“Nobody would hire Hu for a smash-and-dash. The man’s a butcher.”

“I know,” Momma K said.

“Then who’s his deader?”

“Take your pick. Half the nobles in the realm will be there. Your friend Logan has accepted his invitation, perhaps even the prince will be there. Those two do seem to be inseparable; for all that they are night and day to each other.”

“Momma, who’s your spy? Can you get me an invitation?”

She smiled mysteriously. “My spy can’t help you, but I know someone who can. In fact, despite my best efforts, you know her too.”

Chapter 36

36

K ylar had walked up to men in broad daylight within paces of the city guard to kill them. He’d crawled under tables while a cat clawed him as guards searched the room for intruders. He’d had to break into a vat of wine and hide inside it as a noble’s wine taster had picked out an appropriate bottle for dinner. He’d waited a yard from a fully stoked oven after he’d poisoned a stew while a cook debated with himself on what spice he’d added too much of to make it taste so strange.

But he’d never been this nervous.

He stared at the door, a narrow servants’ entrance, in dismay. He was a beggar today, come to beg a crust. His hair was lank and greasy, smeared with ash and tallow. His skin was tough and brown, hands gnarled and arthritic. To get to that door, he had to make it through the guards at the estate’s tall gate.

“Oy, old man,” a stumpy guard with a halberd said. “Whatcha be wanting?”

“I heard my little girl is here. Miss Cromwyll. I hoped she might find me a crust, is all.”

That woke up the other guard, who had only given Kylar a cursory glance. “What’d you say? You’re related to Miss Cromwyll?” The protective air around the man, who must have been nearly forty, was palpable.

“No, no, she’s not mine,” Kylar protested, scraping a laugh across his lungs. “Just an old friend.”

The guards looked at each other. “You gwyna go find ’er and bring ’er out here at this time of day with the goin’s on tonight?” Stumpy asked.

The other shook his head, and with a grumble, started patting Kylar down gingerly. “Swear I’ll get lice off of one of Miss Cromwyll’s strays one of these days.”

“Ah know it, but she’s worth it, inn’t she?”

“You’re not so magnamorous when you’re the one patting the beggars, Birt.”

“Ah, stuff it.”

“Go on. Kitchen’s that way,” the older guard told Kylar. “Birt, I’m lenient with ya, but if you tell me to stuff it one more time, I’ll show you the business end o’ my boot—”