Tycho stashed the glowing key in a pocket of his coat, smothering its light. The magic would fade by morning. The darkness in the shed was complete-eyes open or eyes closed, he still saw nothing. "It's no kind of honor at all," he admitted. "But Brin's up to something, I can feel it. If you can think of another option besides trying to get the beljurils back from the Hooded, I'd like to hear it because I can't think of a better one."

"I don't mind facing down the Hooded. I'd just like to know what Brin wants with us."

Us.

Tycho sat up sharply. "Li, Brin was looking for both of us! Veseene's message said the same thing. I'm the one he blames for losing his beljurils. What does he want with you? You're nothing to him. His men beat you up and robbed you." He drew a breath and his eyes narrowed. "The rubies you had hidden in your coat. Could Brin have found them? Could he be looking for more?"

"I looked at the coat when I fought the man wearing it." Li's voice drifted in the darkness. "It hadn't been torn. The rubies are still sewn up in it."

Tycho cursed and lay back down slowly. "Then what interest could he have in you?"

Li was silent for a moment before he answered.

"Yu Mao," he said. "He knows I'm looking for Yu Mao."

He knows I'm looking. The thought washed through Li's mind, relentless as the waves in the dark. Tycho drifted off to sleep; his snores were soon grating on the air. Li lay awake, staring into the darkness. Turning that thought over in his head. Remembering the hin's one-eyed gaze in the Wench's Ease. He knows I'm looking. Brin wanted him.

And yet for the first time since he had heard Brin's name mentioned in Telflamm, he didn't want Brin.

He flexed his left arm and felt the reassuring tightness of the hidden Yellow Silk, token of his father's trust and testament to the desperation of his journey. Soon, he promised himself. It would all be over soon. He closed his eyes.

Lander stared morosely at the floor of the Eel's gambling room. Brin had ordered the room closed as soon as they had returned from the Wench's Ease. Lander and his men had found themselves waiting on the halfling's pleasure while he took Black Scratch out to the sty. The boar's snout had been scorched by whatever magic had prevented the animal from pursuing Tycho and Mard Dantakain's daughter out of the Ease. He glanced around at his men. Ovel was trying to stretch around and rub ointment onto his burned back. Serg winced every time he flexed his abdomen. Nico was surreptitiously touching his groin as if making sure all of his bits were still there. And Bor… Bor was holding a rag filled with snow to a blackened eye-Lander had inflicted that on the idiot himself for staying outside the Ease when he should have had the brains and guts to get in and join the fight.

And a black eye is going to be nothing compared to what Brin will do to us all, he thought. The halfling couldn't be happy that Tycho and Li Chien had slipped through their fingers. A happy fantasy flitted through Lander's mind: kill Brin and seize control of his operations. He shook his head to dislodge the idea. Not that he didn't like it. He just didn't like the thought of what might happen if he failed.

A door banged closed and a moment later the curtains across the gambling room entrance twitched aside. Brin walked in. Lander-and Ovel and Serg and Nico and Bor-stared at him.

He was smiling. He was happy.

Lander swallowed. "Uhh… Brin?"

"Something worrying you, Lander?" Brin sauntered over to a comfortable chair and sprawled across it. He nodded sharply to Bor. "Get me a mug of ale." Bor dashed away, grateful for the moment of escape. Brin's gaze settled on Lander again. "You should be worried. That was clumsy."

Lander held back the observation that Brin had been no more successful himself. "Tycho said something about knowing where the beljurils are, Brin. He has to bring them to us tomorrow. We can get him and the Shou then."

"After tonight, / wouldn't bring anything to me." The halfling waved his hand. "Never mind Tycho and the beljurils. I want Kuang Li Chien."

"Why?" grunted Ovel.

Brin fixed him with a harsh stare. "Because I do." His fingers flicked and suddenly a knife stood between them. "Reason enough?" Ovel swallowed and nodded. A grin spread across Brin's face and he sat up straight. "We'll keep looking for Tycho and Li Chien tomorrow morning- and deal with the Wench's Ease, too. More important, I'm going to need messages waiting at three places uptown first thing in the morning."

"Where and who for?" asked Lander.

Brin held up a pinky finger. "Hanibaz Nassor at his home in Burned Street." Ring finger. "Mosi Anu at the Sil-verbell Inn." Middle finger. "Thaedra Korideion at Nelka Marsk's home near the citadel."

Lander said nothing. Brin raised an eyebrow as if daring him to comment, and after a moment Lander could hold back no more. "Two Red Wizards and a Chessentan mage," he said softly. "The same customers you were going to sell the beljurils to."

"Exactly." Bor came brushing through the curtains and handed Brin a mug of ale that was only slightly smaller than his head. The halfling raised it to Lander. "I'm going to offer them the chance to bid on something even better than beljurils. Something completely unique, very kindly brought west by Kuang Li Chien. An artifact of Shou Lung that contains the power of the sun itself-" Brin gave a calculating grin so cold it made Lander shiver. "-the Yellow Silk of Kuang!"

Something not quite right brought Li's eyes open sharply. White light filtered into the shed through the gap under the roof-the light of early morning reflected off new snow. Around the sound of Tycho's snoring, he could hear the ocean and the wooden creak of boats at their moorings, the sounds of a port coming to life.

He could hear the heavy tramp of feet in new snow, a curse on the ocean weather, the slap of flesh on flesh as someone took a sharp cuffing.

The sounds of men about no good business.

He turned swiftly, reaching out and clamping a hand over Tycho's nose and mouth. The bard's eyes shot open. He sucked air against Li's palm and might have struck out if Li hadn't grabbed his hand.

"What was that? " came a voice from outside.

"Nothing, Bor. Nico just broke wind."

The second voice was Lander's. Tycho froze and his eyes went wide. Li took his hand away. For a moment, they both lay very still, listening.

"Damn snow."

"For the last time, keep your mouth shut. You'll draw the Bitch Queen's ire!"

The sound of another cuffing and a whining grunt of pain. Serg's voice. "Damn sailor superstitions! I'm not cursing the sea. I'm cursing the snow! "

"Sea, sea weather-same thing."

"I'm no sailor!"

"I guess you've got no plans to ever go anywhere on a boat, then, hey?"

The bickering voices drew close to the shed. Underneath them, Li could make out another sound: a kind of wet snuffling accompanied by heavy breathing. Tycho went pale. Li gave the bard a puzzled look. Tycho pushed the end of his nose up and crinkled his face in imitation of a pig.

Of Black Scratch. Lander had the boar with him. In parts of Shou Lung, some types of pigs were used like dogs to sniff out things. Brin must have set Black Scratch to the same task. Li swallowed and silently blessed the snow as enthusiastically as Serg cursed it.

The snuffling sound receded, though the voices were still close. Li rose silently and stepped up to the wall. Raising himself on his toes, he could just peer out through the mesh that covered the air gap under the roof. As he had guessed, a layer of wet new snow covered the ground outside, though the day was warming and it was already showing signs of melting. Lander and his men-Serg still wearing his waitao!-were taking their time sauntering up the street. In spite of the insults they tossed at each other, the five men looked about sharply. Li froze as Lander's gaze swept over the shed, but from his distance and angle, the man must not have been able to see anything through the tight mesh. His gaze moved on.