The Grieve was a broad open square near the docks, bayside on East Claw, not far from Margot’s. Here, in the centuries before the God Wars, an Iskari merchant colony built statues to their gods, and a gallows for their justice. Time had weathered the foreign gods’ squiddy faces; the gallows was torn down in the wars, after Makawe and his sisters left to join the grand fight against the Craftsmen. The platform still stood, though, and the young and poor congregated here to drink palm wine and toast the moon and smoke foreign weeds, to trade drugs caged off sailors in the Godsdistrikt, to dance to drums and poorly tuned guitars.

She found Nick in the square’s Palmside corner, kneeling at the feet of an ancient hurricane-worn spear god. A fat man twirled fire poi atop the gallows platform, and the flames danced in Nick’s eyes.

“Hey,” he said when he saw her.

“You find her?”

He nodded. “Weird woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“She went to a house first, which I thought was hers so I almost left, but she came out looking scared a few minutes later. Almost saw me, didn’t. So when she went to the next house I, you know, snuck up a tree outside, so I could watch and see if she was there to sleep or to whatever.”

“Just out of the goodness of your heart.”

“And she slept, right? And had bad dreams.”

“People have bad dreams all the time.”

“Not like this,” he said.

“Okay. Fine. Nightmares. Did you get the address? Or were you too busy trying to sneak a glance of the priest in her underwear?”

He told her, and she repeated it back to be sure she’d heard it right.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t answer.

She left him watching the spinning poi, and ran back through alleys to Margot’s house.

Chapter 40

40

“What are you doing here?” Kai asked.

The spider reared on its hind legs, spindly limbs and body’s bulk silhouetted against the green moon. The form folded and unfolded at once, arms melding as the body slimmed and the head bobbed on an elongating neck. The body assumed a semblance of a thin woman in a black suit, but the head remained a spider’s, outsize fangs dripping poison. “I’m looking for a friend of yours,” Ms. Kevarian said. She placed her hands beneath the spider head and pushed; at first, Kai thought she meant to tear her head loose, but the spider-seeming came off like a mask, revealing Ms. Kevarian’s face beneath. The Craftswoman tucked the spider head under one arm, summoned a mirror from dreams, and checked her hair. Nodding, she dissolved the mirror. “And I noticed you looking for her, too. I thought we might chat, here, unobserved.”