“Now we ought to go, I think.” Yawa coughed twice, harshly, into her gloved fist. “I only paid the constables to ignore so much.”

*   *   *

THEY rowed a boat south to Moem islet, where the prisoners waited.

“There’s Helbride,” Iscend remarked. Baru followed her pointing hand southeast. Clipper sails bobbed cheerfully against the bright afternoon sky: it was indeed Helbride, sailing south.

Baru squawked in horror. “Apparitor’s leaving without us!”

“Of course he is,” Yawa said. “Sulane came in last night. Do you think Apparitor would stay in close moor? Trapped against the rocks?”

How Aminata would have teased her for forgetting her sailing rules: make some sea room before you fight.

They beached on Moem’s rocky skirts. Xe led them to a narrow trail that spiraled up the outside of the mesa, and showed them how to belay themselves to the long-lines pitoned into the cliff face. They climbed along the steep path left by the face’s slow collapse. The exercise stole Baru’s thoughts, and her awareness narrowed to the distraction of Xe’s long easy stride, her hard legs glimpsed in swirled-cotton fractions as the wind stirred her robe, the padded curve of fat at her hips.

I’m lustful, Baru thought. I haven’t gotten off since Sieroch and I just spent a night surrounded by beautiful women. I ought to mind myself for foolishness.

On top of the islet a fringe of scrubby salt-grass sloped down into a cupped valley, and there sat Faham Execarne’s little Morrow Ministry station: a whitewashed stone farmhouse, a covered well, a pump-arm with a modesty screen for showers, fields of raw earth bordered in stone walls not quite half-built.

“It’s nice,” Xe said, “isn’t it?”

Iscend looked on it with Clarified eyes. “The proper signs are shown. It’s safe.”

Up the trail toward them came a leathery old man with a crossbow and a fat pipe clenched in his jaw. The wind changed. A powerful stink of weed came over them.

“Faham!” Ulyu Xe cupped her mouth to call ahead. “Faham, I’ve brought the guest.”

“Trouble’s what you brought.” Faham Execarne studied them from ten paces, a compact dark brown man with deeply folded eyes and a strong blunt chin. Farm work kept him rangy and a little stooped, but Baru would never have mistaken him for a real farmer: his eyes marked them one by one, like files. “Hello again, Jurispotence Yawa. And if I’m up on my telltales, you’re the Imperial agent Baru Cormorant. The one from Sieroch. The one my guests insist on seeing.”

His crossbow was pointed at Iscend all the while. He clamped his pipe in his teeth and jerked his chin toward Yawa. “Jurispotence, has your thing here killed anyone yet?”

“Just one I’ve seen. In self-defense.”