Izza followed the priest to an office building by the bay. The woman didn’t notice. People who wore suits didn’t tend to notice Izza. To them, all street kids looked more or less alike.

So she paced the woman down alleys, across rooftops, over fire escapes, and along the sidewalk, then waited outside her office, singing snatches of opera for passersby. Busking attracted attention, but this was a posh area, buildings all metal and glass, full of merchants and Craftsmen and clients of the Order, and she’d be hustled along in a hurry for loitering. After two hours her voice tired, her stomach growled, and she stole an orange from a fruit stand across the street.

She was hiding behind a trash bin eating when the priest walked past the alley mouth. Izza abandoned the orange rind and trailed her through the drifting noonday crowd, under striped awnings, down into West Claw—familiar territory. Kavekana’s richer immigrants were generous if you caught them in the right mood. Hard to stay for long, though. Shopkeeps watched their storefronts here, and chased even buskers off. No singers on these streets, and their parks never heard a lick of opera.

When the priest turned onto Stockton, Izza followed, grim, up Penitent Ridge. She climbed a decaying, abandoned house and lay on the broken tile roof, sun warmed as a lizard, while her quarry entered the watch station. Time passed. The sun peaked, descended.

Perhaps the Watch had taken the woman prisoner. Stuck her in a Penitent.

No such luck. The priest emerged after the better part of an hour, limping and leaning on her cane, and descended the ridge without a backward glance. Izza saw her face, briefly, when she passed below. Tired, drained, determined. She’d done what she came to do.

The priest returned to her office, and Izza stopped in the alley opposite to think. This was bad. If the Watch came for Margot, it would hunt her next.

She might be too late already. Watchmen moved fast. But she didn’t want to lose track of her quarry. If the priest hurt Margot, Izza would have to find her, and stop her.

She needed help.

Chapter 34

34

Kai returned a half hour late from her lunch break, and smiling. Officemates noticed the change, and smiled back; she stopped for the first time in weeks to chat about the weather, about Sherry’s granddaughters and the outcome of the ullamal championships in Dresediel Lex now that Zolin was benched. Whatever that meant.

Claude would have Margot in custody by nightfall. Now, she had to figure out how to loop the Order in. How to approach Jace. Which meant deciding what to do about Mara.