THUNDER DRUMMED IN Saffer's room as if a madman had been let loose at a set of kettle drums. Saffer groaned and burrowed her head deeper into the twist of blankets on her bed. She wished desperately for the storm to move on. As though in answer to her prayer, for one brief moment there was a lull. Then the thunder started up again.

Poking her head up from out of her nest of bedclothes, she squinted at the bright light coming in through the window. How could she be hearing thunder when the sky was so blue it hurt to look at it? Her squint tightened, then focused on the door to her room which was vibrating with the thunder.

"Open for the Guard!" a deep voice cried in the next lull.

Saffer continued to stare stupidly at the door. The Guard? Sink them. What did they want with her at this hour of the—

The thunder started up again.

"All right!" Saffer shrieked, then immediately clutched her temples to keep her head all in one piece. In a much softer voice she added, "I'm coming." Sitting up very carefully, she stretched a hesitant foot towards the floor.

Stumbling to the door, she swung it wide to blink at the pair of large, gray-clad Guards.

"Demar wants to see you," one of them said.

Saffer winced. Demar. That figured. Trust her brother to have her roused at—

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Almost noon."

"Already?"

"I wouldn't keep him waiting," the guard told her. "He's in a mood."

Lovely. Her head was ready to split and Demar was in a mood. "What am I supposed to have done this time?"

The guard shrugged. Saffer sighed and stumbled back into her room. Fumbling about in the small remedies bag that hung from the end of her bed, she finally closed her fingers about a little pouch that contained one of Marithana's hangover cures.

"Can I get dressed, or is it a come-as-you-are sort of party?" she asked as she sprinkled some of the mixture on her palm. Pulling a face, she swallowed it dry.

"Five minutes," the guard said, then closed the door.

Saffer replaced the little pouch in her remedies bag. She rubbed her hands over her face, then ran her fingers through the short hair on the top of her head. The seven braids hanging behind her felt heavier than the Levar's purse this morning and she draped them carefully over her shoulders to take their weight off her aching head.

Going over to the window, she stared out for a few moments, trying to remember what she could possibly have done that would entail her brother sending a couple of his men round to pick her up. Odd's end. She hadn't been in a decent scrape since Dumps had left the city to work the railroaders' camps with his card tricks.

A sound at the door—still loud, but identifiable as a knock now—roused her enough to get dressed, hurriedly splash some water on her face, and join her unwanted traveling companions. About the only good thing for this morning, she thought as she trailed along between them, was that Marithana's hangover cure was beginning to take effect.

•

Demar took one look at Saffer and frowned. She was decked out in the current fashion—baggy Zhir-styled trousers and a tight shirt, topped with a loose jacket, all in pastel shades of mauve and pink. Her face was puffy from the previous night's drinking and her hair was a snake's nest of braids spilling to her shoulders.

"You look like a clown," he said.

"Oh, don't be such a dried old toad. This is all the rage."

Demar sighed. When she tried her best winning smile, he didn't allow himself to react.

Demar had Saffer's chestnut brown hair, but he was taller than her by a head. He was lean and rangy, thick-wristed, with a lightness to his step that came from years with the Guard. Looking at his sister with her lopsided smile made him think that half those years had been filled with pulling her out of one scrape or another.

"What is it you think I've done this time?" Saffer asked finally.

"You'd better come with me," Demar said.

Saffer gave him an odd look. "Oh, don't go all sinking officious on me," she began.

Demar cut her off with a wave of his hand and led her down the hall. He wouldn't speak until they entered another room in the guardhouse. Lying on a cot in the center of the room was the bruised and battered body of a young man. The guard who had been tending him left the room when Demar gave her a nod. On another cot by the wall lay a girl a few years younger, one leg twisted and thin.

Saffer blanched, but she stepped forward to take a closer look all the same.

"Are … are they dead?" she asked.

"The girl is. The man's taken a bad beating, but he'll live." Demar studied his sister, watching her reactions. "Do you know them?" he asked.

"No. Should I …" Her voice trailed off as she got a closer look at the man's face. "Kerlaf," she murmured. She turned to look at her brother. "I met them last night. I had a commission at The Luck's Shadow and he was there with—" she glanced at the body of the girl "—with his sister, Ayla. Demar, how did you know I knew them? Odd's end, I only met them last night."

"The man had your name on his lips when he was brought in."

"Truly, Demar. I went straight home after the party and collapsed on my bed until your thugs dragged me out of it." Her gaze drifted back to the pair on the cots. "Poor Kerlaf. He really cared about Ayla. You could just tell by the way he took care of her."

