reinforced with light metal bands; their necks were girded with stiff leather collars. A more genteel foyer would have been decorated with glow-lamps and flower arrangements; the walls of this one held wicker baskets of crossbow quarrels and racks of spare blades.

“Ease up,” said a young woman standing behind the gaggle of guards. “I know they’re suspicious as hell, but I don’t see a Gray King among ’em.”

She wore men’s breeches and a loose black silk blouse with billowing sleeves, under a ribbed leather dueling harness that looked to have seen more use than storage. Her iron-shod boots (a taste she had never lost) clicked against the floor as she stepped between the sentries. Her welcoming smile didn’t quite reach all the way to her eyes, which darted nervously behind the lenses of her plain, black-rimmed optics.

“My apologies for the reception, loves,” said Nazca Barsavi, addressing all the Bastards but placing a hand on Locke’s left shoulder. She was a full two inches taller than he was. “And I know it’s cramped in here, but I need the four of you to wait around. Garristas only. Papa’s in a mood.”

There was a muffled scream from behind the doors that led to the inner chambers of the Floating Grave, followed by the faint murmur of raised voices-shouts, cursing, another scream.

Nazca rubbed her temples, pushed back a few stray curls of her black hair, and sighed. “He’s making a vigorous case for…full disclosure from some of the Full Crowns. He’s got Sage Kindness in there with him.”

“Thirteen gods,” said Calo. “We’re happy to wait.”

“Indeed.” Galdo reached into his coat and pulled out a slightly soggy deck of playing cards. “We can certainly keep ourselves entertained out here. Indefinitely, if need be.”

At the sight of a Sanza brother offering cards, every guard in the room took a step back; some of them visibly struggled with the idea of raising their crossbows again.

“Oh, not you bastards, too,” said Galdo. “Look, those stories are all bullshit. Everyone else at that table was just having a very unlucky night…”

Past the wide, heavy doors was a short passage, unguarded and empty. Nazca slid the foyer doors closed behind herself and Locke, then turned to him. She reached and slicked back his wet hair. The corners of her mouth were turned down. “Hello, pezon. I see you haven’t been eating.”

“I eat regular meals.”

“You should try eating for quantity as well as consistency. I believe I once mentioned that you looked like a skeleton.”

“And I believe I’d never before seen a seven-year-old girl pushy drunk in public.”

“Well. Perhaps I was pushy drunk then, but today I’m just pushy. Papa’s in a bad way, Locke. I wanted to see you before you saw him-he has some…things he wishes to discuss with you. I want you to know that whatever he asks, I don’t want you to…for my sake…well, please just agree. Please him, do you understand?”

“No garrista who loves life has ever tried to do otherwise. You think I’m inclined to walk in on a day like today and deliberately twist his breeches? If your father says ‘bark like a dog,’ I say ‘What breed, Your Honor?’”

“I know. Forgive me. But my point is this. He’s not himself. He’s afraid now, Locke. Absolutely, genuinely afraid. He was morose when Mother died, but damn, now he’s…he’s crying out in his sleep. Taking wine and laudanum every day to keep his temper in check. Used to be I was the only one not allowed to leave the Grave, but now he wants Anjais and Pachero to stay here, too. Fifty guards on duty at all times. The duke’s life is more carefree. Papa and my brothers were up shouting about it all night.”

“Well, ah…look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you with that. But just what is it you think he’s going to ask me?”

Nazca stared at him, mouth half-open as though she were preparing to speak; then she seemed to think better of it, and her lips compressed back into a frown.

“Dammit, Nazca, I’d jump in the bay and try to blackjack a shark if you wanted, really, but you’d have to tell me how big it was and how hungry it was first. Savvy?”

“Yes, look, I just…it’ll be less awkward if he does it himself. Just remember what I said. Hear him. Please him, and you and I can sort things out later. If we get a later.”

“What do you mean, ‘If we get a later’? Nazca, you’re worrying me.”

“This is it, Locke. This is the bad one. The Gray King is finally getting to Papa. Tesso had sixty knives, any ten of which were with him all the time. Tesso was deep into Papa’s good graces; there were big plans for him in the near future. But Papa’s had things his way for so long I…I can’t rightly say if he knows what to do about this. So he just wants to fold everything up and hide us here. Siege mentality.”

“Hmmmm.” Locke sighed. “I can’t say that what he’s done so far is imprudent, Nazca. He’s-”

“Papa’s mad if he thinks he can just keep us all here, locked up in this fortress forever! He used to be at the Last Mistake half the nights of the week. He used to walk the docks, walk the Mara, walk the Narrows any time he pleased. He used to throw out coppers at the Procession of the Shades. The duke of Camorr can lock himself in his privy and rule legitimately; the capa of Camorr cannot. He needs to be seen.”

“And risk assassination by the Gray King?”

“Locke, I’ve been stuck inside this fucking wooden tub for two months, and I tell you-we’re no safer here than we would be bathing naked at the dirtiest fountain in the darkest courtyard in the Cauldron.” Nazca had folded her arms beneath her breasts so tightly that her leather cuirass creaked. “Who is this Gray King? Where is he? Who are his men? We don’t have a single idea-and yet this man reaches out and kills our people at leisure, however he sees fit. Something is wrong. He has resources we don’t understand.”

“He’s clever and he’s lucky. Neither of those things lasts forever; trust me.”

“Not just clever and lucky, Locke. I agree there are limits to both. So what does he have up his sleeves? What does he know? Or who? If we are not betrayed, then it must be that we are overmatched. And I am reasonably certain that we are not yet betrayed.”

“Not yet?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Locke. Business could go on after a fashion with Papa and myself cooped up here. But if he won’t let Anjais and Pachero out to run the city, the whole regime will go to hell. The garristas might think it prudent for some of the Barsavis to stay here; they’ll think it cowardice for all of us to hide. And they won’t just talk behind our backs; they’ll actively court another capa. Maybe a pack of new capas. Or maybe the Gray King.”

“So, naturally, your brothers will never let him trap them here.”

“Depends on how mad and crazy the old man gets. But even if they stay free to roam, that’s only the lesser part of the problem solved. We are, again, overmatched. Three thousand knives at our command, and the ghost still has the twist on us.”

“What do you suspect? Sorcery?”

“I suspect everything. They say the Gray King can kill a man with just a touch. They say that blades won’t cut him. I suspect the gods themselves. And so my brothers think I’m crazy.

“When they look at the situation all they see is a regular war. They think we can just outlast it, lock the old man and the baby sister up and wait until we know where to hit back. But I don’t see that. I see a cat with his paw over a mouse’s tail. And if the cat’s claws haven’t come out yet, it’s not because of anything the mouse has done. Don’t you get it?”

“Nazca, I know you’re agitated. I’ll listen. I’m a stone. You can yell at me all you like. But what can I do for you? I’m just a thief, I’m your father’s littlest thief. If there’s a gang smaller than mine I’ll go play cards in a wolf shark’s mouth. I-”

“I need you to start helping me calm Papa down, Locke. I need him back to something resembling his normal self so I can get him to take my points seriously. That’s why I’m asking you to go in there and take pains to please him. Especially please him. Show him a loyal garrista who does whatever he’s told, the moment he’s told. When he starts to lay reasonable plans for the future again, I’ll know he’s coming back to a state of mind I can deal with.”

“Interesting,” said Locke. “And, uh, daunting.”

“Papa used to say someday I’d appreciate having a gracious man to order around. Believe me, Locke, I do. So…here we are.”

At the end of the short passage was another set of heavy wooden doors, nearly identical to the ones that led back to the reception hall. These doors, however, were barred and locked with an elaborate Verrari clockwork device attached to crossbars of polished iron. A dozen keyholes were visible in the lockbox at the center of the doors; Nazca withdrew two keys that hung on a chain around her neck and briefly put her body between Locke and the doors, so he couldn’t see the apertures she chose. There was a cascading series of clicks and the noise of machinery within the doors; one by one the hidden bolts unshot themselves and the gleaming crossbars slid open until the doors finally cracked open in the middle.

Another scream, loud and vivid without the closed door to muffle it, sounded from the room beyond.

“It’s worse than it sounds,” said Nazca.

“I know what Sage does for your father, Nazca.”

“Knowing’s one thing. Usually Sage just does one or two at a time. Papa’s got the bastard working wholesale today.”

6

“I’VE MADE it clear that I don’t enjoy this,” said Capa Barsavi, “so why do you force me to persist?”

The dark-haired young man was secured to a wooden rack. He hung upside down with metal shackles around his legs, with his arms tied downward at their maximum extension. The Capa’s heavy fist slammed into the prisoner’s side just beneath his armpit; the sound was like a hammer slapping meat. Droplets of sweat flew and the prisoner screamed, writhing against his restraints.

“Why do you insult me like this, Federico?” Another punch to the same spot, with the heavy old man’s first two knuckles cruelly extended. “Why won’t you even have the courtesy to give me a convincing lie?” Capa Barsavi lashed Federico’s throat with the flat of one hand; the prisoner gasped for breath, snorting wetly as blood and spit and sweat ran down into his nose.

The heart of the Floating Grave was something like an opulent ballroom with curving sides. Warm amber light came from glass globes suspended on silver chains. Stairs ran to overhead galleries, and from these galleries to the silk-canopied deck of the old hulk. A small raised platform against the far wall held the broad wooden chair from which Barsavi usually received visitors. The room was tastefully decorated in a restrained and regal fashion, and today it stank of fear and sweat and soiled breeches.

The frame that held Federico folded downward from the ceiling; an entire semicircle of the things could be pulled down at need, for Barsavi occasionally did this sort of business in a volume that rewarded the standardization of procedures. Six were now empty and spattered with blood; only two still held prisoners.

The capa looked up as Locke and Nazca entered; he nodded slightly and gestured for them to wait against the wall. Old Barsavi remained bullish, but he wore his years in plain view. He was rounder and softer now, his three braided gray beards backed by three wobbly chins. Dark circles cupped his eyes, and his cheeks were the unhealthy sort of red that came out of a bottle. Flushed with exertion, he had thrown off his overcoat and was working in his silk undertunic.

Standing nearby with folded arms were Anjais and Pachero Barsavi, Nazca’s older brothers. Anjais was like a miniature version of the Capa, minus thirty years and two beards, while Pachero was more of a kind with Nazca, tall and slender and curly-haired. Both of the brothers wore optics, for whatever eye trouble the old Madam Barsavi had borne had been passed to all three of her surviving children.

Leaning against the far wall were two women. They were not slender. Their bare, tanned arms were corded with muscle and crisscrossed with scars, and while they radiated an air of almost feral good health they were well past the girlishness of early youth. Cheryn and Raiza Berangias, identical twins, and the greatest contrarequialla the city of Camorr had ever known. Performing only as a pair, they had given the Shifting Revel almost a hundred performances against sharks, devilfish, death-lanterns, and other predators of the Iron Sea.

For nearly five years, they had been Capa Barsavi’s personal bodyguards and executioners. Their long, wild manes of smoke-black hair were tied back under nets of silver that jangled with sharks’ teeth. One tooth, it was said, for every man or woman the Berangias twins had killed in Barsavi’s service.

Last but certainly not least alarming in this exclusive gathering was Sage Kindness, a round-headed man of moderate height and middle years. His short-cropped hair was the butter yellow of certain Therin families from the westerly cities of Karthain and Lashain; his eyes always seemed to be wet with emotion, though his expression never changed. He was perhaps the most even-tempered man in Camorr-he could pull fingernails with the mellow disinterest of a man polishing boots. Capa Barsavi was a very capable torturer, but when he found himself stymied the Sage never disappointed him.

“He doesn’t know anything!” The last prisoner, as yet untouched, hollered at the top of his voice as Barsavi slapped Federico around some more. “Capa, Your Honor, please, none of us know anything! Gods! None of us remember!”

Barsavi stalked across the wooden floor and shut the second prisoner up by giving his windpipe a long, cruel squeeze. “Were the questions addressed to you? Are you eager to get involved in the proceedings? You were quiet enough when I sent your other six friends down into the water. Why do you cry for this one?”

“Please,” the man sobbed, sucking in air as Barsavi lightened his grip just enough to permit speech, “please, there’s no point. You must believe us, Capa Barsavi, please. We’d have told you anything you wanted if only we knew. We don’t remember! We just don’t-”

The Capa silenced him with a vicious cuff across the face. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the frightened sobbing and gasping of the two prisoners.

“I must believe you? I must do nothing, Julien. You give me bullshit, and tell me it’s steamed beef? So many of you, and you can’t even come up with a decent story. A serious attempt to lie would still piss me off, but I could understand it. Instead you cry that you don’t remember. You, the eight most powerful men in the Full Crowns, after Tesso himself. His chosen. His friends, his bodyguards, his loyal pezon. And you cry like babies to me about how you don’t remember where any of you were last night, when Tesso just happened to die.”

“But that’s just how it is, Capa Barsavi, please, it’s-”

“I ask you again, were you drinking last night?”

“No, not at all!”

“Were you smoking anything? All of you, together?”

“No, nothing like that. Certainly not…not together.”

“Gaze, then? A little something from Jerem’s pervert alchemists? A little bliss from a powder?”

“Tesso never permitted-”

“Well then.” Barsavi drove a fist into Julien’s solar plexus, almost casually. While the man gasped in pain, Barsavi turned away and held up his arms with theatrical joviality. “Since we’ve eliminated every possible earthly explanation for such dereliction of duty, short of sorcery or divine intervention…Oh, forgive me. You weren’t enchanted by the gods themselves, were you? They’re hard to miss.”

Julien writhed against his bonds, red-faced, shaking his head. “Please…”

“No gods, then. Didn’t think so. I was saying…well, I was saying that your little game is boring the hell out of me. Kindness.”

The round-headed man lowered his chin to his chest and stood with his palms out, facing upward, as though he were about to receive a gift.

“I want something creative. If Federico won’t talk, let’s give Julien one last chance to find his tongue.”

Federico began screaming before Barsavi had even finished speaking-the high, sobbing wail of the conscious damned. Locke found himself clenching his teeth to keep himself from shaking. So many meetings with slaughter as a backdrop…The gods could be perverse.

Sage Kindness moved to a small table to the side of the room, on which there was a pile of small glasses and a heavy cloth sack with a drawstring. Kindness threw several glasses into the sack and began banging it against the table; the sound of breaking, jangling glass wasn’t audible beneath Federico’s wild hollering, but Locke could imagine it easily enough. After a few moments, Kindness seemed satisfied, and walked slowly over to Federico.

“Don’t, don’t, no, don’t don’t please no no…”

With one hand holding the desperate young man’s head still, Kindness rapidly drew the bag up over the top of his head, over his face, all the way to Federico’s neck, where he cinched the drawstring tight. The bag muffled Federico’s screams, which had become high and wordless again. Kindness then began to knead the bag, gently at first, almost tenderly; the torturer’s long fingers pushed the jagged contents of the sack up and around Federico’s face. Red stains began to appear on the surface of the bag; Kindness manipulated the contents of the sack like a sculptor giving form to his clay. Federico’s throat mercifully gave out just then, and for the next few moments the man choked out nothing more than a few hoarse moans. Locke prayed silently that he had already fled beyond pain to the temporary refuge of madness.

Kindness increased the vigor with which he massaged the cloth. He pressed now where Federico’s eyes would be, and on the nose, and the mouth, and the chin. The bag grew wetter and redder until at last Federico’s twitching stopped altogether. When Kindness took his hands off the bag they looked as though he’d been pulping tomatoes. Smiling sadly, he let his red hands drip red trails on the wood, and he walked over to Julien, staring intently, saying nothing.

“Surely,” said Capa Barsavi, “if I’ve convinced you of anything by this point, it must be the depth of my resolve. Will you not speak?”

“Please, Capa Barsavi,” whispered Julien, “there’s no need for this. I have nothing I can tell you. Ask me anything, anything at all. What happened last night is a blank. I don’t remember. I would tell you, please, gods, please believe me, I would tell you anything. We are loyal pezon, the most loyal you have!”

“I sincerely hope not.” Barsavi seemed to come to a decision; he gestured to the Berangias sisters and pointed at Julien. The dark-haired ladies worked quickly and silently, undoing the knots that held him to the wooden frame while leaving the ones that bound him from ankles to neck. They cradled the shivering man effortlessly, one at his shoulders and one at his feet.

“Loyal? Please. We are grown men, Julien. Refusing to tell me the truth of what happened last night is not a loyal act. You’ve let me down, so I give like for like.” On the far left side of the great hall a man-sized wooden floor panel had been slid aside; barely a yard down was the dark surface of the water beneath the Grave. The floor around the opening was wet with blood. “I shall let you down.”

Julien screamed one last time as the Berangias sisters heaved him into the opening, headfirst; he hit the water with a splash and didn’t come back up. It was the capa’s habit to keep something nasty down beneath the Grave at all times, constrained there by heavy nets of wire-reinforced rope that surrounded the underside of the galleon like a sieve.

“Kindness, you are dismissed. Boys, when I call you back you can get some people in here to clean up, but for now go wait on deck. Raiza, Cheryn-please go with them.”

Moving slowly, Capa Barsavi walked to his plain, comfortable old chair and settled into it. He was breathing heavily and quivering all the more for his effort not to show it. A brass wine goblet with the capacity of a large soup tureen was set out on the little table beside his chair; the capa took a deep draught and seemed to brood over the fumes for a few moments, his eyes closed. At last he came back to life and beckoned for Locke and Nazca to step forward.

“Well. My dear Master Lamora. How much money have you brought me this week?”

7

“THIRTY-SIX SOLONS, five coppers, Your Honor.”

“Mmm. A slender week’s work, it seems.”

“Yes, with all apologies, Capa Barsavi. The rain, well…sometimes it’s murder on those of us doing second-story work.”

“Mmmm.” Barsavi set the goblet down and folded his right hand inside his left, caressing the reddened knuckles. “You’ve brought me more, of course. Many times. Better weeks.”

“Ah…yes.”

“There are some that don’t, you know. They try to bring me the exact same amount, week after week after week, until I finally lose patience and correct them. Do you know what that sort of garrista must have, Locke?”

“Ah. A…very boring life?”

“Ha! Yes, exactly. How very stable of them to have the exact same income every single week, so they might give me the exact same percentage as a cut. As though I were an infant who would not notice. And then there are garristas such as yourself. I know you bring me the honest percentage, because you’re not afraid to walk in here and apologize for having less than last week.”

“I, ah, do hope I’m not considered shy about sharing when the balance tilts the other way…”

“Not at all.” Barsavi smiled and settled back in his chair. Ominous splashing and muffled banging was coming from beneath the floor in the vicinity of the hatch that Julien had vanished down. “You are, if anything, the most reliably correct garrista in my service. Like Verrari clockwork. You deliver my cut yourself, promptly and without a summons. For four years, week in and week out. Unfailing, since Chains died. Never once did you suggest that anything took precedence over your personal appearance before me, with that bag in your hand.”

Capa Barsavi pointed at the small leather bag Locke held in his left hand, and gestured to Nazca. Her formal role in the Barsavi organization was to act as finnicker, or record-keeper. She could rattle off the running total of the payments made by any gang in the city, itemized week by week and year by year, without error. Locke knew she updated records on parchment for her father’s private use, but so far as the Capa’s subjects in general knew, every coin of his fabled treasure was catalogued solely behind her cold and lovely eyes. Locke tossed the leather purse to her, and she plucked it out of the air.

“Never,” said Capa Barsavi, “did you think to send a pezon to do a garrista’s job.”

“Well, ah, you’re most kind, Your Honor. But you made that very easy today, since only garristas are allowed past the door.”

“Don’t dissemble. You know of what I speak. Nazca, love, Locke and I must now be alone.”

Nazca gave her father a deep nod, and then gave a much quicker, shallower one to Locke. She turned and walked back toward the doors to the entrance hall, iron heels echoing on the wood.

“I have many garristas,” Barsavi said when she was gone, “tougher than yourself. Many more popular, many more charming, many with larger and more profitable gangs. But I have very few who are constantly at pains to be so courteous, so careful.”

Locke said nothing.

“My young man, while I take offense at many things, rest assured that courtesy is not one of them. Come, stand easy. I’m not fitting you for a noose.”

“Sorry, capa. It’s just…you’ve been known to begin expressing your displeasure in a very…ahhh…”

“Roundabout fashion?”

“Chains told me enough about scholars of the Therin Collegium,” said Locke, “to understand that their primary habit of speech is the, ah, booby trap.”

“Ha! Yes. When anyone tells you habits die hard, Locke, they’re lying-it seems they never die at all.” Barsavi chuckled and sipped from his wine before continuing. “These are…alarming times, Locke. This damn Gray King has finally begun to get under my skin. The loss of Tesso is particularly…Well, I had plans for him. Now I am forced to begin bringing other plans forward sooner than intended. Tell me, pezon…What do you think of Anjais and Pachero?”

“Uh. Ha. Well…my honest opinion, Your Honor?”

“Full and honest, pezon. By my command.”

“Ah. They’re very respected, very good at their jobs. Nobody jokes about them behind their backs. Jean says they really know how to handle themselves in a fight. The Sanzas are nervous about playing fair card games with them, which is saying something.”

“This I could hear from two dozen spies any time I wanted to. This I know. What is your personal opinion of my sons?”

Locke swallowed and looked Capa Barsavi straight in the eyes. “Well, they are worthy of respect. They are good at their jobs, and they must know their business in a fight. They’re fairly hard workers and they’re bright enough…but…Your Honor, begging your pardon, they tease Nazca when they should be heeding her warnings and taking her advice. She has the patience and the subtlety that…that…”

“Elude them?”

“You knew what I was going to say, didn’t you?”

“I said you were a careful and considerate garrista, Locke. Those are your distinguishing characteristics, though they imply many other qualities. Since the time of your prodigious early cock-ups, you have been the very picture of a careful thief, firmly in control of his own greed. You would be very sensitive to any opposing lack of caution in others. My sons have lived all their lives in a city that fears them because of their last name. They expect deference in an aristocratic fashion. They are incautious, a bit brazen. I need to make arrangements to ensure that they receive good counsel, in the months and years to come. I can’t live forever, even after I deal with the Gray King.”

The jovial certainty that filled Capa Barsavi’s voice when he said this made the hair on the back of Locke’s neck stand up. The capa was sitting in a fortress he hadn’t left in more than two months, drinking wine in air still rank with the blood of eight members of one of his most powerful and loyal gangs.

Was Locke speaking to a man with a far-ranging and subtle scheme? Or had Barsavi finally cracked, like window glass in a fire?

“I should very much like,” said the capa, “to have you in a position to give Anjais and Pachero the counsel they’ll require.”

“Ah…Your Honor, that’s extremely…flattering, but-I get along well enough with Anjais and Pachero, but I’m not exactly what you’d call a close friend. We play some cards every now and then, but…let’s be honest. I’m not a very important garrista.”

“As I said. Even with the Gray King at work in my city, I have many who are tougher than you, more daring than you, more popular. I don’t say this to strike a blow, because I’ve already discussed your own qualities. And it is those qualities they sorely need. Not toughness, daring, or charm, but cold and steady caution. Prudence. You are my most prudent garrista; you only think of yourself as the least important because you make the least noise. Tell me, now-what do you think of Nazca?”

“Nazca?” Locke was suddenly even warier than before. “She’s…brilliant, Your Honor. She can recite conversations we had ten years ago and get every word right, especially if it embarrasses me. You think I’m prudent? Compared to her I’m as reckless as a bear in an alchemist’s lab.”

“Yes,” said the capa. “Yes. She should be the next Capa Barsavi when I’m gone, but that won’t happen. It’s nothing to do with her being a woman, you know. Her older brothers would simply never stand to have their little sister lording it over them. And I should prefer not to have my children murdering one another for scraps of the legacy I intend to leave them, so I cannot push them aside in her favor.

“What I can do, and what I must do, is ensure that when the time comes, they will have a voice of sobriety in such a place that they cannot get rid of it. You and Nazca are old friends, yes? I remember the first time you met, so many years ago…when she used to sit on my knee and pretend to order my men around. In all the years since, you have always stopped to see her, always given her kind words? Always been her good pezon?”

“Ah…I certainly hope so, Your Honor.”

“I know you have.” Barsavi took a deep draught from his wine goblet, then set it back down firmly, a magnanimous smile on his round, wrinkled face. “And so I give you my permission to court my daughter.”

Let’s start wobbling, shall we? said Locke’s knees, but this offer was met by a counterproposal from his better judgment to simply freeze up and do nothing, like a man treading water who sees a tall black fin coming straight at him. “Oh,” he finally said, “I don’t…I didn’t expect…”

“Of course not,” said Barsavi. “But in this our purposes are complementary. I know you and Nazca have feelings for one another. A union between the two of you would bring you into the Barsavi family. You would become Anjais and Pachero’s responsibility…and they yours. Don’t you see? A brother-by-bonding would be much harder for them to ignore than even their most powerful garrista.” Barsavi set his left fist inside his right and smiled broadly once again, like a red-faced god dispensing benevolence from a celestial throne.

Locke took a deep breath. There was nothing else for it; the situation required absolute acquiescence, as surely as if the capa were holding a crossbow to his temple. Men died for refusing Barsavi far less; to refuse the capa’s own daughter would be a particularly messy sort of suicide. If Locke balked at the capa’s plan he wouldn’t live out the night.

“I…I’m honored, Capa Barsavi. So deeply honored. I hope not to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint me? Certainly not. Now, I know that several of my other garristas have had their eyes on Nazca for some time. But if one of them was going to catch her eye, he’d have done it by now, eh? What a surprise, when they hear the news. They’ll never see this coming!”

And for a wedding present, thought Locke, the angry jealousy of an unknown number of jilted suitors!

“How, then…how and when should I begin, Your Honor?”

“Well,” said Barsavi, “why don’t I give you a few days to think it over? I’ll speak to her, in the interim. Of course, for the time being, she’s not to leave the Floating Grave. Once the Gray King is dealt with-well, I would expect you to begin courting her in a more colorful and public fashion.”

“You’re telling me,” Locke said, very carefully, “I should start stealing more, then.”

“Consider it my challenge to you, to go hand in hand with my blessing.” Barsavi smirked. “Let’s see if you can stay prudent while becoming more productive. I suspect you can-and I know that you wouldn’t want to disappoint me or my daughter.”

“Certainly not, Your Honor. I’ll…I’ll do my very best.”

Capa Barsavi beckoned Locke forward and held his left hand out, fingers outstretched, palm down. Locke knelt before Barsavi’s chair, took that hand with both of his own, and kissed the capa’s ring; that familiar black pearl with the bloodred heart. “Capa Barsavi,” he said with his eyes to the ground. The capa pulled him up again, by the shoulders.

“I give you my blessing, Locke Lamora. The blessing of an old man who worries for his children. I set you above many dangerous people by doing this for you. Surely, it has occurred to you that my sons will inherit a dangerous office. And if they’re not careful enough, or hard enough for the task…well, stranger things have happened. Someday this city could be ruled by Capa Lamora. Have you ever dreamed of this?”

“Truthfully,” whispered Locke, “I have never desired a capa’s power, because I would never want a capa’s problems.”

“Well, there’s that prudence again.” The capa smiled and gestured toward the far doors, giving Locke permission to withdraw. “A capa’s problems are very real. But you’ve helped me put one of them to rest.”

Locke walked back toward the entrance hall, thoughts racing. The capa sat on his chair behind him, staring at nothing, saying no more. The only sounds after that were Locke’s own footsteps and the steady drip of blood from the gore-soaked bag around Federico’s head.

8

“WELL, NAZCA, if I were a thousand years old and had already seen everything there is to see six times over, that still would have been about the last damn thing I’d have ever expected!”

She was waiting for him in the little hall beyond the foyer; once the clockwork mechanisms had sealed the door to the main hall behind them, she gave him a wry and apologetic look.

“But don’t you see that it would have been even stranger if I’d explained it beforehand?”

“The whole mess would be hard-pressed to get any gods-damned weirder. Look, please, don’t take any of this the wrong way. I-”

“I don’t take any of it the wrong way, Locke…”

“You’re a good friend, and-”

“I feel the same way, and yet-”

“It’s hard to put this right…”

“No, it isn’t. Look.” She grabbed him by the shoulders and bent down slightly to look right into his eyes. “You are a good friend, Locke. Probably the best I have. My loyal pezon. I am extremely fond of you, but not…as a possible husband. And I know that you-”

“I…ah…”

“Locke,” said Nazca, “I know that the only woman with the key to that peculiar heart of yours is a thousand miles away. And I know you’d rather be miserable over her than happy with anyone else.”

“Really?” Locke balled his fists. “Seems like it’s pretty common fucking knowledge. I bet the duke gets regular reports. Seems as though your father is the only person who doesn’t know.”

“Or doesn’t care.” Nazca raised her eyebrows. “Locke, it’s capa to pezon. It’s not personal. He gives the orders and you carry them out. In most cases.”

“But not this one? I thought you’d be happy. At least he’s making plans for the future again.”

“I said reasonable plans.” Nazca smiled-a real smile this time. “Come on, pezon. Play along for a few days. We can go through the motions and put our heads together to come up with a way out of this. It’s you and me we’re talking about, right? The old man can’t win, and he won’t even know he’s lost.”

“Right. If you say so.”

“Yes, I say so. Come back the day after tomorrow. We’ll scheme. We’ll slip this noose. Now go tend to your boys. And be careful.”

Locke stepped back out into the entrance hall, and Nazca pushed the doors shut behind him; he stared back at her as the space between the black doors narrowed, gradually sealing her off from view until they slammed shut with the click of tumbling locks. He could have sworn she winked just before the heavy black doors closed between them.

“…and this is the card you picked. The six of spires,” said Calo, holding up a card and displaying it for the entrance-hall guards.

“Fuck me,” said one of them, “that’s sorcery.”

“Nah, it’s just the old Sanza touch.” Calo reshuffled his deck one-handed and held it out toward Locke. “Care to give it a go, boss?”

“No thanks, Calo. Pack up, lads. Our business here is finished for the day, so let’s quit bothering the folks with the crossbows.” He punctuated this with hand gestures: Major complications; discuss elsewhere.

“Damn, I’m hungry,” said Jean, picking up the cue. “Why don’t we get something at the Last Mistake and take it up to our rooms?”

“Yeah,” said Bug. “Beer and apricot tarts!”

“A combination so disgusting I feel oddly compelled to actually try it.” Jean swatted the smallest Gentleman Bastard on the back of his head, then led the way as the gang made for the slender wooden path that tied the Floating Grave to the rest of the world.

9

SAVE CAPA Barsavi (who imagined that Locke’s gang merely continued sitting the steps a few days of the week even with Chains in his grave), no Right People of Camorr knew that the Gentlemen Bastards still worked out of the House of Perelandro. Calo and Galdo and Bug let rooms at various points in and around the Snare, moving every few months. Locke and Jean had maintained the fiction of rooming together for several years. By a great stroke of luck (though whether it was good or ill had yet to be determined, really) Jean had managed to get them the rooms on the seventh floor of the Broken Tower.

The night was dark and full of rain, and none of the gang were particularly eager to make their way back onto the creaking exterior stairs that staggered down the north side of the tower. Hissing rain rattled the window shutters, and the wind made an eerie rising-and-falling sigh as it passed over the gaps and crevices in the old tower. The Gentlemen Bastards sat on floor cushions in the light of paper lanterns and nursed the last of their beer, the pale sweet sort that most Camorr natives preferred to the bitter Verrari dark. The air was stuffy, but at least tolerably dry.

Locke had given them the whole story over dinner.

“Well,” said Galdo, “this is the damnedest damn thing that ever dammed things up for us.”

“I say again,” said Jean, “that we should pull an early blow-off on the Don Salvara game and get ready to ride out a storm. This Gray King business is getting scary, and we can’t have our attention diverted if Locke’s going to be mixed up at the middle of things.”

“Where do we cut ourselves off?” asked Calo.

“We cut ourselves off now,” said Jean. “Now, or after we get one more note out of the don. No later.”

“Mmmm.” Locke stared down at the dregs in the bottom of his tin cup. “We’ve worked hard for this one. I’m confident we can run it for another five or ten thousand crowns, at least. Maybe not the twenty-five thousand we were hoping to squeeze out of Salvara, but enough to make ourselves proud. I got the crap kicked out of me, and Bug jumped off a building for this money, you know.”

“And got rolled two miles inside a bloody barrel!”

“Now, Bug,” said Galdo, “it’s not as though the nasty old barrel jumped you in an alley and forced you to crawl inside it. And I concur with Jean. I said it this afternoon, Locke. Even if you won’t seriously consider using them, can we at least make some arrangements to get you under cover in a hurry? Maybe even out of town?”

“I still can’t believe I’m hearing a Sanza counsel caution,” Locke said with a grin. “I thought we were richer and cleverer than everyone else.”

“You’ll hear it again and again when there’s a chance you’ll get your throat slit, Locke.” Calo picked up his brother’s argument. “I’ve changed my mind about the Gray King, that’s for damn sure. Maybe the lone lunatic does have it over the three thousand of us. You might be one of his targets. And if Barsavi wants you even tighter with his inner circle, it invites further trouble.”

