“A pocket watch,” said Trina, not changing her position. She’d aged. Giddon remembered someone who’d seemed little older than he, but lines now crossed her pale skin, bunching around her eyes. She looked weary, actually, washed out, as she stood there with hands raised. Giddon hoped her every day was an exhausting slog.

“Whose pocket watch?” said the shopkeeper.

“A man named Stava.”

“The fishmonger from two doors down?” said the shopkeeper, offended. “Did he send you in here particularly?”

“No. I’m just being thorough.”

“Well,” said the shopkeeper, somewhat mollified. “I know you have to earn your keep, but you’ll find no stolen goods here. I bought every item, and at a fair price too.”

Trina paused in her sensing and turned to the shopkeeper, one eye so dark it might be black, one pale yellow like her coat. She seemed about to speak. But then she noticed Giddon, standing straight and tall. Immediately something closed in her face.

“You recognize me,” said Giddon.

“Yes,” she said.

“You might’ve had some loyalty,” he said, “for the people who helped you and the queen who took a risk to shelter you.”

A small flare came alive in her mismatched eyes. “You’d be surprised by the number of people who think I owe them my loyalty,” she said. “Everyone thinks they’ve done me a favor.”

“A favor?” said Giddon. “Is that what I did for you?”

“You shuffled me from one place where people wanted to use me to another place where people wanted to use me.”

“And so you decided to start using people yourself?”

“How would you know what it’s like?” Trina said scornfully, looking Giddon up and down. “When in your life have you ever lacked anything you want or need? When have you ever had to mistrust why someone wants to be your friend? Everyone has something they want from me. Everyone fawns and pretends, because they think I’m the solution to some problem in their life. If they’re Estillan, they think I owe them something because I was Estillan once. If they’re Monsean, it’s because I was Monsean. If they’re Keepish, it’s because they paid me for a job once and now they think we have some sort of understanding. I don’t owe you anything.” Her voice ended on the smallest sob.

Giddon was about to deliver a sharp retort. Then, unaccountably, Trina added, “I was sorry to hear about your queen.” The statement confounded him, not just what she said, but the way she said it, as if she were a different person suddenly, tired, and sad, and truly sorry.

“I—thank you,” he said.