"You knew about the coup," Palagyi said, bringing Adamat's attention back to him. "Even before the papers. The night before, you were gone half the night. Summoned somewhere. My man saw you leave. You returned and immediately put your family in a carriage to-"

"Somewhere safe," Adamat finished.

"Somewhere safe," Palagyi continued. "And then you wrote a lot of letters. Sent them who knows where? You practically ran up to the university, skipping the execution-which seems strange, because not another soul in Adopest did. Since then you've been prowling around Adopest, hiring carriages to the north and east, writing more letters. You've been to every library in southern Adro."

"I see you've hired better people to follow me," Adamat said.

"Yes, I did." Palagyi polished his fingernails on his waistcoat.

"Even so, it took you this long to add things up?"

"I won't let you spoil my mood," Palagyi said. "You're working for Tamas. I know you are. And Lord Vetas knows as well. Along with his master."

Adamat studied the man behind his desk. "And who might that be?"

"Someone with a vested interest in the affairs of Adro and the rest of the Nine." It was the first time Lord Vetas had spoken. His voice was quiet, measured with the enunciation of a man educated at the best schools.

"A criminal?" Adamat said. "Palagyi rarely deals with people who aren't. The Proprietor, perhaps?"

Lord Vetas gave a dry chuckle. "No," he said.

"Stop trying to change the subject," Palagyi snarled. He stood up. "You work for Tamas now, don't you?"

"Sit down," Lord Vetas said. Palagyi sat.

"And if I do?" Adamat said.

Palagyi opened his mouth.

"Quiet," Lord Vetas said. He spoke the word softly. Palagyi's mouth snapped shut. "You may go now, Palagyi. You've made the introductions."

Palagyi glared at Lord Vetas. "Don't think you'll take the credit for this yourself. I discovered this. I told Lord-"

The garrote came up around Palagyi's throat and snapped tight from behind. Adamat drew his cane sword, SouSmith his pistol. Lord Vetas held up a single hand. Adamat froze. He watched in morbid fascination as Palagyi struggled against the strong hands of his own goon, the coal worker with the quick reflexes. Palagyi's face turned purple, and the goon kept his garrote tight around Palagyi's throat until long after the life was gone from him. Adamat lowered his cane sword.

Lord Vetas folded his hands back into his lap. "I've just taken over your loan from the late Palagyi. It's in your interest to work for me now."

"Doing what?" Adamat's mind raced. Palagyi had been a predictable thug. Adamat could deal with him. This Lord Vetas, however... he was a dangerous man. Dangerous like the Proprietor: the kind that made policemen retire early.

"I want to know everything about Tamas. Everything he does, everything he says to you. What he has you looking for."

"My loyalties are not for sale," Adamat said.

"You'll have to change your loyalties, then."

"I don't know who you are, or who your master is," Adamat said. "I'm loyal to Adro and I will not change that."

"My master has the Nine's best interests at heart, I assure you," Lord Vetas said. His quiet, sibilant voice was beginning to irritate Adamat. He almost had to strain to hear the man.

Adamat said, "The Nine is not the same as Adro. For all I know, you work for the Kez. The newspaper says they're sending ambassadors and that they still want Tamas to sign the Accords."

"I don't work for the Kez."

"Then who?"

"That is of little consequence to you."

"You aren't endearing yourself," Adamat said. "You come into my home, kill a man in my very living room, and threaten me? How do you know I won't send for the police this instant?"

A shallow smile flitted across Lord Vetas's face. "I am not the sort of man one summons the police on," he warned. "You of all people should know that."

"Yes. I'd already realized that." Adamat gritted his teeth. "You're the type of man who gives face to evil."

Lord Vetas seemed taken aback. "Evil? No, good sir. Just pragmatism."

"I know your kind," Adamat said. "And you seem to know me. Or you think you do. Now, get out of my home."

He glanced at SouSmith. Palagyi had been strangled by his own man. Would the same thing happen to Adamat? Was SouSmith really a friend? The boxer looked troubled. He watched both the goons and Lord Vetas all at once and cracked his knuckles like he did when he was ready for a fight. "I will pay you your money," Adamat said, "if you have indeed taken over the loan. Or I will face the streets when you kick me out. I will not betray a client or my country."

Lord Vetas examined his hands thoughtfully. He stood up and took his hat off the desk. "I'll return when I have leverage." The statement was matter-of-fact, yet the word "leverage" sent a chill down Adamat's spine. "Meanwhile, as a show of my master's good faith, we'll suspend your loan." He passed by Adamat and tipped his hat. "Consider our employment offer." He gave Adamat a small card with an address printed on the back.

