“But if I was to go out all ragged an’ kip down on th’street where I know they’s been snatching?” Skif asked. “While you kept a watch? It’d be more’n useful, I’m thinkin’. We got what we need for the makings of a nice little trap. An’ it’s one you can’t set without a youngling for bait.” He stabbed his thumb at his chest. “Me. You daren’t use anyone else.”

Alberich’s face went very, very still. “If you did not Mindspeak with Cymry—” he said, very slowly.

“But I do. An’ you got Kantor. So ‘tween them we can Mindspeak each other. An’ I got some ideas that’ll keep me from gettin’ coshed, ’cause I know how they been workin’,” Skif replied, and sat back himself. “You’ll know when I get took, an’ you can follow. You’ll know when th’ man hisself shows up. We can do more’n figger out who he is. We can catch ’im.”

“It is very dangerous. You could be hurt,” Alberich pointed out immediately. “You can attempt to protect yourself, but that does not mean you will succeed.”

“Then I get hurt,” Skif dismissed, feeling his jaw tense and his own resolve harden. “It’ll be worth it.”

Alberich half-closed his eyes and laced his fingers together, occasionally looking up at Skif as though testing his mettle. If this long wait was supposed to test his patience as well, it wasn’t going to work that way, for the longer Alberich thought, the better Skif reckoned his odds to be.

And when at last Alberich spoke, he knew he’d been right.

“Very well,” the Weaponsmaster said. “Let me hear the whole of this plan of yours. I believe that you and I must do this thing.”

Chapter 19

19

SKIF widened his eyes pleadingly and held out his bowl to anyone who even glanced at him. He certainly looked the part of a beggar boy. He hadn’t worn rags like these since he’d been living at the Hollybush. It was a good thing that it was still very warm at night, or he’d be freezing in the things. They were more hole than cloth, and he couldn’t imagine where Alberich had found them, couldn’t imagine why anyone in the Collegium would have kept them.

At least they were clean. His need for authenticity didn’t run to dirt and lice, and fortunately, neither did Alberich’s; a little soot smeared across his forehead, chin, and cheekbones provided the illusion of dirt, and that was all that was required.

This time the place where Skif’s transformation had taken place had been supplied by Alberich, not that Skif was surprised at the Weaponsmaster’s resources. Alberich couldn’t have walked out of the Complex in his sell-sword gear, after all.