A bell sounded from the gate that led into the stable yard, and then another from above the main door, which lay open to the yard. Rathe looked up, and the room went dark as a shape briefly filled the doorway. The man stepped inside, and stood for a moment blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. He was big, tall, and heavy‑bellied beneath a workingman’s half‑coat, but the material was good, as was the shirt beneath it, and as he turned, Rathe saw the badge of a guildmaster in the big man’s cap.

“Help you, master?” he asked, and the big man turned, still blinking in the relative darkness.

“Pointsman?” He took a few steps toward the table. “I’m here to report a missing apprentice.”

Rathe nodded, repressing his automatic response, and kicked a stool away from the table. “Have a seat, master, and tell me all about it.”

The big man sat down cautiously. Up close, he looked even bigger, with a jowled, heat‑reddened face and lines that could mean temper or self‑importance bracketing his mouth and creasing his forehead. Rathe looked him over dispassionately, ready to dismiss this as another case of an apprentice seizing the chance to get out of an unsatisfactory contract, when he saw the emblem on the badge pinned to the man’s close‑fitting cap. Toncarle, son of Metenere, strode crude but unmistakable across the silver oval, knives upheld: the man was a butcher, and that changed everything. The Butchers’ Guild wasn’t the richest guild in Astreiant, but it was affiliated with the Herbalists and the scholar‑priests of Metenere, and that meant its apprentices learned more than just their craft. An apprentice would have to be a fool–or badly mistreated–to leave that place.

The big man had seen the change of expression, faint as it was, and a wry smile crossed his face. “Ay, I’m with the Butchers, pointsman. Bonfais Mailet.”

“Nicolas Rathe. Adjunct point,” Rathe answered automatically. He should have known, or guessed, he thought. They weren’t far from the Street of Knives, and that was named for the dozen or so butcher’s halls that dominated the neighborhood. “You said you were missing an apprentice, Master Mailet?”

Mailet nodded. “Her name’s Herisse Robion. She’s been my prentice for three years now.”

“That makes her, what, twelve, thirteen?” Rathe asked, scribbling the name into the daybook. “Herisse–that’s a Chadroni name, isn’t it?”

“Twelve,” Mailet answered. “And yes, the name’s Chadroni, but she’s city‑born and bred. I think her mother’s kin were from the north, but that’s a long time back.”

“So she wouldn’t have been running to them?” Rathe asked, and added the age.

“I doubt it.” Mailet leaned forward, planting both elbows on the table. A faint smell rose from his clothes, not unpleasant, but naggingly familiar. Rathe frowned slightly, trying to place it, and then remembered: fresh‑cut peppers and summer gourds, the cool green tang of the sliced flesh. It was harvest time for those crops, and butchers all across the city would be carving them for the magists to preserve. He shook the thought away, and drew a sheet of paper from the writing box.

“Tell me what happened.”

“She’s gone.” Mailet spread his hands. “She was there last night at bedtime, or so Sabadie–that’s my journeyman, one of them, anyway, the one in charge of the girl‑prentices–so Sabadie swears to me. And then this morning, when they went to the benches, I saw hers was empty. The other girls admitted she wasn’t at breakfast, and her bed was made before they were up, but Herisse was always an early riser, so none of them said anything, to me or to Sabadie. But when she wasn’t at her bench, well… I came to you.”

Rathe eyed him warily, wondering how best to phrase his question. “She’s only been gone a few hours,” he began at last, “not even a full day. Are–is it possible she went out to meet someone, and somehow was delayed?”

Mailet nodded. “And I think she’s hurt, or otherwise in trouble. My wife and I, after we got the prentices to work, we went up and searched her things. All her clothes are there, and her books. She wasn’t planning to be gone so long, of that I’m certain. She knows the work we had to do today, she wouldn’t have missed it without sending us word if she could.”

Rathe nodded back, impressed in spite of himself. Even if Mailet were as choleric as he looked, a place in the Butchers’ Guild–an apprenticeship that taught you reading and ciphering and the use of an almanac, and set you on the road to a prosperous mastership–wasn’t to be given up because of a little temper. “Had she friends outside your house?” he asked, and set the paper aside. “Or family, maybe?” He pushed himself up out of his chair and Mailet copied him, his movements oddly helpless for such a big man.

“An aunt paid her fees,” Mailet said, “but I heard she was dead this past winter. The rest of them–well, I’d call them useless, and Herisse didn’t seem particularly fond of them.”

Rathe crossed to the wall where his jerkin hung with the rest of the station’s equipment, and shrugged himself into the stiff leather. His truncheon hung beneath it, and he belted it into place, running his thumb idly over the crowned tower at its top. “Do you know where they live?”

“Point of Sighs, somewhere,” Mailet answered. “Sabadie might know, or one of the girls.”

“I’ll ask them, then,” Rathe said. “Gaucelm!”

There was a little pause, and then the younger of the station’s two apprentices appeared in the doorway. “Master Nico?”

“Is Asheri about, or is it just you?”

“She’s by the stable.”

Asheri was one of half a dozen neighborhood children, now growing into gawky adolescence, who ran errands for the point station. “I’m off with Master Mailet here, about a missing apprentice–not a runaway, it looks like. I’m sending Asheri for Ranazy, you’ll man the station until he gets here.”

Gaucelm’s eyes widened–he was young still, and hadn’t stood a nightwatch, much less handled the day shift alone–but he managed a creditably offhand nod. “Yes, Master Nico.”

Rathe nodded back, and turned to Mailet. “Then let me talk to Asheri, Master Mailet, and we’ll go.”

Asheri was waiting in the stable doorway, a thin, brown girl in a neatly embroidered cap and bodice, her skirts kilted to the knee against the dust. She listened to Rathe’s instructions–fetch Ranazy from the Cazaril Grey where he was eating, and then tell Monteia, the chief point who had charge of Point of Hopes, what had happened and bring back any messages–with a serious face. She caught the copper demming he tossed her with an expert hand, then darted off ahead of them through the main gate. Rathe followed her more decorously, and then gestured for Mailet to lead the way.

Mailet’s house and workshop lay in the open streets just off the Customs Road, about a ten‑minute walk from Point of Hopes. It looked prosperous enough, though not precisely wealthy; the shutters were all down, forming a double counter, and a journeyman and an older apprentice were busy at the meat table, knives flashing as they disjointed a pair of chickens for a waiting maidservant. She was in her twenties and very handsome, and a knife rose into the air, catching the light for an instant as it turned end over end, before the apprentice had snatched the meat away and the knife landed, quivering, in the chopping board. He bowed deeply, and offered the neatly cut chicken to the maidservant. She took it, cocking her head to one side, and the journeyman, less deft or more placid than his junior, handed her the second carefully packaged bird. She took that, too, and, turning, said something over her shoulder that had both young men blushing and grinning. Mailet scowled.

“Get that mess cleaned up,” he said, gesturing to the bloodied board. “And, you, Eysi, keep your mind on your work before you lose a finger.”

“Yes, master,” the apprentice answered, but Rathe thought from the grin that he was less than chastened.