It was not until Lord Vetas and his thugs were gone that Adamat remembered the body in his favorite chair. He regarded SouSmith grimly. "Find us some lunch in the pantry. I'm going to figure out something to do with that."

"Jakob has a great attachment to you," the woman said.

Nila sat across from the woman at a cafe table and sipped from a warm cup of tea. The sun shone overhead, a stiff breeze moving through the streets, and she could almost forget about the barricades just around the other side of the building, where royalist partisans held a wary standoff with Tamas's more numerous and better-trained soldiers.

"I can't stay," Nila said.

The woman examined her over a cup of tea. Her name was Rozalia and she was a Privileged. The Hielmen said she was the last Privileged left in all of Adro, but no one knew where she'd come from. She wasn't a member of Manhouch's royal cabal. Why she had any interest in Nila was impossible to say. Nila had no idea how to act in the presence of a Privileged. It was impossible to curtsy sitting down. She kept her eyes on her tea and tried to be as polite as possible.

"Why not, child?"

Nila sat up straighter. She didn't consider herself a child. At eighteen, she was a woman. She could wash and press and mend clothes and she might have one day married Yewen, the butler's son, if the whole world hadn't gone to the pit with Tamas's coup. Yewen was gone now, maybe fled, maybe killed in the streets.

When Nila didn't answer, Rozalia went on. "We have a parley with Field Marshal Tamas in the morning. If he comes to his senses, if General Westeven can make him see reason, you may find yourself nursemaid to the new king of Adro."

"I'm not a nurse," Nila said. "I wash clothes."

"That doesn't have to define you, child. I've been many things in my life. A Privileged is neither the greatest nor the least of them."

What was greater than a Privileged? "I'm sorry," Nila said.

Rozalia gave a sigh. "Speak up, child. Look me in the eye. You aren't a duke's washerwoman anymore."

"I'm lowborn, ma'am... my lady." Nila tried to remember how to address a Privileged. She'd never even met one before today.

"You've saved the life of the closest heir to the throne," Rozalia said. "Baronies have been gifted to the common folk for less."

Nila swallowed and tried not to imagine herself baroness of some barony in northern Adro. This kind of thing didn't happen to her. She could feel the Privileged's eyes studying her.

"You think we're going to lose," Rozalia said. She waited a moment for Nila's response, and then somewhat impatiently added, "Speak up, you can talk to me."

Nila did look up then. "Field Marshal Tamas has every advantage," she said. "He won't execute half the nobility only to put Jakob on the throne. Within a few weeks he'll have torn down the barricades and sent Jakob and all the nobles that backed him to the guillotine. I would like to be gone before that happens. I don't want to see it." She wondered, not for the first time, if it had been a mistake to bring Jakob to General Westeven. She could have fled with him to Kez. The silver she took from the townhouse would have more than paid for the trip.

"Smart girl," Rozalia said, placing a finger on her chin.

Nila folded her arms across her chest.

"What will you do?" Rozalia asked. "Once you've gotten past Tamas's blockade and made your way out of the city?"

What interest could a Privileged possibly have in that? Nila realized that she didn't know what she'd do. She had the silver. Most of it, anyway. She had needed new clothes and some medicine for Jakob, and a place to hide during the riots. "I can join up with the army. They always need laundresses, and the pay is good," she said.

"At best you'll wind up a soldier's wife," Rozalia said. "What a waste."

"It's better that," Nila said quietly, "than to die here for a lost cause."

"What did you think Tamas's soldiers would have done if they'd have caught you smuggling Jakob out of the duke's residence? You have courage, child, and don't try to pretend that you don't love that little boy. If you cared only for yourself, you'd be halfway to Brudania by now.

"Stay here," Rozalia continued. "Watch over Jakob. If the parley tomorrow goes well, you'll wind up a rich woman. If it doesn't... you may need to save his life again."

If she stayed by Jakob's side, she could, like Rozalia said, become a wealthy woman. Or follow him to the guillotine block. She remembered the soldier's hands holding her down, the feelings of helplessness and horror. No bearded sergeant would save her the next time Tamas's soldiers came through a door. She had silver buried in the corner of a graveyard just outside of the city. She would never have to feel that fear again.

