Shayat nodded and sat down. I sat across from her, eager and compliant. “Then, I have a proposition,” she said. “I spoke with my crew. For a reasonable price my cartographer and I would be open to considering loaning you two camels and taking you to Rabatha using our very fast route. Ariah, I know you have valid papers, but does he?”

“He doesn’t,” Sorcha said. He drank more wine straight out of the bottle.

“Well,” Shayat said. “Well, well. For a reasonable price I might be able to secure you some papers. For a price.”

“Shayat, you know a forger?”

She answered with an unreadable smile. “Let me tell you about the route. It is all camelback, up through a mountain pass and then north through the Mother Desert. We don’t hit border guards until we ride through Iyairo. Can you ride camels?”

“No trains?” I asked.

“Stationmasters can take an eighth. Police can take an eighth. All camelback.”

I frowned. “I hate camels.”

“But you can ride?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can ride.”

“Can he?”

“He can,” said Sorcha. “He rides well, actually.”

I looked over. “I didn’t know that.”

He grinned. A flash of better humor brightened the room, and I grinned back. “Ah, you know, you give them a lump of sugar, you coo, and they’re putty in your hands.”

“They scare me.”

Sorcha shook his head. He came and sat next to me on the couch. The half-empty bottle of wine stood abandoned and forlorn next to the fireplace. “Ariah, they’re not scary. Sanctuary is scary. Inalans are scary. Camels are just…camels.”

Shayat cleared her throat. “Let’s talk reasonable prices. With lost time, with the extra feed for the camels, with papers for him, I think twelve hundred marks would be a fair ask.”

“We have five hundred,” I said. “I don’t want to bargain. I don’t want to negotiate. I don’t want to be cleaned out. Together, Sorcha and I have five hundred marks.”

“That’s it?” she asked.

“That’s it.”

She frowned slightly. “I don’t believe you.”

I pulled all our cash out of a box on the mantle and handed it to her. She counted it and sighed. “So, this is a favor to you.”

“Well, yes. I guess so. Though you don’t have to take me.”

She handed me the cash back and sighed. “You know I love haggling. That’s the best part.”

“I know. But we’ve only got five hundred. There’s not really anything to haggle over.”

Shayat sat with her arms crossed. She glanced around the apartment, considering, taking stock, writing ledgers in her mind. “You have nothing to sell.”

“We don’t.”