Just as they all were finishing their meal with a handful of raisins, Stev coughed meaningfully, and nodded when Abi looked up. She slowed down her eating, so that eventually everyone had left the table except her and the Herald. By that time the sun had set, with blue dusk visible outside the Great Hall windows. “Let’s take a walk,” Stev said, and she followed him across the shadow-shrouded Great Hall and out into the stableyard, which was deserted at this late hour.

“I don’t like this,” Stev said, without preamble. “It’s all very well for Master Vance to say that the why of this is not our problem, but someone was specifically impersonating our group, and to me, that’s a problem.”

She nodded. “I was thinking the very same thing. Someone has something to gain by discrediting Valdemar. I don’t think it’s the mayor.”

“I don’t either. He’d have to be the best actor in the world to have convincingly put on the performance he did today. Either he should be on the stage, or he was honestly angry, then shocked, then full of chagrin. All my instincts say the latter.”

She leaned against the stable wall. “How good is your Mindspeech? Good enough to read surface thoughts?”

“If I’m close enough to the source.” She was very pleased that he didn’t quibble at what some Heralds would have considered an invasion of privacy—then again, her father wouldn’t have bothered to recruit him if he had those kinds of qualms.

“Well then, you know what you should do,” she replied. “And taverns are probably the best place to do it. I am absolutely no help to the other three when it comes to this wall problem, so tomorrow I am going to drift around the area where that breech is and listen to the women gossip. I may not learn anything of value, but I can at least get a clearer picture of what the imposters looked and acted like, how many of them there were . . . well, just as many details as I can.”

“Good plan,” Stev replied, nodding agreement. “All right, the other reason I asked you out here was that I want you to watch out for trouble while I talk to my Companion. These imposters may only be one-time opportunists, or they may be more than that. Either way, your father needs to know.”

And that pretty much cemented the assumption that he was her father’s agent into certainty.

“Easy done,” she replied, and kept careful watch as he slid down the wall of the building to sit with his back to it and apparently nod off.

About half a candlemark later, he “woke up” again, stretched, and got to his feet. “I’m for bed. Looking forward to one that doesn’t move six times a night.”