curled up in her lap. Little Glaki’s black curls were tangled. Her face was red and swollen with weeping, and she slept with her thumb in her mouth. Xantha, the blonde northern dancer who lived there, still wept, her face puffy.
Keth looked at Yali, who raised wet brown eyes to his. “What’s wrong?” he asked. All thought of the redheaded girl and her lightning fled his mind; goosebumps rippled over his skin. He didn’t have to be a mage to know he was about to hear bad news. “Where is everyone?”
“Ferouze and the men are at Noskemiou Thanas,” replied Poppy. Her green-and-brown eyes, normally filled with anger, were dull. Her brown skin was ashen.
Keth had to think for a moment to translate what she had said into his native Namornese. The city’s great hospital for the poor was called Noskemiou; Thanas was the wing where the dead were brought. “Why?” he asked when his brain sorted it out. “Who died?”
“Iralima,” Yali whispered, her full mouth quivering. “Dhaskoi Nomasdina, who’s been investigating for the Arurim, he came and described her.” She covered her mouth with a hand that shook. Keth hesitated, then reached out and clasped her shoulder, trying to comfort her. He had liked Ira, and his heart went out to Glaki. Iralima was the child’s only family. Ira’s clan had kicked her out when she declared her intention to be a Khapik dancer.
“Where have you been all day, in a hole in the ground?” demanded Poppy. “The Ghost got her. He got her, and he strangled her, and he dumped her in the fountain on Labrykas Square like she was rubbish.”
“Hush!” scolded Yali in a whisper, covering Glaki’s ear. “Not in front of the child, Poppy, for the All-Seeing’s mercy!”
“I shouldn’t have told Ira that she was a selfish old hen,” wailed Xantha. “It’s my fault.”
Yali and Poppy exchanged disgusted glances. “We forgot the whole world spins around you, Xantha,” said Poppy, her voice as tart as vinegar. “Just don’t fight with us and we’ll have long, happy lives.”
“Girls.” If Poppy and Xantha got started, Keth knew they’d be at it all night. “Did you tell this dhaskoi when you saw Ira last? Where she danced?”
“We told him,” replied Yali, rubbing her arm over her eyes without disturbing the girl in her lap. “It’s not like he broke his back finding out who killed those other yaskedasi, is it?”
“Antrim have a word for crimes against people like us, remember?” Poppy demanded.
Defeated, Kethlun spoke it: “Okozou.”
“Okozou,” Poppy repeated. “No one worth a bik,” Tharios’s smallest copper coin “got hurt.”
“If they scurry on this one, it’s because Ira fetched up in the Labrykas fountain,” added Yali. “They’ve had the cleansing tent up all day. They can’t have a dead yaskedasu defiling a public place, now, can they?”
“Tell us your own Antrim back in the north would care about the likes of us,” taunted Poppy. When Keth didn’t reply, Poppy nodded. “I didn’t think so.” She struggled to her feet. “I have to get dressed.”
“You’re working tonight?” cried Xantha. “With Iralima at Noskemiou Thanas?”
Glaki whimpered. Yali bent over her, smoothing the child’s rumpled curls with a tender hand.
Poppy glared at Xantha. “And you’re not? Ira would be out there if it was you in Thanas. Didn’t you say you don’t have the rent money yet?”
“Deiina!” muttered Xantha, naming the patron goddess of Khapik. “I forgot!” In a flash she was on her feet, pushing by the other two on her way upstairs.
“It’s not right,” Kethlun told Yali. She was the cleverest of the three, the one he could talk with most comfortably. “Yaskedasi are Tharians, too.”
“You’re sweet, Keth,” Yali replied. “It won’t last if you stay here.” She got to her feet with a grunt, balancing Glaki’s weight on her hip. The child was all cried out and didn’t even stir. Yali said, “There will be a Farewell at the Thanion.” It was the temple dedicated to the god of the dead. “Shall I tell you when they have it?”
“Please,” Keth replied. Tharios’s dead were burned outside the city, so there were no burials, only Farewell ceremonies. As Yali continued her climb upstairs, he called after her, “Yali, what about her?” He nodded to Glaki.
Yali kissed the little girl’s hair. “She’s mine, now. I’ll take care of her.”
“If you need help, just ask,” Keth said. “I’ll watch her, help pay for her food, whatever you need.”
His reward was a slight lifting of the cloud in Yali’s brown eyes, and a smile that