She had walked a fine line in telling Elias their story, and did not want to compromise him by naming names and allegiances. So it was that she patched together something close enough to the truth to resemble it at a distance. She and her friends had been sent to Helleron on some undefined business by Stenwold. They had been attacked in the street, although she did not know by whom, or why. They had been scattered in the fray and two were still missing. She and Salma needed a place to stay until Stenwold arrived, and they needed their host’s help.

Despite her obfuscation she guessed that Elias had read between the lines well enough. He seemed to understand that, under the circumstances, Totho and Tynisa would not be making it easy to be found.

‘I’ll send the word round to my foremen and factors to look out for them,’ he promised them over dinner. ‘I’ll post up a bit of a reward, as well. There are a whole breed of people in this city for whom finding other people is a way of life.’ Finding other people who don’t want to be found. The words hung unsaid in the air.

‘Do you think it’s wise, to just…’ Che squirmed, knowing that whatever word was now put out would reach their enemies soon enough.

‘My dear girl,’ Elias told her. ‘What else can we do? Otherwise it’s like looking for someone in a crowded plaza by blindfolding yourself and whispering their name. Don’t worry. I’m not without influence in this city. I have seven factories and a mining concern, and that means that when I speak, people listen. We’ll have your fellows safe within these walls before you know it. Just give it a few days.’

Che toyed with her food, glanced at Salma and saw her own concern mirrored in his easy smile. Helleron was vast, her friends were small, and the Wasp Empire that had taken such an interest in them would not rest. She could not imagine Elias Monger’s connections working faster than the Wasps’ implacable malice. Hour by hour a dreadful cold feeling was growing in her chest, as she thought of Tynisa and Totho.

There was a Fly-run eatery on Bleek Street where Sinon Halfway, leader of the Halfway House cartel, held court. Court it was, too, Tynisa realized at once. Malia brought her into a long room decked out in Fly style, with a low table taking up much of the floor. Some half-dozen Fly-kinden staff were serving three dozen men and women, and it was evident to Tynisa from first glance that there was a right end and a wrong end of the table to be kneeling at. The right end was closest to the enthroned figure of Sinon Halfway himself.

He was a lean man just turning to fat around the middle, due to the few years now when he had not personally taken up a sword to defend his empire. He was dressed like a man about to flee the city with all his wealth upon him, but she saw that all of them were, more or less, for aside from a few who looked ostentatiously spartan, the gangsters sported chains and rings, amulets and jewelled gorgets, even in one case a mail shirt made from coins, good silver Standards of Helleron mint. Sinon would have been worth, in gold and gems alone, as much as half the table, and she understood that it was a status thing. A wealthy man who hid his light under a bushel would gain no respect for that here.

The name told true. Sinon was a halfbreed, and she guessed that he was Moth-kinden interbred with the pale-skinned Ants of Tark. What should have been an unpleasant mottling had instead left him with milky skin traced with veins and twists of grey, like marble. It was an exotic, oddly attractive sight. His hair was dark, worn long over his shoulders in a Spider style. His eyes were just dark pupils circled in white, without irises. The melange of his ancestry had conspired to make a man at once unnerving and compelling.

‘So Malia has brought me a gift,’ he said, and the conversation about the table immediately stopped, each gangster looking across or craning over to see her. Malia left her side then, taking her place at Sinon’s right hand.

‘Delightful,’ said Sinon. His mouth and voice were amused, his eyes unreadable. ‘But I’m told that you’re not just here for ornament. Malia says you can fight. What’s your name, Spiderchild?’

‘Tynisa, Master Sinon.’ She hadn’t meant the honorific. Some holdover from childhood had brought it out of her.

‘And well-mannered too, such a rare combination. And you understand that you owe me a debt, a debt that Malia here has passed on to me.’

‘I’ve been told it,’ Tynisa replied. A murmur of laughter passed through the gangsters at her attitude. Only those closest to the head of the table were untouched by it.

‘And can you fight?’ Sinon asked her politely.

‘I can.’

‘Well, then, there may be a place for you at my table,’ Sinon said. ‘But I understand you need my help, Spiderchild. Malia’s already told me your little story. Help me and then perhaps I can spare some help for you.’

She realized that she was reacting too much, taking too little control. She narrowed her eyes, clenched her fists, stared at Sinon. ‘So,’ she demanded. ‘Where do I sit?’

There was a ragged murmur of approval from the gangsters, but Sinon held up a hand for silence, and got it. ‘Don’t get too fond of her,’ he warned his people. ‘She doesn’t know our traditions yet. You sit, Spiderchild, where you want, but be aware that for you to have any elbow room everyone moves down a seat. Now you tell me where you sit.’

Tynisa let herself pause. She would not jump as soon as Sinon cracked the whip. Has it come to this? she thought. What would Stenwold say? Sinon was talking about fighting for blood, just to join in his little clique. The fiefs of Helleron had harsh and simple rules. At what point do I become one of them? When I draw their blood? When I take their place?

She wondered if she could still refuse now, if she could flee – a sudden dash down the hall, out of the building, onto the unknown streets of Helleron. And then what? She would never find Che or the others on her own. She needed help, and this thief, this killer, was apparently the only help she had.

And beneath all that was another dark voice, telling her that they had questioned her skill, that they wished to see her blade drawn. It is your duty and your pleasure to oblige them…

She walked down the line of the table, seeing who met her gaze, who avoided it. There were a lot down the far end of the table that she knew she could beat, humiliate even, without worry. They were the rabble, the desperate hangers-on just clutching at the edges of Sinon’s favour. But if she was going to do this, she was going to do it properly.

She paced back towards the table’s head, feeling the hum of appreciation as they began to ask themselves just how daring she was going to be. The gangsters were a motley lot: Beetles, Ants, Flies, Spiders, plenty of half-breeds, and a few she could not name. Whatever their race, towards the head of the table they met her stare levelly. They had scars, most of them, amidst the jewellery, so it had been a fight for them to get where they were, and it would be a fight for her to take it from them. The few of them who did not seem to be warriors looked at her without fear, and from that she guessed at the presence of some stand-in or bodyguard to protect their useful talents from needless harm. Artificers, accountants, intelligencers and the like, no doubt. Sinon would have need of those.

She looked up to the very head of the table, at Sinon himself. He was watching her with great interest and she sent him one of her best smiles to show him she was not afraid of him.

To his right was Malia, of course, and Tynisa felt that to challenge her would be bad grace, and she was also not sure she could win. The woman had held onto her place at Sinon’s right, where anyone could call her out for it. That bespoke a truth behind her boasts earlier.