Bitterblue

such people and put them off.'

Until midnight, with Judge Quall and Holt? 'Do you take a guard?'

'Sometimes,' Runnemood said, pushing himself up from his seat in the window and coming to stand before her. His fine, dark eyes flashed with curiosity. 'Lady Queen, why are you asking these questions?'

She was asking because she couldn't ask the questions she wanted to ask. Are you telling me the truth? Why do I feel that you're not? Do you ever go to the east city? Do you ever hear the stories? Can you explain to me all the things I see at night that I don't understand?

'Because I wish you would take a guard,' Bitterblue lied, 'if you must be out so late. I worry for your safety.'

Runnemood's smile flashed, broad and white. 'What a dear, kind queen you are,' he said, in a patronizing manner that made it difficult for her to keep the dear, kind expression on her face. 'I will take a guard if it eases your mind.'

She went out on her own again for a few more nights, unremarked by her own Lienid Door Guard, who barely looked at her, caring only for her ring and her password. And then, on the seventh night since she'd seen them stealing the gargoyle, she crossed paths again with Teddy and his Graceling Lienid friend.

She'd just discovered a third story place, near the silver docks, in the cellar of an old, leaning warehouse. Tucked into a back corner with her drink, she was alarmed to find Saf bearing down upon her. He eyed her blandly, as if he'd never seen her before. Then he stood beside her, turning his attention to the man on the bar.

The man was telling a story that Bitterblue had never heard and was too anxious to attend to now, so distressing was it to have been singled out by Saf. The hero of the story was a sailor from the island kingdom of Lienid. Saf seemed quite riveted. Watching him while trying to appear not to, noticing how his eyes lit up with appreciation, Bitterblue made a connection that had eluded her before. She'd been on an ocean vessel once; she and Katsa had fled to Lienid to escape Leck. And she'd seen Saf climb the east wall; she'd noted his sun-darkened skin and bleached hair. Suddenly now, the way he carried himself became acutely familiar. He had a certain ease of movement and a gleam in his eyes that she'd seen before in men who'd been sailors, but not just sailors. Bitterblue wondered if Saf might be that particular brand of sailor who volunteered to climb to the top of the mast during a gale.

She wondered what he was doing so far north of Monport, and, again, what his Grace was. From the bruising around his eyebrow tonight and the raw skin on one cheekbone, it looked neither to be fighting nor quick mending.

Teddy wove through the tables bearing a mug in each fist, one of which he handed to Saf. He set himself up at Bitterblue's other side, which, as her stool was in the corner, meant that they had trapped her.

'The polite thing,' Teddy murmured to her sidelong, 'would be for you to tell us your name, as I've given ours.'

Bitterblue did not mind Saf's proximity so much when Teddy was near, near enough that she could see the smudged ink on his fingers. Teddy had the feeling of a bookkeeper, or a clerk, or at any rate, a person who would not transform suddenly into a renegade. She said quietly, 'Is it polite for two men to trap a woman in a corner?'

'Teddy would have you believe we're doing it for your own safety,' Saf said, his accent plainly Lienid. 'He'd be lying. It's pure suspicion. We don't trust people who come to the story rooms in disguise.'

'Oh, come now!' Teddy said, loudly enough that a man or two nearby grunted at him to shush. 'Speak for yourself,' he whispered. 'I, for one, am concerned. Fights break out. There are lunatics in the streets, and thieves.'

Saf snorted. 'Thieves, eh? If you'd stop prattling, we could hear the tale of this fabler. Rather close to my heart, this one.'

'Prattle,' Teddy repeated, his eyes lit up like stars. 'Prattle. I must add it to my list. I believe I've overlooked it.'

'Ironic,' Saf said.

'Oh, I haven't overlooked ironic.'

'I meant it's ironic that you should've overlooked prattle.'

'Yes,' Teddy said huffily, 'I suppose it would be something like you overlooking an opportunity to break your head pretending you're Prince Po reborn. I'm a writer,' he added, turning back to Bitterblue.

'Shut your mouth, Teddy,' said Saf.

'And printer,' Teddy continued, 'reader, speller. Whatever folks need, as long as it has to do with words.'

'Speller?' said Bitterblue. 'Do people really pay you to spell things?'

'They bring letters they've written and ask me to turn them into something legible,' Teddy said. 'The illiterate ask me to teach them how to sign their names to documents.'

'Should they be signing their names to documents if they're illiterate?'

'No,' Teddy said, 'probably not, but they do, because they're required to, by landlords or employers, or lien holders they trust because they can't read well enough to know not to. That's why I serve as reader too.'

'Are there so many illiterate people in the city?'

Teddy shrugged. 'What would you say, Saf?'

'I'd guess thirty people in a hundred can read,' Saf said, his eyes glued to the fabler, 'and you talk too much.'

'Thirty percent!' Bitterblue exclaimed, for these were not the statistics she'd seen. 'Surely it's more than that!'

'Either you're new to Monsea,' Teddy said, 'or you're still stuck in King Leck's spell. Or you live in a hole in the ground and only come out at nights.'

'I work in the queen's castle,' Bitterblue said, improvising smoothly, 'and I suppose I'm used to the castle ways. Everyone who lives under her roof reads and writes.'

'Hm,' Teddy said, squinting doubtfully at this. 'Well, most people in the city read and write well enough to function in their own trades. A metalsmith can read an order for knives and a farmer knows how to label his crates beans or corn. But the percentage who could understand this story if it were handed to them on paper,' Teddy said, tilting his floppy hair at the storyteller—fabler, Saf had called him—'is probably close enough to what Saf said. One of Leck's legacies. And one of the driving forces behind my book of words.'

'Book of words?'

'Oh, yes. I'm writing a book of words.'

Saf touched Teddy's arm. Instantly, almost before Teddy had finished his sentence, they left her, too quickly for Bitterblue to ask whether any book had ever been written that was not a book of words.

Near the door, Teddy looked an invitation back at her. She declined with a shake of her head, trying not to reveal her exasperation, for she was certain she'd just seen Saf slip something out from under a random man's arm and slide it up his own sleeve. What was it this time? It had looked like a roll of papers.

It didn't matter. Whatever those two were up to, they were up to no good, and she was going to have to decide what to do about them.

The fabler began a new story. Bitterblue was startled to find that it was, again, the story of Leck's origins and rise to power. Tonight's fabler told it just a bit differently than the last had. She listened hard, hoping that this man would say something new, a missing image or word, a key that would turn in a lock and open a door behind which all her memories and all she'd been told would make sense.

THEIR SOCIABILITY—OR, Teddy's—bolstered her courage. This, in turn, terrified her, though not enough to stop her seeking them out over the next few nights. Thieves, she reminded herself whenever she crossed paths with them in the story rooms, exchanged greetings, said a few words. Wretched, ingrate thieves, and what I'm doing, trying to put myself in their way, is dangerous.

August was coming to an end. 'Teddy,' she said one night as the two of them wandered toward her, then huddled with her at the back of the dark, crowded, cellar story room near the silver docks, 'I don't understand your book. Isn't every book a book of words?'

'I must say,' Teddy responded, 'that if we're to run into each other so often, and if you're to call us by