of finding some breakfast. She’d just found a little stall run by a Five Islands trader that smelt irresistibly of spices and sausages when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Cospel coming towards her, a flustered-looking Dom – Dom as he usually was, not night-time roof-wandering Dom – in tow.
“Kass, quick.” Dom took her arm and led her to the side of the street where it was less busy. He looked like he was panicking, which wasn’t good. Normally he was so relaxed he looked half asleep but now he was twitching and fidgeting like a third-year student given sharps for the first time. “It’s Voch.”
“I don’t want to know, whatever it is. He can rot in hell for all I care. You can tell him that when you next see him.” Even so, she felt a pang of… what?
“No, you don’t understand. Last night, after, well, you know, I did a bit more digging, a bit more listening. But when I got back to the inn, about an hour ago, Vocho was gone. They’ve found him and taken him somewhere. Egimont, that is. I got one of the pot boys to tell me.”
“Don’t be stupid. Voch wouldn’t let Petri beat him.” Not unless he wanted him to. Not unless his sister had just cut him off. Gods fuck the man, she’d only disowned him five minutes ago and here she was feeling sorry for him. She cast a glance at the Clockwork God, who loomed over the end of the street and rattled through another set of actions. The only comfort is truth. Well, it wasn’t comforting her very much.
“I don’t know,” Dom said. “We managed to find someone who saw him as they were taking him away. He looked… dazed. Not himself. Half the guards were there too. Caused quite a ruckus when the inn found out who it was.”
She tried to shake away a lifetime of making sure her little brother was safe. He wasn’t so little any more. He could take care of himself; he wasn’t hers to look after.
But she’d lied to Vocho just as much as he’d lied to her, hadn’t she? He’d never known about all the little dark jobs she did for Eneko or how she’d got her master’s before him. She’d never lied exactly, but there was a lot she’d never told him. And while she’d happily do something dire to him with whatever came to hand, she’d be buggered if anyone killed him before she got the chance. He was an arsehole, for sure, but he was her arsehole. Besides, Dom was looking at her with big eyes like a dog begging for a treat, and Cospel seemed on the verge of tears.
“I’m going to regret this until I die, or he does,” she said with a sigh. “Fine. I don’t want him dead unless it’s me doing the killing. But how in hells do we get him out? More to the point, how do we find out where they’ve taken him?”
“Oh,” Dom said, back to his usual twittering self. “I thought you might know.”
Kacha cocked an eyebrow at him, and tried to remind herself he wasn’t a Reyes man and wouldn’t know. Although he’d seemed at home enough last night, savvy enough to find her in a tangle of shacks almost no one ever went to.
She sifted all the possibilities in her head. “Two alternatives. First, the king’s house – after the Shrive and the prelate’s palace, probably the most well guarded place in Reyes. Plus it’s one of the houses that changes with the change o’ the clock. Depending on which set of the clock we’re on, it’s got all sorts of different things. What set of the clock are we on? First? Well then, let’s see. Arrow slits on the top floor, two deadfalls on the first floor, some sort of trap I never figured out by the back door, and some clockwork gizmos by the front door that look pretty damned lethal.”
By now Cospel was giving her a strange look, but Dom only smiled his new sharp-dagger smile.
She shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance. “What? I checked it out just in case I ever needed to know.” Or more precisely because Eneko had told her to. As she said, just in case.
“Will they take him to the Shrive?” Cospel said into the silence that followed. “I mean, it’s the king that’s had him taken away, right? But he’s got no, what’s