Episode Four:
A Wake in Riverside

Malinda Lo

 

In the cool spring drizzle, Riverside was as gray as the surface of the river itself. Kaab made her way through the damp tangle of cobblestoned streets, where the buildings seemed to lean toward one another in an alarmingly casual manner, in search of the home of the red-haired forger named Tess.

Kaab remembered exactly where she had last seen her, almost two weeks ago, on the day of her arrival in the City. It felt like much more time had passed, but Kaab would not soon forget the site of her first Riverside duel. As the building came into view, Kaab noticed that the windows were all shuttered and the street was particularly quiet. Even the washerwoman’s shop on the ground floor was dark. Perhaps the rain was keeping people inside, or perhaps it was still too early in the day for Riverside to be awake, but Kaab suspected that Tess was not at home. She approached the door that led up to Tess’s apartment, where a boy covered in a ragged, patchwork cloak of faded green and russet brown huddled beneath the eaves. He emitted a faint snore, and Kaab reached out with a booted foot to gently nudge his ankle.

He started awake and mumbled, “Tess is out.”

Kaab asked, “When will she return?”

The boy sat up and shot her a suspicious glance. “Who’re you?”

Kaab pushed back the hood of her cloak and wondered what the boy would make of her. She found the Locals’ reactions to be quite telling. They often stared, as this boy was doing, but she didn’t mind, exactly. She understood his curiosity. Not only did she look different, with her coloring and hair twisted into unfamiliar braids, but this morning she had chosen to wear breeches she had tailored to fit herself and high boots she had acquired from a cobbler in the Middle City. She couldn’t fathom how anyone could wear a sword while also wearing a dress—not to mention those stays, which were about as comfortable as donning a cactus—and she wasn’t about to venture into Riverside unarmed. Luckily, she had managed to sneak out of the house without encountering Aunt Saabim. Kaab was supposed to be lying low here and deferring to her elders, not taking matters into her own hands the way she had done in Tultenco. But surely, Kaab had told herself that morning as she pulled on the unfamiliar and slightly stiff boots, she was perfectly capable of handling this small bit of intrigue on her own. There was no need to involve her aunt and uncle in such a simple little thing, even if it did require arming herself beforehand.

Kaab said to the boy, “My name is Ixkaab Balam. Can you tell me where she is?”

“She’s not here,” he said, still studying her face. “Do you want to leave a message? She pays me to take messages for her. I’ll give it to her when she comes back.”

Kaab ignored the light rain spattering on her head and asked, “Do you know when she will return? I must deliver my message in person.”

The boy shook his head. “She didn’t say, but if you ask me,” he said slyly, “I think she’ll be gone awhile.”

Kaab recognized the boy’s desire to spill a secret, and she obliged him by asking, “Really? Why?”

He leaned back casually against the door. “Well, she left after Tiny Pete came by with the news of that body that washed up on the riverbank.” He looked off into the distance and said nonchalantly, “I bet she’s gone to check it out.”

Of all the reasons for Tess to be absent, this was certainly not one Kaab had anticipated. “A body?” she said, only slightly exaggerating her shock. “Who died?”

The boy shrugged. “Dunno. This kind of thing happens all the time, and someone has to go identify the body. Maybe Tess thought she knew him.” He got a crafty look on his face. “Riverside’s not a place for strangers, you know. You better be careful around here.”

If the boy had been a couple of years older, his words might have come off as a threat, but he couldn’t have been more than eleven, so Kaab found his warning rather sweet. She slipped a hand into the pocket of her cloak and pulled out a small package wrapped in brown paper. “You seem to be a smart boy—know your way around these parts.”

The boy preened at the flattery. “I do. I was born not two blocks from here, raised on these streets. I know my way about. That’s why Tess hires me to take messages for her. She knows I’ll do it right.”

“Then you must know where Tess went, in case you have to give her an urgent message.” Kaab unwrapped the package to show him a good-size chunk of chocolate. It was of middling quality, but much better than anything he would be likely to taste. “I’ll give you some of this if you tell me where she went,” she said.

He gave the chocolate a glance that went rapidly from puzzlement to disgust. “What is that? Looks like a chunk of dried shit.”

She was taken aback. “It’s chocolate,” she began indignantly. “Surely you—” She stopped at the expression on his face. He had never seen anything like it before and clearly did not know what he was missing. Interesting, she thought. “Never mind,” she said, and folded the paper back over the chocolate before repocketing it. She made a mental note to inform her uncle that chocolate didn’t seem to be known in Riverside. That was a market waiting to be broken open. “Will you tell me where Tess went?” she asked the boy again.

He gave her a measuring look that made him seem much older than eleven. “You want to know, it’ll cost ya.”

“Ah,” she said. He might not understand chocolate, but he obviously understood money. She pulled out a few minnows and dropped them into his instantly outstretched hand.

“I have to feed my little brother, too! This won’t even buy a leftover bowl of Lolly’s week-old goat stew.”

She could tell he was exaggerating, but the fact that a boy his age had to haggle over money for food made her drop two more minnows in his hand. Soft-hearted idiot, she could hear her mother saying fondly. The service requires a sterner disposition than this. Next you’ll be giving your own supper away. . . .

Kaab pushed aside the sudden memory, forcing herself to focus once again on the dirty-faced boy in rags sitting on this cold gray doorstep in Riverside. “Where is Tess?”

He tucked the coins into one of the many invisible pockets of his patchwork cloak. “Down at the Three Dogs. That’s where the body washed up.”

“And how do I get to this Three Dogs? Is it a tavern?”

“Directions cost extra.”

She had to give him credit for driving a hard bargain. She gave him one more minnow.

“It’s a tavern on Sheaves Lane,” he said, hiding the coin away. “Take a left on Bridgewater Street and a right at the sign of the Green Shears. Then you’ll see the sign for the Three Dogs.”

She groaned internally as he rattled off the directions. “Bridgewater Street’s back there?” she confirmed, pointing in the direction she had come.

The boy nodded.

“Which direction do I turn? North or south?”

He shrugged and pointed north. “That way. You can’t miss it. I bet there’ll be a crowd there even in the rain. It’s been a few weeks since a body washed up.”

Kaab pulled the hood up over her damp hair and said, “Thanks. What’s your name?”

“Jamie.”

“I’ll remember you next time I need information,” she promised.

Jamie grinned. “You won’t be sorry, miss.”

 

Rafe’s stomach rumbled as he draped one arm over the bare torso of William, the Duke Tremontaine, who was certainly the most noble man ever to be welcomed into Rafe’s serviceable but slightly creaky bed.

“You’re hungry,” William observed, running his fingers over the pale skin of Rafe’s back.

“If only we could call for servants to bring us some lunch,” Rafe said, pressing his face into the hollow between William’s shoulder and neck. He inhaled the scent of him: cloves, slightly spicy, over an undercurrent of fresh sweat.

“If you were in my home, we could,” the duke said.

“You came here of your own accord,” Rafe reminded him silkily. “There must have been something special to lure you here, given my lack of servants.” And it wasn’t my cramped quarters and curious roommates, Rafe thought. Indeed, Joshua’s and Thaddeus’s eyes had seemed to leap out of their skulls when the Duke Tremontaine had appeared on the landing outside the door to their rented rooms. Only Micah, his head bent as usual over a pile of calculations, had barely noticed. But Micah was like that.

William ran his hand lower, toward the small of Rafe’s back, and Rafe shivered with delight. “Something special indeed,” William said.

Rafe’s stomach rumbled again—this time more urgently—and he groaned with frustration. “A moment,” Rafe said, and rolled out of his bed. He had left a crust of bread and a wedge of cheese wrapped in some paper on his desk. The bread might be a bit stale, but he felt as if he could eat a horse about now. His room was chilly—the spring rain that pattered on the roof had brought a damp nip to the air—and he pulled a loose tunic over his head as he crossed the few feet from his bed to the battered scholar’s desk, which had been an occupant of these rooms long before Rafe. “Aha,” he said, digging the leftover bread and cheese out from behind a stack of books. He unwrapped it and examined the bread for signs of mold. Satisfied, he took the food back to bed, where William had propped himself up on one elbow to watch.

