Brio nods. “I love my wife,” he says. “That has never and will never change. But… seeing you again was enough to confuse me for a time, I will admit.”

Evie grins ruefully. “Good. I was confused for years. It took a war to clear things up for me. You deserve a little of that, at least.”

Brio grins back, but there’s a sadness in his. “I know you said the past and our feelings about it don’t matter now, but I’m still sorry. You risked your life to help me. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

Evie takes a deep, cleansing breath.

“Let’s just hope we live long enough to need your particular skills,” she says.

THE BLACK TURTLE

THERE IS A PART OF Taru that believes that if they return to the Bottoms alone they won’t be allowed to leave again. In fact, if Taru has one recurring nightmare, it is that. The retainer never minded revisiting the streets and docks that bore them when accompanying Brio in his capacity as pleader for the Bottoms. It was Brio’s father who had pulled Taru up from these same streets and the docks and oversaw their training as Gen Stalbraid’s retainer, who tasked Taru with protecting him and his son and their kith-kin. That mission, and Taru’s singular focus upon it always overrode any fear entering the minor nether realm of the Bottoms would otherwise inspire.

It is much different on their own, Taru finds.

Taru presents arms for the inspection of the Aegins with their steel tridents stationed at the arch. They take far too long scrutinizing the proofs on each blade that signifies its lawful carry within the city limits. Taru listens disinterestedly and silently to their grumbled diatribe about how the law allowing Gens to keep armed retainers should finally be repealed, and how it is an affront and danger to every Aegin brave enough to strap on a baldric and dagger. Taru flatly ignores their predictable suspicions concerning the retainer’s race and the Aegins’ thinly veiled disgust toward Taru’s obvious Undeclared status.

The smell of the water and the perpetual odor of fishmonger’s fare churns Taru’s stomach, but only for the memories those olfactory assaults recall. The retainer marches past the grand row of Crachian merchant and military vessels, all of them as tall as keep walls. The wood of their hulls is polished as finely as steel and flashes in the sun in almost the same way.