“There were benches,” Talal said. The leach had broken off from the group to check the darker corners. “And fountains pouring straight out of the cliff. The masonry is mostly worn away, but the water still flows.”

“They carved channels,” Triste pointed out, “and a pool.”

“Someone had a nice place here,” Laith said, gesturing to a large building that stood at the far end of the ledge.

Unlike the tunnels and rooms through which they had climbed, the structure was built rather than carved, a man-made fortress right on the cliff’s edge. No, Valyn realized, examining the tall windows, the wide, empty door, not a fortress. More like a palace. The building filled half the ledge, stretching up four or five stories to where the roof almost touched the sweeping expanse of granite above.

“Huge house,” the flier added, “and a private garden halfway up the cliff.”

“Where’s the kenta?” Valyn asked, turning in a slow circle, uncertain what he was looking for.

“Inside,” Tan said.

Valyn nodded. “Suits me. Let’s get inside.”

“I thought you wanted a view,” the flier grumbled.

“I want to look,” Valyn said, “not get looked at. The palace has windows. The kenta is there. We set up shop in there.”

Even dilapidated, even crumbling, the inside of the structure lived up to the promise of its setting. Unlike the hoarded warren of low halls and tunnels below, the palace was high-ceilinged, the gracious windows admitting pools of moonlight along with the cool night air. It wasn’t built for fortification, but then, there wasn’t much need for fortification when you were seventy paces up a sheer cliff.

“Up,” Tan said, gesturing to the wide central staircase with its crumbling balustrade.

“I thought we were up,” Laith griped. “There’s such a thing as too much elevation, you know.”

“And this from the Wing’s flier,” Gwenna said.

“What do you suppose this was?” Kaden asked, running a hand along the stone.

Valyn shrugged. “King’s palace. Temple, maybe. Guild hall, if merchants ran the city.”

To his surprise, Triste shook her head. “An orphanage,” she said quietly, so quietly he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

“An orphanage?” Pyrre asked. Ever since landing, the assassin had seemed curious rather than concerned, but her hands didn’t stray far from the pommels of her knives. “I wish the people where I grew up took such good care of their orphans.”

Tan ignored the assassin, turning instead to Triste, his stare boring into her. “How do you know that?”

She glanced at Kaden for support, then pointed back the way they had come, to the doorway opening out onto the ledge. “Above the door. It’s carved there. No one else saw?”