He let go as if he’d been burned, cursing under his breath.

“Oh.” Jasimir’s face dropped.

“I keep clear of Hawks if I can help it,” she told them. “But it wouldn’t be the first time for Crows. What do you do when a Hawk takes what they want? Tell another Hawk?”

“Yes.” Tavin ran his hands through his hair. “That’s what you—what you should be able to do.”

“And how do you reckon that ends for people who aren’t Hawks or gentry?” she asked.

He looked away, toward the stairs to Second Market. Somehow that made her angry.

Fie grabbed a fistful of Tavin’s cloak and gave it a jerk. He blinked at her.

“I reckon,” she said coldly, “we all know how it ends.”

Then she let go and set off to cross Third Market.

It was a long, silent, stifling walk back to the fifth tier. But as Fie led the way down the final set of grimy stairs, she caught on to how close the Hawk had kept to her, now warding her back each step of the way.

Fie didn’t know how she felt about that.

Almost over. In a few hours, this would all be over. The prince would be safe, Pa’s oath would be kept, and she’d never again need to fear riders in the night.

A few hours, and then no more roads would end like her ma’s had.

They’d just hit the muddy fifth-tier street when murmurs and cries swept down through its straggling crowd. A beggar pointed back behind them. Fie turned.

“Here we go,” Tavin said.

When, not if.

Four city tiers above, a black string of smoke trailed from the Floating Fortress’s plague beacon.

They left the shrine near sundown, copper sunlight striping shadows down the street as Fie slung her mask about her neck.

“Here.” Hangdog held out a fistful of fresh mint leaves. “Found some in Fourth Market.”

“Thanks.” She shook long-withered leaves from her mask beak and stuffed the new ones in. “Run into any trouble?”

An odd look crossed his face before it blanked. “Nary a bit. You?”

She strapped on her mask, taking a deep whiff of mint as the world narrowed to what she could see through the eyeholes. “Naught worth mentioning.”

Yet another half-truth. But she’d have plenty of time to mull it over once the lordlings were gone.

They ran into no disputes with the water-lifts this time. The attendants’ ashen faces said the sooner the Crows took the sinners, the better. One tier after another they ascended, market crowds splitting before the Crows’ grim procession with a sober, furious hush.