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Fugitive Storm




The next morning was a little better. She woke up when a bird decided it wanted to attract a mate right next to her window, and no amount of glaring or throwing things at it would shut it up. Instead of trying to get back to sleep with that racket going on Amaranth trudged downstairs. Spider was already up, or maybe still up, and making tea and bread with butter. She grabbed a slice almost out of his fingers.

"Isn't that going to make you sick?" he grumbled at her, buttering another slice.

She talked around her mouthful of breakfast. "Doubt it. Simple stuff goes down easily." Chew, chew, swallow. "Where is everyone?"

"Still asleep. It's barely after dawn."

She forebade from asking the next question that came to mind, namely, why was he still up or up this early, and went and pulled up a chair, curling up on it. After rescuing her head from the whistle of the boiling kettle, he came and sat down next to her. The tea didn't smell as bad as she'd thought; a pleasant, earthy smell.

"Had any thoughts about how we're going to approach someone or who we should go after to back us against Tolliver?" she asked, after he'd had a few sips of tea and she'd had a chance for her head to settle.

He shrugged. "The best ally against an enemy is one who has made an enemy of him, he is most eager to see that enemy defeated." Quoting some ancient philosopher she knew nothing about, most likely. "There's a few trade guilds who've lost a lot of shipments, money and goods, to Tolliver. And to Bartiss. We could always go ask them. Or the city governments, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help us in exchange for cutting down on non-government-sanctioned crime."

"You mean cutting down on crime," she started to point out, before realizing what he meant. No, city governments did enage in crime. Less of the brutal sort and more of the polite and behind closed doors sort, but it was still crime. "Never mind. All right, which did you want to go after first?"

"Probably the city governments. They're more used to making deals they don't like." More tea-sipping. She tried to identify it by smell and couldn't. Upstairs, the floorboards creaking, or maybe it was the beds, soft enough that he didn't seem to hear it even though it sounded to her as though they were in the next room. "We find the one that's been most afflicted by the pirates and we go after them with a plan to take down the pirate empire. And if they say no, we go to the next one, and imply that the first one offered to help."

"And where does that get us?" Amaranth frowned. Spider favored the question with a disappointed look.

"They won't want one city to be cured of its criminal disease without gaining a similar advantage themselves. They'll take us up on our offer for that reason alone."

"Unf." Amaranth poked a knife at the butter until she decided she wanted another piece, and got up to get the bread. "So we're pitting them all against each other."

"Yes."

"And hoping we don't get squashed in the middle."

Spider shrugged. "It isn't a perfect plan." And yet, it was one that he seemed at ease with. Possibly because he had done this before; she still didn't know the full extent of his reach, but it was enough to find her on the ship and enough to bring her to a safe house in a distant city. She had the feeling he was more influential and therefore more powerful than his casual feet-on-the-table attitude indicated. Which still didn't make her feel any better.

She shook her head. "So, what, we march on up to the capital and tell them there's a plot afoot, and we need their help to foil it?"

"Nothing so dramatic," he told her, amused. "We'll go to the mayor's hall, the center of commerce, and talk with the Minister of Trade or the Port Authority. We'll ask for their support with information and goods, which we will of course requisition with all the proper documents, to get this battle off of everyone's ports so that government-sanctioned smugglers and privateers can continue with their business as usual."

"When you put it that way, it sounds so easy." She paused. "And cold-blooded."

"Government is a cold-blooded business. Why do you think I'm not in it?"

"You'd be perfect for government," retorted Malachy, coming down the stairs with sleepy eyes and a scowl on his drool-crusted mouth. "Is that tea cold yet?"

"Yes. Heat it gently, remember Amaranth's head." Both of them glared at Spider for that, Amaranth for his patronizing tone and Malachy for everything else. "We were just discussing our plan to go apply to the Port Authority or the Trade Minister for help."

Malachy grunted. "This is going to have to wait until I've gotten some tea and toast in me, I don't understand a word of what you've just said."

"Mornings aren't his strongest suit," Spider whispered to Amaranth loudly enough that his friend could hear even without her enhanced hearing.

Malachy was awake enough to make a rude gesture, at least. He boiled the kettle, sifted the leaves through the water, then wrapped both his hands around the rough clay mug and stared at it, leaning his shoulders against the wall, till the silence stretched out and thickened the air around them. Eventually Amaranth curled up both feet under her and had to ask.

