done when Brader stepped inside and pulled the mask from the lower portion of his face.
“What was that all about?” Atre whispered.
“You had an admirer,” Brader replied, looking more dour than usual.
“That old beggar woman?”
“Not so old, and no beggar. I saw her take down a man twice her size in the blink of an eye and nearly cut his throat. I’m not completely certain it was even a woman.” He sat down on a box and kept watch while Atre stripped off his beggar’s clothing to the plain garb underneath and wadded the whole disguise into a sack.
“Oh, don’t glower so. You’ve always liked this part of our arrangement,” Atre wheedled.
After a moment Brader said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s happening again. You’re taking too many risks and someone is taking notice.”
“Your raggedy lady friend?”
“Listen to me for once, cousin!” Brader growled. “That was no beggar woman.”
“Well, that’s why I have you, isn’t it?” Atre said with a
grin. “The next time you catch someone suspicious, just kill them like you usually do. You haven’t bloodied your blade more than once or twice since we’ve been here.”
Brader let out an exasperated snort. “Because you were being careful, until that night you got yourself stabbed in that rat-hole tavern. It’s going to be just like before-”
“No, it isn’t,” Atre assured him with that dark, hungry smile. “It’s going to be much, much better.”
Back at the Stag and Otter, Seregil sent word to Valerius to meet them at Thero’s tower. Washed and changed into dry, nondescript clothing, they set off for the Oreska House through the relentless downpour.
Their cloaks were soaked through by the time they reached it. The night torches cast wavering lines of ruddy light across the huge puddles that had gathered all over the garden and in the carriage path.
Servants took their horses and cloaks, and they hurried upstairs to Thero’s rooms.
“We have something to show you!” Alec exclaimed as soon as the wizard let them in.
“Something more from Reltheus, I hope?” Thero asked, wiping his hands on his work apron. The room smelled like burnt roots and wine and there was something black and acrid bubbling in a flask on one of the long tables.
“Uh, no. We found something in the Ring that will help Myrhichia.”
Thero raised a questioning eyebrow as he took the stone from Alec.
Alec waited expectantly, hoping the wizard would divine something from it instantly. “A boy got this stone for a hog’s tooth. A little girl currently dying in the Sea Market temple got a sweet for a clay doll.”
“Interesting,” Thero muttered, tilting the stone this way and that to catch the light.
Rain lashed against the glass-paned dome overhead and lightning vied with the lamplight as he tried a few spells, then clutched it in his hand, muttering another under his
breath. After a moment, however, he shook his head. “Ordinary quartz, imbued with nothing. It’s useful in a few spells, but it has no killing power.”
A wave of disappointment rolled over Alec. He’d been certain this would be the key. “But there has to be something!”
“I’ve never seen quartz that color,” Seregil noted.
Thero shrugged. “It’s common in Skala’s northeast territory, near Isil.”
“But not found down here on the peninsula?”
“No, but you can get it easily enough. I’ve bought some from a stone dealer in Farrow Street.”
“And you can’t read
“No, that’s one of the properties of the stone; it doesn’t take on the essence of those who handle it. That’s about all that makes it valuable, actually.” He held the crystal so it caught the light again. “It’s just the sort of thing a child would like, isn’t it? And sweetmeats.”
“I’d like to know where our strange friends got it from,” Seregil mused. “If they bought it here, then the dealer might be able to tell us something. But if they brought them here themselves, then they may not be from the city after all. Is your man in Farrow Street the only one who sells these?”
“I doubt it,” replied Thero. “I’ll make inquiries around the House to see if anyone gets their stones from somewhere else. As far as you know, is it always a trade?”
“We only know of a few cases for certain, but it was a trade those times,” Alec told him. “I think that must be significant. Otherwise the ravens could just as easily buy or steal what they want, right?”
Thero pondered that for a moment, clearly intrigued in spite of himself. The wizard loved a riddle as much as Seregil did. “Given the nature of the trades, it isn’t like for like,” he mused. “And apart from the quartz, none of the objects had any real value?”
“Is a hog’s tooth used for any magic?” asked Alec.
“None that I know of. And even if it were, you wouldn’t need to trade with a child to get what you could have for free from any butcher’s offal pile.”
“So?” asked Seregil.
“I’m not certain yet. If I had some other type of traded item, one that would hold an impression, I might be able to tell you more.”
A heavy knock sounded at the door and Thero went to let Valerius in.
“You’ve found something?” the drysian asked, tossing his wet cloak over a bench.
“Alec got this from a boy who traded for it with some beggars called the raven folk.” Thero handed him the yellow stone.
Valerius held it up to the light, sniffed it, then licked it. Shaking his head, he handed it back. “What am I supposed to make of this?”
“You don’t sense anything from it?”
“Nothing. It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you were thinking. And I suppose if it were cursed or bespelled, I’d be hearing about it from you, Thero.”
“I sense nothing on it, but this kind of stone doesn’t retain impressions.”
“You mean we went through all that for nothing?” Alec exclaimed in dismay.
“No, Alec,” said Seregil. “We just need to get something else, and now we know how.”
Thero rested a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “This is getting desperate. I know what this means to you, but the two of you have made inroads in both cabals that can’t be taken over by anyone else.”
“What about Micum Cavish?” asked Valerius. “Maybe he could look into this raven business for you. He’s very good with the lower classes.”
Seregil arched a wry eyebrow. “Do
“You don’t think he can handle himself there?”
“Of course he can. But not alone. Bilairy’s Balls, Valerius,
“Micum wouldn’t have to,” said Alec. “We could take turns during the day, helping Micum.”
“What about Malthus and his friends?” asked Thero. “And the reprisals?”
Seregil sighed. “The two sides may do the job for us.”
“Have they tried assassinating you lately?”
“Nothing so far. Perhaps word got back to them somehow that we aren’t so easy to kill. Or it was only Laneus sending them. With two failed attempts, I suspect that if the others come after us again, it won’t be by way of an assassin. Given what we’ve seen of the methods on both sides, it’s more likely to be some form of blackmail.”
Valerius snorted at that. “What could they do to you that way? It’s not like either of you has a pristine character.”
“I expect it would be something along the lines of another incriminating letter, like the one found with Laneus’s body.”
“At least Korathan knows the circumstances of that one,” said Thero.
Seregil frowned. “If too many more of those sorts of things come to light, he might just start to doubt all of us. Now, as for Micum, will you send one of your little messengers out to Watermead? Just tell him we have a job we need help with.”
Thero summoned a tiny spark of blue light into being and said softly, “Micum, we need you in Rhiminee.