“Is that all you have?” William asked as Rafe slid back under the blanket.

“It’ll tide me over till I can go out for a meat pie,” Rafe said, biting into the bread. It was definitely stale and took some chewing. At least the cheese was still good. He offered a piece to the duke, who shook his head with a slight grimace. He was likely accustomed to much finer fare. “More for me then,” Rafe said, and popped the bit of cheese into his mouth.

Rafe wasn’t used to having his lovers in his room—it had happened a couple of times in the past, but those had been straightforward transactions that didn’t involve any pillow talk—and he had the vague suspicion that he was being a terrible host. The duke seemed inclined to linger, and it made Rafe nervous. “Why did you drop by this morning, anyway?” Rafe asked abruptly. “When you arrived, I had the impression that you had some sort of business in mind—business other than getting in bed with me, that is.”

The duke looked a bit pained by the sharpness in Rafe’s tone. “This isn’t business, Rafe.”

Rafe glanced down at the small amount of bread and cheese he had left, clutched in his hands as if they were charms against—against what? A harmless conversation with his most recent lover? He forced himself to relax his grip. “Then what is this?” Rafe asked, feeling somewhat horrified by the fact that he was having this conversation at all—with the Duke Tremontaine, no less. And he still wasn’t sure what he should call him. My Lord? Tremontaine? William? Will.

The duke sat up and leaned against the headboard, which squeaked. The bed had come with the room too (one reason Rafe had agreed to pay more for this room; the other was the fact that it had a door that could be bolted), and Rafe had tried to fix the damn squeaking before, to no avail.

“It’s—it’s something I’ve never experienced before,” the duke said tentatively. He took one of Rafe’s hands, still holding a lump of cheese, and kissed it. “I only know that I want to continue to experience it—to experience you. ‘This wild boy / Whose lips sweeten my own.’”

Now the duke was quoting Audley at him! This was unheard of. Rafe disliked the strange fluttering he felt in his belly and tried to shrug it off. “I’m not from the Hill,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Is that what you like about me? Perhaps you’d like it even better if we met down by the docks.”

The duke let Rafe’s hand go and made a frustrated noise. “Stop it. You are a brilliant man, Rafe. You are a scholar. This is what I admire about you! And you don’t treat me like a noble to curry favors from, either. That is rare.”

Rafe looked at the duke, whose face was turning red with emotion. It was endearing: this man with gray at his temples, complimenting him so fiercely. Impulsively, he threw the remaining bread and cheese onto the floor and kissed the duke again, pressing his mouth roughly against Will’s, scraping the night’s growth of his beard against the duke’s cheek. Their kiss deepened, and Rafe slid his arms around the duke, beginning to press him down onto the thin mattress again, but Will said, “Wait. There’s something I must say.”

Rafe whispered, “What? What could be more important than this?” His hand slid down Will’s body.

Will groaned but said, “Wait. Stop. Rafe, I can’t stay. I’m sorry, but I’ve stayed too long already. I have an engagement this afternoon, and my wife will have my head if I miss it.”

Rafe flopped onto his back with a bitter sigh. “The duchess.”

“In a way, that’s what I wanted to discuss with you,” Will said seriously.

“The duchess?” Rafe said again, this time with surprise.

“Well . . . Tremontaine, I suppose.” The duke winced. “It pains me to say this, but I have certain responsibilities that will prevent me from visiting you as often as I’d like. And I’d like to visit you often.”

At that moment a drop of water plummeted from the ceiling directly onto the duke’s forehead, causing the duke to start in surprise.

“Damn it,” Rafe muttered. “That leak!” He glared up at the ceiling, noting that the piece of oilcloth he had tacked over the offending crack had come loose. He stood up on the bed, causing it to sway dangerously, and reached up to press the tack holding the oilcloth against the ceiling back in. He sat down again, pulling the sheets up. “You were saying?” he said, somewhat embarrassed.

The duke gave him a gentle smile. “My dear,” he said softly.

Rafe’s breath caught in his throat. My dear? Rafe tried to shake off the disturbingly warm feeling rising in his chest, but it was confoundedly difficult, especially when the duke was gazing at him with those blue eyes.

“I want to see you as much as possible,” the duke continued. “Every day. But I cannot come here as often as I’d like, and you cannot simply visit Tremontaine House without a reason.”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Rafe said suggestively.

William smiled. “An acceptable reason.”

“One that the duchess will accept?”

“That too.”

Rafe scowled up at the oilcloth. He could already see the rainwater pooling in the center of it. He would have to move his bed over so that it blocked the desk again. Otherwise he’d have to sleep with a bucket on one side of the mattress, which he had done before and concluded was worse than having to sit on the bed rather than the chair to use the desk.

“Does the duchess object to me?” Rafe asked bluntly. He was a merchant’s son, and his knowledge of nobles was largely limited to matters of business, but it was widely believed—or rumored, at least—that those who lived on the Hill viewed the bonds of matrimony a bit differently than Middle City types like Rafe’s family. Rafe had assumed that Tremontaine was free to do as he wished with whom he wished, but now he wondered if the duchess had more influence than most noble women. Come to think of it, Rafe had heard of the Duchess Tremontaine recently, but he couldn’t put his finger on where she had come up.

“I doubt my wife even knows about you,” William responded, looking faintly horrified at the idea.

Rafe thought it best to avoid mentioning the fact that he had insulted the duchess in her own home a few days ago. “What would be an acceptable reason for me to come to Tremontaine House?” he asked.

William leaned toward him, a boyish delight suffusing his face with an eager glow. “My current secretary, Tolliver, has been with me my whole life—he was my father’s secretary before me. He’s begun to forget things—appointments and such—and he’s simply not as sharp as he used to be. I need someone younger on my staff, and I think you would be perfect for the position. If you become my junior secretary, you can learn all the ins and outs of society, and we can be together every day. It wouldn’t even be unheard of for you to have a small apartment at Tremontaine House, eventually.”

Rafe was speechless. The idea of taking a job as a nobleman’s secretary was something he had never considered. He had come to the University for the pursuit of knowledge, with the goal of eventually opening his own school. He had come here to avoid the life of a merchant—a life of bargaining and warehouses and waiting tensely for shipments to arrive or for word that those shipments had been lost. Rafe had a sudden vision of himself sitting at a secretary’s desk in William’s library, fingers stained with ink, as he wrote endless notes to various lords and Council members accepting this or declining that invitation. The thought of it was so strange that Rafe had no idea how he should feel about it.

He remembered, then, when he had last heard of the Duchess Tremontaine: at home, his parents had been talking about her. There had been something going around the countinghouses of the Middle City about the duchess’s power to set fashions on the Hill, and what the Hill folk suddenly wanted, of course, affected the merchants. But was it that her influence was declining, or that it was on the rise? Rafe couldn’t recall exactly what it was, and for once he cursed himself for not paying closer attention to merchants’ gossip.

“What do you think?” William asked when Rafe continued to be silent.

“I—I don’t know.” If he became William’s junior secretary, their relationship would change. Would it become a society-sanctioned, look-the-other-way affair, in which the Tremontaine servants would come to know the details of their trysts while keeping mum about them in public? If they did, surely the duchess would discover them sooner or later—and Rafe was inclined to believe it would be sooner.

“It would solve everything,” the duke said. “We could be together. We could call for a proper luncheon to be made for us. In a few months you wouldn’t have to live in these leaky rooms anymore. Come join my staff. You won’t regret it.”

“You’re asking me to give up on my dreams,” Rafe said.

The duke frowned. “No! I would never ask that of you. I share your dreams, Rafe.”

“And what of your promise to convince the Board of Governors to reconsider that vote?” Rafe asked pointedly. “How is that coming along?”

The duke was taken aback. “I told you it would take some time.”

“I don’t have time!” Rafe snapped. “I’ve been working for this my whole life. I’m in the middle of something truly significant right now—it is the end of Rastin and his pigheaded regurgitators—it’s going to be groundbreaking, and now I’m going to have to wait for a year while you attempt to force those idiots on the board to admit they made a mistake? What if you can’t succeed? No one will attend a school founded by a second-rate University scholar with no connections.”