“Can we set aside talk of slitting throats, just for a moment?” Locke rose and turned toward the shuttered seaward window. He pretended to stare out of it with his hands folded behind his back. “Who are we, after all? I admit I was almost ready to jump into the gods-damned bay when the capa sprang this on me. But I’ve had time to think, so get this straight-we’ve got the old fox dead to rights. We’ve got him in the palms of our hands. Honestly, boys. We’re so good at what we do that he’s asking the Thorn of fucking Camorr to marry his daughter. We’re so far in the clear it’s comical.”

“Nonetheless,” said Jean, “it’s a complication that could mess up our arrangements forever, not an accomplishment we can crow about.”

“Of course we can crow about it, Jean. I’m going to crow about it right now. Don’t you see? This is nothing we don’t do every day. It’s a plain old Gentlemen Bastards sort of job-only we’ll have Nazca working with me to pull it off as well. We can’t lose. I’m no more likely to marry her than I am to be named Duke Nicovante’s heir tomorrow morning.”

“Do you have a plan?” Jean’s eyes said he was curious but wary.

“Not even remotely. I don’t have the first damned clue what we’re going to do. But all my best plans start just like this.” Locke tipped the last of his beer down his throat and tossed the tin cup against the wall. “I’ve had my beer and I’ve had my apricot tarts, and I say the hell with them both, Gray King and Capa Barsavi. Nobody’s going to scare us out of our Don Salvara game, and nobody’s going to hitch me and Nazca against our will. We’ll do what we always do-wait for an opening, take it, and fucking well win.”

“Uh…well.” Jean sighed. “Will you at least let us take a few precautions? And will you watch yourself, coming and going?”

“Naturally, Jean, naturally. You grab us some places on likely ships; spend whatever you have to. I don’t care where they’re going as long as it’s not Jerem. We can lose ourselves anywhere for a few weeks and creep back when we please. Calo, Galdo, you get out to the Viscount’s Gate tomorrow. Leave some considerations for the boys in yellow so we can get out of the city at an awkward hour if we need to. Don’t be shy with the silver and gold.”

“What can I do?” asked Bug.

“You can watch our backs. Keep your eyes wide open. Skulk around the temple. Spot me anyone out of place, anyone who lingers too long. If anyone is trying to keep an eye on us, I guarantee we will go to ground and vanish like piss into the ocean. Until then, trust me. I promise to do most of my moving around as Lukas Fehrwight for the next few days; I can swap in some cheaper disguises, too.”

“Then I suppose that’s that,” Jean said quietly.

“Jean, I can be your garrista or I can just be the fellow who buys beer and tarts when everyone else mysteriously misplaces their purses.” Locke eyed the gathering with an exaggerated scowl. “I can’t be both; it’s one or the other.”

“I’m nervous,” said Jean, “because I don’t like having as little information as I fear we do. I share Nazca’s suspicions. The Gray King has something up his sleeves, something we don’t understand. Our game is very delicate and our situation is very…fluid.”

“I know. But I follow my gut, and my gut says that we meet this one head-on with smiles on our faces. Look,” said Locke, “the more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn’t training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we needed to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we’re in it, and I say we’re equal to it. I don’t need to be reminded that we’re up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we’re the gods-damned sharks.”

“Right on,” cried Bug. “I knew there was a reason I let you lead this gang!”

“Well, I can’t argue with the manifest wisdom of the boy that jumps off temple roofs. But I trust my points are noted,” said Jean.

“Very noted,” said Locke. “Received, recognized, and duly considered with the utmost gravity. Sealed, notarized, and firmly imprinted upon my rational essence.”

“Gods, you really are cheerful about this, aren’t you? You only play vocabulary games when you feel genuinely sunny about the world.” Jean sighed, but couldn’t keep the slightest hint of a smile from tugging at the corners of his lips.

“If you do end up in danger, Locke,” said Calo, “you must understand that we will ignore the orders of our garrista, and we’ll bludgeon our friend on the back of his thick skull and smuggle him out of Camorr in a box. I have just the bludgeon for the job.”

“And I have a box,” said Galdo. “Been hoping for an excuse to use it for years, really.”

“Also noted,” said Locke, “with thanks. But by the grace of the Crooked Warden, I choose to trust us. I choose to trust Chains’ judgment. I choose to keep doing what we do best. Tomorrow, I’ve got some work to do as Fehrwight, and then I’ll go see Nazca again the day after. The capa will be expecting it, and I’m sure she’ll have some ideas of her own by then.”

Locke thought once again of his last glimpse of her, that wink as the two great doors of dark wood slammed shut between them. Maintaining her father’s secrets was Nazca’s entire life. Did it mean something for her, to have one of her own that she could keep from him?

1

Father Chains gave Locke no respite from his education on the day after the visit to the Last Mistake. With his head still pounding from a brown-sugar rum headache, Locke began to learn about the priesthood of Perelandro and the priesthood of the Benefactor. There were hand signs and ritual intonations; methods of greeting and meanings behind robe decorations. On his fourth day in Chains’ care, Locke began to sit the steps as one of the “Initiates of Perelandro,” clad in white and trying to look suitably humble and pathetic.

As the weeks passed, the breadth of Chains’ instruction expanded. Locke did two hours of reading and scribing each day; his pen-scratchings grew smoother step by halting step until the Sanza brothers announced that he no longer wrote “like a dog with an arrow in its brain.” Locke was moved enough by their praise to dust their sleeping pallets with red pepper. The Sanzas were distraught when their attempted retaliation was foiled by the utter paranoia Locke still carried with him from his experiences in Shades’ Hill and the Catchfire plague; it was simply impossible to sneak up on him or catch him sleeping.

“The brothers have never before met their match in mischief,” said Chains as he and Locke sat the steps one particularly slow day. “Now they’re wary of you. When they start coming to you for advice, well…that’s when you’ll know that you have them tamed.”

Locke had smiled and said nothing; just that morning Calo had offered to give Locke extra help with his sums if the smallest Gentleman Bastard would only tell the twins how he kept spotting their little booby traps and rendering them harmless.

Locke revealed precious few of his survival tricks, but he did accept the help of both Sanzas in his study of arithmetic. His only reward for each accomplishment was a more complex problem from Chains. At the same time, he began his education in spoken Vadran; Chains would issue simple commands in the language, and once Locke was reasonably familiar with the tongue Chains often forbade the three boys to speak anything else for hours at a time. Even their dinner conversation was conducted in the harsh and illogical language of the north. To Locke, it often seemed impossible to say anything in Vadran that didn’t sound angry.

“You won’t hear this among the Right People, much, but you’ll hear it on the docks and among the merchants, that’s for damn sure,” said Chains. “And when you hear someone speaking it, don’t ever let on that you know it unless you absolutely have to. You’d be surprised how arrogant some of those northern types are when it comes to their speech. Just play dumb, and you never know what they might let slip.”

There was more instruction in the culinary arts; Chains had Locke slaving away at the cooking hearth every other night, with Calo and Galdo vigorously henpecking him in tandem. “This is vicce alo apona, the fifth Beautiful Art of Camorr,” said Chains. “Guild chefs learn all eight styles better than they learn the uses of their own cocks, but you’ll just get the basics for now. Mind you, our basics piss on everyone else’s best. Only Karthain and Emberlain come close; most Vadrans wouldn’t know fine cuisine from rat shit in lamp oil. Now, this is Pinch-of-Gold Pepper, and this is Jereshti olive oil, and just behind them I keep dried cinnamon-lemon rind…”

Locke stewed octopus and boiled potatoes; he sliced pears and apples and alchemical hybrid fruit that oozed honey-scented liquor. He spiced and seasoned and bit his tongue in furious concentration. He was frequently the architect of gruesome messes that were hauled out behind the temple and fed to the goat. But as he improved at everything else required of him, he improved steadily at the hearth; soon the Sanzas ceased to tease him and began to trust him as an assistant with their own delicate creations.

One night about half a year after his arrival at the House of Perelandro, Locke and the Sanzas collaborated on a stuffed platter of infant sharks; this was vicce enta merre, the first Beautiful Art, the cuisine of sea-creatures. Calo gutted the soft-skinned little sharks and stuffed them with red and yellow peppers, which had in turn been stuffed with sausage and blood-cheese by Locke. The tiny staring eyes of the creatures were replaced with black olives. Once the little teeth were plucked out, their mouths were stuffed with glazed carrots and rice, and their fins and tails were cut off to be boiled in soup. “Ahhh,” said Chains when the elaborate meal was settling in four appreciative gullets, “now that was genuinely excellent, boys. But while you’re cleaning up and scouring the dishes, I only want to hear you speaking Vadran…”

And so it went; Locke was schooled further in the art of setting a table and waiting on individuals of high station. He learned how to hold out a chair and how to pour tea and wine; he and the Sanzas conducted elaborate dinner-table rituals with the gravity of physikers cutting open a patient. There were lessons in clothing: the tying of cravats, the buckling of shoes, the wearing of expensive affectations such as hose. In fact, there was a dizzying variety of instruction in virtually every sphere of human accomplishment except thievery.

As the first anniversary of Locke’s arrival at the temple loomed, that changed.

“I owe some favors, boys,” said Chains one night as they all hunkered down in the lifeless rooftop garden. This was where he preferred to discuss all the weightier matters of their life together, at least when it wasn’t raining. “Favors I can’t put off when certain people come calling.”

“Like the Capa?” asked Locke.

“Not this time.” Chains took a long drag on his habitual after-dinner smoke. “This time I owe the black alchemists. You know about them, right?”

Calo and Galdo nodded, but hesitantly; Locke shook his head.

“Well,” said Chains, “there’s a right and proper Guild of Alchemists, but they’re very choosy about the sort of person they let in, and the sort of work they let them do. Black alchemists are sort of the reason the guild has such strict rules. They do business in false shop fronts, with people like us. Drugs, poisons, what have you. The Capa owns them, same as he owns us, but nobody really leans on them directly. They’re, ah, not the sort of people you want to upset.

“Jessaline d’Aubart is probably the best of the lot. I, uh, I had occasion to get poisoned once. She took care of it for me. So I owe her, and she’s finally called in the favor. What she wants is a corpse.”

“Beggar’s Barrow,” said Calo.

“And a shovel,” said Galdo.

“No, she needs a fresh corpse. Still warm and juicy, as it were. See, the Guilds of Alchemists and Physikers are entitled to a certain number of fresh corpses each year by ducal charter. Straight off the gallows, for cutting open and poking around. The black alchemists don’t receive any such courtesy, and Jessaline has some theories she wants to put to the test. So I’ve decided you boys are going to work together on your first real job. I want you to find a corpse, fresher than morning bread. Get your hands on it without attracting undue attention, and bring it here so I can hand it off to Jessaline.”

“Steal a corpse? This won’t be any fun,” said Galdo.

“Think of it as a valuable test of your skills,” said Chains.

“Are we likely to steal many corpses in the future?” asked Calo.

“It’s not a test of your corpse-plucking abilities, you cheeky little nitwit,” Chains said amiably. “I mean to see how you all work together on something more serious than our dinner. I’ll consider setting you up with anything you ask for, but I’m not giving you hints. You get to figure this one out on your own.”

“Anything we ask for?” said Locke.

“Within reason,” said Chains. “And let me emphasize that you can’t make the corpse yourself. You have to find it honestly dead by someone else’s doing.”

So forceful was Chains’ voice when he said this that the Sanza brothers stared warily at Locke for a few seconds, then gave each other a look with eyebrows arched.

“When,” said Locke, “does this lady want it by?”

“She’d be very pleased to have it in the next week or two.”

Locke nodded, then stared down at his hands for a few seconds. “Calo, Galdo,” he said, “will you sit the steps tomorrow so I can think about this?”

“Yes,” they said without hesitation, and Father Chains didn’t miss the note of hope in their voices. He would remember that moment ever after; the night the Sanzas conceded that Locke would be the brains of their operation. The night they were relieved to have him as the brains of their operation.

“Honestly dead,” said Locke, “and not killed by us and not even stiff yet. Right. I know we can do it. It’ll be easy. I just don’t know why or how yet.”

“Your confidence heartens me,” said Chains. “But I want you to remember that you’re on a very short leash. If a tavern should happen to burn down or a riot should happen to break out around you, I’ll throw you off this roof with lead ingots tied around your neck.”

Calo and Galdo stared at Locke once again.

“Short leash. Right. But don’t worry,” said Locke. “I’m not as reckless as I was. You know, when I was little.”

2

THE NEXT day, Locke walked the length of the Temple District on his own for the very first time, hooded in a clean white robe of Perelandro’s order with silver embroidery on the sleeves, waist-high to virtually everyone around him. He was astonished at the courtesy given to the robe (a courtesy, he clearly understood, that in many cases only partially devolved on the poor fool wearing the robe).

Most Camorri regarded the Order of Perelandro with a mixture of cynicism and guilty pity. The unabashed charity of the god and his priesthood just didn’t speak to the rough heart of the city’s character. Yet the reputation of Father Chains as a colorful freak of piety paid certain dividends. Men who surely joked about the simpering of the Beggar God’s white-robed priests with their friends nonetheless threw coins into Chains’ kettle, eyes averted, when they passed his temple. It turned out they also let a little robed initiate pass on the street without harassment; groups parted fluidly and merchants nodded almost politely as Locke went on his way.

For the first time, he learned what a powerful thrill it was to go about in public in an effective disguise.

The sun was creeping upward toward noon; the crowds were thick and the city was alive with the echoes and murmurs of its masses. Locke padded intently to the southwest corner of the Temple District, where a glass catbridge arched across the canal to the island of the Old Citadel.

Catbridges were another legacy of the Eldren who’d ruled before the coming of men: narrow glass arches no wider than an ordinary man’s hips, arranged in pairs over most of Camorr’s canals and at several places along the Angevine River. Although they looked smooth, their glimmering surfaces were as rough as shark’s-hide leather; for those with a reasonable measure of agility and confidence, they provided the only convenient means of crossing water at many points. Traffic was always one-directional over each catbridge; ducal decree clearly stated that anyone going the wrong direction could be shoved off by those with the right-of-way.

As he scuttled across this bridge, pondering furiously, Locke recalled some of the history lessons Chains had drilled into him. The Old Citadel district had once been the home of the dukes of Camorr, centuries earlier, when all the city-states claimed by the Therin people had knelt to a single throne in the imperial city of Therim Pel. That line of Camorri nobility, in superstitious dread of the perfectly good glass towers left behind by the Eldren, had erected a massive stone palace in the heart of southern Camorr.

When one of Nicovante’s great-great-predecessors (on finer points of city lore such as this, Locke’s undeniably prodigious knowledge dissolved in a haze of total indifference) took up residence in the silver glass tower called Raven’s Reach, the old family fortress had become the Palace of Patience; the heart of Camorr’s municipal justice, such as it was. The yellowjackets and their officers were headquartered there, as were the duke’s magistrates-twelve men and women who presided over their cases in scarlet robes and velvet masks, their true identities never to be revealed to the general public. Each was named for one of the months of the year-Justice Parthis, Justice Festal, Justice Aurim, and so forth-though each one passed judgment year-round.

And there were dungeons, and there were the gallows on the Black Bridge that led to the Palace gates, and there were other things. While the Secret Peace had greatly reduced the number of people who took the short, sharp drop off the Black Bridge (and didn’t Duke Nicovante love to publicly pin that on his own magnanimity), the duke’s servants had devised other punishments that were spectacular in their cruel cleverness, if technically nonlethal.

The Palace was a great square heap of pitted black and gray stone, ten stories high; the huge bricks that formed its walls had been arranged into simple mosaics that had now weathered to a ghostly state. The rows of high arched windows that decorated every other level of the tower were stained glass, with black and red designs predominating. At night a light would burn ominously behind each one, dim red eyes in the darkness, staring out in all directions. Those windows were never dark; the intended message was clear.

There were four open-topped circular towers jutting out from each corner of the Palace, seemingly hanging in air from the sixth or seventh level up. On the sides of these hung black iron crow cages, in which prisoners singled out for special mistreatment would be aired out for a few hours or even a few days, with their feet dangling. Yet even these were seats in paradise compared to the spider cages, a spectacle that became visible to Locke (between the backs and shoulders of adults) as he stepped off the catbridge and into the crowds of the Old Citadel.

From the southeastern tower of the Palace of Patience there dangled a half dozen cages on long steel chains, swaying gently in the wind like little spiders on cords of silk. Two of these were moving, one slowly headed up and the other rapidly descending. Prisoners condemned to the spider cages were not to be allowed a moment’s peace, so other prisoners condemned to hard labor would toil at the huge capstans atop the tower, working in shifts around the clock until a subject in a cage was deemed to be sufficiently unhinged and contrite. Lurching and creaking and open to the elements on all sides, the cages would go up and down ceaselessly. At night, one could frequently hear the occupants pleading and screaming, even from a district or two away.

The Old Citadel wasn’t a very cosmopolitan district. Outside the Palace of Patience there were canal docks and stables reserved for the yellowjackets, offices for the duke’s tax collectors and scribes and other functionaries, and seedy little coffeehouses where freelance solicitors and lawscribes would try to drum up work from the families and friends of those being held in the Palace. A few pawnshops and other businesses clung tenaciously to the northern part of the island, but for the most part they were crowded out by the grimmer business of the duke’s government.

The district’s other major landmark was the Black Bridge that spanned the wide canal between Old Citadel and the Mara Camorrazza: a tall arch of black human-set stone adorned with red lamps that were fixed up with ceremonial black shrouds that could be lowered with a few tugs on a rope. The hangings were conducted from a wooden platform that jutted off the bridge’s south side. Supposedly, the unquiet shades of the condemned would be carried out to sea if they died over running water. Some thought that they would then be incarnated in the bodies of sharks, which explained why Camorr Bay had such a problem with the creatures, and the idea was not entirely scoffed at. As far as most Camorri were concerned, turnabout was fair play.

Locke stared at the Black Bridge for a good long while, exercising that capacity for conniving that Chains had so forcefully repressed for many long months. He was far too young for much self-analysis, but the process of scheming gave him real pleasure, like a little ball of tingling warmth in the pit of his stomach. He had no name for what he was doing, but in the collision of his whirling thoughts a plan began to form, and the more he thought on it the more pleased he became with himself. It was a fine thing that his white hood concealed his face from most passersby, lest anyone should see an initiate of Perelandro staring fixedly at a gallows and grinning wildly.

3

“I NEED the names of any men who are going to hang in the next week or two,” said Locke, as he and Chains sat the temple steps the next day.

“If you were enterprising,” said Chains, “and you most certainly are, you could get them yourself, and leave your poor fat old master in peace.”

“I would, but I need someone else to do it. It won’t work if I’m seen around the Palace of Patience before the hangings.”

“What won’t work?”

“The plan.”

“Oh-ho! Nervy little Shades’Hill purse-clutcher, thinking you can keep me in the dark. What plan?”

“The plan to steal a corpse.”

“Ahem. Anything else you’d like to tell me about it?”

“It’s brilliant.”

A passerby tossed something into the kettle. Locke bowed and Chains waved his hands in the man’s general direction, his restraints clattering, and yelled, “Fifty years of health to you and your children, and the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked!”

“It would’ve been a hundred years,” muttered Chains when the man had passed, “but that sounded like a clipped half-copper. Now, your brilliant plan. I know you’ve had audacious plans, but I’m not entirely sure you’ve had a brilliant one yet.”

“This is the one, then. Honest. But I need those names.”

“If it’s so, it’s so.” Chains leaned backward and stretched, grunting in satisfaction as his back creaked and popped. “I’ll get them for you tonight.”

“And I’ll need some money.”

“Ah. Well, I expected that. Take what you need from the vault and mark it on the ledger. Screw around with it, though…”

“I know. Lead ingots; screaming; death.”

“Something like that. You’re a little on the small side, but I suppose Jessaline might learn a thing or two from your corpse anyway.”

4

PENANCE DAY was the traditional day for hangings in Camorr. Each week a sullen handful of prisoners would be trotted out from the Palace of Patience, priests and guards surrounding them. Noon was the hour of the drop.

At the eighth hour of the morning, when the functionaries in the courtyard of the Palace threw open their wooden shutters and settled in for a long day of saying “fuck off in the name of the duke” to all comers, three robed initiates of Perelandro wheeled a narrow wooden pull-cart into the courtyard. The smallest of the three made his way over to the first available clerk; his thin little face barely topped the forward edge of the clerk’s booth.

“Well, this is odd,” said the clerk, a woman of late middle years, shaped something like a bag of potatoes but perhaps not quite as warm or sympathetic. “Help you with something?”

“There’s a man being hanged,” said Locke. “Noon today.”

“You don’t say. Here I thought it was a state secret.”

“His name’s Antrim. Antrim One-Hand, they call him. He’s got-”

“One hand. Yes, he drops today. Fire-setting, theft, dealing with slavers. Charming man.”

“I was going to say that he had a wife,” said Locke. “She has business. About him.”

“Look, the time for appeals is past. Saris, Festal, and Tathris sealed the death warrant. Antrim One-Hand belongs to Morgante now, and then to Aza Guilla. Not even one of the Beggar God’s cute little sprats can help him at this point.”

“I know,” said Locke. “I don’t want him spared. His wife doesn’t care if he gets hanged. I’m here about the body.”

“Really?” Genuine curiosity flickered in the clerk’s eyes for the first time. “Now that is odd. What about the body?”

“His wife knows he deserves to get hanged, but she wants him to get a fairer chance. You know, with the Lady of the Long Silence. So she’s paid for us to take the body and put it in our temple. So we can burn candles and pray for intercession in Perelandro’s name for three days and nights. We’ll bury him after that.”

“Well now,” said the clerk. “The corpses usually get cut down after an hour and tossed into holes on the Beggar’s Barrow. More than they deserve, but it’s tidy. We don’t usually just go handing them out to anyone who wants one.”

“I know. My master cannot see, or leave our temple, or else he’d be here to explain himself. But we’re all he has. I’m supposed to say that he knows this is making trouble for you.” Locke’s little hand appeared over the edge of the booth, and when it withdrew a small leather purse was sitting on the clerk’s counting-board.

“That’s very considerate of him. We all know how devoted old Father Chains is.” The clerk swept the purse behind her counter and gave it a shake; it jingled, and she grunted. “Still a bit of a problem, though.”

“My master would be grateful for any help you could give us.” Another purse appeared on the counter, and the clerk actually broke a smile.

“It’s within the realm of possibility,” she said. “Not quite certain yet, of course.”

Locke conjured a third purse, and the clerk nodded. “I’ll speak to the Masters of the Ropes, little one.”

“We even brought our own cart,” said Locke. “We don’t want to be any trouble.”

“I’m sure you won’t be.” Her demeanor softened for just a moment. “I didn’t mean ill by what I said about the Beggar God, boy.”

“I didn’t take it ill, madam. After all, it’s what we do.” He favored her with what he thought was his most endearing little grin. “Did you not give me what I asked for because I begged, simply out of the goodness of your own heart, with no coin involved?”

“Why, of course I did.” She actually winked at him.

“Twenty years of health to you and your children,” Locke said, bowing and briefly disappearing beneath the lip of her counter. “And the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked.”

5

IT WAS a short, neat hanging; the duke’s Masters of the Ropes were nothing if not well practiced at their trade. It wasn’t the first execution Locke had ever seen, nor would it be the last. He and the Sanza brothers even had a chance to make all the proper reverential gestures when one of the condemned begged for Perelandro’s blessings at the last minute.

Traffic across the Black Bridge was halted for executions; a small crowd of guards, spectators, and priests milled about afterward as the requisite hour passed. The corpses twisted in the breeze beneath them, ropes creaking; Locke and the Sanzas stood off to the side respectfully with their little cart.

Eventually, yellowjackets began to haul the bodies up one by one under the watchful eyes of several priests of Aza Guilla. The corpses were carefully set down in an open dray pulled by two black horses draped in the black and silver of the Death Goddess’ order. The last corpse to be drawn up was that of a wiry man with a long beard and a shaved head; his left hand ended in a puckered red stump. Four yellowjackets carried this body over to the cart where the boys waited; a priestess of Aza Guilla accompanied them. Locke felt a chill run up and down his spine when that inscrutable silver-mesh mask tilted down toward him.

“Little brothers of Perelandro,” said the priestess, “what intercession would you plead for on behalf of this man?” Her voice was that of a very young woman, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen. If anything, that only enhanced her eeriness in Locke’s eyes, and he found his throat suddenly dry.

“We plead for whatever will be given,” said Calo.

“The will of the Twelve is not ours to presume,” continued Galdo.

The priestess inclined her head very slightly. “I’m told this man’s widow requested an interment in the House of Perelandro before burial.”

“Apparently she thought he might need it, begging pardon,” said Calo.

“It’s not without precedent. But it is far more usual for the aggrieved to seek our intercession with the Lady.”

“Our master,” managed Locke, “made, ah, a solemn promise to the poor woman that we would give our care. Surely, we, we mean no ill toward you or the Lady Most Fair if we must keep our word.”

“Of course. I did not mean to suggest that you had done anything wrong; the Lady will weigh him in the end, whatever is said and done before the vessel is entombed.” She gestured, and the yellowjackets set the corpse down on the cart. One of them unfurled a cheap cotton shroud and swung it over Antrim’s body, leaving only the top of his head uncovered.

“Blessings of the Lady of the Long Silence to you and your master.”

“Blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked,” said Locke as he and the Sanzas bowed in unison from the waist; a braided silver cord around the priestess’ neck marked her as more than a simple initiate like themselves. “To you and your brothers and sisters.”

The Sanza brothers each took one pole at the front of the cart, and Locke took up the rear, to push and to keep the load balanced. He was instantly sorry that he’d taken this spot; the hanging had filled the man’s breeches with his own shit, and the smell was rising. Gritting his teeth, he called out, “To the House of Perelandro, with all dignity.”

Plodding slowly, the Sanzas pulled the cart down the western side of the Black Bridge, and then turned north to head for the wide, low bridge that led to the Shifting Market’s eastern district. It was a slightly roundabout way home, but not at all suspicious-at least until the three white-robed boys were well away from anyone who’d seen them leave the hanging. Moving with a bit more haste (and enjoying the added deference the dead man was bringing them-save only for Locke, who was still effectively downwind of the poor fellow’s last futile act in life), they turned left and headed for the bridges to the Fauria.

Once there, they pressed south and crossed into the Videnza district; a relatively clean and spacious island well patrolled by yellowjackets. At the heart of the Videnza was a market square of merchant-artisans; recognized names who disdained the churning chaos of the Shifting Market. They operated from the first floors of their fine old sagging houses, which were always freshly mortared and whitewashed over their post-and-timber frames. The district’s tiled roofs, by tradition, were glazed in brightly irregular colors; blue and purple and red and green, they teased the eyes and gleamed like glass under the glare of the sun.

At the northern entrance to this square, Calo darted away from the cart and vanished into the crowd; Locke came up from the rear (muttering prayers of gratitude) to take his place. So arrayed, they hauled their odd cargo toward the shop of Ambrosine Strollo, first lady of Camorr’s chandlers, furnisher to the duke himself.

“If there’s a niggardly speck of genuine fellowship in Camorr,” Chains had once said, “one little place where Perelandro’s name isn’t spoken with a sort of sorry contempt, it’s the Videnza. Merchants are a miserly lot, and craftsfolk are pressed with care. However, those that turn a very pretty profit plying their chosen trade are likely to be somewhat happy. They get the best of all worlds, for common folk. Assuming our lot doesn’t fuck with them.”

Locke was impressed with the response he and Galdo received as they drew the cart up in front of Madam Strollo’s four-story home. Here, the merchants and customers alike bowed their heads as the corpse passed; many of them even made the wordless gesture of benediction in the name of the Twelve, touching first their eyes with both hands, and then their lips, and finally their hearts.

“My dears,” said Madam Strollo, “what an honor, and what an unusual errand you must be on.” She was a slender woman getting well on in years, a sort of cosmic opposite to the clerk Locke had dealt with that morning. Strollo exuded attentive deference; she behaved as though the two little red-faced initiates, sweating heavily under their robes, were full priests of a more powerful order. If she could smell the mess in Antrim’s breeches, she refrained from saying so.

She sat at the street-side window of her shop, under a heavy wooden awning that folded down at night to seal the place tight against mischief. The window was perhaps ten feet wide and half as high, and Madam Strollo was surrounded by candles, stacked layer upon layer, tier upon tier, like the houses and towers of a fantastical wax city. Alchemical globes had largely replaced the cheap taper as the light source of choice for nobility and lowbility alike; the few remaining master chandlers fought back by mingling ever-more-lovely scents in their creations. Additionally, there was the ceremonial need of Camorr’s temples and believers-a need that cold glass light was generally considered inadequate to meet.

“We’re interring this man,” said Locke, “for three days and nights before his burial. My master needs new candles for the ceremony.”

“Old Chains, you mean? Poor dear man. Let’s see…you’ll want lavender for cleanliness, and autumn bloodflower for the blessing, and sulfur roses for the Lady Most Fair?”

“Please,” said Locke, pulling out a humble leather purse that jingled with silver. “And some votives without scent. Half a dozen of all four kinds.”

Madam Strollo carefully selected the candles and wrapped them in waxed burlap. (“A gift of the house,” she muttered when Locke began to open his mouth, “and perhaps I put a few more than half a dozen of each in the packet.”) Locke tried to argue with her for form’s sake, but the old woman grew conveniently deaf for a few crucial seconds as she finished wrapping her goods.

Locke paid three solons out of his purse (taking care to let her see that there were a dozen more nestled therein), and wished Madam Strollo a full hundred years of health for herself and her children in the name of the Lord of the Overlooked as he backed away. He set the package of candles on the cart, tucking it just under the blanket beside Antrim’s glassy, staring eyes.

No sooner had he turned around to resume his place next to Galdo when a taller boy dressed in ragged, dirty clothes walked right into him, sending him tumbling onto his back.

“Oh!” said the boy, who happened to be Calo Sanza. “A thousand pardons! I’m so clumsy; here, let me help you up…”

He grabbed Locke’s outstretched hand and yanked the smaller boy back to his feet. “Twelve gods! An initiate. Forgive me, forgive me. I simply did not see you standing there.” Clucking with concern, he brushed dirt from Locke’s white robe. “Are you well?”

“I am, I am.”

“Forgive my clumsiness; I meant no insult.”

“None is taken. Thank you for helping me back up.”

With that, Calo gave a mock bow and ran off into the crowd; in just a few seconds he was lost to sight. Locke made a show of dusting himself off while he slowly counted to thirty inside his head. At thirty-one, he sat down suddenly beside the cart, put his hooded head in his hands, and began to sniffle. Just a few seconds later he was sobbing loudly. Responding to the cue, Galdo came over and knelt beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder.

“Boys,” said Ambrosine Strollo. “Boys! What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Did that oaf jar something?”

Galdo made a show of muttering into Locke’s ear; Locke muttered back, and Galdo fell backward onto his own posterior. He reached up and tugged at his hood in an excellent imitation of frustration, and his eyes were wide. “No, Madam Strollo,” he said, “it’s worse than that.”

“Worse? What do you mean? What’s the trouble?”

“The silver,” Locke burbled, looking up to let her see the tears pouring down his cheeks and the artful curl of his lips. “He took my purse. Picked my p-pocket.”

“It was payment,” said Galdo, “from this man’s widow. Not just for the candles, but for his interment, our blessings, and his funeral. We were to bring it back to Father Chains along with the-”

“-with the b-body,” Locke burst out. “I’ve failed him!”

“Twelve,” the old lady muttered. “That incredible little bastard!” Leaning out over the counter of her shop window, she hollered in a voice of surprising strength: “Thief! Stop, Thief!” As Locke buried his head in his hands once again, she turned her head upward and shouted, “Lucrezia!”

“Yes, gran’mama!” came a voice from an open window. “What’s this about a thief?”

“Rouse your brothers, child. Get them down here now and tell them to bring their sticks!” She turned to regard Locke and Galdo. “Don’t cry, my dear boys. Don’t cry. We’ll make this right somehow.”

“What’s this about a thief?” A lanky sergeant of the watch ran up, truncheon out, mustard-yellow coat flapping behind him and two other yellowjackets at his heels.

“A fine constable you are, Vidrik, to let those little coat-charmer bastards from the Cauldron sneak in and rob customers right in front of my shop!”

“What? Here? Them?” The watch-sergeant took in the distraught boys, the furious old woman, and the covered corpse; his eyebrows attempted to leap straight up off his forehead. “Ah, that…I say, that man is dead…”

“Of course he’s dead, thimblebrains; these boys are taking him to the House of Perelandro for blessings and a funeral! That little cutpurse just stole the bag with his widow’s payment for it all!”

“Someone robbed the initiates of Perelandro? The boys who help that blind priest?” A florid man with an overachieving belly and an entire squad of spare chins wobbled up, with a walking stick in one hand and a wicked-looking hatchet in the other. “Pissant ratfucker bastards! Such an infamy! In the Videnza, in broad light of day!”