"So the last you saw of them was at The Luck's Shadow?" Demar asked.

Saffer nodded.

"That's a wizard's inn, isn't it? Is he a wizard?"

"Ayla was—sort of. I never really got to talk with them about it. But they were there with me. I met them on my way to the party and they looked so bedraggled that I brought them along and snuck them in. They looked like they could use a bit of fun."

That was Saffer, Demar thought. Always willing to pick up any stray dog.

"What happened to them, Demar?"

"Nobody knows. A couple of guards found them in Fortune Way and brought them in just an hour ago. When the man—you said his name was Kerlaf?"

Saffer nodded.

"When he mentioned you by name, I had you brought around straight away. They're not from the city, are they?"

"They used to live here a long time ago. I got the impression that they'd been away and only just returned, but I didn't get much of a chance to talk to them. I was working, you know." Her gaze drifted back to Ayla.

"And you're sure there's not more to this than you're telling me?"

Saffer looked away from the dead girl's face. Swallowing hard, she shook her head.

Demar sighed. "Will you take responsibility for them, Saff? They hadn't even a copper to their names."

"I can put Kerlaf up at my place, I suppose, but Ayla …"

"If she stays here, she goes into a pauper's grave."

"Send her to an undertaker in my name," Saffer said. "I'll go by later to make the arrangements." Though who knew where she'd get the money.

"I'll see to it," Demar said. "You'll want some help getting him back to your place?"

Saffer nodded.

"I'll get those two 'thugs' to help you."

He could tell that she wasn't in the mood to smile, but she touched his arm to let him know that she wasn't just being sulky.

"But if you hear anything … ?"

"I'll tell you right away."

"That's all I wanted to hear." Taking her by the arm, he led her back to his office.

•

After seeing that Kerlaf was comfortable in her room, Saffer spent the rest of the afternoon making the funeral arrangements for Ayla. It took the last of her money, plus some that she had to borrow from Meggy Thistle whom she ran into in the Levar's Park. She'd also been at the party at The Luck's Shadow the previous night and was an old friend of Saffer's.

"Mind you," she said as she handed Saffer the coins, "I'll need this back before the end of the week. I thought I'd wander up toward Trader's Town for a week or so and see how well the railway men are paying these days. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come. We could've had a bit of fun and collected a copper or two while we were at it. I've heard they're starving for good entertainment."

"Don't I know it," Saffer replied. "Dumps is up there right now, cardsharping his way through their wages. Say hello to him for me if you see him."

Meggy shook her head. "Not likely, Saffer. I want to stay on the good side of the railway men."

"I'll get this back as quick as I can," Saffer said, holding up the money Meggy had lent her. "Thanks again."

Meggy nodded, but just as Saffer turned to go, she caught her arm. "Now I remember," she said.

"Remember what?"

"I had something to tell you and it just drained out of my mind the moment I saw you. Remember the big woman at the party last night, the one that looked more like a baker than a wizard? She had the little yapping dog that thought it knew every tune better than we did."

"I remember her. Her name was Teshi, wasn't it?"

Meggy nodded. "She was by looking for you."

"For me? What for?"

"She didn't say. Maybe she has another commission for us."

"Then why didn't she talk to you about it?"

Meggy shrugged. "I don't know. Anyway, I sent her round by your place."

Wonderful, Saffer thought. Her brother thought she was up to no good, she had a patient in her bed, she'd just spent all her money on a funeral for someone she hardly knew at all, and now a wizard was looking for her. She just hoped that she hadn't done something stupid at the party last night while in a beer-silly mood.

"She's probably been and gone by now," Meggy said.

Saffer nodded glumly, not believing it for a moment. After thanking Meggy again for the loan and promising to pay it back as soon as she could, she hurried off for home.

•

According to her landlord, the wizard had been and gone by the time Saffer returned to her room. Upstairs, Kerlaf was still imitating a man-sized lump on her bed. After fussing about with his pillows and blankets, she went and sat in her window seat. There she indulged in a soliloquy while plucking the odd note from her cittern and staring off through what little view there was from her window.

"It's not so much that Demar doesn't trust me," she said, "as that sometimes I wonder if he isn't right. Maybe I do just bring trouble on myself." She plucked a few notes from the cittern's double strings, then a chord. Ting, ting, kring. "I didn't have to bring them along to the party, but they did look so forlorn, and I just knew there'd be all that food there that was only going to get thrown out in the morning." Kring. "And no one really seemed to mind, what with Ayla being a … was it an herbalist or an astrologer?"

