'Ent my business,' Arlen said. 'Don't care who sits what throne, so long as the greatwards are built and folk prepared for what's comin'.'

'And what is that?' Leesha asked.

'War,' Arlen said. 'The demons will move to stop us, now, before the greatward system can reach critical mass.'

'Demonshit.' Rojer glanced to Leesha, then back to Arlen. 'Sick of hearing you two say things ent your business even when you're standing right in the thick of them. Those people are flocking here from the Free Cities, building greatwards and arming themselves, because of you, Arlen Bales, the ripping Painted Man, not Count Thamos.'

Arlen shrugged. 'Maybe. Or maybe they're just tired of hiding and want to fight for the chance to be free. I'm a banner to flock to, ay, but that don't give me a claim to the throne even if I wanted it and I don't. Why should I oppose Thamos? Bit taken with himself, but he's doing what a good Royal should do building roads and towns, helping folk ward their homes and plant crops, appointing magistrates and ministers to keep peace, collect trash, lend money, and keep everyone fed and working to common good. His taxes are steep but fair, he's open to new citizens so long as they swear to Angiers, and he doesn't have enough men to really bully anyone.'

'I heard he had a thousand Wooden Soldiers,' Rojer said.

Arlen shook his head. 'A thousand who can put on a wooden helm and march holding a spear, ay, but he's got barely two hundred Wooden Soldiers. The rest can put an arrow near a target more oft than not, but they're mostly Warders, engineers, and construction crew.'

'And now Gared and the Cutters, thanks to you,' Leesha said.

Again Arlen shrugged. 'The count can make better use of them in the day. In return, I get them at night, along with the Wooden Soldiers. Thamos himself even comes out at night, and puts his spear where I tell him.'

'For now,' Leesha said.

'Thamos knows I can kick his keep gate down any time I like,' Arlen said. 'So long as I'm around, he'll keep in line.'

'And when you're not around?' Leesha asked.

Arlen smiled. 'You'll have to keep him in line yourself, and not pull a vanishing act like you did at court.'

Leesha fumed silently at his smirk. Her 'disappearing act' had been a pretence to meet with Duchess Araine, who was the real power in Angiers her sons little more than puppets. Arlen's own meeting with the duke and his brothers had been a sham. But of course, she could say nothing of the sort without breaking Araine's trust.

I have to let him think me a fool instead. The thought angered her. 'What word from Duke Euchor?' she asked to change the subject.

'Rhinebeck will never pay the price Euchor demands for aid,' Arlen said. 'Not unless the Krasians are massed right outside his walls, and maybe not even then. There will be no alliance.'

The finality of the statement fell on the room like a weight. It meant Angiers would have to face Ahmann alone, which meant in turn that there would be no aid to Lakton before the Krasians turned their eye that way. How long did the Laktonians have now? A year? Three at the most?

'What did he want?' Rojer asked.

'Rhinebeck still has no son,' Arlen said. 'Euchor wants him to divorce Duchess Melny and marry one of his own daughters, all of whom have borne sons of their own.'

'Hypatia, Aelia, and Lorain,' Rojer said. 'Famous throughout the Free Cities for being indistinguishable from stone demons. He might as well have asked Rhinebeck to drop his pants and lie over the barrel.'

Arlen nodded. 'If the Krasians take Angiers, the metal throne will block their path at Riverbridge.'

'Euchor is a fool,' Leesha said.

'More than you know,' Arlen said. 'Euchor has the secrets of fire, Leesha, and schematics to turn them into horror like you never dreamed.' He produced an ancient, leather-bound book and tossed it to her. The cover read: Weapones of the Olde Wyrld.

'Rest up before you read it,' Arlen advised. 'Be a week before you can sleep again.'

Leesha took the book, looking into Arlen's eyes as she did. They seemed so calm, so at peace. The look of a man who had stopped worrying over tomorrow to focus fully on today. 'You've changed so much. The plain clothes, going back to your proper name ...' Your eyes, she wanted to say, but wisely held her tongue.

'Got back to my roots,' Arlen said, nodding towards Renna. 'Ent gonna forget them again.'

'Get another kicking, you do,' Renna said, laying a hand on his leg.

Arlen put his hand atop hers, squeezing gently. Such a tiny gesture, but it spoke volumes. Leesha suppressed a shiver as Arlen looked back at her. 'Know what I am now, Leesh. Who I am. No more doubts and worries.'

'How?' Leesha asked.

Arlen's tone grew serious. 'Last new moon, a demon tried to kill me.'

Rojer chuckled. 'How's that different from any other night?'

'This wasn't just some worker drone, Rojer,' Arlen said, his voice taking on a hint of the Painted Man's rasp. The smile fled Rojer's face.

'A smart demon,' Leesha said. 'Darsy told me. Gets in your head.'

