“Please,” he grunted. “I can help you. I can help you find her.”

Shenkt squatted down in front of him, blood-smeared hands dangling on the knees of his blood-smeared trousers. “But you have helped. You can leave the rest to me.”

“I have money! I have money.”

Shenkt said nothing.

“I was planning on turning her in to Orso, sooner or later, once the price was high enough.”

More nothing.

“That doesn’t make any difference, does it?”

Silence.

“I told that bitch she’d be the death of me.”

“You were right. I hope that is a comfort.”

“Not much of one. I should have killed her then.”

“But you saw money to be made. Have you anything to say?”

Sajaam stared at him. “What would I say?”

“Some people want to say things, at the end. Do you?”

“What are you?” he whispered.

“I have been many things. A student. A messenger. A thief. A soldier in old wars. A servant of great powers. An actor in great events. Now?” Shenkt puffed out an unhappy breath as he gazed around at the mangled corpses hunched, sprawled, huddled across the room. “Now, it seems, I am a man who settles other people’s scores.”

The Fencing Master

Monza’s hands were shaking again, but that was no surprise. The danger, the fear, not knowing if she was going to live out the next moment. Her brother murdered, herself broken, everything she’d worked for gone. The pain, the withering need for husk, trusting no one, day after day, week after week. Then there was all the death she’d been the cause of, in Westport, in Sipani, gathering on her shoulders like a great weight of lead.

The last few months had been enough to make anyone’s hands shake. But maybe it was just watching Shivers have his eye burned out and thinking she’d be next.

She looked nervously towards the door between her room and his. He’d be awake soon. Screaming again, which was bad enough, or silent, which was worse. Kneeling there, looking at her with his one eye. That accusing look. She knew she should have been grateful, should have cared for him the way she used to for her brother. But a growing part of her just wanted to kick him and not stop. Maybe when Benna died everything warm, or decent, or human in her had been left rotting on the mountainside with his corpse.

She pulled her glove off and stared at the thing inside. At the thin pink scars where the shattered bones had been put back together. The deep red line where Gobba’s wire had cut into her. She curled the fingers into a fist, or something close, except the little one, still pointing off like a signpost to nowhere. It didn’t hurt as badly as it used to, but more than enough to bring a grimace to her face, and the pain cut through the fear, crushed the doubts.

“Revenge,” she whispered. Kill Ganmark, that was all that mattered now. His soft, sad face, his weak, watery eyes. Calmly stabbing Benna through the stomach. Rolling his corpse off the terrace. That’s that. She squeezed her fist tighter, bared her teeth at it.