As we made our way down the lane, the gaslights began to hiss and fail, but it was day’s arrival, not that of a cold mage, that shuttered them as the gas was turned off. Ahead, on the right side of the lane, hung a newly painted sign, visible in dawn’s light. The script painted on the sign was pin-perfect, orange letters shining against a feathery brown backdrop: GODWIK AND CLUTCH.
“I hope this works,” Bee muttered.
We hauled our bags up to the stoop and earned a few curious looks but no offers of help. I plied the knocker. We waited. Rory sighed, looking ready for a nap. I licked my lips, and then was sorry I had done so, for my lips were so dry and cracked that my tongue released a smear of blood. Bee adjusted the fit of her gloves on her fingers. I untangled my cane where it had gotten caught in a fold in my skirts.
The door opened, and a troll looked at us, cocking his head first to one side and then the other to get a good look with each eye. He wore a drab jacket that set off astonishing scarlet and blue and black plumage and crest, truly spectacular.
I found my voice from the pit where it had crawled in to hide. “May the day find you at peace,” I said, a little hoarsely. “My name is Catherine Hassi Barahal. This is my cousin, Beatrice, and my brother, Roderic. We’re here to see Chartji. The solicitor.”
“You’re that one,” he said in words so eerily without accent they did not quite sound proper. “Chartji warned me.”
“Warned you?” I could not get a full lungful of air in, for my chest had gone numb.
“ ‘Let her in quickly shall she come standing at the door.’ ” The troll hopped back and gestured for us to enter, baring his sharp teeth in a manner that made Rory yawn threateningly and caused Bee to take a step back. By which movement, she revealed our luggage.
“Oo!” He bent forward and peered at the two bulging bags with their brass clasps. “Things!”
“Who’s at the door, Caith?” Brennan came out from a back room, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth. He saw me and grinned. “Catherine! And your charming cousin, Beatrice. And another companion, I see.”
“My brother, Roderic,” I said.
“Well met, indeed! Did you tell them to come in, Caith? Give them a cup of water?”
“Things!” said Caith. “Even some shiny things. Two brass clasps and a sword.”
Startled, I looked down. Daylight had veiled the sword, and even to me, in the first weak glimmer of dawn, it appeared as an ordinary black cane.
Brennan said, “Please step inside at once. Caith, close the door behind them.”
The urgency in his tone propelled us like a ball shot from a musket. We hurried in and dropped the bags in the hall as Caith shut the door and locked it with a pair of heavy chains.
Brennan said to Rory, “I’m Brennan. Caith, did you remember to introduce yourself?”
“Oo!” The troll shifted his fascinated gaze away from the brass clasps to look first at Brennan and then at us. His crest flattened and lifted and flattened again. “My pardon! Caith. Not my full name, but assuredly yours. I am what you would call it the clutch cousin sibling child…” His head swiveled uncomfortably far around, to beseech Brennan evidently.
“Nephew,” Brennan said. “Not an egg sibling child, but a clutch sibling child.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, although I had not the least idea of what he was talking about. Caith twisted his head back around to face me and displayed his teeth again. It was clearly an effort to mimic a smile, however disturbing he looked, like he was ready to eat us up. So I smiled in return and addressed him politely. “May you find peace on this morning, Caith.”
Caith led us to the back. In what had once been a sitting room, Kehinde knelt among the pieces of her press, which were spread out in a pattern I could not read. She was so absorbed in moving pieces around to see where they fit that she did not even look up.
Old Godwik was seated at a desk, pen in hand, but he looked up at once. “The Hassi Barahal in her mantle! What an exceptionally pleasant surprise! Let me crow on the rocks at sunrise! And this… the cousin, I presume. And…” He gave Rory an exceptionally piercing look. “Interesting. I’ve not seen one like you before. Well met. Please enter our nest.”
Belatedly, surprised by his words, Kehinde looked up. “Catherine!” She smiled.
Brennan lugged the two carpetbags into the room and set them against the wall. A moment later, Chartji walked in, claws stained with ink and carrying a bowl of water in one hand.
“Catherine!” she said. “And your clutch sibling Beatrice! And did I hear this one called brother? I thought you might come.”
“We have a proposition to make you,” I said without preamble. “Our services, in exchange for yours. We believe that if anyone can help us get out from under the power of magisters and princes, you can.”
“Drink first,” said Chartji. “That’s the proper way. Then we’ll talk.”
As we passed around the bowl, a knocking came again at the door. Caith’s footfalls pattered down; chains rattled softly. The hinges creaked slightly as the door was opened.
After a pause, he called in his uncannily pure voice, “Brennan! There’s a rat here who says you’re expecting a messenger. He says a rising light marks the dawn of a new world.”
Brennan said sharply, “Get him in fast and shut the door.” Then he stepped out into the hallway. With a frown, Kehinde pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and followed. Bee, who had been drinking, handed the bowl to Rory. She grabbed my wrist and tugged me after them. We all spilled into the hallway to see Caith stepping back from the door as a pair of men surged in. I knew them! Hard to forget those faces: They were the two foreigners I had seen in the inn in Lemanis. They carried themselves very differently now. No longer diffident, they prowled like scouts, gazes ranging over our faces and up the stairs. The young man clearly did not recognize me, although he stared too long and too admiringly at Bee. The older man looked twice at me with obvious recognition, then frowned as Rory strolled with a threatening grace out of the back room, followed a moment later by a limping Godwik. On the stoop was the woman dressed as a man, the third foreigner I’d seen in Lemanis, but after glancing inside, she jumped back down to the street.