Nila couldn't help but wonder if Rozalia had other motives for wanting her to stay. A Privileged used the common folk. She didn't help them. There had to be a reason she was showing such interest in Nila.

Jakob came into sight over Rozalia's shoulder. His pallor had improved despite the stress of the last two weeks. Rozalia had done something for his cough. He smiled and waved to Nila, then was distracted by a butterfly flitting through the rubble of a building knocked over by the earthquake. She watched him dance off after the insect, followed by a pair of vigilant Hielmen.

"I'll stay," she said. "For now."

"You can end this quickly," Julene said.

Tamas examined the woman lounging in the chair on the other side of his desk. She'd come alone on her own initiative, leaving Taniel and the magebreaker who knew where. She wore a low-cut shirt that revealed enough cleavage to get the imagination going but that was tight enough for her to move quickly when she wanted. Tamas knew the effect was not accidental. Yet he was not a man to make the same mistake twice. Julene was a dangerous woman. She was the type to use any weapon available to her in order to get ahead. He looked away from her chest and at the scar running from the corner of her mouth to her brow.

He wondered at that scar. There were Privileged who dealt in healing sorcery. It was a tricky art, and they were rare, but with the amount Julene charged for her mercenary services, she could easily afford it. Perhaps she just liked looking deadly.

"How?"

"Assassins," she said. "Send men behind the barricades. Wipe out all their leadership and the rest will surrender easily."

Tamas snorted. "I've been trying my best to scrape together Manhouch's old spy network with little success and you want me to find enough assassins to bring down those barricades? You're mad."

"Use the Black Street Barbers," Julene said.

"The street gang?"

Julene nodded. "They will be expensive, but they're the best at what they do. They'll end this civil war."

"Gangs can't be controlled."

"They can with the right amount of money," Julene said. "The Barbers are different. More organized. They report to Ricard Tumblar. He uses them to police the docks."

"Assassination is risky. It could turn the people against me."

"You're being a fool."

"Careful."

"If you won't consider that, then you need me at the parley."

"Why?" Tamas checked his watch. The parley was set for ten o'clock. Two hours from now.

"Because General Westeven is in league with this Privileged we're hunting. She'll be there. It wouldn't surprise me if she makes a move against you."

"I have my powder mages for that," Tamas said.

"Your boy has shot her three times and put an arm's length of steel through her stomach. Do your other Marked have anything new to bring to the table?"

This confirmed Taniel's reports. This Privileged was something else. Something more.

"You know her, don't you?" he said. "This is personal. I can tell by the way you talk. You want this woman dead."

"Don't be absurd."

"I've had you kill seven Privileged in the last two years. Each time you've been cold, mechanical."

"And each time I've been able to kill them within a day or two," Julene said. "This is getting personal. I want the bitch dead."

"So you don't know her?"

"Of course not."

She was lying. Tamas could tell by the way her eyes hardened when she spoke. It was a small tell, and he'd only recently figured it out, but Julene put a little extra fire into her lies when she wanted to be believed. Now, why wouldn't she tell the truth?

"You think you can handle her if she tries something?" Tamas said.

"Of course. Every time we've begun to fight, she's run. At the very least I will scare her off."

"Be there," Tamas said. "In an hour. Bring Gothen and Taniel and his pet savage. And don't do anything stupid."

"I'll only be there to protect you," Julene said.

Tamas stood next to a repaired field gun and watched a line of men make their way over the barricade under a white flag. Olem was on the other side of the gun, leaning against the barrel, speaking quietly to Sabon. Vlora stood somewhere behind him with Brigadiers Ryze and Sabastenien, the only two mercenary commanders posted in the city. From a building across the street Taniel trained his rifle on the barricades. Julene tugged idly at her gloves, her magebreaker partner beside her. A whole company of Adran soldiers stood at attention twenty paces back. Tamas wanted General Westeven to know exactly how bad his odds were.

This would be a crucial meeting. Tamas felt he held most of the cards, but General Westeven was an incredibly capable commander. He could ruin Tamas's plans simply by protracting the civil war.

"A sorry lot, sir," Olem said, motioning toward the approaching royalists.

Tamas withheld judgment. The royalists had been crouching behind their barricades for eight days. They were dirty and disheveled, but they showed no signs of imminent starvation or even fatigue. Behind ramshackle barricades they may be, but General Westeven would see that every man and woman at his disposal slept on a good bed and had plenty to eat-not hard, when they had captured the city's main granaries. The royalists were eating better than most of the city right now.