The key to making sure that all five dogs got their doses was to send the bladders over the wall at long intervals. The first and strongest dog wolfed down his portion, then staggered about for a bit and fell asleep. When Skif heard the staggering, he sent over the second bladder; by that time the strongest dog was in no condition to contest the food, and the second strongest got it. It took a while, but Skif was patient, and when he couldn’t hear anything other than dog snores, he went over the wall and up the gutter to the roof.

Now he sat on the rooftree with his back against one of the chimneys, using its bulk to conceal his silhouette, and took deep, slow breaths to calm himself. His gut was a tight knot—a good reason for not eating much tonight. And he was thirsty, but thirsty was better than being in the middle of a job and having to—well. This would be the first time he had ever entered a house with the intention of confronting someone. Normally that was the last thing he wanted to do, and it had him strung tighter than an ill-tuned harp.

So he ran over what he needed to do in his mind until he thought he’d rehearsed it enough, and Mindcalled Cymry.

:I’m going in,: he told her.

:You know what to do if you get in trouble,: she replied, for they had already worked that out. Skif would get outside, anywhere outside, and she would come for him. She swore she could even get into the yard if it was needful. How she was to get over that fence, he had no notion, but that was her problem. Bazie had taught him that once you put your confidence in a partner, you just trusted that he knew what he was doing and went on with your part of the plan. Because once the plan was in motion, there was nothing you could do about what he was responsible for, anyway, so there was no point in taking up some of the attention you should be paying to your part of the job by worrying about him.

He slipped over the rooftree to the next chimney; the hatch into the crawl space was just on the other side of it. It wasn’t locked—it hadn’t been locked for the past five years that Skif knew of. Even if it had been, it was one of those that had its hinges on the outside, and all he would have had to do would have been to knock the hinge pins out and he could have lifted it up from the hinge side. He left it open, just in case he had to make a quick exit and couldn’t use the route out he’d planned.