Fayne shivered. She fixed her patron with a cold glare. 'You must really hate her.'
'Who?' he asked, tucking his kerchief into his colorful doublet.
'Her.' Fayne ground her teeth. Who else could she mean? The yellow-eyed whore-the woman who had destroyed her life-she who had taken the only thing she held dear in the world.
He was going to make her say it, she realized. Might as well accept it.
'Ilira,' Fayne said, the name like bile in her mouth. 'You must hate her as much as I do.'
'Ah.'
Fayne swore under her breath, remembering. She'd seen such pain on that damned face-and yet, it hadn't soothed her. Now she was not sure what to feel.
Her patron reached across the distance between them and laid a lithe hand against her cheek. She felt his awful heat over her scar-felt again the cutting bolt across her face.
'Do I hate her? No.' His eyes were burning pits of molten gold. 'Quite the opposite.'
Fayne opened and closed her mouth several times. 'I don't understand,' she said.
'No.' His eyes seemed very sad for a moment. 'No, I don't expect that you do.'
He drew away. She felt as if something had been cut from her-as though an axe had taken her arm, leaving a stump that tingled impotently.
'You wouldn't,' he said. 'Not yet. Not for several centuries, I don't think.'
Anger rose from where it guttered in her belly-the rage let her ignore her doubts. She had always used it to protect herself from herself-that and guile.
Her words were cool and sharp as steel. 'Treating me like a youngling?'
'No,' he said. 'Just someone who is missing the relevant experience.'
'That being?' Fayne stretched sinuously. 'You'd be hard pressed to find something I haven't… experienced.' She wet her lips in one long stroke.
The casual flirtation made her feel better. She was no child to be dealt a chiding.
He smiled. 'Where were we?'
'The next mark.' Fayne leaned across the table, putting her nose alongside his.
'No holiday?' her patron asked. 'No rest for the misery-makers' 'Never.' Fayne shook her head and kissed him on the tip of his nose.
'Careful,' he said. 'You've a place, young one. Remember it.' Wirh a sigh, she leaned back and crossed her arms, pouring. 'Tell me* one thing.'
'Yes, dear one?' he asked.
'Who hired the dwarf to kill Lorien?' she asked. 'It wasn't me-so who was it?'
He grinned and did not answer.
Fayne scowled. 'Well-who sent Avaereene and the Sightless? You must know that?
'Ah yes, lovely Avaereene. Heavens save us from spoiled, sharp-tongued girls!' He winked ar her. 'Present company excluded.'
Fayne smirked. Present company excluded, her curvy backside.
'It seems an old friend of mine,' her patron said, 'one with whom I used to play a game oP-he waved as though thinking of the proper word-'wit, say, has decided this city holds an interest for him. Something suitably intriguing-and dangerous, for what it can do.'
He yawned and waved. The serving lass brought two more bowls of wine. Her patron winked in thanks, and Fayne saw a shiver pass through the poor girl.
'You were saying, old one?' she teased.
He rolled his eyes. 'Naturally, I determined what it was-this plaything my friend has discovered.'
'And I'm to obtain it first,' she guessed.
'Indeed-tonight, if possible.' He raised his hand. 'You'll need this.'
Seemingly out of the air, he conjured a small pale gray stick, about the length of his smallest finger. He squeezed it once and it lengthened to about twice the length of his hand.
It was a wand, Fayne realized. It didn't feel any more powerful than her mother's wand-the one she carried now-and she had no idea what it was for.
'It isn't my fashion,' she said. 'So this must belong to someone else.'
Her patron smiled. He pulled a pink quill and ink bottle from somewhere and was wrote a single word on a scrap of parchmenr. He contemplated his writing plume for a moment, then released it into the air, where it vanished. 'Though I must tell you the sum total of this one's powers.'
'Yes, yes, give it here,' Fayne said. When her patron frowned, Fayne batted her lashes. 'Please?'
He slid the parchment over and took up his wine as Fayne read the name. She stared.
'You-you must be hrastingjtsting me.' Fayne read it again and blinked at her patron.
He chuckled. 'I see the irony is not lost upon that clever mind of yours.'
'Oh.' A sharp-toothed grin spread across Fayne's face. 'Oh, no. Not… not at all.' She peered at him, eyes glittering. 'Why the interest-I mean, for your friend?'
'For that, I must tell you a story, dear child, of long ago-of this very city.'
Fayne leaned forward, chin on her hands. Her whole body was tingling, her mind racing. This would be fun.
'The story of a great mage who wanted to stop the spellplague driving the world mad-only he had one impossible barrier.' Her patron took up his wine.
'He was already mad.'
TWENTY-EIGHT
'Unexplained magical disaster strikes Sea Ward!' called a broadcrier for the Vigilant Citizen. He was the loudest in the main streets. 'Dozens wounded, priests at work.'
'Watchful Order baffled as to cause!' shouted another. 'Quoth the Blackstaff, 'It could have been worse-much worse.' '
'Watch seeks rogue spellcaster! For his protection, and for ours!' Kalen and Myrin walked south past the criers on Snail Street. She clutched him tighter as they passed the ones who spoke of the spell chaos in Sea Ward yestereve, which seemed to be most of them. Kalen could feel her fingernails even through his glove, which spoke to what a ruin the previous night had left him. He would never tell Myrin that, though-she carried enough guilr already. 'You didn't mean it,' Kalen murmured. Myrin kept her silence, but Kalen saw tears in her eyes. 'Noble daughters kidnapped, ransom demanded!' shouted the broadcrier for the Daily Luck. 'Watch following all leads-a dozen knaves in custody.' Then, because it was a gambling sheet, the crier added: 'Place your bets on the search, win fifty dragons!'
'Roaringhorn heir seeks mystery knight,' called the crier for the North Wind. 'Avows true love-offers hand in marriage! Lordlings line the streets.'
Horns sounded in the dawn, bidding the gates to open and the day's business to begin. Kalen had come to Dock Ward ro search for Fayne. He had treated her unfairly, he knew, and wanted to make amends.
He told himself it was only that-only a matter of honor.
Despite protests for her safery, Myrin had insisted on aiding. Privately, Kalen suspected the girl worried Fayne had been a casualty of yestereve.
'Imposter noble murders Sune priestess!' the broadcrier for the Mocking Minstrel called, startling Kalen. The voice was strangled. 'Menagerie Salon ruined! Watch declines comment.'
'Boy,' Kalen beckoned him over. 'Speak.'
Tears filled the boy's eyes. 'Oh, goodsir and lady,' he said, pulling off his hat. 'No one was a finer friend of us common-born than the poor lady.'
'Lady Lorien, you mean?' Myrin asked.
The boy shook his head. 'Lady Ilira,' he corrected. 'She gave coin to folks like me pa, who's hurt by magic and can't work. It's come out'-he pointed to his wares, to a tale halfway down the page-r 'come out that Lady Ilira was the one founded the Scarred Haven, a body of kindly ones who…' He shook his head and pointed to the lead article