“I’m sorry,” Locke sobbed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize…I should have held it tighter, I just didn’t realize…He was so quick…”

“Nonsense, boy, it was hardly your fault,” said Madam Strollo. The watch-sergeant began blowing his whistle; the fat man with the walking stick continued to spit vitriol, and a pair of young men appeared around the corner of the Strollo house, carrying curved truncheons shod with brass. There was more rapid shouting until they determined that their grandmother was unhurt; when they discovered the reason for her summons, they too began uttering threats and curses and promises of vengeance.

“Here,” said Madam Strollo, “here, boys. The candles will be my gift. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in the Videnza. We won’t stand for it.” She set the three solons Locke had given her back atop her counter. “How much was in the purse?”

“Fifteen solons before we paid you,” said Galdo. “So twelve got stolen. Chains is going to throw us out of the order.”

“Don’t be foolish,” said Madam Strollo. She added two more coins to the pile as the crowd around her shop began to swell.

“Hells yes!” cried the fat man. “We can’t let that little devil dishonor us like this! Madam Strollo, how much are you giving? I’ll give more!”

“Gods take you, you selfish old pig, this isn’t about showing me up-”

“I’ll give you a basket of oranges,” said one of the women in the crowd, “for you and for the Eyeless Priest.”

“I have a solon I can give,” said another merchant, pressing forward with the coin in his hand.

“Vidrik!” Madam Strollo turned from her argument with her florid neighbor. “Vidrik, this is your fault! You owe these initiates some copper, at the very least.”

“My fault? Now look here-”

“No, you look here! When they speak of the Videnza now they’ll say, ‘Ah, that’s where they rob priests, isn’t it?’ For the Twelve’s sake! Just like Catchfire! Or worse!” She spat. “You give something to make amends or I’ll harp on your captain and you’ll end up rowing a shitboat until your hair turns gray and your teeth come out at the roots.”

Grimacing, the watch-sergeant stepped forward and reached for his purse, but there was already a tight press around the two boys; they were helped to their feet, and Locke received too many comforting pats on the back to count. They were plied with coins, fruit, and small gifts; one merchant tossed his more valuable coins into a coat pocket and handed over his purse. Locke and Galdo adopted convincing expressions of bewilderment and surprise. As each gift was handed over to them, they protested as best they could, for form’s sake.

6

IT WAS the fourth hour of the afternoon before the body of Antrim One-Hand was safely stashed in the damp sanctuary of the House of Perelandro. The three white-robed boys (for Calo had rejoined them safely at the edge of the Temple District) padded down the steps and took their seats beside Father Chains, who sat in his usual spot with one burly arm thrown over the rim of his copper kettle.

“So,” he said. “Boys. Is Jessaline going to be sorry she saved my life?”

“Not at all,” said Locke.

“It’s a great corpse,” said Calo.

“Smells a bit,” said Galdo.

“Other than that,” said Calo, “it’s a fantastic corpse.”

“Hanged at noon,” said Locke. “Still fresh.”

“I’m very pleased. Very, very pleased. But I really must ask-why the hell have men and women been throwing money in my kettle for the past half hour, telling me they’re sorry for what happened in the Videnza?”

“It’s because they’re sorry for what happened in the Videnza,” said Galdo.

“It wasn’t a burning tavern, Benefactor’s own truth,” said Locke.

“What,” said Chains, speaking slowly as though to a misbehaving pet, “did you boys do with the corpse before you stashed it in the temple?”

“Made money.” Locke tossed the merchant’s donated purse into the kettle, where it hit with a heavy clang. “Twenty-three solons three, to be precise.”

“And a basket of oranges,” said Calo.

“Plus a packet of candles,” added Galdo, “two loaves of black pepper bread, a wax carton of small beer, and some glow-globes.”

Chains was silent for a moment, and then he actually peeked down into the kettle, pretending to readjust his blindfold by raising it just a bit at the bottom. Calo and Galdo began to confide the roughest outline of the scheme Locke had prepared and executed with their help, giggling as they did so.

“Bugger me bloody with a boathook,” Chains said when they finished. “I don’t recall telling you that your leash was slipped enough for fucking street theater, Locke.”

“We had to get our money back somehow,” said Locke. “Cost us fifteen silvers to get the body from the Palace of Patience. Now we’re up some, plus candles and bread and beer.”

“Oranges,” said Calo.

“Glow-globes,” said Galdo. “Don’t forget those; they’re pretty.”

“Crooked Warden,” said Chains. “Just this morning I was suffering from the delusion that I was handing out the educations here.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments after that, while the sun settled into its downward arc in the west and long shadows began to creep across the face of the city.

“Well, what the hell.” Chains rattled his manacles a few times to keep up his circulation. “I’ll take back what I gave you to spend. Of the extra, Calo, you and Galdo can have a silver apiece to do as you please. Locke, you can have the rest to put toward your…dues. It was fairly stolen.”

At that moment, a well-dressed man in a forest-green coat and a four-cornered hat walked up to the temple steps. He threw a handful of coins into the kettle; they sounded like mingled silver and copper as they clattered. The man tipped his hat to the three boys and said, “I’m from the Videnza. I want you to know that I’m furious about what happened.”

“One hundred years of health for you and your children,” said Locke, “and the blessings of the Lord of the Overlooked.”

1

“YOU SEEM TO be spending a great deal of our money very quickly, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia Salvara.

“Circumstance has blessed us, Doña Sofia.” Locke gave a smile that was a measure of great triumph by Fehrwight standards, a tight-lipped little thing that might have been a grimace of pain from anyone else. “Everything is proceeding with the most agreeable speed. Ships and men and cargo, and soon all we’ll need to do is pack your wardrobe for a short voyage!”

“Indeed, indeed.” Were those dark circles under her eyes? Was there the slightest hint of wariness in her attitude toward him? She certainly wasn’t at ease. Locke made a mental note to avoid pushing her too far, too fast. It was a delicate dance, playing straight lines and smiles with someone who knew he was a mummer but didn’t know that he knew she knew.

With the slightest sigh, Doña Sofia pressed her personal sigil down into the warm blue wax at the bottom of the parchment she was contemplating. She added a few flowing lines of ink above the seal, her signature in the curving Therin script that had become something of a fad among literate nobles in the past few years. “If you say you require another four thousand today, another four thousand it must be.”

“I am most sincerely grateful, my lady.”

“Well, you’ll certainly pay for it soon enough,” she said. “Many times over, if our hopes play out.” At that she smiled, with genuine good humor that crinkled the edges of her eyes, and held out the fresh promissory note.

Oh-ho, thought Locke. Much better. The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control. Another one of Father Chains’ old maxims, proven in Locke’s experience too many times to count.

“Please give my warmest regards to your husband when he returns from his business in the city, my lady,” said Locke, taking the wax-sealed parchment in hand. “Now, I fear, I must go see some men about…payments that will not appear on any official ledger.”

“Of course. I quite understand. Conté can show you out.”

The gruff, weathered man-at-arms was paler than usual, and it seemed to Locke that there was a slight but obvious hitch in his stride. Yes-the poor fellow was clearly favoring a certain badly bruised portion of his anatomy. Locke’s stomach turned in unconscious sympathy at his own memory of that night.

“I say, Conté,” he began politely, “are you feeling quite well? You seem…forgive me for saying so…troubled this past day or two.”

“I’m well for the most part, Master Fehrwight.” There was a slight hardening of the lines at the edges of the man’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit under the weather.”

“Nothing serious?”

“A minor ague, perhaps. They happen, this time of year.”

“Ah. One of the tricks of your climate. I’ve not yet felt such a thing, myself.”

“Well,” said Conté, with an absolute lack of expression on his face, “mind yourself then, Master Fehrwight. Camorr can be a very dangerous place in the most unlooked-for ways.”

Oh-ho-HO, Locke thought. So they’d let him in on the secret, as well. And the man had a proud streak at least as wide as Sofia’s, to drop even the slightest hint of a threat. Worth noting, that.

“I’m the very soul of caution, my dear Conté.” Locke tucked the promissory note within his black waistcoat and adjusted his cascading cravats as they approached the front door of the Salvara manor. “I keep my chambers very well illuminated, to ward off miasmas, and I wear copper rings after Falselight. Just the thing for your hot-and-cold fevers. I would wager that a few days at sea will put you right.”

“No doubt,” said Conté. “The voyage. I do look forward to the…voyage.”

“Then we are of one mind!” Locke waited for the don’s man to open the wide glass-and-iron door for him, and as he stepped out into the moist air of Falselight, he nodded stiffly but affably. “I shall pray for your health tomorrow, my good fellow.”

“Too kind, Master Fehrwight.” The ex-soldier had set one hand on the hilt of one of his knives, perhaps unconsciously. “I shall most assuredly offer prayers concerning yours.”

2

LOCKE BEGAN walking south at a leisurely pace, crossing from the Isla Durona to Twosilver Green as he and Calo had just a few nights previously. The Hangman’s Wind was stronger than usual, and as he walked through the park in the washed-out light of the city’s glowing Elderglass, the hiss and rustle of leaves was like the sighing of vast creatures hiding in the greenery all around him.

Just under seventeen thousand crowns in half a week; the Don Salvara game was well ahead of their original plans, which had called for a two-week span between first touch and final blow-off. Locke was certain he could get one more touch out of the don in perfect safety, push the total up over twenty-two or maybe twenty-three thousand, and then pull a vanish. Go to ground, take it easy for a few weeks, stay alert and let the Gray King mess sort itself out.

And then, as a bonus miracle, somehow convince Capa Barsavi to disengage him from Nazca, and do so without twisting the old man’s breeches. Locke sighed.

When Falselight died and true night fell, the glow never seemed to simply fade so much as recede, as though it were being drawn back within the glass, a loan reclaimed by a jealous creditor. Shadows widened and blackened until finally the whole park was swallowed by them from below. Emerald lanterns flickered to life here and there in the trees, their light soft and eerie and strangely relaxing. They offered just enough illumination to see the crushed stone paths that wound their way through the walls of trees and hedges. Locke felt as though the spring of tension within him was unwinding itself ever so slightly; he listened to the muted crunch of his own footsteps on gravel, and for a few moments he was surprised to find himself possessed by something perilously close to contentment.

He was alive, he was rich, he had made the decision not to skulk and cringe from the troubles that gnawed at his Gentlemen Bastards. And for one brief moment, in the middle of eighty-eight thousand people and all the heaving, stinking, ever-flowing noise and commerce and machinery of their city, he was alone with the gently swaying trees of Twosilver Green.

Alone.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the old cold fear, the constant companion of anyone raised on the streets, was suddenly alive within him. It was a summer night in Twosilver Green, the safest open park in the city, patrolled at any given time by two or three squads of yellowjackets with their night-lanterns waving on poles. Filled, sometimes to the point of comedy, with the strolling sons and daughters of the wealthy classes, holding hands and swatting insects and seeking the privacy of nooks and shadows.

Locke gazed quickly up and down the curving paths around him; he was truly alone. There was no sound in the park but for the sighing of the leaves and the buzzing of the insects; no voices or footsteps that he could hear. He twisted his right forearm, and a thin stiletto of blackened steel fell from his coat sleeve into his palm, pommel-down. He carried it straight against his arm, rendering it invisible from any distance, and hurried toward the southern gate of the park.

A mist was rising, seeping up as though the grass were pouring gray vapors into the night; Locke shivered despite the warm, heavy air. A mist was perfectly natural, wasn’t it? The whole city was blanketed in the stuff two nights out of three; a man could lose track of the end of his own nose in it sometimes. But why-

The southern gate of the park. He was standing before the southern gate of the park, staring out across an empty cobbled lane, at a mist-shrouded bridge. That bridge was the Eldren Arch, its red lanterns soft and ominous in the fog.

The Eldren Arch leading north to the Isla Durona.

He’d gotten turned around. How was that possible? His heart was beating so fast, and then-Doña Sofia. That cunning, cunning bitch. She’d done something to him…slipped him some alchemical mischief on the parchment. The ink? The wax? Was it a poison, drawing some cloud around his senses before it did its work? Was it some other drug, intended to make him ill? Petty, perfectly deniable revenge to sate her for the time being? He fumbled for the parchment, missing his inner coat pocket, aware that he was moving a bit too slowly and clumsily for the confusion to be entirely in his imagination.

There were men moving under the trees.

One to his left, another to his right…The Eldren Arch was gone; he was back at the heart of the curving paths, staring out into a darkness cut only by the emerald light of the lanterns. He gasped, crouched, brought up the stiletto, head swimming. The men were cloaked; they were on either side; there was the sound of footsteps on gravel, not his own. The dark shape of crossbows, the backlit shapes of the men…His head whirled.

“Master Thorn,” said a man’s voice, muffled and distant, “we require an hour of your attention.”

“Crooked Warden.” Locke gasped, and then even the faint colors of the trees seemed to drain from his vision, and the whole night went black.

3

WHEN HE came to, he was already sitting up. It was a curious sensation. He’d awoken before from blackness brought on by injuries and by drugs, but this was different. It was as though someone had simply set the mechanisms of his consciousness moving again, like a scholar opening the spigot on a Verrari water-clock.

He was in the common room of a tavern, seated on a chair at a table by himself. He could see the bar, and the hearth, and the other tables, but the place was dank and empty, smelling of mold and dust. A flickering orange light came from behind him-an oil lantern. The windows were greasy and misted over, turning the light back upon itself; he couldn’t see anything of the outside through them.

“There’s a crossbow at your back,” said a voice just a few feet behind him, a pleasantly cultured man’s voice, definitely Camorri but somewhat off in a few of the pronunciations. A native who’d spent time elsewhere? The voice was entirely unknown to him. “Master Thorn.”

Icicles seemed to grow in Locke’s spine. He racked his brains furiously for recall of those last few seconds in the park… Hadn’t one of the men there called him that, as well? He gulped. “Why do you call me that? My name is Lukas Fehrwight. I’m a citizen of Emberlain working for the House of bel Auster.”

“I could believe that, Master Thorn. Your accent is convincing, and your willingness to suffer that black wool is nothing short of heroic. Don Lorenzo and Doña Sofia certainly believed in Lukas Fehrwight, until you yourself disabused them of the notion.”

It isn’t Barsavi, Locke thought desperately. It couldn’t be Barsavi… Barsavi would be conducting this conversation himself, if he knew. He would be conducting it at the heart of the Floating Grave, with every Gentleman Bastard tied to a post and every knife in Sage Kindness’ bag sharpened and gleaming.

“My name is Lukas Fehrwight,” Locke insisted. “I don’t understand what you want or what I’m doing here. Have you done anything to Graumann? Is he safe?”

“Jean Tannen is perfectly safe,” said the man. “As you well know. How I would have loved to see it up close, when you strolled into Don Salvara’s office with that silly sigil-wallet under your black cloak. Destroying his confidence in Lukas Fehrwight just as a father gently tells his children there’s really no such thing as the Blessed Bringer! You’re an artist, Master Thorn.”

“I have already told you, my name is Lukas, Lukas Fehrwight, and-”

“If you tell me that your name is Lukas Fehrwight one more time, I’m going to put a bolt through the back of your upper left arm. I wouldn’t mean to kill you, just to complicate your life. A nice big hole, maybe a broken bone. Ruin that fine suit of yours, perhaps get blood all over that lovely parchment. Wouldn’t the clerks at Meraggio’s love to hear an explanation for that? Promissory notes are so much more attention-getting when they’re covered in gore.”

Locke said nothing for quite a long while.

“Now that won’t do either, Locke. Surely you must have realized I can’t be one of Barsavi’s men.”

Thirteen, Locke thought. Where the hell did I make a mistake? If the man was speaking truthfully, if he didn’t work for Capa Barsavi, there was only one other possibility. The real Spider. The real Midnighters. Had Locke’s use of the pretend sigil-wallet been reported? Had that counterfeiter in Talisham decided to try for a bit of extra profit by dropping a word with the duke’s secret constables? It seemed the likeliest explanation.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

Locke stood up and did so, and bit his tongue to avoid crying out in surprise.

The man seated at the table before him could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty; he was lean and rangy and gray at the temples. The mark of Camorr was upon his face; he bore the sun-darkened olive skin, the high temples and cheekbones, the sharp nose.

He wore a gray leather doublet over a gray silk tunic; his cloak and mantle were gray, as was the hood that was swept back behind his head. His hands, folded neatly before him, were covered with thin gray swordsman’s gloves, kid leather that was weathered and creased with use. The man had hunter’s eyes, cold and steady and measuring. The orange light of the lantern was reflected in their dark pupils. For a second it seemed to Locke that he was seeing not a reflection but a revelation; that the dark fire burned behind the man’s eyes. Locke shivered despite himself… All that gray…

“You,” he whispered, dropping the accent of Lukas Fehrwight.

“None other,” said the Gray King. “I disdain these clothes as something of a theatrical touch, but it’s a necessary one. Of all the men in Camorr, surely you understand these things, Master Thorn.”

“I have no idea why you keep calling me that,” said Locke, shifting his footing as unobtrusively as he could, feeling the comforting weight of his second stiletto in the other sleeve of his coat. “And I don’t see this crossbow you mentioned.”

“I said it was at your back.” The Gray King gestured at the far wall with a thin, bemused smile. Warily, Locke turned his head-

There was a man standing against the wall of the tavern, standing right in the spot Locke had been staring at until the previous moment. A cloaked and hooded man, broad-shouldered, leaning lazily against the wall with a loaded alley-piece in the crook of his arm, the quarrel pointed casually at Locke’s chest.

“I…” Locke turned back, but the Gray King was no longer seated at the table. He was standing a dozen feet away, to Locke’s left, behind the disused bar. The lantern on the table hadn’t moved, and Locke could see that the man was grinning. “This isn’t possible.”

“Of course it is, Master Thorn. Think it through. The number of possibilities is actually vanishingly small.”

The Gray King waved his left hand in an arc, as though wiping a window; Locke glanced back at the wall and saw that the crossbowman had disappeared once again.

“Well, fuck me,” said Locke. “You’re a Bondsmage.”

“No,” said the Gray King, “I’m a man without that advantage, no different than yourself. But I employ a Bondsmage.” He pointed to the table where he’d previously been sitting.

There, without any sudden movement or jump in Locke’s perception, sat a slender man surely not yet out of his twenties. His chin and cheeks were peach-fuzzed, and his hairline was already in rapid retreat to the back of his head. His eyes were alight with amusement, and Locke immediately saw in him the sort of casual presumption of authority that most congenital bluebloods wore like a second skin.

He was dressed in an extremely well-tailored gray coat with flaring red silk cuffs; the bare skin of his left wrist bore three tattooed black lines. On his right hand was a heavy leather gauntlet, and perched atop this, staring at Locke as though he were nothing more than a field mouse with delusions of grandeur, was the fiercest hunting hawk Locke had ever seen. The bird of prey stared directly at him, its eyes pinpoints of black within gold on either side of a curved beak that looked dagger-sharp. Its brown-and-gray wings were folded back sleekly, and its talons-what was wrong with its talons? Its rear claws were huge, distended, oddly lengthened.

“My associate, the Falconer,” said the Gray King. “A Bondsmage of Karthain. My Bondsmage. The key to a great many things. And now that we’ve been introduced, let us speak of what I expect you to do for me.”

4

“THEY ARE not to be fucked with,” Chains had told him once, many years before.

“Why not?” Locke was twelve or thirteen at the time, about as cocksure as he’d ever be in life, which was saying something.

“I see you’ve been neglecting your history again. I’ll assign you more reading shortly.” Chains sighed. “The Bondsmagi of Karthain are the only sorcerers on the continent, because they permit no one else to study their art. Outsiders they find must join them or be slain.”

“And none resist? Nobody fights back or hides from them?”

“Of course they do, here and there. But what can two or five or ten sorcerers in hiding do against four hundred with a city-state at their command? What the Bondsmagi do to outsiders and renegades…They make Capa Barsavi look like a priest of Perelandro. They are utterly jealous, utterly ruthless, and utterly without competition. They have achieved their desired monopoly. No one will shelter sorcerers against the will of the Bondsmagi, no one. Not even the King of the Seven Marrows.”

“Curious,” said Locke, “that they would still call themselves Bondsmagi, then.”

“It’s false modesty. I think it amuses them. They set such ridiculous prices for their services, it’s less like mercenary work to them and more like a cruel joke at the expense of their clients.”

“Ridiculous prices?”

“A novice would cost you five hundred crowns a day. A more experienced spellbinder might cost you a thousand. They mark their rank with tattoos around their wrists. The more black circles you see, the more polite you become.”

“A thousand crowns a day?”

“You see now why they’re not everywhere, on retainer to every court and noble and pissant warlord with a treasury to waste. Even in times of war and other extreme crises, they can be secured for a very limited duration. When you do cross paths with one, you can be sure that the client is paying them for serious, active work.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Karthain.”

“Ha-ha. I mean their guild. Their monopoly.”

“That’s easy. One night a powerful sorcerer knocks on the door of a less-powerful sorcerer. ‘I’m starting an exclusive guild,’ he says. ‘Join me now or I’ll blast you out of your fucking boots right where you stand.’ So naturally the second mage says…”

“‘You know, I’ve always wanted to join a guild!’”

“Right. Those two go bother a third sorcerer. ‘Join the guild,’ they say, ‘or fight both of us, two on one, right here and right now.’ Repeat as necessary, until three or four hundred guild members are knocking on the door of the last independent mage around, and everyone who said no is dead.”

“They must have weaknesses,” said Locke.

“Of course they’ve got weaknesses, boy. They’re mortal men and women, same as us. They eat, they shit, they age, they die. But they’re like gods-damned hornets; mess with one and the rest show up to punch you full of holes. Thirteen help anyone who kills a Bondsmage, purposely or otherwise.”

“Why?”

“It’s the oldest rule of their guild, a rule without exceptions: kill a Bondsmage, and the whole guild drops whatever it’s doing to come after you. They seek you out by any means they need to use. They kill your friends, your family, your associates. They burn your home. They destroy everything you’ve ever built. Before they finally let you die, they make sure you know that your line has been wiped from the earth, root and branch.”

“So nobody is allowed to oppose them at all?”

“Oh, you can oppose them, all right. You can try to fight back, for what it’s worth when one of them is against you. But if you go as far as killing one, well, it’s just not worth it. Suicide would be preferable; at least then they won’t kill everyone you ever loved or befriended.”

“Wow.”

“Yes.” Chains shook his head. “Sorcery’s impressive enough, but it’s their fucking attitude that makes them such a pain. And that’s why, when you find yourself face to face with one, you bow and scrape and mind your ‘sirs’ and ‘madams.’”

5

“NICE BIRD, asshole,” said Locke.

The Bondsmage stared coldly at him, nonplussed.

“So you must be the reason nobody can find your boss. The reason none of the Full Crowns could remember what they were doing when Tall Tesso got nailed to a wall.”

The falcon screeched, and Locke flinched backward; the creature’s anger was extremely expressive. It was more than the cry of an agitated animal; it was somehow personal. Locke raised his eyebrows.

“My familiar mislikes your tone of voice,” said the Falconer. “I for one have always found her judgment to be impeccable. I would mind your tongue.”

“Your boss expects me to do something for him,” said Locke, “which means I have to remain functional. Which means the manner in which I address his fucking Karthani lackeys is immaterial. Some of the garristas you killed were friends of mine. I’m looking at an arranged fucking marriage because of you! So eat hemp and shit rope, Bondsmage.”

The falcon exploded, screeching, from its perch on its master’s hand. Locke raised his left arm in front of his face and the bird slammed against it, talons clutching with edges that sliced through the fabric of Locke’s coat sleeve. The bird fastened itself on Locke’s arm, excruciatingly, and beat its wings to steady itself. Locke hollered and raised his right hand to punch the bird.

“Do that,” said the Falconer, “and die. Look closely at my familiar’s talons.”

Biting the insides of his cheeks against the pain, Locke did just that. The creature’s rear talons weren’t talons at all, but more like smooth curved hooks that narrowed to needle points at their tips. There were strange pulsating sacs on the legs just above them, and even to Locke’s limited knowledge of hunting birds this seemed very wrong.

“Vestris,” said the Gray King, “is a scorpion hawk. A hybrid, facilitated by alchemy and sorcery. One of many that the Bondsmagi amuse themselves with. She carries not just talons, but a sting. If she were to cease being tolerant of you, you might make it ten steps before you fell dead in your tracks.”

Blood began to drip from Locke’s arm; he groaned. The bird snapped at him with its beak, clearly enjoying itself.

“Now,” said the Gray King, “are we not all grown men and birds here? Functional is such a relative state of affairs, Locke. I would hate to have to give you another demonstration of just how relative.”

“I apologize,” said Locke between gritted teeth. “Vestris is a fine and persuasive little bird.”

The Falconer said nothing, but Vestris released her grip on Locke’s left arm, unleashing new spikes of pain. Locke clutched his bloodied wool sleeve, massaging the wounds within it. Vestris fluttered back to her perch on her master’s glove and resumed staring at Locke.

“Isn’t it just as I said, Falconer?” The Gray King beamed at Locke. “Our Thorn knows how to recover his equilibrium. Two minutes ago, he was too scared to think. Now he’s already insulting us and no doubt scheming for a way out of this situation.”

“I don’t understand,” said Locke, “why you keep calling me Thorn.”

“Of course you do,” said the Gray King. “I’m only going to go over this once, Locke. I know about your little burrow beneath the House of Perelandro. Your vault. Your fortune. I know you don’t spend any of your nights sneak-thieving, as you claim to all the other Right People. I know you breach the Secret Peace to spring elaborate confidence schemes on nobles who don’t know any better, and I know you’re good at it. I know you didn’t start these ridiculous rumors about the Thorn of Camorr, but you and I both know they refer to your exploits, indirectly. Lastly, I understand that Capa Barsavi would do some very interesting things to you and all of your Gentlemen Bastards if the things I know were to be confided to him.”

“Oh, please,” said Locke, “you’re not exactly in any position to whisper politely in his ear and be taken seriously.”

“I’m not the one who would be whispering in his ear,” said the Gray King, smiling, “if you failed at the task I have for you. I have others close to him to speak for me. I trust I have made myself very clear.”

Locke glared for a few seconds, then sat down with a sigh, turning his chair around and leaning his injured arm against the back. “I see your point. And in exchange?”

“In exchange, for the task I require, I would promise you that Capa Barsavi won’t hear about your very cleverly arranged double life, nor that of your closest companions.”

“So,” said Locke slowly, “that’s how it is.”

“My Bondsmage excepted, I’m a thrifty man, Locke.” The Gray King stepped out from behind the bar and folded his arms. “You get paid in life, not coin.”

“What’s the task?”

“A straightforward beguilement,” said the Gray King. “I want you to become me.”

“I, ah, I don’t understand.”

“The time has come for me to quit this game of shadows. Barsavi and I need to speak face-to-face. I will very shortly arrange a clandestine conference with the capa, one that will bring him forth from the Floating Grave.”

“Fat chance.”

“In this you must trust me. I’m the architect of his current troubles; I assure you, I know what can bring him out from that soggy fortress of his. But it won’t be me that he’ll speak to. It will be you. The Thorn of Camorr. The greatest mummer this city has ever produced. You, cast in the role of me. Just for one night. A virtuoso performance.”

“A command performance. Why?”

“I will be required elsewhere at that time. The conference is one part of a wider concern.”

“I am personally known to Capa Barsavi and his entire family.”

“You have already convinced the Salvaras that you were two different men. In the same day, no less. I’ll coach you in what I wish you to say and provide you with a suitable wardrobe. Between your skills and my current anonymity, no one will ever be aware that you are even involved, or that you are not the real Gray King.”

“An amusing plan. It has balls, and that appeals to me. But you do realize that I’m going to look like quite the ass,” said Locke, “when the capa opens our conversation with a dozen crossbow bolts to my chest.”

“Hardly an issue. You’ll be quite well protected against routine foolishness on the capa’s part. I’ll be sending the Falconer with you.”

Locke flicked his gaze back to the Bondsmage, who smiled with obvious mock magnanimity.

“Do you really think,” continued the Gray King, “that I would have let you keep that other stiletto in your coat sleeve if any weapon in your hands could touch me? Try to cut me. I’ll let you borrow a crossbow or two, if you like. A quarrel will do no better. The same protection will be yours when you meet with the capa.”

“Then it’s true,” said Locke. “Those stories aren’t just stories. Your pet mage gives you more than just the ability to make my brain lock up like I’ve been drinking all night.”

“Yes. And it was my men who started spreading those stories, for one purpose-I wanted Barsavi’s gangs to so dread my presence that they wouldn’t dare to get close to you when the time came for you to speak to him. After all, I have the power to kill men with a touch.” The Gray King smiled. “And when you’re me, so will you.”

Locke frowned. That smile, that face…There was something damned familiar about the Gray King. Nothing immediately obvious, just a nagging sensation that Locke had been in his presence before. He cleared his throat. “That’s very thoughtful of you. And what happens when I’ve finished this task for you?”

“A parting of the ways,” said the Gray King. “You to your business, and me to my own.”

“I find that somewhat difficult to believe.”

“You’ll leave your meeting with Barsavi alive, Locke. Fear not for what happens after that; I assure you it won’t be as bad as you think. If I merely wanted to assassinate him, can you deny that I could have done it long ago?”

“You’ve killed seven of his garristas. You’ve kept him locked away on the Floating Grave for months. ‘Not as bad as I think’? He killed eight of his own Full Crowns after Tesso died. He won’t accept less than blood from you.”

“Barsavi has kept himself locked away on the Floating Grave, Locke. And as I said, you must trust me to deal with that end of the situation. The capa will acquiesce to what I have to offer him. We’ll settle the question of Camorr once and for all, to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“I grant that you’re dangerous,” said Locke, “but you must be mad.”

“Suit whatever meaning you wish to my actions, Locke, provided that you perform as required.”

“It would appear,” Locke said sourly, “that I have no choice.”

“This is no accident. Are we agreed? You’ll perform this task for me?”

“With instruction in what you wish me to say to Capa Barsavi?”

“Yes.”

“There will be one other condition.”

“Really?”

“If I’m going to do this for you,” said Locke, “I need to have a way to speak to you, or at least get a message to you, at my own will. Something may come up which can’t wait for you to prance around appearing out of nowhere.”

“It’s unlikely,” said the Gray King.

“It’s a necessity. Do you want me to be successful in this task or not?”

“Very well.” The Gray King nodded. “Falconer.”

The Falconer rose from his seat; Vestris never took her eyes from Locke’s. The hawk’s master reached inside his coat with his free hand and withdrew a candle-a tiny cylinder of white wax with an odd smear of crimson swirling through it. “Light this,” said the Bondsmage, “in a place of solitude. You must be absolutely alone. Speak my name, and I will hear and come, soon enough.”

“Thank you.” Locke took the candle with his right hand and slipped it into his own coat. “Falconer. Easy to remember, that.”

Vestris opened her beak, but made no noise. It snapped shut, and the bird blinked. A yawn? Her version of a chuckle at Locke’s expense?

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” said the Bondsmage. “Just as Vestris feels what I feel, I see what she sees.”

“That explains quite a bit,” said Locke.

“If we are agreed,” said the Gray King, “our business here is finished. I have something else to do, and it must be done tonight. Thank you, Master Thorn, for seeing reason.”

“Said the man with the crossbow to the man with the money purse.” Locke stood up and slipped his left hand into a coat pocket; the forearm was still throbbing with pain. “So when is this meeting supposed to take place?”

“Three nights hence,” said the Gray King. “No interruption at all for your Don Salvara game, I trust?”

“I don’t think you really care, but no.”

“All for the better, then. Let us return you to your own affairs.”

“You’re not going to-”

But it was too late; the Falconer had already begun to gesture with his free hand and move his lips, forming words but not quite vocalizing them. The room spun; the orange lantern light became a fading streak of color against the darkness of the room, and then there was only darkness.

6

WHEN LOCKE’S senses returned he found himself standing on the bridge between the Snare and Coin-Kisser’s Row; not a moment had passed by his own personal reckoning, but when he looked up he saw that the clouds were gone, the stars had whirled in the dark sky, and the moons were low in the west.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “It’s been hours! Jean’s got to be having fits.”

He thought quickly; Calo and Galdo had planned to spend the evening making their rounds in the Snare, with Bug in tow. They would probably have ended up at the Last Mistake, dicing and drinking and trying not to get thrown out for cardsharping. Jean had intended to spend the night feigning occupancy in the Broken Tower rooms, at least until Locke returned. That would be the closest place to begin hunting for them. Just then, Locke remembered that he was still dressed as Lukas Fehrwight. He slapped his forehead.

He pulled his coat and cravats off, yanked the false optics from the bridge of his nose, and stuffed them in a vest pocket. He gingerly felt the cuts on his left arm; they were deep and still painful, but the blood had crusted on them, so at least he wasn’t dripping all over the place. Gods damn the Gray King, thought Locke, and gods grant I get the chance to balance this night out in the ledger.