"So." They both looked at her. Upstairs, more people stirred. "Do you actually think this will work?"

"Mm?" Malachy took a sip of his tea. "Going to the Port Authority?. Most likely. Oh, they'll assume we have an ulterior motive, and we do, but they won't question it if we give them a solid plan. One thing we have going for us is that we aren't a part of their world. Likely what's been keeping Tolliver and Bartiss in power is that they know all the soldiers and the Ministry men, they know how they're trained and how they move. And until these last few years that hadn't been a problem, they had a deal in place."

"And now..."

"Well, after the curse, that changed," he shrugged. "Tolliver got greedier, or maybe just more desperate. He stopped obeying the rules. Stopped playing the game, and so did Bartiss, and the cities are worried that will set an example for others. The game is what's been keeping everything in order for so long. As long as everyone agrees to play by the rules, the damage is..."

"Mitigated," Spider muttered to the tabletop. "Lessened."

"Yes."

Amaranth looked down at the tops of her knees and thought about all the knifings and people thrown over the edge of the docks, their bodies never to be found again. If this was mitigated damage, then, yes, the Trade Ministries were right to fear what would happen if the pirates got out of control. As, it seemed, they had.



---

Amaranth resisted asking what was taking them so long, mostly because at least two people had already asked. She also sat herself firmly in her chair and didn't move, in part because Malachy was doing enough pacing for all three of them but also because she wasn't sure she could get up and move without falling over. It felt as though she could feel the swaying of the city in the wind beneaht her feet, never mind that it had never bothered her before. She didn't like it much.

"They'll be done when they're done," she muttered, as Dodger opened his mouth to ask again. At least, she assumed that's what he was going to say.

Malachy looked down and over at her, pausing in his circuit up and down the long, arch-tall hallway. "You know, you could go in there and testify if you wanted to. Back up his case."

Amaranth shuddered, shook her head and wrapped her hands around her shoulders, arms crossed over her chest. "No. No no no. Not going to..." Testify. Get flayed over the coals. Whatever it was they were doing. "Spider can handle it on his own."

Which was true, as far as that went. They'd sent him in because he was the most used to dealing with this kind of thing out of all of them, and because he was the quickest of tongue and mind. And because he was the central figure in all of this, at least as far as information went. He'd made the argument that it would be easier with her next to him giving first-hand testimony, but after she'd glared and threatened to throw up on everyone's shoes, he hadn't pressed.

It wasn't as bad as all that, either. She was getting used to the excessive input, to the way it made her skull vibrate and her bones go to water. She was even getting used to the ache that had started up in her bones the night before, nothing worse than sleeping on a wrong bed. But the fear of it getting worse gnawed at her. The idea that she would turn into one of those wraith like things.

"Just thought I'd mention," Malachy shrugged, spreading his hands. "You look fit enough to testify."

"Just because I look like it doesn't mean I am," she retorted. "Anyway, what if it gets worse?"

"From what I've seen, you're not going to get much worse than you are now, not quickly, anyway. You're holding up better than the last ... three, I think." And there had only been four. Three or four, she couldn't remember. Amaranth frowned at him. "You are. I promise."

Her arched eyebrows told him exactly where he could stick that promise. "And where do you get that information?"

"Spider had a spy on the ship, remember?" he shrugged. "And we have a couple other sources who won't identify themselves."

"Not that Serpentine woman."

Who was now trussed up like a holiday goose and tucked in the back of a wagon, being driven around to the back of the Ministry building as a gesture of good faith. That thought made everyone smile a little.

"No, not the Serpentine woman. At least, I'd assume she would have told us if she were our source."

She wondered who the source could be, though. They lapsed into silence and she lapsed into her now usual curled up position, thinking about who she had met during her brief stay on the ship. Ambrose was certainly odd enough to be a source, he didn't seem to have any clear loyalties to anyone. Which made a question of why he would inform on the Captain at all, why he would place his loyalty or at least his allegience with Spider instead of the person with whom he sailed. The galley cook would have access to all kinds of useful information like that, and he seemed to be the one most intimately connected with the brides, wives, whatever they were. The captain's wraiths.

There were other sailors, a handful of them, who had been less than raucous and not so cruel as some of the others in their taunts to any woman who came aboard. Ones who seemed like they thought more than the average sailor on that particular ship, they might not have access to information, but they might be able to ferret it out.

After several minutes of going round in circles she gave it up for an impossible question and looked back down the hall to the great closed doors.