"She was an astronomer, actually."

Saffer blinked with surprise at the reply to her question. She looked at the bed, but Kerlaf hadn't moved, little say spoken. Then her gaze went to the door.

The wizard Teshi stood there. She was a short, friendly-looking woman, plump with short curly gray hair, dressed in voluminous robes that glimmered with a rainbow effect. Huge gaudy rings, all gold and silver and with far too many large gems, glittered on her hands. Her eyes twinkled, but there was something in their blue depths that made Saffer feel a little intimidated. She found it hard to look away. It wasn't until Teshi broke eye contact to look at Kerlaf that Saffer blinked and set aside her cittern. Then she spotted the little mop of gray fur with the big dark eyes that had accompanied the wizard.

"I don't want to seem rude," Saffer began, "but—"

"What am I doing here?" Teshi replied.

"Something like that."

"It's because of Kerlaf's sister," Teshi said. She turned from the bed and sat down on its edge so that she was facing Saffer. The little dog began to explore the room. "She does star charts," Teshi explained. "Did star charts. I was planning to commission some from her, but then I heard the horrible news. This sort of a thing … You'd think we were in Ka Zhir or something."

She gave Saffer's clothes a sharp look, but Saffer managed to ignore it. Saffer thought about her patient and his sister. News certainly travelled fast. Half of Liavek had probably known about it before she had.

"I took rather a liking to them," Teshi finished, "and thought I would see if I could do anything to help. Whoever did this shouldn't be allowed to get away with it."

"Well, the Guard's looking into it," Saffer said.

"Yes, but they have so many things to look into. If we can lend them a hand, I doubt they'd mind."

"You don't know my brother."

"I'm sure I don't."

Saffer shook her head. "That's not what I meant. Demar's in the Guard and he told me I was absolutely not to meddle in this. Odd's end, he'd kill me if—"

"We caught the attackers and delivered them without his having to lift a finger?"

"He wouldn't be happy."

"Nonsense."

Before Saffer could argue any more, Teshi had turned back to Kerlaf. She laid her palms on either side of his head. The air seemed to glimmer around her for a moment, then Kerlaf's eyelids flickered and his eyes opened. Saffer left the window seat and stepped close. He had, she decided, the nicest pair of clear blue eyes that she'd ever seen.

"A-ayla … ?" he murmured.

"Ah … she's not … ah …"

"She's dead," Teshi said softly.

Kerlaf's gaze went back and forth between them, then his eyes clouded with pain. "I … I remember," he said and he began to weep.

Saffer had never had a grown man cry on her before. She gave Teshi a beseeching look. The wizard nodded and gathered Kerlaf up in her arms.

"Maybe you should get him something—tea, or soup," she told Saffer.

Saffer backed away to the door. "I'll see what the landlord's got on," she said.

But they weren't listening to her. Kerlaf's body shook with great shuddering sobs. Teshi held him against her, murmuring comforting noises. Biting at her lower lip, Saffer hurried downstairs to the kitchen, grateful for something to do. The wizard's little dog followed at her heels.

•

By the time Saffer returned with a steaming bowl of beef broth, Teshi and Kerlaf were sitting on either end of the bed. Kerlaf's eyes were bleak with his loss, but he was no longer weeping. Saffer remembered her first look into them last night and then again a few moments ago when Teshi had brought him around. The guileless clarity that had attracted her was gone, replaced with a sorrow that went beyond despair.

"Can you remember what they looked like?" Teshi was asking him. "The people who attacked you."

Kerlaf blinked. It took a moment for him to find his voice. "It wasn't people," he said finally. "It was a woman—the one who ran the boarding house."

"What woman?" Saffer asked.

"Her name was Bica. We rented the room when we arrived yesterday afternoon—it was cheap and clean, and when you don't have much, that's enough."

"I don't know her," Teshi said. "But this isn't my part of town. Saffer?"

"I know of her," Saffer replied. "Everyone in the Alley does. She's this crazy old woman who runs a rooming house a few blocks down from here. I don't know anybody who's stayed there."

Teshi's eyes narrowed.

"No," Saffer said. "It's not because she's dangerous or anything. She's just—too weird. My friend Meggy was going to rent a room from her, but she got the creeps and never moved in. The thing is …" Saffer hesitated, looking at Kerlaf. Odd's end, you'd think he could take care of himself against some old spinster. "She's not tough or anything, you know? Just a crazy old woman."

