to put you in jeopardy at all unless you’re fool enough to sign it. I couldn’t harm you if I wanted to.”
Grumelpyn tapped his nails against his cup, the sound like a skittering cockroach. “You mentioned payment.”
Soter glared, but when he placed his hand on the table, trapped beneath it were three gold coins. He slid them forward.
Grumelpyn reached out and patted the hand like a cook testing the plumpness of a chicken. At the touch of that petrified flesh, Soter snatched his hand back, leaving the money. “All right, then.” Grumelpyn sighed. “For her I will do it. She is sweet despite who raised her, and I wouldn’t wish to see her go the way of her mother. Do you think she screamed?” His smile widened, eager and repulsive.
Soter lifted his cup and drained it, closing his eyes and then avoiding Grumelpyn’s. “I get the map tonight, then,” he said.
“That’s suitable. After her final performance. I would, perhaps, accompany you north myself, only I’m bound for southern spans. Emeldora, mayhap. Have you played there yet…for old times’ sake?”
Soter blanched at the name of that fateful span. The taunt was too much for him. He pushed back his chair and stood. “We’re done,” he told the elf. He strode away.
“Don’t forget to wake her,” called Grumelpyn. “Or I could return one of these coins to you and you’d let me wake her, hey?” He chuckled.
Soter rounded the booth and pushed inside the back.
Diverus flinched and made to leap off the cases, but Soter waved away his fear. “I’m not here to eject you, so you can relax, boy. For now, anyway.”
He moved to the rear corner and sat on the floor. He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Gods and ghosts conspire,” he said, but not to Diverus, seemingly directing it at the floor.
The sordid conniving elf was, regrettably, right—they needed to move on. They couldn’t afford to stay more than a night or two anywhere on this spiral. The money was good, better each night—and that was the trouble. He’d gotten greedy, remembering how things had been with Bardsham. He couldn’t afford the luxury of staying anywhere. The troupe of Jax needed to catch up with the gossip, pass it by, stay ahead. Arguably he’d paid for a map when really he was paying for Grumelpyn’s advice. The elf might hate him, but he’d told him the truth.
It wasn’t until they were standing in front of Vijnagar’s north tower the next morning that Leodora found out about the map. She was played out after a second night of little sleep, following a triumphal performance, and did not at first realize what Soter was doing.
The boulevard ended by dividing into three tall tunnel mouths—three oblique routes for leaving the span. She hadn’t imagined there would be more than one. All the verges between spans she had seen thus far had provided only one portal. She’d no idea why this one should be different.
At the side of the road Soter set down the case he carried and walked off, leaving Leodora to look after their belongings and Diverus. She had dressed him up in blue robes and a turban encrusted with bright if cheap glass jewels, and darkened his face with a stain made for the puppets. He looked now like a member of a royal household and nothing like the boy who’d only escaped from bondage the day before; the stain made him look older, too. Nevertheless, by forcing him to stop in front of the lane that led to the very paidika from which he’d escaped, Soter had him all but crawling under the lid of one of the puppet cases: He crouched behind them and placed the knapsack containing his instruments on his lap to further obscure himself. Leodora recognized where they were, too. Soter had chosen the worst possible place to stop. She went after him.
He had his back to her and, as she came upon him, she saw he had unfurled a brown parchment with darker brown ink covering it in swirls and lines like veins across a leaf, but also in words, names, a few of which she recognized.
“Do you not know where we’re going?” she asked.
He jumped. “I—” He swept the document from sight and turned defiantly to face her. “What do you mean, sneaking up on me like that? Of course I know where we’re going.”
“At what point did you begin consulting a map, then? You didn’t use one before this, or did