“She’s captaining her own pulls now?”
“Maybe. It’s just something I heard. Might be a lie.”
“What kind of pull?”
“Am I Adric? How would I know? She didn’t talk with me about it,” Little Coop said. “She’s no blood to me, any more than you are. She’s a good walk-away when you need one, and otherwise, she’s just another turd on the float, same as any of us. If I needed to find her in a hurry, I’d be asking you.”
Alys shifted on the bench. The keep made his ponderous way over to the fire and threw on another log. A little cloud of embers flared and went grey. Just past the shutters, a pack of street dogs was barking at a prison cart. The wind shifted, carrying the smell from the cart through the Pit, but only for a moment.
“There’s money in it if I can find her quickly,” Alys said.
“Well, aren’t you the prince of all things,” Little Coop said, but he said it with a smile. “Look, I don’t have anything worth paying for, but the last time I worked with her, it was a crew Nimal put together. Just a day of cut-and-run. Was months ago, but he could find her then. Maybe he’ll know how to find her now.”
Alys took a bronze from her belt and put it on the table with a click. “You run into her, you let me know, yeah? There’ll be more once I find her if you’re the finger that points the way.”
Little Coop looked at the coin, then up at her. When he picked up the coin, it was with a shrug that meant Who am I to turn down free coin? and it didn’t give her much hope he’d reach out to her if Sammish lifted her head above water.
“What about Nimal?” she said. She should have asked before she gave him the coin. But Little Coop didn’t seem to expect payment for every word he said.
“Last I saw, he was in Seepwater. Down by the stage. They’re putting up a show, and he’s good at building crews for show times. For all I know, Sammish is with him.”
Alys nodded, rose, and walked away, swinging her stick a little too wide, even if she didn’t hit anything with it. She felt the eyes of the others on her as she headed out for the street, but when she looked back, she caught no one’s gaze. She turned south and west, walking the thin, curving streets with her chin high and her chest out, making a show of filling the road from side to side in part because she didn’t actually feel right.
There was an uncomfortable buzzing feeling in her mind—distress without any clear idea what she was distressed about—like a beehive sounding its alarm. She did her best to ignore it, but it wouldn’t fade, and whatever it meant was wrapped up with Ullin’s bloody face being sluiced clean on the street and the girl she didn’t kill and Andomaka saying Hunt her down and bring her here. And with Darro whispering Why won’t you look at my face? in her dreams. She didn’t like the confusion, and she didn’t know how to clear it away.
A street-corner magician produced a pigeon from a burst of green flame, holding it out to the people and horses as if he’d done something special. Alys kept walking without tossing a coin in the old man’s box, and then felt an unexpected stab of guilt. As full as her wallet was, maybe she should have.
The stage stood in the middle of a wide square near the university, its boards ribs-high from the ground so that no one had their view blocked by the head of someone standing before them. And, Alys guessed, because it gave the impression that the women among the players might risk someone peeking up their skirts. The performance at the moment was a tumbling act: large men tossing small girls high enough that they were in more danger of crashing into the roof above them than falling to the ground. She didn’t pay them attention. Her eyes were on the crowd. If Nimal was working a pull, they’d likely be near the back, and dipping into the little pond of audience like birds diving for fish.
She saw Dammen first. Last spring he’d been too young and small to work pulls, but now he was old enough. A mop of dark, curly hair over a round face. She thought at first that he’d seen her and was coming to talk, but a movement to her left caught her. He wasn’t the only one walking her direction. Disbelief, outrage, and amusement leapt through her like the tumblers on the stage. When Dammen was three steps away, she turned, meeting Nimal with her full attention.
“Is this a joke?” she spat.
Nimal’s eyes went wide, and then he laughed. One of his teeth was missing.
“Alys! I didn’t recognize you. By all the gods, I mean it. From the back you looked like a Riverport girl come down for the show.”
“Did I?”
Dammen looked from one to the other, panic in his eyes. Nimal waved him off, then put his hand in his sleeve. The cutter’s blade flashed as it disappeared. “No harm, no harm. Honest error. And you can’t tell me this is how you wore your cloaks before. You stand out in this bunch like you owned the place, yeah? Moved up in the world.”
His smile seemed genuine, but it still felt like a dig. Alys crossed her arms. “Need a word with you. Not here.”
Nimal scratched his arm, and there were words in it meant for the others in his crew. His pull would wait. She nodded him toward one of the stands at the edge of the square where a brewer had set up for the day. Alys bought, and Nimal drank.
“I’m looking for Sammish. Have you seen her? You know where I can find her?”
“She still has the room by the baker’s, but I know she’s been straying outside Longhill. I thought she was following after you.” His voice was friendly enough it almost hid the edge. The buzzing in Alys’s mind seemed to grow louder. She was supposed to press on Sammish, but what came out of her mouth was different.
“I go where the work is, that’s all. You aren’t running your crew in the quarter either. You’re coming here.”
“No insult,” Nimal said, lifting a palm like he was ready to deflect a blow. “Didn’t know the plan was yours. Looked from outside like maybe you were hiring on with someone else.”
“What’s the difference? The coin spends the same.”
“One of them’s a Longhill pull, and one’s not. But you do what you do. It looks to be working out, and I don’t judge.”
Alys scowled hard enough that her cheeks ached. “Sammish, though. When was the last time you saw her? Little Coop said you’d had her on a crew.”
Nimal shook his head. “That was forever ago. Between harvest and Longest Night. I brought her on as a walk-away, paid her with how to find Orrel, and haven’t seen her since. She might have taken some offense that I didn’t give her the full cut.”
“Orrel?”
“Yeah, there was a time she was sniffing around about a fortune-teller’s prop knife, and asking where Orrel had got to. I didn’t know anything about the one, but I did the other. Offered it to her instead of her coin. We haggled, but you know how it is. Sometimes you regret the things you agree to.” He shrugged elaborately.
“Where is Orrel?”
“The earth and the air, now. They burned his corpse just after Longest Night. Sammish saw him before that. I don’t think she got what he owed her, though.”
“When did she know?” Alys said, and the man behind Nimal turned to look at her. “When did you tell her?”