and beard thinner. He wasn’t exactly as young as he used to be. Still… he bit his lower lip as he watched Faye, entertaining actions that would need to wait some time.
She turned, saw him watching her. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” she said.
“No.”
She paused. “Why not?”
He should lie. Tell her he had previous commitments. “I’ve become… involved.”
“Oh no. Adamat, what the pit did you do?”
He stifled a smile. He loved it when she swore. “Not like that. No. Tonight’s summons. Field Marshal Tamas has a task for me.”
She scowled. “Only he’d have the rocks to pull down a king. Well, stop grinning and summon a carriage and help the children with their shoes.” She made a brushing motion with her hand. “Go on!”
Twenty minutes later, Adamat watched as his family piled into a pair of carriages. He paid the drivers and stood for a moment with his wife. “If the riots seem to be moving toward you, don’t hesitate to take the children to Deliv. I’ll come find you when things have settled down.”
Faye’s face—usually harsh, firmly disapproving—was suddenly soft. She was young again in his eyes, a worried girl waiting for her lover to walk the midnight roads. She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the lips. “What should I tell the children?”
“Don’t lie to them,” Adamat said. “They’re old enough.”
“They’ll worry. Especially Astrit.”
“Of course,” Adamat said.
Faye sniffed. “I haven’t been to Offendale since we went on holiday after Astrit was born. Is the house there in good order?”
“It’ll be small,” Adamat said. “Cozy. But safe. Do you remember our code phrases? The post office is in the next town. I’ll send a letter to Saddie asking her to bring you the mail.”
“Is all that necessary?” Faye asked. “I thought it was just riots.”
“Field Marshal Tamas is a dangerous man,” Adamat said. “I don’t…” He paused. “Just as a precaution. Humor me.”
Faye said, “Of course. Take care of yourself.” Adamat returned his wife’s kiss, then leaned in the window of each carriage in turn, giving every one of the nine children a kiss, two for each of the twins. He stopped at Astrit and knelt down on the floor of the carriage to look her in the eye. “You’ll be away for a couple of weeks. The city is going to be a bit rough.”
“Why aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“I’ve got to help make it safer.” He thought of Kresimir’s Broken Promise. The words made him shiver.
“Are you cold?” Astrit asked.
He brushed a finger across her cheek. “Yes,” he said. “It’s very chilly. I’d better go in before I catch cold. Have a safe trip!”
He closed the carriage door and stood in the street, watching them trundle off until they turned a corner. He would miss Faye for many reasons. When it came to his investigations, she was more than a wife to him. She was a partner. She had a vast network of friends and acquaintances and knew how to coerce gossip to find out information that even he could not turn up.
He headed back to the house, stopping for a moment only as he saw a movement in a doorway across the street. A young man in a long, stiff coat emerged from the shadows and headed off in the opposite direction from the carriages. He spared one glance for Adamat and doubled his step.
Adamat watched the young man go, making sure the stranger felt his gaze. One of Palagyi’s goons, no doubt. Adamat would hear from him shortly. Adamat returned to the house, locking the door behind him, and went immediately to the study. He dug through his desk drawers until he found a stack of stationery.
The sun had finally touched his study window, looking in over the houses and the distant mountains, when Adamat finished addressing letters. His hand ached from writing, and his candle had burned to a nub. He yawned, letting his mind wander for a moment, when the faint scratching sound of metal on metal caught his ear.
Adamat pushed the whole stack of letters into a desk drawer and locked it. He picked up his cane and twisted until it clicked, then walked through the house, listening for the sound. He reached a rear door, small and old, that led to an overgrown trellis in what amounted to their garden between their house and the one behind it. The garden could be reached from the house itself or from a small corridor that ran between two houses, which contained