She moved in worlds far from home these days, always amongst the faces of strangers. It was better that way, for she could not have guaranteed recognizing faces from the Commonweal any more.

‘Why do you want him?’ Fraywell asked her. ‘I’ve got no brief for Wasp-kinden, but this doesn’t ring true.’

‘Why I want him is my own business,’ she replied flatly.

‘Well then maybe where he’s gone is mine.’ Fraywell sat back, looking pleased with himself. He was one of the smaller gangsters in Helleron, and his fief, as they called a criminal’s holdings, was pitiful, but it had been expanding recently. The word was that he had done well out of the recent visit by imperial troops, peddling all kinds of muck to them: drink, drugs, women. Certainly he had the clout to jostle for elbow room now.

‘I must know,’ she said. ‘I will know. I have followed Thalric a long way and I will not give up now.’

‘Well maybe your business can stay your business if only you’ve got the wherewithal,’ said Fraywell, sounding bored all of a sudden. ‘Come on, let’s wrap this up. You’re taking up my valuable time, woman. Show me the stamp of your coin.’

She found that she was smiling, and it was disconcerting Fraywell and his men. ‘I am not here to buy,’ she explained. It was such a simple concept and yet the Beetle had still not grasped it. ‘I am here to make payment.’

Fraywell glanced at his men, baffled, and she now was advancing on his seat smoothly, so smoothly that two of his people barely got in her way in time. Her hands flashed out, the razor edges of her thumb-claws folding forwards, and she cut them down with swift economy.

Fraywell screamed and kicked away from her so hard that he toppled his would-be throne backwards, leaving only his boots showing. She turned, looking over the room of stunned thugs and held a hand high.

The Spider-kinden that she knew stepped back and took her sword from within his cloak, pitching it to her above the heads of his fellows in a smooth arc. She hardly had to move her hand at all to catch it.

With her blade restored to her, she let them all draw their own weapons. That seemed only fair. Ten of them, and they tried to rush her, but she was already leaping forwards from the steps, descending on them with blade first.

They were not skilled but they were many. She made their numbers her ally, as they crashed into one another, fouling each other’s blows. Her blade moved among them like lightning, like sunlight. She sent them reeling back in bloody arcs, and moved – quicksilver past lead – to evade their clumsy thrusts and grasping hands. Behind them the Spider-kinden traitor had a long dagger out and was picking and choosing his targets, putting the point in with the care of a surgeon.

And suddenly there were none left. It was so sudden she could not quite work out where they had gone until she saw the bodies. She was used to that now: the jarring of cause and effect, the sudden returning to herself to discover blood on her blade and the fallen around her. There was some part of her, some innocent part, that had come loose inside her head, leaving only cold skill to hold the reins and whip her on.

She stalked over to the throne where Last-Chance Fray-well was now clambering to his feet, his broad face a-sheen with sweat.

‘Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it,’ he gasped, but they were paying her with the next chapter of Thalric’s story, and how could he double that?

‘I will not take up any more of your valuable time,’ she said, and ran him through. Only afterwards did she notice that he had been holding a sword. It had not done him much good, she supposed.

Then she turned, like a performer to her audience.

The Spider-kinden man clapped politely. ‘So much for the Last-Chancers. My employer will be over the moon. Serves them right for getting above themselves, say I.’ He was a man past middle years, hair long and greying very slightly, wearing clothes whose flamboyance had been cut down, she guessed, to suit his purse. His voice was cultured, though, and she could only wonder where he had fallen on hard times from.

‘Thalric?’ she said questioningly, the sword still very much ready in her hands.

‘Do you want it from my employer’s mouth, or mine?’ The Spider’s name was Destrachis, she recalled, although she could not exactly remember now who his employer was.

‘Tell me,’ she directed.

He nodded, taking a seat on a bench there. ‘Well our man Fraywell was here with a whole load of Wasp-kinden not so long back, and they got involved in something bad. Some people say they destroyed some big Beetle machine called the Pride, although that doesn’t make much sense to me. They were kicked out in a hurry, though, and your man along with them. They went to Asta, which is a Wasp-kinden-’

‘I know Asta,’ she said. ‘So he is there? Or at least that is where I travel next.’

Destrachis raised a hand. ‘We pay in good coin in this fief, lady. He’s not at Asta, we’re sure of that. There’s a fellow known to us, trades secrets all over, and to the Wasps as well. He’s heard of your man. Thalric’s a name that’s being talked about after the wheel he knocked loose here. You’re not the only one who’s keeping him fingered.’

She stared, waiting for more, and he smiled, suddenly.

‘Your man’s been posted way out west of here. Do you know a city called Collegium?’

She shook her head. ‘I shall find it, though.’

‘I don’t doubt it. You’ve got quite the way of asking questions.’

She merely nodded, and cleaned her blade on Fraywell’s tunic before returning it to its scabbard. ‘West. Collegium. Well I must go then,’ she announced, and was at the door of Fraywell’s hideout before his voice called her back.

‘You know… you’re a remarkable person,’ he said. She turned, frowning. One hand was close to her sword. She sensed a trap here. At her expression he put his own hand up to forestall her.

‘I’ve been all over the Lowlands,’ he explained. ‘I can do business in Collegium. If you wanted a guide, I could go with you.’

Her hostile expression remained. ‘Why?’

‘Because when I look at you, I recognize something. I see someone who’s lost everything, and yet lost nothing.’ He was not telling her why, she could see. It was just words.

She found her hand now on her sword’s hilt, her heart speeding all of a sudden, and something clamoured away at the back of her mind.

‘I used to be someone of consequence, down south,’ Destrachis continued, watching her face intently. ‘Not Aristoi, but not far off, but now look at me: some Beetle gangster’s errand boy and quacksalver, betraying one brute for another at the drop of a kerchief. I lost it all, you see. You, at least, have retained a purpose.’

She stared at him. She could not discern his meaning.

‘I can get you to Collegium the fastest way, and that way, you might actually catch this fellow of yours, instead of just walking his trail.’ His eyes flicked over hers, reading her carefully – or at least what was left of her that was legible.

‘What do you want from me?’ she asked him outright.

‘I don’t know,’ he told her, ‘but probably I’ll think of something. Perhaps there’s someone I want dead. Perhaps it’s just money.’

‘I will not give myself to you,’ she told him.

His eyebrows twitched. ‘Never entered my mind.’ He said it so smoothly that she knew it was a lie.

He claimed he could speed her progress, he could take her to Thalric. Then she could finish this hunt. The thought sent a shiver through her, oddly discomfiting, but the offer seemed too good to ignore.

And she could always kill him if she had to.

She nodded curtly, and the deal was done.

Doors had been opening recently to Stenwold that he had not guessed at. In all his years of lecturing at the College, of hand-picking some few students each year who might be able to serve his cause, he had never believed that he was being listened to.