Chapter 42

She could not tell the difference between it and a dream before she woke.

/The lock popped open with a soft sound, Yaretzi brushing past a kneeling form and creeping in with a rag in hand to cover Angharad’s mouth with it./

Angharad woke up looking at the ceiling, asleep and then not. It had been a glimpse, the Fisher pulling at their contract once again. The spirit had only ever done this to prevent her death, yet the noblewoman stayed lying down and looking at the ceiling as she heard the lock pop open. She should move, she thought, but could not quite bring herself to. Angharad’s mind was clear, awake, but her limbs were still dozing. It would have been easier to move the entire world than to move them.

A flicker of movement, then she found Yaretzi’s dark eyes above and a ragged cloth was being pressed against her face. There was a scent to it, sickly sweet, and Angharad dimly realized she was being drugged. Finally that tore through the veil of somnolence and panic rose sharply in her breast – Angharad tried to rise, to fight off Yaretzi, who pushed her down and cursed.

“-eight, nine,” the Izcalli was counting through gritted teeth.

Ten, Yaretzi reached, and Angharad felt a different numbness in her limbs. She tried to shout, but the sound came out slurred as if she were deep in her drinks. The Izcalli holding her down eyed her warily.

“Another five seconds just in case, I think,” Yaretzi said. “It is only Spinster’s Milk, dear, it won’t kill you.”

Angharad kept struggling, but it was as if her limbs had turned to lead. She could no longer feel her own jaw. Yaretzi glanced back at the door the noblewoman hadn’t heard closing and Angharad’s heart clenched at what she saw found there. Calm-eyed, holding a mostly shuttered lantern, Brun leaned back against the wood. She tried to say something, but between the poison and the cloth she got out only a formless moan.

“You told me your contract almost never breaks when used on a sleeper,” the Izcalli challenged.

“Almost,” Brun indifferently replied. “It could be because she has a contract herself.”

His hand was on his hatchet, fingering the haft in an unknowing tic. Yaretzi sighed.

“That’s what I get for working with amateurs,” she said. “I need to make a sweep to see if anyone noticed us, keep an eye on her meanwhile.”

The fair-haired Sacromontan shrugged. His accomplice narrowed her eyes.

“I need to ask her questions,” Yaretzi said. “So no accidents, Brun, or we have a problem.”

“Understood,” Brun simply said.

Even as the Izcalli rose and left, Angharad realized that what she had thought indifference in Brun’s voice was no such thing. His tone had not once changed since he came into the room, always in the same flat near monotone. The blonde traitor came to stand by her bed, idly pushing her back down when she tried to force herself up. She was so weak, her limbs like a child’s. The pair meant to kill her – they must, for they must know that otherwise she would slay them for this – but fear was slow in in coming.

Anger burned in its stead, like embers in the belly. Why, she tried to ask, a scream of outrage and confusion. What came out was a muted, slurred whergh but Brun understood her regardless. Emotion touched his face, but she thought it looked shallow. Regret only a fingernail deep.

“I am sorry it must be you,” Brun said. “You have treated me kindly and do not deserve it. But there is no one else I would get away with, and I am… too close.”

Another flicker of emotion at the last two words, this one deeper than the last. Fear, Angharad saw. That was as afraid as she had ever seen the man.

“If I take Yong or Sarai, Tristan will knife me in the night,” Brun explained. “Shalini is now being watched like a hawk and Lan, well, she knows of me. She will have taken precautions. Already she has tried to kill me once.”

Angharad let out a noise a denial at the false accusation, just another traitor reaching for absolution. Brun shook his head at her.

“She bought Spinster’s Milk from Yaretzi,” he said. “I expect she put it in my waterskin, a small dose that would slowly add up, as I did not notice until that test on the Toll Bridge.”

That was… she had thought Brun seemed clumsy, when she watched him chasing the invisible spirit. But why would Lan – it took a second for her mind to catch up to the truth he had good as admitted. You killed Jun, she tried to say.

