Chapter 101

We went up the hill with Vane between us, his glamour back on and his hands in plain sight.

The horn had sounded twice more by then, nearer each time. From the turn of the lane you could see the bridge road coming down out of the hills, and on it, at a walk, riders in blue and silver. Lucien stood at the corner and counted them under his breath the way Quill counts lines.

“Twelve,” he said. “Her household guard.” He did not say whose. He did not have to.

Saskia took the horses down to the river lane behind the courier house without being asked. Rowan put himself at the front door, leaning on the jamb like a man waiting for a parcel. Lucien took the back.

“Go on, lass,” Rowan said, not looking at me. “We’ve a little while. Not a long one.”

***

The left-luggage room was an iron cage at the back of the counting hall, with pegs along the wall and a day clerk at a high desk: a thin boy with ink to the second knuckle, who looked at Vane’s tally, and at