“I’ll try.” She gripped me fierce and tight. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Someone afraid of their past. Or maybe a candle fell over. We can’t know which, just yet.”

“Liar.” She wiped her eyes on my sleeve and looked up at me. “He was such a nice man.”

“He was. But the place was a fire, waiting for a spark. I promise you, Darla, if someone did murder him, I’ll see that they pay.”

She nodded, swallowed, pulled away and wiped away her tears. People rushed by on the street. I caught the word war spoken several times, and I know she did too. Her gaze fell on the binder.

“Let’s have a look, then,” she said. “I’ll make us some tea.”

I kissed her then, for no damned reason at all.

Watching Darla work is one of my favorite pastimes.

She chews on pencils. She musses her hair. She paces and glares. She tacks papers up on the wall and writes on them, moves them around, rips them down and tosses them away when they fail to amuse.

I helped by drinking beer and keeping my mouth shut. I tried to follow what she was doing, but she kept to her accountant’s shorthand and I know it like I know Mama’s squiggly hex signs.

Three beers. That’s what it took for her to run out of ledger entries. She rearranged her wall of papers, crossed out things, drew lines between others. Then she stood back, sagged a bit and dropped her pencil.

“There it is.”

I nodded agreeably. “It’s a beauty, all right.”

She rubbed her eyes. “There were three of them, darling of mine. The Colonel. The cook. And a Lieutenant with the initials S.J.”

“Three of them.” I was not smiling. “That complicates matters.”

Especially since Fields had never mentioned a third party.

“Tamar’s father probably didn’t even know about S.J.,” said Darla, reading my mind. Again. “Looks like he came in late. Probably demanded that the Colonel deal him in.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Evis.”

She laughed. “I’m certainly associating with a rough element these days.” She slipped into my arms. “Fortunately, I have you to protect my virtue.”

I was searching for a comeback when there came a knocking at Darla’s door. She frowned. “I’m not expecting anyone.”

“Mr. Markhat? Is there a Markhat here? Hello?”

I let go of her.

“Never heard of him. Who are you?”

“Evis Prestley sent me. My name is Barlow. I have a message. And a carriage too.”

I crossed Darla’s living room and peeked through her lace-curtained windows.

A black Avalante carriage was parked at the curb. A smiling young man in Avalante black stood at her door. He didn’t see me, but he did push his Avalante lapel pin forward just in case I was peeking through the curtains.

His hands were empty. He didn’t have half a dozen bowmen at his back.

“I just remembered. I’m Markhat. Be right out.”

“I’ll wait by the curb.”

Darla sighed. “My virtue is safe once again. Hurrah.”

“Not for long.” I eyed her wall of papers. “Better take that down, hon. In fact-maybe I’d better take it with me.”

“Oh, no. I’m keeping it. Now scoot. Evis wouldn’t have sent a man here if it wasn’t important.”

“At least take it down? Lock your door. Keep it locked.”

“I’m staying with Mary tonight. She’s upset with all the War talk. You could give me a ride.”

“I could indeed. Packed yet?”

“I keep a bag ready.” She darted into her bedroom, popped out an instant later, bag in hand. She snatched her papers off her wall and shoved them down beside her unmentionables.

We left, locking her door behind us before dashing into the wild-eyed crowd lining the street.

I dropped Darla off at Mary’s and saw her to the door. Mary lives in a tiny walk-up in a New People neighborhood not far from my old friends the Hoobins. Mary’s four brothers live next door. They aren’t quite as large as the Hoobins, but unless a trio of ogres showed up looking for Darla I was sure Mary’s siblings could fight off just about anyone who offered their sister or her houseguests harm.

Darla couldn’t have picked a safer place to spend the night. Unless of course it was on a boat headed out of Rannit.

As my carriage wove its way toward Avalante, I watched and listened. What had been conversation and concern yesterday was rapidly building into the panic the Regency sought to avoid by suppressing news of the coming troubles. I saw cabs and carriages packed high with chests and trunks and kids and grannies. People were heading out, fearing Rannit’s fall under siege even if the old walls held.

I couldn’t really blame the people who decided to run. It took the Trolls eight weeks to breach Right Lamb’s defenses. We’d run out of food in five weeks. If it hadn’t rained the last two we’d have died of thirst. I slept with Petey tucked under my arm for fear he might be eaten despite the Army’s ban on anyone but me touching my tunnel dog.

A few minutes of memories from Right Lamb, and I was nearly ready to head for the hills myself.

Instead, I remembered Evis’s note, so I pulled it out and read it and cussed so loud the driver pulled to the curb.

“What’s that, sir?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Dammit.”

“Huh?”

I crumpled the note and threw it out the window. “Forget Avalante. Take me home. To Cambrit.”

“Cambrit, yes, sir.”

And with that, we were off.

I fumed and scowled. Damn you, Evis.

The Regency was underway, headed north to blow the bluffs. Evis was aboard, despite his earlier pronouncement that he would do no such thing. Accompanying him was Gertriss and Buttercup. And of course enough unstable gunpowder to blow a pair of cliffs to gravel.

Evis had written that the Regency was ready sooner than expected, and he saw no need to delay. He’d invited Gertriss along rather than leave her alone in the House, and of course that meant Buttercup was aboard the warship as well. His tone seemed to indicate they’d popped out for biscuits and tea.

All that laughing and giggling. Hell, Evis had probably cooked the whole thing up last night, and Gertriss was only too happy to go along.

I was to expect routine dispatches, starting tonight, which I could pick up at Avalante at my convenience. Important ones would be sent via courier to my office. I assumed that Avalante would be using some sorcerous device to communicate with the Regency, although Granny Knot’s trained pigeons seemed to work about as well.

One day soon, I decided, I was going to need to teach everyone around me a lasting lesson in manners.

Here and there I passed shops with boarded windows and hastily lettered CLOSED signs hung carelessly on the doors. Every corner sported a kid hawking handbills and the attendant tight-lipped crowds. I saw the Watch swoop down on a couple of barkers, but they simply dumped their handbills and vanished.

I stopped and grabbed a handbill myself. RANNIT TO FALL TO INVADERS, it announced, emphasizing its point with a crude rendition of the High House and the Big Bell consumed by leaping flames. OLD KINGDOM KING SEEKS TO REGAIN THRONE.

I crumpled it up and tossed it out the window. As if the man calling himself King was any more the cause behind this than myself, or old Mr. Bull.

We rounded the corner on Cambrit. I sat up and peeked out my window, hoping to find my poor door intact and unmolested.

It was intact, but it wasn’t alone. A big man leaned against it, and two of his big-boned friends helped him idle by squatting on either side of him. Their clothes were ragged and filthy, right out of Pot Lockney.

I cussed, sighed and bade the driver to keep going. If I was forced to fight my way to my icebox and its heavenly stash of beer, I needed reinforcements, and I knew a man who owed me a favor.