“How’s business?” Adriana asked, and matched his tone exactly.

“I wouldn’t ask.”

Adriana glanced over his shoulder at the almost‑empty room. “I hardly need to.” She reached across the counter for his mug. “What about the children, does it say anything about them?”

Eslingen shrugged, and tucked the diviner deeper into his cuff. “Not a lot–as you’d expect, I suppose. Metenere trines the sun–and the moon, for that matter–which they say is a hopeful sign, but it’s inconjunct to the winter‑sun and Sofia, which they say means there are still things to be uncovered before the matter is resolved.”

“That’s safe enough,” Adriana said, and set the refilled mug back in front of him. “Gods, you’d think the magists could do better than that.”

Eslingen nodded, took a sip of beer he didn’t really want. “Or the points. I wonder if they’re consulting the astrologers?”

“They generally do. When they’re not searching taverns,” Adriana answered, and grinned. “Your friend Rathe, he has friends at the university, or so I’m told. Above his station, surely.”

“No particular friend of mine,” Eslingen said, automatically, and only then thought to wonder at his own response. I wouldn’t mind calling him a friend, though.

Adriana’s eyebrows rose. “And below yours?” She turned away before he could answer, disappeared through the kitchen door.

Eslingen stared after her for a moment–he hadn’t expected her to defend any pointsman–then shrugged, and made his way back to his table. He doubted there would be any call for his services tonight, since the locals seemed to be staying well clear after the abortive search, but he left the beer untouched, and tilted his stool until his back rested against the wall. Monteia had handled the situation well, particularly getting that red‑faced butcher on her side, he acknowledged silently. If they got through the evening without trouble, things should be all right.

The clock struck midnight at last, its voice clear in the still air, and Devynck appeared to call time on the last customers. They left in a group, Eslingen was glad to see, Vandeale and her household in the lead, and Devynck herself walked them to the door to wish them safe home. She pulled the heavy door closed behind them, turning the key in the lock, and Loret lifted the bar into its brackets. It looked thick enough to stand at least a small battering ram, Eslingen thought, and wondered if Devynck had foreseen the necessity. He stood then, stretching, and went to help Hulet with the shutters. Each had an iron bar of its own, holding the wood firm against the glass outside; they, too, would stand a siege, and he lifted the last one into place with a distinct feeling of relief. With the tavern secured for the night, all the doors and windows locked and barred, it was unlikely that the butchers’ journeymen would find a way to make trouble. Hulet stretched and loosened the ropes that held the central candelabra in place, lowering it so that Adriana could snuff the massive candles.

“Philip.” Devynck’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. “Go with Loret, make sure the garden gate’s barred before we close up for the night.”

“Right.” Eslingen trailed the yawning waiter out into the sudden dark. The winter‑sun had set at midnight, and the air was distinctly chill, pleasant after the heat of the day. Loret fumbled with a candle and lantern, and Eslingen glanced up, looking for the familiar constellations, but a thin drift of cloud veiled all but the brightest stars. Then Loret had gotten his candle lit, and Eslingen followed its glow through the garden and down to the back gate. The bar was already up there, a chain and lock the size of a man’s fist holding it firmly in place, but Loret tugged at it anyway before turning back to the inn. Eslingen glanced along the walls, checking for trouble there. They were in good repair, and high, taller than himself by a good yard; he couldn’t remember if they were topped with spikes or glass, but would not have been surprised by either. In any case, they would be hard to climb without ladders: it’s good enough, he told himself, and followed Loret back to the tavern. Nonetheless, he was careful to lock the door behind him at the top of the stairs, and to bar his own door after him. The banked embers at the bottom of the stove were dead, not even warm to the touch. He considered finding flint and steel, rekindling them, but it was late, and it would be easier in the morning to borrow coals from the kitchen fire. He undressed in the dark, leaving his coat draped neatly over the chair, and crawled into the tall bed.

He woke to the sound of breaking glass, groped under his pillow for his pistol and found only the keys to his chest. He had them in his hand before he was fully awake, and flung back the covers as he heard another window break. The sound was followed by shouts, young, drunken voices, and then he heard another shout from inside the inn: Devynck, waking her people to the trouble. He dragged on his breeches as another window shattered, and stooped to his clothes chest. He hastily unlocked the lid and dragged out his pistol and the bag that held powder and balls. There was no time to load it; he jammed it instead into the waistband of his breeches, the metal cold on his skin, and caught up his knife on the way to the door.

Jasanten was ahead of him in the hall, balanced awkwardly on his crutch, a long knife in his free hand. “What in all hells–?”

“Don’t know,” Eslingen answered, and unlocked the stairway door. “Stay here, keep an eye on things.”

“Like I could go anywhere fast,” Jasanten answered, but stopped at the head of the stairs, bracing himself against the frame. Eslingen pushed past him, scanning the garden. It was still dark, and quiet; most of the noise had come from the front of the inn.

“Devynck?” he called, more to give her warning than to find her, and pushed open the tavern door.

A thick pillar candle guttered on the end of the bar, throwing uneven shadows across the wide room and the empty tables. Devynck, ghostly in shift and unbound hair, stood by the main door, a caliver in her hands as she peered cautiously through a newly opened shutter. Slow match smouldered in the lock, a bright point of red. Adriana stood at her mother’s back, a half‑pike balanced capably in her hands, her legs bare beneath the short hem of her nightshirt.

“They’re gone, the little bastards,” Devynck said, and turned away from the window. “No thanks to you, Philip.”

“No thanks to any of us, Mother,” Adriana said, and Devynck made a noise that might have been meant as apology.

“All clear out back,” Hulet said, and Eslingen jumped as the two waiters appeared behind him.

“So what happened?” he asked, cautiously.

Devynck disengaged the slow match from the lock, and set the caliver down before answering, holding the still‑lit length of match well clear of her loose nightclothes. “Someone–and I daresay we can all guess who–came down the street and broke in our front windows. Areton’s spear, what do I have to do to make a living in this city? I’ll have the points on them so fast they’ll think lightning fell on them.”

“We can’t prove it was Paas,” Adriana said. “Unless you got a better look at them than I did.”

“Who else could it have been?” Devynck demanded, but she sounded less certain.

“Do you want me to go to the station?” Eslingen asked. “Rathe– and Monteia–said we should tell them if there was trouble.”

Devynck shook her head. “No one of mine is going out on the streets tonight. I doubt we’ll have any more trouble, anyway, they got what they wanted.”

“Whatever that was,” Hulet said, and shook his head. Behind him, Loret nodded, stuffing his shirt into the waistband of his trousers.

“I could go to Point of Hopes,” he offered, and Devynck glared at him.

“I said no one, and I meant it. It’s, what, it lacks an hour to dawn, that’s time enough, once the sun’s up and there are sensible people on the streets, to send to the points.” She fixed her eyes on Eslingen’s waist. “Is that a lock, Philip–and if it is, I trust you’ve got permission to carry it in the city?”