A mother shoved past, dragging a child on each arm. It gave Fie a notion equal parts distasteful and effective. She snatched one hand from each of the lordlings. “Hold fast.”

Then she plunged into the crowd. It was chaos and cacophony, a crush of sweat and flesh and salt-stiff cotton. She lost count of how many people trod on her feet, but she was dead sure that the nails in her sandals repaid that in triple.

At last they reached the end of Fourth Market. Fie staggered to a quiet place between stalls, and the prince yanked free of her, shaking his hand out. She let go of Tavin and swayed in place, catching her breath.

“Let’s never do that again,” Tavin said, tone dark.

Fie shook her head, wheezing. “The way … back.”

“I’d rather throw myself down the water-lift.” Jasimir started to pull his hood back, then thought better of it. “What now?”

Fie looked at the next hundred stairs and winced. “Third Market.”

This stairway led past a set of bathing steps, where one of the green-tiled reservoir channels spilled out over limestone blocks larger than those Fie climbed. People of the fourth tier splashed in the milky water, rinsing laundry or stripping down and bathing as they pleased. Fie and the boys stopped a moment to scrub down their arms; it took more will than she’d admit to not wash up head to toe.

Third Market was mercifully less crowded than Fourth, giving them a moment to catch their breath in the shade of a cool stone wall. An uneven brick street wound between stalls and tents, where merchants dubiously promised the coolest palm screens, the fattest lambs, the brightest lamp oil in Cheparok. Crews of Gulls poled their cargo barges down the canal at market’s edge, shouting for buyers in the spice-laden air as they wiped sweat from deep brown faces. A distant smear of orange roof tiles marked a Magistrate’s Row, where Crane witches called truths out of witnesses and petitioners alike.

Fie’s eyes landed on a pair of Hawks lounging near a water-lift. One squinted back at her and mumbled to his partner. The other Hawk turned to look as well.

“We need to keep moving,” Fie said, and stepped back into the sun.

“We’re being followed?” Tavin asked, falling in beside her.

“Maybe. Point at the stall on your right.”

He did, gesturing to an altogether spiteful-looking sow. A bemused farmer raised his eyebrows. Fie feigned a moment’s consideration, then shook her head and moved on.