He ruffled his hair, unbuttoned his vest, untucked his shirt, and reached down to fold and conceal the ridiculous ribbon tongues of his shoes. His cravats and his decorative belts went into the coat, which Locke then folded up and tied by the sleeves. In the darkness, it bore an excellent resemblance to a plain old cloth sack. With the outward flourishes of Lukas Fehrwight broken down, he could at least pass without notice for a reasonably short period of time. Satisfied, he turned and began to walk quickly down the south side of the bridge, toward the still-lively lights and noises of the Snare.

Jean Tannen actually appeared from an alley and took him by the arm as he turned onto the street on the north side of the Broken Tower, where the main entrance to the Last Mistake opened onto the cobbles. “Locke! Where the hell have you been all night? Are you well?”

“Jean, gods, am I ever glad to see you! I’m far from well, as are you. Where are the others?”

“When you didn’t return,” Jean said, speaking in a low voice close to Locke’s ear, “I found them in the Last Mistake and sent them up to our rooms, with Bug. I’ve been pacing the alleys down here, trying to keep out of sight. I didn’t want us all getting scattered across the city by night. I…we feared…”

“I was taken, Jean. But then I was let go. Let’s get up to the rooms. We have a new problem, fresh from the oven and hot as hell.”

7

THEY LET the windows in their rooms stay open this time, with thin sheets of translucent mesh drawn down to keep out biting insects. The sky was turning gray, with lines of red visible just beneath the eastern windowsills, when Locke finished relating the events of the night. His listeners had shadows beneath their bleary eyes, but none showed any indication of sleepiness just then.

“At least we know now,” Locke finished, “that he won’t be trying to kill me like he did the other garristas.”

“Not until three nights hence, anyway,” said Galdo.

“Bastard simply can’t be trusted,” said Bug.

“But for the time being,” said Locke, “he must be obeyed.”

Locke had changed into spare clothes; he now looked much more suitably low-class. Jean had insisted on washing his arm with reinforced wine, heated to near boiling on an alchemical hearthstone. Locke now had a compress of brandy-soaked cloth pressed to it, and he bathed it in the light of a small white glow-globe. It was common knowledge among the physikers of Camorr that light drove back malodorous air and helped prevent lingering infections.

“Must he?” Calo scratched a stubbly chin. “How far do you figure we can get if we run like hell?”

“From the Gray King, who knows?” Locke sighed. “From the Bondsmage, not far enough, ever.”

“So we just sit back,” said Jean, “and let him pull your strings, like a marionette onstage.”

“I was rather taken,” said Locke, “with the whole idea of him not telling Capa Barsavi about our confidence games, yes.”

“This whole thing is mad,” said Galdo. “You said you saw three rings on this Falconer’s wrist?”

“The one that didn’t have the damn scorpion hawk, yeah.”

“Three rings,” Jean muttered. “It is mad. To keep one of those people in service… It must be two months now since the first stories of the Gray King appeared. Since the first garrista got it… Who was it, again?”

“Gil the Cutter, from the Rum Hounds,” said Calo.

“The coin involved has to be…ludicrous. I doubt the duke could keep a Bondsmage of rank on for this long. So who the fuck is this Gray King, and how is he paying for this?”

“Immaterial,” said Locke. “Three nights hence, or two and a half now that the sun’s coming up, there’ll be two Gray Kings, and I’ll be one of them.”

“Thirteen,” said Jean. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms.

“So that’s the bad news. Capa Barsavi wants me to marry his daughter and now the Gray King wants me to impersonate him at a secret meeting with Capa Barsavi.” Locke grinned. “The good news is I didn’t get any blood on that new promissory note for four thousand crowns.”

“I’ll kill him,” said Bug. “Get me poisoned quarrels and an alley-piece and I’ll drill him in the eyes.”

“Bug,” said Locke, “that makes leaping off a temple roof sound reasonable by comparison.”

“But who would ever expect it?” Bug, sitting beneath one of the room’s eastern windows, turned his head to stare out it for a few moments, as he had been intermittently doing all night. “Look, everyone knows that one of you four could kill them. But nobody would expect me! Total surprise. One shot in the face, no more Gray King!”

“Assuming the Falconer allowed your crossbow bolts to hit his client,” said Locke, “he would probably cook us where we stood right after that. Also, I very much doubt that fucking bird is going to be fluttering around this tower where we can see it.”

“You never know,” said Bug. “I think I saw it before, when we made first touch on Don Salvara.”

“I’m pretty sure I did, too.” Calo was knuckle-walking a solon on his left hand, without looking at it. “While I was strangling you, Locke. Something flew overhead. Damn big and fast for a wren or a sparrow.”

“So,” said Jean, “he really has been watching us and he really knows all there is to know about us. Knuckling under might be wiser for the time being, but we’ve got to have some contingencies we can cook up.”

“Should we call off the Don Salvara game now?” asked Bug, meekly.

“Hmmm? No.” Locke shook his head vigorously. “There’s absolutely no reason, for the time being.”

“How,” said Galdo, “do you figure that?”

“The reason we discussed shortening the game was to keep our heads down and try to avoid getting killed by the Gray King. Now we can be pretty damn sure that won’t happen, at least not for three days. So the Salvara game stays in play.”

“For three days, yes. Until the Gray King has no further use for you.” Jean spat. “Next step in whatever the plans are: ‘Thanks for your cooperation, here’s a complimentary knife in the back for all of you.’”

“It’s a possibility,” said Locke. “So what we do is this: Jean, you scuttle around today after you’ve had some sleep. Cancel those arrangements for sea travel. If we need to run, waiting for a ship to put out will take too long. Likewise, drop more gold at the Viscount’s Gate. If we go out, we go out by land, and I want that gate swinging wider and faster than a whorehouse door.

“Calo, Galdo, you find us a wagon. Stash it behind the temple; set it up with tarps and rope for fast packing. Get us food and drink for the road. Simple stuff, sturdy stuff. Spare cloaks. Plain clothing. You know what to do. If any Right People spot you at work, maybe drop a hint that we’re after a fat score in the next few days. Barsavi would like that, if it gets back to him.

“Bug, tomorrow you and I are going to go through the vault. We’ll bring up every coin in there, and we’re going to pack them in canvas sacks, for easy transport. If we have to run, I want to be able to throw the whole mess on the back of our wagon in just a few minutes.”

“Makes sense,” said Bug.

“So, Sanzas, you stick together,” said Locke. “Bug, you’re with me. Nobody goes it alone, for any length of time, except Jean. You’re the least likely to get troubled, if the Gray King’s got anything less than an army hidden in the city.”

“Oh, you know me.” Jean reached behind his neck, down behind the loose leather vest he wore over his simple cotton tunic. He withdrew a pair of matching hatchets, each a foot and a half in length, with leather-wrapped handles and straight black blades that narrowed like scalpels. These were balanced with balls of blackened steel, each as wide around as a silver solon. The Wicked Sisters-Jean’s weapons of choice. “I never travel alone. It’s always the three of us.”

“Right, then.” Locke yawned. “If we need any other bright ideas, we can conjure them when we wake up. Let’s set something heavy against the door, shut the windows, and start snoring.”

The Gentlemen Bastards had just stumbled to their feet to begin putting this sensible plan into action when Jean held up one hand for silence. The stairs outside the door on the north wall of the chamber were creaking under the weight of many feet. A moment later, someone was banging on the door itself.

“Lamora,” came a loud male voice, “open up! Capa’s business!”

Jean slipped his hatchets into one hand and put that hand behind his back, then stood against the north wall, a few feet to the right of the door. Calo and Galdo reached under their shirts for their daggers, Galdo pushing Bug back behind him as they did so. Locke stood in the center of the room, remembering that his stilettos were still wrapped up in his Fehrwight coat.

“What’s the price of a loaf,” he shouted, “at the Shifting Market?”

“One copper flat, but the loaves ain’t dry,” came the response. Locke untensed just a bit-that was this week’s proper greeting and countersign, and if they’d been coming to haul him off for anything bloody, well, they’d have simply kicked in the door. Signaling with his hands for everyone to stay calm, he drew out the bolt and slid the front door open just wide enough to peek out.

There were four men on the platform outside his door, seventy feet in the air above the Last Mistake. The sky was the color of murky canal water behind them, with just a few twinkling stars vanishing slowly here and there. They were hard-looking men, standing ready and easy like trained fighters, wearing leather tunics, leather collars, and red cloth bandannas under black leather caps. Red Hands-the gang Barsavi turned to when he needed muscle work and he needed it fast.

“Begging your pardon, brother.” The apparent leader of the Red Hands put one arm up against the door. “Big man wants to see Locke Lamora right this very moment, and he don’t care what state he’s in, and he won’t let us take no for an answer.”

1

In the year that followed Locke grew, but not as much as he would have liked. Although it was difficult to guess his true age with any hope of accuracy, it was obvious that he was more than a little runty for it.

“You missed a few meals, in your very early years,” Chains told him. “You’ve done much better since you came here, to be sure, but I suspect you’ll always be a bit on the…medium side.”

“Always?”

“Don’t be too upset.” Chains put his hands on his own round belly and chuckled. “A little man can slip out of a pinch that a greater man might find inescapable.”

There was further schooling. More sums, more history, more maps, more languages. Once Locke and the Sanzas had a firm grasp of conversational Vadran, Chains began having them instructed in the art of accents. A few hours each week were spent in the company of an old Vadran sail-mender who would chide them for their “fumble-mouthed mangling” of the northern tongue while he drove his long, wicked needles through yard upon yard of folded canvas. They would chat about any subject on the old man’s mind, and he would fastidiously correct every consonant that was too short and every vowel that was too long. He would also get steadily more red-faced and belligerent as each session went on, for Chains paid him in wine for his services.

There were trials-some trivial and some quite harsh. Chains tested his boys constantly, almost ruthlessly, but when he was finished with each new conundrum he always took them to the temple roof to explain what he’d wanted, what the hardships signified. His openness after the fact made his games easier to bear, and they had the added effect of uniting Locke, Calo, and Galdo against the world around them. The more Chains tightened the screws, the closer the boys grew, the more smoothly they worked together, the less they had to say out loud to set a plan in motion.

The coming of Jean Tannen changed all that.

It was the month of Saris in the Seventy-seventh Year of Iono, the end of an unusually dry and cool autumn. Storms had lashed the Iron Sea but spared Camorr, by some trick of the winds or the gods, and the nights were finer than any in Locke’s living memory. He was sitting the steps with Father Chains, flexing his fingers, eagerly awaiting the rise of Falselight, when he spotted the Thiefmaker walking across the square toward the House of Perelandro.

Two years had removed some of the dread Locke had once felt toward his former master, but there was no denying that the skinny old fellow retained a certain grotesque magnetism. The Thiefmaker’s spindly fingers spread as he bowed from the waist, and his eyes lit up when they seized on Locke.

“My dear, bedeviling little boy, what a pleasure it is to see you leading a productive life in the Order of Perelandro.”

“He owes his success to your early discipline, of course.” Chains’ smile spread beneath his blindfold. “It’s what helped to make him the resolute and morally upright youth he is today.”

“Upright?” The Thiefmaker squinted at Locke, feigning concentration. “I’d be hard-pressed to say he’s grown an inch. But no matter. I’ve brought you the boy we discussed, the one from the North Corner. Step forward, Jean. You can’t hide behind me any more than you could hide under a copper coin.”

There was indeed a boy standing behind the Thiefmaker; when the old man shooed him out into plain view, Locke saw that he was about his own age, perhaps ten, and in every other respect his opposite. The new boy was fat, red-faced, shaped like a dirty pear with a greasy mop of black hair atop his head. His eyes were wide and shocked; he clenched and unclenched his soft hands nervously.

“Ahhh,” said Chains, “ahhh. I can’t see him, but then, the qualities the Lord of the Overlooked desires in his servants cannot be seen by any man. Are you penitent, my boy? Are you sincere? Are you as upright as those our charitable celestial master has already taken into his fold?”

He gave Locke a pat on the back, manacles and chains rattling. Locke, for his part, stared at the newcomer and said nothing.

“I hope so, sir,” said Jean, in a voice that was soft and haunted.

“Well,” said the Thiefmaker, “hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not? The good Father Chains is your master now, boy. I leave you to his care.”

“Not mine, but that of the higher Power I serve,” said Chains. “Oh, before you leave, I just happened to find this purse sitting on my temple steps earlier today.” He held out a fat little leather bag, stuffed with coins, and waved it in the Thiefmaker’s general direction. “Is it yours, by chance?”

“Why, so it is! So it is!” The Thiefmaker plucked the purse from Chains’ hands and made it vanish into the pockets of his weather-eaten coat. “What a fortunate coincidence that is.” He bowed once more, turned, and began to walk back in the direction of Shades’ Hill, whistling tunelessly.

Chains arose, rubbed his legs, and clapped his hands. “Let us call an end to our public duties for the day. Jean, this is Locke Lamora, one of my initiates. Please help him carry this kettle in to the sanctuary. Careful, it’s heavy.”

The thin boy and the fat boy heaved the kettle up the steps and into the damp sanctuary; the Eyeless Priest groped along his chains, gathering the slack and dragging it with him until he was safely inside. Locke worked the wall mechanism to slide the temple doors shut, and Chains settled himself down in the middle of the sanctuary floor.

“The kindly gentleman,” said Chains, “who delivered you into my care said that you could speak, read, and write in three languages.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jean, gazing around him in trepidation. “Therin, Vadran, and Issavrai.”

“Very good. And you can do complex sums? Ledger-balancing?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Then you can help me count the day’s takings. But first, come over here and give me your hand. That’s it. Let us see if you have any of the gifts necessary to become an initiate of this temple, Jean Tannen.”

“What…what must I do?”

“Simply place your hands on my blindfold… No, stand easy. Close your eyes. Concentrate. Let whatever virtuous thoughts you have within you bubble to the surface…”

2

“I DON’T like him,” said Locke. “I don’t like him at all.”

He and Chains were preparing the breakfast meal early the next morning; Locke was simmering up a soup from sliced onions and irregular little brown cubes of reduced beef stock, while Chains was attempting to crack the wax seal on a honey crock. His bare fingers and nails having failed, he was hacking at it with a stiletto and muttering to himself.

“Don’t like him at all? That’s rather silly,” said Chains, his voice distant, “since he’s not yet been here a single day.”

“He’s fat. He’s soft. He’s not one of us.”

“He most certainly is. We showed him the temple and the burrow; he took oath as my pezon. I’ll go see the capa with him in just a day or two.”

“I don’t mean one of us, Gentlemen Bastards, I mean one of us, us. He’s not a thief. He’s a soft fat-”

“Merchant. Son of merchant parents is what he is. But he’s a thief now.”

“He didn’t steal things! He didn’t charm or tease! He said he was in the hill for a few days before he got brought here. So he’s not one of us.”

“Locke.” Chains turned from the business of the honey crock and stared down at him, frowning. “Jean Tannen is a thief because I’m going to train him as a thief. You do recall that’s what I train here; thieves of a very particular sort. This hasn’t slipped your mind?”

“But he’s-”

“He’s better-learned than any of you. Scribes in a clean, smooth hand. Understands business, ledgers, money-shifts, and a great many other things. Your former master knew I’d want him right away.”

“He’s fat.”

“So am I. And you’re ugly. Calo and Galdo have noses like siege engines. Sabetha had spots breaking out last we saw her. Did you have a point?”

“He kept us up all night. He was crying, and he wouldn’t shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” said a soft voice from behind them. Locke and Chains turned (the latter much more slowly than the former); Jean Tannen was standing by the door to the sleeping quarters, red-eyed. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it.”

“Ha!” Chains turned back to his stiletto and his honey crock. “Looks as though boys who live in glass burrows shouldn’t speak so loudly of those in the next room.”

“Well, don’t do it again, Jean,” said Locke, hopping down from the wooden step he still used to reach the top of the cooking hearth. He crossed to one of the spice cabinets and began shuffling jars, looking for something. “Shut up and let us sleep. Calo and Galdo and I don’t blubber.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jean, sounding close to tears again. “I’m sorry, it’s just…my mother. My father. I…I’m an orphan.”

“So what?” Locke took down a little glass bottle of pickled radishes, sealed with a stone stopper like an alchemical potion. “I’m an orphan. We’re all orphans here. Whining won’t make your family live again.”

Locke turned and took two steps back toward the cooking hearth, so he didn’t see Jean cross the space between them. He did feel Jean’s arm wrap around his neck from behind; it might have been soft but it was damned heavy, for a ten-year-old. Locke lost his grip on the pickled radishes; Jean picked him off the ground by main force, whirled, and heaved him.

Locke’s feet left the ground at the same time the radish jar shattered against it; a confused second later the back of Locke’s head bounced off the heavy witchwood dining table and he fell to the ground, landing painfully on his rather bony posterior.

“You shut up!” There was nothing subdued about Jean now; he was screaming, red-faced, with tears pouring out of his eyes. “You shut your filthy mouth! You never talk about my family!”

Locke put up his hands and tried to stand up; one of Jean’s fists grew in his field of vision until it seemed to blot out half the world. The blow folded him over like a bread-pretzel. When he recovered something resembling his senses he was hugging a table leg; the room was dancing a minuet around him.

“Wrrblg,” he said, his mouth full of blood and pain.

“Now, Jean,” said Chains, pulling the heavyset boy away from Locke. “I think your message is rather thoroughly delivered.”

“Ugh. That really hurt,” said Locke.

“It’s only fair.” Chains released Jean, who balled his fists and stood glaring at Locke, shuddering. “You really deserved it.”

“Huh…wha?”

“Sure we’re all orphans here. My parents were long dead before you were even born. Your parents are years gone. Same for Calo and Galdo and Sabetha. But Jean,” said Chains, “lost his only five nights ago.”

“Oh.” Locke sat up, groaning. “I didn’t…I didn’t know.”

“Well, then.” Chains finally succeeded in prying open the honey crock; the wax seal split with an audible crack. “When you don’t know everything you could know, it’s a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”

“It was a fire.” Jean took a few deep breaths, still staring at Locke. “They burned to death. The whole shop. Everything gone.” He turned and walked back to the sleeping quarters, head down, rubbing at his eyes.

Chains turned his back on Locke and began stirring the honey, breaking up the little patches of crystallization.

There was an echoing clang from the fall of the secret door that led down from the temple above; a moment later Calo and Galdo appeared in the kitchen, each twin dressed in his white initiate’s robe, each one balancing a long, soft loaf of bread atop his head.

“We have returned,” said Calo.

“With bread!”

“Which is obvious!”

“No, you’re obvious!”

The twins stopped short when they saw Locke pulling himself up by the edge of the table, lips swollen, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth.

“What did we miss?” asked Galdo.

“Boys,” said Chains, “I might have forgotten to tell you something when I introduced you to Jean and showed him around last night. Your old master from Shades’ Hill warned me that while Jean is mostly soft-spoken, the boy has one hell of a colorful temper.”

Shaking his head, Chains stepped over to Locke and helped him stand upright. “When the world stops spinning,” he said, “don’t forget that you’ve got broken glass and radishes to clean up, too.”

3

LOCKE AND Jean maintained a healthy distance from one another at the dinner table that night, saying nothing. Calo and Galdo exchanged exasperated looks approximately several hundred times per minute, but made no attempts at conversation themselves. Preparations for the meal were conducted in near silence, with Chains apparently happy to oblige his sullen crew.

Once Locke and Jean had seated themselves at the table, Chains set a carved ivory box down before each of them. The boxes were about a foot long and a foot wide, with hinged covers. Locke immediately recognized them as Determiner’s Boxes, delicate Verrari devices that used clockwork, sliding tiles, and rotating wooden knobs to enable a trained user to rapidly conduct certain mathematical operations. He’d been taught the basics of the device, but it had been months since he’d last used one.

“Locke and Jean,” said Father Chains, “if you would be so kind. I have nine hundred and ninety-five Camorri solons, and I am taking ship for Tal Verrar. I should very much like to have them converted to solari when I arrive, the solari currently being worth, ah, four-fifths of one Camorri full crown. How many solari will the changers owe me before their fee is deducted?”

Jean immediately flipped open the lid on his box and set to work, fiddling knobs, flicking tiles, and sliding little wooden rods back and forth. Locke, flustered, followed suit. His own nervous fiddlings with the machine were nowhere near fast enough, for Jean shortly announced, “Thirty-one full solari, with about nine hundredths of one left over.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue and calculated for a few more seconds. “Four silver volani and two coppers.”

“Marvelous,” said Chains. “Jean, you can eat this evening. Locke, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Thank you for trying, nonetheless. You may spend dinner in your quarters, if you wish.”

“What?” Locke felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. “But that’s not how it worked before! You always gave us individual problems! And I haven’t used this box for-”

“Would you like another problem, then?”

“Yes!”

“Very well. Jean, would you indulge us by doing it as well? Now…a Jereshti galleon sails the Iron Sea, and her captain is quite the penitent fellow. Every hour on the hour he has a sailor throw a loaf of ships’ biscuit into the sea as an offering to Iono. Each loaf weighs fourteen ounces; the captain is a remarkably neat fellow as well. The captain keeps his biscuit in casks, a quarter-ton apiece. He sails for one week even. How many casks does he open? And how much biscuit does the Lord of the Grasping Waters get?”

Again the boys worked their boxes, and again Jean looked up while Locke, little beads of sweat clearly visible on his little forehead, was still working. “He only opens one cask,” Jean said, “and he uses one hundred and forty-seven pounds of biscuit.”

Father Chains clapped softly. “Very good, Jean. You’ll still be eating with us tonight. As for you, Locke, well…I shall call you when the clearing-up needs to be done.”

“This is ridiculous,” Locke huffed. “He works the box better than I do! You set this up for me to lose.”

“Ridiculous, is it? You’ve been putting on airs recently, my dear boy. You’ve reached that certain age where many boys seem to just sort of fold up their better judgment and set it aside for a few years. Hell, Sabetha’s done it, too. Part of the reason I sent her off to where she is at the moment. Anyhow, it seems to me that your nose is tilting a little high in the air for someone with a death-mark around his throat.”

Locke’s blush deepened. Jean snuck a furtive glance at him; Calo and Galdo, who already knew about the shark’s tooth, stared fixedly at their empty plates and glasses.

“The world is full of conundrums that will tax your skills. Do you presume that you will always get to choose the ones that best suit your strengths? If I wanted to send a boy to impersonate a money-changer’s apprentice, who do you think I’d give the job to, if I had to choose between yourself and Jean? It’s no choice at all.”

“I…suppose.”

“You suppose too much. You deride your new brother because his figure aspires to the noble girth of my own.” Chains rubbed his stomach and grinned mirthlessly. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that he fits in some places even better than you do, because of it? Jean looks like a merchant’s son, like a well-fed noble, like a plump little scholar. His appearance could be as much an asset to him as yours is to you.”

“I guess…”

“And if you needed any further demonstration that he can do things you cannot, well, why don’t I instruct him to wallop the shit out of you one more time?”

Locke attempted to spontaneously shrink down inside his tunic and vanish into thin air; failing, he hung his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Jean. “I hope I didn’t hurt you badly.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Locke mumbled. “I suppose I really did deserve it.”

“The threat of an empty stomach soon rekindles wisdom.” Chains smirked. “Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them. For example, raise your hands if your surname happens to be Sanza.”

Calo and Galdo did so, a bit hesitantly.

“Anyone with the surname Sanza,” said Chains, “may join our new brother Jean Tannen in dining this evening.”

“I love being used as an example!” said Galdo.

“Anyone with the surname Lamora,” said Chains, “may eat, but first he will serve forth all the courses, and attend on Jean Tannen.”

So Locke scuttled about, embarrassment and relief mingled on his face. The meal was roasted capon stuffed with garlic and onions, with grapes and figs scalded in a hot wine sauce on the side. Father Chains poured all of his usual prayer toasts, dedicating the last to “Jean Tannen, who lost one family but came to another soon enough.”

At that Jean’s eyes watered, and the boy lost whatever good cheer the food had brought to him. Noticing this, Calo and Galdo took action to salvage his mood.

“That was really good, what you did with the box,” said Calo.

“None of us can work it that fast,” said Galdo.

“And we’re good with sums!”

“Or at least,” said Galdo, “we thought we were, until we met you.”

“It was nothing,” said Jean. “I can be even faster. I am…I meant to say…”

He looked nervously at Father Chains before continuing.

“I need optics. Reading optics, for things up close. I can’t see right without them. I, um, I could work a box even faster if I had them. But…I lost mine. One of the boys in Shades’ Hill…”

“You shall have new ones,” said Chains. “Tomorrow or the next day. Don’t wear them in public; it might contravene our air of poverty. But you can certainly wear them in here.”

“You couldn’t even see straight,” asked Locke, “when you beat me?”

“I could see a little bit,” said Jean. “It’s all sort of blurry. That’s why I was leaning back so far.”

“A mathematical terror,” mused Father Chains, “and a capable little brawler. What an interesting combination the Benefactor has given the Gentlemen Bastards in young Master Tannen. And he is a Gentleman Bastard, isn’t he, Locke?”

“Yes,” said Locke. “I suppose he is.”

4

THE NEXT night was clear and dry; all the moons were up, shining like sovereigns in the blackness with the stars for their court. Jean Tannen sat beneath one parapet wall on the temple roof, a book held out before him at arm’s length. Two oil lamps in glass boxes sat beside him, outlining him in warm yellow light.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” said Locke, and Jean looked up, startled.

“Gods! You’re quiet.”

“Not all the time.” Locke stepped to within a few feet of the larger boy.

“I can be very loud, when I’m being stupid.”

“I…um…”

“Can I sit?”

Jean nodded, and Locke plopped down beside him. He folded his legs and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“I am sorry,” said Locke. “I guess I really can be a shit sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean…When I hit you, it just…I’m not myself. When I’m angry.”

“You did right. I didn’t know, about your mother and your father. I’m sorry. I should…I shouldn’t have presumed. I’ve had a long time…to get used to it, you know.”

The two boys said nothing for a few moments after that; Jean closed his book and stared up at the sky.

“You know, I might not even be one after all,” Locke said. “A real orphan, I mean.”

“How so?”

“Well, my…my mother’s dead. I saw that. I know that. But my father…he, um. He went away when I was very little. I don’t remember him; never knew him.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jean.

“We’re both sorry a lot, aren’t we? I think he might have been a sailor or something. Maybe a mercenary, you know? Mother never wanted to talk about him. I don’t know. I could be wrong.”

“My father was a good man,” said Jean. “He was…They both had a shop in North Corner. They shipped leathers and silks and some gems. All over the Iron Sea, some trips inland. I helped them. Not shipping, of course, but record-keeping. Counting. And I took care of the cats. We had nine. Mama used to say…she used to say that I was her only child who didn’t go about…on all fours.”

He sniffled a bit and wiped his eyes. “I seem to have used up all my tears,” he said. “I don’t know what to feel about all this anymore. My parents taught me to be honest, that the laws and the gods abhor thieving. But now I find out thieving has its very own god. And I can either starve on the street or be comfortable here.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Locke. “I’ve never done anything else, as long as I can remember. Thieving is an honest trade, when you look at it like we do. We can work really hard at it, sometimes.” Locke reached inside his tunic and brought out a soft cloth bag. “Here,” he said, handing it over to Jean.

“What…what’s this?”

“You said you needed optics.” Locke smiled. “There’s a lens-grinder over in the Videnza who’s older than the gods. He doesn’t watch his shop window like he ought to. I lifted some pairs for you.”

Jean shook the bag open and found himself looking down at three pairs of optics; there were two circular sets of lenses in gilt wire frames, and a square set with silver rims.

“I…thank you, Locke!” He held each pair up to his eyes and squinted through them in turn, frowning slightly. “I don’t…quite know…um, I’m not ungrateful, not at all, but none of these will work.” He pointed at his eyes and smiled sheepishly. “Lenses need to be made for the wearer’s problem. There’s some for people who can’t see long ways, and I think that’s what these pairs are for. But I’m what they call close-blind, not far-blind.”

“Oh. Damn.” Locke scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t wear them; I didn’t know. I really am an idiot.”

“Not at all. I can keep the rims and do something with them, maybe. Rims break. I can just set proper lenses in them. They’ll be spares. Thank you again.”

The boys sat in silence for a short while after that, but this time it was a companionable silence. Jean leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Locke stared up at the moons, straining to see the little blue and green specks Chains had once told him were the forests of the gods. Eventually, Jean cleared his throat.

“So you’re really good at…stealing things?”

“I have to be good at something. It’s not fighting and it’s not mathematics, I guess.”

“You, um…Father Chains told me about this thing you can do, if you pray to the Benefactor. He called it a death-offering. Do you know about that?”

“Oh,” said Locke, “I know all about it, truth of all thirteen gods, cross my heart and pray to die.”

“I’d like to do that. For my mother and my father. But I…I’ve never stolen anything. Can you maybe help me?”

“Teach you how to steal so you can do a proper offering?”

“Yes.” Jean sighed. “I guess if this is where the gods have put me I should bend to local custom.”

“Can you teach me how to use a numbers-box so I look less like a half-wit next time?”

“I think so,” said Jean.

“Then it’s settled!” Locke jumped back up to his feet and spread his hands wide. “Tomorrow, Calo and Galdo can plant their asses on the temple steps. You and I will go out and plunder!”

“That sounds dangerous,” said Jean.

“For anyone else, maybe. For Gentlemen Bastards, well, it’s just what we do.”

“We?”

“We.”

1

THE RED HANDS led Locke up the long gangway to the Floating Grave just as the scarlet sun broke above the dark buildings of the Ashfall district. The whole Wooden Waste turned to blood in that light, and when Locke blinked to clear the brightness from his eyes, even the darkness flashed with red.

Locke struggled to keep his head clear; the combination of nervous excitement and fatigue always made him feel as though he was sliding along an inch or two above the ground, his feet not quite reaching all the way down. There were sentries on the quay, sentries at the doors, sentries in the foyer-more than there had been before. They were all grim-faced and silent as the Red Hands led Locke deeper into the capa’s floating fortress. The inner clockwork doors weren’t locked.

Capa Barsavi stood in the middle of his great audience chamber, facing away from Locke, his head bowed and his hands behind his back. Curtains had been drawn away from the high glass windows on the eastern side of the galleon’s hull. Red fingers of light fell on Barsavi, his sons, a large wooden cask, and a long object that lay covered on a portable wooden bier.

“Father,” said Anjais, “it’s Lamora.”

Capa Barsavi grunted and turned. He stared at Locke for a few seconds, his eyes glassy and dead. He waved his left hand. “Leave us,” he said. “Leave us now.”

Heads down, Anjais and Pachero hurried out of the room, dragging the Red Hands with them. A moment later the hall echoed with the sound of the doors slamming shut and the clockwork locks tumbling into position.

“Your Honor,” said Locke. “What’s going on?”

“The bastard. The bastard killed her, Locke.”

“What?”

“He killed Nazca. Last night. Left us…the body, just a few hours ago.”

Locke stared at Barsavi, dumbfounded, aware that his mouth was hanging open.

“But…but she was here, wasn’t she?”

“She left.” Barsavi was clenching and unclenching his fists. “She snuck off, near as we can tell, or she was taken. Second or third hour of the morning. She…she was returned at half past the fourth hour of the morning.”

“Returned? By whom?”

“Come. See.”

Vencarlo Barsavi drew back the cloth that covered the bier, and there lay Nazca-her skin waxy, her eyes closed, her hair damp. Two livid purple bruises marred the otherwise smooth skin on the left side of her neck. Locke felt his eyes stinging, and he found himself biting down hard on the first knuckle of his right index finger.

“See what the bastard has done,” Barsavi said softly. “She was the living memory of her mother. My only daughter. I would rather be dead than see this.” Tears began sliding down the old man’s cheeks. “She has been…washed.”

“Washed? What do you mean?”

“She was returned,” said the Capa, “in that.” He gestured to the cask, which stood upright a few feet to the side of the bier.

“In a barrel?”

“Look inside.”

Locke slid the barrel’s cover back and recoiled as the full stench of the barrel’s contents wafted out at him.

It was full of urine. Horse urine, dark and cloudy.

Locke whirled away from the cask and clapped both hands over his mouth, his stomach spasming.

“Not just killed,” said Barsavi, “but drowned. Drowned in horse piss.”

Locke growled, fighting tears. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it. This doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

He moved back beside the bier and took another look at Nazca’s neck. The purple bruises were actually raised bumps; straight red scratches were visible just in front of them. Locke stared at them, thinking back to the feel of talons in his own skin. The injury on his forearm still burned.

“Your Honor,” he said slowly, “maybe she was…returned in that thing, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t drown in it.”

“What can you possibly mean?”

“The marks on her neck, the little scratches beside them?” Locke extemporized, keeping his voice level and his face neutral. What would sound plausible? “I’ve, ah, seen them before, several years ago in Talisham. I saw a man murdered by a scorpion hawk. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Yes,” said the capa, “an unnatural hybrid, some sort of creature dreamed up by the sorcerers of Karthain. Is that…the marks on her neck? Can you be sure?”