Arlen tapped his temple. 'And I got in its. Not for long, but enough to know what we're up against, and to see magic the way they do. And now that I seen, I can't unsee.'

He lifted his hand, drawing tiny wards in the air. One by one, the lamps in the room winked out. Leesha reached into her apron for her warded spectacles, but before she could put them on, he traced a light ward in the air above them and it flared, filling the room with more light than when the morning sun struck the windows full-on.

'Creator,' Rojer whispered.

'That's just the tip.' Arlen got to his feet, drawing a knife from his belt. 'Almost impossible to hurt me now, and if something does ...' He slashed at his hand, drawing a bright line of blood.

'Arlen!' Leesha cried, rushing to her feet to inspect the cut. It was down to the bone she caught a flash of white before blood welled, gushing to the floor. Even with stitching, it might never heal the same. She glanced at Renna, but the girl seemed unconcerned.

'... I can heal it in an instant,' Arlen finished. His hand collapsed into smoke, falling through Leesha's fingers, and then re-formed, perfectly whole and unblemished save for the intricate pattern of tattoos that danced along its surface. Even the blood on the floor was gone.

Leesha put her warded spectacles on to examine more closely. In wardsight, Arlen glowed brighter than she had ever seen, and she noted with little surprise Renna, too, shone with power.

'I can heal others as well,' Arlen said, 'and kill demons without touching them. Every day I discover new powers. The potential is limitless.'

'Darsy told me about you emptying the hospit,' Leesha said, 'but bright as you are, you're still not carrying enough for that kind of magic. Where did you get the power? Hora? Ichor?'

Arlen shook his head. 'Crutches. You were right about why the greatwards make me weak, Leesha. They pull at my magic, sucking it out to strengthen their field.' He smiled. 'But now I can reverse the pull.'

He took a deep breath, and Leesha gasped as the ambient magic drifting along the floor rushed to him. The wards painted and carved all around the cottage, previously glowing with power, dimmed as Arlen grew so bright it became difficult to look at him.

'You learned all this from the mind demon?' Leesha asked.

Arlen nodded. 'But don't underestimate them just because I got lucky and killed one. I'm just scratching the surface of powers that are as natural to them as breathing. There'll be more of them, and they won't underestimate me again.'

'It was manlike, but shorter?' Leesha asked. 'With a bulbous head and vestigial horns?'

Arlen's eyes narrowed. 'Never told anyone that.' He glanced to Renna.

'Don't you look at me like that, Arlen Bales,' she said. 'Ent breathed a word 'bout what happened.'

'One of them attacked us in Everam's Bounty,' Leesha said.

Arlen glanced at Rojer. 'Not that us,' the Jongleur said. 'I was in the bath. Missed the whole thing.'

Arlen seemed taken aback. 'What happened?'

Leesha bit back a wave of revulsion at the memory. 'It came at Waning, same as yours. It ... took control of me.'

Renna looked at her, empathy in her eyes for the first time. 'Forced you to do things?'

Leesha nodded. 'It was there to kill Ahmann or, better, to discredit him. Used me and his wife Inevera against him like puppets.'

'How'd you break the spell?' Arlen asked.

'Ahmann touched us, and the wards on his crown flared,' Leesha said. 'The demon's control was broken instantly. Ahmann killed it, though it might have had him if we hadn't distracted it first.'

Arlen nodded, glancing to Renna. 'Man ent nothin' without a good woman beside him.' Renna smiled at him, and Leesha had to swallow the bile that threatened to rise in her throat.

'Was it alone?' Renna asked.

Leesha shook her head, and saw in the woman's eyes that she already knew what was coming next. 'It had a ... bodyguard. A shape changer.'

'Mimic demon,' Arlen said. 'They can turn into anything they can see or imagine. Under normal circumstances, they can't imagine much, but with a mind demon controlling them ...'

'Ahmann said it was one of Alagai Ka's princelings,' Leesha said. 'And that there would be more come the next Waning.'

Arlen nodded. 'That bastard might be a coreson in need of putting down, but he ent wrong. New moon's a week and a half away. Done my best to ready the Hollow, but things are going to get ugly enough to make the Battle of Cutter's Hollow look like a game of Tackleball.'

Leesha nodded. 'Here and in the Bounty as well. The mind demons are afraid of Ahmann, just like they are of you. You'd be giving them a real gift by killing him.' The words were meant to sting, to remind him of his oath to oppose the corelings in all things, as they once had in a cave they had taken shelter in on the road from Angiers.

She expected him to be shocked, or angry or sad, but Arlen only looked at her patiently. 'Can't manipulate me just because I told you a promise I made as a boy, Leesha. Made a lot of promises in my life, and I'll be my own judge of when and how they're kept.'

'What promise?' Renna asked.

'Talk about it later,' Arlen said, and there was a hint of tightness in his voice. Renna didn't look pleased, but neither did she press the issue.

