“Param?” asked Umbo.
“My sister,” said Rigg.
“They were doing fine without you,” said Loaf. “What do you owe to them?”
“What do you owe to Leaky?” asked Rigg defiantly.
“We’ve known each other most of our lives,” said Loaf. “You’ve known your sister for, what, twenty minutes?”
“Well if you don’t want to help me do the thing I need to do, then why are you here?”
“Tell us what you need us to do,” said Umbo, trying to defuse the argument.
“Things are coming to a head,” said Rigg. “I don’t know what it means, but they’re spying on us more and more. And there are meetings-the spies are meeting with more people. Different people.”
“Spies?” asked Loaf.
“I don’t know who they are, I only know their paths. They used to meet with members of the Council. Now they’re meeting more often with General Citizen.”
“Who?” asked Umbo.
“The officer who arrested us.”
Loaf came to a complete stop in the middle of the street. People behind him bumped into him, took a glance at his size and strength and angry demeanor, and apologized. “You still haven’t told us what you want us to do!” said Loaf.
“Param is afraid…”
“Still not an answer!” roared Loaf.
“People are looking at us,” said Umbo.
Loaf continued glaring fiercely at Rigg.
“I need to get out of the city and I need to take Param with me and then I’m going to the Wall.”
“I’ve been to the Wall,” said Loaf. “There’s nothing there.”
“I’m going through it,” said Rigg. “And if we can make it work, so are you.”
“No I’m not,” said Loaf.
“Fine,” said Rigg. “But I am. And I’m taking Param with me, because we’re the ones that will be hunted down wherever we might go inside this wallfold. But I can’t do it without Umbo-if he doesn’t go to the Wall with me, I don’t think I can get through.”
Umbo wasn’t sure he was happy about this. “Is it because you want me or because you need my ability to slow you down in time?”
Rigg rolled his eyes. “I’m the guy with the paths, you’re the guy with the ability to slow time for me. But it’s still me, and it’s still you.”
“So even if I can’t do everything you hope I can, you’d still want me with you?” asked Umbo. He hated how pathetic the question made him seem, but he wanted the answer.
“If you have an ability I desperately need, and you refuse to use it, then are you any kind of friend?” asked Rigg.
“I’m not refusing to-”
“Rigg, it’s such a pleasure to see you again,” said Loaf. “You’ve managed to pick quarrels with both of us now.”
“I’m not quarreling with anybody,” said Rigg, visibly calming himself down. “I’ve been trying desperately to survive day to day, and to learn how to survive year to year. I don’t want to align myself with any of the factions in the government. I don’t want to restore the Sessamid Empire, and I certainly don’t want to rule it. I want to get through the Wall so I can stay alive. And I want to bring my sister and mother with me.”
“So it’s all about what you want,” said Umbo.
“You asked me what you could do to help me!” said Rigg. “I’m telling you!”
“Well, to start with,” said Loaf, “you could get out of the middle of the street and stop attracting all this attention.”
“You’re the one who stopped here-” Rigg began, and then realized Loaf was joking. Or at least might be joking.
Rigg turned and walked away from them.
Umbo trotted after him. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting out of the street,” said Rigg fiercely.
“Can I come with you?” asked Umbo.
“I hope you can,” said Rigg. “Because I need to talk to you, and I need your help.”
“Where are we going?” asked Umbo.
“To your lodgings,” said Rigg.
“Are you even going to ask me where we’re staying?” asked Umbo.
Rigg stopped and looked at him as if he were insane. “It’s me. The guy who sees paths. I know where you live.” Then he took off walking again, only this time Umbo realized that he was heading on the shortest route to their lodgings.
“What’s your sister like?” asked Umbo.
“Invisible,” said Rigg.
That was no answer. “Are you still mad?” asked Umbo.
“I’m scared,” said Rigg. “Total strangers want me dead.”
“If it’s any consolation,” said Loaf as he caught up with them, “for a minute there I saw their point.”
When they neared the inn, Loaf stopped them. “The bank has been watching us. They probably know where we live. What if they also know something about our connection with you? We did jump from a boat while in custody.”
“And Rigg is the only living prince of the royal house,” said Umbo.
“Nobody knows my face.”
“I think you told us about spies in the house,” said Loaf. “They know your face. Do you know their faces?”
“I know their paths,” said Rigg, “and they’re nowhere near here.”
“I’d feel safer going somewhere else.”
So they fell in behind Loaf as he made his way to a cheap little noodle bar. “Don’t order anything that claims to be meat,” said Loaf.
“You never warned me about that,” said Umbo.
“I didn’t think I had to, since you had two days of dysentery after ordering the lamb.”
“Are we sure it was the lamb?” asked Umbo.
“Eat it again and see,” said Loaf, with perhaps too much relish in his tone.
They sat at the bar and slurped their way through peppery broth-soaked short-noodles. Umbo didn’t have the lamb; he liked the radish-and-onion chicken broth better anyway.
“I’m not leaving without my sister,” said Rigg quietly, between slurps.
“That’s not our problem,” said Loaf. “We can’t get into your house anyway. We can’t get near your house.”
“I think General C. is getting ready to make a move,” said Rigg. “I only wish I knew whether he was in the group that wants me dead or the group that wants to make me… boss.”
“Does it matter?” asked Umbo. “You want to stay away from him either way.”
“But it’ll help to know whether they’re trying to get to me or my sister.”
“For all you know the whole thing is being orchestrated by your mother,” said Loaf.
“Everybody connects with everybody, eventually,” said Rigg. “So I can’t say it’s impossible. But I don’t think it’s likely. I think she just wants to be left alone.”
“And so she lives in that fancy house and meets with important people?” asked Loaf.
“She doesn’t meet with anybody.”
“They say that everybody who matters has some kind of connection with Flacommo’s house,” said Loaf. “They say that your mother is already boss in everything but name.”
“Trust me,” said Rigg. “From inside the house, it doesn’t look that way. She receives visitors, yes, but she’s never alone with them. She’s never alone with anybody except my sister.”
“So what?” asked Umbo. “I mean, so what either way? I thought you didn’t care about intrigues and plots and
