beard were neatly braided, and his doublet and richly embroidered sleeves were spotless. Even his hands-with a gold ring on every finger and a locket ring on one thumb-were clean and pink, without a grain of powder or smudge of sap anywhere on them.
'How do you do it?' Larajin asked as she unfastened the lacings on the front of her tight gold vest.
'Eh?' Kremlar looked up again. 'Do what?'
'Stay so clean,' Larajin answered. 'Mister Cale is always lecturing me about my uniform and not keeping up the standards of the Uskevren household. He expects me to carry coal without getting dusty, and to scrub pots without wetting my sleeves. He's always whispering to Mistress Shamur, and I'm sure it's about me. The mistress gave me a look colder than winter when I stoked the fire in her room this morning, and she's always watching me. I'm sure Mister Cale told her that I was the one who left the dust mop out in the hall that her guest tripped over, and that I scorched Tazi's masquerade dress with the pressing iron. If it weren't for my parents, she'd have turned me out by now-which just isn't fair, because I do try. It's just that-'
Kremlar finished her thought for her. 'You're a square peg in a round hole,' he said. 'Try as you may, you're unable to smooth off your corners.'
Larajin frowned. 'Are you saying I'm not trying hard enough?'
Kremlar shook his head. 'No. Someday, you'll find a square hole, just as I did.' He held up blunt but neatly manicured fingers. 'Could you imagine these hands working a pick or shovel? I felt the same way when my father tried to make a miner of me. I loved the sparkling gemstones, but the dust and sweat-ugh!'
'At least they let me out to do the shopping,' Larajin said. 'Mister Cale never complains about how long I take. I think he's glad to be rid of me.'
Larajin began to tug her dress up over her head. Kremlar politely declined to look up again until she'd changed into the more serviceable clothes that she kept hidden in the back of his store: a brown trouser-skirt and a gray shirt with sleeves that buttoned tight from wrist to elbow. Kicking off her black velvet slippers, Larajin pulled on fur-lined, oiled leather boots. Like the rest of her outfit, they were serviceable: they kept her feet dry, even when she was standing in a foot of sewer water.
It felt good to be out of the foolishly fancy maid's uniform. Larajin stood and ran fingers through her hair, raking it back out of her eyes. She reached for her cloak.
'You're going to the garden?' Kremlar asked. It was more of a statement than a question; Larajin always snuck into the Hunting Garden when she needed to clear her head.
Larajin nodded.
'Will you fetch me something?' Kremlar asked. 'I'll make it worth your while: thirty ravens if you can find it.'
'Find what?' Larajin asked. She could guess. This wasn't the first time she'd turned an illicit venture into the Hulorn's private estate to her profit.
The dwarf rose from his worktable. He stood only as tall as Larajin's waist, and so he had to balance on tiptoe to lift a thick book from its place on the shelf. He flipped through pages, then tapped a finger against the hand-tinted illustration of a brilliant red flower whose twin petals resembled a woman's lips.
'It's called Sune's Kisses,' he said. 'There's also an elvish name for it, which I won't even try to pronounce. The flowers bloom only in the depths of winter, and the leaves are flecked with gold. The name's poetic: the plant is said to have sprouted after the goddess kissed the barren ground in the depths of an especially cold winter. The flowers have an exquisite fragrance. The plant is extremely rare, but the Hulorn is said to have a specimen or two in his garden. That is, if he hasn't trampled them under his horse's hooves while out hunting or let weeds strangle them.'
'Better that someone who appreciates the plant should have it,' Larajin agreed, 'and that they should turn it into a beautiful perfume, worthy of Sune herself.'
'Indeed,' Kremlar said reverently. He looked up at her. 'Our usual arrangement, then?'
Larajin handed the dwarf her shopping list and the knotted kerchief of silver ravens that Mister Cale had given her. 'Done,' she said. 'If Sune's Kisses are in the Hunting Garden, you'll have them by eventime.'
