“This is Othalo Tomasaran. She is a Witness for the Dead.”

Anora’s eyebrows went higher, but he bowed to her gravely. “Othalo Tomasaran, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Anora Chanavar.”

“Velhiro Tomasaran,” she said, bowing in return. Then Anora showed us into the room where they were keeping Merrem Osthonharad’s body. He tactfully stayed outside with Mer Osthonharad.

She had been prepared for burial, wrapped carefully according to the Ploraneise custom, only her face and hands left visible. She had been a goblin woman, heavy jawed, as young as her husband.

There was no point in waiting for something to happen. I said the prayer of compassion for the dead and touched the cool, dead flesh of her forehead.

Brenaro Osthonharad’s last thoughts had been of her child. It took some effort to find the answer to Mer Osthonharad’s question—where is the money?—and when I did, it didn’t come in words, or even quite in images, but more in a feeling, the memory of the movements it took to reach the money’s hiding place.

I stepped back. “Othalo Tomasaran, would you like to try?”

“Oh!” She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure that I meant it, or as if she suspected a trap.

“You have to start somewhere,” I said.

She nodded jerkily and stepped up next to me. She stumbled a little over the words of the prayer of compassion for the dead, but she persevered and reached out with shaking fingers to touch Merrem Osthonharad’s cheek. She stiffened, and I knew the flood of darkness and emotions and fragments of thought she would be contending with. After a moment, I nudged her gently. She gasped and pulled her hand back.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think … yes. Yes, I’m fine. I just…”

“It’s difficult,” I said. “What did you find?”

“Nothing about the money,” she said apologetically.

“That’s all right. What did you find?”

“She was so worried about her baby,” said Tomasaran. “She knew … she knew she was dying, didn’t she?”

“She knew,” I said. “She was a brave woman.”

“Yes.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “Did you find out about the money?”

“Yes, although I’m not quite sure how … I think we’ll have to go to their apartment.”

“All right,” said Tomasaran.

“You may not think so when we get there,” I said.

The Marigold Rookeries were one of the worst parts of Amalo—certainly the worst part of the Airmen’s Quarter. The tenement that Keila Osthonharad led us to was filthy and dark, and people had put up partitions and knocked out walls seemingly at random, the result being a maze that no outsider could penetrate. Mer Osthonharad led us easily, but I was uncomfortably aware that without him, I had no idea how to get out again.

The apartment was ramshackle but clean, all two rooms of it. Looking around, I understood Mer Osthonharad’s desperation; it didn’t seem as if there was anywhere in this tiny apartment to hide one’s savings. But I knew how Merrem Osthonharad had done it, if I could just find the point she had started from.