Breathing a sigh of relief, Arvin touched the bead at his throat. His mother’s blessing still held; he hadn’t used up his last life, after all… yet.

Whispering the two words that had become his personal prayer, Arvin started to rise to his feet but then thought better of it. Though the militiamen had jogged away, for all Arvin knew, the sergeant might still be waiting on the rooftop above, watching to see if the man he’d been pursuing would emerge from some other, hitherto unspotted hiding place. No, Arvin would wait until he was certain everyone was gone.

Which would give him plenty of time to think about a few things. He thought about Naulg-who probably was dead already, since a yuan-ti hadn’t conveniently taken an interest in him and neutralized the poison in his body. And he thought about Zelia and whether she’d been lying about the spell that would allow her to take over Arvin’s body in seven days’ time. There was a slim chance she’d been bluffing-but Arvin wasn’t willing to bet his life on it. No, the only safe course was to find out everything he could about the Pox, report his findings to Zelia, and pray that she’d show him mercy. Or rather, since Zelia didn’t seem like someone inclined toward mercy, to pray that she’d recognize Arvin’s worth and spare him, just as the Guild had.

In the meantime, there was this little matter of being hunted by the militia-and their tracker. That was going to complicate things.

Arvin settled back into the wet clay with a sigh, waiting for the silence that would be his signal to scramble out of the pot.

CHAPTER 4

23 Kythorn, Fullday

Arvin stood in his workshop in front of a half-completed net that was suspended from a row of hooks in a rafter. Beside him on the floor was a ball of twine spun from yellow-brown dog hair. He worked with a length of it, knotting the silky stuff into row after row of loops. One end of the twine was threaded through a double-eyed wooden needle, which Arvin passed through, around, and over a loop, forming a knot. With a quick jerk, he tightened the knot then went on to the next.

He worked swiftly, unhampered by his abbreviated little finger. Knotting nets and braiding ropes was a craft he’d honed over twenty years, at first under duress in the orphanage then later because it was what he did best-and because it was what the Guild wanted him to do. His hands were much larger than they’d been when he started, but his fingers were no less nimble than when he had been a child. They seemed to remember the repetitive motions of net knotting of their own accord, allowing his mind to wander.

His thoughts kept looping back to the events of last night. To Naulg-dead, he was certain-and his own fortunate escapes. Tymora had smiled upon him not once, but twice. Eluding the militia had been equally as miraculous as his escape from the Pox.

He’d waited in the clay storage pot for some time, until he was certain the militia were gone and none of the factory workers were about. Then he’d scrambled out of the pot, quickly washed off most of the clay with water from a barrel in the courtyard, and crept back to his warehouse. He’d changed for the second time that morning into fresh, dry clothes then prowled the city, peering down stormwater grates, looking for some clue that would lead him to the Pox. He’d hoped to lift one of the grates and slip into the sewers, but every time he found a likely looking one, a militia patrol happened by, and he was forced to skulk away.

His search was further frustrated by the fact that he didn’t dare go anywhere near the sewage tunnels that emptied into the harbor-or anywhere else in the vicinity of the Coil-not for some time, at least. Zelia might be there, or worse yet, the militia sergeant and Tanju. The former looked like a man with a long memory and a short temper, and the latter was a frighteningly efficient tracker. Arvin didn’t want to repeat the morning’s chase and narrow escape.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to find the Pox on his own, he’d turned, reluctantly, to the Guild. He’d made the rounds of his usual contacts, dropping a silver piece here, a gold piece there, putting out the word that he was looking for information on newcomers to the city-newcomers who were heavily scarred with pockmarks. Then he’d retired to the workshop he’d built between the false ceiling and rooftop of the warehouse the Guild had rented for him. Exhausted, he’d fallen into a deep sleep. When he woke up, it was long past Highsun; the air felt heavy and hot. Deciding that he might as well continue with his work, he’d soon lost himself in the soothing, repetitive steps of netmaking.

The net he was working on suddenly vanished. Arvin waited patiently, keeping his fingers in exactly the positions they had been when the twine blinked into the Ethereal Plane. A few heartbeats later, the twine reappeared and he continued at his task.

In its raw form, the blink dog hair was unstable, shifting unpredictably back and forth between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes, but when the net was complete, a wizard would attune it to a command word. This done, the net would then blink only when its command word was uttered. Then Arvin would deliver it and collect his coin.

Arvin had no idea who had commissioned the net. The order had been passed along by a middler who already had the coin in hand and who would take delivery of the net when it was done. Arvin would never know if the product would be used for good or ill-for restraining a dangerous monster or for ensnaring a kidnap victim-nor did he want to know.

When Arvin had first begun working for the Guild, nearly twelve long years ago, he’d quickly realized that the magical twines and ropes and nets he had a hand in creating were used in crimes ranging from theft to kidnapping to outright murder. Not wanting blood on his hands-even at one remove-he’d begun to include deliberate flaws in his work.

Those flaws had been discovered, and an ultimatum delivered. Arvin could continue to produce product for the Guild-quality product-or he could go under the knife again. It wouldn’t be a fingertip he’d be losing this time, but an eye. Perhaps both eyes, if the flaw caused a “serious difficulty” like the last one had.

Arvin had nodded and gone back to his work. He kept smiling as he passed the finished goods to his customers-even when he knew they were destined to be used to kill. In the meantime, he’d begun padding his orders for material, setting some aside for himself. A slightly longer section of trollgut here, a larger pouch of sylph hair there. The extra material was used to create additional magical items that he’d cached in hiding places all over the city. One day, when he had enough of these collected, he’d gather them all up and leave Hlondeth for good. In the meantime, he continued to serve the Guild.

At least this time, with the net he was weaving, he wouldn’t have to meet the customer face to face. It was better not to get to know people, to keep them at a distance, even old friends like Naulg. Trying to help Naulg had only gotten him into trouble. Arvin should have heeded the painful lessons he’d learned in the orphanage.

He’d been only six when he’d been sent there as a “temporary measure”-a temporary measure that had lasted eight long years. Before leaving on the expedition that had turned out to be her last, Arvin’s mother had arranged for Arvin to stay with her brother, a man Arvin had met only twice before. This uncle, a wealthy lumber merchant, had cared for Arvin for two months after his sister’s death. Then he’d set out on a business trip across the Reach to Chondath. He’d placed Arvin with the orphanage “just for a tenday or two,” but when he returned from this trip, he hadn’t come back to collect Arvin.

At first Arvin had assumed that he’d done something wrong, that he’d angered his uncle in some way. But after running away from the orphanage, he had learned the truth. His uncle wasn’t angry, just indifferent. Arvin had arrived at his uncle’s home with fingers blistered from net knotting and tears of relief in his eyes-only to have his uncle pinch his ear and sternly march him back to the place again, refusing to listen to Arvin’s pleas.