“Jush kwid jewn.”

“It was nothing against her,” Brun shrugged. “She was closest and the twins had just fought Tristan, which I thought would muddy the waters.”

Sleeping God, how much had she missed? Was she struck with blindness, the only fool among a pack of wolves? It felt like she had been struck in the belly, the breath wheezing out of her. Twice Brun had killed, and now she was to be the third. And she did not even know why. Some of that must have shown on her face, for the man sighed.

“I owe you for distracting the cultists during the Trial of Lines,” Brun acknowledged. “And I suppose the knowledge won’t be going anywhere.”

The man considered her with cold eyes.

“There is a festival in the Murk,” he said. “A week where lamplights are repaired, many of them taken down at once, so nowadays people hang small red paper lanterns and make small games in the streets. The Trench sends miners back to the city around that time, and my mother loved making the lanterns. It was one of the few things we did together.”

It was, Angharad thought, horrifying to hear what sounded like such a personal story in such an utterly detached tone.

“When they died, well, that is a long story,” Brun said. “But I clutched to one of those paper lanterns like it was the last thing I had. Prayed to it, almost. And someone heard me.”

The blond man’s eyes went unfocused as he glanced to the side, as if he were staring at something Angharad could not see. Brun frowned before turning his gaze back to her.

“A young god,” he said. “Farolito, the god of that nameless festival. I am his first contract.”

Brun shrugged.

“He wanted to help,” he said. “But gods are not men, especially when so young.”

He glanced to the side again, looking annoyed, then back to her. He is being visited by his god.

“I would have died if not for the pact,” Brun clarified. “But he did not realize what he was asking, nor I what I was giving. I wanted to hide, for the vultures to leave me alone, and so he let me press calm into others. Empty them of everything, like the moment after the end of a festival. To do this I must be able to feel their presence, so I could.”

So that was the truth of the strange lethargy that had taken her. And of how he had been able to feel their pursuers during the Trial of Lines and the flight to Cantica.

“In exchange,” Brun tonelessly continued, “he took what he loves of the festival: emotions. Not the entire length of them, only the strong parts, and I thought it a bargain. I would never fear again, never weep in the dark.”

He paused.

“I was wrong.”

The simple, matter-of-fact way he spoke those three words sent a shiver down her spine.

“It feels worse when I use my contract,” Brun said. “As if all of Vesper is growing quieter, every noise falling away. And the noise, it does not return. I began to forget what it felt like to feel anything at all, and could not even muster fear that one day I would simply lay down and not care as I starved.”

The blond man clicked his tongue, hand swatting away at something only he could see.

“He is not an evil god,” Brun dutifully told her. “He meant no harm. And we found a loophole together: I could no longer feel my own emotions, but I could still feel his.”

And with dawning horror Angharad began to understand where the tale was heading.

“We tried many things, we did,” the man said. “Did you know, Lady Angharad, that in the moment a man – one not owned by the Gloam, not dimmed – dies, their presence in the aether is searingly bright? All the colors and emotions of their weave, there then gone.”

He raised his hand and snapped his fingers, the sound a sharp contrast to the serene face.

“There is nothing Farolito loves even a hundredth as much as a death save for the festival, and that is only once a year,” Brun said. “So I did what I must.”

It never ceased to astonish Angharad what manner of ugliness could fit under the mask of I did what I must, as if behind that excuse lay an endless pit dug for horror’s sake. The blond man cocked his head to the side.

“I rationed it, used the pact only when I must,” the Sacromontan said. “Every six months, more or less. It was still dangerous and I decided the Watch might be able to help, to fix it. I chose the Dominion as my way in so they cannot refuse me when they find out what I do.”

That was, her uncle had told her, the virtue of these trials: that to pass them saw you enrolled directly into the ranks of the Watch. Brun sighed.

