I shouldn’t have left this so long. But there had been a million things demanding her attention—angry merchants, new recruits, supplies and schedules and duty rosters—and she’d been so sure that Jane would eventually come to her senses of her own accord. Now that she thought about it more clearly, it was obvious that wasn’t ever going to happen. She’d never just slink home with her tail between her legs. Her continuing debauch was as much a challenge to Winter as anything else. And I just left her to get on with it.

The current haunt of the Leatherbacks was a tavern called the Linked Rings, whose sign was a pair of barrel hoops welded together and optimistically slathered with gold paint, now mostly flaked away. It wasn’t in the worst part of town—the true slums of Desland were across the river to the west—but it was about as bad as one could get while remaining on the eastern bank. Shabby row houses stretched down winding streets, and a fair number of angry or avaricious looks followed Winter as she brought Edgar to a halt in front of the tavern, dismounted, and handed his reins to the dirty young man who emerged from the neighboring alley.

She pressed a coin into his hand. “Keep him saddled. I won’t be long.”

The tavern was a two-story building, with a common room and a kitchen on the ground floor and private rooms upstairs for those who wanted to do their drinking in more select company. It was clear that any non-Leatherback clientele had abandoned the place, and the proprietor was also nowhere to be found. Clay mugs, wooden cups, and plates of half-eaten food still littered the big, solid tables of the common room, and the women of Jane’s Leatherbacks were strewn about like detritus from a shipwreck. It was well past noon, but many of them were still asleep, snoring on the benches or curled up on the floor with their clothing in various states of disarray.

Some were up and moving, though, picking through the remains for tidbits. A couple of women were behind the bar, helping themselves to beer from the big kegs there. Near the door, Winter recognized Becca, one of Jane’s lieutenants, in the process of carving an elaborate design into one of the tabletops with the point of a long knife. The woman looked up at her as the door swung closed, and Winter coughed.

“Where’s Jane?” she said.

Becca got to her feet, knife in one hand, and glared. Winter wondered for a moment if it had been wise to decline Bobby’s offer of an escort. She hadn’t seriously thought that Jane’s people would hurt her, but having a half dozen armed soldiers at her back would have been reassuring.