William’s face became increasingly gloomy. Unwilling to confront the duke’s disappointment, Rafe threw off the sheet and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have time to be anyone’s secretary.”

The floor was cold and a bit scratchy beneath his bare feet. Rafe reached down for the pile of clothing he had discarded earlier that morning, when he had led William into his bedroom and shut the door between them and the rest of his roommates. He pulled on his shirt and breeches, tucked his shirt in before reaching for his scholar’s robe. Behind him, he heard the duke dressing as well.

“You have connections,” William said. “But you seem to have no faith in them.”

Rafe turned to face the duke. He was so tall he made Rafe’s room look as if it had been miniaturized. He did not fit here: He was all lean grace and aristocratic bearing. Rafe hated making this beautiful man look so glum.

“You don’t understand,” Rafe said miserably.

The duke took the few steps toward him and for a moment Rafe thought he was going to kiss him, but he only reached for the handle of the door. “I’ll see myself out,” the duke said. “I hope you’ll reconsider.”

 

Sheaves Lane was even narrower than most of the Riverside streets Kaab had walked through on her way to the Three Dogs, and the overhanging buildings in combination with the drizzle made her feel as if she had stepped into twilight. There were only a few buildings on the crooked little lane, which dead-ended in a three-story house with a placard in the front bow window that advertised a price so low for one night’s stay that Kaab was sure it was a front for some kind of vice.

Next to the house was the sign of the Three Dogs, which depicted, logically enough, three dogs cavorting around a pint of ale. One of the dogs was black, the second brown, and the third a color that might have once been red but had long since faded to rust. On the other side of the Three Dogs, separated by an alley, was a sagging, half-timbered building with shuttered windows. The Three Dogs itself had only one small window next to its front door, which was closed, and little could be seen through the dirty glass. It did not look like a place suitable for Tess; it looked like a den for thieves and criminals. Indeed, this entire street could have been plucked from any number of legends of Riverside that had fascinated Kaab on the long voyage across the sea. She itched to go inside, but she knew it would be smarter if she exercised the skills she had learned in the service to get a better lay of the land first. She well remembered her uncle Ahkitan’s advice to avoid putting oneself in an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous place without first noting the locations of at least two exits. It was unlikely that the Three Dogs had only one entrance, and the alley looked promising. Without hesitating—because hesitation drew more suspicion than confidence—Kaab continued down Sheaves Lane and turned into the alley.

Though the street had been paved, the alley had not, and she skirted a couple of dank puddles that smelled as if someone had emptied their chamber pots into them. Wondering yet again why the people of this city allowed their streets to become so fouled, she was grateful for the thick soles of her new boots. She looked up and saw a couple of windows in the walls above, both dark, before the alley opened into an empty, muddy yard. It was hemmed in on two sides by the walls of neighboring buildings, but the rear of the yard overlooked the river itself. A broken iron railing leaned precariously over the edge, and steps descended from one corner.

Kaab approached the steps and peered over, seeing a steep, uneven flight of stone stairs. At the bottom a narrow wooden dock extended into the river, where a couple of small boats were moored. Across the steely expanse of the water the City rose into the misty midday. The dark stone towers and ancient, grand halls of the University were washed by the rain into shades of cloud and dusk and shining slate, while the river continued north in a wide, lazy curve.

Kaab turned back to the Three Dogs, where a lean-to at the rear of the tavern sheltered several canvas-covered cords of wood and the tavern’s back door—her sought-after second exit—and a slightly less grimy window. She headed closer to see if she could get a look inside, and as she approached the lean-to, she noticed that one of the woodpiles didn’t look quite right. In fact, it didn’t look like a pile of wood at all. Kaab’s pulse quickened as she knelt down inside the lean-to beside the suspicious-looking shape and reached out to pull back the canvas.

She was right: It was not a pile of wood. It was a body.

She uncovered the hand first—a man’s hand—and then gently peeled the canvas back to reveal a torso dressed in a wet but otherwise unremarkable tunic, a sturdy neck, and a face that she recognized. It was Ben.

Kaab remembered him instantly. She recalled the gleam in his eyes and the grin on his lips as he fought her. Those lips were colorless slashes on a pale face now, his eyes half slit to reveal only the whites. Damp strands of hair clinging to his ghastly cheeks as well as his wet clothing suggested that his was the body that had been recovered from the river. This was the reason that Tess had come to this grim corner of Riverside. She had come for Ben.

Kaab wondered how he had died. Had he been killed in a fight? He was Tess’s protector, after all, so that would make sense, but there were no signs of violence on his body. Had he taken an accidental tumble into the river and drowned? Kaab didn’t know him well, but he had been light on his feet when they fought, and he was a healthy man who lived on an island in the middle of a river. She studied his body more closely. The shirt he wore was made of fine linen, the plentiful fabric bunched up in numerous folds and stained by the river water . . . which made it easy to overlook the small dark spot on his chest. She looked around, making sure the yard was still deserted, and then reached out and pushed up the shirt. The pale flesh of his chest was punctured by a small wound, as if someone had thrust a knife in through his back. Kaab’s heartbeat quickened. She put her hands beneath Ben’s body and heaved the stiff corpse on its side and then over to its stomach.

She peeled up the shirt to reveal a bigger wound: It was a thin, deep cut, clearly made by a dagger, judging by its shape. And it had been made with precision, angled in a way that would drive the blade up beneath Ben’s ribs and straight into his heart.

At the end of last summer, Kaab had made a decision that put her in a lakeside Tullan courtyard under the light of a full moon. She could smell the cool, slightly damp scent of the night air in her nostrils even now, mixed with the jacaranda perfume that the women of that house wore. Instead of Ben’s corpse on the ground before her, she saw the curved form of a woman crumpled on her belly. She felt the hard flat tiles beneath her knees as she knelt beside the body. The bright light of the moon silvered the wound on the woman’s back, the exact shape of the obsidian daggers that Kaab and every person in the service carried with them. That had been an execution, and so was this.

How awful, and yet how horribly fitting: people killed in the same way here.

Kaab’s stomach heaved as if she were aboard a ship on the open ocean during a storm. She swallowed thickly, and Ben’s face swam into focus again. “May Ixchel guide you to the land of the dead,” she whispered in Kindaan, and then adjusted Ben’s shirt back into place before turning the corpse onto its back and re-covering it with the canvas.

The City was on the most distant edge of the Balams’ trading empire; it was supposed to be a quiet little nothing of a place where she could be out of the way until the consequences of her ill-advised Tullan adventure faded into distant memory. Listen to your aunt and uncle when you get there, her father had said with a pained expression before she was hustled aboard the ship that would cross the great sea. Follow the plan for once and don’t get into trouble if you want to keep your place in the service. Her aunt and uncle would not approve of what she was about to do, but Ixkaab Balam, first daughter of a first daughter of the greatest Trading family of the Kinwiinik, was not known for her prudence. She was known for her courage—or at least, her daring. She had learned from what had happened last autumn; she was wiser now, but she was still herself.

Kaab left the lean-to with its canvas-covered corpse behind and headed back out the alley toward the front door of the Three Dogs.

 

The problem with the figures Rafe had given her, Micah realized, was that the artificial number of unity was incorrect. It should be zero, not this unnecessarily huge and complicated number listed in the appendix. That number created an inordinate amount of complications, forcing all sorts of calculations that in turn caused a ridiculous percentage of error. Micah wondered why the mathematicians who had been so excited about this table hadn’t been able to see this problem as clearly as she could. It reminded her of what had happened the other day at the lecture, when she had corrected the magister about the angles. In her mind, she could visualize the angles very clearly, like a curved slice out of the surface of a ball. It was beautiful, really, the way the angles would increase, like the crack in a doorway broadening bit by bit to let in more sunlight. And yet it seemed that the students in that class couldn’t see it the way she could.