“But I have had to use my contract so very much,” he said, sounding faintly irritated. “To find enemies, to grasp who was lying to me or trying to get me killed. And so the world grew quiet.”

The blond man met her eyes.

“Jun was to tide me over so I would last the rest of the journey with the infanzones,” Brun said. “Aines was because it was starting to grow difficult feigning emotion.”

His gaze was unblinking.

“I used my pact too much when we ran from cultists on the way to Cantica,” the Sacromontan said. “Making sure Song was not leading us into an ambush. At this rate, I might have to kill a blackcloak in Three Pines. Accepting Yaretzi’s offer was the least risky-”

The door opened and Brun reached for his hatchet, but Angharad’s half-formed hopes were dashed: it was only Yaretzi returning. The Izcalli carefully closed the door behind her.

“No lights under the doors,” she told Brun. “More interestingly, Tristan is no longer in his room and neither is Augusto Cerdan. It seems we are not the only ones cleaning up before the vote. I told you, my dear: that boy is most definitely a hired killer.”

“He is a rat to the bone,” the man said. “You mistake him.”

“How has he convinced so many people of that?” Yaretzi complained. “After Lan traded me his suspicions for the Milk I knew the little bastard was too dangerous to leave sniffing around, but no one would bite. The best I could manage was to send Ferranda after Isabel in the hope she stumbled into whatever they’ve been doing about the Cerdan. Thirteen Heavens, my darlings, that boy has gone around half the trials lugging around the exact same poison box Watch assassins use. How has no one outed him for it yet?”

Yaretzi turned to smile at her, like they were friends sharing a confidence, and Angharad felt like ripping out her teeth. Death was crawling closer to her with every word and she kept waiting for the fear to come, but the warmth of anger yet kept it out. Like keeping your hand so close to candle flame it began to burn, chasing out every other sensation.

“He must be fresh to the profession,” Yaretzi told her. “As a rule you should bring only the substances you intend to use, it is much less obvious.”

Brun shifted on his feet.

“You made your sweep,” he said. “Let us finish it.”

“Soon, soon,” Yaretzi said. “I told you, I need her to answer some questions first.”

The Izcalli idly unsheathed a knife, then knelt by Angharad’s side. She tried to get up, but her limbs had grown so feeble they did not even need to push her back down. The point of the steel was drawn across her cheek and came to rest under her eye, lightly enough it did not cut skin.

“The tiles in the kitchen of Llanw Hall,” Yaretzi said. “What color are they?”

Angharad clenched her jaw as much as she could, which still had her tongue lolling in her mouth. Yaretzi eyed her, then sighed.

“Torture is very messy, dear, I do hope you won’t force me to resort to it,” the Izcalli said. “Let us try again with something easier, then. Your uncle Osian – where is he getting all the coin? Did your mother perhaps bury a fortune somewhere, tell him of the location?”

Angharad blinked. What coin? Yaretzi’s eyes narrowed impatiently.

“The man has been spending gold like it is copper, my dear,” the Izcalli said. “He put out an open contract matching whatever price is on your head for the skull of any assassin trying to take yours, and he’s known to have paid out at least ten times. I heard so many assassins slew each other trying to catch you in Ixta that the guilds in the city are still at war.”

Angharad choked. Ixta? The sleepy little port town on the Emerald Coast where she had spent exactly three hours waiting on the docks before changing ships? Yaretzi let out an irritated sound.

“Useless,” she said. “Do you know why he pulled the open contract, at least? Did he run out of coin? It happened when you arrived in Sacromonte and I know you received at least one letter from him there.”

Angharad leaned forward, as if to give answer, and Yaretzi came closer. Only when she tried to spit on the other woman her tongue would not move, so only specks of spittle flew and the rest stayed bubbling on her lips. Yaretzi withdrew with a sigh.

“Ayanda was not nearly this much trouble,” she complained. “So eager to talk, that girl, she gave me everything I needed the first day. It must have been her contract that got her recommended for the Krypteia, because she did not notice in the slightest when I doused her waterskin with Milk. Not much – just enough to slow her down some. The same dose I traded Lan.”