“She was stung by a scorpion hawk,” Locke said. “The talon marks beside the wounds are clear. She would have been dead almost instantly.”

“So he merely…pickled her, afterward,” Barsavi whispered. “To increase the insult. To cut me more cruelly.”

“I’m sorry,” said Locke. “I know it…it can’t be much comfort.”

“If you’re right, it was a much quicker death.” Barsavi pulled the cloth back up over her head, running his fingers through her hair one last time before he covered her completely. “If that is the only comfort I can pray that my little girl received, I will pray for it. That gray bastard will receive no such comfort when his time comes. I swear it.”

“Why would he do this?” Locke ran both of his hands through his hair, wide-eyed with agitation. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why her, why now?”

“He can tell you himself,” said Barsavi.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Capa Barsavi reached into his vest and drew out a folded piece of parchment. He passed it over to Locke, who opened the fold and saw that a note was scribed there in a clean, even hand:

BARSAVI

FOR THE NECESSITY OF WHAT WAS DONE, WE APOLOGIZE, THOUGH IT WAS DONE TO FACILITATE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR POWER, AND THEREFORE YOUR COOPERATION. WE EARNESTLY DESIRE A MEETING WITH YOURSELF, MAN TO MAN IN ALL COURTESY, TO SETTLE ONCE AND FOR ALL BETWEEN US THIS MATTER OF CAMORR. WE SHALL BE IN ATTENDANCE AT THE ECHO HOLE, AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR OF THE EVENING, ON THE DUKE’S DAY THREE NIGHTS HENCE. WE SHALL BE ALONE AND UNARMED, THOUGH YOU FOR YOUR PART MAY BRING AS MANY COUNSELORS AS YOU WISH, AND YOU MAY ARM THEM AS YOU WISH. MAN TO MAN, WE MAY DISCUSS OUR SITUATION-AND WITH THE KIND FAVOR OF THE GODS, PERHAPS ABJURE THE NEED FOR YOU TO LOSE ANY MORE OF YOUR LOYAL SUBJECTS, OR ANY MORE OF YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD.

“I don’t believe it,” said Locke. “Meet in good faith, after this?”

“He cannot be Camorri,” said Barsavi. “I have become Camorri, in my years here. I am more of this place than many who were born here. But this man?” Barsavi shook his head vigorously. “He cannot understand what an infamy he has done to ‘get my attention’; what an insult my sons and I must bear if I negotiate with him. He wastes his time with his letter-and look, the royal ‘we.’ What an affectation!”

“Your Honor…what if he does understand what he’s done?”

“The possibility is very remote, Locke.” The capa chuckled sadly. “Or else he would not have done it.”

“Not if you presume that the meeting at the Echo Hole is an ambush. That he wants to get you off the Floating Grave and into a place where he has prepared some real harm for you.”

“Your prudence again.” Barsavi smiled without humor. “The thought has occurred to me, Locke. But if he wanted me dead, why not strike from surprise months ago, before he started killing my garristas? No, I believe he genuinely thinks that if he frightens me enough, I will negotiate in good faith. I am indeed going to the Echo Hole. We shall have our meeting. And for my counselors, I will bring my sons, my Berangias sisters, and a hundred of my best and my cruelest. And I will bring you and your friend Jean.”

Locke’s heart beat against the inside of his chest like a trapped bird. He wanted to scream.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course! Jean and I will do anything you ask. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“Good. Because the only negotiation we’ll be doing is with bolt, blade, and fist. I’ve got a surprise for that gray piece of shit, if he thinks to dictate terms to me over the body of my only daughter!”

Locke ground his teeth together. I know what can bring him out from that soggy fortress of his, the Gray King had said.

“Capa Barsavi,” said Locke, “have you considered…well, the things they say about the Gray King? He can kill men with a touch, he can walk through walls; he can’t be harmed by blades or by arrows…”

“Stories told in wine. He does as I did, when I first took this city; he hides himself well and he chooses his targets wisely.” The capa sighed. “I admit that he is good at it, perhaps as good as I was. But he’s not a ghost.”

“There is another possibility,” said Locke, licking his lips. How much of what was said here might reach the Gray King’s ears? He’d unraveled the secrets of the Gentlemen Bastards thoroughly enough. To hell with him. “The possibility of a…Bondsmage.”

“Aiding the Gray King?”

“Yes.”

“He’s been vexing my city for months, Locke. It might explain some things, yes, but the price…Even I could not pay a Bondsmage for that length of time.”

“Scorpion hawks,” said Locke, “aren’t just created by the Bondsmagi. As far as I know, only Bondsmagi themselves keep them. Could an ordinary…falconer train a bird that could kill him with one accidental sting?” Bullshit well, he thought. Bullshit very well. “The Gray King wouldn’t need to have kept one this whole time. What if the Bondsmage is newly arrived? What if the Bondsmage has only been hired for the next few days, the critical point of whatever the Gray King’s scheme is? The rumors about the Gray King’s powers…could have been spread to prepare for all of this.”

“Fantastical,” said Barsavi, “and yet it would explain much.”

“It would explain why the Gray King is willing to meet you alone and unarmed. With a Bondsmage to shield him, he could appear both yet be neither.”

“Then my response is unchanged.” Barsavi squeezed one fist inside the other. “If one Bondsmage can best a hundred knives-including you and I, my sons, my Berangias sisters, your friend Jean and his hatchets-then the Gray King has chosen his weapons better than I. But for my part, I do not imagine that he has.”

“You will keep the possibility in mind?” Locke persisted.

“Yes. I shall.” Barsavi placed a hand on Locke’s shoulder. “You must forgive me, my boy. For what has happened.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Your Honor.” When the capa changes the subject, thought Locke, the subject is finished. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It is my war. It’s me the Gray King truly wishes to cut.”

“You offered me a great deal, sir.” Locke licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “I’d very much like to help you kill the bastard.”

“So we shall. At the ninth hour of the evening, on Duke’s Day, we begin to gather. Anjais will come to fetch you and Tannen at the Last Mistake.”

“What of the Sanzas? They’re good with knives.”

“And with cards, or so I hear. I like them well enough, Locke, but they’re fiddlers. Amusers. I’m taking serious folk for serious business.”

“As you say.”

“Now.” Barsavi took a silk handkerchief from his vest pocket and slowly mopped his brow and cheeks with it. “Leave me, please. Come back tomorrow night, as a priest. I’ll have all my other priests of the Benefactor. We’ll give her…a proper ritual.”

Despite himself, Locke was flattered. The capa had known that all of Father Chains’ boys were initiates of the Benefactor, and Locke a full priest, but he’d never before asked for Locke’s blessing in any official sense.

“Of course,” he said quietly.

He withdrew then, leaving the capa standing in the bloody morning light, leaving him all alone at the heart of his fortress, for the second time, with nothing but a corpse for company.

2

“GENTLEMEN,” SAID Locke, huffing and puffing as he closed the door to the seventh-floor rooms behind him. “We have done our bit for appearances this week; let’s all work out of the temple until further notice.”

Jean was sitting in a chair facing the door, hatchets resting on his thigh, with his battered old volume of The Korish Romances in his hands. Bug was snoring on a sleeping pallet, sprawled in one of those utterly careless positions that give instant arthritis to all save the very young and foolish. The Sanzas were sitting against the far wall, playing a desultory hand of cards; they looked up as Locke entered.

“We are released from one complication,” said Locke, “and flung headlong into another. And this bitch has teeth.”

“What news?” said Jean.

“The worst sort.” Locke dropped into a chair, threw back his head, and closed his eyes. “Nazca’s dead.”

“What?” Calo leapt to his feet; Galdo wasn’t far behind. “How did that happen?”

“The Gray King happened. It must have been the ‘other business’ he referred to when I was his guest. He sent the body back to her father in a vat of horse piss.”

“Gods,” said Jean. “I’m so sorry, Locke.”

“And now,” continued Locke, “you and I are expected to accompany the Capa when he avenges her, at the ‘clandestine meeting’ three nights hence. Which will be at the Echo Hole, by the way. And the capa’s idea of ‘clandestine’ is a hundred knives charging in to cut the Gray King to bloody pieces.”

“Cut you to bloody pieces, you mean,” said Galdo.

“I’m well aware of who’s supposed to be strutting around wearing the Gray King’s clothes, thanks very much. I’m just debating whether or not I should hang an archery butt around my neck. Oh, and wondering if I can learn to split myself in two before Duke’s Day.”

“This entire situation is insane.” Jean slammed his book shut in disgust.

“It was insane before; now it’s become malicious.”

“Why would the Gray King kill Nazca?”

“To get the capa’s attention.” Locke sighed. “Either to frighten him, which it certainly hasn’t accomplished, or to piss him off beyond all mortal measure, which it has.”

“There will never be peace, now. The capa will kill the Gray King or get himself killed trying.” Calo paced furiously. “Surely the Gray King must realize this. He hasn’t facilitated negotiations; he’s made them impossible. Forever.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Locke, “that the Gray King may not be telling us everything concerning this scheme of his.”

“Out the Viscount’s Gate, then,” said Galdo. “We can spend the afternoon securing transportation and goods. We can pack up our fortune; vanish onto the road. Fuck, if we can’t find somewhere to build another life with forty-odd thousand crowns at our fingertips, we don’t deserve to live. We could buy titles in Lashain; make Bug a count and set ourselves up as his household.”

“Or make ourselves counts,” said Calo, “and set Bug up as our household. Run him back and forth. It’d be good for his moral education.”

“We can’t,” said Locke. “We have to presume the Gray King can follow us wherever we go, or, perhaps more accurately, that his Bondsmage can. So long as the Falconer serves him, we can’t run. At least not as a first option.”

“What about as a second?” asked Jean.

“If it comes to that…we might as well try. We can get things ready, and if we absolutely must run for the road, well, we’ll put ourselves in harness and pull with the horses if we have to.”

“Which leaves only the conundrum,” said Jean, “of which commitment to slip you out of, the night of this meeting at the Echo Hole.”

“No conundrum,” said Locke. “The Gray King has it over us; Barsavi we know we can fool. So I’ll play the Gray King and figure out some way to ease us out of our commitment to the capa without getting executed for it.”

“That would be a good trick,” said Jean.

“But what if it’s not necessary?” Calo pointed at his brother. “One of us can play the Gray King, and you and Jean can stand beside Barsavi as required.”

“Yes,” said Galdo, “an excellent idea.”

“No,” said Locke. “For one thing, I’m a better false-facer than either of you, and you know it. You two are just slightly too conspicuous. It can’t be risked. For another, while I’m playing the Gray King, you two will be forgotten by everyone. You’ll be free to move around as you like. I’d rather have you waiting with transportation at one of our meeting spots, in case things go sour and we do need to flee.”

“And what about Bug?”

“Bug,” said Bug, “has been faking snoring for the past few minutes. And I know the Echo Hole; I used to hide there sometimes when I was with the Shades’ Hill gang. I’ll be down there under the floor, beside the waterfall, watching for trouble.”

“Bug,” said Locke, “you’ll-”

“If you don’t like it, you’ll have to lock me in a box to stop me. You need a spotter, and the Gray King didn’t say you couldn’t have friends lurking. That’s what I do. I lurk. None of you can do it like I can, because you’re all bigger and slower and creakier and-”

“Gods,” said Locke. “My days as a garrista are numbered; Duke Bug is dictating the terms of his service. Very well, Your Grace. I’ll give you a role that will keep you close at hand-but you lurk where I tell you to lurk, right?”

“Bloody right!”

“Then it’s settled,” said Locke. “And if no one else has a pressing need for me to imitate the great and powerful, or a friend of mine they’d like to murder, I could use some sleep.”

“It’s too gods-damned bad about Nazca,” said Galdo. “The son of a bitch.”

“Yes,” said Locke. “In fact, I’m going to speak to him about it this very evening. Him or his pet sorcerer, whichever thinks to come.”

“The candle,” said Jean.

“Yeah. After you and I finish our business, and after Falselight. You can wait down in the Last Mistake. I’ll sit up here, light it, and wait for them to show.” Locke grinned. “Let those fuckers enjoy the walk up our stairs.”

3

THE DAY turned out clear and pleasant, the evening as fresh as they ever came in Camorr. Locke sat in the seventh-floor rooms with the windows open and the mesh screens down as the purple sky lit up with rising streamers of ghostly light.

The Falconer’s candle smoldered on the table beside the remains of Locke’s small dinner and a half-empty bottle of wine. The other half of that bottle was warming Locke’s stomach as he sat, facing the door, massaging the fresh dressing Jean had insisted on wrapping his arm with before taking up his post in the Last Mistake.

“Crooked Warden,” said Locke to thin air, “if I’m pissing you off for some reason, you don’t need to go to such elaborate lengths to chastise me. And if I’m not pissing you off, well, I pray that you still find me amusing.” He flexed the fingers of his injured arm, wincing, then took up his wineglass and the bottle one more time.

“A glass poured to air for an absent friend,” he said as he filled it with dark red wine-a Nacozza retsina that had actually come from Don Salvara’s upriver vineyards. A gift to Lukas Fehrwight as he stepped off the don’s pleasure barge so many days earlier…or not so many days earlier. It felt like a lifetime.

“We miss Nazca Barsavi already, and we wish her well. She was a fair garrista and she tried to help her pezon out of an untenable situation for them both. She deserved better. Piss on me all you like, but do what you can for her. I beg this as your servant.”

“If you wish to measure a man’s true penitence,” said the Falconer, “observe him when he believes himself to be dining alone.”

The front door was just closing behind the Bondsmage; Locke had not seen or heard it open. For that matter, it had been bolted. The Falconer was without his bird, and dressed in the same wide-skirted gray coat with silver-buttoned scarlet cuffs Locke had seen the night before. A gray velvet cap was tilted back atop his head, adorned with a single feather under a silver pin, easily identified as having come from Vestris.

“I for one have never been a very penitent man,” he continued. “Nor have I ever been overly fond of stairs.”

“My heart is overcome with sorrow for your hardship,” said Locke. “Where’s your hawk?”

“Circling.”

Locke was suddenly acutely aware of the open windows, such a comfort just a moment earlier. The mesh wouldn’t keep Vestris out if the hawk decided to be unruly.

“I’d hoped that your master might come along with you.”

“My client,” said the Bondsmage, “is otherwise occupied. I speak for him, and I will bear your words to him. Assuming you have any worth hearing.”

“I always have words,” said Locke. “Words like ‘complete lunatic.’ And ‘fucking idiot.’ Did it ever occur to you or your client that the one certain way to ensure that a Camorri would never negotiate with you with any good faith would be to kill someone of his blood?”

“Heavens,” said the Falconer. “This is ill news indeed. And here the Gray King was so certain Barsavi would interpret his daughter’s murder as a friendly gesture.” The sorcerer’s eyebrows rose. “I say, did you want to tell him yourself, or shall I rush off right now with your revelation?”

“Very funny, you half-copper cocksucker. While I agreed under duress to prance around dressed as your master, you must admit that sending the capa’s only daughter back to him in a vat of piss does complicate my fucking job.”

“A pity,” said the Bondsmage, “but the task remains, as does the duress.”

“Barsavi wants me by his side at this meeting, Falconer. He made the request this morning. Maybe I might have slipped out of it before, but now? Nazca’s murder has put me in a hell of a squeeze.”

“You’re the Thorn of Camorr. I would be, personally, very disappointed if you couldn’t find a way past this difficulty. Barsavi’s summons is a request; my client’s is a requirement.”

“Your client isn’t telling me everything he should.”

“You may safely presume that he knows his own business better than you do.” The Falconer began to idly wind a slender thread back and forth between the fingers of his right hand; it had an odd silver sheen.

“Gods dammit,” Locke hissed, “maybe I don’t care what happens to the capa, but Nazca was my friend. Duress I can accept; gleeful malice I cannot. You fuckers didn’t need to do what you did to her!”

The Falconer splayed his fingers and the thread gleamed, woven into a sort of cat’s cradle. He began to move his fingers slowly, tightening some threads and loosening others, as deftly as the Sanzas moved coins across the backs of their hands.

“I cannot tell you,” said the sorcerer, “what a weight it is upon my conscience to learn that we might lose your gracious acceptance.”

Then the Falconer hissed a word, a single syllable in a language Locke didn’t understand. The very sound was harsh and unnerving; it echoed in the room as though heard from a distance.

The wood shutters behind Locke slammed closed, and he jumped out of his chair.

One by one, the other windows banged shut and their little clasps clicked, moved by an unseen hand. The Falconer shifted his fingers yet again; light gleamed on the web within his hands, and Locke gasped-his knees suddenly ached as though they’d been kicked from the sides, sharply.

“This is the second time,” said the Bondsmage, “that you have been flippant with me. I fail to find it amusing. So I will reinforce my client’s instructions, and I shall take my time doing so.”

Locke gritted his teeth; tears sprang unbidden to his eyes as the pain in his legs intensified, throbbed, spread. It now felt as though a cold flame were playing against his knee sockets from the inside. Unable to support his own weight, he tottered forward. One hand clutched helplessly at his legs while the other tried to hold him up against the table. He glared at the Bondsmage and tried to speak, but found that the muscles of his neck began spasming as he did.

“You are property, Lamora. You belong to the Gray King. He cares not that Nazca Barsavi was your friend; it was her ill fortune to be born to the father the gods gave her.”

The spasming spread down Locke’s spine, across his arms, and down his legs, where it met the freezing, gnawing pain already at work there in a hideous fusion. He fell onto his back, gasping, his face a rictus mask, his hands curved in the air above his head like claws.

“You look like an insect thrown into a fire. And this is the merest exercise of my art. The things I could do to you if I were to stitch your true name into cloth or scribe it on parchment…‘Lamora’ is obviously not your given name; it’s Throne Therin for ‘shadow.’ But your first name, now that…that would be just enough to master you, if I wished to make use of it.”

The Falconer’s fingers flew back and forth, blurring in Locke’s vision, shifting and stretching those silver threads, and the tempo of Locke’s torment rose in direct proportion to the motion of that gleaming design. His heels were slapping against the floor; his teeth were rattling in his jaw; it seemed to him that someone was trying to cut the bones out of his thighs with icicles. Again and again he tried to suck in enough air to scream, but his lungs would not move. His throat was packed with thorns, and the world was growing black and red at the edges…

Release itself was a shock. He lay on the ground, bonelessly, still feeling the ghosts of pain throbbing across his body. Warm tears slid down his cheeks.

“You’re not a particularly intelligent man, Lamora. An intelligent man would never deliberately waste my time. An intelligent man would grasp the nuances of the situation without the need for…repetition.”

Another motion of blurred silver in the corner of Locke’s vision, and new pain erupted in his chest, like a blossom of fire surrounding his heart. He could feel it there, burning the very core of his being. It seemed to him that he could actually smell the crisping flesh within his lungs, and feel the air in his throat warming until it was as hot as that of a bread oven. Locke groaned, writhed, threw his head back, and finally screamed.

“I need you,” said the Falconer, “but I will have you meek and grateful for my forbearance. Your friends are another matter. Shall I do this to Bug, while you watch? Shall I do it to the Sanzas?”

“No…please, no,” Locke cried out, curled in agony, his hands clutching at his left breast. He found himself tearing at his tunic, like an animal mad with pain. “Not them!”

“Why not? They are immaterial to my client. They are expendable.”

The burning pain abated, once again shocking Locke with its absence. He huddled on his side, breathing raggedly, unable to believe that heat so fierce could vanish so swiftly.

“One more sharp word,” said the Bondsmage, “one more flippant remark, one more demand, one more scrap of anything less than total abjection, and they will pay the price for your pride.” He lifted the glass of retsina from the table and sipped at it. He then snapped the fingers of his other hand and the liquid in the glass vanished in an instant, boiled away without a speck of flame. “Are we now free from misunderstanding?”

“Yes,” said Locke, “perfectly. Yes. Please don’t harm them. I’ll do whatever I must.”

“Of course you will. Now, I’ve brought the components of the costume you’ll be wearing at the Echo Hole. You’ll find them just outside your door. They’re appropriately theatrical. I won’t presume to tell you how to make ready with your mummery; be in position across from the Echo Hole at half past ten on the night of the meeting. I shall guide you from there, and direct you in what to say.”

“Barsavi,” Locke coughed out. “Barsavi…will mean to kill me.”

“Do you doubt that I could continue punishing you here, at my leisure, until you were mad with pain?”

“No…no.”

“Then do not doubt that I can protect you from whatever nonsense the capa might wish to employ.”

“How do you…how do you mean…to direct me?”

I do not need the air, came the voice of the Bondsmage, echoing in Locke’s head with shocking force, to carry forth my instructions. When you require prompting in your meeting with Barsavi, I shall supply it. When you must make a demand or accept a demand, I shall let you know how to proceed. Is this clear?

“Yes. Perfectly clear. Th-thank you.”

“You should be grateful for what my client and I have done on your behalf. Many men wait years for a chance to ingratiate themselves with Capa Barsavi. Your chance has been served forth to you like a fine meal. Are we not generous?”

“Yes…certainly.”

“Just so. I suggest you now find some means to extricate yourself from the duty he asks of you. This will leave you free to concentrate on the duty we require. We wouldn’t want your attention divided at a critical moment.”

4

THE LAST Mistake was half-empty, a phenomenon Locke had never before witnessed. Conversation was muted; eyes were cold and hard; entire gangs were conspicuous by their absence. Men and women alike wore heavier clothing than the season required; more half-cloaks and coats and layered vests. It was easier to conceal weapons that way.

“So what the hell happened to you?”

Jean helped Locke sit down; he’d gotten them a small table in a side cranny of the tavern, with a clear view of the doors. Locke settled into his chair, a slight echo of the Falconer’s phantom pains still haunting his joints and his neck muscles.

“The Falconer,” Locke said in a low voice, “had several opinions he wished to express, and apparently I’m not as charming as I think I am.” He idly fingered his torn tunic and sighed. “Beer now. Bitch later.”

Jean slid over a clay mug of warm Camorri ale, and Locke drank half of it down in two gulps. “Well,” he said after wiping his mouth, “I suppose it was worth it just to say what I said to him. I don’t believe Bondsmagi are used to being insulted.”

“Did you accomplish anything?”

“No.” Locke drank the remaining half of his ale and turned the mug upside down before setting it on the tabletop. “Not a gods-damned thing. I did get the shit tortured out of myself, though, which was informational, from a certain point of view.”

“That fucker.” Jean’s hands balled into fists. “I could do so much to him, without killing him. I very much hope I get to try.”

“Save it for the Gray King,” muttered Locke. “My thoughts are that if we survive what’s coming on Duke’s Day night, he won’t be able to keep the Falconer on retainer forever. When the Bondsmage leaves…”

“We talk to the Gray King again. With knives.”

“Too right. We follow him if we have to. We’ve been needing something to do with all of our money. Here’s something. Whenever that bastard can’t pay his mage anymore, we’ll show him just how much we like being knocked around like handballs. Even if we have to follow him down the Iron Sea and around the Cape of Nessek and all the way to Balinel on the Sea of Brass.”

“Now there’s a plan. And what are you going to do tonight?”

“Tonight?” Locke grunted. “I’m going to take Calo’s advice. I’m going to stroll over to the Guilded Lilies and get my brains wenched out. They can put them back in in the morning when they’re through with me; I understand there’s an extra fee involved, but I’ll pay it.”

“I must be going mad,” said Jean. “It’s been four years, and all this time you’ve been-”

“I’m frustrated and I need a break. And she’s a thousand miles away and I guess I’m human after all, gods damn it. Don’t wait up.”

“I’ll walk with you,” said Jean. “It’s not wise to be out alone on a night like this. The city’s in a mood, now that word of Nazca’s got around.”

“Not wise?” Locke laughed. “I’m the safest man in Camorr, Jean. I know for a fact I’m the only one that absolutely nobody out there wants to kill yet. Not until they finish pulling my strings.”

5

“THIS ISN’T working,” he said, less than two hours later. “I’m sorry, it’s…not your fault.”

The room was warm and dark and exceedingly pleasant, ventilated by the soft swish of a wooden fan flapping back and forth in a concealed shaft. Waterwheels churned outside the ornate House of the Guilded Lilies at the northern tip of the Snare, driving belts and chains to operate many mechanisms of comfort.

Locke lay on a wide bed with soft feather mattresses covered in silk sheets and overhung with a silk canopy. He sprawled naked in the soft red light of a misted alchemical globe, little stronger than scarlet moonlight, and admired the soft curves of the woman who was running her hands along the insides of his thighs. She smelled like mulled apple wine and cinnamon musk, and her curves were indeed admirable. Yet he was nothing resembling aroused.

“Felice, please,” he said. “This was a bad idea.”

“You’re tense,” whispered Felice. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind, and that cut on your arm-it can’t be helping at all. Let me try a few things more. I’m always up for a…professional challenge.”

“I can’t imagine anything would help.”

“Hmmm.” Locke could hear the pout in her voice, though her face was little more than soft slashes of shadow in the red half-light. “There’s wines, you know. Alchemical ones, from Tal Verrar. Aphrodisiacs. Not cheap, but they do work.” She rubbed his stomach, toying with the slender line of hair that ran down its center. “They can work miracles.”

“I don’t need wine,” he said distantly, grabbing her hand and moving it away from his skin. “Gods, I don’t know what I need.”

“Allow me to make a suggestion, then.” She moved herself up on the bed until she was crouched beside his chest, on her knees. With one confident motion (for there was real muscle under those curves) she flipped him over onto his stomach and began kneading the muscles of his neck and back, alternating gentle caresses and firm pressure.

“Suggestion…ow…accepted…”

“Locke,” Felice said, losing the breathy, anything-to-please-you bedroom voice that was one of the cherished illusions of her trade, “you do know that the attendants in the waiting chambers tell us exactly what each client requests when they give us assignments?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Well, I know you specifically asked for a redhead.”

“Which…ow, lower please…which means?”

“There’s only two of us in the Lilies,” she said, “and we get that request every now and again. But the thing is, some men want any redhead in general, and some men want one redhead in particular.”

“Oh…”

“Those that want a redhead in general have their fun and go their way. But you…you want one redhead in particular. And I’m not her.”

“I’m sorry. I said it’s not your fault.”

“I know. That’s ever so gracious of you.”

“And I’m happy paying anyways.”

“And that’s also sweet.” She chuckled. “But you’d be taking it up with the room full of armed men if you didn’t, not just worrying about hurting my poor feelings.”

“You know,” Locke said, “I think I prefer you like this to all that ‘how may I please you master’ bullshit earlier.”

“Well, some men like a straightforward whore. Some don’t want to hear anything but how wonderful they are.” She worked at his neck muscles with the bases of her palms. “It’s all business. But like I said, you seem to be pining for someone. And now that you’ve remembered yourself, I won’t do.”

“Sorry.”

“No need to keep apologizing to me. You’re the one whose lady-love ran halfway across the continent.”

“Gods.” Locke groaned. “Find me a single person in Camorr who doesn’t know, and I’ll give you a hundred crowns, I swear.”

“It’s just something I heard from one of the Sanzas.”

“One of the Sanzas? Which one?”

“Couldn’t say. They’re so hard to tell apart in the dark.”

“I’m going to cut their gods-damned tongues out.”

“Oh, tsk.” She ruffled his hair. “Please don’t. Us girls have a use for those, at least.”

“Hmmmph.”

“You poor, sweet idiot. You do have it bad for her. Well, what can I say, Locke? You’re fucked.” Felice laughed softly. “Just not by me.”

1

The summer after Jean came to the Gentlemen Bastards, Father Chains took him and Locke up to the temple roof one night after dinner. Chains smoked a paper-wrapped sheaf of Jeremite tobacco while the sunlight sank beneath the horizon and the caught fire of the city’s Elderglass rose glimmering in its place.

That night, he wanted to talk about the eventual necessity of cutting throats.

“I had this talk with Calo and Galdo and Sabetha last year,” he began. “You boys are investments, in time and treasure both.” He exhaled ragged crescents of pale smoke, failing as usual to conjure full rings. “Big investments. My life’s work, maybe. A pair of brat masterpieces. So I want you to remember that you can’t always smile your way around a fight. If someone pulls steel on you, I expect you to survive. Sometimes that means giving back in kind. Sometimes it means running like your ass is on fire. Always it means knowing which is the right choice-and that’s why we’ve got to talk about your inclinations.”

Chains fixed Locke with a stare while he took a long, deliberate drag on his sheaf-the final breath of a man treading in unpleasant water, preparing to go under the surface.

“You and I both know that you have multiple talents, Locke, genuine gifts for a great many things. So I have to give this to you straight. If it comes down to hard talk with a real foe, you’re nothing but a pair of pissed breeches and a bloodstain. You can kill, all right, that’s the gods’ own truth, but you’re just not made for stand-up, face-to-face bruising. And you know it, right?”

Locke’s red-cheeked silence was an answer in itself. Suddenly unable to look Father Chains in the eyes, he tried to pretend that his feet were fascinating objects that he’d never seen before.

“Locke, Locke, we can’t all be mad dogs with a blade in our hands, and it’s nothing to sob about, so let’s not see that lip of yours quivering like an old whore’s tits, right? You will learn steel, and you’ll learn rope, and you’ll learn the alley-piece. But you’ll learn them sneak-style. In the back, from the side, from above, in the dark.” Chains grabbed an imaginary opponent from behind, left hand round the throat, right hand thrusting at kidney-level with his half-smoked sheaf for a dagger. “All the twists, because fighting wisely will keep you from getting cut to mince.”

Chains pretended to wipe the blood from his ember-tipped “blade,” then took another drag. “That’s that. Put it in your hat and wear it to town, Locke. We need to face our shortcomings head-on. The old saying for a gang is ‘Lies go out, but the truth stays home.’” He forced twin streams of smoke from his nostrils, and cheered up visibly as the tails of gray vapor swirled around his head. “Now quit acting like there’s a fucking naked woman on your shoes, will you?”

Locke did grin at that, weakly, but he also looked up and nodded.

“Now, you,” Chains said, turning to regard Jean. “We all know you’ve got the sort of temper that cracks skulls when it’s off the leash. We’ve got a properly evil brain in Locke here, a fantastic liar. Calo and Galdo are silver at all trades and gold at none. Sabetha’s the born queen of all the charmers that ever lived. But what we don’t have yet is a plain old bruiser. I think it could be you, a stand-up brawler to keep your friends out of trouble. A real rabid-dog bastard with steel in your hand. Care to give it a go?”

Jean’s eyes were immediately drawn down to the fascinating spectacle of his own feet. “Um, well, if you think that would be good, I can try…”

“Jean, I’ve seen you angry.”

“I’ve felt you angry,” said Locke, grinning.

“And give me some credit for being five times your fucking age, Jean. You don’t smolder and you don’t make threats; you just go cold, and then you make things happen. Some folks are made for hard situations.” He drew smoke from his sheaf once again, and flicked white ashes to the stones beneath his feet. “I think you have the knack for smacking brains out of heads. That’s neither good nor bad in itself, but it’s something we can use.”

Jean seemed to think this over for a few moments, but Locke and Chains could both see the decision already made in his eyes. They had gone hard and hungry under his black tangle of hair, and his nod was just a formality.

“Good, good! Thought you’d like the idea, so I took the liberty of making arrangements.” He produced a black leather wallet from one of the pockets of his coat and handed it over to Jean. “Half past noon tomorrow, you’re expected at the House of Glass Roses.”

Locke and Jean both widened their eyes at the mention of Camorr’s best-known and most exclusive school of arms. Jean flipped the sigil-wallet open. Inside was a flat token, a stylized rose in frosted glass, fused directly onto the inner surface of the leather. With this, Jean could pass north over the Angevine and past the guardposts to the Alcegrante islands. It placed him under the direct protection of Don Tomsa Maranzalla, Master of the House of Glass Roses.

“That rose will get you over the river and up among the swells, but don’t fuck around once you’re up there. Do what you’re told; go straight there and come straight back. You go four times a week from now on. And for all our sakes, tame that mess on top of your head. Use fire and a poleaxe if you have to.” Chains took a final drag of evergreen-scented smoke from his rapidly disappearing sheaf, then flicked the butt up and over the roof wall. His last exhalation of the night sailed over the heads of the two boys, a wobbly but otherwise fully formed ring.

“Fuck me! An omen.” Chains reached after the drifting ring as though he could pluck it back for examination. “Either this scheme is fated to work out, or the gods are pleased with me for engineering your demise, Jean Tannen. I love a win-win proposition. Now don’t you two have work to do?”

2

IN THE House of Glass Roses, there was a hungry garden.

The place was Camorr in microcosm; a thing of the Eldren, left behind for men to puzzle over-a dangerous treasure discarded like a toy. The Elderglass that mortared its stones rendered it proof against all human arts, much like the Five Towers and a dozen other structures scattered over the islands of the city. The men and women who lived in these places were squatters in glory, and the House of Glass Roses was the most glorious, dangerous place on the Alcegrante slopes. That Don Maranzalla held it was a sign of his high and lasting favor with the duke.

