Orianna does not stop to take stock until she is certain she has escaped pursuit.
The cut in her leg is throbbing and she can feel her thigh slick with blood, but when she examines it in a sliver of moonlight, the cut does not seem deep. She binds it with a strip of cloth cut from her undershirt. The chest with the Egg is still intact. She shakes it carefully, her heart in her mouth. Relief floods her when she cannot feel or hear anything moving inside. An opal would not easily break, but the chest itself might.
She binds it securely against her belly inside her robes before she lets herself think about Kalle.
He told her to run. He told her he would draw them off. She knows he had—or at least claimed to have—done similar before.
She will have to trust him at his word, but still feels an unfamiliar knot in her chest.
Keeping one hand on the Egg to remind her of the stakes, she heads not for the Artisans' Quarter, but for the eastern edge of Saradakh.
She makes good time home, encountering no trouble and detecting no following presence at any time. For speed, she enters off the street.
Inside, she lights a single lantern before scrabbling to put together a small bag of necessary items. She rebinds the chest securely against her belly, padding it to make a rough approximation of pregnancy or plumpness.
Then she is out again, dousing the lantern and giving her eyes a good time to adjust first, scanning with a mouse's paranoia before sprinting away too quickly even for anyone lurking in ambush to attack her.
She runs steadily, but the exertions of the day and the evening are wearing on even her usually indefatigable energy, and she makes twice as many checks, doubling back more often, becoming even more paranoid as she works her way through the Merchants' Quarter back to the Artisans' Quarter.
When she finally approaches the wall outside Kalle's purloined secret shed, she knows exhaustion is written on her face. She climbs the wall slowly, limbs heavy but the chest hampering her only a little.
She sees no light, hears no sound. She trusts Kalle to have sealed the walls against light escaping, and imagines that even here he would hide, making no noise that might encourage anyone to investigate, but she feels a trickle of cold sand in her blood. She can imagine nothing that would delay him this long save death or capture.
His key is growing warm in her hand as she hesitates, caught between wanting to be inside and safe, and not wanting to resolve a question that might not have a pleasant answer.
She knocks gently. "It is I, Orianna," she calls as she unlocks the door and cracks it open.
No light spills out, but she hears a strangled cry of relief and stronger emotions from Kalle, and a carpet-softened footfall towards the door.
She twitches, almost going for a knife, even as she recognises his voice with a rush of relief.
As she slips inside, into velvety blackness, her arms are seized.
"Where were you?" Kalle asks, his breath tickling her face. "I was thinking someone had caught you! Were you hurt?"
"Light?" Orianna asks, tentatively.
Kalle's hands release Orianna. "Of course!"
Light flares as Kalle uncovers the dark lantern.
"Were you safe?" he demands, seizing Orianna's arms again.
Orianna stares at him.
His eyes are wild with worry turned into relief. His hands on her arms are clenched almost hard enough to hurt—and would have hurt any girl less tough.
Orianna had been prepared to apologise for taking so long, but now cannot find anything to say.
For all Zerris's talk of his associates and his status, his power and his position in Molos, it is a delicately crafted mirage. Tiglis has other faces than Zerris and Orianna, and no other comrades or colleagues once the negotiations and planning have been completed and risks must be taken. There is never anyone else to worry about. Zerris keeps Tiglis safe, Tiglis keeps Zerris safe. Until this night, Orianna had nobody to report to save Zerris, and nobody else to worry about. Zerris in his plotting created other faces, for other purposes, but never had to worry about others compromising his safety or being concerned for it.
Worry for someone else is an emotion not experienced since Zerris's mother died, and having someone worried for him, Tiglis, or indeed Orianna, is an even more alien experience. Zerris resolved to never again be responsible for any other, nor to put himself in any other's hands, and before tonight never broke that vow. The creation of Tiglis did not merely satisfy the deepest part of his own self, but was useful in far more ways than her association with Vara. Having a duty to keep his sister safe gave Zerris a very handy respectability, opened doors, and—perhaps most crucially—allowed him to avoid becoming part of anyone else's plans.
Not Zerris, nor Tiglis, nor Orianna, have any experience in knowing that someone might truly care for them.
All Orianna can do is stare back at Kalle in silence.
Kalle shakes her. "Are you safe? Were you hurt?"
