"Look here, Trav. Here's what you're going to do. First, tell no one about this. Second, don't fucking go anywhere near Tal Verrar. Got it?" "Wasn't plannin" to, sir."

"Good. Here." Locke reached down into his left boot and drew out a very slender purse. He tossed it down beside Trav, where it landed with a jingling plop. "Should be ten volani in there. A healthy bit of silver. And you can… wait a minute, are you absolutely sure our driver's still alive?"

"Oh, gods, yes! Honest truth, Master Leocanto, sir, he was breathin" and moanin" after I thumped him, he surely was."

"So much the better for you, then. You can have the silver in that purse. When Jerome and I have left, you can come back and take whatever we leave. My vest and some of this rope, for sure. And listen to me very carefully. I saved your life today when I could have killed you in a heartbeat. Sound about right to you?" "Yes, yes you did, and I'm so very—"

"Yes, shut up. Someday, Trav of Vo Sarmara, I may find myself back in these parts and I may need something. Information. A guide. A bodyguard. Thirteen help me if it's you I have to turn to, but if anyone ever comes to you and whispers the name of Leocanto Kosta, you jump at their word, you hear?" "Yes!" "Your oath before the gods?"

"Upon my lips and upon my heart, before the gods, or strike me dead and find me wantin" on the scales of the Lady of the Long Silence."

"Good enough. Remember. Now fuck off in the direction of your choice, so long as it isn't back toward our carriage."

Jean and Locke watched him scamper away for a minute or two, until his cloaked figure had faded from view behind the shifting grey curtains of the downpour.

"Well," said Jean, "I think that's enough practice for one day, don't you?"

"Absolutely. The actual Sinspire job'll be a bloody ballroom dance compared to this. What say we just grab the two spare coils of rope f and make for the carriage? Let Trav spend the rest of the afternoon out here untying knots."

"A lovely plan." Jean inspected his Wicked Sisters, recovered from the edge of the cliff, and gave them a possessive pat on their blades before slipping them into his coat pocket. "There, darlings. That ass might have dulled you a bit, but I'll soon have you sharpened up again."

"I hardly credit it," said Locke. "Nearly murdered by some halfwit country mudsucker. You know, I do believe that's the first time since Vel Virazzo that anyone's actually tried to kill either of us."

"Sounds about right. Eighteen months?" Jean slipped one wet coil of rope around his shoulder and passed the other to Locke. Together, they turned and began to trudge back through the forest. "Nice to know that some things never really change, isn't it?"

"Whoever put those assassins there obviously knew we used that path to get back to the Savrola," said Locke.

"Which doesn't mean all that much — we've used the docks often. Anyone could have seen us and set them there to wait."Jean sipped his coffee and ran one hand idly over the battered leather cover of the small book he'd brought to breakfast. "Maybe for several nights. It wouldn't require any special knowledge or resources."

The Gilded Cloister was even quieter than usual at the seventh hour of the morning this Throne's Day. Most of the revellers and businessfolk who provided its custom would have been up late on the Golden Steps and would not rise for several hours. By unspoken consent, Locke and Jean's breakfast this morning was designed for nervous nibbling: cold filets of pickled shark meat with lemon, black bread and butter, some sort of brownish fish broiled in orange juice, and coffee — the largest ceramic pot the waitress could find to bring to the table. Both thieves were still having trouble adjusting to the sudden turnaround in their nights and days.

"Unless the Bondsmagi tipped another party off to our presence here in Tal Verrar," said Locke. "They might even be helping them."

"If the Bondsmagi had been helping those two on the docks, do you really think we" d have survived? Come on. Both of us knew they were probably going to come after us for what we did to the Falconer, and if they just wanted us dead, we" d be smoked meat. Stragos is right about one thing — they must mean to toy with us. So I still say it's more likely that some third party took offence at something we've done as Kosta and de Ferra. That makes Durenna, Corvaleur and Lord Landreval the obvious suspects." "Landreval" s been gone for months." "That doesn't rule him out completely. The lovely ladies, then." "I just… I honestly believe thed'r come after us themselves — Durenna has a reputation with a sword, and I hear that Corvaleur's been in a few duels. Maybe thed'r hire some help, but they're hands-on sorts."

"Did we bilk anyone important at Blind Alliances? Or some other game when we were playing our way up through the floors? Step on someone's toe? Fart noisily?"

"I can't imagine that we" d have missed someone disgruntled enough to hire assassins. Nobody likes to lose at cards, to be sure, but do any really sore losers stick out in memory?"

Jean scowled and sipped his coffee. "Until we know more, this speculation is useless. Everyone in the city is a suspect. Hell, everyone in the world."

"So in truth," said.Locke, "all we really know is that whoever it is wanted us dead. Not scared off, not brought in for a little chat. Plain old dead. Maybe if we can ponder that, we might come up with a few—"

Locke stopped speaking the instant he saw their waitress approaching their booth… then looked more closely and saw that it wasn't their waitress at all. The woman wearing the leather apron and red cap was Merrain. "Ah," said Jean. "Time to settle the bill."

Merrain nodded and handed Locke a wooden tablet with two small pieces of paper pinned to it. One was indeed the bill; the other had a single line written on it in flowing script: Remember the first place I took you the night we met? Don't waste time.

"Well," said Locke, passing the note to Jean, "we" d love to stay, but the quality of the service has sharply declined. Don't expect a gratuity." He counted copper coins onto the wooden tablet, then stood up. "Same old place as usual, Jerome."

Merrain collected the wooden tablet and the money, bowed and vanished in the direction of the kitchens.

"I hope she doesn't take offence about the tip," said Jean when they were out on the street. Locke glanced around in every direction and noticed that Jean was doing likewise. Locke's sleeve-stilettos were a comforting weight inside each arm of his coat, and he had no doubt that Jean was ready to produce the Wicked Sisters with a twitch of his wrists.

"Gods," Locke muttered. "We should be back in our beds, sleeping the day away. Have we ever been less in control of our lives than we are at this moment? We can't run away from the Archon and his poison, which means we can't just disengage from the Sinspire game. Gods know we can't even see the Bondsmagi lurking, and we've suddenly got assassins coming out of our arseholes. Know something? I'd lay even odds that between the people following us and the people hunting us, we've become this city's principal means of employment. Tal Verrar's entire economy is now based on fucking with w."

It was a short walk, if a nervous one, to the crossroads just north of the Gilded Cloister. Cargo wagons clattered across the cobbles and tradesfolk walked placidly to their jobs. As far as they knew, Locke thought, the Savrola was the quietest, best-guarded neighbourhood in the city, a place where nothing worse than the occasional drunk foreigner ever disturbed the calm.

Locke and Jean turned left at the intersection, then approached the door of the first disused shop on their right. While Jean kept a watch on the street behind them, Locke stepped up to the door and rapped sharply, three times. It opened immediately and a stout young man in a brown leather coat beckoned them in.