Rain had been falling for six days, and the river had opinions about it. A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide.
She had spent four years learning to be unremarkable, and it was about to stop working. In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate.
There is a difference between a debt and a leash, and the difference is usually paperwork. He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards.
There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them. They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation.
“Say the number out loud,” the old man said. “Things you refuse to say out loud tend to get expensive.”
“It is not a rescue,” he corrected. “A rescue implies someone is going back.”
“Whatever you are about to do,” the guard said, “please do it somewhere that is not my shift.”
The contract's ninth clause was written in a hand that did not match the other eight. Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked. “I would have said yes. You never bothered to ask.”
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps. Every question she asked had a cheaper answer waiting behind it, and she refused all of them.
It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous. Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself.
By morning the whole arrangement had changed hands twice, and nobody had raised their voice once.