Orianna seizes his head in her hands and pulls his lips to hers.
Kalle grunts in surprise as the chest against Orianna's belly presses into his, but merely bends around it to keep their lips together.
Orianna, forgetting to breathe, breaks the kiss when she sways on her feet.
Kalle is immediately full of concern once more, but Orianna shakes him off.
"I am well! I am sorry, I had to come via my rooms. We are not finished tonight."
"We are not?" Kalle asks.
Orianna begins rapidly removing her outer clothes, still tired but moving with renewed purpose. "Can you make coffee? We have one more job. Now I finally have the Egg, I must deliver it tonight."
"Are you expected?"
"I will not be unexpected," Orianna says as she releases the Egg's chest from its bindings against her belly.
Kalle's hand shoots out. "You were hurt!"
Orianna looks down at the bloodstained bandage around her pants, startled into remembering it.
She shrugs. "It is only a scratch. An arrow winged me, but did not slow me down."
"Horseshit! I should have been faster. I didn't get that guard until he had already loosed."
Orianna shrugs. "It was a lucky shot."
Kalle kneels by her, reaching for the bandage. "Let me see."
Orianna tries to wave him off. "It is nothing."
Kalle glares at her.
Orianna is simultaneously unsettled by his glare and surprised, with a warm glow, at his insistence to care for her.
She meekly acquiesces as Kalle deftly unties her makeshift bandage.
Her blood has soaked her pants, but it looks worse than it is, and the cut is neat. It begins bleeding a little again as the bandage comes off.
"We should clean this with brandy," Kalle says.
"Date wine would be stronger."
"Sadly, I have none." Kalle's gaze falls upon Zerris's box. "Do you have your spirits?"
"I may be running low soon," she says.
Kalle shrugs before finding a half-full bottle of brandy in his cache, and a strip of linen as a bandage. He stops with his hands full, suddenly looking abashed. "Ah, your pants..."
"Cut them off," Orianna says, unconcerned. "They are ruined anyway, and I have several others."
"Ah."
One of Kalle's knives parts the linen like wet paper. Kalle is so focused on what he is doing that, to Orianna's faint disappointment, he does not respond to the length of her exposed leg.
Orianna winces but makes no sound as Kalle uses the unblooded portion of the pants leg, soaked in brandy, to clean the wound.
As he rebinds her thigh, she shivers deliciously from the touch of his fingers on her skin, and eyes him covetously but with faint suspicion still.
When Kalle sits back, job completed, he carefully avoids looking at her leg.
Satisfaction reveals itself on Orianna's face through a faint smile.
Kalle glances down at the chest.
"May I see it before you hand it on?" he asks with unfamiliar diffidence.
Orianna folds her leg underneath her to sit, wincing slightly. "Of course, my handsome associate."
She moves the chest in front of her reverently. Kalle instantly hunkers down, even Orianna's casual compliment forgotten in the expectation of finally seeing the object of the night's exertions.
When Orianna opens the chest, she sighs happily, but Kalle's breath catches in his throat.
Kalle speaks hoarsely. "That is truly it?"
"The Egg," Orianna croons to it, picking it up more tenderly than she might a real egg.
The light from the single lantern reflects a blaze of colour onto Orianna's face. The golden inlay, so small it cannot be read in that light, glitters even among the opal's whorls of smoky brilliance.
Kalle reaches out two trembling fingers to gently touch it. Orianna holds herself still to allow him contact, though the urge to snatch it away is strong.
"That is indeed the greatest prize in Molos," Kalle says, his voice a little strangled.
"And it is mine," Orianna whispers. She bends her head to kiss just off the surface. "Mine. If you were not worth so very much, I would keep you."
She places the Egg back in its chest with extreme reluctance, but is all business as soon as the lid is closed.
"You must become Zerris again," Kalle says, regret at this necessity apparent in his voice.
"Just for the delivery," Orianna says as she pulls a small hand mirror and her box of makeup out of her bag. "Just once more, at least. I need more light. I believe I asked for coffee?"
Kalle jumps to light another couple of lanterns, arranging them to Orianna's terse instructions as she begins cleaning her face, then jumps as quickly to brew coffee.
Orianna keeps on the same pants and shirt, not wanting to take the time to replace a leg that will be concealed under robes, but the moment she becomes Zerris is obvious despite this, the clothes suddenly seeming less feminine even as the movements of her fingers change.