Larajin rubbed grease into the hinges of the grate, waited a moment, then carefully pushed it up. The metal was cold enough to stick to her bare fingers, and a light snow had started to fall. Snow meant footprints: she'd have to stay in the deepest parts of the garden, lest someone see her tracks.
She climbed out of the sewer grate into the fountain that was the garden's centerpiece. It had been drained for the winter. The hideous collection of leering sirens at its center, carved from pink marble, were no longer squirting water from their breasts.
Larajin stepped out of the fountain and made her way into the Hunting Garden. When it had first been laid out, more than a century ago, the garden had contained beds of flowers and only a scattering of trees, but now it had a more natural, forested appearance. Trees arched overhead, and the ground was covered with soft, springy moss. Not so long ago, when the Hulorn's father ruled Selgaunt, the garden had been carefully tended. But Andeth Ilchammar had neglected it for more than a decade, preferring to spend his fivestars on lavish clothes and parties. Meanwhile the gravel paths sprouted grass, and the flowers and shrubs outgrew their weed-choked beds.
Larajin found the Hunting Garden beautiful even in winter, with the flowers gone to seed and the leaves blown away. Frost sparkled on bare tree branches, and winter berries added spots of ice-bright blue to the underbrush. The garden called to her as no other place in the city did-not even the temple of Sune. Its silences and dappled shadows spoke to a part of her that yearned for the beauty of the wilderness. Already she could feel the knot of tension between her shoulders beginning to unravel.
Larajin kept her eye on the ground as she walked, diligently searching for specks of red. The dusting of snow would make Sune's Kisses easier to spot. She stopped to straighten a shrub whose branch had been broken by someone's careless footstep and heard a small animal rustling through the bushes. A squirrel? She clucked her tongue, but there was no response.
Her eye fell on a neat line of footprints in the snow. She recognized them by the size of the oval pads and the lack of claw scuffs as having been made by a house cat, probably one of the Hulorn's many pets.
The tracks were as fresh as her own. They had a curious drag mark beside them. Had the cat become tangled in something?
Larajin rubbed her fingers together. 'Here, kitt-cat,' she said. 'Come, kitt.'
The bushes to her left rustled, and Larajin saw a flash of color. Her breath caught in her throat.
It was no ordinary cat that slunk cautiously out of the undergrowth, but a tressym: a cat with large, feathery wings. The creature had sleek blue-gray fur and wing feathers as colorful as a peacock's, with spots of brilliant turquoise, rich red, and vibrant yellow, all edged in tabby-stripe black.
One of the wings was folded neatly against the creature's back. The other dragged in the snow, its feathers wet and bedraggled. Larajin could not only see that the wing was broken, but she could also see the cause. Someone- probably the Hulorn's spoiled children-had tried to force an infant-sized shirt over it. The shirt hung in tatters from the broken wing, and the cat mewled in pain and stopped abruptly as it snagged against a branch.
Larajin clenched her fists in anger. Tressym were magical creatures, sacred to Sune. How dare the Hulorn give one to his children as a plaything!
Slowly, murmuring her reassurance, she let the winged cat sniff her fingers. 'There, little blessed one,' she said. 'Let me help you.'
The tressym growled softly and lashed its tail as Larajin's fingertips touched its wing. It tried to move away, but the shirt was caught fast on the branch. Hissing, the cat swiped at it with its claws. Larajin heard a soft crack, as something inside the wing splintered further. The tressym's hiss rose to a howl.
Worse yet, Larajin could hear someone approaching through the woods. It wouldn't be one of the few remaining groundskeepers. They did little enough in summer and ignored the garden completely in winter. It had to be a member of the Hulorn's family, or one of his invited guests. Whoever it was, if Larajin were discovered in the garden, she'd be in big trouble. However, she couldn't leave the tressym to suffer.
As the footsteps approached through the wood, Larajin prayed to Sune. As she whispered, the cat fell silent. It looked up at Larajin with luminous yellow eyes, as if suddenly understanding what she meant to do. This time, when she reached down to gently tug the shirt away from its wing, its only protest was a soft growl. It remained
