Marcus stumbled twice on the stairs, and it took him far too long to figure out how to work the doorknob on his bedroom door. By the time he made it to the bed, it was just a matter of falling over in the right direction.

When he opened his eyes again, it was still just before dawn, with the dull glow of Vordan City coming in through the window and a few bright stars twinkling in the sky. He’d managed to get his boots off, but he still wore his jacket, and the buttons had pressed painfully against his sternum. He groaned again, rolled over, and shrugged out of the sweat-stained blue coat.

“We meet again, Captain d’Ivoire.”

Marcus spun, heart suddenly thudding in his chest. His room at Twin Turrets was small, just a bed to sleep in and few personal effects. Sitting on the trunk that contained these was a figure dressed all in black, fingers steepled in front of a neat goatee. He wore a smile—closer to a smirk—that Marcus last remembered seeing on the other side of a set of iron bars.

“Ionkovo,” Marcus said.

His sword was four steps away, hanging from a peg on the back of the door. A nearby candlestick might do as a club, in a pinch. How the hell did he get in here? Presumably the same way he’d gotten out of a locked cell, murdering an Armsman in the process.

“My apologies,” Ionkovo said. “I see that it’s Colonel d’Ivoire now. And you won’t need your sword, I assure you. I haven’t come to do you any harm.”

“Then what the hell are you here for?” Marcus felt his anger rising. “You told me you had answers. You knew Orlanko had my family killed, didn’t you?”

“I set you on the path to find the answer,” Ionkovo said. “Isn’t that worth something?”

“You—” Marcus’ hands tightened to fists.

Ionkovo shrugged and raised his palms. “All right, I admit it. I had hoped the search would . . . distract you, at a critical time. Obviously, that did not go as we had planned it.”

It had nearly worked. Marcus had left Danton’s arrest to Vice Captain Giforte, and when Orlanko had interfered, a mob laid siege to the Vendre. Marcus had only barely made it there in time to take command, not that it had done much good. Only the timely intervention of Winter Ihernglass had kept that debacle from ending in a bloodbath.

“If you’re not going to try to kill me,” Marcus said, “then give me one good reason I shouldn’t call the guards and have you thrown in the cellar. I know Janus would very much like to talk to you.”