“I know,” Kai said. “But you should leave now. I have work to do. We do—Izza, and me. And if someone finds you here, that work only gets harder.”

She nodded. I’ll be back.

“I hope you don’t have to be. But maybe we’ll meet somewhere else.”

Silver wings stretched out to a full span, testing and tasting the air. Kai wondered what it would be like, to be perfect.

“Tell Teo good-bye,” Kai said. “And thanks. And I’m sorry.”

I will.

Cat flew, and Kai watched her go: trailing moonlight as she rose through time and space and layers of story, out into the world. Leaving Kai here, at the center.

*   *   *

The watchman let Izza off in front of the small dockside apartment complex where she claimed to live, and waited for her on the sidewalk. She’d chosen the building for its easily jimmied lock, but as she reached out to slip the latch, green light flowed from her fingertips and the door popped open.

She waved to the watchman and slipped inside, down the entrance hall, out the back door, over the rear fence to an alley, and down the alley three blocks and a turn to reach the East Claw promenade. After a quick glance left and right to be sure she wasn’t followed, she dove off into the bay.

She swam along silt-choked shoals through the city’s refuse, until she found the wall she sought and wound through it and surfaced in the chapel beneath the stares of painted gods.

She was not alone.

“I didn’t expect you,” Nick said from beside the altar.

She removed a tiny envelope of wax paper from beneath her tongue. “I didn’t expect me, either.”

“I thought you’d follow Cat when she left.”

“That was the plan.”

“And now?”

“The plan changed,” she said. “I’m staying here. We have work to do.” She opened the envelope, and slid its contents out into her palm. One folded sheet of paper.

The great challenge, in theft, is the transport of stolen goods. A thief of souls must have a receptacle for the souls she’s stolen: gold and gems, magisterium wood, works of art, raw material transformed by human hands.

Like the last work of a brilliant poet.

She opened the paper she’d torn from Margot’s notebook. Ink shimmered green in the light of stars and candles.

The green glow rose, and other colors unfolded from it, drifting through the chapel toward the paintings on the walls. Red, for the Eagle; Silver, for the Squid; Blue, for the Lady.

And there in the room’s center, where the light mingled, hung a suggestion of face and form, indistinct, massive.

Izza realized her skin was shining.

“Who is that?”

“You know her,” Izza said. “You’ve known her all along. But we’ve never told her story before now.”

“Will you?”