Jass thinks if ’e’s caught, ’e kin turn ’is coat an’ tell on milord, there, savin’ ’is own neck. But Skif was listening, as Jass was not, and he knew that if Jass was ever caught, his life wasn’t worth a bent pin. If there was even the chance that the Watch was on to Jass, his employer would ensure his silence in the most effective way possible.

It wouldn’t take much—just another interview in an out-of-the-way place like this one. Only Jass would not be meeting “milord,” and there would be an extra corpse in the cemetery.

There was a metallic chink as money passed from one hand to another, and Jass counted it.

“Remember what I said,” the voice warned. One set of footsteps marked the owner’s transit to the door of the chapel, and Jass got up to follow. “Don’t get creative. Just set the fire, and get out.”

“Awright, awright,” Jass sneered. “My lord.”

The light vanished; the candle must have been put out. The door swung quietly open on well-oiled hinges, with only a faint sigh of displaced air to mark it opening. Then it shut again with a hollow sound, and the key rattled in the lock.

’E’s gettin’away! I dunno ’oo ’e is, an ’e’s gettin’away!

Skif practically flew up the stairs, no longer caring if he was discovered, so long as he could see who that voice belonged to!

Too late. Not only were they gone, he couldn’t even hear footsteps. He flung himself at the windows—hopeless; not only was it dark outside, but the windows didn’t open and they were made of colored glass as well. There was no way he could see anything through them—except for one single blob of light, a lantern, perhaps, receding into the darkness. He returned to the door, but you couldn’t just open it from within once you got inside, it had to be unlocked from the inside as well as from the outside. Cursing under his breath, he got out his lock picks again, knowing that this would cost him yet more time, in the dark and fumbling in his hurry.

He cursed his clumsy fingers and the lock picks that suddenly turned traitor on him; at last he heard the click of the tumblers and wrenched the wretched door open.

There wasn’t a single light to be seen within the four walls of the cemetery. They’d gotten far enough away that they were out of sight among the tombs, and by now Jass and his employer would have gone their separate ways, with nothing to show the connection between them, nothing to prove that “milord” wasn’t just paying a sentimental or pious visit on the anniversary of someone’s death.

No! Skif wasn’t going to give up that easily.