Nine-tenths of war is waiting, Stolicus wrote, and she felt he’d called it low.

A man wheeled past a barrow heaped with straw, tuneless whistling deadened by the thinning mist, and Monza’s eyes slid after him until he became a murky outline and was gone. She wished Benna was with her.

And she wished he’d brought his husk pipe with him.

She shifted her tongue in her dry mouth, trying to push the thought out of her mind, but it was like a splinter under her thumbnail. The painful, wonderful bite at her lungs, the taste of the smoke as she let it curl from her mouth, her limbs growing heavy, the world softening. The doubt, the anger, the fear all leaking away…

Footsteps clapped on wet flagstones and a pair of figures rose out of the gloom. Monza stiffened, fists clenching, pain flashing through her twisted knuckles. A woman in a bright red coat edged with gold embroidery. “Hurry up!” Snapped in a faint Union accent to a man lumbering along behind with a heavy trunk on one shoulder. “I do not mean to be late again—”

Vitari’s shrill whistle cut across the empty street. Shivers slid from a doorway, loomed up behind the servant and pinned his arms. Friendly came out of nowhere and sank four heavy punches into his gut before he could even shout, sent him to the cobbles blowing vomit.

Monza heard the woman gasp, caught a glimpse of her wide-eyed face as she turned to run. Before she’d gone a step Vitari’s voice echoed out of the gloom ahead. “Carlot dan Eider, unless I’m much mistaken!”

The woman in the red coat backed towards the doorway where Monza was standing, one hand held up. “I have money! I can pay you!”

Vitari sauntered out of the murk, loose and easy as a mean cat in her own garden. “Oh, you’ll pay alright. I must say I was surprised when I learned Prince Ario’s favourite mistress was in Sipani. I heard you could hardly be dragged from his bedchamber.” Vitari herded her towards the doorway and Monza backed off, into the dim corridor, wincing at the sharp pains through her legs as she started to move.

“Whatever the League of Eight are paying, I’ll—”

“I don’t work for them, and I’m hurt by the assumption. Don’t you remember me? From Dagoska? Don’t you remember trying to sell the city to the Gurkish? Don’t you remember getting caught?” And Monza saw her let something drop and clatter against the cobbles—a cross-shaped blade, dancing and rattling on the end of a chain.

“Dagoska?” Eider’s voice had a note of strange terror in it now. “No! I’ve done everything he asked! Everything! Why would he—”

“Oh, I don’t work for the Cripple anymore.” Vitari leaned in close. “I’ve gone freelance.”

The woman in the red coat stumbled back over the threshold and into the corridor. She turned and saw Monza waiting, gloved hand slack on the pommel of her sword. She stopped dead, ragged breath echoing from the damp walls. Vitari shut the door behind them, latch dropping with a final-sounding click.