Micah was startled out of her mathematical reverie when the door to their rooms opened, smacking into the corner of the wooden table where she was working. The pen she had been holding scratched against the paper, accidentally turning a number seven into a two. Rafe came inside holding a meat pie wrapped in a bit of greasy, brown paper. “Hungry, son?” he asked, holding it out to her.

“Oh yes!” she cried, reaching for the pie with an ink-stained hand. She had been working on her calculations all morning and had been so absorbed in them she hadn’t thought to eat, but as soon as she smelled the rich scent of lamb and gravy, her stomach growled. Before she took her first bite, though, she made sure to cross out the incorrect number two to prevent herself from making an error in the future.

Rafe nudged the door shut and sank down onto the chaise that served as Joshua’s bed. The two rooms occupied by Rafe, Joshua, Thaddeus, and now Micah were on the third floor of a rickety residence around the corner from the Inkpot. They had long been rented out by University students, who tried to pack as many of themselves as they could into one lodging in order to save money. Micah was glad to have a place to sleep at night, even if it meant she had to sleep on a pallet under the table. She could use the table to work on during the day, putting up with Rafe and his roommates constantly going in and out. Rafe, as the senior roommate and longest tenant, had the second room, the one in back, which meant he was the only one with any privacy. Since he was helping her out voluntarily, Micah didn’t complain about the constant disruptions, and she did find it deeply satisfying to solve the mathematical problems he presented to her.

As she bit into the meat pie, her gaze dropped down to her notes. She picked up her pen, dipped it back into the ink, and began to calculate again.

“How goes it?” Rafe asked, sliding over on the chaise to get a closer look at her careful columns of numbers.

“Very well,” Micah said. “I’ve discovered the main problem with the table you gave me. How long have people been using it? It’s so wrong!” She took another bite of the pie; it was only lukewarm, but the lamb and potatoes and carrots were quite tasty. She had a brief pang of longing, though, for Aunt Judith’s pastry. This wasn’t as flaky as hers.

Rafe picked up the thin booklet he had given her and turned back to the frontispiece. “Says here this was printed about twenty-five years ago. What’s the problem?”

Micah launched into a detailed explanation of the issue, and as she spoke, Rafe studied her calculations. “It’s relatively simple,” she concluded. “Or it would be, if the artificial number of unity was zero, and then I could recalculate all the other figures. It would take a while, but I could do it.”

“And if you did it, that would correct the errors?” Rafe asked.

Micah nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I really don’t know why it wasn’t done this way in the first place. People must have gotten lost if they were using these figures to chart their course—isn’t that what you said they were used for?”

“Yes.” Rafe leaned back against the wall, an odd expression on his face. Micah wasn’t exactly sure what it meant; he often had strange expressions that she couldn’t read.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, having learned that it was beneficial to ask rather than to guess, since she often guessed incorrectly. Human emotions, of course, were not like math—which was why she enjoyed math so much. Everything made sense!

Rafe answered, “Not wrong, exactly—”

“Rafe, you old dog,” cried Thaddeus, throwing open the front door, “what in the name of the Horned God possessed you to bring a nobleman into our rooms? Was that really the Duke Tremontaine?”

Rafe’s face colored slightly. “Well . . . yes.”

Thaddeus bounded into the room and pulled Rafe to his feet, patting Rafe’s head and shoulders. “Let me check—I’m afraid you might have come down with an illness—no, no, you seem solid; nobody’s smacked you on the head.”

Rafe detached himself from Thaddeus with a disdainful frown, settling himself back into the corner of the chaise. “Thaddeus, I’m in the middle of—”

Joshua appeared in the doorway, saying, “You’re back! What happened with the duke? I told you there would come a time when you’d find someone—”

Rafe dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “Will you both leave me alone? I’m trying to talk to Micah, here!”

Micah glanced at the three University students, Joshua and Thaddeus looking gleeful, Rafe hiding his face, and said seriously, “We were discussing the mathematical error in this table of artificial numbers. It’s a problem.”

“Yes, it is,” Rafe agreed, his voice muffled.

Joshua closed the door, leaning against it as if to bar Rafe from exiting, and said, “You’re not getting out of this, pigeon. What did he want? I mean obviously he wanted you—these walls are quite thin—but I heard you arguing at the end.”

Thaddeus leaned toward Rafe with an expectant expression on his face. “Do tell. It’s not every day that we’re visited by the Duke Tremontaine. He’s quite handsome, you know, for an older man.”

“The more wealth a man has the handsomer he gets,” Joshua quipped, sending Thaddeus into a paroxysm of laughter.

Rafe raised his reddened face and said glumly, “He wants me to be his secretary.”

Joshua’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. “His secretary? But what about your school?”

Rafe winced. “Well . . .”

“Secretary to the Duke Tremontaine,” Thaddeus said in an awed tone of voice. “You could do a lot with that.”

Micah was puzzled. “Like what?”

“He could use the position to worm his way into the hearts of all those nobles on the Hill,” Thaddeus said.

Joshua perched on the edge of the table where Micah was working. “That’s a thought. So much for being true to your principles, though.”

Rafe groaned. “My principles haven’t gotten me very far.”

Joshua cocked his head. “I suppose, if you’re stuck with a hostile committee, you might as well consider the duke’s offer.”

Thaddeus bounced on the chaise next to Rafe. “Yes! Damn the degree, who needs it when you’ve got this on the table?”

“Got what on the table?” Micah asked, carefully moving her neat stack of papers out of the way of Joshua’s bottom.

“The job offer,” Rafe explained. “They seem to think I should take it.”

“Does that mean you’d leave here?” Micah asked, suddenly concerned.

“I wouldn’t leave you here,” Rafe said quickly. “You’re the brains behind this operation, Micah.”

Micah wasn’t entirely certain what he meant, but she liked the tone of his voice. “Well, do you want to know more about how I could solve these errors?”

“I do,” Rafe said. “You say that if you made this correction, you could recalculate the figures in the table?”

“Yes. I would make it perfect,” she said enthusiastically.

“How long do you think it would take?”

“Well, if I start from the beginning and go through each degree and minute . . .” She thought it through in her head and realized it would be quite an endeavor. “I don’t know how long,” she concluded, “but I would need some time.”

“What if you had people to help you with the calculations?” Rafe asked. “Could that speed things up?”

Micah considered the options. “I would have to show them how to calculate these correctly, and then I would have to check their work, of course.”

Joshua was leaning over her papers now, and he asked, “What is this you’re working on, anyway?”

“It’s a table of artificial numbers,” Micah said.

“They’re central to the problem of celestial navigation,” Rafe said.

“Navigation,” Thaddeus repeated. “Are you working on something for your father, Rafe?”

Rafe grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe. But what Micah’s doing is—it’s extremely important. It could affect not only trade but natural philosophy.” He leaped to his feet and began to pace in the small room. “That’s why I need that doctor’s robe! How will I found my school without it? There’s going to be an intellectual revolution, and I must be at the start of it.”

“You do realize,” Joshua said smoothly, “that working for the Duke Tremontaine could be a real lubricant for the wheels of revolution?”

Rafe halted and spun to face Joshua. “I—”

Joshua sighed. “You are so caught up in your intellectual revolution, Rafe, you can’t see the easier path.”

Thaddeus was nodding vigorously. “It’s true. Joshua has a point.”

Micah glanced at the three students, confused. Joshua and Thaddeus always seemed to speak in expressions that purposely hid the meaning behind their words. “What’s the easier path?”

Joshua looked down at her and said, “If Rafe takes the job with the Duke Tremontaine, he’ll be well positioned to influence many important people.”

“Many wealthy people,” Thaddeus said.

Rafe rolled his eyes. “Micah, they think that if I become the duke’s secretary I can use my job to get what I want.”

“And can you?” Micah asked.

Rafe blinked. “Well, I—I suppose it’s possible.”

Joshua went over to Rafe, put his hands on Rafe’s shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “You have two options, Rafe. Stay here and bang your head against the wall trying to circumvent de Bertel and his cronies, or say yes to that lovely man and take the easier path toward your school.” Joshua gestured toward Micah. “If you won’t think of yourself, think of your protégé. You have young Micah locked up in a drafty room being constantly interrupted by me and you and Thaddeus, which I’m sure is horrible for intellectual progress.”

