“Have you been taking lessons from my father?”

Not long ago he would’ve thought of Sand dan Glokta as his utter opposite. Now he hissed with pain as he dropped down on a chair facing her. “The man ruled the Union for thirty years. He’s the aspiring cripple’s hero. He must still know useful people. Useful things. Where is he?”

“Out of sight and staying there, would be my guess. As for Master Broad, I owe him and his family. They saved my life in Valbeck.”

“Now who’s changed?” He worked himself forwards to fumble with the buckles that held the iron leg on. “I thought you had no use for sentiment.”

“I’ve always paid my debts. That’s just good business.” She frowned at him, the scar on her forehead puckering, and held her baby tight. Their baby. Whichever one it was. “Since we are being unsentimental, the Broads are not the only useful people left in Angland. What about your old friends Glaward and Jurand?”

Leo froze. That image of the two of them kneeling on a Sipanese carpet thrust itself into his mind, and not for the first time. Glaward gripping two fistfuls of the covers, eyes squeezed shut. Jurand pressed against his back, fingers tangled in his hair, biting at his ear. The blissful look on their faces—

“Think I need a nursemaid?” he snapped, forcing the thought away. “Someone to keep me out of trouble?”

“I think we need people around us we can trust,” said Savine. “You never told me what happened between the three of you.”

Leo curled his lip and carried on undoing the buckles. He pretended to be disgusted. He was disgusted. Of course he was.

“I caught them fucking,” he said, trying to sound like he hardly cared, even if his heart was pounding. “In Sipani.”

“Isn’t that what one does in Sipani? Fucking who?”

He cleared his throat. “Each other.”

“Ahhh.” She closed her eyes for a moment then gave the slightest nod, as if at a puzzle she had just realised the obvious solution to. “That explains a great deal.”

He frowned. Explained their falling out, or explained something…

more? “You’re not surprised?”

“In business one encounters every kind of person.” She was busy trying to work her nipple back into the baby’s mouth. “You have to separate their preferences from their value. Imagine how much poorer I’d be had I never gone into partnership with Curnsbick.”

Leo looked up from the buckles. “The Great Machinist? The father of the new age? He…” Fucks men? The words lurked in Leo’s dry mouth, but he couldn’t quite seem to force them out.

Savine raised her brows. “Have you not seen those waistcoats of his?”

“I thought he was married.”

“So was Queen Terez, and by all accounts she’s been through more quims than her son. Jurand is clever. A great organiser. And Glaward is faithful and diligent. If they had been with us at Stoffenbeck—”

“We might have won?” snapped Leo.