The eastern stars were fading into grey by the time she reached the baker’s. He had been up for hours, apparently, because the oven was hot and the air smelled like butter and flour and hot fruit. She knocked at Sammish’s door, and when there wasn’t an answer, she sat by it, legs folded. The baker came out to pull a batch of plum tarts from the oven and put the next batch in. Alys used her one bronze piss-coin to buy three of them unglazed and hot from the oven, then sat with them on her thigh until they cooled enough to eat. She didn’t know when Sammish would come back to the little room, but it seemed likely that sooner or later, she would. Instead of rushing through Kithamar flinging coins and making threats like some private guardsman, Alys could just wait here and be patient. It was interesting to see how much of the urgency and panic had been Andomaka’s and Tregarro’s, and how little Alys missed it now that she’d put it down.
She ate one of the tarts as the sun rose, casting gold and rose across the rooftops. The noise of Kithamar—of Longhill—surrounded her: voices in laughter and contention, the paired clatter of hooves and cartwheels, the bark of street dogs joyful and threatening and bored. The plum was sweet and sour, and even with the pastry cool enough to rip off bits with her bare fingers, the center of the tart would still burn an unwary tongue. She ate slowly, noticing the way the sweet and the salt matched each other, the way the flavors changed as it dissolved in her mouth.
She saw Sammish as soon as the nondescript brown girl turned the corner, and she was almost shocked to see how thin she’d become. The mouse-brown hair was pulled back from a sterner face than the one Alys remembered her having, and the dark brown eyes were hard and bright as stones in the river.
Sammish’s steps faltered when she saw Alys, but they didn’t fail. Sammish came forward, mouth pinched, chin high. Alys didn’t stand up, and she noticed that Sammish stopped far enough away that she couldn’t get grabbed.
“Heard you were looking for me?”
“I was,” Alys said.
“What for?”
“Well. It was because Andomaka wanted me to track you down for that stunt you pulled at the brotherhood’s house. Going in after the boy. Job was to find you and bring you to her.”
“So you’re her hunting dog.”
“Was. Don’t seem to be now.”
Sammish crossed her arms, but her expression softened. Not all the way back to the girl Alys had known, but to someone less clearly on the edge of flight. “Why are you here, then?”
Alys considered the question like it was a riddle. When she spoke, she spoke slowly, picking the words with care. “To say that I’m sorry, I think.”
“For what?”
She picked one of the two remaining tarts off her leg and held it out. “All of it.”
What did you tell her?” Saffa asked. There was no judgment in her voice.
Sammish leaned back, crossed arms on her chest like she was protecting herself. “Didn’t tell her about the pull. Or where to find you. Where to find us, I mean.”
“But the rest.”
“Yeah. The rest. What Orrel said about how Darro died. And about you, and about Timu. What Prince Ausai was. What the knife was for. Everything.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing worth passing on. She listened. I’m not sure she cared about anything that wasn’t about Darro, not really,” Sammish said. She shifted her weight, her eyes on the open door and the empty, sun-washed street beyond it. Saffa gave her the silence like a gift. “She didn’t seem surprised, though. I mean, not like she already knew about Andomaka and Ausai, but not like she didn’t believe it. She just accepted it as true and we moved forward.”
“And do you believe her?”
“About what?”
“Her change of heart.”
Sammish leaned forward and closed her eyes. The hollowness in her chest ached, and she didn’t understand why. Or she did, but she didn’t want to. “Why not? People see through their own bullshit sometimes. It can happen.”
“Or they can pretend as a way to set a trap.”
“She’s not that good a liar.”
Sammish opened her eyes and stood. Staying still wasn’t comfortable. Moving wasn’t either. Ever since she’d found Alys at the door of her rooms, the best she’d been able to find was shifting between the two. Three steps got her to the doorway. Saffa had let the illness she brought to the street fade for fear that it would bring more attention by lasting longer than the protection was worth. It meant no more ropes at the mouths of the alleys and streets. The only thing that kept Saffa safe now was not being noticed. That was a thin and brittle armor.
At the end of the street, people were walking. Mostly Hansch, but enough Inlisc that Sammish didn’t stand out. Not that Sammish ever stood out. “You’re dead calm about all this.”
Saffa’s smile was weary. “I am sworn of the spirit house. I’m well practiced in grief.”
“Well, I’m still a beginner,” Sammish said acidly. “Adric won’t join us. I talked him through the pull, and he thought there were too many holes in it.”
“Why?” Saffa asked.
“Because there’s too many holes in it. He’s right. We have to be in the compound and have the guard captain in sight before the fire warning comes. And Andomaka too. Once they show us where the knife’s kept, we’ll know how to get it.”
“Then we kill them and take it?”
“Was the thought, yes.”
“You seem sure that we can beat a professional swordsman. Or the beast at the heart of Kithamar in its own lair. Or both.”
“I was more sure when I saw Adric doing the fighting. So maybe we find the place, then hide in the compound. They put it back when the warning’s over, and we take it in the night, leave under cover of dark, and no one the wiser.”
Saffa tilted her head.
“Holes,” Sammish said. “I know.”
“We ought not do this.” When Sammish shook her head, Saffa scowled. “I haven’t asked it of you, and if I had, I would release you from your promise.”
The hollowness grew—dread and sorrow and confusion. “I started all this for her. For Alys. And they took her. Or gave her a way for her to take herself.”
“And that mattered?”
The hollowness changed at the words, collapsing into something exquisitely painful and vast. “It did.”
“But if she’s back now, why?”
“Because I’m not back. I knew what I was. Now I don’t. They took my home from me. Everything’s still here. Everyone’s still here. But I don’t fit it. That’s what they took from me.”
“This won’t win it back, you know.”
“I do.”
The older woman came to her, laced her dry, thin fingers with Sammish’s own, held her for a moment, then released her and wiped the tears off her cheek. “And your friend whose brother I killed. Are you thinking of asking her to help us?”
Sammish looked out the door again.
Tregarro’s quarters in the brotherhood were the same ones he’d taken when he first came there years and years before. Thousands of nights, he’d dreamed on that same bed, woken to the light spilling through those same shutters. He pulled on his leathers now. They didn’t have the crest of the brotherhood or of his family. Not that his family would have meant anything here. They were good, solid huntsman’s clothes, these. Worn, if not by him, at least by a man near his build. His blade was not his usual, but a plain length of steel with a good edge. Anything more would have been too much. His scars marked him, as they always had, but there were other men who had been burned young. If he took himself far enough away from the city, he could be anyone. It was the price of his plan.