“Or a poisoner.”

“On the contrary, we find more than ample employment in peacetime too. In any case, my point is that killing Grand Duke Orso—quite apart from the apparent impossibility of the task—seems to serve nobody’s interests. Not even yours. It will not bring your brother back, or your hand, or your legs.” Her face did not flicker, but that might merely have been due to paralysis. “The attempt will more than likely end in your death, and possibly even in mine. My point is that you have to stop this madness, my dear Monzcarro. You have to stop it at once, and give it no further thought.”

Her eyes were pitiless as two pots of poison. “Only death will stop me. Mine, or Orso’s.”

“No matter the cost? No matter the pain? No matter who’s killed along the path?”

“No matter,” she growled.

“I find myself entirely convinced as to your level of commitment.”

“Everything.” The word was a snarl.

Morveer positively beamed. “Then we can do business. On that basis, and no other. What do I never deal in, Day?”

“Half-measures,” his assistant murmured, eyeing the one cake left on the plate.

“Correct. How many do we kill?”

“Six,” said Murcatto, “including Orso.”

“Then my rate shall be ten thousand scales per secondary, payable upon proof of their demise, and fifty thousand for the Duke of Talins himself.”

Her face twitched slightly. “Poor manners, to negotiate while your client is helpless.”

“Manners would be ludicrous in a conversation about murder. In any case, I never haggle.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“I am so glad. Antidote, please.”

Day pulled the cork from a glass jar, dipped the very point of a thin knife into the syrupy reduction in its bottom and handed it to him, polished handle first. He paused, looking into Murcatto’s cold blue eyes.

Caution first, always. This woman they called the Serpent of Talins was dangerous in the extreme. If Morveer had not known it from her reputation, from their conversation, from the employment she had come to engage him for, he could have seen it at a single glance. He most seriously considered the possibility of giving her a fatal jab instead, throwing her Northern friend in the river and forgetting the whole business.

But to kill Grand Duke Orso, the most powerful man in Styria? To shape the course of history with one deft twist of his craft? For his deed, if not his name, to echo through the ages? What finer way to crown a career of achieving the impossible? The very thought made him smile the wider.

He gave a long sigh. “I hope I will not come to regret this.” And he jabbed the back of Murcatto’s hand with the point of the knife, a single bead of dark blood slowly forming on her skin.

Within a few moments the antidote was already beginning to take effect. She winced as she turned her head slowly one way, then the other, worked the muscles in her face. “I’m surprised,” she said.