“Precisely so. Come, we will take a turn about the city while our employer decides which name on her little list next merits our attentions. The atmosphere in here feels somewhat tainted by hypocrisy.” He marched out with an air of injured innocence. Day looked up from under her sandy lashes, shrugged, stood, brushed crumbs from the front of her shirt, then followed her master.

Monza turned back to the window. The crowds had mostly broken up. Groups of nervous city watch had appeared, blocking off the street before the bank, keeping a careful distance from the still shapes sprawled out on the cobbles. She wondered what Benna would’ve said to this. Told her to calm down, most likely. Told her to think it through.

She grabbed a chest with both hands and snarled as she flung it across the room. It smashed into the wall, sending lumps of plaster flying, clattered down and sagged open, clothes spilling out across the floor.

Shivers stood there in the doorway, watching her. “I’m done.”

“No!” She swallowed. “No. I still need your help.”

“Standing up and facing a man, that’s one thing… but this—”

“The rest will be different. I’ll see to it.”

“Nice, clean murders? I doubt it. You set your mind to killing, it’s hard to pick the number of the dead.” Shivers slowly shook his head. “Morveer and his fucking like might be able to step away from it and smile, but I can’t.”

“So what?” She walked slowly to him, the way you might walk to a skittish horse, trying to stop it bolting with your eyes. “Back to the North with fifty scales for the journey? Grow your hair and go back to bad shirts and blood on the snow? I thought you had pride. I thought you wanted to be better than that.”

“That’s right. I wanted to be better.”

“You can be. Stick. Who knows? Maybe you can save some lives, that way.” She laid her left hand gently on his chest. “Steer me down the righteous path. Then you can be good and rich at once.”

“I’m starting to doubt a man can be both.”

“Help me. I have to do this… for my brother.”

“You sure? The dead are past helping. Vengeance is for you.”

“For me then!” She forced her voice to drop soft again. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”

His mouth twisted. “Going to toss me another five, are you?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.” She slid her hand up, traced the line of his jaw, trying to judge the right words, pitch the right bargain. “You didn’t deserve it. I lost my brother, and he’s all I had. I don’t want to lose someone else…” She let it hang in the air.

There was a strange look in Shivers’ eye, now. Part angry, part hungry, part ashamed. He stood there silent for a long moment, and she felt the muscles clenching and unclenching on the side of his face.