Eslingen shook himself, stood up, shading his eyes against the mage‑light, and thought he saw the girl Mersine moving at the top of one of the ramps. “You–Mersine, is it?”

“Yes, master.” The girl came eagerly down the length of the aisle, and Eslingen waved for her to stop, moved by some obscure idea of protecting her.

“Go fetch Master Duca, tell him it’s urgent. And then–” He hesitated, but made himself go on. “Then run to the station at Point of Dreams and bring back a pointsman–Adjunct Point Rathe, if he can be spared.”

“The points?” Siredy said, rising, and scrubbed his hands on his breeches. “Are you sure about that? Master Duca–”

“Will surely see reason,” Eslingen said. “Verre, there’s no other choice. What else are we going to do, dump the body out the back door and hope someone else deals with him?”

From the look on Siredy’s face, the thought had crossed his mind, and Eslingen was suddenly glad he’d taken matters into his own hands. “Go on,” he said to the girl, and she darted back up the aisle, visibly delighted to be the bearer of such exciting news.

Rathe had left Eslingen still asleep, mildly bemused at the man’s capacity for it, and spent the first hours of the morning at the Sofian temple, again working doggedly through the rolls. The stoves were empty still, and his hands and feet were like ice when he was done, despite the secretary’s mitts and the extra stockings he’d brought to warm them. Still, he thought, huddling himself under his winter cloak as he walked toward Dreams, it had been a profitable morning’s work. All the connections were there, only one a sibling, but the rest cousins and nieces and all the collateral kin. The most distant was a second cousin, and he had to admit it made sense even as he cursed the situation. These were the right degrees of kinship to create discreet hostages, the kind that might not ever be noticed–might, Seidos willing, never need to be noticed–and he had to admire the queen’s, or Astreiant’s, cleverness.

Aliez Sohier was the duty point, one of his private favorites, and he smiled in answer to her cheerful greeting, unwinding himself from cloak and jerkin.

“Any news in the markets?” she asked, and he looked up, startled, balancing on one foot as he started to strip off the extra stockings.

“About?”

She shrugged. “Scandals, mayhem. Earthquakes at the solstice?”

She was as fond of the broadsheets as Eslingen, and Rathe sighed. “Predictions of a harsher winter than normal, that’s all I noticed.”

“After last year?” Sohier made a face.

The previous year’s almanacs had predicted a mild winter. In fact, the Sier had frozen, and there had been reports of wolves not far outside the city, but Astreiant had carried on as usual. It was winter, the old dames said, when the less hardy grumbled. Of course it was cold. And that, Rathe thought, scuffling his feet back into the heavy shoes, was the typical Astreianter reaction. Not building towers on the ice. He balled the stockings into his pocket along with the mitts, and crossed to the desk. Sohier pushed the daybook toward him, and he paged through the previous night’s entries. Voillemin had gone to Little Chain, he saw with pleasure, but had made no note of what he’d found. And maybe it was nothing–probably was nothing–but it did no one any good to ignore the obvious.

The door slammed open, bouncing back against the wall, and Rathe spun to face it, hearing Sohier curse behind him. A skinny girl, no more than twelve, stood there, coatless, trying to catch her breath, her face and eyes alight with excitement. “Well?” Sohier demanded.

“Sorry, dame,” the girl said, and bobbed a kind of a curtsy. “The masters sent me, for a pointsman. There’s a body on the stage at the Tyrseia, and one of the masters insisted we send for the points, and the theatre was locked up last night, same as always–oh, and please, if he’s here, it’s someone named Rathe they’re wanting.”

Rathe looked at Sohier, knowing the shock on her face matched his own. “Get Falasca and Leenderts to take over, I want you with me.”

She nodded, already shouting for a runner, and Falasca came scurrying, fastening her coat, to take the other woman’s place at the table.

“Tell Trijn as soon as she arrives,” Rathe said, and reached into his pocket, fingers closing on the folded sheets of paper that held his notes. The Tyrseia, he thought. Sweet Astree. All the chorus there– all the hostages there–and already a dead man, and–But it wouldn’t be Eslingen, he told himself. A master who had insisted on sending for the points, who had asked for him by name, that could only be the Leaguer.

“Please, sir,” the girl said, “they wanted a Master Rathe–”

“That’s me,” Rathe said, and shook himself back to the moment, managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He had to leave the papers, couldn’t risk losing them, and he took the stairs two at a time, already groping in his pocket for the key to his seldom‑used lockbox. It was, inevitably, buried under a stack of broadsheets and flimsy editions of the Alphabet, but he brushed them aside, slid the list into the otherwise empty container. He’d almost never had to use it before, except for holding found monies or other negotiables, and it seemed strange to use it now, for politics. He shook the thought away, locked the box again, and headed back to the main room.

Leenderts had arrived, was nodding as Sohier explained the situation. Someone had brought the girl to one of the stoves, Rathe saw with approval, and found a patched shawl to throw over her shoulders for the return journey.

“Do we know who it is?” Leenderts asked, and Rathe shook his head even as he glanced at the girl.

“They wouldn’t let me see,” she said, and sounded vaguely aggrieved. “And nobody said anything except fetch the points.”

Rathe spread his hands in answer and reached for his own cloak. The extra stockings were still in his pocket, and he wished he had time to pull them on. “Keep things quiet,” he said to Leenderts, and the other man nodded in perfect comprehension.

“I’ll do that, Adjunct Point.”

Not that there was much chance of it, Rathe thought as he and Sohier hurried through the drying streets, the girl bouncing between them. Even cloaked as they were, they were recognizably pointsmen, and he was all too aware of the eyes following them as they made their way toward the theatre. At least the open square in front of it was all but empty, the petty merchants who crowded the surrounding arcade on open days busy at the other theatres, too wise to waste their merchandise on starving actors. Only the tavern was unshuttered, and it was very quiet, its door dark and only the smell of wood smoke drifting from its chimney. That might help, Rathe thought, but then he saw the serving girl, skirts shortened to show bright red stockings, hovering just inside the doorway. She ducked back, seeing him looking, and in spite of himself, his mouth tightened. There was nothing to do about it, though, and he turned his head away, scanning the Tyrseia’s imposing facade. All the doors were closed, the windows shuttered, but a cloaked figure was waiting beside one of the barred stairways, arms wrapped around his body to keep the heat in.

“Adjunct Point Rathe?” he asked, and Rathe nodded.

“That’s me. And you are?”

“Verre Siredy, Adjunct Point. Of the Guild of Defense.”

Eslingen had mentioned the name, and Rathe nodded. “The girl said there was a death.”

“This way.” Siredy pointed to the door beneath the stairway– the players’ entrance, Rathe realized–and they ducked past the staring doorman into a tunnel that sloped up toward the floor of the pit. The masters were waiting there, huddled in groups among the benches, but the crumpled shape, stage center, drew every eye. At least they’d had the sense not to move it, Rathe thought, and guessed he could thank Eslingen for that. He looked around, searching for the person in charge, and Siredy cleared his throat.