There were a few women here she knew, and she planted herself before the nearest one. “Shan, what’s going on?” Kit demanded. “Why is everyone here?”

Shan reluctantly met her eyes. “They see troubles,” she said in that elliptical singsong so prevalent among the gulden. It was as though their conversation had nothing to do with themselves; they could tell the most intimate story as if it were a myth about some long-dead ancestor. “They see such sadness.”

“What happened?” Kit said. Even though long experience told her it was impossible to rush a gulden telling a sensitive story, Kit tried to hurry her to the point. “Was there another murder?”

“A woman and her three girls, could it be they are dead? Oldest boy, they say, not to be found.”

Kit briefly shut her eyes. So a young man had killed his mother and sisters. It was a frequent tale. “Who was killed?” she asked.

“Some woman come to the city to be safe.”

“What was her name? Did you know her?”

“Her name was Mish. She was here only three or four weeks.”

Mish. Not a name Kit recognized, but there were so many women here she didn’t know. So many women here. “And her oldest son is missing? Does anyone know where he might be found?”

“With his father, they are saying.”

“Back in Geldricht?”

“This young man’s father, he has come to the city to visit.”

Kit frowned, trying to follow. “Mish’s husband is in the city? Did he come to the district looking for her?”

“No one I know has seen this man nearby.”

It was the most frustrating conversation imaginable, but Kit tried to hold on to her patience. She had had countless conversations like this over the years—conversations that were even less productive than this one, in fact. “Why do you think Mish’s husband is here if you haven’t seen him?”

“Wouldn’t you come to the city with Chay Zanlan if Chay Zanlan was your uncle and a man you greatly admired?”

So Mish had been married to one of Chay’s nephews. And enlightened though Chay assuredly was, many of his relatives were as traditional and fierce as the feudal clan leaders of a hundred years ago. “What is his name, do you know?” she asked sharply. “This man who was married to Mish?”

“Girt Zanlan,” Shan said flatly.