That made Staso's voice stumble. "Good," Li said tightly. "You understand." He gave him a nudge onto the stairs. "Now move."

They went down slowly, Staso first. His interpreter they left bound in the upper room. As soon as they were on the stairs, she began screeching. Her shrieks followed them all the way down into the room at the foot of the stairs. The young guard was waiting below. "Out ahead of us," Li told him. He moved and they followed him out into the Hood-ed's hall. Two of the three guards Tycho had charmed into sleep were there, swords bared. Li made sure they saw his sword. "Keep back," he warned.

"Li," Tycho murmured, "the man with the crossbow isn't here."

"I know." He steered the Hooded to the door leading back down to the leatherworker's shop. Tycho darted ahead to pull the door open and moved back to keep an eye on the guards behind them. Li shoved Staso into the short hallway beyond, twisting him toward the murder slots in its wall. A shadow moved on the other side. "You'll kill him first," Li warned. The shadow shifted, though it didn't withdraw.

Tycho closed the door and drove his dagger into the floor to wedge it shut. Li nodded for him to pass the murder slots first and followed after, using Staso as hostage and shield.

The stairs down to the shop below were clear. The shopkeeper herself gave a sharp gasp at the sight of the Hooded held captive. "Open the door; then step away," said Li. She did and light flooded into the shop, throwing a sharp shadow behind her as she backed away into a corner. Tycho slipped cautiously through the door and peered up, checking for any new ambush and nodded. Safe.

Li took Staso right up to the doorstep and turned him around so they were both facing into the shop. "You should know," he said, "how close you came to dying when I thought you were Yu Mao. I may not be my brother, but you should be just as afraid of me."

He gave the hooded man a hard push that sent him stumbling away and jumped back through the door. He pulled it shutxm the sword blade, jamming the weapon between door and frame right at the level of the interior handle. The sharp metal would make it hard for anyone to pull the door open quickly from inside. Tycho was already up the stairs. Li leaped up after him and the bard handed him his dao. Crown Alley was quiet, the few people hastening along it and talking in sharp voices about the fire in dockside blissfully unaware of what had taken place above the leatherworker's shop. He and Tycho joined them in a slow, deliberate walk away from the Hooded's lair and back toward dockside. His heartbeat was thunder in his chest.

Tycho cursed with every breath. "How many balls are we juggling now, Li?"

"I don't know." He looked up and down toward the waterfront. Smoke stood stark against the late afternoon sky. They were a block beyond the Hooded's lair now. He glanced at Tycho. "When would be a good time to run?" "Now!" spat the bard. They ran.

Fire had claimed the Wench's Ease. Flames kissed every board and beam, turning gray wood to black char then to white-gray ash that glowed red underneath. The roof of the tavern had disappeared at one end, collapsed as the fire ate through the beams beneath. Smoke belched up through the ruin and into the sky, a thick cloud that cast a storm shadow over the yard-over the entire neighborhood. Cinders drifted back down like burning snow, sizzling as they hit the flowing muck melted by the fierce heat and churned up by the feet of a mob.

People were everywhere. Fisher folk. Merchants. Guards. Some had formed bucket gangs, scooping water from a nearby well or soft snow from fading drifts. Some were shouting over the fire's roar, screaming for a priest or a mage with the magic to quench the flames. Others had hooks on poles for pulling down burning walls or long brooms for beating out cinder fires.

No one, however, was trying to save the Ease. The tavern belonged to the flames. It was as good as gone. The mob worked to keep the blaze from spreading farther into dockside. People who had homes or shops in the other buildings around the yard were carrying out anything that was light enough to carry, frantic to save what they could. Tycho had a good idea where the priests and mages that they called for would be: working their magic farther uptown. Even if dockside burned, middle town would be safe.

His own magic was of no use here. The door of the Ease stood open and shattered, a portal into the heart of an inferno. Above it, the tavern's painted sign had blistered and scorched from buxom wench to twisted crone.

The heat drove away the sweat of their run from Crown Alley as Tycho led Li through the surging crowd. They found Muire underneath the tree in the yard, huddled against the cold wood of its trunk. Rana was with her and one-legged Blike. The matron of the Ease was sobbing as she watched her tavern vanish into embers and ash. She looked up and saw Tycho and her smoke-reddened eyes flashed. "You!" she screamed and hurled herself at him. Rana tried to stop her, but Muire slapped the other woman back and grabbed for Tycho. He dodged away.

She was quicker and had him with a second grab. Dragging him close, she shrieked in his face. "This is all your fault! You^and your quarrel with Brin!"

Tycho's heart shrank. "Brin? Did Brin do this? Muire, I-"

With a sudden crash and crackle, the other side of the Ease's roof fell in. A new cloud of cinders bellowed up and flew around. Many swarmed like insects toward another building. An army of broom and bucket wielders chased after them. Guards with long poles moved in to poke at the tavern's burning walls, trying to topple them inward before they crumbled out. Muire moaned and fell back. Tycho managed to catch her and ease her back against the tree. He looked to Rana and Blike. "Was it Brin?"

"Sweet truth," spat Blike. "Danced in like a jig and hopped up to have a talk with Muire. And while he's talking and she's getting whiter and whiter, we all start to smell smoke. Before we can move, Brin jumps down and runs out, slamming the door behind him. Someone jams it from the other side and we're trapped like bread in an oven. We had to break the door to get out."

"Bastard halfling wanted to kill us all!" Rana added. She pointed a thick, blistered finger. "It was revenge for what you and your elf-blood friend brought down last night!"

Tycho stared at that pointing finger and looked up. "I.." He swallowed and spread his hands helplessly. "Rana.Blike. I didn't mean to…"He turned. "Muire"

The tavern keeper glared at him and shook her head- at Rana. "Brin didn't want to kill us," she said softly. "He was just playing the same games he always does. If he wanted us to burn, we'd still be inside. He wanted us to get out." Her eyes went back to Tycho. "He knew you'd come," she said. "That wherever you were hiding, you would come when you heard the Ease was burning. He told me to give you a message."

Tycho froze. "What was it?"

"Go home."

Veseene. Brin had done something to Veseene. Tycho knew it immediately. "Divine Tymora, smile on a stupid dock rat," he breathed. "Li!" He spun around. "We have to-"

The Shou caught his shoulder and pointed across the yard.

Mard Dantakain was marching toward them. Soot streaked his face, and he had one of the long hooked poles in his hands. He looked ready to kill with it. "Tychoben Arisaenn!" he bellowed, his voice even louder than the fire. "Where is my daughter?"

Tycho's heart skipped. If Brin had gone to Bakers Way, Veseene wouldn't have been the only one he found there. Mard was practically on top of them. Tycho swallowed.

"Gods witness me," he protested desperately, "I don't know!"

"You're a damned liar!" Mard swept out with the pole.