Yaretzi shrugged.

“After that it was just a question of waiting for her to stumble and be caught by those Red Eye savages.”

Looking at the smug pride on the Izcalli’s face, Angharad felt genuine hate for one of the few times in her life as she remembered the bleak grief on Zenzele’s face. How broken must you be, to make a living out of inflicting suffering?

“Don’t be jealous, dear,” Yaretzi chided. “House Sandile offered a tidy sum for the death of the little bitch who stole the husband of their matriarch’s favorite niece, but it’s not even half of what is on offer for you. I just decided to collect on the girl first after seeing you go up against that Saint. It seemed likely you would pick up wounds saving fools anyhow.”

Yaretzi wagged a finger.

“Only you kept surviving, you inconvenient darling you, and even when I got close you kept living through my attempts,” she said. “I tried to off you discreetly during the trial with the clockwork god and then again in the stairs with Ishaan, but you are a most difficult creature to kill.”

“Fugh yew,” Angharad snarled.

“I don’t tell you this to boast, my dear,” Yaretzi patiently said. “I tell you so might understand that I am not some hired thug but a professional, an anointed daughter of the Obsidian Society under brokered contract. It is our rule that learning knowledge which only the mark would know serves a proof of the kill, but when that is not feasible one may also present the head instead.”

She leaned forward.

“Tell me the color of the kitchen tiles in Llanw Hall,” Yaretzi said, “and your uncle will receive a corpse with the head still on it. I understand Malani have some funerary customs relating to eyes, no? Would you not prefer to ease his grief while you still can?”

“Aye ashm noth,” Angharad bit out, “Malani.”

And she would not help this creature to get away more cleanly with her crimes. Perhaps she could not fight, but she could at least try to make enough of a mess that these animals were caught. Song, Song would see to it. The silver-eyed Tianxi would not let this go, the sole comfort Angharad had in this ugly mess. She tried to rise again and found some sliver of strength yet remained to her limbs. Yaretzi clicked her tongue in disappointment.

“Fine,” she said, sheathing her knife. “It was always a long shot, and it’s not like torture is reliable when one cannot take their time. Brun, try not to make too much a mess. I’ll hold her down for you.”

Angharad half-raised her arm, but she was brushed aside like a child and pushed back into the mattress by a bored Yaretzi. That boredom somehow insulted her more than the rest of this put together. That she was a chore, not even a foe. Brun, face twisting with something like relief, approached with his hatchet in hand. Angharad met his eyes, burning with indignation, and the blond man stilled for a moment. His green eyes flicked to Yaretzi, almost considering, but then he sighed. The hatchet rose all the way.

Death came down for her as a sharp length of steel, only to slow.

A whisper sounded in her ears, rising to become the nearing beat of wings until it blotted out everything else and a strange power rippled through her body. Above her a single, beautiful peafowl feather drifted down from the ceiling and Angharad realized that her limbs no longer felt numb. The mayura’s blessing, it had cleared the poison. The spirit’s power left her, the hatchet coming down viper-swift again, but Angharad was no longer helpless.

She grabbed Yaretzi by the collar, dragging her in the way, and took vicious satisfaction the way the Izcalli’s eyes widened in utter surprise.

“Fuck,” the assassin cursed, the blow taking her in the shoulder with a wet thump.

Angharad kneed her in the stomach, Yaretzi stumbling back with a wheeze, and as she rose pushed the stumbling Izcalli into a surprised Brun. The back of his knees hit the bedside table, tipping her sheathed saber to the ground, and she caught it with the tip of her toes.

“Assassins,” she shouted, only halfway through realizing there was no use.

