“So I’ll have to bring in more clothing for the job, won’t I? Damn.” He blew a smoke ring over the rail. “I’m not supposed to have assets on Kyprananoke—Falcrest ‘remanded the islands to local authority,’ remember? That’s why this place is such a festival for the Oriati Termites now—they use these islands as a junction to dispatch their spies. I had to ‘kill’ a number of agents on ‘failed’ missions to move them to Kyprananoke, and let me tell you, keeping them contentedly dead takes a lot out of my purse. You’re asking me to burn this whole operation to grab one woman.”

“I’m asking you to help me take Baru off the board. Her master wants an Oriati civil war, war that will spread across the Ashen Sea and cost my people—if you care—”

“I do—”

“—absolutely everything.”

Execarne offered me the blunt. I took a grateful drag. His long-line twitched; he began to reel it in, hand over hand, his arms dimpled fetchingly with farmer’s muscle. “Does Hesychast know how you plan to use her?”

“Hesychast just wants the Stakhi fat and well fed. Using Baru as a dowry fits well. She’s lost to the Farrier Process, anyway.” She seemed to think that the grief and disaster she provoked were inevitable, unchangeable. Farrier had made her well.

“We’re playing a dangerous game here, Yawa,” Execarne said. I liked it when he used my name. “Moving against Farrier. He can swing half of Parliament just by changing the side he wears his cock.”

His line jerked enormously. Thank Wydd he used a safe grip, or it would’ve cut through his fingers. With a shout of surprise, he let the long-line drop. We watched in shock as whatever he’d caught, a shark or swordfish, tugged the line in short sharp jerks, three of them in quick succession, a long slack interval, then five jerks, then seven.

“Well,” Execarne sighed, “I’m not going to reel that one in.” He slashed the line free. “What were you saying?”

“You were telling me we were in danger, fighting Farrier. And I know.” I wanted to take his arm in mine. And why not? Why not? I did. “But I cannot let Baru get Aurdwynn. And I cannot let her defraud even one more good woman to her doom.”

She was all counterfeit, our Baru. The hints of yearning? The ill-hidden grief? Even her preoccupation with “rescuing” Tain Hu’s house on Moem? All scattered like pepper for the hounds. Designed to throw me off the scent.