They waited until the duke’s guards, hands bound now, were taken away, then the two of them walked back the way Thierry had come. Two turns—he’d been running, then—and a short way farther along. He’d thrown the caltrop beside the closed-up shopfront of a silversmith. Found it readily enough. He collected it again, wrapped it in the scarf Marina di Seressa had given him, then put it in her small satchel. He placed both back in the pocket of his coat. The serjeant watched, asked no questions.

“It proves little,” Thierry volunteered, “but this was found outside Barratin’s home at sunrise this morning.”

“Can anyone swear to that?”

“Perhaps. I’ll tell the story at the provost’s house.”

“Do you think they wanted to kill you? Because of that?”

“They didn’t know I had it. They might have just been ordered to follow me?”

“Where were you going?”

“Coming back to report. But when I walked faster and then started running, they did too. And in the tavern…”

Medor nodded. “Barratin wouldn’t have cared if they killed you. You aren’t important.”

“My mother loves me,” Thierry protested.

He saw a brief smile, quickly suppressed.

The serjeant looked up past the flare of the torch he carried. “It’s warmer,” he said. “Can you feel it?”

Thierry nodded. “With Jad’s grace, maybe it is not just one evening’s—”

Medor shook his head. “There will be those who say, if it does turn milder now, that it is happening because the evil Duke de Montereau is dead. Jad sending a sign. Watch for it.”

Thierry blinked. He hadn’t thought of that at all.

“The provost is lucky to have you,” he said.

Medor stared at him, a tall man, broad-shouldered, bearded, dark-haired. “The provost is the best man I’ve ever known in my life,” the serjeant said. “Let’s go.”

They walked together in the night. The blue moon, rising above the city, was behind them. But every moment of the rest of their lives, long or short, brightly lit or dark-ensnared, lay ahead of them.

—

I also remember that walk very well, oddly. We passed through almost empty streets.

Sometimes we retain the quiet moments that come in the midst of chaos, or after it. The city, my city, in the night. Our lives, written on the dark.

Chapter VI

Thierry never came back to The Lamb that day and Silvy never heard from him. No messenger, no note sent. She knew how to read, had been taught by her brother before he died. He’d had some schooling, girls didn’t. What she knew of letters and numbers she knew from him. Missed him every day. When she prayed in a sanctuary it was usually for his soul. (Their mother had never prayed. Not to Jad, in any event.)