She almost laughed, but even that sent a flash of pain through her side. “No. There’s no one else here.” Her last guest had been Tallow. When she paid him for betraying his friends. She glanced at Gorst. “Ever feel like you made some bad choices?”

He didn’t answer. Somehow, she took that for a yes. She limped down the hall, so narrow he had to turn his great shoulders slightly sideways to fit. Damn, the place was cold. Felt colder inside than out. She eased herself down beside the little table in the little dining room, fumbled out those matches she’d bought and lit the stub of candle. She sat back gripping her side.

Gorst stood in the doorway, faint light chiselling shadows into his slab of a face. “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe.” She’d a suspicion he’d cracked a rib or two. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He put her stick down carefully on the table and shook his head.

“You could pretend, couldn’t you, for the sake of my pride?”

“You’re joking?” He said it as an honest question. As if he couldn’t really have told the difference.

“I’m trying. Guess we all like to think we’re tougher than we are. Having the illusion shattered is never pleasant.” She waved a hand towards the empty cupboards, a couple of the doors still broken from when the Breakers first stormed the Agriont. “I’d offer you something, but… I don’t have anything.”

She looked around the room as if seeing it through new eyes. If the place where you lived was a glimpse into your life, then hers could hardly have been emptier. The dusty squares board that was never played with. The dusty books that were never read. Apart from Sibalt’s well-thumbed copy of The Life of Dab Sweet, maybe. But looking at one picture over and over while you think about everything you’ve thrown away hardly counts.

“Not really used to having guests,” she muttered.

“Nor I to being one.” Gorst pushed back his hood. Vick remembered him with his whole head rigorously shaved. Now he had grey thatch around the sides and a wispy tuft on top. He looked more like an oversized lawyer than a swordsman. “Corporal Tunny was hiding me in his…”

“Knocking shop?”

“The Burners visited. I was obliged to climb out of the window.”

“Must have bigger windows than I’d have expected.”

“It was a squeeze.” Gorst gave a puzzled frown. “I stand accused of being a royalist.”

“Well, you did lead the Knights of the Body for two kings. Don’t get much more royalist than that.”

“And you?”

“I did dirty work for two Arch Lectors, I suppose. I grew up in the camps…” She sat with her mouth open a moment, wondering where to go with that. “You learn to stand with the winners.”

“Then what brings you to the losing side?”

It was a good question. A woman who’d suffered more than most under the old regime. Who’d had her childhood and her youth and her family stolen by it. No one should’ve rejoiced in its fall more than her. But here she was, risking her life to restore it.