And thinking about the three armed men behind her.

Another group was coming their way from up ahead, the other side of a big descending stairway. She saw the Nikolaev men, saw the blond head tall and conspicuous among them—closer and closer. His hands were free. They had got the chain off his neck. He had a white shirt on. He saw her. She just kept walking, meek and quiet, to that stairs where the two groups met; and fell in with him on that wide marble stair.

He looked her way once. That was all.

He don't want me talking. I won't. I won't say a thing.

She caught his eyes a second time, halfway down, made a slight tightening of her lids, a gesture with the eyes.

I ain't helpless, Mondragon.

His own eyes flickered. Maybe he picked it up. He looked away from her, looked where they were going, into an echoing stone hall lit from a skylight above. Rain spattered down on it like thunder, louder when they had gotten clear of the overhang. And faded away as their guides led them farther, steps echoing back as they passed by a side hall, hard-heeled steps loud and echoing in this huge place.

Cold sounds. Hard sounds. Water and stone.

I got me a knife, Mondragon. I dunno if we can get out, but if they put us in that black boat it's over the side and swim far as we can.

City's got as many holes as bridges. I know 'em all.

I'm scared, dammit. I don't like these polite folk. Them and their ways of waving this way and waving that and poisoning the drink they hand you.

A corridor left the big hall near the front; they turned that way, and a man ahead knocked at a door, cracked it and then opened it wide for them to go through.

It was a middle-sized room by rich-folk standards, all finished in wood and lit with electrics that glowed warm-gold as fire. Altair stopped cold at Mondragon's side, seeing white-face there before a true fireplace, him in his black shirt and glitter of rubies about the high collar, sitting sideways in a chair and with one booted leg slung over the arm. He had a paper in his hand, cream and crisp and new. He laid that on the little table by him where a brandy glass sat.

Then he bothered to notice them.

"Ser Mondragon," he said then, leaned back without ever taking his leg from the chair arm, lacing his hands across his belly. "I'm glad to see you looking more fit."

Mondragon said not a thing.

"Sit down, ser." A wave of his hand. "Bring a chair for the young woman." He gathered up the brandy glass and offered it toward them with a lift of the brows while a man was moving a chair over. "Have some? No? I don't doubt m'sera has some acquaintance with brandy. In its traffic."

She stared at the man. Smuggling, he meant.

Lord, they need a chargeagainst me?

"I hired her," Mondragon said. "She was just transport."

"A skip, ser, runs freight. What were you running?" He lifted the glass of amber liquid. "Brandy-barrels from Tidewater? I think that's m'sera's specialty. Are you sure you won't have a glass?"

Mondragon shrugged. White-face snapped his fingers, and glasses happened, a clink or two from a table at the side of the room and a man arrived with a tray and a pair of brandy glasses. Mondragon took his. Altair lifted hers off the lace doily and looked up into the serving-man's expressionless face—Lord, what ishe, some kind of wind-up?

And she looked back to white-face, to that quiet, quiet voice that was all Merovingen and all uptown. Not even Rimmon Isle. Uptown as uptown got, and Revenantist beyond a doubt, in this house.

"I have to congratulate you," white-face said. "In one night you've quite well set the slavers andthe Sword of God in total disarray. The entire militia has hardly effected that much in a year. What project do you propose for the weekend?"

Mondragon lifted his glass, gestured aside with it to Altair. "Let her go. You want to ask me questions. She doesn't need to be privy to anything I know."

"Ah. You propose to answer, then."

"I'll tell you anything you want. Just give her her boat back and let her out of here."

White-face pursed bearded lips. "Now how far would you expect to get, m'sera?"

"I dunno. I'm willing to try."

"Try what? Another assault with firebombs, this time on my hosts of Nikolaev?"

That landed on the mark. She sat still and tried to keep her face quite dead. She set the glass down on the table between her and Mondragon. No sip of that brandy, don't need no alcohol, with my wits already mush. Damn you, white-face.

I got a glass knife in my pocket, white-face. Before they could stop me, he and I'd at least send you to your next life.

Maybe get out of here. Get to Rimmon alleyways. Bridges.

Past that damn great door out there. And half a hundred bullyboys. Sure.

"Canaler," white-face said, "where didyou get involved in this?"

"She picked me up on the Grand," Mondragon said. "A fare. Just a fare."

"Is that so, m'sera?"

"He wouldn't lie."

White-face's lips curved in a sardonic smile. He lifted his glass again, drank, and the smile was no better. "You

have a career in government, m'sera. What do you know about this man?"

"Just what he said."

A dead, long silence.

"I said I'd answer your questions," Mondragon said.

"You will. Yes." Another sip of brandy. White-face set the glass down and shifted round in his chair to set both feet on the floor. "Do you know who you're dealing with, Mondragon?"

"It doesn't matter. I know what you aren't."

"Eeling your way from point to point. You haveno loyalties. A clever man without the least compunction in shifting sides as the wind shifts. Hourly. You're the kind of man everyone should be afraid of—with your abilities."

"I've told you I'll tell you all you want. Do you want me into the bargain? I'll agree. I've told you my price."

White-face set his elbows on the chair arms and touched his fingertips together. "The m'sera."

Thunder rumbled outside. Altair flinched, clenched her hands on the chair arm. "You want me quiet, you let him

go."

"Shut up, Jones."

"No, no." White-face lifted an elegant hand, elbow on the chair arm. "M'sera Jones has an excellent grasp of the problem. She doesn't think she'll live to get to that boat-—"

True, white-face. True.

"—and she wants you to know it. A small hand, but she plays it with devastating force. And takes the game from me and you. You were buying time in the hope I'd not shed too much information on m'sera. Your hand is altogether weakest. You have the ace but you have altogether too many liabilities."

Mondragon made a helpless move of his hand on the chair arm. "You have me in a bad position. I don't doubt you can apply persuasion now. But that doesn't guarantee you the truth-—does it?"

"Ah, well, well-played. Do I threaten m'sera now?" His eyes shifted to Altair. "But he would lie in half he told me. Wouldn't he?"

"He ain't no fool."

"I tell you, m'sera, you do have a talent for the councilhall. Indeed, he's still turning this way and that. But the turns are narrower and narrower, aren't they? Your behavior would be relatively simple to guarantee—all I have to do is keep him in good health. Maybe let you visit him now and again."

O God, it's prison again, it's prison for him same as the other—

She cast a look Mondragon's way, caught one from him, caught that expression in the eye—fear, quiet, profound fear.