Just before the midpoint of the noon hour the next day, Jean Tannen stood at the door of Don Maranzalla’s tower: five cylindrical stories of gray stone and silver glass, a hulking fastness that made the lovely villas around it look like an architect’s scale models. Great waves of white heat beat down from the cloudless sky, and the air was heavy with the slightly beery breath of a city river boiling under long hours of sun. A frosted glass window was set into the stone beside the tower’s huge lacquered oaken doors, behind which the vague outline of a face could be discerned. Jean’s approach had been noted.

He’d gone north over the Angevine on a glass catbridge no wider than his hips, clinging to the guide ropes with sweaty hands for all six hundred feet of the crossing. There were no large bridges to the south bank of the Isla Zantara, second most easterly of the Alcegrante isles. Ferry rides were a copper half-baron. For those too poor to ride, that left the ecstatic terror of the catbridges. Jean had never been aloft on one before, and the sight of more experienced men and women ignoring the ropes as they crossed at speed had turned his bowels to ice water. The feel of hard pavement beneath his shoes had been a blessed relief when it came again.

The sweat-soaked yellowjackets on duty at the Isla Zantara gatehouse had let Jean pass far more quickly than he’d thought possible, and he’d seen the mirth drain from their ruddy faces the moment they recognized the sigil he carried. Their directions after that had been terse; was it pity that tinged their voices, or fear?

“We’ll look for you, boy,” one of them suddenly called after him as he started up the clean white stones of the street, “if you come back down the hill again!”

Mingled pity and fear, then. Had Jean really been enthusiastic for this adventure as recently as the night before?

The creak and rattle of counterweights heralded the appearance of a dark crack between the twin doors before him. A second later, the portals swung wide with slow majesty, muscled outward by a pair of men in bloodred waistcoats and sashes, and Jean saw that each door was half a foot of solid wood backed with iron bands. A wave of scents washed out over him: humid stone and old sweat, roasting meat and cinnamon incense. Smells of prosperity and security, of life within walls.

Jean held his wallet up to the men who’d opened the door, and one of them waved a hand impatiently. “You’re expected. Enter as a guest of Don Maranzalla and respect his house as you would your own.”

Against the left-hand wall of the opulent foyer, a pair of curlicue staircases in black iron wound upward; Jean followed the man around and up one set of narrow steps, self-consciously trying to keep his sweating and gasping under control. The tower doors were pulled shut beneath them with an echoing slam.

They wound their way up past three floors of glittering glass and ancient stone, decorated with thick red carpets and innumerable stained tapestries that Jean recognized as battle flags. Don Maranzalla had served as the duke’s personal swordmaster and the commander of his blackjackets for a quarter of a century. These bloody scraps of cloth were all that remained of countless companies of men fate had thrown against Nicovante and Maranzalla in fights that were now legend: the Iron Sea Wars, the Mad Count’s Rebellion, the Thousand-Day War against Tal Verrar.

At last, the winding stair brought them up into a small dim room, barely larger than a closet, lit by the gentle red glow of a paper lantern. The man placed one hand on a brass knob and turned to look down at Jean.

“This is the Garden Without Fragrance,” he said. “Step with care, and touch nothing as you love life.” Then he pushed the door to the roof open, letting in a sight so bright and astounding that Jean rocked backward on his heels.

The House of Glass Roses was more than twice as wide as it was tall, so the roof must have been at least one hundred feet in diameter, walled in on all sides. For a frightful moment, Jean thought he stood before a blazing, hundred-hued alchemical fire. All the stories and rumors had done nothing to prepare him for the sight of this place beneath the full light of a white summer sun; it seemed as though liquid diamond pulsed through a million delicate veins and scintillated on a million facets and edges. Here was an entire rose garden, wall after wall of perfect petals and stems and thorns, silent and scentless and alive with reflected fire-for it was all carved from Elderglass, a hundred thousand blossoms perfect down to the tiniest thorn. Dazzled, Jean stumbled forward and stretched out a hand to steady himself. When he forced his eyes closed the darkness was alive with afterimages like flashes of heat lightning.

Don Maranzalla’s man caught him by the shoulders, gently but firmly.

“It can be overwhelming at first. Your eyes will adjust in a few moments, but mark my words well, and by the gods, touch nothing.”

As Jean’s eyes recovered from the initial shock of the garden, he began to see past the dazzling glare. Each wall of roses was actually transparent; the nearest was just two paces away. And it was flawless-as flawless as the rumors claimed-as though the Eldren had frozen every blossom and every bush in an instant of summer’s fullest perfection. Yet there were patches of genuine color here and there in the hearts of the sculptures, swirled masses of reddish brown translucence, like clouds of rust-colored smoke frozen in ice.

These clouds of color were human blood.

Every petal, leaf, and thorn was sharper than any razor; the merest touch would open human skin like paper, and the roses would drink, or so the stories said, siphoning blood deep inside the network of glass stems and vines. Presumably, if enough lives were fed to the garden every blossom and every wall would someday turn a rich, rusty red. Some rumors had it that the garden merely drank what was spilled upon it; others claimed that the roses would actually draw blood forth from a wound, and could drain a man white from any cut, no matter how small.

It would take intense concentration to walk through these paths; most were only two or three paces wide, and a moment of distraction could be deadly. It said much about Don Maranzalla that he thought of his garden as the ideal place to teach young men how to fight. For the first time, Jean felt a sense of dreadful awe at the creatures who’d vanished from Camorr a thousand years before his birth. How many other alien surprises had they left behind for men to stumble over? What could drive away beings powerful enough to craft something like this? The answer did not bear thinking of.

Maranzalla’s man released his grip on Jean’s shoulders and reentered the dim room at the apex of the stairs; the room, as Jean now saw, jutted out of the tower’s wall like a gardener’s shack. “The don will be waiting at the center of the garden,” he said.

Then he pulled the door shut after him, and Jean seemed alone on the roof, with the naked sun overhead and the walls of thirsty glass before him.

Yet he wasn’t alone; there was noise coming from the heart of the glass garden, the whickering skirl of steel against steel, low grunts of exertion, a few terse commands in a deep voice rich with authority. Just a few minutes earlier, Jean would have sworn that the catbridge crossing was the most frightening thing he’d ever done, but now that he faced the Garden Without Fragrance, he would have gladly gone back to the midpoint of that slender arch fifty feet above the Angevine and danced on it without guide ropes.

Still, the black wallet clutched in his right hand drew his mind to the fact that Father Chains had thought him right for whatever awaited him in this garden. Despite their scintillating danger, the roses were inanimate and unthinking; how could he have the heart of a killer if he feared to walk among them? Shame drove him forward, step by sliding step, and he threaded the twisting paths of the garden with exquisite care, sweat sliding down his face and stinging his eyes.

“I am a Gentleman Bastard,” he muttered to himself.

It was the longest thirty feet of his brief life, that passage between the cold and waiting walls of roses.

He didn’t allow them a single taste of him.

At the center of the garden was a circular courtyard about thirty feet wide; here, two boys roughly Jean’s age were circling one another, rapiers flicking and darting. Another half dozen boys watched uneasily, along with a tall man of late middle age. This man had shoulder-length hair and drooping moustaches the color of cold campfire ashes. His face was like sanded leather, and though he wore a gentleman’s doublet in the same vivid red as the attendants downstairs, he wore it over weather-stained soldier’s breeches and tattered field boots.

There wasn’t a boy at the lesson who didn’t put his master’s clothes to shame. These were sons of the quality, in brocade jackets and tailored breeches, silk tunics and polished imitations of swordsman’s boots; each one also wore a white leather buff coat and silver-studded bracers of the same material; just the thing for warding off thrusts from training weapons. Jean felt naked the instant he stepped into the clearing, and only the threat of the glass roses kept him from leaping back into concealment.

One of the duelists was surprised to see Jean emerge from the garden, and his opponent made good use of that split second of inattention; he deftly thrust his rapier into the meat of the first boy’s upper arm, punching through the leather. The skewered boy let out an unbecoming holler and dropped his blade.

“My lord Maranzalla!” One of the boys in the crowd spoke up, and there was more oil in his voice than there was on a blade put away for storage. “Lorenzo was clearly distracted by the boy who just came out of the garden! That was not a fair strike.”

Every boy in the clearing turned to regard Jean, and it was impossible to guess what soonest ignited their naked disdain: his laborer’s clothing, his pearlike physique, his lack of weapons and armor? Only the boy with a spreading circle of blood on his tunic sleeve failed to stare at him with open loathing; he had other problems. The gray-haired man cleared his throat, then spoke in the deep voice Jean had heard earlier. He seemed amused.

“You were a fool to take your eyes from your opponent, Lorenzo, so in a sense you earned that sting. But it is true, all things being equal, that a young gentleman should not exploit an outside distraction to score a touch. You will both try to do better next time.” He pointed toward Jean without looking at him, and his voice lost its warmth. “And you, boy-lose yourself in the garden until we’ve finished here; I don’t want to see you again until these young gentlemen have left.”

Certain that the fire rising in his cheeks could outshine the sun itself, Jean rapidly scuttled out of sight; several seconds passed before he realized with horror that he had leapt back into the maze of sculpted glass walls without hesitation. Positioning himself a few bends back from the clearing, he stood in mingled fear and self-loathing, and tried to hold himself rigid as the sun’s heat cooked great rivers of sweat out of him.

Fortunately, he hadn’t much longer to wait; the sound of steel on steel faded, and Don Maranzalla dismissed his class. They filed past Jean with their coats off and their jackets open, each boy seemingly at ease with the lethal labyrinth of transparent blossoms. Not one said anything to Jean, for this was Don Maranzalla’s house, and it would be presumptuous of them to chastise a commoner within his domain. The fact that each boy had sweated his silk tunic to near translucency, and that several were red-faced and wobbly with sun-sickness, did little to leaven Jean’s misery.

“Boy,” called the don after the troop of young gentlemen had passed out of the garden and down the stairs, “attend me now.”

Summoning as much dignity as he could-and realizing that most of it was pure imagination-Jean sucked in his wobbling belly and went out into the courtyard once again. Don Maranzalla wasn’t facing him; the don held the undersized training rapier that had recently stung a careless boy’s biceps. In his hands, it looked like a toy, but the blood that glistened on its tip was quite real.

“I, uh, I’m sorry, sir, my lord Maranzalla. I must have come early. I, ah, didn’t mean to distract from the lesson…”

The don turned on his heel, smooth as Tal Verrar clockwork, every muscle in his upper body ominously statue-still. He stared down at Jean now, and the cold scrutiny of those black, squinting eyes gave Jean the third great scare of the afternoon.

He suddenly remembered that he was alone on the roof with a man that had butchered his way into the position he currently held.

“Does it amuse you, lowborn,” the don asked in a serpentine whisper, “to speak before you are spoken to, in a place such as this, to a man such as myself? To a don?”

Jean’s blubbered apology died in his throat with an unmanly choke; the sort of wet noise a clam might make if you broke its shell and squeezed it out through the cracks.

“Because if you’re merely being careless, I’ll beat that habit out of your butter-fat ass before you can blink.” The don strode over to the nearest wall of glass roses, and with evident care slid the tip of the bloodied rapier into one of the blossoms. Jean watched in horrified fascination as the red stain quickly vanished from the blade and was drawn into the glass, where it diffused into a mistlike pink tendril and was carried into the heart of the sculpture. The don tossed the clean sword to the ground. “Is that it? Are you a careless little fat boy sent up here to pretend at arms? You’re a dirty little urchin from the Cauldron, no doubt; some whore’s gods-damned droppings.”

At first the paralysis of Jean’s tongue refused to lift; then he heard the blood pounding in his ears like the crashing of waves on a shore. His fists clenched on some impulse of their own.

“I was born in the North Corner,” he yelled, “and my mother and father were folk of business!”

Almost as soon as he’d finished spitting this out his heart seemed to stop. Mortified, he put his arms behind his back, bowed his head, and took a step backward.

After a moment of weighted silence, Maranzalla laughed loudly and cracked his knuckles with a sound like pine logs popping in a fire.

“You must forgive me, Jean,” he said. “I wanted to see if Chains was telling the truth. By the gods, you do have balls. And a temper.”

“You…” Jean stared at the don, comprehension dawning. “You wanted to make me angry, my lord?”

“I know you’re sensitive about your parents, boy. Chains told me quite a bit about you.” The don knelt on one knee before Jean, bringing them eye to eye, and put a hand on Jean’s shoulder.

“Chains isn’t blind,” said Jean. “I’m not an initiate. And you’re not really…not really…”

“A mean old son-of-a-bitch?”

Jean giggled despite himself. “I, uh…I wonder if I’ll ever meet anyone who is what they seem to be, ever again, my lord.”

“You have. They walked out of my garden a few minutes ago. And I am a mean son-of-a-bitch, Jean. You’re going to hate my miserable old guts before this summer’s out. You’re going to curse me at Falselight and curse me at dawn.”

“Oh,” said Jean. “But…that’s just business.”

“Very true,” said Don Maranzalla. “You know, I wasn’t born to this place; it was a gift for services rendered. And don’t think that I don’t value it…but my mother and father weren’t even from the North Corner. I was actually born on a farm.”

“Wow,” said Jean.

“Yes. Up here in this garden, it won’t matter who your parents were; I’ll make you work until you sweat blood and plead for mercy. I’ll thrash on you until you’re inventing new gods to pray to. The only thing this garden respects is concentration. Can you concentrate, every moment you’re up here? Can you distill your attention, drive it down to the narrowest focus, live absolutely in the now, and shut out all other concerns?”

“I…I shall have to try, my lord. I already walked through the gardens once. I can do it again.”

“You will do it again. You’ll do it a thousand times. You’ll run through my roses. You’ll sleep among them. And you’ll learn to concentrate. I warn you, though, some men could not.” The don arose and swept a hand in a semicircle before him. “You can find what they left behind, here and there. In the glass.”

Jean swallowed nervously and nodded.

“Now, you tried to apologize before for coming early. Truth is, you didn’t. I let my previous lesson run long because I tend to indulge those wretched little shits when they want to cut each other up a bit. In future, come at the stroke of one, to make sure they’re long gone. They cannot be allowed to see me teaching you.”

Once, Jean had been the son of substantial wealth, and he had worn clothes as fine as any just seen on this rooftop. What he felt now was the old sting of his loss, he told himself, and not mere shame for anything as stupid as his hair or his clothes or even his hanging belly. This thought was just self-importantly noble enough to keep his eyes dry and his face composed.

“I understand, my lord. I…don’t wish to embarrass you again.”

“Embarrass me? Jean, you misunderstand.” Maranzalla kicked idly at the toy rapier, and it clattered across the tiles of the rooftop. “Those prancing little pants-wetters come here to learn the colorful and gentlemanly art of fencing, with its many sporting limitations and its proscriptions against dishonorable engagements.

“You, on the other hand,” he said as he turned to give Jean a firm but friendly poke in the center of his forehead, “you are going to learn how to kill men with a sword.”

1

LOCKE OUTLINED HIS plan over a long, nervous lunch.

The Gentlemen Bastards sat at the dining table in their glass burrow, just after noon on Duke’s Day. Outside the sun was pouring down its usual afternoon punishment, but in the burrow it was cool, perhaps unnaturally so, even for an underground cellar. Chains had often speculated that the Elderglass did tricks with more than just light.

They had laid on a feast more befitting a festival than a midday meeting. There was stewed mutton with onions and ginger, stuffed eels in spiced wine sauce, and green-apple tarts baked by Jean (with a liberal dose of Austershalin brandy poured over the fruit). “I’ll bet even the duke’s own cook would have his balls skinned if he did this,” he’d said. “Makes each tart worth two or three crowns, by my reckoning.”

“What’ll they be worth,” said Bug, “once they’re eaten, and they come out the other end?”

“You’re welcome to take measurements,” said Calo. “Grab a scale.”

“And a scoop,” added Galdo.

The Sanzas spent the meal picking at a seasoned omelette topped with minced sheep’s kidneys-usually a favorite with the whole table. But today, though they all agreed it was their best effort in weeks-topping even the celebration of their first success in the Salvara game-the savor seemed to have evaporated. Only Bug ate with real vigor, and his attention was largely concentrated on Jean’s plate of tarts.

“Look at me,” he said with his mouth half-full. “I’m worth more with every bite!”

Quiet half-smiles met his clowning, and nothing more; the boy “harrumphed” in annoyance and banged his fists on the table. “Well, if none of you want to eat,” he said, “why don’t we get on with planning how we’re going to dodge the axe tonight?”

“Indeed,” said Jean.

“Too right,” added Calo.

“Yes,” said Galdo, “what’s the game and how do we play it?”

“Well.” Locke pushed his plate away, crumpled his cloth napkin, and threw it into the center of the table. “For starters, we need to use the damn Broken Tower rooms again. It seems the stairs aren’t through with us just yet.”

Jean nodded. “What will we do with the place?”

“That’s where you and I will be when Anjais comes looking to collect us, at the ninth hour. And that’s where we’ll stay, after he’s thoroughly convinced that we have a very honest reason for not going with him.”

“What reason would that be?” asked Calo.

“A very colorful one,” said Locke. “I need you and Galdo to pay a quick visit to Jessaline d’Aubart this afternoon. I need help from a black alchemist for this. Here’s what you tell her…”

2

THE ILLICIT apothecary shop of Jessaline d’Aubart and her daughter Janellaine was located above a scribe’s collective in the respectable Fountain Bend neighborhood. Calo and Galdo stepped onto the scribing floor at just past the second hour of the afternoon. Here, a dozen men and women were hunched over wide wooden boards, working quills and salt and charcoal sticks and drying sponges back and forth like automatons. A clever arrangement of mirrors and skylights let the natural light of day in to illuminate their work. There were few tradesfolk in Camorr more penny-conscious than journeymen scriveners.

At the rear of the first floor was a winding staircase, guarded by a tough-looking young woman who feigned boredom while fingering weapons beneath her brocaded brown coat. The Sanza twins established their bona fides with a combination of hand gestures and copper barons that made their way into the young woman’s coat pockets. She tugged on a bell-rope beside the stairs, then waved them up.

On the second floor there was a reception room, windowless, walls and floor alike paneled with a golden hardwood that retained a faint aroma of pine lacquer. A tall counter divided the room precisely in half; there were no chairs on the customer side, and nothing at all on display on the merchant’s side: just a single locked door.

Jessaline stood behind the counter-a striking woman in her midfifties, with a tumbling cascade of charcoal-colored hair and dark, wary eyes nestled in laugh-lines. Janellaine, half her age, stood to her mother’s right with a crossbow pointed just over Calo and Galdo’s heads. It was an indoor murder-piece, lightweight and low power, which almost certainly meant some hideous poison on the quarrel. Neither Sanza was particularly bothered; this was business as usual for a black alchemist.

“Madam d’Aubart and Miss d’Aubart,” said Calo, bowing from the waist, “your servants.”

“Not to mention,” said Galdo, “still very much available.”

“Master Sanza and Master Sanza,” said the elder d’Aubart, “pleased to see you.”

“Although we are,” said Janellaine, “still very much disinclined.”

“Perhaps you’d care to buy something, though?” Jessaline folded her hands on the counter and raised one eyebrow.

“As it happens, a friend of ours needs something special.” Calo fished a coin purse from under his waistcoat and held it in plain view without opening it.

“Special?”

“Or perhaps not so much special as specific. He’s got to get sick. Very sick.”

“Far be it from me to drive away business, my dears,” said the elder d’Aubart, “but three or four bottles of rum would do the trick at a fraction of the price for anything I could give you.”

“Ah, not that sort of sick,” said Galdo. “He’s got to be in a bad way, like to knocking on the Death Goddess’ bedchamber and asking if he can come in. And then he’s got to be able to recover his strength after playing ill for a while. A sort of mummer’s sick, if you will.”

“Hmmm,” said Janellaine. “I don’t know if we have anything that works quite like that, at least not on hand.”

“When,” said Jessaline, “would your friend require a solution by?”

“We were sort of hoping to walk out of here with one,” said Calo.

“We don’t brew miracles, my dears.” Jessaline drummed her fingers on her countertop. “Contrary to all common belief. We do prefer a bit of notice for something like this. Messing about with someone’s inside-fit to ill and then fit again in the span of a few hours…well, that’s delicate.”

“We’re not Bondsmagi,” added Janellaine.

“Praise the gods for that,” said Galdo, “but it’s very pressing.”

“Well,” sighed Jessaline, “perhaps we can bang something together. A bit on the crude, but it might do the trick.”

“Barrow-robber’s blossom,” said her daughter.

“Yes.” Jessaline nodded. “And Somnay pine, after.”

“I believe we’ve both in the shop,” Jannelaine said. “Shall I check?”

“Do, and hand over that alley-piece while you’re back there.”

Janellaine passed the crossbow to her mother, then unlocked the door at the rear of the room and disappeared, closing it behind her once again. Jessaline set the weapon gently down atop the counter, keeping one long-fingered hand on the tiller.

“You wound us, madam,” said Calo. “We’re harmless as kittens.”

“More so,” said Galdo. “Kittens have claws and piss on things indiscriminately.”

“It’s not just you, boys. It’s the city. Whole place is like to boil, what with Nazca getting clipped. Old Barsavi’s got to have some retribution in the works. Gods know who this Gray King is or what he wants, but I’m more worried by the day for what might come up my stairs.”

“It is a messy time,” said Calo.

Janellaine returned, with two small pouches in her hands. She locked the door behind her, passed the pouches to her mother, and picked up the crossbow once again.

“Well,” said the elder d’Aubart, “here’s what it is, then. Your friend takes this, the red pouch. It’s barrow-robber’s blossom, a sort of purple powder. In the red pouch, remember. Put it in water. It’s an emetic, if the word means anything to you.”

“Nothing pleasant,” said Galdo.

“Five minutes after he drinks it, he gets an ache in the belly. Ten minutes and he gets wobbly at the knees. Fifteen minutes and he starts vomiting up every meal he’s had for the past week. Won’t be pretty. Have buckets close at hand.”

“And it’ll look absolutely real?” asked Calo.

“Look? Sweetmeat, it’ll be as real as it gets. You ever see anyone feign vomiting?”

“Yes,” said the Sanzas in perfect unison.

“He does this thing with chewed-up oranges,” added Galdo.

“Well, your friend won’t be feigning this. Any physiker in Camorr would swear it was a real and natural distress. You can’t even see the barrow-robber’s blossom once it comes up; it dissolves quickly.”

“And then,” said Calo, “what about the other pouch?”

“This is Somnay pine bark. Crumble it and steep it in a tea. It’s the perfect counter for the purple blossom; it’ll cancel it right out. But the blossom will already have done its work; keep that in mind. The bark won’t put food back in his belly, or give back the vigor he loses while he’s retching his guts out. He’s going to be weak and sore for at least an evening or two.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Calo, “by our own peculiar definition of wonderful. What do we owe you?”

“Three crowns, twenty solons,” said Jessaline. “And that’s only because you were old Chains’ boys. This isn’t much by way of alchemy, just refined and purified, but the powders are hard to get hold of.”

Calo counted out twenty gold tyrins from his purse and set them atop the counter in a vertical stack. “Here’s five crowns, then. With the understanding that this transaction is best forgotten by everyone involved.”

“Sanza,” said Jessaline d’Aubart without humor, “every purchase at my shop is forgotten, as far as the outside world is concerned.”

“Then this one,” said Calo, adding four more tyrins to the pile, “needs to stay extra forgotten.”

“Well, if you really want to reinforce the point…” She pulled a wooden scraper from beneath the counter and used it to pull the coins over the back edge, into what sounded like a leather bag. She was careful not to touch the coins themselves; black alchemists rarely got to be her age if they relaxed their paranoia toward all things touched, tasted, or smelled.

“You have our thanks,” said Galdo. “And that of our friend, as well.”

“Oh, don’t count on that,” Jessaline d’Aubart chuckled. “Give him the red pouch first, then see what a grateful frame of mind it puts him in.”

3

“GET ME a glass of water, Jean.” Locke stared out the canal-side window of the seventh-floor room, as the buildings of southern Camorr grew long black shadows toward the east. “It’s time to take my medicine. I’m guessing it’s close on twenty minutes to nine.”

“Already set,” said Jean, passing over a tin cup with a cloudy lavender residue swirling in it. “That stuff did dissolve in a blink, just like the Sanzas said.”

“Well,” he said, “here’s to deep pockets poorly guarded. Here’s to true alchemists, a strong stomach, a clumsy Gray King, and the luck of the Crooked Warden.”

“Here’s to living out the night,” said Jean, miming the clink of a cup against Locke’s own.

“Mmm.” Locke sipped hesitantly, then tilted the cup back and poured it down his throat in one smooth series of gulps. “Actually not bad at all. Tastes minty, very refreshing.”

“A worthy epitaph,” said Jean, taking the cup.

Locke stared out the window a while longer; the mesh was up, as the Duke’s Wind was still blowing in strongly from the sea and the insects weren’t yet biting. Across the Via Camorrazza the Arsenal District was mostly silent and motionless. With the Iron Sea city-states at relative peace, all the great saw-yards and warehouses and wet docks had little business. In a time of need they could build or service two dozen ships at once; now Locke could see only one skeletal hull rising within the yards.

Beyond that, the sea broke white against the base of the South Needle, an Elderglass-mortared stone breakwater nearly three-quarters of a mile in length. At its southernmost tip, a human-built watchtower stood out against the darkening sea; beyond that, the white blurs of sails could be seen beneath the red tendrils of clouds in the sky.

“Oh,” he said, “I do believe something’s happening.”

“Take a seat,” said Jean. “You’re supposed to get wobbly in just a bit.”

“Already happening. In fact…gods, I think I’m going to…”

So it began; a great wave of nausea bubbled up in Locke’s throat, and with it came everything he’d eaten for the past day. For a few long minutes he crouched on his knees, clutching a wooden bucket as devoutly as any man had ever prayed over an altar for intercession from the gods.

“Jean,” he gasped out during a brief lull between spasms of retching, “next time I conceive a plan like this, consider planting a hatchet in my skull.”

“Hardly efficacious.” Jean swapped a full bucket for an empty one and gave Locke a friendly pat on the back. “Dulling my nice sharp blades on a skull as thick as yours…”

One by one, Jean shuttered the windows. Falselight was just rising outside. “Ghastly as it is,” he said, “we need the smell to make an impression when Anjais shows up.”

Even once Locke’s stomach was thoroughly emptied, the dry heaving continued. He shuddered and shook and moaned, clutching at his guts. Jean hauled him bodily over to a sleeping pallet, where he looked down in genuine worry. “You’re pale and clammy,” he muttered. “Not bad at all. Very realistic.”

“Pretty, isn’t it? Gods,” whispered Locke, “how much longer?”

“Can’t rightly say,” said Jean. “They should be arriving down there right about now; give them a few minutes to get impatient with waiting around for us and come storming up here.”

During those few minutes, Locke became intimately acquainted with the idea of “a short eternity.” Finally, there came the creak of footsteps on the stairs, and a loud banging on the door.

“Lamora!” Anjais Barsavi’s voice. “Tannen! Open up or I’ll kick the damn door in!”

“Thank the gods,” croaked Locke as Jean rose to unbolt the door.

“We’ve been waiting out front of the Last Mistake! Are you coming or…Gods, what the hell happened in here?”

Anjais threw one arm up over his face as he stepped into the apartment and the smell of sickness. Jean pointed to Locke, writhing on the bed, moaning, half wrapped in a thin blanket despite the moist heat of the evening.

“He took ill just half an hour ago, maybe,” said Jean. “Losing his stomach all over the damn place. I don’t know what’s the matter.”

“Gods, he’s turning green.” Anjais took a few steps closer to Locke, staring in horrified sympathy. He was dressed for a fight, with a boiled leather cuirass, an unbuckled leather collar, and a pair of studded leather bracers tied over his hamlike forearms. Several men had accompanied him up the stairs, but none of them seemed in any hurry to follow him into the rooms.

“I had capon for lunch,” said Jean, “and he had fish rolls. That’s the last thing either of us ate, and I’m fine.”

“Iono’s piss. Fish rolls. Fresher than he bargained for, I’d wager.”

“Anjais,” Locke croaked, reaching out toward him with a shaking hand. “Don’t…don’t leave me. I can still go. I can still fight.”

“Gods, no.” Anjais shook his head emphatically. “You’re in a bad way, Lamora. I think you’d best see a physiker. Have you summoned one, Tannen?”

“I haven’t had a chance. I fetched out the buckets and I’ve been looking after him since it started.”

“Well, keep it up. Both of you stay. No, don’t get angry, Jean; he clearly can’t be left on his own. Stay and tend him. Fetch a physiker when you can.”

Anjais gave Locke two brief pats on his exposed shoulder.

“We’ll get the fucker tonight, Locke. No worries. We’ll do him for good, and I’ll send someone to look in on you when we’re done. I’ll square this with Papa; he’ll understand.”

“Please…please, Jean can help me stand, I can still-”

“End of discussion. You can’t fucking stand up; you’re sick as a fish dropped in a wine bottle.” Anjais backed toward the door and gave Locke a brief, sympathetic wave before he ducked out. “If I get my hands on the bastard personally, I’ll deck him once for you, Locke. Rest easy.”

Then the door slammed, and Locke and Jean were alone once again.

4

LONG MINUTES passed; Jean unshuttered the canal-side window and stared out into the glimmer of Falselight. He watched as Anjais and his men broke loose from the crowds below, then hurried across a Via Camorrazza catbridge and into the Arsenal District. Anjais didn’t look back even once, and soon enough he was swallowed up by shadows and distance.

“Long gone. Can I help you out of…,” Jean said, turning away from the window. Locke had already stumbled out of bed and was splashing water on the alchemical hearthstone, looking ten years older and twenty pounds thinner. That was alarming; Locke didn’t have twenty pounds to spare.

“Lovely. The least complicated, least important job of the night is done. Carry on, Gentlemen Bastards,” said Locke. His face was alight in the reflected glow of the simmering stone as he set a glazed jug of water atop it. Ten years older? More like twenty. “Now for the tea, gods bless it, and it had better be as good as the purple powder.”

Jean grimaced and grabbed the two vomit buckets Locke had used, then moved back to the window. Falselight was dying down now; the Hangman’s Wind was blowing up warm and strong, bringing a low ceiling of dark clouds with it, visible just past the Five Towers. The moons would be swallowed by those clouds tonight, at least for a few hours. Pinpricks of firelight were appearing across the city as though an unseen jeweler were setting his wares out on a field of black cloth.

“Jessaline’s little potion seems to have brought up every meal I’ve had in the past five years,” said Locke. “Nothing left to spit up but my naked soul. Make sure it isn’t floating around in one of those before you toss them, right?” His hands shook as he crumbled the dry Somnay pine bark right into the jug of water; he didn’t feel like messing about with proper tea-brewing.

“I think I see it,” Jean said. “Nasty, crooked little thing it is, too; you’re better off with it floating out to sea.”

Jean took a quick glance out the window to ensure that there were no canal boats drifting below in the path of a truly foul surprise, then simply flung the buckets, one after the other. They hit the gray water seventy-odd feet below with loud splashes, but Jean was certain nobody noticed or cared. Camorri were always throwing disgusting things into the Via Camorrazza.

Satisfied with his aim, Jean then slid the hidden closet open and pulled out their disguises-cheap traveler’s cloaks and a pair of broad-brimmed Tal Verrar caps fashioned from some ignoble leather with the greasy texture of sausage casings. He flung one brownish gray cloak over Locke’s shoulders; Locke clutched at it gratefully and shivered.

“You’ve got that motherly concern in your eyes, Jean. I must look like hammered shit.”

“Actually, you look like you were executed last week. I hate to ask, but are you sure you’re going to be up for this?”

“Whatever I am, it has to be sufficient.” Locke wrapped one end of his cloak around his right hand and picked up the jug of half-boiled tea. He sipped and swallowed, bark and all, reasoning that the best place for the stuff would be his empty stomach. “Ugh. It tastes like a kick in the gut feels. Have I pissed Jessaline off recently, too?”

His expression was picturesque, as though the skin of his face were trying to peel itself back and leap off his bones, but he continued to choke the near tea down anyway. Jean steadied him by placing both hands on his shoulders, privately afraid that another bout of vomiting might be more than Locke could handle.

After a few minutes, Locke set the empty jug down and sighed deeply.

“I can’t wait to have words with the Gray King when this shit is all finished,” Locke whispered. “There’s a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions. Like, ‘How does it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls, motherfucker?’”

“Sounds more like physik than philosophy. But as you said, we have to wait for the Falconer to leave first.” Jean’s voice was steady and totally empty of emotion; the voice he always used when discussing a plan only loosely tethered to prudence and sanity. “Pity we can’t just blindside the bastard from an alley.”

“Couldn’t give him so much as a second to think, or we’d lose.”

“Anything less than twenty yards,” mused Jean. “One good throw with a Wicked Sister. Wouldn’t take but half a second.”

