Within a hundred steps of leaving the river, with dawn bleeding across the mountaintops to the east, A’Meer paused and raised her hand. Kosar bumped into her and held her arms, his thief’s scarring finding succor on her cool bare skin. He could hear nothing untoward, see nothing, smell nothing unusual. A’Meer did not move for a few long moments, but then she started backing up, forcing Kosar back as well. The two of them kept moving like that until they came to a house doorway, where A’Meer fumbled with the handle, drew something from her belt, knelt and popped open the lock in the matter of a dozen agitated heartbeats.

She opened the door and hustled Kosar into a stranger’s house. It was only after she closed and locked the door behind her that she spoke, pressing her mouth to his ear so that it was more a breath than a word, unmistakable from a sleeper’s sigh.

Monk.

Kosar backed away from the door but A’Meer held him fast. He saw her sense. They were in an unknown room, whose confines and layout were uncertain in the dark, and any movement could tip a table and send its contents tumbling to the floor.

He glanced down at A’Meer just as she looked up at him, and her eyes reflected weak lamplight from the street outside. They were wide and terrified. He put his arm around her shoulders and his hand on her chest. He could feel her heart racing as if trying to outdistance the moment. She shivered, her skin slicked with a cool sweat, and she pressed close.

They heard a noise outside. Footsteps, slow and methodical, but with no attempt at concealment. The Red Monk passed by the house, paused and carried on along the street, and then A’Meer began to shiver even more. She was shaking her head, breathing heavily, and two of her blades clanged together.

Kosar held her tight and buried his face in her neck, whispering inanities to calm her, warming her cold skin with his breath. She clasped his hands where they held her, pulled him tighter, and he realized with sudden shock that he had let her tale cloud his judgment. She was a Shantasi warrior, a trained fighter, but that did not mean that she was unafraid. In fact, he suspected it gave her more to fear. And those things she had not told him, could never tell him . . . perhaps they were even worse.

“It’s gone,” he whispered in her ear. “We should go too.”

She turned and held him tight so that they did not need to talk above a whisper. “It came from the direction we’re taking. They may have the boy already. He may be dead!”

“Only one way to find out.”

A’Meer let go of Kosar, knelt and unlocked the door.