A slender woman in a burgundy gown donned a charcoal cape, fastening it with a silver clasp. Soft black curls hung to her shoulders around a pale throat and face. Her features were small and lovely down to her tiny red mouth. Her expression was calm, but Chane sensed urgency both in her eyes and her controlled movements.

He gripped the railing, and the wood creaked beneath his fingers in answer to his hunger.

In the last village, he'd lured out a woman of similar make. A mere peasant compared to the one he now watched, but both women's features hinted of the one prey he wanted most of all. Before Welstiel had interrupted him behind the hut among the snow-dusted trees, he'd tried to find solace in tearing warm flesh. Even with blood between his clenching teeth, a missing memory left an ache in him he couldn't smother.

He couldn't remember Wynn touching him in the murky forest of Apudalsat… after Magiere took his head.

He must have fallen immediately, prone upon the ground as his head rolled away. But surely it hadn't been so quick that he remembered nothing of Wynn falling upon him in sorrow. Some touch, or just the pressure… and not being able to do anything for her.

All he remembered was the brief pain of Magiere's blade through his throat and then waking among blood and corpses with Welstiel sitting impatiently nearby.

And behind that forest hut, he'd bitten deep into the peasant woman's throat as if digging for a memory lost between those two moments. He squeezed the outcry from the woman's mouth until her jaw cracked under his hand. There was the rush of life filling him, and the distant euphoria it carried in the wake of the kill-and nothing more.

And still there was Wynn's pain… caused by the hatred between himself and Magiere.

Chane forced himself to wait at the top of the inn's stairs and followed the cloaked woman only after he heard the inn's front door close. Outside, he expected to find her heading down the street toward any other place still alive with activity at night. Perhaps to an eatery more suitable to her upper-caste appearance.

But she was gone. He let his senses open wide.

Footsteps. To the left. Resounding from frozen earth.

Chane saw the space between the buildings around the inn's left corner. He slipped into it, stepping softly toward the inn's rear, and glanced around the corner.

His prey stood in the alley with her back turned, and she was not alone.

A man waited for her, half leaning and half sitting on an emptied ale barrel. He pulled his cloak's hood back, exposing a yellow scarf tied over his hair.

Chane held his place, watching two figures of such different social castes meet in the shadows.

"Wynn!" Leesil snapped, more threateningly than he'd intended, and grabbed the blanket's edge. Magiere squirmed in his arms, but he held fast and pulled the blanket up behind her to cover them both.

"That's it!" Magiere shouted. "You're going home on the first caravan out of here! I don't care if I have to sell our horses to pay for it."

Wynn peered hesitantly around the door's frame as Magiere thrashed out of Leesil's lap to a more dignified-and better-covered-position. Wynn did not back away, though her embarrassment made her voice unsteady.

"Byrd was downstairs talking to an elf," she said.

Leesil stared at her. Any brief escape from the world that the sage had interrupted washed away. Even Magiere paused at struggling to reach her breeches lying on the floor.

"They left together," Wynn added softly. "And they seemed well acquainted. They were meeting a woman, and Byrd reacted as if this were a change in some previous arrangement."

"An elf?" Magiere asked. "You're certain?"

Before Wynn answered, Chap reappeared and nearly knocked Wynn over as he bolted into the room with the talking hide clenched in his jaws.

"Wynn, turn around," Leesil said, and grabbed Magiere's clothes from the floor as he retrieved his own.

By the time he and Magiere finished dressing, Chap had rolled out the hide with his nose and paws. The instant Leesil said he was dressed and Wynn turned about to peer in, Chap began pawing at the elvish symbols. Wynn scurried in to watch the dog's movements.

"Anmaglahk, "Wynn whispered. "How would Chap know?"

Leesil sat on the bed, hands planted firmly on its edge. One of his mother's elven caste of assassins was here in the city? And how, for a fact, would Chap know, unless this one dressed the same as…

"Was it Sgaile?" Magiere demanded first, and crouched before the dog. "Was it that butcher sent to kill Leesil in Bela?"

Chap barked twice for "no."

Magiere looked up at Leesil. "You said we could trust Byrd. What's he doing with one of them?"

"Byrd was my father's friend, not mine," Leesil returned. "And I never said we could trust him-any more than anyone in this city."

Leesil's thoughts were too thick with suspicions. Of all places and people, why was it here with Byrd that he ran across more of his mother's kind and caste? He turned his attention back to Chap.

"He was an Anmaglahk?" Leesil asked. "You're sure?"

Chap barked once to confirm this.

Leesil remembered Wynn's outburst when she'd first intruded. Byrd was up to something more than walking a thin line in service to Darmouth. They did need to search this place.

"Start downstairs," he told Wynn. "Look for letters, scrap notes, or anything out of sorts for an innkeeper. Anything that looks like it doesn't belong. If Byrd comes back, say you were hungry and went to the kitchen. Say it loudly, so we can hear you."

Wynn nodded and headed for the door, pausing once. "And I am not leaving on any caravan, Magiere."

Leesil waved Chap out, and the dog went after the young sage.

Magiere's anxious expression told Leesil that she wanted to leave, drag him out of this city and never return. Leesil shook his head slowly, and she sighed.

"Let's find Byrd's room," she said.

Her hair hung down around her ivory cheeks, and Leesil turned his eyes away to keep his emotions in check. Sgaile was the one who'd hinted at Nein'a's fate, that she might be alive. If anyone knew more of her or what had happened to Gavril, it would be the Anmaglahk. One had been right here in the inn, and he'd missed his chance.

"We'll get the answers," Magiere said, and put a hand upon his shoulder, leaning close. "But don't you even think about going after that elf."

She kissed him on the mouth. Leesil pulled away slowly. This place- this city of his first life-was a pit he'd toppled them all into. He couldn't afford another distraction, even if Magiere thought it best he forget for a little while. Leesil dug out his tools from their chest.

They checked each door on the upper floor, and he wasn't surprised to find one of them locked.

"Pick it or break it?" Magiere asked.

Leesil frowned.

It was unlikely that Byrd arranged surprises for anyone snooping about. The risk of a wandering patron stumbling into the wrong place was too great. But when he began studying the door instead of the lock, Magiere backed to the side, understanding his caution.

Leesil started with the hinges and then checked the entire frame before carefully inspecting the latch. Finally convinced it was only a locked door, he took a thin hookwire from the toolbox's lid and slipped it into the keyhole. A click answered his efforts.

Byrd's room was ordinary at first glance. Not much different from any at an inn where someone might settle to stay for a while. The belongings seemed sparse, but Leesil remembered how few possessions he'd had in his life with his parents. Beyond a wide trunk, there was no more in the room than could be taken in flight. This was also the way he and his parents had lived, even if leaving were but a wishful thought.