Micah was pleasantly surprised that Joshua had noticed the interruptions were a problem.

Rafe came over to Micah and looked over the neat columns of numbers. “Tell me: Ideally, what would you need to fix these errors more quickly?”

Micah thought about it. “Paper, of course. Ink, and pens, and a place to do the work. A bigger desk would be wonderful! Of course, I like working here, and it’s so very kind of you to let me stay with you, but Joshua is right—the interruptions make it harder. And, you know, I think this will take a few weeks, maybe more.” The enormity of the task was beginning to sink in, and her eyes widened. “I thought I would only be here for a few days! I can’t keep sending my cousins on the farm so many notes.” She pulled the most recent note she had penned to Reuben from the top drawer of the desk, where she had put it for safekeeping until she could send it out, and passed it to Rafe. He glanced down at it, reading her brief words. Dear Cousin Reuben, I’m still in the University staying with Rafe. I’ve started work on calculations that will be extremely useful, you know how good I am at numbers. I hope I will be able to come home in a day or two. Love, Micah.

“It’s almost time for planting, and it’s my job to make sure we’ve got enough seed and to organize the storehouse. I should really go home,” she concluded glumly.

“But you’d rather work on this, wouldn’t you?” Rafe said, smiling at her.

“Oh yes,” she said eagerly. “This is much more interesting.”

Rafe ran his hands through his flyaway hair in agitation. “You must stay, Micah!” he declared. “This work you’ve done is too important. Other people can help out with the planting—your skills are required here.”

“But what will I tell my cousin?” Micah asked, Rafe’s enthusiasm beginning to make her feel giddy. “And should I go out to the tavern to get up a card game again? I might need to win some more money—”

“I will take care of it,” Rafe said. “Joshua and Thaddeus are right.”

“Oho!” Thaddeus said in delight. “That’s a rarity coming from you.”

Rafe continued to Micah: “I think I can make sure you’ll have everything you need to solve these problems. And your new tables of—what do you call them?—tables of artificial numbers?”

“Yes, artificial numbers. Because they’re not like natural numbers—”

“Yes, yes, exactly,” Rafe interrupted in his excitement. “Your new, improved, and exceedingly accurate table of artificial numbers will be used to support celestial navigation—trade might come on board—natural philosophy—this is the answer!”

“You mean it will help people sail to new places without getting lost?” Micah asked.

“Precisely. And it will prove that I should have my own school.” Rafe opened the door and added, “I’ll be back soon. Meanwhile, continue on!”

“All right,” Micah said. “Thank you for the meat pie!”

Rafe waved off her thanks and opened the front door again. “Wish me luck!”

“Good luck,” she called out dutifully.

“Lucky bastard,” Thaddeus said admiringly.

Joshua smirked. “Thaddeus, how about you and I head out for some chocolate and give Micah some quiet time for those calculations?”

“Lovely idea,” Thaddeus agreed.

Once they left her alone, Micah pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, and began to draw out a new table.

 

The interior of the Three Dogs was dim, lit only by the small front window and a smoky oil lamp hanging over the bar on the far side of the room. As Kaab’s eyes adjusted to the murk, she saw that a group of people was clustered there, and a man was talking, his booming voice cutting through the small space.

“. . . a wild one from the beginning. We used to play in the Old Market, make a game of lifting little things from the stalls. Dangerous games, to be sure.” The man chuckled. “Once Ben was caught by Crooked Nan, who gave him a bloody lip for making off with one of her kerchiefs.”

“Nan was a hard one,” a woman said. “I bet he learned from that!”

“True, Ben never stole from her again,” the man said. “But I remember that day—after Crooked Nan smacked him, his father turned him over his knee and told him he never should’ve gotten caught in the first place!”

Everyone broke into laughter, and someone added, “His father was even harder, though. You don’t hear of many highwaymen living as long as old Rupert Hawke did. Only just died, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did,” said a different woman. “Ben had just got back from burying him.”

Kaab thought she recognized the speaker. Was that Tess? Kaab stepped forward only to be confronted by a stocky figure about her own height, a hand on the dagger at his belt.

“Who’re you?” came the voice—a woman’s voice, though low and rough.

Kaab eyed her curiously. This was the first Local woman she’d seen dressed in trousers. Her face was pockmarked, her hair wiry and gray. Kaab lowered the hood of her cloak and saw the woman’s eyes narrow on her foreign face. “I’m Ixkaab Balam.”

“What kind of name is that? And what business do you have here?”

The small crowd grouped around the bar had overheard Kaab’s arrival, and they were now all staring at her. Tess stood up, the light gleaming on her fiery hair. “I know her!” Tess exclaimed in surprise. “She challenged Ben, the day he left for his father’s deathbed!”

A dozen hands reached for a dozen weapons; the sound of steel scraping against scabbards caused Kaab to say hastily, “And he defeated me fair and square. He was a good fighter, very honorable.” She had no idea if Ben had been honorable. From what little she’d heard when she entered the Three Dogs he probably hadn’t been, but she was outnumbered and needed to defuse the situation. Praise generally did the trick.

“The finest,” said a man in the crowd. He raised a tankard and added, “To Ben Hawke, one of Riverside’s finest fighters!” Everyone joined in, dropping their weapons so they could raise their tankards and echo the toast.

A plump girl in a gown that exposed much of her bosom leaned over the bar, exposing even more of it, and called out, “Stranger, are you here to honor Ben?”

“Of course,” Kaab agreed, since agreeing seemed to be the best option. “To honor Ben.”

“Then you’d better drink to him,” said the woman who dressed like a man. “Jenny, I’ll buy this stranger a beer.”

Jenny winked at Kaab before turning away to pull a tankard from beneath the bar. A moment later, Kaab had the tankard in hand, and everyone in the room, including Tess, was looking at her expectantly. Kaab thought quickly. Back home, honoring someone after their death involved fasting to show one’s love for the departed, as well as leaving out carefully prepared food for the dead on feast days, when the path to the underworld was open to the spirits. Apparently, in Riverside, honoring someone involved drinking awful, watered-down, bitter beer. Kaab raised the tankard, some of the foaming substance splashing over the rim onto her hand, and said formally, “In honor of Ben Hawke, a strong and nimble fighter. May his life be remembered by all.” She had considered translating a Kinwiinik saying into the Local language but wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate.

“Hear, hear!” said Tess, who raised her tankard first. As the rest of the room followed suit, Kaab allowed herself to relax a tiny bit. Nobody had reached for a weapon, so she must have avoided insulting them. She took a sip of the beer, hiding her grimace at the sour taste.

“What was that they used to call Ben’s father in his heyday?” someone asked, picking up the conversation where they’d left off.

“The Gentleman Robber,” Tess said, though judging by the tone of her voice, she didn’t love the name.

“Ah yes,” said the same man who had told the story about stealing from Crooked Nan. “Rupert Hawke, Gentleman Robber, steals your money but spares your daughter!”

Scattered laughter and a few groans went through the tavern. A woman said, “I heard Hawke stole the Farnsleigh fortune from a close-guarded carriage, all on his own.”

“I heard he robbed the ambassador from Arkenvelt, who was riding in a decoy carriage to elude highwaymen, but there was no fooling Hawke!”

“That’s why he never teamed up with anyone. I heard that Wicked Thomas asked him to go in on a job but Hawke refused—said he worked alone.”

“It probably saved him, because Wicked Thomas hanged—d’you remember? There was that street ballad about him. What was it?”

Jenny the barmaid sang in a sweet, clear voice:

 

“Wicked Thomas is my name

I left my home in search of fame.

But though I found jewels and gold

It wasn’t in me to grow old.

And though I’m only young and spry

I never was afraid to die.

Remember me, my heart was honest,

Even though I’m Wicked Thomas.”

 

Applause filled the tavern when Jenny finished her song. Then someone said, “I remember now—after he turned down Wicked Thomas, didn’t Hawke pull off that bloody caper involving the young ladies?”

