Jarmin shrugged, as if it all mattered not a whit to him. “Word is, that’s the case. Don’t who the landlord is—was,” he corrected. “You know how it is. Probably some high-necked merchant, or even highborn. Couldn’t possibly be connected with us, nor where we live. Couldn’t soil himself by openly owning the place, but takes our copper right enough. So long as no one knows where he got it. But he wouldn’t want to have to spend good coin either, not when burning it costs him less and allows him to sell the lot afterward.”

Anger burned away the fumes of the liquor—hot as the flames that had destroyed his only family. “He burned it?” Skif repeated, sitting up, fists clenching.

“Word is that. Whoever he is.” Jarmin shrugged, then with a sly look, pushed the jug toward Skif.

Skif pushed it back, still dizzy, but head getting clearer by the moment.

He burned it. Or ordered it burned, whoever he is.

“No warning, of course,” Jarmin continued casually. “Because that would tip off the inspectors that he didn’t mean to fix it. And the highborn don’t care how many of us burn, so long as an inconvenient building is gotten rid of. That is how it is.”

There was light in the window and relative quiet on the street. It must be day, and the girls were asleep. Skif was still drunk, and he knew it, but he was getting sober, more so with every breath, as his anger rose and rose, burning like the flames that had taken his family. He looked down at himself, and saw that he was still wearing the filthy clothing he’d been brought here in. The pile of clean stuff still lay at the foot of the pallet. “Wanta bath, Jarmin.”

“Comes with the room,” Jarmin said indifferently. “I’ll tell madam. Get yourself downstairs when you can.”

He descended the stairs, and Skif waited until he could stand without too much wavering. Then he picked up a shirt, trews, and socks, and followed.

Jarmin was behind the counter tending to a customer, but waved him out the door. Skif tottered out, blinking owlishly at the daylight, and the door of the brothel next to Jarmin’s shop opened. An oily-looking fellow beckoned to him, and Skif went in.

He wasn’t given any time to look around the shabby-luxurious “parlor” where customers came to choose from the girls if they hadn’t already picked one. The oily fellow hustled him into the back where there was—

A laundry.

Only the remains of the liquor and the firmest of controls kept Skif from breaking down right there and then. The urge to wail was so great he practically choked.