"They're not adjourned yet," Dodger rumbled over her shoulder.

"I can see that, thank you."

Time passed. The color of the sunlight through the windows changed, though she didn't think the others could see it. She started to measure it by how many shades it passed through. From a pale yellow, the color of a single lemon pip, to a slightly deeper yellow like saffron-stained bleached cloth, to a deeper yellow still.

When the doors creaked open at last it was so loud and caught her so unprepared for it that she jumped, jumped and yelled and clutched at her head. Malachy turned to her, the other two turned towards Spider, who had come out with his mouth open to say something and now stared at her instead.

"What," she muttered, when she could think again past the pounding in her ears. "What did you say."

"I didn't say anything," he said mildly, though she knew he'd muttered a curse under his breath. Too loud, everything was too loud. She tried to focus on the sunlight again, and the texture of the seat under her backside. "They heard us, and now..."

The doors closed again behind him. At least this time she was prepared for it, even if she did wince. "And now?"

Spider looked over his shoulder, muttered something again, and shook his head. "And now we wait for them to deliberate."

Malachy continued to hover over her, eyebrows arched and jaw clenched in displeasure. "And how long will that take? We're not exactly drowning in options and time, here."

"It will take as long as it takes," he shrugged. "I had the impression that they wouldn't keep us here very long, although they don't think much of us. For all I know they could let us sit here and stew till morning."

"I could be dead by morning," Amaranth muttered, clutching her still pounding head. "I rather wish I was."

Of all the sympathetic looks slung her way, not a one of them was helpful. Wisely, none of them offered comment, either.



---

After several hours, they decided to head back to their lodgings, which Amaranth had learned was a boarding house owned by a friend of Malachy's. They left word with one of the staff as to where they could be reached when the Ministerial Council reached its decision, but no one held out much hope that that would be any time soon.

When they got back Spider insisted she be tucked into bed, and while she protested that she wasn't tired, once her head hit the pillow and the door was closed behind her, muffling the sound, she woke only when the Council's messenger came through teh creaky old door.

"What's the decision?" she heard Spider ask, terse. And then a voice she didn't recognize, who must be the messenger.

"They'll back you. But no one can know about this. No one outside of this room."

Well, she wasn't in the room, she was just eavesdropping from upstairs in a way that the messenger didn't expect. Which made Amaranth wonder how much Spider had told them about her curse. Probably not that.

"I will swear to you on any oath you want that no one in this room will tell anyone outside of it."

No, he had to know she was listening upstairs, that was too convoluted a phrase to mean anything else. If she overheard, they didn't need to tell her.

The messenger made them swear to it on things she knew no one in that room held sacred, and they got down to business.

"Of course, should any member of your team be caught or investigated by any other city government or nation, we will deny that you ever existed in our books. Which in fact you don't. You will be paid in gold, gems, and other material goods. Nothing will connect you to the Ministerial Council, do you understand?"

"Of course," Spider said, in that drawling tone that he used whenever the person he was speaking to was being an idiot. "And the rest?"

The responding tone was disapproving. Spider had that knack for getting under other people's skin. "You will investigate this escalation of unpleasantries between independent Captains Bartiss and Tolliver. You will stop it from proceeding beyond either of their ships. They don't care how you accomplish this, and they don't really care to know any of the details, so long as it is done and you don't get them involved."

Amaranth could imagine the man's face. Scowling and disgusted at having to work with criminals, whoremogers and smugglers and brokers of information. Not a man with a great deal of lateral thinking, she decided. Or he would have realized already that his masters, while titled and holding positions of power in the city, were little better than the same. Especially in the floating city states, which were known for being corrupt.

"We'll see to it," Spider said. "If there's nothing else..." A chair scraped back from where it had been sitting. Probably that was either Malachy or Dodger making a threatening and looming gesture.

It made her smile to think of that, and the expression on the functionary's face that likely resulted.

"You'll be expected to deliver regular reports," was his parting shot as he either left or was escorted out. Escorted, she thought, by the footsteps. More than one set.

She gave it a hundred-count before she crept down the stairs, after she heard the door close behind him. No one seemed surprised to see her. Spider nodded. "You..."

"I heard." Before he could say anything or otherwise break a promise, even though she didn't think he cared about that. "So what's our next step?"

"Requisitions."

