Snow came early that year, and it came without any of the usual warnings. Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself.
Every question she asked had a cheaper answer waiting behind it, and she refused all of them. A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide.
“Half the sect thinks you are dead,” she said. “The useful half.”
“It is not a rescue,” he corrected. “A rescue implies someone is going back.”
Three of the seven seals had been broken, and none of them from the outside. There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them.
In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate. He understood, then, that he had been the message and not the messenger.
Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it. They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation.
It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous. Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message.
The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps. She had spent four years learning to be unremarkable, and it was about to stop working.
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked. “I would have said yes. You never bothered to ask.”
The bell rang a third time. This time, everyone was listening.