young. He might be new to the game. He might be a reckless player.'
'Tennora,' Cassian said, taking her by the shoulders. 'The great game is a legend made up by adventurers who've seen one too many smart beasts.'
'Cassian, if you don't stop touching me right now-'
'Enough,' Mardin said. 'Neither of you are helping.'
Tennora buried her face in her hands, if just to grant herself a moment to think. She had to do something, and quickly.
But she was alone. Aundra wasn't going to help her. Veron might, but he'd turn around and take Nestrix back to Cormyr to stand trial-and he'd tell her so as soon as they found her. Dareun could only appreciate them announcing their arrival with the fight that would inevitably result. Mardin was afraid she might skin her knees or give herself nightmares. Worse, if he tried to come along, he was likely to do something rash in order to protect her, and give himself a fit and collapse. She couldn't lose him too.
And Cassian…
Cassian wasn't listening to a word she said. He was patting her shoulder again and suggesting she drink her tea and be thankful the problem took care of itself. Two days ago she would have been thrilled he was there, trying to soothe her. Now she wanted him out of her home. She couldn't rely on Cassian. She couldn't rely on any of them to trust her.
In fact, the only person she could rely on was the person she needed to save.
She looked up.
It wasn't a thought she'd expected to have, but there it was. She could count on Nestrix, who screamed in the rain, who boiled with dragonfear, who'd threatened Tennora's life.
Who gave me her eggshell, she thought. Who said I could do better than Cassian. Who saved my life.
The absence of the eggshell was a palpable thing. She pressed a fist to her chest where it had hung for two days.
She had to save Nestrix.
'You two shoo,' Mardin said, stirring up the fire. 'Give her some space.'
Veron frowned at her. 'I'll stay by the door,' he said. 'Outside. They might come back.'
Tennora gave him a pleasant, false smile. 'That would be very kind of you.'
He held her gaze a moment longer, as if trying to tease her true thoughts out of the placid facade. She held the expression with a vengeance, her thoughts secret and racing.
After both had left, Tennora crossed over to the window and leaned against the sill, looking down at the face of the God Catcher and willing it to come to life once more. To tell her what she could do, how she could fix things. It merely stared back with its one stone eye.
She was on her own.
Mardin came over with a cup of tea and pulled the chair closer. The steam from the mug was fragrant with rose petals and bitter Chessenta black. Tennora sipped it, still quiet.
'So,' Mardin said. 'Your first adventure didn't quite turn out.'
'No.'
'Doesn't usually. My first try I ended up walking in on some old lord, his wife, and their page.' He shook his head. 'Losing a few trinkets is one thing. Losing your privacy like that, well, I had to get out of there fast and lie low. Not much compared to upsetting a dragon, but there you are.'
Tennora knew she was supposed to laugh, but she couldn't. 'It's not all gnolls and saving fair maidens, then?'
'Never was,' Mardin said. 'Shouldn't have let you think it was. I'm sorry she never told you the truth, petal. And I'm sorry I didn't either. But you're not her, you know. You're your own person, and you don't have to follow your mother to know that. Go back to your books. That's your place.'
'No,' she said. 'Master Halnian's let me go.'
A moment of silence. 'Ah,' Mardin said.
Tennora set her mug on the floorboards beside her. 'I don't feel like talking just now,' she said. 'What I'd really like…' She paused, very deliberately, feeling guilty at playing Mardin like her aunt and uncle. 'I just want to wash all of this away. I'd really like to visit the baths for an hour or so-do you think you could see if Veron would follow me, in case they do come back? I'd ask, but… I don't want to give the wrong idea.' 'Of course, petal,' Mardin said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. 'Nothing simpler.'
'I'll just get my things together.'
Once Mardin had gone, Tennora quickly stood and opened her mother's trunk.
The smell of beeswax and tallow rose up in a cloud as she removed the tray and one by one withdrew the leathers and laid them in an open apron. She tied the apron into a bundle and tucked it under her arm. She picked up her carvestars and tucked them into her pouch, then slipped the dagger into its sheath and took up her staff.
Outside the storm clouds grew darker and heavier with the rain. Despite being hardly past tharsun, it looked as if the sun had retreated for the evening.
It would be dangerous-but that thought rose up and fell away, leaving no mark on her decision. She left the God Catcher.
Veron seemed to sense she was in no mood for conversation and walked silently several paces behind her. It gave her a chance to think.
There was no chance she could find Nestrix and rescue her alone without a little leverage. The only connection she knew of was the antiquary's shop, and the woman had said flat out they wouldn't be there.
'A greedy, sloppy dragon,' Nestrix had said. Tennora thought of the treasures, so many amazing things stacked up in that antechamber. Perhaps she could offer a trade? Her mother's keepsakes for Nestrix's life.
No-he was too angry. A few trinkets wouldn't do it.
The key is the singer's collar, the statue had said. The lodestone is the first lord's gift.
'The singer's collar,' Tennora said aloud. The back of her neck prickled. The Songdragon's gorget. Invaluable, beautiful-and he would take it because of its powers and never ask questions. She felt dizzy with success. She could save Nestrix.
But first she needed to get away. First she needed to look like someone who could make such a bold offer.
At the Queen of Hearts bathhouse, Tennora turned to face Veron. 'Will you wait here?' she asked.
He looked along the street and pointed with his chin at a nearby tavern. 'I'll draw less notice there. How long will you be?'
Tennora shrugged. 'An hour.' Let him wait, she thought.
He started to say something, then seemed to take stock of her expression. He nodded and headed for the tavern. Tennora entered the marble building, paid her donation to the heartwarder at the door, and found herself a dressing alcove. She unwrapped the pieces of armor.
Black, soft, and tooled with graceful curls and whorls-time had hardly touched them. Tennora unwrapped the bracers and the greaves, flexing the material in her hands. Still pliable.
She stripped down to her smallclothes and pulled on the pieces one by one.
The boots were loose and the vambraces snug. The high-collared cuirass fit smoothly over her torso, laced tight around her neck, and buckled with only a little trouble to the harness and the leggings. Each piece, each step, she felt as if she were donning another person's skin, another person's self. She wasn't a thief. She wasn't the Shadow Wind. But in her mother's leather armor, she might be something close. She bound her hair back in a tight braid.
She took the belt she had worn over her skirts-a dusty brown, heavily stitched piece of fabric that dripped with loops and pouches for components-and found places for her picks and carvestars and her mother's dagger, before tying it around her waist. She slid the staff through the back harness meant for a short sword and adjusted it so she could move easily.
Wrapping herself in her stormcloak and pulling up the hood, she slipped back out the door. She didn't dare look up to see if Veron had spotted her, but when his voice didn't call down the street, her shoulders relaxed a little and she pushed back the hood.
As she passed the window of a shop, she caught a glimpse of herself. The stormy sky beyond made her
