Lark's heart beat a little faster, but she knew nothing showed on her face. No lass raised on the Luskan docks escaped accusations, and when death or maiming could reward a guilty face, one learned fast.

Looking at all of the watchful faces, she decided to cleave close to the truth. There was no knowing what magic trinkets the lords might carry, and if she was caught in a lie…

"After you all left in such haste, I found such a thing, fallen on the stair-snowflake and hawk." Then she told them rueful truth. "It didn't occur to me until now that the design meant 'Hawkwinter.'"

"Where is it now?" Taeros demanded, with far more interest than one might expect from a wealthy nobleman over a simple silver charm.

Lark faced him squarely. "Lord Roaringhorn had lingered in the room, so I asked him to help me learn more about the charm. He took me to an old woman, a mage or priestess of some sort who tried to read its secrets. If you're concerned about losing valuable magic, Lord Hawkwinter, be at ease. The charm has none that she could find."

Taeros sighed in exasperation. "Did it not occur to you to simply ask who among us might have dropped the charm?"

Lark risked a lie. "Of course. I asked Lord Roaringhorn."

The nobles exchanged frowns. "He'd not know," Taeros mused, "but why'd he take it to some witch-woman or other, rather than simply follow us and ask?"

"That was my idea," Lark said. "Serving in taverns, I've seen such charms before. Some men give them as gifts-to girls whose virtue might otherwise be unassailable."

Everyone stared at her.

Lark shrugged. "Such things happen."

"Not among the Gemcloaks, I assure you," Korvaun said firmly.

"What became of the charm?" Taeros asked.

"Lord Roaringhorn was… acting strangely. He talked of The Serpent liking such things. We struggled, and he seized my belt-bag. I got it back from him and fled. What became of him after, I cannot say, but the charm's no longer in my belt-bag."

That was true enough. The charm now rode in a small cloth bag sewn firmly to her shift and hidden beneath her kirtle. If the two lordlings concluded the charm was in Lord Roaringhorn's possession, all the better. He'd deny it, but the frowns on their faces suggested they might now be as disinclined to believe his words as those of a maidservant.

Still, there was little sense courting discovery. Touching a finger to her bruised cheek, Lark turned to Naoni. "By your leave, Mistress, I'd like to use this morn to tend to personal matters."

Naoni promptly proffered her smallcoin-purse. "Take this and see a healer."

Lark backed away, putting her hands behind her. "I can't take your coins for so trifling a hurt! I need rest, nothing more."

Her mistress's smile was weary. "As do we all. Take the day, or two if you see fit."

"This is all fine and well," Taeros murmured in a tone that suggested it was anything but, "yet it serves nothing in retrieving the charm."

"Perhaps," said Korvaun slowly, "there's a way it could be traced…"

Lark bobbed a curtsey and hurried off, Lord Helmfast's words speeding her step.

If magic could track the charm, better the hunt end at Elaith Craulnober's door than at her own!

Varandros Dyre set aside another many-times-amended chart of the sewers and rubbed his eyes wearily. His daughters sporting with wastrel nobles-sneering emptyheads who knew best how to insult people and break things-buildings crashing down and taking good men to their deaths, and now he'd drawn the baleful eye of the Lords of Waterdeep.

Laughing at him behind their masks, preening as they plotted to reach out and smash down one more man who'd been fool enough to stand up to them.

Yet how was a man to make honest coin-in Waterdeep, too, gods cry all? This wasn't Thay or Calimshan or Zhentil Keep! Here the guilds were a man's shield against tyrannical clerks or spiteful Lords-weren't they?

Or was it all a game, and every hard-working merchant of Waterdeep a dupe left to scramble like an ant, as his "betters" sneered down at him?

If they reached out to crush him, as a man swats a stinging fly, what would befall Naoni and Faendra? Who'd stand with them, against… oh, gods.

Who but those nobles: Helmfast, Hawkwinter and the rest? Men who wanted but two things from his daughters, their charms and their coins-and would be gone the moment they'd snatched both.

"Tymora keep me alive," Varandros muttered under his breath.

"Father?" Naoni's voice was sharp with concern.

Dyre's head jerked up. How'd she opened the door without him hearing?

Both of his daughters were standing before him, Faendra bearing a tray holding three tankards of steaming mulled cider. Aye, three, not just his own.. Varandros frowned. "Yes?"

"Are you… well?"

"Well enough." He glanced at the tankards. "You've something to discuss with me?"

"Yes," Faendra told him firmly. Dyre snatched away a pile of building plans as she lowered the tray. Naoni was already moving two chairs to face him across his desk.

"Father, Faendra and I have eyes and ears," Naoni began. "We can't help but notice when things go awry."

"I'm doing well enough," Dyre said gruffly. "When was the last time either of you lacked for anything you needed, or the little fripperies you fancy?"

Naoni grimaced. "This isn't about pretty gowns and trinkets, Father. We're not children. I haven't been a child since my twelfth winter."

The double-edged truth of that struck deep. "Sit then," Dyre growled, "and speak."

The girls sat in smooth unison, gray eyes and blue regarding him gravely.

"You're worried about the Lords of Waterdeep," Naoni said bluntly, "and thinking they're behind the building collapses. You think they're targeting you and your friends in the New Day."

His eyes narrowed. "What know you of the New Day?"

"I heard it shouted like a battle cry as the City of the Dead went mad," she told him. "I saw people die with 'New Day' on their lips. By highsun, not more than a handful of folk in Waterdeep won't have heard of the New Day."

"And these worries are eating at you, Father," Faendra put in, lifting a tankard. "Time and again you stare at yon cellar and sewer maps, thinking the Lords are tunneling under-"

"Yes, yes," Varandros snapped. "So I do! And what affair-"

"Is it of ours?" Naoni broke in. The cold ring of sudden steel in her voice cut through her father's bluster, leaving him gaping at her in silence. "Faendra and I might not actually put mallet to stone, but we manage your home and offices, offer hospitality to your guild friends, run your errands, visit your worksites-and bury your workmen. Why don't you ever confide in us, when there's so little we don't already know? Speak to us."

"And hear our advice," Faendra put in, the quaver in her voice betraying her nervousness. Varandros rounded on her out of long habit; pounce on any weakness in negotiations, and press it "You always told us a prudent man enters no tunnel alone," Naoni declared. She tapped the sewer plans. "Yet that's what you're planning, yes? If you're right about the Lords, they'll be waiting… and you'll die."

"And if you take a crew down without a city contract," Faendra added, looking at the ceiling as if trying to remember her lines and say them precisely, "they'll know, and others will notice-and one way or the other, the Lords will have to move against you."

Varandros Dyre drew in a deep breath and reached for his tankard with a hand that was not quite steady. Then he set it down again, untouched.

"So, now," he said heavily, "you lay out my choices as clearly as I see them myself. Yes, I see those same roads before me. So, now, your advice?"

Naoni stared straight into his eyes and said softly, "You need men to go down into the tunnels with you, men whose status will be your armor and shield. Noblemen."