They took a room at the tavern under assumed names and spent the night waiting for a knock on their door or the sound of hobnailed boots rushing down the hall. No one came to arrest them, though, or even to ask them difficult questions. When morning finally came it seemed they were safe. The patrols of the watch had diminished in size and frequency, and both of them began to breathe easier.

“I have to go back soon,” Cythera said as she led Croy through the Ladypark Market, a winding street of shops and stalls just uphill from Hazoth’s villa. Fishmongers wheeled their carts from door to door—this early, the day’s catch had not yet begun to stink—as linkboys hurried home to bed, to wait out the day until their services were again required. Minutes before, the two of them had had the place virtually to themselves, but now the city’s throngs closed around them. Bakers and brewers were already at their stations, of course, long before the dawn. With the sun, the market truly came to life, however, filling with women getting their daily shopping done.

Croy found himself strangely unwilling to give up the heightened emotion of their night outrunning the watch. As fraught as it had been with apprehension, he’d savored the time with his lady fair. He supposed, though, that every night, no matter its freight of sweetness or of terror, must end. The morning had broken crisp and clear while they were renewing their old acquaintance—he had longed for the sun to tarry beneath the horizon, but alas, every day must follow in its course.

“If I’m late,” Cythera said, “Hazoth will want to know why. And he has a method of discerning falsehoods.”

“One that works, even on you?” Croy asked. “I thought you were immune to sorcery. Is his too strong for your curse to bear?”

She smiled without mirth. “There is no sorcerer in this world who could break through my curse. But Hazoth, well . . . not every trick he pulls is by magic,” she told him. “He’s the cleverest man I’ve ever met.”

“Cleverer than me?” Croy asked with a hurt look.

“By far,” she said, and this time laughter creased the skin around her eyes. He was glad only that he could still bring her some small joy. There had been a time—a lifetime ago, it seemed—when he would cut capers and dance for her until she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from guffawing like a fool. Now her aspect had changed for the morose.

“I didn’t want to leave, back then,” he said with sudden seriousness. “The Burgrave was my liege lord. When he ordered me away, I had no choice.”