against the stone of the hearth, and only that kept her from the floor.
“A problem in Davillon that's not my responsibility,” I thought. I'm so stupid…
Olgun's comforting touch warmed her from within, and she was grateful, but she could barely even feel it.
“Faustine?” Robin was on her feet, hand clasped unconsciously to her throat. “Shins? I don't…. What's going on?”
“It's…Robin, it's…” Faustine's voice cracked. She took a single step, arms raised, then froze, blatantly uncertain what to do, knowing only that these would be among the hardest words—for herself and the woman she loved—that she would ever, could ever say.
“It's gone. Oh, Robin, I'm so sorry. The Flippant Witch is gone.”
Candles flickered, a few of them guttering, adding more of a waxy scent to the room than any great degree of illumination. Oil lanterns and the chandelier sat cool and dark; nobody had felt it proper to wander around lighting them.
The gloom seemed more appropriate to the mood.
“Everyone got out,” Shins said softly to the weeping girl beside her. Robin, completely limp, still hiccoughing now that her body could no longer handle the sobs, huddled near one end of the sofa. She shook inside the circle of Faustine's arms, wrapped around her, while Widdershins lay what she meant to be a comforting hand on Robin's shoulder. She hoped it was comforting; she knew it wasn't.
A quick flicker, and she found herself catching Faustine's eye. The courier offered a wan smile through her own tears, and Shins returned it. The both of them struggled to hold back their own grief, to be strong for the woman they both loved, each in their own way, and both barely managed. For that moment, at least, Shins and Faustine completely understood one another.
“The property's still mine,” the thief continued, growing desperate. “We can—we will—rebuild. It'll be just like new…”
Robin sniffled, and Shins could think of nothing more to say. In fact, this was far from the first time she'd said precisely that, since Faustine's revelation, in the hopes that repetition might penetrate Robin's grief.
Except that Robin didn't want the Flippant Witch “like new.” Neither did Shins.
Something else Lisette had taken from her. One more mark on an ever-growing list.
“Why is she doing this?” Renard muttered. For a long time, everyone else had remained silent, out of shared grief or at least respect, but the night wouldn't wait indefinitely.
“Are you kidding?” Igraine snapped, less angry than incredulous. “She didn't need any better reason than to hurt—”
“No, no, I get that.” Renard reached upward to idly stroke the feather he was accustomed to wearing in his hat, apparently only recalling when his fingers came together that he currently wore no such thing. “I mean…all of this. Everything she's doing, everything we talked about last night, I'm still not seeing how it's all connected.”
“I think I am,” Widdershins said. Then, “Did you guys practice that? Even your blinking's synchronized.”
When the staring and blinking continued to happen, and further speech continued to not happen, Shins squeezed Robin's shoulder one last time and stood, idly meandering from sofa to hearth and back. “I ran into some, uh, political maneuvering when I was away, so I've sort of been thinking along those lines. It came together when I found out the snake had her talons in the Guard, too.”
“A snake with talons?” Renard gibed, for all that his voice remained strained.
“A very dishonest snake. I'm sure she stole the talons from something that needed them more than she did.
“Look at it all together. Davillon's on the edge of panic and a collapse of law and order. The city's been pretty well isolated from outside help. The Church is paralyzed trying to deal with about a thousand crises at once. The major Houses are on the edge of open conflict—at least political, if not actual violence.
“The fae are responsible for the weakening of the Church and appear to be cooperating to bolster the claim that the priests of these minor Houses can protect people. Those same minor Houses have not put soldiers on the street, so they're in a good position to hunker down and ride out what's coming, without taking the kind of damage their bigger rivals will. And some of those Houses have new leadership—almost as if the old patrons were in the way of something, yes?”
Nods all around.
“And the Guard, too,” Faustine interjected in growing understanding. “We never did get a really good reason why they've suddenly devoted so much manpower to guarding the walls, and it's partly