"What did she do?" Teshi asked Kerlaf. "Did she have others with her?"

"No one else," Kerlaf said. "She … she gave us hot spiced milk when we returned to our room last night—a welcome cup, she called it, and then … the next thing I remember was her standing over me. I was on the floor and Ayla was beside me, so still. She must have drugged us only I didn't finish all of my drink. I tried to rise, but she hit me with something. I started to pass out, but she just kept hitting me, and Ayla … I knew Ayla was already … I knew she was …"

He didn't weep again, he just closed up. His eyes went bleak and he slumped against the headboard.

"If I wasn't so … so sinking weak …"

Teshi and Saffer exchanged glances.

"We'd better tell my brother," Saffer said. "Demar can—"

Teshi shook her head, her eyes cold and hard as diamonds. "Let me deal with this Bica," she said.

"I don't think that's such a good—"

Something flickered like fire in Teshi's cold eyes and Saffer suddenly remembered that this was a wizard she was arguing with, not one of her friends.

"All right," she said. "Sink the Guard. Let Demar dump me on Crab Isle when he finds out. What do I care."

Teshi's dog jumped onto the wizard's lap and she patted it absently. "Twig and I, we look after our friends," she said. "Even when we've only just met them."

"Fine," Saffer said. "Perfect." And do you know any spells to get one off of Crab Isle? she wondered.

Teshi rose. Twig leapt to the floor and danced eagerly by the door, while the wizard laid a comforting hand on Kerlaf's shoulder.

"I'll be back," she told Saffer, and then she and the little dog were gone and Saffer was alone with Kerlaf.

"Ah … you really should try some of this broth," she told Kerlaf.

Her patient made no reply. Lovely, Saffer thought. Not that she blamed him. But looming larger in her mind than Kerlaf's grief were her own worries about Demar. He was going to kill her.

•

The dead woman sat upright in the chair. The day was wearing to its end outside, but it was always dark in the cellar where the corpse sat. In the flicker of the lantern light, its features almost seemed alive. But the corpse was mummified and tied to its chair. Its withered cheeks were gaunt. Its skin clung like dry leather to its limbs. Dark hollows lay where its eyes had been.

Across from the corpse sat a living woman. She too had a wrinkled face, but her eyes glittered darkly like a crow's as she stared at her dead companion. Her hair was a faded salty yellow and hung limply past her sloped shoulders.

"He went and stayed alive," she told the corpse, "and Bica doesn't like that. He'll bring Guards, he will, and maybe wizards. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Maybe the wizards will put your soul back in your body, or set it free—I'm sure you don't care, just so long as you can get away from Bica. But Bica has a plan, you know. Bica will just find him and cut his throat and then no one will know that Bica had anything to do with it."

She grinned at the corpse, exposing long yellow teeth in poor condition.

"Maybe Bica should bring him back here to be with you and then you wouldn't be so lonely. Would you like that?" She cocked her ear. "Oh, you'll have to speak up, or Bica will keep him for herself." She listened a second time, then rose to her feet. "Well, Bica gave you a chance to speak, but it's too late now. Bica's made up her mind. It's the knife for him and the dark cellar for you."

Catching up the lantern, she held it up to the dead woman's withered features. "It's almost night now," Bica told the corpse. "Soon Bica will go out and find him and play a game of skin and knife with him. Do you remember that game? It's the one Sadabel played on Bica before Bica tore out his heart. See this? See it now?"

She lifted her blouse to show the dead woman the scar tissue on her abdomen.

"You peel the skin back, bit by bit. And then you cut a muscle here, and another there. And then you twist the blade, just a touch, until the blood's running freely. And then you peel some more skin back. It's a fine game, isn't it?

"Remember when Bica played it with you? You didn't like it. You kept crying for Bica to stop, but Bica remembered that you had a little power. Bica knew that you'd helped Sadabel hurt her, so Bica had to cut away, cut, cut, cut, until there was just the skin left to cure and the bone left to wire, and then the puzzle to put all back together again.

"But you're still here, aren't you, and don't you look fine? Oh, yes. Bica didn't want to send you away. Bica wanted to keep her eye on you. Like Bica should have done with Sadabel so that she didn't have to keep killing him, over and over and over again …"

•

Teshi stopped by her rooms in The Luck's Shadow after leaving Saffer and Kerlaf. She stayed only long enough to change, then left by the rear, transformed into a shabbily-dressed woman by the simple magic of a disguise. Her beautiful robes and jewelry were replaced with well-worn clothing that was too large for her, while her fingers glittered with rings of polished tin and brass set with great chunks of brightly colored glass. She carried a bag over one shoulder, and a small disheveled bundle of fur dogged her footsteps as she headed towards Rat's Alley.