The door was closed and the owners of the two nearest rooms were in front of her. Brun yanked his hatchet out of Yaretzi’s back, earning a hoarse scream, and as he turned to hack at her Angharad deftly threw up her saber with her toes – she caught the scabbard just as his blow came down, slapping aside his forearm with it so the hatchet went by her shoulder. Yaretzi struck from the other side, knife back in hand, but Angharad halfway unsheathed her saber to strike her chin with the pommel of the sword and knock her back. She glimpsed-

/Brun hacked at her back, biting into her spine and sending her/

-and turned with a blow she would not have seen, getting out of the way just in time for the hatchet to take Yaretzi in the arm as she turned around Brun’s back and finished unsheathing the blade. She kept the scabbard in hand. Her knees almost buckled as a wave of apathy hammered into her mind, but elbowing Brun in the back had the sensation vanishing into smoke. She finished turning around to face them.

Brun was a skilled fighter, she thought, but it was a raw sort of talent. He had not been taught that being predictable in a duel was death. The Sacromontan pushed away from her from to make distance, so that he might have enough room to swing his hatchet, but Angharad had begun swinging even as she turned: the edge of the saber caught him at temple height and a slight angle, splitting his eye like an egg and sinking into the skull.

Death in a stroke.

Angharad calmly kicked his back as she ripped free the blade, brain spraying as it sent the corpse falling into Yaretzi’s way and forced the Izcalli to draw back nearer to the door. The assassin licked her lips, Angharad watching as it sunk in for the other woman that she was two wounds in and standing alone.

“You took an oath,” the Izcalli suddenly said. “Not to do violence on other trial-takers. If I no longer fight you, you cannot-”

Angharad threw the scabbard at her face. The knife went up to slap it aside, and that was all it took: the point of her saber went straight into Yaretzi’s heart, pinning her to the door with a thump as the assassin let out a wet gurgle.

“You knowingly broke the rules of the Trial of Weeds, assassin,” Angharad politely informed her. “You no longer qualify as a trial-taker.”

She broadened her stance, preparing to rip out the blade, but before she could the door burst open and the corpse flew at her. Smothering a sound of surprise, Angharad struggled to hold on to her saber as someone forced their way into the room – only to find Song levelling a musket at her, Sarai right behind her and sloppily pointing a pistol as she held up a lantern.

“You- oh,” Song said, taken aback.

There was a heartbeat of silence.

“Are we quite sure,” Sarai began, eyes lingering on the two cooling corpses, “that she was the one needing rescuing here?”

Angharad’s jaw locked.

“The mayura’s blessing saved my life,” she stiffly said. “They came at me with a poison and Brun’s contract.”

Her stare firmed as she turned to Song after saying thus.

“A jest,” Sarai said. “I meant no offence.”

Angharad did not reply, eyes staying on Song and silently asking why she had not warned anyone of Brun’s contract. It would have been a much stronger suspect than Ishaan’s, and while she could understand wanting to keep the power of her own eyes quiet that did not excuse warning no one at all.

“I do not know what it does,” Song admitted. “Did, now, I suppose. It was written in some sort of Sacromontan street jargon, half the words weren’t even recognizably Antigua.”

The noblewoman gave a slow nod and felt a knot in her shoulders loosen. Had Song been one of the pack of selfish schemers she was being forced to deal with, she was not sure what she would have done. So much of what she had taken to be truth before coming to this island was… Nobles acting like wolves, loyalty a hangman’s noose and honor in the strangest of places. She had thought Peredur the model of the world, once, but now she was forced to wonder how much she might have missed.

Angharad swallowed, mind was still awhirl with all her killers had said. ‘Yaretzi’ was a confessed liar, so much of what she said about others could be discounted, but her talk of Tristan – and that he had been accomplice to Isabel, who she knew did have troubles with the Cerdan brothers – rang uncomfortably true.

Remund had disappeared after spending time alone with him, for which they had yet to receive account. No one had thought to take that up since both men were expected dead, but perhaps there was a need after all. Angharad felt a great exhaustion settle on her shoulders like a mantle, and with it a vicious urge: to out every dirty little secret this misbegotten island carried, to finally have it out and done.

