Chapter 100

“He’ll step,” said Saskia.

We were in Lucien’s room with the shutters closed, and she said it the way she said everything, as though it were the weather.

“Every courier on this border carries a step-charm. He lays it before he needs it, the way a man leaves his door on the latch. Then one stride, and he is forty yards off behind his own glamour, and no dog in the world will follow.” She looked at me. “You cannot catch a man who has already left.”

“Then it was laid,” I said. “By hand. Merrit says everything laid by hand has a grain.”

Saskia was quiet for a moment.

“If you know where he lands,” she said slowly, “I can be there first.”

Lucien, at the window, made a small sound that might have been a laugh. He had not had a drink since the loft. His hands had begun to shake a little, and he kept them in his pockets.

“And what am I?” he said.

“The thing he runs from,” I said.

He thought about that. Then he smiled, very nearly the old