She paused across the street and eyed the battered three-story dwelling. Twilight lay thick on the streets, but the building was dark, giving it a gloomy look. The door was an odd-colored green—the paint chipped and flaking, she discovered as she crossed the street to approach it. She was about to knock when the door opened.

Teshi took a step back and Twig growled while hiding behind her ankles. The woman who opened the door leaned on a knobby stick of a cane and glared at them until she spied the bag on Teshi's shoulders.

"Looking for lodgings, are you?" she asked.

Teshi took another step back. An unpleasant odor hung about the woman that grew more pronounced when she opened her mouth.

"Don't be shy, don't be shy. Bica's got room enough for everyone, isn't that the truth?"

"I haven't much money," Teshi began, but Bica waved that notion off.

"Paugh! Bica likes to help people and, in turn, people like to help her. Bica always has room for those that need it, don't you know. You can pay a little and help out a little…" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you know any magics?"

Teshi shook her head.

"Too bad, too bad. Bica likes to trade lodgings for magics, especially guardspells." She leaned close and Teshi held her breath. ''There's some that don't like old Bica, you know. They live up there." She pointed straight above them.

"What—on the upper floors?" Teshi asked.

"No, no. In the sky. In the moon. Bica's far too clever for them, though."

When Saffer had described Bica as a crazy old woman, Teshi realized, the young cittern player hadn't been exaggerating. She felt Twig still rubbing nervously against her ankles so she hoisted him up into the crook of her arm.

Bica eyed the dog with sudden suspicion. "Where are you from?" she demanded.

"Not from the moon," Teshi said.

"So," Bica said after a long moment of silence. "You want a room?"

Teshi blinked, then nodded. "Yes, but—"

"Oh, don't you worry about your little dog. Bica loves animals, doesn't she just."

She put out a hand to Twig—who suffered a rough pat with only a little trembling—then turned and led the way inside. The room she offered Teshi was the first on the right from the front door. Leaving the wizard to inspect it, Bica bustled off, "To get you a little welcoming gift, and wouldn't that be nice?"

Teshi studied the rented room. In different circumstances, it would have been amusing. The room was clean, but it was such a crazy quilt of colors that it made her head spin. Bica must have furnished her house from the pickings of Fortune Way—but only after a more thorough cleaning than anyone else would want to get close enough to give the various articles. She sighed and turned to Twig. The little dog sat in the middle of the room, fastidiously wrinkling his nose.

"Yes," Teshi said. "There certainly is an air of—" Bica chose that moment to return with a tray and two steaming mugs of spicy milk. "—A charm about the building," Teshi finished.

Bica nodded. She smiled, but the revelation of her yellowed teeth only made her look worse. "There is something about these old buildings, isn't that the truth?"

She put the tray down on a table by the door and handed Teshi a mug. Then before she picked up her own, she muttered something about that shade not hanging quite right.

As soon as Bica crossed the room, Teshi surreptitiously exchanged the mug she'd been given for the one still on the tray. Twig barked a warning.

Teshi caught a glimpse of Bica with her knobby cane in her hand. Then the cane hit her head as though powered by the force of one of the new railway engines, and she collapsed to the floor, her milk mug spilling from her hand. Twig growled as Bica approached his fallen mistress, but the old woman swung the cane at him and he had to back off. She chased him all the way to the front door, coming closer and closer to hitting him with each blow, until he finally turned and fled out onto the street.

"Bica likes to eat dogs!" the old woman screamed after Twig before slamming the door. Her momentary ill-humor at the dog dissolved as she stood over her newest victim.

"Thought Bica wouldn't know you had a new body, did you now? Thought you could fool her, but Bica's too smart. Always was, always will be. And this time Bica knows what to do with you. It's the skin and knife game for you, and won't that be fun?" She paused long enough for Teshi to answer, but the wizard lay limp on the rug. "Oh, yes," Bica nodded. "It'll be such fun, wait and see."

•

Saffer was sitting in her window seat, working on the particularly intricate bit in the middle of a reel called "Wrap Up and Roll." Winny Lind, the bones player, had showed it to her on Meggy's whistle once and, while it wasn't quite a cittern sort of a tune, Saffer had always wanted to learn it. With Kerlaf asleep once more, and Teshi still gone, it seemed the perfect thing to keep her mind off her troubles.

