I got out of the chair, too te to chase after Varrow.

  “I’m not w for Versalicci!” I protested as he he window. “I’m here on my own business.”

  To my relief, he did not leap through the window. To my dismay, he pulled a saber from a wooden umbrel stand. A pockmarked and rusted thing, but a bde that I couldn’t ignore.

  I forced myself not to draw any ons of my own. I wouldn’t provoke him if I could avoid him. Not that every instinct was screaming at me to do so.

  “Not being here on Versalicci’s order doesn’t make you less dangerous,” Varrow said, eyes steadily fixed on mie the rag cough apanying his words. “What do you want?”

  “Information on a gang,” I said. “Also, to see how you’ve been progressing since I gave you that shot.”

  His eyes narrowed. He took a couple of steps closer, the point of the saber not wavering. It poiowards the middle of my head.

  “You’re g to be Ms. Fara,” he said.

  “g, nothing,” I said. “When you visited my apartment a few days ago, I gave you yur medie and an iion as well. Right after, yed about training me, Golvar, and a few others. Oh, and after you almost got into a fistfight with Kasyp and then almost threw yourself out a window to escape Voltar.”

  Varrow scowled. “I did not get into a fistfight with the rich blighter or run out that window. It was a full story up. But it’s detailed enough. Makes more sehan Skall being her.”

  “I’ll take that as a pliment,” I said graciously.

  He snorted in response, which turned into a series of vulsive coughs.

  “Take it as an insult. You’re the only one cold enough to pull off a disguise. Skall was a fug lunatic who I had you lot chase off three times for a reason. Girl couldn’t see past her meal and it’s why she got suckered into casting the devil’s magic so easy. You don’t have that excuse.”

  “Sanctimony sits poorly on you, sidering who introduced me to Versalicci, to begin with,” I said, tone hardening. “You want to judge me, Varrow? Hoeople, how many children have you led into his clutches? How many more like me did he get his cws into so you could keep operating in his territory, and enjoy his prote?”

  “I introduce, I didn’t fory of you into joining him,” Varrow tered. “I didn’t tell you to sit by his side telling him which poisons were perfect for drawing out pain, or to carve into people, or anything else you did. Y to absolve yourself of your past as, Harrow? Pretend it was all because of someone else?”

  A reply about being fourteehis had all started sat oip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. Varrows was only a few paces away, face flushed while his saber remaieady.

  “I came here because of new business,” I said. “Not the past.”

  “I’m not ied in the past, and that includes you in it,” Varrow replied. “And I don’t care who else y in as part of it.”

  “Voltar is part of it,” I said. “And bag me, so it depends on how much you want to needle him.”

  Varrow turned, and as my hands closed around a knife’s pommel, he threw his saber.

  The on hit the floor, a chip of wood flying as the bde smmed into it. Cursing at me, Versalicci, Voltar, and the world in general, Varrow slumped down into the armchair.

  I left him aloo brood for a bit. Either he’d decide to help or he wouldn’t, and prodding him wouldn’t turn out well. I went to the kit, not to fix anything but just to give him space.

  The minutes passed by. Eventually, he called me ba with a voice more belonging to the dead than Varrow.

  I walked ba, standing a good five feet across from him. Close enough to hear a whisper, far enough away to give him a shred of security. Only a shred.

  “First thing, what did you i into me two days ago?”

  “Extract of a samander,” I answered. “It should attack the disease in your lungs, although it’s taking lohan I expected. It was a more perma solution to your issues.”

  “Ominous,” Varrow chuckled, causing a fresh round of coughing. “Guessing that’s gone up in smoke with your apartment?”

  “For now. It doesn’t o be that way forever.”

  “That’s what yoing to pay me with? Dangle a wa-”

  “No, that’s free,” I crified. “Your payment is ing out of Voltar’s pocket. I just meant that I don’t know if I acquire more Samander extract. I do owe you.”

  “I ain’t certain if that’s supposed to be a fort or a threat,” Varrow muttered. “Alright, name what you want and I’ll name a price that I suppose Voltar will pay.”

  I hadn’t even broached the thought with Voltar yet, but if he would force me into dealing with Versalicci, I’d make his coffers a mite lighter.

  “Pure Bloods. They’re mixed up in a mess involving many people. You heard of them?”

  “Racist gang from the docks?” Varrow got up from his chair, moving towards the kit. “Everyone here’s heard of them. Now at least, sihey stabbed Golvar to death. Before? I’d heard of them if only cause no one wants to be in a territory that wants you dead just for having horns. What do you o know on them?”

  “Locations. Important ones. Preferably their old hideout.”

  Varrow walked ba, pte and cup in hand. He offered nothing, and I didn’t ask as he sat back down in the armchair.

  “Old ohink they’ve shifted pces, do you?”

  “Underground is the most likely possibility. But they have to base their surface operations out of somewhere.”

  “True. And I know the most likely pce. But first, you gotta promise me ohing.”

  “Depends on what it is,” I said, frowning. “Nothing too onerous?”

  “No, I’m just going to ask you not to use whatever in the hells Versalicci had you get rid of the One-horns with. I get good fish only a pier down from their hideout and I ain’t giving it up till I’m sure all the tainted fish are gone.”