“But you and I both know,” Locke replied slowly, “that we can’t kill a Bondsmage. We wouldn’t live out the week. Karthain would make examples of us, plus Calo, Galdo, and Bug as well. Not very clever at all, that way out. A drawn-out suicide.”

Locke stared down at the fading glow of the hearthstone and rubbed his hands together.

“I wonder, Jean. I really wonder. Is this what other people feel like when we’re through with them? After we get the goods and pull the vanish and there’s nothing they can do about it?”

The light from the hearthstone sank several stages further before Jean answered.

“I thought we’d agreed long ago that they get what they deserve, Locke. Nothing more. This is a fantastically silly moment to start giving a shit.”

“Giving a shit?” Locke started, blinking as though he had just woken up. “No, don’t get me wrong. It’s just this sewn-up feeling. ‘No way out’ is for other people, not for the Gentlemen Bastards. I don’t like being trapped.”

At a sudden gesture from Locke, Jean pulled him to his feet. Jean wasn’t sure if the tea was any more responsible than the cloak, but Locke was no longer shivering.

“Too right,” Locke continued, his voice gaining strength. “Too right I don’t like it. Let’s get this shit job over with. We can have a good ponder on the subject of our favorite gray rat-fucker and his pet mage after I’ve danced to their little tune.”

Jean grinned and cracked his knuckles, then ran a hand down the small of his back. The old familiar gesture, making sure that the Wicked Sisters were ready for a night out.

“You sure,” he said, “that you’re ready for the Vine Highway?”

“Ready as I can be, Jean. Hell, I weigh considerably less than I did before I drank that potion. Climbing down’ll be the easiest thing I do all night.”

5

THE TRELLIS ran up the full height of the Broken Tower, on the westward face of the structure, overlooking a narrow alley. The lattice of wood was threaded with tough old vines and built around the windows on each floor. Though something of a bitch to climb, it was the perfect way to avoid the few dozen familiar faces that were sure to be in the Last Mistake on any given night. The Gentlemen Bastards used the Vine Highway frequently.

The alley-side shutters banged open on the top floor of the Broken Tower; all the light inside Locke and Jean’s suite of rooms had been extinguished. A large dark shape slid out into the mass of trellised vines, and was shortly followed by a smaller shape. Clinging with white-knuckled determination, Locke gently eased the shutters closed above him, then willed his queasy stomach to quit complaining for the duration of the climb. The Hangman’s Wind, on its way out to the salty blackness of the Iron Sea, caught at his cap and cloak with invisible fingers that smelled of marshes and farmers’ fields.

Jean kept himself two or three feet under Locke, and they descended steadily, one foothold or handhold at a time. The windows on the sixth floor were shuttered and dark.

Thin slivers of amber light could be seen around the shutters on the fifth floor. Both climbers slowed without the need for words and willed themselves to be as quiet as possible; to be patches of gray invisible against deeper darkness, nothing more. They continued down.

The fifth-floor shutters flew outward as Jean was abreast with them on their left.

One hinged panel rebounded off his back, almost startling him out of his hold on the trellis. He curled his fingers tightly around wood and vine, and looked to his right. Locke stepped on his head in surprise, but quickly pulled himself back up.

“I know there’s no other way out, you miserable bitch!” hissed a man’s voice.

There was a loud thump, and then a shudder ran up and down the trellis; someone else had just gone out the window, and was scrabbling in the vines beside and just below them. A black-haired woman stuck her head out of the window, intent on yelling something in return, but when she caught sight of Jean through the cracks in her swinging shutter, she gasped. This in turn drew the attention of the man clinging just beneath her; a larger man even than Jean.

“What the hell is this shit?” he gasped. “What are you doing outside this window?”

“Amusing the gods, asshole.” Jean kicked down and tried to nudge the newcomer further down the trellis, to no avail. “Kindly heave yourself down!”

“What are you doing outside this window, huh? You like to sneak a peek? You can sneak a peek of my fist, cocksucker!”

Grunting with exertion, he began to climb back upward, grabbing at Jean’s legs. Jean narrowly yanked himself out of the way, and the world reeled around him as he regained his balance. Black wall, black sky, wet black cobblestones fifty feet below. That was a bad fall, the kind that cracked men like eggs.

“All of you, get off my damned window now! Ferenz, for Morgante’s sake, leave them be and get down!” the woman hollered.

“Shit,” Locke muttered from a few feet above and to her left, his eloquence temporarily cowed into submission. “Madam, you’re complicating our night, so before we come in and complicate yours, kindly cork your bullshit bottle and close the gods-damned window!”

She looked up, aghast. “Two of you? All of you, get down, get down, get down!”

“Close your window, close your window, close your fucking window!”

“I’ll kill both you shitsuckers,” huffed Ferenz. “Drop you both off this fucking-”

There was a marrow-chillingly loud cracking noise, and the trellis shuddered beneath the hands of the three men clinging to it.

“Ah,” said Locke. “Ah, that figures. Thanks ever so much, Ferenz.”

Then there was a torrent of polysyllabic blasphemy from four mouths; exactly who said what would never be clearly recalled. Two careful men were apparently the trellis’ limit; under the weight of three careless flailers, it began to tear free of the stone wall with a series of creaks and pops.

Ferenz surrendered to gravity and common sense and began sliding downward at prodigious speed, burning his hands as he went, all but peeling the trellis off the wall above him. It finally gave way when he was about twenty feet above the ground, flipping over and dashing him down into the darkened alley, where he was promptly covered in falling vines and wood. His descent had snapped off a section of trellis at least thirty feet long, starting just beneath Jean’s dangling feet.

Wasting no time, Locke shimmied to his right and dropped down onto the window ledge, shoving the screaming woman back with the tip of one boot. Jean scrambled upward, for the shutter still blocked his direct access to the window, and as the section of trellis under his hands began to pull out of the wall, he gracelessly swung himself over the shutter and in through the window, taking Locke with him.

They wound up in a heap on the hardwood floor, tangled in cloaks.

“Get back out the fucking window, now!” the woman screamed, punctuating each word with a swift kick to Jean’s back and ribs. Fortunately, she wasn’t wearing shoes.

“That would be stupid,” Locke said, from somewhere under his larger friend.

“Hey,” Jean said. “Hey! Hey!” He caught the woman’s foot and propelled her backward. She landed on her bed; it was the sort commonly called a “dangler”-a two-person hammock of strong but lightweight demi-silk, anchored to the ceiling at four points. She went sprawling across it, and both Locke and Jean suddenly noticed that she wasn’t wearing anything but her smallclothes. In the summer, a Camorri woman’s smallclothes are small indeed.

“Out, you bastards! Out, out! I-”

As Locke and Jean stumbled to their feet, the door on the wall opposite the window slammed open, and in stepped a broad-shouldered man with the slablike muscles of a stevedore or a smith. Vengeful satisfaction gleamed in his eyes, and the smell of hard liquor rolled off him, sour and acute even from ten paces away.

Locke wasted half a second wondering how Ferenz had gotten back upstairs so quickly, and another half second realizing that the man in the doorway wasn’t Ferenz.

He giggled, briefly but uncontrollably.

The night wind slammed the shutter against the open window behind him.

The woman made a noise somewhere in the back of her throat; a noise not unlike a cat falling down a deep, dark well.

“You filthy bitch,” the man said, his speech a thick slow drawl. “Filthy, filthy bitch. I jus’ knew it. Knew you weren’ alone.” He spat, then shook his head at Locke and Jean. “Two guys at once, too. Damn. Go figure. Guess it takes that many t’ replace me.

“Hope you boys had y’rselves a fun time with ’nother man’s woman,” he continued, drawing nine inches of blackened-steel stiletto from his left boot, “’cause now I’m gonna make you women.”

Jean spread his feet and moved his left hand under his cloak, ready to draw the Sisters. With his right hand, he nudged Locke a pace behind him.

“Hold it!” Locke cried, waving both of his hands. “I know what this looks like, but you’ve got the wrong idea, friend.” He pointed at the petrified woman clinging to the hanging bed. “She came before we came!”

“Gathis,” hissed the woman. “Gathis, these men attacked me! Get them! Save me!”

Gathis charged at Jean, growling. He held his knife out before him in the grip of an experienced fighter, but he was still drunk and he was still angry. Locke dodged out of the way as Jean caught Gathis by his wrist, stepped inside his reach, and sent him sprawling to the floor with a quick sweep of the legs.

There was an unappetizing snapping noise, and the blade fell from Gathis’ grip; Jean had retained a firm hold on his wrist, and then twisted as the man went down on his back. For a moment Gathis was too bewildered to cry out; then the pain broke through to his dulled senses and he roared.

Jean hoisted him up off the ground with one quick yank by the front of his tunic, and then he shoved Gathis with all his might into the stone wall to the left of the window. The big man’s head bounced off the hard surface and he stumbled forward; the blurred arc of Jean’s right fist met his jaw with a crack, abruptly canceling his forward momentum. He flopped to the ground, boneless as a sack of dough.

“Yes!” cried the woman. “Now throw him out the window!”

“For the love of the gods, madam,” snapped Locke. “Can you please pick one man in your bedroom to cheer for and stick with him?”

“If he’s found dead in the alley beneath your window,” said Jean. “I’ll come back and give you the same.”

“And if you tell anyone that we came through here,” added Locke, “you’ll only wish he’d come back and given you the same.”

“Gathis will remember,” she screeched. “He’ll certainly remember!”

“A big man like him? Please.” Jean made a show of arranging his cloak and redonning his hat. “He’ll say it was eight men and they all had clubs.”

Locke and Jean hurried out the door through which Gathis had entered, which led to the landing of the fifth-floor steps on the north side of the tower. With the trellis damaged, there was nothing else for it but to proceed quickly down on foot and pray to the Crooked Warden. Locke drew the door closed behind them, leaving the bewildered woman sprawled on her hanging bed with the unconscious Gathis curled up beside her window.

“The luck of the gods must certainly be with us,” said Locke as they hurried down the creaking steps. “At least we didn’t lose these stupid fucking hats.”

A small dark shape hissed past them, wings fluttering, a sleek shadow visible as it swooped between them and the lights of the city.

“Well,” Locke added, “for better or worse, from this point on, I suppose we’re under the Falconer’s wing.”

1

Jean was away at the House of Glass Roses the afternoon that Locke found out he was going to be sent up the Angevine to live on a farm for several months.

Hard rains were pounding Camorr that Idler’s Day, so Chains had taken Locke, Calo, and Galdo down into the dining room to teach them how to play Rich-Man, Beggar-Man, Soldier-Man, Duke-a card game that revolved around attempting to cheat one’s neighbor out of every last bent copper at his disposal. Naturally, the boys took to it quickly.

“Two, three, and five of Spires,” said Calo, “plus the Sigil of the Twelve.”

“Die screaming, half-wit,” said Galdo. “I’ve got a run of Chalices and the Sigil of the Sun.”

“Won’t do you any good, quarter-wit. Hand over your coins.”

“Actually,” said Father Chains, “a Sigil run beats a Sigil stand, Calo. Galdo would have you. Except-”

“Doesn’t anyone care what I’ve got in my hand?” asked Locke.

“Not particularly,” said Chains, “since nothing in the game tops a full Duke’s Hand.” He set his cards on the table and cracked his knuckles with great satisfaction.

“That’s cheating,” said Locke. “That’s six times in a row, and you’ve had the Duke’s Hand for two of them.”

“Of course I’m cheating,” said Chains. “Game’s no fun unless you cheat. When you figure out how I’m cheating, then I’ll know you’re starting to improve.”

“You shouldn’t have told us that,” said Calo.

“We’ll practice all week,” said Galdo.

“We’ll be robbing you blind,” said Locke, “by next Idler’s Day.”

“I don’t think so,” said Chains, chuckling, “since I’m sending you off on a three-month apprenticeship on Penance Day.”

“You’re what?”

“Remember last year, when I sent Calo off to Lashain to pretend to be an initiate in the Order of Gandolo? And Galdo went to Ashmere to slip into the Order of Sendovani? Well, your turn’s come. You’ll be going up the river to be a farmer for a few months.”

“A farmer?”

“Yes, you might have heard of them.” Chains gathered the cards from around the table and shuffled them. “They’re where our food comes from.”

“Yes, but…I don’t know anything about farming.”

“Of course not. You didn’t know how to cook, serve, dress like a gentleman, or speak Vadran when I bought you, either. So now you’re going to learn something else new.”

“Where?”

“Up the Angevine, seven or eight miles. Little place called Villa Senziano. It’s tenant farmers, mostly beholden to the duke or some of the minor swells from the Alcegrante. I’ll dress as a priest of Dama Elliza, and you’ll be my initiate, being sent off to work the earth as part of your service to the goddess. It’s what they do.”

“But I don’t know anything about the Order of Dama Elliza.”

“You won’t need to. The man you’ll be staying with understands that you’re one of my little bastards. The story’s just for everyone else.”

“What,” said Calo, “are we going to do in the meantime?”

“You’ll mind the temple. I’ll only be gone two days; the Eyeless Priest can be sick and locked away in his chambers. Don’t sit the steps while I’m away; people always get sympathetic if I’m out of sight for a bit, especially if I cough and hack when I return. You two and Jean can amuse yourselves as you see fit, so long as you don’t make a bloody mess of the place.”

“But by the time I get back,” said Locke, “I’ll be the worst card player in the temple.”

“Yes. Best wishes for a safe journey, Locke,” said Calo.

“Savor the country air,” said Galdo. “Stay as long as you like.”

2

THE FIVE Towers loomed over Camorr like the upstretched hand of a god; five irregular, soaring, Elderglass cylinders, dotted with turrets and spires and walkways and much curious evidence that the creatures that had designed them did not quite share the aesthetic sense of the humans who’d appropriated them.

Easternmost was Dawncatcher, four hundred feet high, its natural color a shimmery silver-red, like the reflection of a sunset sky in a still body of water. Behind it was Blackspear, slightly taller, made of an obsidian glass that shone with broken rainbows like a pool of oil. At the far side, as one might reckon by looking across the Five with Dawncatcher in the middle of one’s vision, was Westwatch, which shone with the soft violet of a tourmaline, shot through with veins of snow-white pearl. Beside it was stately Amberglass, with its elaborate flutings from which the wind would pull eerie melodies. In the middle, tallest and grandest of all, was Raven’s Reach, the palace of Duke Nicovante, which gleamed like molten silver and was crowned with the famous Sky Garden, whose lowest-hanging vine trailed in the air some six hundred feet above the ground.

A network of glassine cables (miles and miles of spun Elderglass cords had been found in the tunnels beneath Camorr, centuries before) threaded the roofs and turret tops of the Five Towers. Hanging baskets passed back and forth on these cables, drawn along by servants at huge clacking capstans. These baskets carried both passengers and cargo. Although many of the residents of lower Camorr proclaimed them mad, the nobles of the Five Families regarded the lurching, bobbing passage across the yawning empty spaces as a test of honor and courage.

Here and there, large cargo cages were being drawn up or lowered from jutting platforms on several of the towers. They reminded Locke, who stared up at all this with eyes that were not yet sated with such wonders, of the spider cages at the Palace of Patience.

He and Chains sat in a two-wheeled cart with a little walled space behind the seat, where Chains had stashed several parcels of goods under an old canvas tarp. Chains wore the loose brown robes with green and silver trim that marked a priest of Dama Elliza, Mother of Rains and Reaping. Locke wore a plain tunic and breeches, without shoes.

Chains had their two horses (un-Gentled, for Chains misliked using the white-eyed creatures outside city walls) trotting at a gentle pace up the winding cobbles of the Street of Seven Wheels, the heart of the Millfalls district. In truth, there were more than seven wheels spinning in the white froth of the Angevine; there were more in sight than Locke could count.

The Five Towers had been built on a plateau some sixty-odd feet above the lower city; the Alcegrante islands sloped up toward the base of this plateau. The Angevine came into Camorr at that height, just to the east of the Five, and fell down a crashing six-story waterfall nearly two hundred yards across. Wheels turned at the top of these falls, within a long glass-and-stone bridge topped with wooden mill-houses.

Wheels turned beneath the falls as well, jutting out into the river on both sides, making use of the rushing white flow to work everything from grinding stones to the bellows that blew air across the fires beneath brewers’ vats. It was a district choked with business-folk and laborers alike, with escorted nobles in gilded carriages rolling here and there to inspect their holdings or place orders.

They turned east at the tip of the Millfalls and crossed a wide low bridge into the Cenza Gate district, the means by which most northbound land traffic left the city. Here was a great mess, barely controlled by a small army of yellowjackets. Caravans of wagons were rolling into the city, their drivers at the mercy of the duke’s tax and customs agents, men and women marked by their tall black brimless caps and commonly referred to (when out of earshot) as “vexationers.”

Petty merchants were pitching everything from warm beer to cooked carrots; beggars were pleading countless improbable reasons for impoverishment and claiming lingering wounds from wars that had obviously ended long before they were born. Yellowjackets were driving the most persistent or malodorous off with their black lacquered sticks. It was not yet the tenth hour of the morning.

“You should see this place around noon,” said Chains, “especially during harvest time. And when it rains. Gods.”

Chains’ clerical vestments (and a silver solon passed over in a handshake) got them out of the city with little more than a “Good day, Your Holiness.” The Cenza Gate was fifteen yards wide, with huge ironwood doors almost as tall. The guardhouses on the wall were occupied, barracks-like, not just by the city watch but by the blackjackets, Camorr’s regular soldiers. They could be seen pacing here and there atop the wall, which was a good twenty feet thick.

North of Camorr proper was neighborhood after neighborhood of lightly built stone and wooden buildings, arranged in courts and squares more airy than those found on the islands of the city itself. Along the riverbank there were the beginnings of a marsh; to the north and the east were terraced hills, crisscrossed by the white lines of boundary stones set out to mark the property of the families that farmed them. The air took on divergent qualities depending on which way the chance breezes blew. It would smell of sea salt and wood smoke one minute, of manure and olive groves the next.

“Here beyond the walls,” said Chains, “is what many folks living outside the great cities would think of as cities; these little scatterings of wood and stone that probably don’t look like much to someone like you. Just as you haven’t really seen the country, most of them haven’t truly seen the city. So keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and be mindful of differences until you’ve had a few days to acclimate yourself.”

“What’s the point of this trip, Chains, really?”

“You might one day have to pretend to be a person of very lowly station, Locke. If you learn something about being a farmer, you’ll probably learn something about being a teamster, a barge poleman, a village smith, a horse physiker, and maybe even a country bandit.”

The road north from Camorr was an old Therin Throne road: a raised stone expanse with shallow ditches at the sides. It was covered with a gravel of pebbles and iron filings, waste from the forges of the Coalsmoke district. Here and there the rains had fused or rusted the gravel into a reddish cement; the wheels clattered as they slid over these hard patches.

“A lot of blackjackets,” Chains said slowly, “come from the farms and villages north of Camorr. It’s what the dukes of Camorr do, when they need more men, and they can afford to wait a bit, without raising a general levy of the lowborn. It’s good wages, and there’s the promise of land for those that stay in service a full twenty-five years. Assuming they don’t get killed, of course. They come from the north, and mostly they go back to the north.”

“Is that why the blackjackets and the yellowjackets don’t like each other?”

“Heh.” Chains’ eyes twinkled. “Good guess. There’s some truth to it. Most of the yellowjackets are city boys that want to stay city boys. But on top of that, soldiers can be some of the cattiest, most clannish damn folk you’ll ever find outside of a highborn lady’s wardrobe. They’ll fight over anything; they’ll brawl over the colors of their hats and the shapes of their shoes. I know, believe me.”

“You pretended to be one once?”

“Thirteen gods, no. I was one.”

“A blackjacket?”

“Yes.” Chains sighed and settled back against the hard wooden seat of the horse cart. “Thirty years past, now. More than thirty. I was a pikeman for the old Duke Nicovante. Most of us from the village my age went; it was a bad time for wars. Duke needed fodder; we needed food and coin.”

“Which village?”

Chains favored him with a crooked smile. “Villa Senziano.”

“Oh.”

“Gods, it was a whole pile of us that went.” The horses and the cart rattled down the road for a few long moments before Chains continued. “There were three of us that came back. Or at least got out of it.”

“Only three?”

“That I know of.” Chains scratched at his beard. “One of them is the man I’m going to be leaving you with. Vandros. A good fellow; not book-smart but very wise in the everyday sense. He did his twenty-five years, and the duke gave him a spot of land as a tenancy.”

“Tenancy?”

“Most common folk outside the city don’t own their own land any more than city renters own their buildings. An old soldier with a tenancy gets a nice spot of land to farm until he dies; it’s a sort of allowance from the duke.” Chains chuckled. “Given in exchange for one’s youth and health.”

“You didn’t do the twenty-five, I’m guessing.”

“No.” Chains fiddled with his beard a bit more, an old nervous gesture. “Damn, I wish I could have a smoke. It’s a very frowned-on thing in the order of the Dama, mind you. No, I took sick after a battle. Something more than just the usual shits and sore feet. A wasting fever. I couldn’t march and I was like to die, so they left me behind…myself and many others. In the care of some itinerant priests of Perelandro.”

“But you didn’t die.”

“Clever lad,” said Chains, “to deduce that from such slender evidence after living with me for just three years.”

“And what happened?”

“A great many things,” said Chains. “And you know how it ends. I wound up in this cart, riding north and entertaining you.”

“Well, what happened to the third man from your village?”

“Him? Well,” said Chains, “he always had his head on right. He made banneret sergeant not long after I got laid up with the fever. At the Battle of Nessek, he helped young Nicovante hold the line together when old Nicovante took an arrow right between his eyes. He lived, got elevated, and served Nicovante in the next few wars that came their way.”

“And where is he?”

“At this very moment? How should I know? But,” said Chains, “later this afternoon, he’ll be giving Jean Tannen his usual afternoon weapons lesson at the House of Glass Roses.”

“Oh,” said Locke.

“Funny old world,” said Chains. “Three farmers became three soldiers; three soldiers became one farmer, one baron, and one thieving priest.”

“And now I’m to become a farmer, for a while.”

“Yes. Useful training indeed. But not just that.”

“What else?”

“Another test, my boy. Just another test.”

“Which is?”

“All these years, you’ve had me looking over you. You’ve had Calo and Galdo, and Jean, and Sabetha from time to time. You’ve gotten used to the temple as a home. But time’s a river, Locke, and we’ve always drifted farther down it than we think.” He smiled down at Locke with real affection. “I can’t stand watch on you forever, boy. Now we need to see what you can do when you’re off in a strange new place, all on your own.”

1

IT BEGAN LIKE this-with the slow, steady beat of mourning drums and the slow cadence of marchers moving north from the Floating Grave, red torches smoldering in their hands, a double line of bloodred light stretched out beneath the low dark clouds.

At its heart was Vencarlo Barsavi, Capa of Camorr, with a son at either hand. Before him was a covered casket draped in black silk and cloth of gold, carried at either side by six pallbearers-one for each of the twelve Therin gods-dressed in black cloaks and black masks. At Barsavi’s back was a huge wooden cask on a cart pulled by another six men, with a black-shrouded priestess of the Nameless Thirteenth close behind.

The drums echoed against stone walls; against stone streets and bridges and canals; the torches cast reflections of fire in every window and shred of Elderglass they passed. Folk looked on in apprehension, if they looked on at all; some bolted their doors and drew shutters over their windows as the funeral procession passed. This is how things are done in Camorr, for the rich and the powerful; the slow mournful march to the Hill of Whispers, the interment, the ceremony, and then the wild, tearful celebration afterward. A toast on behalf of the departed; a bittersweet revel for those not yet taken for judgment by Aza Guilla, Lady of the Long Silence. The funeral cask is what fuels this tradition.

The lines of marchers left the Wooden Waste just after the tenth hour of the evening and marched into the Cauldron, where no urchin or drunkard dared to get in their way, where gangs of cutthroats and Gaze addicts stood in silent attention as their master and his court walked past.

Through Coalsmoke they marched, and then north into the Quiet, as silvery mist rose warm and clinging from the canals around them. Not a single yellowjacket crossed their path; not one constable even caught sight of the procession-arrangements had been made to keep them busy elsewhere that night. The east belonged to Barsavi and his long lines of torches, and the farther north he went the more honest families bolted their doors and doused their lights and prayed that the business of the marchers lay far away from them.

Had there been many staring eyes, they might have noticed that the procession had already failed to turn toward the Hill of Whispers; that it had instead gone north and snaked toward the western tip of the Rust-water district, where the great abandoned structure called the Echo Hole loomed in the darkness and the fog.

A curious observer might have wondered at the sheer size of the procession-more than a hundred men and women-and at their accoutrements. Only the pallbearers were dressed for a funeral. The torchbearers were dressed for war, in armor of boiled leather with blackened studs, in collars and helmets and bracers and gloves, with knives and clubs and axes and bucklers at their belts. They were the cream of Barsavi’s gangs, the hardest of the Right People-cold-eyed men and women with murders to their names. They were from all of his districts and all of his gangs-the Red Hands and the Rum Hounds, the Gray Faces and the Arsenal Boys, the Canal Jumpers and the Black Twists, the Catchfire Barons and a dozen others.

The most interesting thing about the procession, however, was something no casual observer could know.

The fact was, Nazca Barsavi’s body still lay in her old chambers in the Floating Grave, sealed away under silk sheets, alchemically impregnated to keep the rot of death from setting in too quickly. Locke Lamora and a dozen other priests of the Nameless Thirteenth, the Crooked Warden, had said prayers for her the previous night and placed her within a circle of sacred candles, there to lie until her father finished his business this evening, which had nothing to do with the Hill of Whispers. The coffin that was draped in funeral silks was empty.

2

“I AM the Gray King,” said Locke Lamora. “I am the Gray King, gods damn his eyes, I am the Gray King.”

“A little lower,” said Jean Tannen, struggling with one of the gray cuffs of Locke’s coat, “and a little scratchier. Give it a hint of Tal Verrar. You said he had an accent.”

“I am the Gray King,” said Locke, “and I’ll be smiling out the other side of my head when the Gentlemen Bastards are through with me.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Calo, who was streaking Locke’s hair with a foul-scented alchemical paste that was steadily turning it charcoal gray. “I like that one. Just different enough to be noticed.”

Locke stood stock-still as a tailor’s mannequin, surrounded by Calo, Galdo, and Jean, who worked on him with clothes, cosmetics, and threaded needles. Bug leaned up against one wall of their little enclosure, keeping his eyes and ears alert for interlopers.

The Gentlemen Bastards were hidden away in an abandoned storefront in the fog-choked Rustwater district, just a few blocks north of the Echo Hole. Rustwater was a dead island, ill-favored and barely inhabited. A city that had thrown off its old prejudices about the structures of the Eldren still held Rustwater in an unequivocal dread. It was said that the black shapes that moved in the Rustwater lagoon were nothing as pleasant as mere man-eating sharks but something worse, something older. Whatever the truth of those rumors, it was a conveniently deserted place for Barsavi and the Gray King to play out their strange affair. Locke privately suspected that he’d been taken somewhere in this neighborhood on the night the Gray King had first interrupted his life.

They were working every trick of their masquerade art to fashion Locke into the Gray King. Already his hair was gray, his clothes were gray, he was dressed in heavy padded boots that added two inches to his height, and he had a drooping gray moustache firmly affixed above his lips.

“It looks good,” said Bug, an approving note in his voice.

“Damn showy, but Bug’s right,” said Jean. “Now that I’ve got this stupid coat cinched in to your proper size, you do look rather striking.”

“Pity this isn’t one of our games,” said Galdo. “I’d be enjoying myself. Lean forward for some wrinkles, Locke.”

Working very carefully, Galdo painted Locke’s face with a warm, waxy substance that pinched his skin as it went on; in seconds it dried and tightened, and in just a few moments Locke had a complete network of crow’s-feet, laugh-lines, and forehead wrinkles. He looked to be in his midforties, at the very least. The disguise would have done very well in the bright light of day; at night, it would be impenetrable.

“Virtuoso,” said Jean, “relatively speaking, for such short notice and the conditions we have in which to put it all together.”

Locke flipped his hood up and pulled on his gray leather gloves. “I am the Gray King,” he said, his voice low, mimicking the odd accent of the real Gray King.

“I bloody well believe it,” said Bug.

“Well, let’s get on with everything, then.” Locke moved his jaw up and down, feeling the false wrinkle-skin stretch back and forth as he did so. “Galdo, hand me my stilettos, would you? I think I’ll want one in my boot and one in my sleeve.”

Lamora, came a cold whisper, the Falconer’s voice. Locke tensed, then realized that the noise hadn’t come from the air.

“What is it?” asked Jean.

“It’s the Falconer,” said Locke. “He’s…he’s doing that damn thing…”

Barsavi will soon be at hand. You and your friends must be in place, ere long.

“We have an impatient Bondsmage,” said Locke. “Quickly now. Bug, you know the game, and you know where to put yourself?”

“I’ve got it down cold,” said Bug, grinning. “Don’t even have a temple roof to jump off this time, so don’t worry about anything.”

“Jean, you’re comfortable with your place?”

“Not really, but there’s none better.” Jean cracked his knuckles. “I’ll be in sight of Bug, down beneath the floor. If the whole thing goes to shit, you just remember to throw yourself down the damn waterfall. I’ll cover your back, the sharp and bloody way.”

“Calo, Galdo.” Locke whirled to face the twins, who had hurriedly packed away all the tools and substances used to dress Locke up for the evening. “Are we good to move at the temple?”

“It’ll be smoother than a Guilded Lily’s backside if we do,” said Galdo. “A sweet fat fortune wrapped up in sacks, two carts with horses, provisions for a nice long trip on the road.”

“And there’s men at the Viscount’s Gate who’ll slip us out so fast it’ll be like we’d never even set foot in Camorr in the first place,” added Calo.

“Good. Well. Shit.” Locke rubbed his gloved hands together. “I guess that’s that. I’m all out of rhetorical flourishes, so let’s just go get the bastards and pray for a straight deal.”

Bug stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“I’m only doing this,” he said, “because I really love hiding in haunted Eldren buildings on dark and creepy nights.”

“You’re a liar,” said Jean, slowly. “I’m only doing this because I’ve always wanted to see Bug get eaten by an Eldren ghost.”

“Liar,” said Calo. “I’m only doing this because I fucking love hauling half a ton of bloody coins up out of a vault and packing them away on a cart.”

“Liar!” Galdo chuckled. “I’m only doing this because while you’re all busy elsewhere, I’m going to go pawn all the furniture in the burrow at No-Hope Harza’s.”

“You’re all liars,” said Locke as their eyes turned expectantly to him.

“We’re only doing this because nobody else in Camorr is good enough to pull this off, and nobody else is dumb enough to get stuck doing it in the first place.”

“Bastard!” They shouted in unison, forgetting their surroundings for a bare moment.

I can hear you shouting, came the ghostly voice of the Falconer. Have you all gone completely mad?

Locke sighed.

“Uncle doesn’t like us keeping him up all night with our carrying on,” he said. “Let’s get to it, and by the grace of the Crooked Warden, we’ll all see each other back at the temple when this mess is over.”

3

THE ECHO Hole is a cube of gray stone mortared with a dull sort of Elderglass; it never gleams at Falselight. In fact, it never returns the reflection of any light passed before it. It is perhaps one hundred feet on a side, with one dignified entrance-a man-sized door about twenty feet above the street at the top of a wide staircase.

A single aqueduct cuts from the upper Angevine, past the Millfalls, south at an angle and into Rustwater, where it spills its water into the heart of the Echo Hole. Like the stone cube itself, this aqueduct is thought to be touched by some ancient ill, and no use has ever been made of it. A small waterfall plunges through a hole in the floor, down into the catacombs beneath the Echo Hole, where dark water can be heard rushing. Some of these passages empty into the canal on the southwestern side of Rustwater; some empty into no place known to living men.

Locke Lamora stood in darkness at the center of the Echo Hole, listening to the rush of water down the break in the floor, staring fixedly at the patch of grayness that marked the door to the street. His only consolation was that Jean and Bug, crouched unseen in the wet darkness beneath the floor, would probably be even more apprehensive. At least until the proceedings started.

Near, came the voice of the Falconer, very near. Stand ready.

Locke heard the capa’s procession before he saw it; the sound of funeral drums came through the open door to the street, muffled and nearly drowned out by the falling water. Steadily, it grew louder; a red glow seemed to kindle beyond the door, and by that light Locke saw that the gray mist had thickened. Torches flickered softly, as though glimpsed from underwater. The red aura rose. The barest outline of the room around him became visible, etched in faint carmine. The beating of the drum ceased, and once again Locke was alone with the sound of the waterfall. He threw back his head, placed one hand behind his back, and stared at the door, his blood pounding in his ears.

Two small red fires appeared in the doorway like the eyes of a dragon from one of Jean’s stories. Black shadows moved behind them, and as Locke’s eyes adjusted to the influx of scarlet light he saw the faces of men, tall men, cloaked and armored. He could see enough of their features and posture to see that they were almost surprised to spot him; they hesitated, then continued forward, one moving to his left and the other to his right. For his part, he did nothing, moving not a muscle.

