“I did what I could,” the man said. “Now you do what you do. I’ve left all the tools you may need.”

“Whatever you think I am, you’re wrong. I’m no healer!”

“She dies, you die.” Solon felt the weight of the man’s eyes on him. Then the poisoner turned and left.

Solon looked at the closed door and felt despair rising like twin waves of darkness coming from each side. Then he shook himself. Enough. So he was tired, still drunk, poisoned, itchy, and never had been much good at healing to begin with. Dorian had said that someone here needed him, hadn’t he? So surely Solon couldn’t die yet.

Unless, of course, just making Logan stand up to his mother was all that Solon had been needed for.

Well. That’s the problem with prophecy, isn’t it? You never know. Solon knelt by the little girl and began working.

11

M omma K crossed her legs in the absently provocative way that only a veteran courtesan could. Some people fidgeted habitually. Momma K seduced habitually. With a figure most of her girls could only envy, she could pass for thirty, but Momma K was unashamed of her age. She’d thrown a huge party for her own fortieth birthday. Few of those who’d told her she outshone her own courtesans had been lying, for Gwinvere Kirena had been the courtesan of an age. Durzo knew of a dozen duels that had been fought over her, and at least as many lords had proposed to her, but Gwinvere Kirena would be chained to no man. She knew too well all the men she knew.

“He really does have you nervous, this Azoth. Doesn’t he?” Momma K said.

“No.”

“Liar.” Momma K smiled, all full red lips and perfect teeth.

“What gave me away?” Durzo asked, not really interested. He was nervous, though. Things had spun suddenly out of control.

“You were staring at my breasts. You only look at me like I’m a woman when you’re too distracted to keep your guard up.” She smiled again. “Don’t worry—I think it’s sweet.”

“Don’t you ever stop?”

“You’re a simpler man than you like to think, Durzo Blint. You really only have three refuges when the world overwhelms you. Do you want me to tell you what they are, my big, strong wetboy?”

“Is this the kind of thing you talk about with clients?” It was a cheap shot. Moreover, it was the kind of comment a whore would have been hit with enough times that she was well armored against it now.

She didn’t even blink. “No,” she said. “But there was a rather pathetically endowed baron who liked to have me pretend I was his nursemaid and when he was naughty, I’d—”

“Spare me.” It was a loss to have her stop, but she’d have gone on for ten minutes, and not skipped a single detail.

“Then what do you want, Durzo? Now you’re staring at your hands again.”

He was staring at his hands. Gwinvere could be more trouble than she was worth, but her advice was always good. She was the most perceptive person he knew and smarter than he was by a long shot. “I want to know what to do, Gwinvere.” After a long moment of silence, he looked up from his hands.