Problem was there wasn’t a damn thing on the island worth stealing. So she busied herself keeping an eye on the petty thieves and thugs: Spender’s outfit that ran the waterfront; the Jakatan pirates who preyed from time to time on coastal shipping. Anyone going to and from the harbour.

She’d simply been brushed aside. Maybe that was what hurt the most. Because it was needless and ill-considered; because she’d actually hoped they might have . . . she stopped herself from thinking through all that again. She couldn’t bear to remember her naïve hopes, the things she’d bragged to people. They were indeed Imperial Claws. And escorting what indeed was an Imperial Fist. One of perhaps only a hundred administrators, governors, even generals of the armies.

Kiska clenched her teeth till they hurt. So what if she hadn’t graduated from one of those fancy officer schools at Unta, Li Heng, or Tali? So what if she had no access to any Warren magic? She was good enough to get the job done without it. Aunt Agayla had always said she had a natural talent for the work. As good as any intelligence officer, or so Kiska believed.

This official’s visit was a Gods-sent second chance, not to be missed, after last year’s stop-over of troop transports. Then, while resupplying, the army had enforced the Regent’s new edict against magery, and it all had spiralled out of control. Agayla had locked her away, saying it was for her protection, just when her talents and local knowledge could have been of most use. It had been the perfect opportunity for her to prove her value, to catch the attention of someone in authority that would recognize her worth. She had sworn then that she’d never again allow the woman to interfere with her chances to get off the island. Though, as the flames spread and the riots ended in indiscriminate slaughter, she grudgingly allowed that Agayla might well have saved her life. Nevertheless, while everyone else on the island wished the soldiers good riddance, hurrying them on their way with obscenities and curses, Kiska had watched the huge ungainly transports lumber from the bay with a feeling of desolation. At that moment she believed she’d never get off this gaol of an island, despite her talent.

And it was this talent that allowed her to spot the oddity of activity on this message cutter, even if she had to admit that she’d only come down to the harbour to sulk. She’d smelled the action immediately. This must bear on the presence of the official. Just a simple message? Why all the secrecy? And how strange that no message – or messenger – had yet to leave the ship. What were they all waiting for? Icy droplets tickled Kiska’s back but she refused so much as a twitch. The cutter had almost rammed its mooring in its haste to make the harbour and now they just sit—

Ah! Movement. One at a time four of the crew came down the gangway to the pier which stood slightly lower than the ship’s deck. They wore sealskin ponchos and kept their arms hidden beneath the wide leather folds. They took up positions around the bottom of the rope-railed walk. Kiska assumed that under the ponchos each man held a cocked crossbow, possibly of Claw design: screw-tension, bowless. A similar weapon was strapped to her right side, bought with all the money Kiska possessed in the world from a trader who’d had no idea how the unfamiliar mechanism worked.