“Give me your money and let me do the talking,” Vada muttered as they approached the window. Leo quickly shoved a thick wad of krogers into her hand.

“Dorinda, you lazy bastard,” she said, slamming the money down onto the sill, “look sharp and change these bills at once!”

Dorinda was a rail-thin woman with a mass of bright red hair pulled back from her face by a band of mussel shells. A set of bifocals was perched on her nose and her nails were long, sharpened to points, and painted jet black.

“Vada,” she said, drawing out the last a with apparent relish, a sickly sweet smile spreading across her face then suddenly vanishing. “Get to the back of the line, you little shit. I told you last time, no special favors. I don’t care who your mama is. You want me to call the Misarros?”

Leo hid his shudder at the thought—he might look like a Byrne but there was no way he would be able to pass himself off as one once someone started asking questions.

“If you are wanting to call the Misarros on Mr. Byrne here, then by all means, go ahead,” Vada said. “I’m sure Ambrosine would be delighted to hear how her family is treated in this market.”

Dorinda started as she looked at Leo, then immediately adopted an obsequious expression. “In the name of the goddesses, I did not see you, sir. I will change these for you right away.”

Once she was gone, Vada grinned at him. “This is working even better than I had been thinking.”

Dorinda reappeared a few minutes later with a heavy leather purse that clinked as she set it down. “Would you like me to count them out for you, sir?”

Leo shook his head, then rested a hand on one hip and stared out into the distance, as if looking for something far more interesting. His father always did that when he was speaking to someone he felt was lesser than he.

Vada snatched the purse and tied it to her belt. “May the goddesses bless you,” she said to Dorinda.

But Dorinda was eyeing Leo with interest and he saw a disconcerting flash of recognition. “I was wondering, sir, if you could tell . . . it is being said that Ambrosine has cut off the passages around Culinnon, ones that lead to the Lost Islands. Does this mean she has found Braxos?”

The name Culinnon sparked something in his memory, but Leo couldn’t quite place it.

“I’m sure if Ambrosine wanted you to know what she was doing, she would have hurried right here to tell you herself,” he said before remembering he wasn’t supposed to speak. But Vada looked quietly pleased as Dorinda’s cheeks flushed. Leo felt the best course of action was to leave as quickly as possible.