  Oh. That.

  “I wouldn’t use that again,” I said. “And even if I would, it’s all gone, anyway. Versalicci ordered it all destroyed for being too hard to trol. I warned him about that, but-”

  “Anyone could have warned him about that,” Varrow interrupted. “I could have from when I saw those fools in the army try to use it to cover an advahere’s a differeween advising and making, and it should be the tter when you’re using air that chokes people to death.”

  I swallowed an argument. “We’re here to discuss current business, not past business. We discuss that ter after this mess is handled.”

  “And what is this mess?”

  “Do you want to know? All I need is a location, Varrow, and we leave your involvement at only that.”

  “And I don’t imagine my involvement in this mess is going to end at this. I’m an old man who wants to be left alone, Harrow.”

  My lips quirked, almost f a smile. “Alright.”

  So I told the story, leaving a few details out for my be. And for Tolman and Arsene, who didn’t need any attentiht down on their heads. The su, and the moon was asding the sky as I fihe tale.

  Varrow was quiet for a few seds, then a few minutes. Finally, he spoke.

  “Shape-gers? I’m supposed to believe that?”

  I didn’t know what was strahat he was questioning my at or that he was the first persoioning my at. I supposed Voltar has probably found other evideo support it perhaps, and Versalicci, well, he may very well have asked the Duke about it.

  “Does you believing in it ge if you’ll tell me?” I asked. “You wao know. I gave you an answer. It’s not my responsibility to vince you of its truth.”

  Varrow grunted. “Two hundred pounds is the cost. And only once I’ve seen the money.”

  “Fair enough. I find you again here?”

  “When I decide to cut and run, it’ll be after getting my , not before. Unless I start hearing rumors about me helping you, in which case I’m running out of your rat trap.”

  “Fair enough.”

  It was a hefty sum, but I imagine Voltar could be vio part with it.

  And if not, well, there could only be so many piers he fish shop Varrow liked.

  ***

  “You wao pay yraor two hundred pounds?”

  I was ba the same room I, Voltar, and Dawes had talked in previously, although it was only me and Voltar now. Outside, the moon had asded past the window’s view, and I stifled a yawn. It had been an hour of recapping everything that had occurred since I left, and only now had I reached the end.

  “He’s got a pce where he lives, which makes him not a vagrant,” I said. “And yes, I want you to pay him two hundred pounds. sider it an iment.”

  “I already have an informatiowork that does not need adding a an and pickpocket. I have several I trust far more than him, both in terms of their ability and general trustworthiness.”

  I took a sip of tea, enjoying the sweet, musky taste as I drank. I o ask what blend this was at some point.

  “But do they know where this hideout is?” I asked.

  “They don’t. I know where we find it. Varrow is a creature of habit and doesn’t eveo be tailed to find out where the fish shop he buys seafood is, as he only ever leaves half blocks of time free, meaning there’s perhaps a mile and a half of piers that be reached in time for a return trip. A bit broad of an area, but even if the Pure Bloods have learned subtlety, their movements will leave traces behind. Do you wish me to tinue?”

  “No.” I put the cup of tea down, sighing. “You’ve made your point. Still, it would save time, and I owe the old man. I’m willing to pay you back if you do this for me.”

  “Seems to me the simplest way to help him would be to keep treating him. Samander extract should do the trick, so unless you decide not to keep him supplied, that shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “That depends on me being paid. Something we haven’t discussed, again because you don’t o do it. You already have a set of swords over my head, remember?”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t worry about costs. We pay our tractors well, and their expenses. But that’s more a discussion for when Dawes is back.”

  Oh, but I worried, not so much about costs and more about being one of their ‘tractors’. I wao be rid of all of this by the end, a fantasy I’d tio g to till everything keeping it hanging had been cut.

  “But enough on Varrow. There’s been a variety of things to sider because of today. Your brother-”

  “Not my brother. Factually incorrect,” I interrupted.

  Voltar rolled his eyes. “Your half-brother-”

  “Family is more than just blood,” I said, cutting him off to clearly mounting frustration. “Just because we share blood doesn’t make us siblings, and I’d ask you not to do so iure.”

  Voltar sidered that for a sed before starting again.

  “sidering his mentorship and help, he’s provided you, your surrogate father-”

  “What do you get out of provoking me, Voltar?” I asked. “You already have a sword over my head. You drop anytime. Several, in fact, between Montague and the Imperial gover. Are y to irritate me?”

  “Yes, I am, for a few reasons. An easily provoked Diabolist is useless, and also because I’ll need you posed for our little journey.”

  He’d already picked up a lead for us to follow? Also why would I o be posed?

  “I still row my eye. And examihose rocks. If they are from a petrified person, we should be able to match up at least some of the fragments to create, well…a piece of whoever etrified. And there’s other methodologies, but they’d create more of a mess.”

  Reversirification on a portion of a body not put back together would probably result in a blood-spttered mess. For an instant, all the systems of life would return and try to fun and then suffer the logical result of them being disected from the rest of the body.

  “There will be time for you to do both of those things and discuss your discoveries, but after we o pursue our lead. Ms. Harrow, have you ever been to Lord Montague’s estate?”