Sarai cleared her throat.

“We should wake everyone else, have it known now the pair tried to kill you,” the pale-skinned woman said. “Else accusations might turn ugly come morning.”

“There is more to tell besides,” Angharad wearily said. “Brun effectively confessed to the murders of both Jun and Aines while Yaretzi admitted to being a member of something called the Obsidian Society as well to poisoning Ayanda with something called Spinster’s Milk.”

Sarai let out a noise of surprise.

“Zenzele won’t take that well,” she warned.

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“He must be told regardless,” Angharad replied.

Though first, she decided, she should drag the corpses out into the hall. The blood was soaking her floor. Wiping her blade on Yaretzi’s back, Angharad went to pick up her scabbard and sheathed it. She was about to go looking for her boots when someone turned the corner: Shalini, looking haggard but with both pistols up, stumbled into the scene and froze. A heartbeat later Ferranda followed, blade in hand, and then Zenzele half-tripped past them as he pulled on his boots.

“Huh,” Ferranda said.

The Someshwari lowered her pistols. Shalini’s eyes flicked back and forth between them and the dead.

“What happened?” she asked.

“They attempted to kill Angharad in the night,” Song told them. “It went poorly.”

“No shit,” Shalini amusedly said. “I could have told them how that’d go if they’d asked.”

“And the other two of you?” Zenzele asked with a frown, finally dragging his boot up.

A pause. Angharad turned to the other two women, cocking an eyebrow. What had drawn them to her room? She had thought the sound would not carry. Sarai sighed.

“At Song’s request, I put a Sign on Lady Angharad’s door that would break if someone opened it,” she said.

“They had me at their mercy for quite some time,” Angharad neutrally said.

She appreciated the gesture, but not the presumption. Besides, why her of all people?

“I slept through it breaking,” Sarai admitted, sounding embarrassed.

She reddened under the number of incredulous looks thrown her way.

“Look, it’s not a Sign I have fully mastered and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days,” she said. “I ended up waking up later and noticing it was gone, so I went to get Song and we found…”

“Predictable consequences?” Zenzele drily finished.

Whatever else might have been said, it was forced to wait. More were joining them, the rising sound of talk in the hall drawing them. Tupoc first, who made a point of theatrically gasping as the sight of the bodies then, Lan and Cozme.

Angharad face them, face still flecked with blood.

“Let me get dressed,” she sighed, “and then I will tell you everything.”

—

It was not long to explain, for all that it had felt an eternity when the pair had her prisoner.

Zenzele’s face went bloodless when he was told his beloved had been drugged into demise at the behest of House Sandile, Shalini laying a hand on his arm, while Tupoc looked slightly miffed. Remembering Yaretzi’s confession regarding the stairs, Angharad made her amends there.

“I did not believe you when you claimed Ishaan was pushed by her,” the noblewoman said, addressing Shalini. “Yet she did, and I apologize for my mistrust.”

The other woman grimaced.

“We looked pretty shady at the time,” she replied. “Water under the bridge.”

As for Ferranda, Angharad was too tired to keep secrets any longer.

“Song and I found a secret passage in the gate shrine and overheard your conversation with Isabel when you accused her,” she bluntly said. “Yaretzi has since confessed that she directed you after Isabel in the hopes that you would stumble into some alleged plot against the Cerdans she was weaving with Tristan.”

Ferranda Villazur drew back in surprise.

“I – are you sure? Tristan?”

“I am certain she said it,” Angharad said. “She also confessed herself a murderer and a liar, so I put little stock in her words.”

The grey-eyed man was a criminal of some sort, and prone to tricks, but he had also demonstrated a certain sense of honor. Several times he had risked his life on behalf of others to no clear gain.

“The boy is suspicious,” Cozme grunted. “He came back and Remund did not.”