She had just about got the three rolls of triplets that were giving her the most trouble when she happened to glance out the window. Surprised, she started to lean over the ledge, then quickly ducked her head back in. Demar was out on the street, heading for her lodgings.

Perfect, she thought as she laid down her cittern. She gave the bed a glance, but Kerlaf was still asleep. Maybe she should curl up on a pillow and pretend to be asleep as well. Demar would peek in, see them sleeping, and then—

Demar's characteristically loud knocking interrupted any further planning. Was that the first thing they learned when they joined the Guard? How to knock down doors with their knuckles?

"I know you're in there!" Demar called through the wood.

Saffer swung the door open and lifted a finger to her lips. "Will you keep it down? I've got a sick man sleeping in here."

Demar gave the bed a quick glance. "Sorry." He caught the door before Saffer could close it on him. Taking her by the arm, he pulled her out into the hall where he was standing and then shut the door. "We have to talk."

"About what?"

"Let's start with the wizard you had in your room this afternoon."

"Demar, have you been spying on me?"

"Only as much as you've been holding back."

Saffer tried a fierce frown on him, but it did no good. "It wasn't my idea," she began, then told what had happened since Teshi had arrived. As Demar listened, a storm gathered in his face.

"Saffer," he said grimly. "I warned you what would happen if you held back on—"

"Odd's end, Demar! She's a wizard. What was I supposed to do? Stand in the way and get turned into a frog or a newt?"

"Wizards don't do that kind of a thing."

"It happened to Dumps—he told me so himself."

"Do you believe everything he tells you?"

Saffer shook her head. "No, but—"

Demar held up a hand to cut her off. "Please, Saffer. No more."

"What are you going to do?" she asked as Demar turned to go.

"Talk to this Bica and your wizard. We have laws in this city, Saffer, and a Guard to see that they're obeyed. Both you and Teshi are in a lot of trouble."

"But—"

"I want you to stay in your room and don't budge until I send someone around to collect you."

"But—"

Demar took a step towards her. Saffer skittered back into her room and closed the door on him. But when she heard him going down the stairs, she crept out into the hallway again. As Demar went out the front door, she bolted out the back, meaning to make her own way to Bica's rooming house. But in the alley that the back door opened onto, she almost stepped on a little bundle of fur.

"Twig!" she cried when she recognized it. Then her heart lurched inside her. If the little dog was here, alone, what had happened to his mistress?

Twig gave a bark.

"Aren't you a clever little thing," Saffer murmured. She scooped him up and, holding him against her chest, took off at a run for Bica's once more.

•

The dead woman in Bica's cellar had company now. Teshi was tied to a chair, just as the corpse was. All her clothes had been stripped from her, every belonging from the small bandage on one ankle where her sandal had been chafing to the tiniest of her rings. It all lay in a pile at the far end of the cellar, well beyond Teshi's reach.

Humming to herself, Bica sat in a third chair. Lamplight spilled from the copper-based lamp on the table beside her, lighting both the corpse, which stared straight into eternity with its sightless gaze, and Teshi, whose head was limp against her chest. The melody that Bica hummed was one that Saffer might have recognized. It was a Zhir knife-sharpening song and Bica honed away at her knife with a whetting stone as she hummed.

From time to time, Bica tested the blade against her thumb. Then she went back to her sharpening, her own eyes glittering like a carrion bird's as it dropped from the sky to feed.

When Teshi finally regained consciousness, the first thing she saw was the dry weathered skin of the corpse's face. Its dark eyeless sockets gazed emptily back at her. That, combined with her nakedness, the coolness of the cellar, and Bica's humming, sent a shudder through her body like a wave.

"Awake now, are you?" Bica murmured.

Teshi lifted her head and turned it slightly so that she could see her captor.

"Didn't think Bica would recognize you in that body, did you? But Bica's no fool. Bica always sees right through the skin—don't you know that by now?"

Teshi's gaze went from the woman's mad eyes down to the long wicked blade that she was sharpening.

"We're going to play a game," Bica said. "The skin and knife game. Bica's let you go free too many times, so this time you'll stay with Bica forever, just like your lover has. Bica's going to wrap your soul around your bones, then sew it all up in your skin and then won't you look fine?"

Teshi remembered Saffer's argument about leaving this to the Guard and wondered why she hadn't done just that. She strained against her bonds, but the ropes were tied too tightly. Her gaze lit on the pile of her belongings. Her luck was invested in a small gold band that she normally wore under her larger gaudier rings. She could sense it lying there, just across the cellar. But it might as well have been on the moon for all the use it was to her now.

