"Well," she muttered, "at least the snow will help hide me from people on the street."

Slipping outside, she balanced on the balls of her feet on the carved head of an ox. Stabilizing herself by gripping the windowsill, she reached out with her other hand to look for a handhold. None were to be found.

"I must be crazy," she murmured as she advanced along the wall, her hold on the windowsill getting less secure as she moved.

As she feared, the well crafted stone exterior offered no further handholds.

She had to release her hold on the window when her reaching hand was still well shy of the next window, which looked a mile distant. Breathing shallowly, spread-eagled against the cold stone wall and carefully brushing snow away with her stocking-clad feet, she inched her way forward. She thanked the gods that she had decent leg and foot strength, even if her arm strength was lacking. A childhood spent running from adults continued to serve her well.

Her hand reached the weatherworn edge of the next window, and she grabbed on. She couldn't enter that window, for the room opened into the halls' intersection, right next to the lamp and in full view of both guards. Instead, she gritted her teeth and continued moving on the protruding carvings to the next window, once more committing her safety to her balance and the strength of her feet. She wondered if Gilgeam's head was among those she stepped on. The very thought filled her with a sort of vengeful glee. The god-king had caused her a lot of pain, first by his presence, and since, with the war arid all, by his absence.

At the second window, she took a moment to regain her breath and let her heart calm itself. No light bled through the shutter slats, so she pulled her dagger and worked it between the shutters, lifting the latch inside. When she felt it give way, she muttered a quick, small prayer of thanks to whichever god was looking after her that the latch was of the same make as the others in the building. She listened for noises and heard none. With a quiet sigh of profound relief, she pulled herself safely inside the room. Since her socks had picked up more snow seepage, she rung them out through the window into the alley below.

She left the shutter open, just in case she had to make a quick departure, and crossed over to the door. It was just slightly ajar, and she could see it clearly by the crack of lamplight that wedged its way into the room. Standing well back, she peered out through the gap. The guard passed, and Kehrsyn stepped closer. She heard him slapping his thigh and whistling, heard him pivot, and heard him approach again. Just as she saw him pass the door, she teased it open, slipped out, and pulled it most of the way closed in one fluid motion, then dashed for the far corner of the hallway, again pacing her steps to match the guard's.

She turned the far corner just as she heard the guard reverse his pace. She thanked her stocking feet; she could never have moved that distance silently while wearing her boots. Even bare feet would have made a telltale pat-pat sound. She only hoped she'd wrung her socks out well enough, or that, if she hadn't, the guard would not notice her small, wet footprints.

She felt more safe. She was past the guards at the front door as well as the guards posted to watch the valuables. Any security she'd discover from that point forward would be traps, locks, or someone who happened by. Still, she wasn't going to put her boots on until just before her escape. Out of sight, silence was her greatest ally.

She pulled a match from her vest and struck it, using her body to shield its faint glow from the guards in the hall. She moved to the door to the room that had been marked on her map. It was a plain wooden door with a sign saying "Expeditionary Supplies." Just down the hall, Kehrsyn glimpsed the glint of a metal chain and padlock securing the next door. She smiled. On her map, the door was labeled "Treasure Room," and with a big lock announcing the presence of valuables just down the hall, why would anyone raid a simple door marked "Expeditionary Supplies"?

Hiding in the playground, Kehrsyn called it. It was a trick she had learned as a kid: If you look ordinary, no one sees you. When she'd been spotted stealing and had gotten a decent lead on her pursuit, she escaped her pursuers by joining a group of kids in their play. Those chasing her raced right past, searching for a frightened, fleeing little girl, not a happy girl with a big smile playing at crack-the-whip.

Kehrsyn, however, knew the ploy as well as those of Wing's Reach. She tested the door to the expeditionary supplies and found that, true to the disguise, it wasn't even locked. That had been her biggest fear, for she wasn't confident in her lockpicking skills.

She stepped in and closed the door behind her. A lamp hung from one wall, so she lit it and trimmed the wick to a mere glimmer. She looked around the room, searching for the necromantic wand. A badly weathered wooden case, Eileph had said. She poked behind sausages, wax-covered rounds of cheese, cooking tools, and coils of rope, until she found a plain, battered wooden box shoved to the rear of a bottom shelf and labeled "orc bitter tea." It looked like it was the same size as the open box illustrated in Eileph's drawings.

Rather than pull the box out, Kehrsyn decided to play it safe. She cleared the other items away from it, pulled her skirt-cowl up to cover her nose and mouth, and undid the latch with her dagger. A quartet of long needles, curved like cobra fangs, lanced out of their hidden recesses, scything through the air where Kehrsyn's hand would have been, had she been careless.

She pursed her lips. Clearly, that was where the disguise ended. Opening the box could be even more dangerous. She found a small bolt of cloth tucked next to the cooking supplies. She leaned the cloth against the box as a sort of shield, then reached the dagger around to the side and pried the lid open.

She heard a crack, a spatter, and a hiss. Acrid smoke wisped from the back side of the cloth. Kehrsyn pulled the cloth away, and saw some pungent liquid eating into the fabric. She shoved the cloth aside, held the lid of the box open with one hand, and used the dagger to pry the precious wand up from its crushed velvet bed. A razor sliced up from the side of the box, cutting right where her wrist would have been and nicking its own blade as it impacted her dagger.

Once she'd scooted the tail end of the staff out of the box, she cut herself a square of the cloth to protect her hand as she picked the treasure up.

"There now," she whispered. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Demok moved at a steady trot through the city, an easy run that he could maintain for hours, with a short, balanced stride perfect for crossing treacherous terrain. The closer he got to Wing's Reach, the more concerned he became about the lack of a trail left by the so-called messenger.

When he reached the building, the first thing he did was check the perimeter. Though the footprints on the steps had been smeared almost entirely out by the passing of Ahegi's entourage, he could still see the young woman's tracks beneath the new dusting of snow. When she'd come to deliver the message, she'd walked at an easy pace from the alley.

He noticed the twine tied to the shutter and followed its trail to spy a second set of tracks on the other side of the door. Though they were of stocking feet, he could tell they were the same size and weight as those of the boots. He followed them to the farthest window of the foyer. The shutter was closed, but it opened easily. The snow on the sill was crushed, showing that someone had indeed entered the building there. He stuck his head in the window and glared over at the two guards. They were gambling with sava, the incompetent buffoons.