“Like a short cut to disaster,” said Shivers.

“Ah, disaster!” Cosca grinned. “I can’t wait. Who have we to consider in the meantime?”

Vitari cocked one orange brow at her list. “Barti and Kummel—tumblers, acrobats, knife-artists and walkers on the high wire.”

Cosca nudged Shivers in the ribs with his elbow. “Walkers on the high wire, there you go. How could that end badly?”

The Peacemakers

It was a rare clear day in the City of Fogs. The air was crisp and cold, the sky was perfectly blue and the King of the Union’s conference of peace was due to begin its noble work. The ragged rooflines, the dirty windows, the peeling doorways were all thick with onlookers, waiting eagerly for the great men of Styria to appear. They trickled down both gutters of the wide avenue below, a multicoloured confusion, pressing up against the grim grey lines of soldiers deployed to hold them back. The hubbub of the crowd was a weight on the air. Thousands of murmuring voices, stabbed through here and there by the shouts of hawkers, bellowed warnings, squeals of excitement. Like the sound of an army before a battle.

Nervously waiting for the blood to start spilling.

Five more dots, perched on the roof of a crumbling warehouse, were nothing to remark upon. Shivers stared down, big hands dangling over the parapet. Cosca had his boot propped carelessly on the cracked stonework, scratching at his scabby neck. Vitari leaned back against the wall, long arms folded. Friendly stood bolt upright to the side, seeming lost in a world of his own. The fact that Morveer and his apprentice were away on their own business gave Monza scant confidence. When she first met the poisoner, she hadn’t trusted him at all. Since Westport, she trusted him an awful lot less. And these were her troops. She sucked in a long, bitter breath, licked her teeth and spat down into the crowd below.

When God means to punish a man, the Kantic scriptures say, he sends him stupid friends, and clever enemies.

“That’s a lot o’ people,” said Shivers, eyes narrowed against the chilly glare. Just the kind of stunning revelation Monza had come to expect from the man. “An awful lot.”

“Yes.” Friendly’s eyes flickered over the crowds, lips moving silently, giving Monza the worrying impression that he was trying to count them.

“This is nothing.” Cosca dismissed half of Sipani with an airy wave. “You should have seen the throng that packed the streets of Ospria after my victory at the Battle of the Isles! They filled the air with falling flowers! Twice as many, at the least. You should have been there!”

“I was there,” said Vitari, “and there were half as many at the most.”

“Does pissing on my dreams give you some sick satisfaction?”

“A little.” Vitari smirked at Monza, but she didn’t laugh. She was thinking of the triumph they’d put on for her in Talins, after the fall of Caprile. Or the massacre at Caprile, depending on who you asked. She remembered Benna grinning while she frowned, standing in his stirrups and blowing kisses to the balconies. The people chanting her name, even though Orso was riding in thoughtful silence just behind with Ario at his shoulder. She should’ve seen it coming then…