‘I was starting to get worried,’ Kalam rumbled from the shadows filling the room’s far end.

‘Got distracted,’ Fiddler said.

‘Trouble?’

He shrugged, stripping off his outer cloak to reveal the leather-bound chain surcoat beneath. ‘Where are the others?’

‘In the garden,’ Kalam replied wryly.

On his way over Fiddler stopped by his backpack. He crouched and set the Tano shell inside, pushing it into the bundle of a spare shirt.

Kalam poured him a jug of watered wine as the sapper joined him at the small table, then refilled his own. ‘Well?’

‘A cusser in an eggshell,’ Fiddler said, drinking deep before continuing. ‘The walls are crowded with symbols. I’d guess no more than a week, then the streets run red.’

‘We’ve horses, mules and supplies. We should be nearing the Odhan by then. Safer out there.’

Fiddler eyed his companion. Kalam’s dark, bearish face glistened in the faint daylight from the cloth-covered window. A brace of knives rested on the pitted tabletop in front of the assassin, a whetstone beside them. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘The hands on the walls?’

Fiddler grunted. ‘You noticed them.’

‘Symbols of insurrection aplenty, meeting places announced, rituals to Dryjhna advertised – I can read all of that as well as any other native. But those unhuman handprints are something else entirely.’ Kalam leaned forward, picking up a knife in each hand. He idly crossed the blued blades. ‘They seem to indicate a direction. South.’

‘Pan’potsun Odhan,’ Fiddler said. ‘It’s a convergence.’

The assassin went still, his dark eyes on the blades crossed before him. ‘That’s not a rumour I’ve heard yet.’

‘It’s Kimloc’s belief.’

‘Kimloc!’ Kalam cursed. ‘He’s in the city?’

‘So it’s said.’ Fiddler took another mouthful of wine. Telling the assassin of his adventures – and his meeting with the Spiritwalker – would send Kalam out through the door. And Kimloc to Hood’s Gates. Kimloc, his family, his guards. Everyone. The man sitting across from him would take no chances. Another gift to you, Kimloc . . . my silence.

Footsteps sounded in the back hallway and a moment later Crokus appeared. ‘It’s as dark as a cave in here,’ he complained.

‘Where’s Apsalar?’ Fiddler demanded.

‘In the garden – where else?’ the Daru thief snapped back.

The sapper subsided. Remnants of his old unease still clung to him. When she was out of sight, trouble would come from it. When she was out of sight you watched your back. It was still hard to accept that the girl was no longer what she’d been. Besides, if the Patron of Assassins chose once more to possess her, the first warning we’d get would be a knife blade across the throat. He kneaded the taut muscles of his neck, sighing.

Crokus dragged a chair to the table, dropped into it and reached for the wine. ‘We’re tired of waiting,’ he pronounced. ‘If we have to cross this damned land, then let’s do it. There’s a steaming pile of rubbish behind the garden wall, clogging up the sewage gutter. Crawling with rats. The air’s hot and so thick with flies you can barely breathe. We’ll catch a plague if we stay here much longer.’