She hadn't thought it was possible for someone to look so gleeful at that bureaucratic word. Then again, if she had access to a nearly bottomless coffer of coin and weapons and whatever else she might want, maybe she would look that gleeful, too. "What are we requisitioning?"

"Supplies for a ship," Spider gave the man a disgusted, annoyed look. "Weapons for each of us, including you, if you think you can fight. Some of that might actually make you a better fighter if you learn to use it." He tilted his head at her as though looking her up and down, though he turned his gaze back to the table where they'd been planning and drinking. She didn't know what he meant, but if it was something he wanted to pursue she'd definitely be hearing about it on this trip. Wherever they were going.

"Where are we going?"

"Back home," he grinned at the table, and it was an unsightly, avaricious grin. "This all started back home, so we need to see what's going on there, if anything, that we should know about. And most of my resources are there," he added, some of the glee fading away. "I left instructions to get all the information on Bartiss and Tolliver's movements for the last year. We should know something by the time I get back."



---

Spider's ship was much, much smaller. There were no individual cabins, no privacy or personal space. The closest Amaranth got to privacy was the quiet time in the small back room or when everyone gave her a wide berth after she was sick over the side. Pity the poor person who was under that when it landed. Most people who got sick on these ships tended to do it in buckets, hauling the waste behind them and emptying it when they got to port. She didn't always make it to the bucket, though.

And she wondered if Spider didn't think she was outliving her usefulness. They kept her around, she thought, in case she could provide any useful information as to Tolliver's whereabouts or state, but she didn't get anything from him. Flashes of dreams, maybe, but it was impossible to tell if they were nightmares conjured up from her stay on the ship or actual dreams of what was going on. Ambrose featured heavily in them, which could mean anything. With the Serpentine woman gone, who still wouldn't tell them her true name, Tolliver would have to rely more heavily on his other trusted help.

It was something, at least. It was the best she could offer. Most of the time she sat curled up in the bow of the ship, her back to the wood and bundled in a blanket, trying not to feel the rocking of the ship or hear the way the boards creaked with every footfall.

"Do you think..." Malachy looked at her and then moved a little ways off, taking Spider with him. The clanking of the rigging provided some background noise to cover what they were talking about, but she could read lips, and she could see better than she ever had before. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on them.

Do you think she'll survive the trip? Malachy asked. No need to wonder who they were talking about.

Spider shook his head. He didn't have to say anything, either, Amaranth's stomach dropped down and she ducked her head to her knees for a second, missing what they said next.

We'll have to be careful, Malachy said, his face gone gray and grim. We can't afford to lose her, she's a ... and something Amaranth didn't catch. No, they couldn't afford to lose her, could they. She was the life and the will behind Tolliver. But they couldn't afford to let her live, could they? Maybe they could.

Malachy and Spider parted company, with Malachy going below and Spider lingering on deck, looking over the side and taking their heading again, the direction of the wind. Out here the currents could take them off course if they didn't react quickly.

Amaranth dragged herself to her feet after a little while and walked, hand over hand on the railing, over to him. "Hey there..."

He looked up and over at her, surprised. To see her mobile, maybe, but she could be strong. If they were doubting her ability to handle this, they didn't have to. She was damn stubborn, if nothing else.

"Hey." He frowned. "Should you really be up and about? You need to save your strength."

She shook her head. "If I sit down anymore I think I'll puke over the side again. How's the trip going?"

The look on his face was both less and more reassuring. Less, because it wasn't a happy look, more, because it was the sort of sulky expression he got when little things were making him uncomfortable. When things were really bad he got very quiet and very deadly, and down to business quickly. "Could be better. We keep running into sharp cross-breezes, but we should be there within the time I said we would. Why?"

She bit back the sarcastic response she wanted to make and shook her head. "Just wondering when I can expect to not be sick anymore. Although if this keeps up I'm going to be feeling it every time one of the cities takes a strong gust."

His eyebrows arched. "Maybe we should send you groundside."

Her face paled even more than it already was from the sickness. "No. Don't you dare. Don't you dare think of doing that." Groundside was a terrifying place. Full of large animals and hard surfaces and strange temperatures, quicksand and insects and things. She didn't know what it was like groundside, her parents had grown up in the sky cities. And she didn't want to find out the hard way either.

Spider laughed at her expression. "They're not that bad. You might even like it. And it doesn't sway."

Bile burped up in the back of her throat. "I'll take my chances, thanks. How is everyone else? Not worrying about me, I'm guessing," she smiled, making a joke of it and spitting the bile to one side, by a refuse bucket. He grimaced.

