He was coming, they said, with thirty thousand battle-hardened veterans of the Army of the East, or with a few hundred half-starved men. The Hamveltai army had been scattered to the four winds, or was chasing him over the passes, or marched with him as an ally. He’d recruited an army of women, unnatural creatures twisted by sorcery, who shrugged off musket balls and ate the dead. He himself was a demon, an agent of the Sworn Church, a spy for Hamvelt or Borel or Murnsk.

But he was coming. Everyone agreed on that.

The news had filtered into the city gradually, amid a profusion of other rumors about what had happened in front of the walls of Antova. All the papers were echoing the Directory-sanctioned truth—that Janus had turned his coat, like de Brogle, and brought his army over to the side of the Free Cities League. He was marching toward Vordan, they acknowledged, but loyal units of the army were assembling to stop him, and it was only a matter of time before he was captured or at least forced to withdraw.

The people Raesinia listened to were not so sure. Janus, it was widely agreed, was the best general in the Vordanai army—or any other army, some said—and the prospects of a scratch force confronting his (Hamveltai-aided, possibly sorcerous or female or both) troops seemed grim. If he reached the city, then . . . what?

Some said they would fight, house to house and street to street if necessary. The Patriot Guard had begun enlistments for Civic Defense militias, rough neighborhood mobs armed with improvised or antiquated weapons. These CDs, immediately dubbed “seedies” by the populace, were charged with keeping the peace throughout most of the city. Northside, Raesinia had heard, things were tense but quiet, with regular militia patrols and the semblance of a normal life. The Island and the Exchange were the domain of the Patriot Guard, who kept a tight hold over all the bridges and landings.

South of the river, though, the seedies had a different character. A responsibility for keeping the peace was, after all, also a license to break it, and the militias had begun enriching themselves at their constituents’ expense. Food prices rose as seedies imposed impromptu “taxes,” or simply charged protection money to remain in their good graces.

On the South Bank, there were those who said they looked forward to the day Janus marched his troops into Vordan. It was Janus and the queen who’d saved Vordan once before, and now that the Directory had gone as bad as Orlanko, he was coming back to do it again. He would sweep away the politicians and the traitors, end the war, lift the blockade, make the streets safe again. When he arrived, it was whispered, he would send Maurisk to the Spike, announce his marriage to Queen Raesinia, and take the throne.