'Abban and Ahmann both spoke of the Par'chin as a friend,' Leesha said.

Arlen laughed, and if he was surprised she had heard his Krasian name before, he did not show it. 'Abban has no friends, Leesha! Only profitable acquaintances, of which I most certainly was one. And Ahmann Jardir has two faces, one kind and just, and another the real one he shows more seldom. The one that will do anything for power.'

'What happened in the Maze?' Leesha asked bluntly. 'What did he do to you? Enough riddles! If you want us to mistrust this man, then tell us why!'

For the first time, the calm left Arlen's eyes. Rojer held out his flask, and Arlen traced a casual ward in the air, sending it flying into his hand like iron filings to a lodestone. He unscrewed the top and took a long pull, sitting hunched with his arms on his thighs, eyes down.

'Ahmann Jardir was my ajin'pal,' he began. 'No doubt you've heard the word, but I don't think anyone can understand what it means. He took me into my first true battle with the demons, stood at my side, shed blood with me ...'

'Like you did for the Hollowers,' Rojer said.

'And for me,' Renna said.

Arlen nodded. 'Ay, but it was different. The Krasians didn't want me fighting. Didn't think me worthy. Jardir stood for me when they would have strung me up. Welcomed me into his palace, learned my language. He was a brother to me, taught me things about the world and myself it would've taken a lifetime to learn on my own.'

'So you were truly friends,' Leesha said, though the words did not dispel the mounting dread she felt at Arlen's tone.

'For my part,' Arlen agreed. 'But looking back I think maybe he was always ready to plant a spear in my back when I ceased to be of use to him, always planning to come north, and pulling his plans from my head.'

He blew out a breath. 'But maybe not. Maybe it was what came next.'

The room was silent, everyone leaning in to hear Arlen's words, even Renna.

Guess he doesn't tell her everything, after all, Leesha thought.

'Wasn't just fighting alongside the Krasians in those days,' Arlen said. 'Kept regular work as a Messenger, and spent years ruin hunting. Blew through more gold than most folk ever see buying up old maps that usually led nowhere, and almost got myself killed more times'n I can count. But then, a few years ago, Abban promised me a map to Anoch Sun.'

'The final resting place of Kaji,' Leesha said.

Arlen nodded. 'Nearly died getting my hands on the map, copied right from under the dama's noses. Spent weeks wandering the desert looking for the place. The Krasians said it was lost to the sands, but I got a stubborn streak.'

'Honest word,' Leesha agreed.

Arlen's eyes glittered. 'But I found it, Leesha! Anoch Sun, the ripping lost city of Kaji, and I found it! It was half buried, but even so, more beautiful than any place you ever saw. Its palaces dwarfed anything the dukes reside in, perfectly preserved beneath the sand. In the greatest of these, I found a stair into the catacombs, and searched.'

Rojer was leaning forward eagerly now. 'What did you find?'

'Kaji,' Arlen said. 'Or one of his descendants. He was embalmed and wrapped in cloth, arms still gripping his spear.'

'The Spear of Kaji,' Leesha said, a cold feeling growing in her gut. Ahmann's spear.

Arlen nodded. 'I brought it to Krasia to share its secrets. They all thought me a liar until it first flared to life, killing a demon in the Maze. An hour later, I was leading the charge, all the Sharum chanting my name. Two hours after that, Jardir and his men laid a trap to steal it from me, Kaval and Coliv among them. They beat me and took the spear, throwing me into a pit with a live sand demon.'

'Creator,' Renna said, her eyes wide. Her lip curled into a snarl, and she gripped the bone handle of the huge knife sheathed at her waist.

'How did you escape?' Rojer asked.

'Killed the demon and climbed out of the pit,' Arlen said. 'So Jardir cracked me on the head and they dumped me out on the dunes to die.'

Renna growled. 'I'll gut those sons of the ...'

Arlen laid a hand over hers, and she calmed. 'Kaval and Coliv were just following orders. Ent their fault. They're just drones. Jardir's the mind.'

'He must have seen your looting the sacred city and the tomb of Kaji as a terrible violation,' Leesha said.

Arlen shrugged. 'Should I have left the lost magics to sleep under the sand?'

'Of course not, but you must understand their perspective,' Leesha said.

Arlen looked at her, incredulous. 'What I understand is that Jardir stole the greatest weapon in the world from me, and instead of sharing its secrets, he is using it to murder and enslave his way across Thesa. What I cannot understand is why you continue to defend that son of a camel's piss ...'

His eyes widened. 'You stuck him.'

'That is none of your business!' Leesha had not meant to shout, but anger had been building in her all night, along with a constant brewing nausea and a searing in her head that could brand a cow. She knew the outburst confirmed his words, but that only made her angrier. 'And you should talk!' She whisked a hand at Renna.