Sorcha frowned at her and shooed the other Natives away. None of them ever let me live that undignified moment down, by the way. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders again and led me up the stairs. His room was private by virtue of the length of his tenure with the Natives and the amount of money he contributed weekly to their communal pantry. Room, though, was a very generous term. Space, as I have mentioned, is notoriously tight in the City of Mages, and it’s even tighter someplace like the Natives’ squat house, where half the space is not structurally sound. His room was really more a closet. It had exactly enough space to hold a narrow mattress and a single chair. Planks of wood had been nailed to the wall in one corner, and the shelves held Sorcha’s clothes and other sundries. A tall, heavy mirror with clouded glass leaned against the far wall. Tacked above it were a series of sketches of someone who was unmistakably Sorcha, done in an oddly familiar hand. A Semadran lamp—a well-constructed one, which operated by windup clockworks—hung on a peg nailed above his bed. It was the single source of light. All in all, it was a cell, but one which was well kept and inviting. “Right, drop your bag wherever. You want something to take the edge off your ear?”

“I’m all right,” I said, but I wasn’t. I could feel the blood oozing out of the wound, and it made me lightheaded and nauseous.

“The hell you are. ’Bout to swoon, you are.” Sorcha rummaged among his shelves and pulled out a pipe and a satchel of pipeherb.

“No, no, I’m all right!” I said.