he choose them because he knew that the arurim wouldn’t care about the murder of entertainers whom respectable folk viewed as disreputable, if not out-and-out dishonest? But if that were so, why had he placed the last two so visibly, outside Khapik, where respectable folk would raise a fuss? If he’d wanted to be entirely a Ghost, he should have stayed inside Khapik, or even turned to the slums of Hodenekes, where no one would care about another dead body.
He was clever, to make use of the Tharian beliefs about death. Tris had helped Niko often in the past, when Niko had raised a vision from the site of an event that had taken place there recently. That would be impossible in Tharios. The priests always showed up on the heels of the discovery of a body, and erased all magical influences to rid the area of death’s pollution. They made it easier for the killer to get away with his murders.
Staring into the cup that held her plum juice, Tris idly wondered if she could scry for the killer. It was just an idle fancy. Niko had tried to teach all four of them how to scry in water, oil, mirrors and crystals. Daja had succeeded once, but Tris had been the only one to find an image each time. It was frustrating. She only saw scraps of things, many of which made no sense, and there was no way to control what she saw. Following her progress, Niko said her images seemed to come entirely from the present; she could not see anything in the past or future. Now she let her mind drift, her eyes fixed vaguely on the dark liquid in her cup, its surface glinting in the torchlight. Scraps of things began to rise to the surface: Niko talking animatedly to a dark brown man in a pure white turban, Assembly Square, a wooden building ablaze as people scurried around it like lines of ants, a small mountain village where a shaggy-haired blacksmith laboured at his forge.
Tris growled and drank her juice, ignoring the beginnings of a headache. She was no better at this now than she had been at Winding Circle. No wonder so many seers had a reputation for being odd, if all they saw was a flood of meaningless pictures. Feeling useless, she returned to her meal.
As she finished, a procession came down the street, led by tumblers and musicians, surrounded by a cloud of orange blossom scent. At its centre, four muscular men carried a woman in a sedan chair. Its curtains were open, framing her like a picture as she reclined on satin pillows. Her black hair was dressed in glossy, ornate loops, not the curls of Tharian fashion, twisted through with the yellow veil of the yaskedasi. Her kyten was pure white with golden embroideries, her jewellery gold encrusted with pearls.
“That’s Baoya the Golden,” a female voice remarked near Tris’s shoulder. A breeze carried a drift of lavender scent to the girl’s sensitive nose. Tris turned. Keth’s friend, the yaskedasu Yali, lounged against the low fence around the eating-house as she watched the procession. She was dressed much as she had been that morning, though her make-up and kyten were fresh, and she looked the better for some sleep. With her was another yaskedasu, a blonde, dressed northern style with a tumbler’s shorter skirts and leggings.
“Who’s Baoya the Golden?” asked Tris.
“The Queen of Khapik, the most legendary of all the female yaskedasi,” the blonde said, looking down a short nose at Tris. “Everyone knows Baoya. She’s a dancer. She’s performed for most of the Assembly and all of the Keepers of the Public Good for the last fifteen years.”
Yali regarded Tris. “What are you doing here unescorted, Koria Trisana?”
“It’s just Tris. I wanted to see what the talk was about,” Tris replied. “What is it that you do, anyway? You never said.”
Yali sighed. “I sing. Xantha, here, is a tumbler — she stays at Ferouze’s, too. Look, we’re due at the Butterfly Court right now. Why don’t you go home? Come back with someone who can look after you, like Keth. You’re fine here on the main streets, but in the back ways… Not everyone in Khapik is as nice as they’re paid to be.”
“You mean like the Ghost?” enquired Tris.
Yali and Xantha both made the sign of the Living Circle on their chests. “He’s one,” Yali replied. “Go home, Tris. Give that glass dragon of yours a polish