Because you’ve made a career of it, by all accounts. Eslingen frowned. “First a warning shot, and then no quarter,” he said slowly. “You’ve angered somebody, Chresta. Can I help?”

Aconin hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder as though searching for eavesdroppers. Eslingen followed his gaze, but most of the actors were watching the work onstage. “I–I suppose I made a mistake, ended something badly.”

Your specialty, I thought. Eslingen swallowed the words, did his best to look encouraging.

“I took something when I left,” Aconin said. He made a face. “Oh, I was entitled to it, I thought–I’d been promised it, even– and I needed it, but still… It was a mistake.”

“And the person you took it from is angry,” Eslingen said. “Can you give it back?”

Aconin shook his head, looking, for the first time since Eslingen had known him, genuinely afraid. “It’s too late for that. I–the person–” He broke off, flinching, and Eslingen glanced over his shoulder, but all he saw was a knot of people, Simar, Aubine, his arms full of flowers, a couple of actors, including Forveijl, Rathe’s former and Aconin’s apparently still current lover. “It’s nothing,” Aconin said, and forced a smile that held more than a little of his old mockery. “Come along, Philip, when has my life ever not been a melodrama? This is nothing new.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Eslingen saw Aubine smile in rueful recognition, and Aconin turned away.

“You’d best get back to work,” he called over his shoulder. “I don’t think the landames will give their best without you.”

Eslingen made a face–he should be onstage, that much was true–but hesitated, watching the playwright out of sight. Whatever he said, Aconin had been honestly afraid, and that was something Rathe should know. More than that, he realized, Aconin had as much as admitted that he knew who attacked him– not that that should surprise either of us–and Rathe needed to know that, as well. If anybody can get the truth out of Master Aconite, it’ll be Nico– and I’d like to be there when he does.

It was mid‑afternoon before Rathe was able to free himself from a tangle of reports–Fanier’s on Ogier’s body, confirming that the man had died from the knife wound, a pair of notes from b’Estorr, one saying he thought the dead man’s clothing had indeed been Temple handouts, chosen perhaps in an attempt to throw some magistical pursuer off his trail, the second a pass‑along from one of the university phytomancers, saying that the posy Leussi had apparently made up was, in fact, harmless, as unlikely to bring about discord and harm as it was to bring about its promised concord. There was a long report from Mirremay turning the attack on Aconin’s rooms over to Point of Dreams, much to Trijn’s vocal displeasure. And she had a right to be displeased, Rathe thought, making the turn onto the Horse Road that led through the old city walls toward the Queen’s Eastern Highway. No chief point, and particularly not Mirremay, ever released a responsibility if she wasn’t sure it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. Part of him wanted to be at the theatre, questioning Aconin, but his first duty was to the dead man. The most recent dead man, he amended, sighing. The folly stars seemed to be compounded by something more deadly.

Ogier had lived on the outskirts of the city, only a little south of the crossroads where the Horse Road met the Highway, and crossed the Promenade that ran back west toward the queen’s residence and the nobles’ houses of the Western Reach. It was typical of Ogier, Rathe thought: it would only be an hour’s walk, at most, along the Promenade to reach the most distant of his clients, but it was far enough that none of them could claim to have him at their beck and call. A difficult man, he could almost hear his mother saying, but a clever plantsman, and he wished he’d had a chance to stop at her house, to ask her advice. She was as likely as anyone to know if Ogier had recently made enemies–but she lived by the Corants Basin, just east of the southern Chain Tower, across the city and on the far side of the Sier from the crossroads. Ogier’s kin first, he thought, but then I’ll find the time to see her.

He stopped at the neighborhood tavern, low‑ceilinged and comfortable, to get the final directions to Ogier’s house, found himself at last on a rutted lane bordered by tall rows of rise‑hedge, still green even in the depth of winter. They were overgrown, narrowing the street even farther, filling the air with the smell of cloves as his coat brushed against them. For an instant, he was surprised that Ogier hadn’t trimmed them, but then, the man was a gardener, not a groundskeeper, and the hedges were hardly his own to mend. The house itself stood at the very end of the street, an odd building barely more than one room wide, as though a series of rooms had been built one after the other, and tacked hastily together into a single building. It was neatly kept, though, the paint not new but not peeling, shutters and roof and yard all in good repair, and smoke drifted from the chimney. At least someone was home, he thought, and hoped the Temple priests had done their job.

He knocked gently at the door, and out of the corner of his eye saw a woman watching from the doorway of the house next door. She seemed to see him watching, whisked herself back out of sight as the door opened.

“Nico! Oh, sweet Sofia, I’m so glad it’s you.”

“Mother? What are you doing here?” Even as he asked, Rathe thought he could guess the answer. Ogier had been a friend, as well as being a guild‑mate; of course the man’s kin would send for her, in preference to any other, to help settle his affairs.

“Frelise sent for me,” Caro Rathe said, and stepped back, beckoning him into a spare room that smelled of pipe smoke. “That’s the sister. The same Temple initiate who broke the news was kind enough to come and fetch me. And of course, the crows are all flocking, trying to pick up the gossip.” She touched his arm, glancing over her shoulder toward the single darkened doorway. “She’s lying down, but–Nico, is it true? Grener was murdered.”

“I’m afraid so,” Rathe answered. He grimaced, looking around the room with its one good chair, the trestle table turned up against the wall to make more room. The only sign of indulgence was the stand of half a dozen corms, each in its own glass jar, positioned to take the light, and to be seen from the chair. “I was with him when he died, which is no comfort, I know.”

“How horrible for you.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you found the place. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever brought you here.”

“I asked at the Metenerie,” Rathe said. That was the guildhall; and even they had known only the direction, not a proper address. He shook his head again, wondering if Ogier had had cause to hide, or if it was simply his well‑known eccentricity.

“Sensible. I assume you’ll want to talk to Frelise?”

“Yes.” Rathe paused. “Is she an Ogier, too?”

Caro nodded. “There was no business in the family, and Frelise is a seamstress, so there wasn’t any need for him to take another name. She kept house for him, oh, it’s been years, now.”

There was a rustle from the doorway, and Rathe turned, to see a tall woman leaning against the frame. She was probably older than her brother had been, a plain woman with a lined, open face, her eyes red and swollen now, the tracks of tears still visible on her cheeks.

“Caro, who–”

Her voice was little more than a whisper, and Caro moved quickly to take her hand, drawing her into the room and settling her on one of the low stools that stood against the wall. Rathe frowned, wondering why his mother didn’t settle her in the chair, then realized it had been Ogier’s. Too much, too soon, to remind her again that he wasn’t coming back, and he moved to join them. The contrast between them was almost painful, his own mother browned and sturdy, her greying hair chopped short to fit beneath a gardener’s broad‑brimmed hat, Frelise pale as paper, well‑kept hands–hands that handled silks, Rathe realized–knotting in her lap. Caro’s hand, resting on her shoulder, looked even browner and more roughened by the contrast.