“Don’t hurt her!” Azoth shouted. Insanely, he threw himself at Blint and grabbed Retribution’s blade, but Blint was a force of nature. He didn’t even slow as he scooped Doll Girl up and deposited her in the hall. He locked the door, unlocked it, and relocked it in rapid succession. He turned back to Azoth, but whatever he was about to say died. The great black sword was still locked in Azoth’s hands, cutting to the bone. Except that now it wasn’t black. The blade was glowing blue.

Incandescent blue fire surrounded Azoth’s hand, burning cold into his cut fingers, spreading down the blade—

“No, not that! It’s mine!” Blint cried. He flung the sword aside as if it were an adder, away from both of them. If there had been fury in his eyes before, now it turned to absolute unreasoning rage. Azoth didn’t even see the first blow. He didn’t even know how he’d reached the floor again. Something wet and sticky was blocking out his vision.

Then the world faded into repeated heavy blows and exploding light and pain and the sharp garlicky breath of Master Blint and distant shouting and banging on a door that seemed further and further away.

Durzo gazed into the frothy brown ale as if it held answers. It didn’t, and he had a choice to make. The usual forced gaiety of the brothel swirled around him, but nobody male or female bothered him. Perhaps it was Retribution unsheathed on the table in front of him. Perhaps it was merely the look on his face.

Don’t hurt her! Azoth had yelled. As if Durzo would murder some seven-year-old girl. What kind of a monster did the boy think he was? Then he remembered beating the shit out of the boy, artlessly pounding that yielding child flesh, beating him unconscious before Count Drake broke the door down and grabbed him. He’d almost killed Count Drake for that, he’d been so wild. The count had fixed such a look on Durzo—damn Count Drake and his damn holy eyes.

That incandescent blue. Damn it. Damn all magic. In that flash of blue on Retribution, he’d seen his hope die. The hope had been dying since Vonda died, but that blue was a door slamming shut forever. It meant Azoth was worthy as Durzo was not, as if all of Durzo’s years of service were worth nothing. The boy was taking from him all that made him special. What did that leave for Durzo Blint?

Ashes. Ashes, and blood, and nothing more.

Suddenly the sword Retribution before him seemed a mockery. Retribution? Giving people what they deserve? If I really did that, I’d shove that damn blade down my own throat.

The last time he’d been so close to madness had been when Vonda died, four months and six days ago. Sighing, he swirled the ale around in the glass, but he didn’t drink. Time enough for that later. Later, after he made his decision, he’d need a drink. He’d need twelve, no matter what he decided.

He’d drunk a lot with Vonda. It pissed her sister off. Of course, the whole relationship had pissed Momma K off. She’d forbidden Durzo to see her innocent little sister. She’d forbidden Vonda to see the wetboy. Momma K, so smart in other matters, had probably done more to get their relationship going than anything. Surrounded by easy flesh, whether he paid for it or not, Gwinvere’s little sister was suddenly intriguing. He wanted to know if the virginal bit was an act.

It was. He’d been disappointed but had hidden it. It was hypocrisy, anyway, and she’d had plenty of other mysteries. Vonda didn’t always treat him well, but at least she didn’t fear him. He didn’t think she understood him enough to fear him. She seemed to just glide along on the surface of life while others had to plunge into the sewer water. Durzo hadn’t understood her, and it had entranced him.

After their affair started, he might have kept it secret. He could have; he knew Gwinvere’s schedule well enough that they could have kept things going for years. Even with Gwinvere’s insight, Durzo knew how to be inscrutable. But it hadn’t happened. Vonda had told her. Probably announced it immediately, if Durzo knew Vonda. It might have been a little callous, but Vonda didn’t know what she was doing.

“End this now, Durzo Blint,” Gwinvere had told him, quite calmly. “She’ll destroy you. I love my sister, but she will be your ruin.” It had all been words. Words to get Gwinvere’s way, as always. With all her power, it infuriated her that she couldn’t run the lives of those she really wanted to.

She’d been right, of course. Maybe not in the way she had meant it, but she’d been right. Gwinvere always had understood him better than anyone else, and he’d understood her. They were mirrors to each other. Gwinvere Kirena would have been perfect for him—if he could love what he saw in the mirror.

Why am I thinking about this? It’s all old shit. It’s all finished. There was a choice to be made: did he raise the boy and hope, or did he kill him now?

Hope. Right. Hope is the lies we tell ourselves about the future. He’d hoped before. Dared to dream about a different life, but when it came time—

“You look pensive, Gaelan Starfire,” a Ladeshian bard said, seating himself across from Durzo without waiting to be asked.

“I’m deciding who to kill. Call me that again and you jump to the front of the list, Aristarchos.”

The bard smiled with the confidence of a man who knows he has perfect white teeth that only set off a handsome face. By the Night Angels.

“We’ve been awfully curious about what’s been happening for the last few months.”

“You and the Society can go to hell,” Durzo said.

“I think you like the attention, Durzo Blint. If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Or are you really bound by this code of retribution? It’s of considerable debate in the society.”

“Still fighting over the same questions, huh? Don’t you all have anything better to do? Talk talk talk. Why don’t you do something productive for once?”

“We’re trying, Durzo. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I want to help you.”

“How kind.”

“You’ve lost it, haven’t you?” Aristarchos asked. “Have you lost it, or has it abandoned you? Do the stones really choose their own masters?”

Durzo noticed he was spinning the knife from finger to finger again. It wasn’t to intimidate the Ladeshian—who laudably enough didn’t even glance at it—it just kept his hands busy. It was nothing. He stopped it. “Here’s why I’ve never been friends with any of you, Aristarchos: I don’t know if your little circle has ever been interested in me, or if it’s only interested in my power. Once, I was almost convinced to share some of my mysteries, but I realized that what I share with one of you, I share with all of you. So tell me, why would I give my enemies such power?”

“Is that what we’ve come to?” Aristarchos asked. “Enemies? Why then do you not wipe us from the face of the earth? You’re uniquely suited to such a task.”

“I don’t kill without cause. Fear isn’t enough to motivate me. It may be beyond your comprehension, but I can hold power without using it.”

Aristarchos stroked his chin. “Then you are a better man than many have feared. I see now why you were chosen in the first place.” Aristarchos stood. “Know this, Durzo Blint. I am far from home and have not the means I might wish, but if you call on me, I will give you what help I can. And knowing that you have deemed the cause just will be enough explanation for me. Good day.”

The man walked out of the brothel, smiling and winking at the whores who seemed disappointed to lose his business. He wore his charm like a mask, Durzo saw.

The masks change, but the masquers remain the same, don’t they? Durzo had lived with the bilge waste of humanity for so long, he saw filth in every heart. He knew the filth was there; he was right about that. Filth and darkness were even in Rimbold Drake’s heart. But Drake didn’t act from that darkness, did he? No. That masquer—if only that one—had changed.