She’d breathed a whole lot easier after she passed the door of the Guild, a sturdy stone edifice that didn’t look a great deal different from the Guildhall of any other Guild. Once inside, she asked for directions to the Arbitrators. She had been sent up a flight of worn wooden stairs to a tiny office, where she’d told a shortened version to a stone-faced secretary of some kind.

He gave her a chair when she’d finished, and went off somewhere. When he came back, his stonelike demeanor had thawed a little, and he took her to another office. That was where she had told the story a second time, to a much friendlier and sympathetic official—one who seemed to strive to make her feel comfortable, and to convince her that she could trust him. She did—but mostly because she was convinced she was in the right, and she was only trying to protect herself and her standing within the Guild. She could see how someone with a falsified tale could easily get himself in deep trouble with this man; he had asked many careful questions, all designed to make her incriminate herself or uncover flaws in her story that would reveal it to be a fabrication.

That had taken the better part of the morning, and she was dizzy with fatigue when he was finished with her. She didn’t try to touch his thoughts, but she had a very real sense that everything he said was part of a carefully prepared script, and that he wasn’t about to deviate from it except in the most extreme circumstances.

She couldn’t help but wonder how many cases the Arbitrators saw that never got beyond this man. Probably quite a few, judging by his reactions to her. Although he didn’t actually say anything that (probably) fell outside his prepared speeches, she got the distinct impression that he was warming to her—outside of the “hail-fellow-well-met” facade he presented.

Once again she was sent off to wait, this time in a little room with three other people, all as silent as she, and two of them looking considerably more harried. The third was black and blue, with splints on one arm. She got the feeling that this man was desperate, under the fog of his pain-killers. If the Arbitrators denied him his perceived justice, he might well do something, something excessive.

He was the first called, and she didn’t see him again. Evidently, petitioners did not leave by the same door they came in, because the other petitioner was called a few moments later, and when Kero was summoned into the room, there was no sign of either of them.