"Looking for your power, are you?" Bica asked with a grin. "Bica's got the power now, wizard. You should have plunged your knife straight through Bica's heart instead of teaching her the skin and knife game, isn't that the truth?"

Teshi saw something change in the madwoman's eyes—just for a moment. There was a flash of anguish, a weight of pain for which there could be no measurement, but it was quickly suppressed. The fire returned to Bica's eyes, glittering and mad.

"I've never met you before," Teshi said quietly, but firmly.

"Isn't that a laugh?" Bica said to the corpse. "Our good friend Sadabel doesn't remember us." She looked back at Teshi and held up the knife. "Bica thinks you'll remember quick enough, and won't it be fun, won't it just?"

She returned to working on her knife's edge and began to hum once again. Teshi stared at her, then at the corpse. Bica had called her Sadabel. Teshi tasted the name, trying to recall why it sounded so familiar. When the memory finally came to her, she shuddered again.

Bica looked up with a grin. Testing the knife against her thumb, she set the whetstone aside and stood up.

"Bica thinks Master Knife is ready to play," she said.

•

Demar arrived at the green door of Bica's house and brought his fist down against its wooden panels. Once, twice, again. He waited a moment, then repeated the hammering. When no one came after a quick count to twenty, he reached for the doorknob. But before he could touch it, the door swung open and a shabby old woman who could only be Bica stood there leaning on a cane and studying him with small glittering black eyes.

"Oh," Bica said. "What's this? A guard looking for lodging with old Bica? Isn't that fine."

Demar rubbed a finger lengthwise against his lips. "Er, not exactly," he said. While the old woman was probably a few bricks short of a load, she didn't exactly appear to be the villainous madwoman that Saffer had painted her.

Bica fluttered her eyelashes grotesquely. "What? Have you come courting old Bica then?"

Demar took a half-step back. "I'm looking for the wizard Teshi," he said in his most formal tones.

"Ah, the wizard." Bica revealed her yellowed teeth in a grin. "Of course. The important wizard." She stepped aside. "Come in, come in. Don't be shy. Bica doesn't bite."

Demar nodded uncomfortably and moved past her. "I just have to ask her a few—"

Before he could finish, Bica hit him from behind with her cane and he went stumbling to his knees. He stopped his fall with his hands, but she hit him again, across the shoulders, then once more on the back of his head. The floor turned black and swallowed him.

Bica pushed at him with her cane. When he didn't move, she cackled to herself. "Bica's blows are worse than her bite," she told him. Laying aside the cane, she grabbed his shoulders with surprising strength and began to haul him down to the cellar.

•

Though Twig protested, Saffer refused to go round by the front of the rooming house. She made her way by the back alleys, holding the little dog so that it couldn't run away. By the time she reached Bica's back door, she was out of breath and had to lean against the dirty wall.

Some rescuer she was going to be. She'd come in looking like a guttersnipe and—oh, what was she even doing here? If Teshi—who was a wizard—was in trouble, what could she possibly do?

She realized that Demar must have already arrived. That was why she was here, she told herself. If Bica could deal so easily with Teshi and Kerlaf, what mightn't the old witch do to her brother?

Steeling her nerve, she pulled a length of wire from where it was hidden in the sole of her left shoe and began to work the lock on the door as Dumps had taught her. It was hard to keep a grip on Twig, who was squirming to be let down, and work the lock at the same time, but finally she was rewarded with a satisfying click. Replacing the wire in its hiding place, she cracked the door open and peered inside.

There was no one in the kitchen. She closed the door behind her, then scurried across the room, one hand around Twig's muzzle to stop him from making an outcry. When she poked her head around the doorjamb, she was just in time to see Bica dragging her brother down the hall. Twig squirmed in her arms, but she clamped him to her chest with panicked strength and ducked out of the old woman's sight. Not until she heard Demar's boots hitting each stair that led down to the cellar did she dare peek around the comer again.

The hall was empty. The door leading to the cellar stood ajar. Swallowing drily, Saffer crept to the landing and peered down. Oh, Demar, she thought. If she's hurt you, I'll … I'll …

She didn't know what she'd do. She didn't know what to do. Run to the Guard and call them in? What if they arrived too late? What if they thought it was just some joke and didn't come at all?

Oh, why did this sort of thing always have to happen to her?

