“Your hands are shaking,” he continued. “There are dark circles under your eyes. I’d say it has been at least two days, maybe three, since you’ve had a meal. I know you didn’t try Ray’s soup, because you gave it to her.” He nudged the empty bowl, licked clean by Falada, with his boot. “Probably for the best; I have little faith in Mr. Thackery’s culinary skill.” He took me in, examining my stark Renaltan servant’s dress. “Tell me, what is a Renaltan girl doing in the travelers’ camps? No companions, half-starving, sleeping on a pile of hay in a dirty stable . . .”
I gave him the same answer I had given Ray. “None of your business.”
“You have to know that you won’t survive long without money. Or shelter. Or rest.” He approached me carefully, like I was a cornered, feral animal, and slowly removed the stick from my fingers.
I decided the biggest difference was in the mouth. Simon had an easy smile, but Zan’s lips were like cut glass, artfully shaped but severe. “I can provide you with what you need,” he said.
“She’s not mine to sell,” I stated, trying not to think about how it would feel to fall asleep in a clean, warm bed with food in my stomach and no terror scratching at my door.
“You stole her?”
“No! No, I didn’t—?I just . . .” I took a breath. “She belonged to someone I . . . I love. Loved,” I corrected myself, and the coil inside my chest tightened, just a little. “He died.”
He took a step back, studying me.
“I won’t sell her. I’ll starve first.”
“And what about her? Will you let her starve? Is that what your dear departed love would have wanted?”
I didn’t have an answer.
He gave a deep, haggard sigh. “We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow morning, after you’ve eaten and slept and can reason properly again. Come along.” He took ahold of Falada’s reins and led her out of the stable, while I scrambled behind them.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?”
“There’s an inn on Canal, not far from High Gate. It’s quiet and clean—?I expect you’ll find it quite comfortable.”
“I can’t cross the wall.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up, just a little. It was the first hint of a smile I’d seen on him, and I didn’t think I liked it. It didn’t look natural on his grim face. “I’ve got it covered.”
I knew I shouldn’t trust someone whose motives were so obviously counter to mine, but if I was going to be of any use at all in taking Toris down, I had to get inside the wall somehow. I looked again at the ring on his hand—?silver, and bearing the symbol of a bird with a widespread, open wingspan. Just like Simon’s. I decided to trust him, for the moment.
Raymond Thackery chased us down. “What about my payment?” he asked. “Services were rendered.”
“Here,” Zan said, pulling out a small stack of folded papers, dotted with wax and stamped with the Achlevan seal.
Thackery counted them and said, “There’s only nine here. You promised ten.”
“I’m keeping this one,” he said, “as a fee. The horse came with some baggage, as you can see. Count yourself lucky. The prince was in a generous mood to issue ten invitations at once. He might not give me as many next time.”
“There might not be a next time. King’s been sniffin’ around, wonderin’ who’s been making invitations and handing ’em out to the riffraff—?”
“Consider me warned,” Zan said, cutting him off. To me, he said, “Let’s go.”
“Invitations?” I asked as we walked.
“Ray is a smuggler,” Zan explained. “I use my connections inside the royal family to get him blood-marked invitations issued by the prince so he can sell them to the highest bidder, and he lets me know when he comes across something I might find interesting. In this case, you. Or rather, your Empyrean.”
“Her name is Falada.”
“And what is your name?”
“It’s . . . Emilie.” It was an impulsive decision, to give her name as mine. I’d wear it like a cilice; it would hurt, but at least I wouldn’t be allowed to forget her.
Even in the middle of the night, Zan made his way around the outside of the wall with a deftness that suggested he was well acquainted with its unsystematic layout. We zigzagged through the hive of encampments and clapboard hovels spaced between the occupied gibbets, of which there were many.
“Where are we going?” I asked Zan.