“Yes, the story that gave him his nickname. It seems Hawke stopped a carriage that was coming to the City carrying two young noble girls, I think, from the North. He killed all the men—the driver, the footmen—made off with all the loot—there were jewels, silver, velvets, and all—but he let the two young ladies live out of the nobility of his heart.”

“Rupert Hawke, Gentleman Robber, steals your money but spares your daughter,” a woman repeated the doggerel, and everyone raised their tankards again.

“To Rupert Hawke, may his soul rest in peace!”

Kaab had never known Rupert Hawke, but it only seemed polite to join in. “Someone should write a ballad about Hawke,” Jenny said.

“And Ben! It could be about the two of them. Why didn’t Ben go into the family business?”

As the conversation continued, Kaab made her way toward the end of the bar, where she leaned against the scarred wood and sipped at her beer. Everyone in the Three Dogs seemed to know one another, and they had many stories to share about Ben Hawke and his father. Ben had also had a string of casual lovers, all men, who were mentioned in a series of ribald jokes that caused the crowd to snicker. No one mentioned the fact that Ben had been stabbed in the back, and Kaab wondered if they were refraining from talking about it out of respect for Tess, who joined in the storytelling only sporadically. It appeared that Ben had been her protector for several years now, and Tess thought of him as a brother. Every so often a story would cause her to break into tears, and someone would rub her back or squeeze her shoulder to comfort her. Kaab watched Tess go through a number of handkerchiefs, until her nose was almost as red as her hair.

By the time Kaab finished the tankard of beer she had been given, she had to admit the drink tasted a bit better than it had at the beginning. Perhaps the trick was to drink more than one. When Jenny approached and asked if she wanted another, Kaab agreed. She still wanted to talk to Tess, but it was clear she wouldn’t have a moment alone with her until Tess was ready to leave, and it would look odd if she stood there in the corner without even a drink in her hand.

It wasn’t until the light from the window darkened into dusk that the gathering began to break up. Tess was the last to leave, and Kaab overheard her talking with the tavern owner about arrangements for Ben’s body to be transported for burial to a cemetery outside the City. As Tess turned to depart, reaching for her cloak, Kaab was waiting to help her put it on.

Tess looked worn out but not surprised. “I saw you were still here. Was there something you wanted from me?” She sounded somewhat curious, but reserved, as if she didn’t know what to make of Kaab.

Kaab gestured toward the door. “May I walk you to your home? If Ben is no longer with you, you’ll need protection.”

“I’ll be fine on my own for a fortnight,” Tess said. “There’s two weeks to mourn someone, here in Riverside, before anyone would even think to bother you.” Then her curiosity seemed to win out over her reserve. “But sure, you can walk me home.”

 

William, Duke Tremontaine, was ensconced in his study, reading through a series of extremely tedious notes on the taxation of foreign imports. He was supposed to be preparing for an upcoming Council session that his wife had insisted he propose, but his attention kept wandering to a certain young scholar in whom he had developed a sudden and increasingly intense interest. The duke wished that they had parted that afternoon on a better note.

The door to the library opened to reveal Tilson, the footman. “My lord, a Master Rafe Fenton has arrived. Shall I send him up?”

It was as if the gods could hear his thoughts! “Yes, bring him up, please, Tilson.”

William hastily swept his papers into a ragged pile, then pushed the pile to one side. He adjusted the fall of his cravat and straightened his cuffs, feeling unusually nervous. Rafe would only come to him if his answer was yes, wouldn’t he? Thankfully, it was only a few moments before the door opened again and Rafe appeared, looking a bit agitated.

“Good evening,” William said formally, rising from his seat.

“My lord duke,” Rafe said. He waited until the butler left them alone before continuing, “I’ve come to a decision.”

“Have you?” The duke came around his desk but hesitated to approach the young scholar.

Rafe began to pace back and forth, his black robe fluttering behind him. “Yes. I realized that what you have offered me is quite significant. I—I am ashamed I did not understand this earlier today. I chalk it up to hunger.” Rafe made a self-deprecating grimace. “I was too set on my scholarly ambitions without realizing I can achieve them in more than one way. I have thought about it, and if—if you’ll have me, I’d be very honored to be your junior secretary.” Rafe took a shallow breath, took several swift steps across the intricately woven (and clearly imported, Rafe judged) rug, and took the liberty of grasping the duke’s right hand. “Will,” he said, loving the feel of the intimate name on his tongue. “Does your offer still stand?”

The duke gazed at the passionate young man before him, intoxicated by the gleaming dark pools of his eyes. He answered by pulling Rafe close and kissing him on the mouth.

Rafe returned the kiss hungrily, and he realized that though becoming the Duke Tremontaine’s secretary had never been something he aspired to, it did come with some unmistakable benefits.

 

“My lady, would you like the peacock pin tonight or the pearl comb?”

Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, examined her reflection in her dressing room mirror while her lady’s maid, Lucinda, waited by the jewel box. “The comb,” Diane replied. “It’s enough for a quiet supper at home, and I’ll wear the peacock tomorrow when I call on Lady Godwin.” Lucinda approached with the pearl-studded comb and began to place it expertly into Diane’s blond hair. “I don’t wear the peacock at home, unless there’s a very special occasion,” Diane said.

“I’ll remember that, my lady.”

As Lucinda put the finishing touches on her creation, Diane heard the door to her husband’s study click shut. A low murmur of voices followed. The duchess’s dressing room adjoined the duke’s little upstairs study, and a rarely used door connected the two rooms. It was an odd arrangement for a couple with a townhouse as large as theirs, but Diane herself had suggested it, saying the light was better. It gave her an opportunity to keep an ear trained on her husband’s business dealings, and bless his good-willed heart, he never seemed to have caught on to the fact that she might, at times, listen in.

The sound of voices next door briefly increased in volume, and Diane heard someone say “Will” in an unusually intense tone of voice. Will? Who called the duke by that name? Not even Diane. She found it extremely intriguing and not a little disturbing.

“That will be all for now, Lucinda.”

The maid curtsied and backed out of the room. Diane rose from her dressing table and walked silently across the plush rug to the connecting door. It had a small latch that Diane kept well oiled, but she didn’t need to open the door to hear. She simply pressed her ear to the crack and stood still.

She had done this before: not only here, but ages ago, as a girl. She remembered it suddenly with a sick lurch in her stomach. The whispers, the rustle of silk, the fear of being caught, all running in a hot, quick thrill through her veins.

She closed her eyes and took a shallow breath, her stays pressing into her sides as she locked those memories away once again. This was not the time nor the place for that. She was the Duchess Tremontaine, and some stranger was in the study with her husband.

She recognized the sounds she heard: the murmuring, the caught breath, the unmistakable smack of lips on skin, a low moan, a sharper one. A chill went through the duchess. She had heard them often, when the duke was with her. Judging by the answering sounds, the other was not a woman, but a man.

She had never known her husband to be unfaithful before. This was surprising, and Diane disliked surprises that she had not orchestrated herself.

She withdrew from the connecting door and took one last look at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, powdered to perfection. Her lips were rouged into a bow, her hair swept up perfectly, the pearl comb gleaming in the candlelight. She heard a thump from her husband’s study as something fell to the floor, followed by a brief laugh that was quickly silenced.

The chill that had gripped her seemed to harden and burn, as if frost had crackled across her skin. In the hallway, the clock struck the hour. It was time for supper.

Diane turned away from the mirror and proceeded downstairs to the dining room, her silk skirts swirling around her elegantly slippered feet.

 

Outside the Three Dogs, it had stopped raining at last, leaving a fresh, cool scent in the Riverside air. Houses spilled cheerful light from their windows, turning streets that had been gloomy tunnels during the day into cozy warrens filled with the scent of suppers cooking over hearth fires. Kaab said to Tess, “I am sorry about Ben.”

“Thank you,” Tess said quietly. “I am too.”

“He had many friends,” Kaab noted.

“Yes.”

“That’s the mark of a good man.”