The shift happens as she adjusts her hair, before applying his beard. Up until that moment, her face, already clean of all the makeup and the cheek pads that helped shift its appearance, still held the lingering image of the graceful, delicate-seeming, entrancingly beautiful Orianna.
Kalle, watching this entire process intently, shivers but does not turn away.
Zerris attaches his beard with care, takes up the mirror to turn it and his head this way and that to check, then puts the mirror face-down next to his box. Despite his tiredness, the hour, and the urgency gripping him, he rushes nothing.
"We must leave quickly," he says, pulling his boots towards him.
He puts robes on, belting them and pushing a knife through the belt.
He wraps the chest into a well-padded bundle, ties it securely, then takes a deep breath as he stands up.
Kalle stands with him, handing him a small cup of jet-black coffee. They salute this next expedition more solemnly than they had saluted the night's previous endeavours.
"Lead on," Kalle says. "If anybody stops us, they will lose the use of their tendons."
"Let them lose the use of their hearts," Zerris says shortly. "Come."
It is the deepest dark still, an hour yet before early risers stir to make the most of the night's lingering coolth.
Zerris has found his second wind. Kalle, if he was ever as fatigued, his constitution more suited to fighting than to running and having run less that night, shows no trace of tiredness.
They are over the wall like cats, then set out at a steady pace that is not as brisk as earlier in the evening, but covers the ground well.
Zerris leads Kalle in a direct line into the Merchants' Quarter, no sight or sound anywhere about them of threats or followers.
They easily avoid a patrol of guards, both resting hands on weapon hilts as they do so.
They come at last to the street outside Sarvin's shop. Kalle, his veil before his face, nods once.
"He sleeps above his shop," Zerris whispers. "I would throw something at his shutters, but would you knock?"
Kalle hesitates. "This fence. Is he beholden to Melech?"
Zerris makes an impatient gesture. "He is beholden to none but speaks to all, and stakes his reputation upon it. Besides, it will make no difference after tonight."
Kalle eyes him sceptically, but nods.
Merchants keep a window above their door, the better to look out if anyone seeks their services out of hours.
Kalle goes up the wall without a pause to rap lightly on the shutters.
He drops back to the ground after mere seconds, and nods once more at Zerris before fading into a shadow, out of sight of Sarvin's window.
Zerris sees the shutters shift a little as Sarvin looks out, then must wait, tapping his foot impatiently, until the hatch in the shop's door opens.
"Zerris?" Sarvin asks.
"Sorry to get you up, Mr Sarvin sir, but I have an urgent delivery for you," Zerris says, pitching his voice as the cheerful delivery boy.
The door opens quickly, and Zerris is inside even faster.
"A plan came together then," Sarvin asks as, holding a dim lantern high, he leads Zerris towards the back room.
"Came together and executed, but a hornet's nest may have been awoken."
Sarvin frowns. "That is not good to hear. I was expecting a quieter result from your associates, Zerris."
Zerris grinds his teeth, but keeps his voice neutral. "There were additional complications."
He places his wrapped bundle on a bench, carefully unwraps it, then unlocks the chest with fingers that shake very little.
Sarvin lights another two lanterns, then gently picks up the Egg with a silk cloth. He uses a small lens pulled from a pocket inside his coat to examine the opal with great care, polishing it once or twice with the silk.
Zerris watches this with his face carefully neutral, although he is balanced on the balls of his feet.
Finally, Sarvin nods. "Very good." He puts the Egg back in its chest, then pushes a set of shelves to one side to reveal a safe with four locks. The chest is swapped for a small but fat purse. "Congratulations. I have not paid you this much in the past year."
The purse disappears inside Zerris's robes so fast that Sarvin twitches backwards.
"I have another opportunity, if you are interested," Sarvin says before Zerris can leave.
Zerris's face betrays nothing. "In a few days, if it is still available. Perhaps a full week. There are some things I must take care of, some things I have been forced to neglect, and I will see if the guards relax."
Sarvin nods approvingly. "Very good. Did you find this Kalle?"
Zerris waves that away. "He will not be troubling Molos for long. He now has Melech hunting him over a separate incident. He does not seem to be the kind to stay in one place for long, in any case."
"Very good."