“Wrong.” Monza leaned down and made Eider shrink back. “I don’t care. There’s a difference.”

“Now?” asked Day.

“Now.”

The girl’s hand darted out and pricked Eider’s ear with a glinting needle. “Ah!”

Day yawned as she slipped the splinter of metal into an inside pocket. “Don’t worry, it’s slow-working. You’ve got at least a week.”

“Until what?”

“Until you get sick.” Day took a bite out of her plum and juice ran down her chin. “Bloody hell,” she muttered, catching it with a fingertip.

“Sick?” breathed Eider.

“Really, really sick. A day after that you’ll be deader than Juvens.”

“Help us, you get the antidote, and at least the chance to run.” Monza rubbed the blood from the point of Benna’s sword with gloved thumb and forefinger. “Try and tell anyone what we’re planning, here or in the Union, Orso, or Ario, or your friend the Cripple, and…” She slid the blade back into its sheath and slapped the hilt home with a sharp snap. “One way or another, Ario will be short one mistress.”

Eider stared round at them, one hand still pressed to her neck. “You evil bitches.”

Day gave the plum pit a final suck then tossed it away. “It’s a living.”

“We’re done.” Vitari dragged Ario’s mistress to her feet by one elbow and started marching her towards the door.

Monza stepped in front of them. “What will you be telling your battered manservant, when he comes round?”

“That… we were robbed?”

Monza held out her gloved hand. Eider’s face fell even further. She unclasped her necklace and dropped it into Monza’s palm, then followed it with her rings. “Convincing enough?”

“I don’t know. You seem like the kind of woman to put up a struggle.” Monza punched her in the face. She squawked, stumbled, would’ve fallen if Vitari hadn’t caught her. She looked up, blood leaking from her nose and her split lip, and for an instant she had this strange expression. Hurt, yes. Afraid, of course. But more angry than either one. Like the look Monza had herself, maybe, when they threw her from the balcony.

“Now we’re done,” she said.

Vitari yanked at Eider’s elbow and dragged her out into the hallway, towards the front door, their footsteps scraping against the grubby boards. Day gave a sigh, then pushed herself away from the wall and brushed plaster-dust from her backside. “Nice and neat.”

“No thanks to your master. Where is he?”

“I prefer employer, and he said there were some errands he had to run.”

“Errands?”

“That a problem?”

“I paid for the master, not the dog.”

Day grinned. “Woof, woof. There’s nothing Morveer can do that I can’t.”

“That so?”

“He’s getting old. Arrogant. That rope burning through was nearly the death of him, in Westport. I wouldn’t want any carelessness like that to interfere with your business. Not for what you’re paying. No one worse to have next to you than a careless poisoner.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score.”