“Don’t worry, I can be discreet when I choose,” Bikker said with a laugh. “Though what a juicy tale I could tell! In a month the city will be torn in half, and the streets will be lined with the dead. How many lights do you think will show then? And no one will ever know what part I played in it all.”

“No, they will not,” the third member of the cabal said. Bikker turned to face Hazoth, whose visage was covered in a thick veil of black crepe. As much as Bikker disliked this business of unseen associates, he supposed he was glad for that veil. It was not good to look on the naked face of a sorcerer. “If you cannot maintain silence, I can enforce it on you. Don’t forget your place. Your part in this is minimal.”

Bikker shrugged. He knew that perfectly well. He’d been hired to perform a variety of small services, but mostly because he was probably the only person in the city who could stop these two, if he so chose. When he’d agreed to meet with them—and then agreed to their tentative, secretive offer—they’d been comically grateful. His reputation preceded him, and they didn’t dare offend his vanity. But they never truly let him forget that he was their lackey. “I do what I’m told . . . when I’m paid. Gold has a way of stifling the tongue. I know better than to ask of him,” Bikker said, jutting one thumb toward the occupant of the coach, “but what are you getting out of this, wizard? What could he pay you that you can’t just magic up on your own?”

“I’ve agreed to turn a blind eye to Hazoth’s . . . experiments,” the coach’s occupant said, “once I rule the city. Does that trouble you?”

There had been a time when that would have given Bikker pause, indeed. Sorcerers could be dangerous. Hazoth stank of brimstone and the pit, and he was capable of things mortal men should never try. Sometimes sorcerers made mistakes and the whole world paid. The sword at Bikker’s side was a testament to how high the price had once been—it was sworn to the defense of the realm against the demons a sorcerer could summon up but couldn’t always control.

There’d been a time when Bikker was sworn to that same defense. But the world had changed. Times had changed. He too had changed. Any belief he’d had in nobility or service was ground down by a mill wheel that moved very slowly, but never stopped. Once, he’d been a champion of humankind.