Tess snorted indelicately. “Well, he was too brash for his own good and yet not devious enough by half. But he was a good friend to me. I will miss him horribly, even his stupid little tricks.” She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.

Kaab found Tess’s lack of self-consciousness distinctly charming. The girls back home were much less direct. Kaab had developed a knack for peeling back their layers of polite reserve, but she enjoyed the fact that the girls of Riverside were as forthright as she herself was.

“You haven’t told me what brought you to the Three Dogs,” Tess said. “It couldn’t have been Ben—you hardly knew him.”

“Few men have bested me in . . . well, in anything. I respect anyone who has.” That won her a sly smile from Tess, and Kaab felt a flush of victory.

“What’s your name?” Tess asked. “It was something unusual, wasn’t it?”

“It’s Ixkaab,” she said, placing a hand over her heart and giving Tess a small bow. “You may call me Kaab.”

“And where are you from, Kaab? What brings you to Riverside?”

“I am from Binkiinha, the greatest city in the land of the gods. My family is in the chocolate trade.” She thought of the boy Tess paid to take messages and asked, “Do you know chocolate?”

“It’s that fancy drink they love uptown, isn’t it? I haven’t had it.”

“You’ve never had it!” Kaab exclaimed. She considered offering Tess the chocolate she carried with her for bartering, but she didn’t want to give Tess something of such poor quality. She wanted, she realized, to impress this woman.

Tess shrugged. “I’ve had some pretty good wine, though.”

“Wine is nothing compared with fine chocolate, expertly prepared. It is the drink of the gods.”

“Well if you say it like that . . .” Tess teased.

Kaab grinned. “I will bring you some. I promise you will enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Tess said, sounding amused. She glanced sidelong at Kaab. “But you haven’t told me what brings you to Riverside.”

“I have heard of your many talents, and I wish to avail myself of your skill.”

Tess seemed to enjoy the flattery. “Is that so?”

They had reached Bridgewater Street, and they turned down the lane that would bring them to Tess’s home. The streets of Riverside were certainly livelier in the evening. Tess seemed to be known by many people who called to her as they passed. At that moment, a small, ragged boy approached them and tugged on her cloak. “Mistress Tess, Mistress Tess, spare a coin for my supper?”

Tess looked down at the boy’s dirty face and said, “Oh, Tommykins, I don’t have any money on me. Come by my house later?”

Kaab reached into her pocket and removed a few minnows. “Here you go,” she said, pressing the coins into the boy’s hand.

His eyes widened, and he bowed to her as if she were royalty. “Thank you, sir—ma’am—thank you!”

As the boy scampered off, Tess said, “That was kind of you.”

“Those of us who are fortunate should help those who are not,” Kaab said.

“Clearly you weren’t raised on the Hill,” Tess said dryly. “They chase beggars away there. Now tell me: What business do you have for me?”

Kaab said, “I would prefer to tell you in private. Will you allow me to come up to your office?”

Tess gave her a straightforward once-over, taking in Kaab’s sword and clothing, and Kaab felt herself blushing. Tess seemed to like that, because she said, “I suppose your business is of a delicate nature?”

“It is,” Kaab said.

“All right then, you can come up,” Tess said. They had arrived at Tess’s house now, and the boy Jamie, the one she paid to take messages for her, had fallen asleep with his head against the doorjamb. Tess put a hand on his shoulder, and he woke with a start. Tess asked, “Any messages, Jamie?”

Jamie yawned and said sleepily, “Nothing all day, except some odd foreign woman came by.” He hadn’t spotted Kaab, who was standing a few paces behind Tess. “Not even Ben’s been here. Where is Ben, anyway?”

Tess said gently, “Ben is dead.”

At that, the boy’s eyes snapped wide open. “Ben’s dead? What did he do?” he asked loudly.

Tess pulled some keys out from the interior pocket of her cloak and began to unlock her front door. “Hush, now,” she said. “Ben didn’t do anything. Don’t go spreading any rumors. Come inside and I’ll pay you.” She herded the boy inside, then gestured to Kaab to follow them up the dark stairs.

 

William was late for supper.

Diane ordered the servants to delay the food until the duke arrived. While she waited, she sat stiffly, her cool blue eyes moving over the polished silver, the delicate porcelain plates decorated with the Tremontaine swan. The household budget had been so tight lately that she had entertained the thought, however briefly, of selling the silver. The porcelain was out of the question—she would not sell anything with the Tremontaine crest on it—but the silver didn’t bear the ducal swan and coronet. If anyone learned that she had stooped to selling silver, though, Tremontaine would be a laughingstock, and she couldn’t have that. She had, instead, quietly parted with a landscape painting that had hung in the rose bedroom, and a marble statue of a nymph from the garden. In place of the statue, now, was an urn freshly planted with roses, and the painting had been replaced with a much less precious charcoal drawing that had been stored in the attic. The statue and painting had gone to a trader from Chartil, for whom they were exotic relics of a foreign land. For Diane, it meant that no one in the City would notice they were missing, and Tremontaine had enough funds for a little while, if she put off her creditors long enough for her plans with the Traders to come to fruition. She’d begin by redeeming the loan on the Highcombe estate—which made Diane’s head pound every time she thought of it. Last night she had awakened from a nightmare, breathless with panic that William had failed to push the tax abatement through the Council as she had directed. It had taken every ounce of control she had not to shake him awake as well and demand to know what was delaying the passage of the measure.

Well, now she knew what was occupying his attention: Tilson had confirmed for her that the duke’s guest was none other than that horribly rude young student who had nearly run her down on her own staircase the other day. She had considered telling the duke about the boy’s insolence but decided he wasn’t worth it. She was above being insulted by a University idiot, but apparently her husband wasn’t above sleeping with one.

Finally, the duchess heard footsteps approaching the dining room, and a footman opened the door to admit the duke. His cravat was crooked and his waistcoat buttoned unevenly. Diane hid her rising irritation with a sweet smile. “My dear William, I hope you were not detained by bad news?”

His face was flushed, and he sat down hurriedly without kissing her. “I apologize. I had a last-minute visitor on business.”

“Oh?” Diane took a sip of her wine. She had already drunk most of her goblet while waiting for her husband, and a footman came quickly to refill it. “Any business I should be aware of?”

Bowls of consommé were set in front of them, lukewarm now due to the delay. The duke picked up his spoon and answered, “It was a University man named Rafe Fenton. I’ve decided to hire him on as a junior secretary. Old Tolliver just can’t keep up anymore.”

Diane had some trouble swallowing her consommé. “This soup won’t do,” she said curtly to the footman behind her. “Take it back and tell the cook there’s too much salt in it.”

“Of course, madam,” the servant murmured, and removed the soup bowl from her sight.

So William intended to lie to her about this Rafe. That was more upsetting than the affair itself. Men and women had needs, after all, and marriage was about more than physical desires. Did he not know she understood this? She wanted to demand that he tell her the truth, but he kept his gaze lowered to his bowl of soup and said nothing. He was a horrible liar.

She was not.

“My dear, of course the decision to hire a new secretary is yours to make, but are you intending to let Tolliver go?” she asked, barely a tremor in her voice. Given the loan against the country estate, not to mention the day-to-day demands of running the Tremontaine household in the manner it required, the expense of additional staff had to be carefully considered. Of course, her husband had no idea what dire straits they were in—and she intended to keep it that way.

“Certainly not,” William said. “Tolliver has been with us so long it would be too much of a blow. And Rafe will be able to learn from him.” Finally the duke met his wife’s cool gaze. “You know, I’ve been horrible at remembering my appointments lately. I dare say it’s partly because Tolliver can’t remember them either. Rafe will keep me on track.”

“I’m sure he will,” Diane said. And when he finally let Tolliver go, there would be a comfortable pension to be paid out. . . . The duchess sighed inwardly. “When does Master Fenton begin?”

“Tomorrow,” the duke answered brightly. “I’ll ask him to share Tolliver’s office for now, but I think we might be able to have the annex off the library—you know, the room I was thinking of using as my study—I could modify it to suit Rafe.”

