think I can guarantee it will be the last time you do.”
With a flashing grin that might have looked quite at home on Van Gast, Rillen strolled away up the corridor.
* * *
Holden steered a protesting Tallia by the elbow through the buffeting crowds. Both of them were cloaked despite the night heat, hooded away from prying eyes.
“Holden, please, it wasn’t—”
He steeled himself against the look in her eyes. “Enough. Come on, which way?”
“Why are—ow!”
Holden loosened his grip a touch, but he still had firm hold of her. “Right at the Herald’s Trumpet?”
“Holden, stop a moment. Think.”
He came to an abrupt halt and turned her to face him, her face shadowed by the flickering torches and the hood. “Think about what? Van Gast and Josie are in trouble. Skrymir, too, and he was for a long time my only friend. I have to help them, and you’re going to help me.”
He tried to get her moving again, but she dug in her heels, her mouth set in a stubborn pout. “But Holden—”
“I trust them, not you. I have to. See what mistrust got Van Gast—a hole in his side you could fit your fist in, and not much else except losing Josie. I’m not making the same mistake.”
“Fine, come on.”
She didn’t take him the way he’d expected. He’d been in the licensed docks many times, in his former life as a respectable Remorian commander. The entrance was by Kyr’s Palace, and that was where he’d thought they’d try to get in. He’d thought maybe he could try a lie.
Tallia led him a different way and wouldn’t elaborate why when he asked. She seemed very grim now, no shred of her infectious grin, no bounce of her step. Holden wished he could take it back, all that he’d said and done, so that she’d look that way again. Make him feel that way again, but that brought on another wash of guilt.
The roads Tallia led him down grew narrower as they left behind the more reputable parts of the city. Houses huddled together, leaning over the lanes as though gossiping about them. Doors stood open, and there the people did gossip, followed their progress with sly eyes and whispers behind hands. A scruffy dog sat and watched them pass, as intent as any of the people. Holden’s bells sounded odd and out of place here, forlorn and alone.
He was glad when they passed out of the warren of alleys and moved toward a nondescript gap between two houses, with two elderly men sitting at its head, playing a game of bones. Holden recognized it—Find the Lady. The men watched them covertly as they approached but made no move except to play their game. Holden paused as the older one stopped his deft juggle of the cups. The other pointed to the left-hand cup.
“No,” Holden said, though he wasn’t sure why. “The center cup.”
The older man cackled and lifted the center cup—there sat the Lady. “That’s twenty coppers you owe me,” he said to the other, and then nodded at Tallia and Holden, as though allowing them passage.
“How did you know?”
“Van Gast taught me the trick. It’s easy once you see it.”
“No, how did you know to say—never mind.” Tallia gave him a sideways glance but shook her head and carried on, down into the gap. The walls were blank, no windows or doors, but Holden had the feeling they were being watched nonetheless.
“What is this place?”
Tallia stopped in a narrow twist of the gap. “Don’t you ever wonder where the guards live?”
“I—no, can’t say I ever have.”
“Well, this is it. The watchmen who patrol the city don’t live in the palace, or the licensed area, or not all of them. No families allowed in there, so a lot live outside. Not many people want a guard for a neighbor though, eh? Not a man whose job it might be to take your hand tomorrow for stealing, whether you stole anything or not. So they tend to live in little huddles like this one, and it’s almost as hard to get in here as it is the main gate, just more…subtle. The people don’t like us as neighbors, perhaps—but we don’t like them any better.”
“We?”
Her smile was strained. “My father was a watchman before he died. I can get us in. Perhaps. All the older men, the retired guards, they keep this place separate from the rest of the city. Gives them something to do, and they know all the tricks. Those