Two more torches followed, and then two more; Barsavi was sending his men up the stairs in pairs. Soon a loose semicircle of men faced Locke, and their torches cast the interior of the Echo Hole into red-shaded relief. There were carvings on the walls-strange old symbols in the tongue of the Eldren, which men had never deciphered.

A dozen men, two dozen; the crowd of armored shapes grew, and Locke saw faces that he recognized. Throat slitters, leg breakers, maulers. Assassins. A hard lot. Exactly what Barsavi had promised him, when they’d stood looking down at the body of Nazca together.

Moments passed. Still, Locke said nothing. Still, men and women filed in. The Berangias sisters-even in a dimmer light, Locke would have recognized their swagger. They stood at front and center of the gathering crowd, saying nothing, arms folded and eyes gleaming in the torchlight. By some unspoken command, none of Barsavi’s people moved behind Locke. He continued to stand alone, as the great press of Right People continued spreading before him.

At last, the crowd of cutthroats began to part. Locke could hear the echoes of their breathing and murmuring and the creaking of their leathers, bouncing from wall to wall, mingling with the sound of falling water. Some of those on the edges of the crowd extinguished their torches with wet leather pouches; gradually, the smell of smoke seeped into the air, and gradually the light sank, until perhaps one in five of the capa’s folk were still holding lit fires.

There was more than enough light to see Capa Barsavi as he turned the corner and stepped through the door. His gray hair was pulled back in oiled rows; his three beards were freshly brushed. He wore his coat of sharkskin leather, and a black cloak of velvet lined with cloth of gold, thrown back from one shoulder. Anjais was on his right and Pachero on his left as the capa strode forward, and in the reflected fires of their eyes Locke saw nothing but death.

Nothing is as it seems, came the voice of the Falconer. Stand resolute.

At the front of the crowd, Barsavi halted, and for a long moment he stared at the apparition before him, at the cool orange eyes within a shadowed hood, at Locke’s cloak and mantle and coat and gloves of gray.

“King,” he finally said.

“Capa,” Locke replied, willing himself to feel the hauteur, conjuring it forth from nothing. The sort of man who would stand in front of a hundred killers with a smile on his face; the sort of man who would summon Vencarlo Barsavi with a trail of corpses, the last of them his only daughter. That was the man Locke needed to be, not Nazca’s friend but her murderer; not the capa’s mischievous subject, but his equal. His superior.

Locke grinned, wolfishly, then swept his cloak back from his left shoulder. With his left hand he beckoned the capa, a taunting gesture, like a bully in an alley daring his opponent to step forward and take the first swing.

“Oblige him,” said the capa, and a dozen men and women raised crossbows.

Crooked Warden, thought Locke, give me strength. He ground his teeth in expectation. He could hear his jaw muscles creaking.

The snap-hiss of release echoed throughout the hall; a dozen taut strings twanged. The bolts were too fast to follow, dark afterimages that blurred the air, and then-

A dozen narrow black shapes rebounded off nothing right before his face, and fell clattering to the floor, scattered in an arc like dead birds at his feet.

Locke laughed, a high and genuine sound of pleasure. For one brief moment, he would have kissed the Falconer if the Bondsmage had stood before him.

“Please,” he said, “I thought you’d listened to the stories.”

“Just establishing your bona fides,” said Capa Barsavi, “Your Majesty.” The last word was sneered. Locke had at least expected a certain wariness following the blunting of the crossbow attack, but Barsavi stepped forward without apparent fear.

“I’m pleased that you’ve answered my summons,” Locke replied.

“The blood of my daughter is the only thing that’s summoned me,” said Barsavi.

“Dwell on it if you must,” said Locke, praying silently as he extemporized. Nazca, gods, please forgive me. “Were you any gentler, when you took this city for yourself, twenty-two years ago?”

“Is that what you think you’re doing?” Barsavi stopped and stared at him; they were about forty feet apart. “Taking my city from me?”

“I summoned you to discuss the matter of Camorr,” said Locke. “To settle it to our mutual satisfaction.” The Falconer hadn’t interrupted him yet; he presumed he was doing well.

“The satisfaction,” said Barsavi, “will not be mutual.” He raised his left hand, and one man stepped from the crowd.

Locke peered at this man carefully; he seemed to be an older fellow, slight and balding, and he wasn’t wearing armor. Very curious. He also appeared to be shivering.

“Do as we discussed, Eymon,” said the capa. “I’ll hold true to my bargain, truer than any I’ve ever made.”

The unarmored man began to walk forward, slowly, hesitantly, staring at Locke with obvious fear. But still he kept coming, straight toward Locke, while a hundred armed men and women waited behind him, doing nothing.

“I pray,” said Locke, with a bantering tone, “that man isn’t contemplating what I suspect.”

“We’ll all see what his business is soon enough,” said the capa.

“I cannot be cut or pierced,” said Locke, “and this man will die at my touch.”

“So it’s been said,” replied the capa. Eymon continued to move forward; he was thirty feet from Locke, then twenty.

“Eymon,” said Locke, “you are being ill-used. Stop now.”

Gods, he thought. Don’t do what I think you’re going to do. Don’t make the Falconer kill you.

Eymon continued to shamble forward; his jowls were quivering, and he was breathing in short sharp gasps. His hands were out before him, shaking, like a man about to reach into a fire.

Crooked Warden, Locke thought, please, let him be scared. Please let him stop. Falconer, Falconer, please, put a fright into him, do anything else but kill him. A river of sweat ran down his spine; he bent his head slightly and fixed Eymon with a stare. Ten feet now lay between them.

“Eymon,” he said, striving for a casual tone and not entirely succeeding, “you have been warned. You are in mortal peril.”

“Oh yeah,” said the man, his voice quavering. “Yeah, that I know.” And then he closed the distance between them, and he reached out for Locke’s right arm with both of his hands-

Fuck, thought Locke, and although he knew deep down that it would be the Falconer killing the man and not himself…

He flinched back from Eymon’s touch.

Eymon’s eyes lit up; he gasped, and then, to Locke’s horror, he leapt forward and grabbed Locke’s arm with both of his hands, like a scavenger bird clutching at a long-delayed meal. “Haaaaaaaaaaaa!” he cried, and for one brief second Locke thought something terrible was happening to him.

But no; Eymon still lived, and he had a very firm grip.

“Double fuck,” Locke mumbled, bringing up his left fist to clout the poor fellow; but he was off balance, and Eymon had him at a disadvantage. The slender man gave Locke a shove backward, screaming once again, “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” A cry of absolute triumph; Locke puzzled over it as he fell flat on his ass.

And then there were booted feet slapping the stones behind Eymon, and dark shapes rushing around him to grab at Locke. In the dancing light cast by two dozen moving torches, Locke found himself hauled back up to his feet, pinned by strong hands that clutched at his arms and his shoulders and his neck.

Capa Barsavi pushed through his eager crowd of men and women, forced Eymon more gently to the side, and stood face to face with Locke, his fat ruddy features alight with anticipation.

“Well, Your Majesty,” he said, “I’ll bet you’re one confused son of a bitch right about now.”

And then Barsavi’s people were laughing, cheering. And then the capa’s ham-hock fist planted itself in Locke’s stomach, and the air rushed out of his lungs, and black pain exploded in his chest. And then he knew just how deeply in the shit he truly was.

4

“YES, I’LL bet you’re pretty gods-damned curious at this point,” said Barsavi, strutting back and forth in front of Locke, who remained pinioned by half a dozen men, any one of them half again his size. “And so am I. Let’s throw that hood back, boys.”

Rough hands yanked at Locke’s hood and mantle, and the capa stared coldly at him, running one hand up and down his beards. “Gray, gray, gray. You look like you belong on a stage,” he laughed. “And such a skinny fellow, too. What a weak little man we’ve caught ourselves tonight-the Gray King, sovereign of fog and shadows and precious little else.”

The capa backhanded him, grinning; the stinging pain had just registered when he did it again, from the other direction. Locke’s head lolled. He was grabbed from behind by his hair and made to look the capa right in the face. Locke’s thoughts whirled. Had the capa’s men somehow located the Falconer? Had they distracted him? Was the capa mad enough to actually kill a Bondsmage, if he had the chance?

“Oh, we know you can’t be cut,” continued Barsavi, “and we know you can’t be pierced, more’s the pity. But bruised? It’s a curious thing about the spells of a Bondsmage. They’re so damn specific, aren’t they?”

And then he punched Locke in the stomach again, to a murmur of widespread amusement. Locke’s knees buckled beneath him, and his attendants hoisted him again, holding him upright, as bolts of pain radiated from his abdomen.

“One of your men,” said Barsavi, “strolled into my Floating Grave this very morning.”

A little chill crept down Locke’s spine.

“Seems I’m not the only one you pissed off when you sent my Nazca back to me the way you did,” said Barsavi, leering. “Seems that some of your men didn’t sign on with your merry little crew for that sort of gods-damned desecration. So your man and I, we had ourselves a talk. And we fixed a price. And then he told me all sorts of fascinating things about that spell of yours. And that story about you being able to kill men with a touch? Oh, he told me it was bullshit.”

Sewn up, said a little voice at the back of Locke’s head that most certainly was not the Falconer. Sewn up, sewn up. Of course the Falconer hadn’t been distracted, or taken by any of Barsavi’s men. Neat as a gods-damned hanging.

“But I was only willing to trust the fellow so far,” Barsavi said. “So I made a deal with Eymon, whom I’m sure you don’t recognize. Eymon is dying. He has the cold consumption, the tumors in his stomach and his back. The sort no physiker can cure. He’s got maybe two months, maybe less.” The capa clapped Eymon on the back as proudly as if the skinny man were his own flesh and blood.

“So I said, ‘Why don’t you step up and grab the filthy little bastard, Eymon? If he really can kill with a touch, well, you’ll go quick and easy. And if he can’t…’” Barsavi grinned, his red cheeks wrinkling grotesquely.

“Well, then.”

“A thousand full crowns,” said Eymon, giggling.

“For starters,” added Barsavi. “A promise I intend to keep. A promise I intend to expand. I told Eymon he’d die in his own villa, with gems and silks and half a dozen ladies of his choice from the Guilded Lilies to keep him company. I will invent pleasures for him. He’ll die like a fucking duke, because tonight I name him the bravest man in Camorr.”

There was a general roar of approval; men and women applauded, and fists banged on armor and shields.

“Quite the opposite,” Barsavi whispered, “of a sneaking, cowardly piece of shit who would murder my only daughter. Who wouldn’t even do it with his own hands. Who’d let some fucking hireling work a twisted magic on her. A poisoner.” Barsavi spat in Locke’s face; the warm spittle trickled down his cheek. “Your man told me, of course, that your Bondsmage had set his spell and left your service last night; that you were so very confident, you didn’t want to keep paying him. Well, I for one applaud your sense of economy.”

Barsavi gestured to Anjais and Pachero; grim-faced, the two men stepped forward. They slipped their optics off and put them in vest pockets; an ominous gesture conducted in unconscious unison. Locke opened his mouth to say something-and then the realization of exactly how sewn up he was struck him cold.

He could proclaim his true identity, have the capa tear off his false moustache and rub away the wrinkles, spill the entire story-but what would it gain him? He would never be believed. He’d already displayed a Bondsmage’s protection. If he confessed to being Locke Lamora, the hundred men and women here would be after Jean and Bug and the Sanzas next.

If he was going to save them, he had to play the Gray King until the capa was finished with him, and then he would pray for a quick and easy death. Let Locke Lamora just vanish one night; let his friends slip away to whatever better fate awaited them. Blinking back hot tears, he summoned up a grin, looked at the two Barsavi sons, and said, “By all means, you fucking curs, let’s see if you can do any better than your father.”

Anjais and Pachero knew how to strike a man with the intent to kill, but just now they had no such intent. They bruised his ribs, knuckle-punched his arms, kicked his thighs, slapped his head from side to side, and punched him in the neck until every breath was a chore. At last, Anjais had him hoisted back up, and took hold of his chin so that the two of them were looking eye to eye.

“By the way,” said Anjais, “this is from Locke Lamora.”

Anjais balanced Locke’s chin on one finger and walloped him with his other hand. White-hot pain shot through Locke’s neck, and in the red-tinted darkness around him he saw stars. He spat blood, coughed, and licked his sore, swollen lips.

“Now,” said Barsavi, “I’ll have a father’s justice for Nazca’s death.”

He clapped his hands three times.

Behind him, there was an audible noise of men cursing, and heavy footfalls banging against the stone steps. Through the door came eight more men, carrying a large wooden cask-a cask the size of the one Nazca Barsavi had been returned to her father in. The funeral cask. The crowd around Barsavi and his sons parted eagerly to let the cask haulers through. They set it on the ground beside the capa, and inside it Locke heard the slosh of liquid.

Oh, thirteen gods, he thought.

“Can’t be cut, can’t be pierced,” said the capa, as though he were musing out loud. “But you can certainly be bruised. And you certainly need to breathe.”

Two of the capa’s men popped the lid on the cask open, and Locke was dragged over to it. The eye-watering stench of horse urine spilled out into the air, and he gagged, sobbing.

“Look at the Gray King cry,” whispered Barsavi. “Look at the Gray King sob. A sight I will treasure to the last hour of my dying day!” His voice rose. “Did Nazca sob? Did my daughter cry, as you gave her her death? Somehow I don’t think so.”

The capa was shouting now. “Take a last look! He gets what Nazca got; he dies as she died, but by my hand!”

Barsavi seized Locke by the hair and tilted his face toward the barrel; for one brief irrational moment, Locke was grateful that there was nothing in his stomach to throw up. The dry retching still brought spasms of pain to his much-abused stomach muscles.

“With one small touch,” said the capa, actually gulping back sobs of exhilaration. “With one small touch, you son of a bitch. No poison for you. No quick way out before I put you in. You get to taste it, the whole time. All the while as you drown in it.”

And then he hefted Locke by the mantle, grunting. His men joined in, and together they hoisted him up over the rim, and then down he plunged face-first, down into thick, lukewarm filth that blotted out the noise of the world around him, down into darkness that burned his eyes and his cuts and swallowed him whole.

5

BARSAVI’S MEN slammed the lid back onto the barrel; several of them hammered it down with mallets and axe-butts until it was cinched tight. The capa gave the top of the barrel a thump with his fist and smiled broadly. Tears were still running down his cheeks.

“Somehow I don’t think the poor fucker did as well as he hoped with our negotiations!”

The men and women around him whooped and hollered, arms in the air, torches waving and casting wild shadows on the walls.

“Take this bastard and send him out to sea,” said the capa, gesturing toward the waterfall.

A dozen pairs of eager hands grabbed at the barrel. Laughing and joking, a crowd of the capa’s people hoisted it and carried it over to the northwestern corner of the Echo Hole, where water poured in from the ceiling and vanished into blackness through a fissure about eight feet wide. “One,” said the leader, “two…” And on the cusp of “three,” they flung the barrel down into darkness. It struck water somewhere beneath them with a splash; then they threw up their arms and began cheering once again.

“Tonight,” cried Barsavi, “Duke Nicovante sleeps safe in his bed, locked away in his glass tower! Tonight the Gray King sleeps in piss, in a tomb that I have made for him! Tonight is my night! Who rules Camorr?”

“Barsavi!” came the response from every throat in the Echo Hole, reverberating around the alien-set stones of the structure, and the capa was surrounded by a sea of noise, laughter, applause.

“Tonight,” he yelled, “send messengers to every corner of my domains! Send runners to the Last Mistake! Send runners to Catchfire! Wake the Cauldron and the Narrows and the Dregs and all the Snare! Tonight, I throw open my doors! The Right People of Camorr will come to the Floating Grave as my guests! Tonight, we’ll have such a revel that the honest folk will bar their doors, that the yellowjackets will cringe in their barracks, that the gods themselves will look down and cry, ‘What is that fucking racket?’”

“Barsavi! Barsavi! Barsavi!” his people chanted.

“Tonight,” he said at last, “we will celebrate. Tonight Camorr has seen the last of kings.”

1

As time went by, Locke and the other Gentlemen Bastards were occasionally set free to roam at leisure, dressed in ordinary clothing. Locke and Jean were getting on near twelve; the Sanzas were visibly slightly older. It was more difficult to keep them cooped up beneath the House of Perelandro all the time, when they weren’t sitting the steps or away on Father Chains’ “apprenticeships.”

Slowly but steadily, Chains was sending his boys out to be initiated in all the great temples of the other eleven Therin gods. One of them would enter a temple under a false name, sped along by whatever strings Chains could pull and whatever palms he could slip coins into. Once there, the young Gentleman Bastard would inevitably please his superiors with his scribing, his theological knowledge, his discipline, and his sincerity. Advancement came quickly, as fast as it could be had; soon the newcomer would receive training in what was called “interior ritual”: the phrases and activities that priests only shared among themselves and their initiates.

They were not quite secrets, these things-to any priest of a Therin order, the thought of someone being audacious enough to offend the gods by falsely seeking initiation was utterly alien. Even those who knew of the slightly heretical idea of the Thirteenth, and even the minority who actually believed in him, failed to imagine that anyone would want to do what Chains and his boys were doing.

Invariably, after several months of excellent accomplishments, each sterling young initiate would die in a sudden accident. Calo favored “drowning,” for he could hold his breath a very long time, and he enjoyed swimming underwater. Galdo preferred to simply disappear, preferably during a storm or some other dramatic event. Locke constructed elaborate little mummeries that took weeks to plan. On one occasion, he vanished from the Order of Nara (Plague Mistress, Lady of Ubiquitous Maladies) by leaving his initiate’s robe, torn apart and splashed with rabbit’s blood, wrapped around his copy-work and a few letters in an alley behind the temple.

Thus enlightened, each boy would return and teach the others of what he had seen and heard. “The point,” said Chains, “is not to make you all candidates for the High Conclave of the Twelve, but to allow you to throw on whatever robes and masks are required and pass as a priest for any short period of need. When you’re a priest, people tend to see the robe rather than the man.”

But there was no apprenticeship under way at the moment; Jean was drilling at the House of Glass Roses, and the other boys waited for him on the southern edge of the Shifting Market, on a crumbling stone pier at the end of a short alley. It was a warm spring day, breezy and fresh, with the sky half-occluded by crescents of gray and white clouds sweeping in from the northwest, heralding storms.

Locke and Calo and Galdo were watching the results of a collision between a chicken-seller’s boat and a transporter of cats. Several cages had flown open when the small boats cracked against one another, and now agitated merchants were stepping warily back and forth as the battle between birds and felines progressed. A few chickens had escaped into the water and were flapping uselessly in little circles, squawking, for nature had conspired to make them even worse at swimming than they were at flying.

“Well,” said a voice behind them. “Have a look at this. These little wasters seem very likely.”

Locke and the Sanzas turned around as one to see a half dozen boys and girls their own age standing behind them, spread out across the alley. They were dressed much as the Gentlemen Bastards were, in unassuming clothes of common cut. Their apparent leader had a thick, dark mane of curly black hair, pulled behind him and tied with a black silk ribbon-quite a mark of distinction for an urchin.

“Are you friends of the friends, lads? Are you the right sort of people?” The leader of the newcomers stood with his hands on his hips; behind him, a short girl made several hand gestures used for common identification by Capa Barsavi’s subjects.

“We are friends of the friends,” said Locke.

“The rightest sort of right,” added Galdo, making the appropriate countergestures.

“Good lads. We’re the seconds to the Full Crowns, in the Narrows. Call ourselves Half-Crowns. What’s your allegiance?”

“Gentlemen Bastards,” said Locke. “Temple District.”

“Who’re you seconds to?”

“We’re not seconds to anyone,” said Galdo. “It’s just the Gentlemen Bastards, one and all.”

“Savvy,” said the leader of the Half-Crowns, with a friendly grin. “I’m Tesso Volanti. This is my crew. We’re here to take your coin. Unless you want to kneel and give us your preference.”

Locke scowled. “Preference,” in the parlance of the Right People, meant that the Gentlemen Bastards would proclaim the Half-Crowns the better, tougher gang; make way for them on the street and tolerate whatever abuse the Half-Crowns saw fit to heap upon them.

“I’m Locke Lamora,” said Locke as he rose slowly to his feet, “and excepting the capa, the Gentlemen Bastards bend the knee to nobody.”

“Really?” Tesso feigned shock. “Even with six on three? It’s soft talk, if no’s your answer.”

“You must not hear very well,” said Calo, as he and his brother stood up in unison. “He said you get our preference when you pick the peas out of our shit and suck on ’em for dinner.”

“Now that was uncalled-for,” said Tesso, “so I’m gonna make some noise with your skulls.”

Even before he’d finished speaking, the Half-Crowns were moving forward, and it was six on three at the end of the pier. Locke was the smallest child involved, even counting the girls, and while he went into the melee with his little fists swinging, he caught mostly air and was quickly knocked down. One older girl sat on his back, while another kicked alley grit into his face.

The first boy to reach for Calo got a knee in the groin and went down moaning; right behind him came Tesso, with a hard right that sent Calo backward. Galdo tackled Tesso around the waist, howling, and they hit the ground scrabbling for leverage. “Soft talk” meant no weapons, and no blows that could kill or cripple, but just about anything else was on the table. The Sanzas were capable brawlers, but even if Locke had been able to hold up his end of the fight the numbers would have told against them. In the end, after a few minutes of wrestling and swearing and kicking, the three Gentlemen Bastards were dumped in the middle of the alley, dusty and battered.

“Right, lads. Preferences, is it? Let’s hear ’em.”

“Go fold yourself in half,” said Locke, “and lick your ass.”

“Oh, that’s the wrong answer, short-wit,” said Tesso, and while one of his boys pinned Locke’s arms, the leader of the Half-Crowns patted Locke down for coins. “Hmm. Nothing. Well then, sweetmeats, we’ll be looking for you again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Until you bend the knee, we’ll watch you and we’ll make your lives miserable. Mark my words, Locke Lamora.”

The Half-Crowns strolled off laughing, a few nursing bruises and sprains, but not nearly as many as they’d inflicted. The Sanzas arose groaning and helped Locke to his feet. Warily, they limped back to the House of Perelandro together and slipped into the glass burrow through a drainage culvert equipped with a secret door.

“You’re not going to believe what happened,” said Locke as he and the Sanzas entered the dining room. Chains sat at the witchwood table, peering down at a collection of parchments, carefully scribing on one with a fine-cut quill. Forging customs papers was a sort of hobby, one he practiced the way some men kept gardens or bred hounds. He had a leather portfolio full of them, and he occasionally made good silver selling them.

“Mmmm,” said Chains, “you got your asses walloped by a pack of Half-Crowns.”

“How did you know?”

“Stopped by the Last Mistake last night. Heard about it from the Full Crowns. Told me their seconds might be sweeping the neighborhoods, looking for other juvies to push around.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I figured if you were being adequately cautious, they’d never be able to get the better of you. Looks like your attention was somewhere else.”

“They said they wanted our preferences.”

“Yeah,” said Chains. “It’s a juvie game. Most of the seconds don’t get to pull real jobs just yet, so they train themselves up by pushing other seconds around. You should be proud of yourselves; you finally got noticed. Now you’ve got a little war until one of you cries mercy. Soft talk only, mind you.”

“So,” Locke said slowly, “what should we do?”

Chains reached over and grabbed Locke’s fist, then mimed swinging it into Calo’s jaw. “Repeat as necessary,” said Chains, “until your problems are spitting up teeth.”

“We tried that. And they jumped us while Jean was away. And you know I’m not much good at that sort of thing.”

“Sure I do. So next time, make sure you’ve got Jean with you. And use that devious little brain of yours.” Chains began melting a cylinder of sealing wax over a small candle. “But I don’t want to see anything too elaborate, Locke. Don’t pull the watch or the temples or the duke’s army or anyone else into it. Try and make it look like you’re just the pack of ordinary sneak-thieves I tell everyone you are.”

“Oh, great.” Locke folded his arms while Calo and Galdo washed one another’s bruised faces with wet cloths. “So it’s just another bloody test.”

“What a clever boy,” muttered Chains, pouring liquid wax into a tiny silver vessel. “Of course it is. And I’ll personally be very upset if those little shits aren’t begging and pleading to give you their preference before midsummer.”

2

THE NEXT day, Locke and the Sanza brothers sat on the very same pier at the very same time. All over the Shifting Market, merchants were hauling down canvas tarps and furling canopies, for the rains that had drenched the city all night and half the morning were long gone.

“I must be seeing things,” came the voice of Tesso Volanti, “because I can’t imagine that you shit-wits would really be sitting there right where we beat the trouser gravy out of you just yesterday.”

“Why not,” said Locke, “since we’re closer to our turf than yours, and you’re going to be using your balls for tonsils in about two minutes?”

The three Gentlemen Bastards arose; facing them were the same half-dozen Half-Crowns, with eager smiles on their faces.

“I see you’re none better at sums than you were when we left you,” said Tesso, cracking his knuckles.

“Funny you should say that,” said Locke, “since the sums have changed.” He pointed past the Half-Crowns. Tesso warily shifted his head to look behind him, but when he saw Jean Tannen standing in the alley behind his gang, he laughed.

“Still in our favor, I’d say.” He strolled toward Jean, who simply looked at him with a bland smile on his round face. “What’s this? A fat red bastard. I can see your glass eyes in your vest pocket. What do you think you’re doing, fatty?”

“My name’s Jean Tannen, and I’m the ambush.”

Long months of training with Don Maranzalla had left Jean looking little different than when he’d first begun, but Locke and the Sanzas knew that a sort of alchemy had taken place beneath his soft exterior. Tesso stepped within his reach, grinning, and Jean’s arms lashed out like the brass pistons in a Verrari water-engine.

Tesso reeled backward, arms and legs wobbling like a marionette caught in a high wind. His head bowed forward; then he simply collapsed in a heap, his eyes rolling back in their sockets.

A minor sort of hell broke loose in the alley. Three Half-Crown boys charged Locke and the Sanzas; the two girls approached Jean warily. One of them tried to dash a handful of alley gravel in his face. He sidestepped, caught her arm, and swung her easily into one of the alley’s stone walls. One of Don Maranzalla’s lessons: let walls and streets do the work for you when you fight with empty hands. As she bounced backward, Jean clotheslined her with a swift hook from his right arm and sent her face-first to the gravel.

“It’s not polite to hit girls,” said her companion, circling him.

“It’s even less polite to hit my friends,” said Jean.

She replied by pivoting on her left heel and snapping a swift kick at his throat; he recognized the art called chasson, a sort of foot-boxing imported from Tal Verrar. He deflected the kick with the palm of his right hand, and she whirled into a second, using the momentum from her first to send her left leg whirling up and around. But Jean was moving past it before she struck. Her thigh rather than her foot slapped into his side, and he snaked his left arm around it. While she flailed for balance, he let her have a vicious kidney punch, and then he hooked her right leg out from beneath her, sending her to the gravel on her back, where she lay writhing in pain.

“Ladies,” said Jean, “you must accept my deepest apologies.”

Locke, as usual, was getting the worst of his encounter, until Jean grabbed his opponent by the shoulder and spun him around. Jean wrapped his heavy arms around the boy’s waist and planted a head-butt in the boy’s solar plexus. No sooner did the Half-Crown gasp in pain than Jean straightened up, cracking the boy’s chin against the back of his head. The boy fell backward, dazed, and at that point the issue was decided. Calo and Galdo had been evenly matched with their opponents; when Jean suddenly loomed before them (with Locke at his side doing his best to look dangerous), the Half-Crowns scrambled back and put their hands in the air.

“Well, Tesso,” said Locke when the curly-haired boy arose a few minutes later, bloody-nosed and wobbly, “will you be giving over your preference now, or shall I let Jean beat on you some more?”

“I admit it was well done,” said Tesso as his gang limped into a semicircle behind him, “but I’d call us even at one and one. You’ll see us again soon.”

3

SO THE battle went, as the days lengthened and spring turned into summer. Chains excused the boys from sitting the steps with him after the first hour of the afternoon, and they began roaming the north of Camorr, hunting Half-Crowns with vigor.

Tesso responded by unleashing the full strength of his little band. The Full Crowns were the largest real gang in Camorr, and their seconds had a comparable pool of recruits, some of them fresh from Shades’ Hill. Even with the weight of numbers, however, the prowess of Jean Tannen was hard to answer, and so the nature of the battle changed.

The Full Crowns split into smaller groups, attempting to isolate and ambush the Gentlemen Bastards when they weren’t together. For the most part, Locke kept his gang close at hand, but sometimes individual errands were unavoidable. Locke was beaten fairly badly on several occasions; he came to Jean one afternoon nursing a split lip and a pair of bruised shins.

“Look,” he said, “it’s been a few days since we had any piece of Tesso. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to lurk just south of the market tomorrow and look like I’m up to something. You’re going to hide a long way off, two or three hundred yards maybe. Somewhere they can’t possibly spot you.”

“I’ll never get to you in time,” said Jean.

“The point isn’t to get to me before I get beaten,” said Locke. “The point is, when you do get there, you pound the crap out of him. You beat him so hard they’ll hear the screaming in Talisham. Smack him around like you’ve never smacked him before.”

“With pleasure,” said Jean, “but it won’t happen. They’ll only run away when they see me coming, as always. The one thing I can’t do is keep up with them on foot.”

“Just you leave that to me,” said Locke, “and fetch your sewing kit. There’s something I need you to do for me.”

4

SO IT was that Locke Lamora lurked in an alley on an overcast day, very near to the place where the whole affair with the Half-Crowns had started. The Shifting Market was doing a brisk business, as folk attempted to get their shopping done before the sky started pouring down rain. Out there somewhere, watching Locke with comfortable anonymity from a little cockleshell boat, was Jean Tannen.

Locke only had to lurk conspicuously for half an hour before Tesso found him.

“Lamora,” he said. “I thought you’d know better by now. I don’t see any of your friends in the neighborhood.”

“Tesso. Hello.” Locke yawned. “I think today’s the day you’ll be giving over your preference to me.”

“In a pig’s fucking eye,” said the older boy. “You know I don’t even need help to knock you flat. What I think I’m going to do is take your clothes when I’m done and throw them in a canal. That’ll be right humorous. Hell, the longer you put off bending the knee, the more fun I can have with you.”

He advanced confidently to the attack, knowing that Locke had never once so much as kept up with him in a fight. Locke met him head-on, shaking the left sleeve of his coat strangely. That sleeve was actually five feet longer than usual, courtesy of Jean Tannen’s alterations; Locke had kept it cleverly folded against his side to conceal its true nature as Tesso approached.

Although Locke had few gifts as a fighter, he could be startlingly fast, and the cuff of his sleeve had a small lead weight sewn into it to aid him in casting it. He flung it forth, wrapping it around Tesso’s chest beneath the taller boy’s arms. The lead weight carried it around as it stretched taut, and Locke caught it in his left hand.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tesso huffed. He clouted Locke just above his right eye; Locke flinched but ignored the pain. He slipped the extended sleeve into a loop of cloth that hung out of his coat’s left pocket, folded it back over itself, and pulled another cord just below it. The network of knotted cords that Jean had sewn inside his coat’s lining cinched tight; now the boys were chest to chest, and nothing short of a knife could free Tesso from the loop of thick cloth that tied them together.

Locke wrapped his arms around Tesso’s abdomen for good measure, and then wrapped his spindly legs around Tesso’s legs, just above the taller boy’s knees. Tesso shoved and slapped at Locke, struggling to part the two of them. Failing, he began punching Locke in the teeth and on the top of his head-heavy blows that left Locke seeing flashes of light.

“What the hell is this, Lamora?” Tesso grunted with the effort of supporting Locke’s weight in addition to his own. Finally, as Locke had hoped and expected, he threw himself forward. Locke landed on his back in the gravel, with Tesso atop him. The air burst out of Locke’s lungs, and the whole world seemed to shudder. “This is ridiculous. You can’t fight me. And now you can’t run! Give up, Lamora!”

Locke spit blood into Tesso’s face. “I don’t have to fight you and I don’t have to run.” He grinned wildly. “I just have to keep you here…until Jean gets back.”

Tesso gasped and looked around. Out, on the Shifting Market one small cockleshell boat was heading straight toward them. The plump shape of Jean Tannen was clearly visible within it, hauling rapidly on the oars.

“Oh, shit. You little bastard. Let me go, let me go, let me go!”

Tesso punctuated this with a series of punches. Soon enough Locke was bleeding from his nose, his lips, his ears, and somewhere under his hair. Tesso was pounding him but good, yet he continued to cling madly to the older boy. His head was whirling with the combination of pain and triumph; Locke actually started laughing, high and gleeful and perhaps a little bit mad.

“I don’t have to fight or run,” he cackled. “I changed the rules of the game. I just have to keep you here…asshole. Here…until…Jean gets back.”

“Gods dammit,” Tesso hissed, and he redoubled his assault on Locke, punching and spitting and biting.

“Keep hitting,” Locke sputtered. “You just keep hitting. I can take it all day. You just keep…hitting me…until…Jean gets back!”