“He came back with a belly wound from falling down that slide with your Cerdan,” Sarai flatly replied. “Had to be treated for lockjaw, you can ask the blackcloaks. Your boy Remund wasn’t quite so lucky and he’s still impaled somewhere in the maze as far as we know. Nasty way to go.”

She did not sound all that sympathetic.

“Where is he right now, then?” the mustachioed man pressed. “Yong cannot leave his room, but where is the rat?”

“Investigating the activities of the townsfolk, as I requested of him,” Song flatly said. “I find it somewhat interesting you do not ask where Augusto is, as he is also missing.”

Cozme straightened.

“Augusto is no longer my responsibility, but Remund was-”

“Nobody cares about your brats, Cozme,” Lan interrupted, tone impatient. “Tristan could have slit both their throats in the middle of the street and most of us would have clapped. Tredegar, get on with it. What about Brun?”

Cozme Aflor looked more than a little angry, but he had no friends in the hall. Angharad laid out the rest of what Yaretzi had told her, prompting an interested noise from Tupoc at the mention of the Obsidian Society.

“They are famous assassins in Izcalli,” he informed them all in a rare display of concord. “They are a cult of the Skeletal Butterfly that takes killing contracts, they’ve been around for centuries. Rumor has it they even slew a Grasshopper King once.”

She moved on to Brun, after that, and revulsion rose as she described his contract and how it had slowly turned him into a murderer. The description of its effects had Shalini grimacing.

“I felt something like that on the night Jun was killed,” she admitted. “When I had the watch. I thought I was just tired and never entirely fell asleep so I said nothing save to Ishaan, but everything Lady Angharad speaks of is something I have felt.”

Lan looked murderous, an unusual look on her face, but then what did Angharad know? Both Yaretzi and Brun had accused her of poisoning him before the Toll Road, something the Pereduri had mentioned and the blue-lipped woman not denied. Angharad had thought herself aware of most the undercurrents in their company, wise to its workings even if she occasionally missed pieces, but that illusion had just been most thoroughly stripped away. Others had danced around her so deftly she never even noticed she was attending a ball. No more of that, Angharad coldly thought. She would not be made such a fool again.

Tupoc, who was closest to the stairs, suddenly tensed. He raised a hand at the rest of them, demanding silence as he raised his spear.

“Someone just came in,” he whispered.

Lord Zenzele glanced at their group, then down below.

“It is Tristan,” he said.

He had used his contract, she thought. Tristan must have a tie to someone in here.

Tupoc did not put the spear down.

“Xical,” Angharad warningly said, hand going to her blade.

“Three in a night would just be greedy, Tredegar,” Tupoc chided her amusedly.

He put the weapon down, however, just as someone began hurrying up the stairs. The loudness of it was startled her. Tristan was a light-footed man, yet now he stomped up at a run. The scruffy grey-eyed man erupted past the threshold, steps stuttering when he saw them all gathered in the hall.

“Oh,” Tristan said. “Everyone is here. Good.”

His eyes flicked to the corpses, unmoved at the sight. He did not even ask.

“Finally showing up, are you?” Tupoc drawled. “Lateness is becoming a habit with you.”

“Tupoc, shut the fuck up,” the man said, and there was a ripple of surprise at that unusual boldness. “We do not have time for this. I was just in the town square, where our hosts – every single one of which is a devil – were having a spirited conversation about eating us all.”

The silence was instant and complete.

“Then on my way back,” Tristan ferociously continued, “I passed by the postern gate where I happened to catch Augusto Cerdan letting in a warband of cultists. This happened-”

He produced a small timepiece, popping open the lid to see. It felt vaguely familiar.

“- three minutes and change ago,” he finished. “By now I expect they will be moving to free the slaves.”

Noise erupted all at once, half a dozen people speaking up. Song’s voice cut through, clear and calm. Trained, Angharad thought. Song Ren had been trained for command, or at least leadership.

“Dress and arm yourselves,” she said. “Everything else can wait.”