bay. Then they placed Orso on the table, shirtless and moaning, and Gregor held down his injured arm with a strap of leather. Two other men restrained his other limbs—his legs, his other arm—and sopped up the blood with bright-white linens while a large, sweaty, bald man delicately poured boiled water over Orso’s wound, studied it with a magnifying loupe, carefully picked out pieces of black detritus, and placed them in a wooden bowl beside him.
“We should go,” Polina said to Sancia quietly. “Eduardo is a gifted physiquere, but it is wisest to let him practice his trade in peace, without an audience.”
Sancia and Berenice followed her downstairs to the library. “What is it you have to say to us?” Sancia asked.
Polina thought about it, then took a small pack off her shoulder. “I have brought food,” she said. “Would you prefer to sup first?”
“Really?” said Sancia.
“Have you not yet realized that I have no taste for idle chat? Especially not now.”
Sancia glared at her, but then realized she was ravenously hungry—as well as still covered with dried muck from the Mountain. “Fine. Just let me wash up.”
A few minutes later they sat on the floor of the Foundryside library eating cold rice and lentils, and some decent but fairly old bread. Berenice ate with a shallow wooden spoon, but Sancia did not bother: she ate with her fingers, stuffing it into her mouth as fast as she could, not caring if she spilled.
“So. What do you want from us, Polina?” asked Sancia as she finished.
“Must you think me so transactional?” said Polina.
“I think smugglers and spies are some of the most goddamned transactional kinds of people, and you’re both.”
“Perhaps I’m here out of force of habit. My first role was smuggling people rather than wares—stealing slaves out of the plantations and spiriting them away in boats and canoes and the backs of carts.” Her eyes glittered in the low light as she watched Sancia. “Many of them like you.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“I am not so sure.” She took out her pipe, lit it with a scrived fire starter, and sucked at it. “I so despise your magics, of course, but…they can be convenient.” She sniffed and looked at them, her mouth trailing smoke. “You didn’t seem surprised when I told you that the Michiels and the Dandolos were at war. Which suggests you already knew.”
Sancia and Berenice were silent.
“This will not end well,” she said. “You know that. But I must say it aloud now. This will not end well. You—you and your friends and allies—you are going to fail here. And Tevanne will not survive. At least, not as you know it.”
“What’s your point?” asked Sancia.
“My point is…I am pulling out all my smugglers,” she said, “all my spies, all my servants and supporters. We will take our focus elsewhere. It pains me—I made a lot of money in Tevanne, and I saved a lot of lives with it. But I will not stay and die with this city. And when we go…I would prefer if you all came with us.” Her eyes were fixed on Sancia, unblinking.
“Why?” asked Berenice.
“This place is doomed,” said Polina simply. “The peoples in the plantations are not—not yet. So I ask you—come with me, and help them.”
There was a silence.
“We are not done yet,” said Berenice quietly. “We worked hard to get where we are, and there’s too much at risk. We can’t walk away now.”
Polina nodded as she smoked, as if this were the most perfectly reasonable conversation in the world. “I see. It will take one week for my smugglers to move out. If you change your minds before then, I’ll be at the docks in the Slopes.”
There were footsteps from above them. A weary, bloodied Gregor Dandolo came downstairs and gave them a bleary look. “It’s done,” he said.
They stood. “He’s all right? He’ll…He’ll live?” asked Berenice.
“For now,” said Gregor. “He will mend, and the physiquere has applied his poultices. But he needs rest.”