“May we-” said one.

“-take your bags?” finished the other.

Gertriss let her jaw drop. I shot her a look, and she closed it. I knew from Mama that a lot of country people held some odd superstitions about twins, but this wasn’t the time or the place to air them.

“Please do,” I said. I’d worked the crossbow bolt out of my rucksack on the ride through the woods.

“Your rooms will be on the third floor,” said Lady Werewilk. “Emma, take Goodman Markhat’s bag. Ella, see to Miss Gertriss.” She frowned in concern, and I saw her resist the urge to touch my wounded face. “I’ve arranged to have the entire household present for the evening meal,” she said instead. “I believe you wanted to speak to everyone at once.”

“I do, and I thank you.” Emma picked up my rucksack with no apparent effort despite her diminutive size. Ella did the same with Gertriss’s bag, which from its heft must have contained both Mama’s card and potion shop and Darla’s entire inventory of summer gowns.

“You’ll hear a bell half an hour before the meal is served,” said Lady Werewilk. “Another will sound at five minutes until. The dining room is that way.” She motioned toward a wide, dark hall that led off to the right. “You’ll have no trouble finding it. Just follow the noise.”

“We’ll be there, Lady.”

Lady Werewilk nodded, oozed down the few remaining stairs and made off down the hallway she’d just shown us, doing fascinating things to her dress on the way.

Gertriss poked me in the ribs.

“You’re bleedin’ again, Mister Markhat.”

I felt a big fat drop of blood gather precariously at the end of my nose.

“So I am. Lead on, Emma. I may need to be stitched up before we dine. Have you ever stitched up a wounded man before?”

Emma giggled, and she and Ella sped up the stairs in absolutely perfect time.

My room-which was actually three rooms joined by two doors and one archway-was on the west side of the House. The tiny windows let in just enough afternoon sun to throw long shadows across the floor. I had to light candles just to keep from stumbling into things.

Gertriss was four doors down, on the same side. The walls were so thick I couldn’t hear a sound, though I knew she was prowling around and taking it all in.

I dropped my rucksack on the vast plane of clean linen that was my bed and started pounding on the wall.

A moment later, I heard a pounding in response, and muffled shouting about my lack of manners and how it had been a long and trying ride.

I left Gertriss to her explorations and sought out the fancy water closet. There was running water, both hot and cold, and the same newfangled flush toilet I hear the Regent squats over twice a day.

Feeling very cosmopolitan, I unpacked my shaving kit, ran enough hot water to fog the mirror, and set about seeing to my thoroughly clawed face.

I whistled. It was worse than I’d thought. Even with her claws blunted by a manicure, Gertriss had managed to give me a good country raking. I washed the cuts, which of course started the bleeding all over again, and by the time I was done it looked like an army surgeon’s tent had emptied itself on the floor.

Not an auspicious way to appear at the evening meal. But between the story of the crossbow bolts and the sword, which I imagined was spreading like wildfire below courtesy of Scatter and Lank, a few recent battle-scars might at least put the innocent off guard just enough to make tongues wag.

And wagging tongues are what line my purse.

I washed. I shook the wrinkles out of a good shirt and donned a pair of new shoes that sported a hole in the sole from a crossbow aimed at my favorite head. I combed my hair back and smoothed it down with the hair oil Darla bought me for Victory Day. Even so, I figured we had a good hour before the first of Lady Werewilk’s dinner bells rang.

I grinned. Time to show my young apprentice a thing or to about how finders spend their spare time.

I closed my door quietly behind me, stuck my hands in my pockets and ambled to Gertriss’s door. My hand was raised to knock, very softly, when various latches and locks began to click and loose until the door swung open just far enough to reveal a finger’s breadth of Gertriss’s face.

“Mister Markhat.” She spoke in a whisper. “You are the boss. I respect that. Believe me I do. But there is a bathtub in here. A bathtub with running water. Hot running water. A bathtub with hot running water and fancy store-bought soap and some kind of smell-good stuff in a jar. Is anyone about to kill us?”

“Not at the moment.”

“So I’ll close the door, but not lock it. And you can count to ten and come inside and wait for me in the front room. Can you do that?”

“I can do that. Except maybe the counting to ten part. What comes after four?”

The door shut. I heard feet dart quickly away.

I counted to ten, fingered my wounded face, counted to ten again just in case I’d counted too fast the first time. Then I went inside.

The next door was shut. Tendrils of steam wafted underneath it, and I could hear splashing.

Country girl. Hot bath.

I found a chair, folded my hands and let her take her time.

House Werewilk was a noisy place. Even the thick stone walls couldn’t block out the sounds of thirty-odd artists and the staff of ten banging, shouting, and stomping through their day.

Dogs were barking. I closed my eyes and counted at least six different barks. I didn’t think they were barking at anything in particular-each other, the wind, a squirrel-but the presence of so many dogs and so many people ought to have made it very difficult for a surveyor and his crew to slip unnoticed through the grounds.

Of course, from what Marlo had said, a circus complete with elephants could have paraded past the House’s red door, and it’s unlikely any of the staff would have done so much as peeked outside. And the artists all seemed to be kids, who doubtlessly had better things to do than be curious about any goings-on outside.

And the crossbows on the road. A random encounter with bandits?

I didn’t think so. The road we were traveling was seldom used. It seemed a poor choice for locating well-heeled prey.

I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable in the realization that someone might have been willing to commit murder just to keep me from reaching the House. Not that my murder would have necessarily roused the Watch from its perpetual bureaucratic slumber-but Evis, for instance, might be inclined to poke around. A vengeful Avalante is not a thing the casual killer is likely to merely shrug off.

And what exactly had Gertriss seen, in the trees? She claimed it was a woman. I was hardly an expert on the ways of the sturdy country folk hereabouts, but finding their women ascended into the boughs seemed unlikely. But what else could she have seen?

Her Sight. A trick of her Sight. I decided to ask her about that, and right on cue water splashed beyond the door and she spoke.

“She was there, Mr. Markhat. It weren’t no trick of my Sight. There was a woman sitting up there in a big old oak.”

I rose. I paced. It’s a bad habit, but having somewhere bigger than my tiny office to pace was just too much of a temptation.

“Maybe she was picking apples.”

“It was an oak tree, Mr. Markhat. She wasn’t picking anything. She was watching us. She didn’t think she’d be seen.”

The dogs had seen. So had Scatter and Lank. And all their reactions to seeing the woman had been to run.

“What did she look like, Gertriss? Why did the dogs spook, and the kids run?”

I could tell by the sounds that Gertriss was trying to figure out how to make the tub drain. Finally, there came a gurgling gush of water.

“She was maybe as tall as Mama, but thin, Mr. Markhat.” Glassware tinkled. “Thin like a bird. Wild hair. She was-well, nude, mostly.”