I crept closer, peering through the rain, something in my bones telling me that this was important. Mephi and Thrana both sniffed at it. I knelt, my robe muddied, trying to ignore the stench. An Emperor and a refuse pile once more – who would have thought? But then I got a closer look at the face.

It was the remains of some statuary that had been hacked to pieces. A woman’s face, her eyes wide open. My fingertips tingled when I touched it. I thought of the white sword, and some recognition flickered in me. The sword wasn’t made of some strange metal. It was stone. The same stone as the remains of this statue. “I’m taking this,” I said, pulling it free. Half of a fish carcass slid from the face as I lifted it.

I didn’t have any place on my person to store it. It wouldn’t fit inside my sash pocket.

Jovis noticed my hesitation. “Here.” He put out his hand. “We’ll have to get it cleaned off and then I’ll put it in your cabin. I promise.” I let him take it, shivering as the rain began to soak through my robe. He slipped it inside his satchel, next to a book I didn’t recognize.

When I looked up, I found myself meeting the gaze of a man on the other side of the refuse pile, his cloak shadowing his face. He had a heavy bag around his shoulder, lumps pressing against the cloth. He’d been collecting something here, just like I had. There was something rough in his demeanor, the short stubble on his chin. Even through the pouring rain I saw: he only had one eye. The other was covered with a patch.

His face looked familiar, but then he turned and disappeared down the street.

“Mephi. Thrana. Let’s go.”

This time, they obeyed.

The rain had increased to a torrential downpour by the time we made it back to the gangplank. A silence hung over the ship and that made me more apprehensive than anything else.

“She’s in the servants’ bunk,” one of the guards called from the deck. “Eminence,” he added belatedly.

We hurried onto the ship and below-deck. Servants and guards hovered outside the door to the servants’ bunk, crowding the narrow hallway. They pushed up against the walls as they saw us coming, though my shoulders still brushed against more than one of them.

“Go to the mess hall,” I heard Jovis saying to Mephi and Thrana. “Go get some food.”

The servants’ bunk had been cleared of everyone except the handmaids and the physician. The physician knelt next to the lowest bunk on the left; the other two handmaids hovering over her. Both look disheveled. One had a bandage wrapped around her entire forearm.