Oh, wonderful. The watch was the police force of the L’au-delà, and their members were not people with whom I ever desired to cross paths. ‘‘I hate to do nothing but ask questions, but where are we going?’’

‘‘The almoner’s chamber. You must make a phone call, yes?’’

He threw open a door to what appeared to be an office containing four desks, three of which were occupied by women who bore all the appearances of secretaries.

In front of the nearest one, a familiar man stood arguing. ‘‘—after which he stole her from me. Porter has no right to claim the reward when I did all the hard work and caught her to begin with.’’

‘‘Stop your bellyachin’,’’ the nasty dark-haired man snarled from where he stood to the side. I followed Tej into the room and took the chair at the empty desk that he indicated. ‘‘You know the rules as well as I do—he who brings in the suspect gets the reward. I’ll take that voucher for the benefaction now.’’

‘‘That only applies if the suspect escapes one thief taker, a fact you know very well,’’ Savian said, slamming down his hand on the table. ‘‘The fact is that you stole her from me. You didn’t pick her up after I left her; you stole her from me. As if that wasn’t enough to disqualify your claim on her, there’s the little fact that you were about to conduct an illegal search upon her person when I found you.’’

‘‘An illegal search?’’ The woman at the desk frowned.

‘‘What sort of illegal search?’’ I asked, sick to my stomach at the thought of the man named Porter touching me while I was unconscious.

‘‘You keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you,’’ the nasty man (evidently named Porter) snarled.

The words echoed horribly in my head. I took a step back, surprise overwhelming the repugnance he had generated. I’d heard something very like those words before, only a few hours ago. Cyrene’s blackmailer was a thief taker? What on earth was all that about? And why had he all but kidnapped me from his colleague?

‘‘He was about to strip-search you, my dear. You may thank me later for saving you from that particular indignity,’’ Savian told me with a little wiggle of his eyebrows.

‘‘Strip-search me? Why?’’ I asked, my mind reeling as I tried to sort out the confusion.

Porter’s expression turned sly as he picked his ear. ‘‘Your word against mine that I did any such thing.’’