Diane took another sip of her wine. The anticipatory tone in her husband’s voice set her nerves on edge. “Do you intend for Master Fenton to live in the house, my dear? Would you like me to have the servants prepare a room for him in the attic?”

The duke’s face flushed slightly. “Oh, I don’t want to trouble you.”

She noted her husband’s equivocacy, but chose to not press him for now. “If I may ask, what is Master Fenton’s background? His course of study?”

“He’s a brilliant scholar,” the duke enthused. “He shares my interest in natural philosophy, and you know how much I enjoy my University work. Are you worried about his qualifications, my dear?”

She smiled prettily. “Oh, no, I’m sure you know better than I do whether he is qualified.”

The duke returned the smile warmly. “I can assure you, he will be perfect for the job. He comes from a well-placed trading family. I’m not sure what sort of goods they specialize in, but I know how careful you are with household expenses. Perhaps Rafe can help you with that, too.”

The very idea incensed the duchess. As if she would allow a stranger to have any knowledge of the Tremontaine finances, even if the knowledge related only to the price of turnips. “I wouldn’t wish to burden him with details, my dear. But I appreciate knowing that he will be at my disposal if necessary.”

The duke looked a bit nonplussed. “Of course, my love. Any secretary of mine is at your service as well.”

She smiled at her husband again. Her cheeks hurt from it.

The footmen entered the dining room with the main course of roast pheasant and root vegetables in a cream sauce. Once the duchess had been served, she picked up her knife and fork and sliced evenly through the meat. It was beautifully seasoned, but she had little appetite. The fact that her husband was lying to her about this Rafe Fenton made her wonder if he would lie to her about other things as well. This was something she would not allow. It showed a lack of respect for her and all the work she had done—and was still doing—to maintain Tremontaine.

“How was your day, my dear?” the duke said, cutting into the silence. “Any news?”

“Great news!” she said with false brightness, to see if she could make him laugh, or even look at her as if she were really there. “I’ve accepted Lady Halliday’s invitation to her garden party next week.” She made a moue. “And I’m afraid you, too, are expected to attend, as the gentlemen will be there as well.”

“I’ll tell Rafe to make a note of it,” the duke said, ignoring her completely.

He seemed quite hungry, polishing off his pheasant within minutes. The footman was waiting with more, and as her husband cut into his second portion, Diane forced herself to continue eating her own. The fury that had swelled inside her during supper seemed to coalesce in a hot lump lodged in her throat. The cream sauce was one of Cook’s finest, but it was all Diane could do to swallow it.

“Rafe is on the verge of quite a revolutionary discovery,” the duke said enthusiastically. “All he needs is a bit of time and space to finish his research. He lives over by the University in a positively ramshackle set of rooms that are surely horrible for intellectual cogitation. I was thinking . . . Highcombe is empty for the summer, is it not?”

Diane nearly dropped her knife and fork in shock. “Highcombe, my dear? Whatever made you think of that place? It hasn’t been opened up in years.”

“I spent time there when I was a boy; I remember early spring being especially glorious. I’m sure it would only take a week or two to make it habitable again,” the duke said. “Of course, I know you’re much too busy to leave town this season, but I could take Rafe with me out to the country, enjoy some fishing, maybe, and some riding, while he finishes his research. When he returns he can sit his exams, gain his degree, and then he can join my staff with the status of a full University doctor. Quite a coup for Tremontaine! Yes, yes, have Tolliver send a man out to Highcombe straightaway.”

“My dear, I wish you would wait a bit on that,” Diane said, ignoring the clammy chill that had risen on her skin. “I—I think there’s been some trouble with—with mice at Highcombe. I know there was something wrong there, because, remember? We were speaking of letting it out this year. And they told me there was something— Of course, if you want it, it’s yours, but let me send someone to take a look at it first, shall I?”

“If you insist, my love. In fact, I could go out and look myself!”

“No, no, you have the Council meeting to worry about. Let me handle the estates,” Diane assured him, investing her voice with all the warmth she could muster—which, at the moment, was very little. No one must go to Highcombe, not until the estate was safely out of danger from the loan. Especially not William; she needed him here.

Diane continued to slice her pheasant into tinier and tinier bites, as it would not do for anyone to notice her lack of appetite. “My dear William,” she said steadily, “tell me a bit more about these scholarly interests that Rafe Fenton has. I’m curious to know how they dovetail with your own.”

The duke beamed at her and began to speak.

 

Tess Hocking’s studio was warmly lit by a large oil lamp that shed a gentle, steady light over the rectangular sheet of paper that Kaab had given her. Tess leaned closer to the paper, studying the red and black signs and numbers, and reached out to touch the material. “This is not the kind of paper I normally see,” she said.

“It is called huun,” Kaab explained. “I have an extra piece for you to use.” She unrolled another sheet of huun from the case she had secreted in the inner pocket of her cloak.

Tess took the sheet and said, “You want me to transcribe this . . . incorrectly?”

“Yes. Substitute this symbol for this one.” Kaab turned the printed sheet of huun over and picked up one of Tess’s ink pens to write out the substitutions.

“Hmm. Normally, when I’m hired, my clients want me to be accurate, not make mistakes.” Tess gave Kaab a frankly curious glance. “Why? Are you really a chocolate merchant?”

The light turned Tess’s skin rosy, and Kaab wanted to reach out and caress the soft curve of her cheek. “Yes, I am. My family, the Balam, were the first chocolate Traders ever to come to the City. But this is an unusual situation. Are you able to do it?”

Tess cocked her head to one side, her lips pursing.

Such kissable lips, Kaab thought, and almost leaned forward.

“It’ll cost extra,” Tess said, and smiled at her.

Kaab laughed. “Of course it will. How much extra?”

“You’ll have to bring me some of that chocolate—the drink of the gods, you said?”

Kaab took one step closer and extended a hand to Tess. This was how the Locals struck deals, wasn’t it? “The drink of the gods is yours,” she said.

Tess took Kaab’s proffered hand, and Kaab held it for a moment. The sturdy fingers were calloused and ink-stained with many colors: the mark of her profession. Tess flushed, her pale skin showing the rush of blood like a fire across her cheeks.

“Give me a week or two,” Tess said, “and your mistake-riddled sheet of huun will be ready.”

“I will.” Kaab didn’t want to leave, but she had to return home to the Balam compound; her aunt and uncle were surely wondering where she was. Tess picked up a small lamp to light Kaab’s way down the stairs to the street, but before Kaab descended she turned back to Tess. “I should tell you about something I discovered today,” Kaab said.

Tess’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Before I went inside the Three Dogs, I looked at Ben’s body outside.”

Tess went stiff as a board. “What?”

“I’m sorry. He was murdered.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded.

“He was killed in a way that showed it was deliberate.”

Tess looked frightened. “How could you tell?”

“I’ve seen these things before.”

Tess’s gaze narrowed on her. “Where? Who are you, really?”

Kaab hesitated. She was attracted to Tess, that was true, but speaking to a beautiful girl of murder—with her protector lying cold and stiff nearby, no less—was certainly not the best way to seduce her. Finally Kaab said, “I’m no one to you, I know that, but I hope to be a friend.”

Tess shook her head. “Why? You don’t know me or Ben.”

“If Ben was murdered, you might not be safe,” Kaab said. “He could have been killed for protecting you. You do dangerous work.”

“I told you before, I have a fortnight. No one in Riverside will harm me while I’m in mourning.”

“What will you do when the fortnight is over?” Tess just shook her head. “And outside Riverside?” Kaab pressed her. “Across the Bridge? There is a whole great city out there right now, where even your mourning won’t protect you.”

Tess looked at her thoughtfully. “You really are worried, aren’t you? You’re a different one, Kaab. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

The way the lamplight turned Tess’s skin into shades of strawberries and cream was simply irresistible. Kaab knew that she was about to ignore her father’s instructions to stay out of trouble.

“I will find out why Ben was killed,” Kaab said. Before Tess could do more than draw a single, startled breath, Kaab went to her and kissed her on the cheek: a brief, fleeting brush of her lips across Tess’s heated skin. Kaab promised, “I will find out for you.”