Bica's laughter came drifting up the stairs and Saffer knew she couldn't wait any longer. Gathering the tattered bits of her courage, she eased her way down the stairs, stepping close to where they joined the wall and praying they wouldn't creak. By the time she reached the bottom, she was a walking tangle of nerves, tautly wired and ready to flee at the slightest provocation. But then she looked into the room from which Bica's laughter came.

She saw Teshi first. The wizard was tied naked to a chair. Her position might have seemed humorous if it hadn't been for the withered corpse tied to another chair and Bica standing over her brother, tugging off his trousers with one hand, a big gleaming knife in the other.

Saffer froze. She wanted to rush to her brother's rescue, but every muscle in her body knotted and she couldn't move.

Then Bica turned and saw her. With a shriek she dropped Demar's trouser leg and brandished the knife at Saffer. But while Saffer still couldn't move, Twig surged out of her arms and attacked the mad woman, yapping madly.

Bica swung the knife at the little dog, missed, tried to kick it. Twig dodged each of her blows, ducked in and took a nip out of her pale leg, then dodged away from the next slash of the knife. The flurry of action was enough to unlock Saffer's paralysis. With a shriek as piercing as Bica's, she picked up the first thing that came to hand—a chipped statuette of Andrazzi the Lucky that was standing amid a pile of junk on a table by the door—and charged the madwoman.

Bica lifted the knife to meet Saffer's attack. Twig launched himself at her calves and bit through to the bone. Bica wailed. The statuette in Saffer's hand came down with enough force to shatter against the madwoman's head. Bica stumbled, her weight on her unhurt leg, her arms flailing to keep her balance. She tripped over Twig who was attacking her good leg and then fell over Demar's body. The knife twisted under her and she fell onto it, then rolled over.

Her cries were pitiful as the blood pumped from the hole in her stomach. Saffer took one look at the wound, then turned to retch in a comer. She continued to retch, dry-heaving long after Bica had finally expired. It was Teshi's voice that finally brought her around to free the wizard from her bonds.

Teshi held Saffer tightly, then steered her towards the stairs. "Go on up," she said. "I'll see to your brother."

Saffer stared at her, wide-eyed with shock. "I never meant … I didn't … She just …"

"Go," Teshi ordered softly.

She waited until Saffer had reached the top of the stairs, then slowly turned back to the room.

•

Two days later, Demar was still off-duty. He sat in the common room of The Luck's Shadow, nursing an ale, his head wrapped in a swath of bandage. Saffer sat beside him, much subdued. Teshi was across the table from them, Twig on her lap, daintily eating the little fishsticks that the wizard fed to him, one by one. Kerlaf, his bruises a hundred glorious shades of purple, yellow, and blue, sat beside her.

"Sadabel and Kitani—it was a great mystery when they vanished," Teshi said.

"But where did Bica fit in?" Kerlaf asked.

"We can't be sure," Teshi said, "but my guess is that she was Sadabel's apprentice. From the old scars on her torso and what little of her rantings I had the chance to hear, it seems Sadabel and Kitani had been torturing Bica. Somehow she managed to kill them both. Kitani you saw in the cellar—Bica cured her skin, then sewed it back up again with the dead woman's bones inside. As for Sadabel … I doubt we'll ever know exactly what happened to him."

"But … but why was she killing people?" Saffer asked.

"She thought they were Sadabel, come back to have his revenge upon her," Teshi explained.

"No doubt she killed him in a place where the body was easily disposed of," Demar said, "then came back to deal with Kitani."

Teshi nodded. "Only to live in fear of Sadabel's return."

"That poor woman," Saffer said softly.

Kerlaf shook his head. "I've no pity to spare for her."

Saffer looked at him, at the bleakness that still lay in his eyes, and didn't bother to argue with him. All she knew was that Bica had been a poor mad creature and the weight of her death lay on Saffer's soul.

Demar put his arm around Saffer's shoulders. He said nothing when she turned to look at him, just gave her a squeeze, but it was enough. He hadn't said a word about her following him, nor anything to anyone about how she and Teshi had interfered with Guard business.

"Did you know," she said, "that you look like a camel-driver with those bandages on?"

"Watch it, camel," he told her sternly. "You could still end up in the Guardhouse for a day or two."

Saffer smiled for the first time since the events in Bica's cellar and laid her head against his shoulder.

"That's better," she said. "You were being so nice to me that for awhile there I thought you didn't like me anymore."

Demar looked at Teshi, but the wizard only rolled her eyes and went on feeding Twig his fishsticks.