you expect to get back out?” asked Jean.
“I don’t know,” said Locke. “I don’t have the first fucking clue; but it’s a state of affairs that’s served me well in the past. I need to run. Jean, for the love of the gods, hide near the Floating Grave if you must, but don’t you dare go in there; you’re in no condition to fight.” Locke turned to the Bondsmage. “Capa Raza—how is he with a blade?”
“Deadly,” said the Falconer with a smile.
“Well, look, Jean. I’ll do what I can at Raven’s Reach; I’ll try to get to the Floating Grave somehow. If I’m late, I’m late; we’ll follow Raza and we’ll find him somewhere else. But if I’m not late, if he’s still there…”
“Locke, you can’t be serious. At least let me come with you. If Raza has any skill with a blade at all, he’ll kick the shit out of you.”
“No more arguments, Jean; you’re hurt too badly to be of much use. I’m fit, and I’m obviously crazy. Anything could happen. But I have to go, now.” Locke embraced Jean, stepped to the doorway, and turned back. “Cut this bastard’s fucking tongue out.”
“You promised!” yelled the Falconer. “You promised!”
“I didn’t promise you shit. My dead friends, on the other hand—I made them certain promises I intend to keep.”
Locke whirled and went out through the curtain; behind him, Jean was setting the knife over the oil flame once again. The Falconer’s screams followed him down the debris-strewn street, and then faded into the distance as he turned north and began to jog for the Hill of Whispers.
4
IT WAS well past the eighth hour of the evening before Locke set foot on the flagstones beneath the Five Towers of Camorr once again. The journey north had been problematic. Between bands of drunken revelers with obliterated senses (and sensibilities) and the guards at the Alcegrante watch stations (Locke finally managed to convince them that he was a lawscribe heading north to meet an acquaintance leaving the duke’s feast; he also slipped them a “Midsummer-mark gift” of gold tyrins from a little supply concealed up his sleeve), he felt himself fortunate to make it at all. Falselight would rise within the next hour and a quarter; the sky was already turning red in the west and dark blue in the east.
He made his way past the rows and rows of carriages in close array. Horses stamped and whinnied; a great many of them had relieved themselves onto the lovely stones of the largest courtyard in Camorr. Locke snorted; horses were not Verrari water-engines, to be left standing decorating the place until needed. Footmen and guards and attendants mingled in groups, sharing food and staring up at the Five Towers, where the glory of the coming sunset painted strange, fresh colors on their Elderglass walls.
Locke was so busy considering what to say to the men at the elevator hoists that he didn’t even see Conté until the taller, stronger man had one hand around the back of Locke’s neck and one of his long knives jammed into Locke’s back.
“Well, well,” he said, “Master Fehrwight. The gods are kind. Don’t say a fucking thing, just come with me.”
Conté half led and half hauled him to a nearby carriage; Locke recognized the one he’d ridden to the feast in with Sofia and Lorenzo. It was an enclosed, black-lacquered box with a window on the side opposite the door; that window’s curtains and shutters were drawn tightly shut.
Locke was thrown onto one of the padded benches within the carriage; Conté bolted the door behind him and sat down on the opposite bench, with his knife held at the ready.
“Conté, please,” said Locke, not even bothering with his Fehrwight accent, “I need to get back into Raven’s Reach; everyone inside is in terrible danger.”
Locke hadn’t known that someone could kick so hard from a sitting position; Conté braced himself against the seat with his free hand and showed him that it was possible. The bodyguard’s heavy boot knocked him back into his corner of the carriage; Locke bit down hard on his tongue and tasted blood. His head rattled against the wooden walls.
“Where’s the money, you little shit?”
“It’s been taken from me.”
“Not fucking likely. Sixteen thousand and five hundred full crowns?”
“Not quite; you’re forgetting the additional cost of meals and entertainment at the Shifting—”
Conté’s boot lashed out again, and Locke went sprawling into the opposite corner of his side of the carriage.
“For fuck’s sake, Conté! I don’t