"We're managing, thanks." And then, with less irony. "Malachy has some suspicions..."

About what and what suspicions had to wait. Shots rang out, loud and deafening to her, from below. Deafening to her but normal sounding to the rest of the crew, she guessed, trying to think past the ringing in her ears. Spider was already on his way below decks, as were three others of their hired crew. If they were saying anything, she missed it, but she did feel the pounding of boots all around her. And there was a new smell in the air besides the crisp lightning scent and the sweat of bodies on the wind. Blood smell. It got stronger with every passing breath.

Something had gone very, very wrong.

Bit by bit, her hearing came back. In watery waves at first, low-pitched sounds that carried to her in blurry voices, catching only half of what they were saying. Someone was dead. Someone had tried to escape, and she knew of only one other prisoner on here besides herself. If prisoner was what she was.

Her first thought was to swear at the loss of a bargaining chip. Then to wonder what Tolliver would think about his woman dead. And then realizing that she had been of House Serpentine, who weren't all that sanguine about their members dying in the normal course of House feuds, let alone those involving pirates.

She had been out of their auspices for years, though. Sailing with Tolliver's crew. Would that make them less or more likely to want revenge?

Spider had to be thinking the same thing. They all were. Could they even afford to think about that right now? Amaranth retreated back to the bow of the ship to try and get her hearing back. To her surprise, she didn't feel sick anymore, and it took until the ship banked sharply and she tensed in expectation of another heaving fit to realize it.



---

They pulled in to the dock in silence. Amaranth had wrapped herself in blankets and then a cloak in a manner that looked very much like the shrouded brides she'd seen on the other ship. Which she had only realized after someone pointed out that she looked like a corpse shrouded for burial. That hadn't made her feel any better.

Everyone discussed, in quiet tones and where they thought she couldn't hear, the implications of the Serpentine woman's death. She was getting tired of them assuming she couldn't hear their whispers, when they all knew (or seemed to know) about her super-powered senses. Then again, maybe they were assuming the gun blasts had deafened her more permanently. She hadn't disabused them of either notion, but at the same time it didn't make her feel any better. She hadn't even known the bitch's name.

Spider made things easy on no one. He pulled the crew together with terse orders and sarcastic remarks that pulled at all the strings he could find, on everyone. Finding their weaknesses and insecurities and worrying at them mercilessly until they did what he wanted. Amaranth he spared, perhaps because ignoring her was the worst thing he could do to her already. And he knew that. The bastard.

"We're coming in," Malachy said needlessly, coming up behind her. She couldn't tell from just his voice if he was still mad, perhaps at her, or if he had calmed. He had been furious at everyone after the woman's death, because she had forced him to shoot her. Coming at him with a knife and then when that didn't work, seeming to try to wrestle the pistol from him only to shoot herself in the stomach with it. To make it look as though he'd murdered her? He didn't know. No one else had been in that corner of the deck at the time, though many who'd been taking what little sleep they could, off shift, had heard the argument.

"I shouldn't have started this," she muttered. "I shouldn't have gone looking for stupid bloody Tyrell, I shouldn't have..." But what that had to do with anything, she didn't know. If it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. If it hadn't been her, Tolliver would have found a way, regardless. The pieces had started to fall into place. He was learning how to compensate for the curse.

She'd told herself that over and over, and it still didn't help. Very little helped, these days.

"Another few days and you'll be free of it," Spider came up behind his friend. "One way or another."

It took Amaranth a second to realize that he was talking to her. "You say that as if..." And then they docked, and the movement sent her bolting for the familiar steadiness of the docks even with the wind, and only the quick action of one of the sailors kept her from careening over the edge. Damn. She should better remember that, and pay attention.

They managed to trudge to Spider's little office near the docks without further incident, at least. Her shoulders hunched over against the glares more than the wind, fingers pulling the cloak tight around her. That was one decent thing about this whole mess; most fabric didn't chafe her skin. Somewhere in there it had occurred to her that another reason the women went around so shrouded was because their skin couldn't tolerate anything rougher than silk.

Spider wouldn't like that, either. Assuming she lasted long enough for that to become an issue. Assuming this whole thing lasted that long.

"Hey!" she ran straight into Malachy's back, where he'd stopped just outside Spider's office. "What are you..."

She stopped when she finally listened to what all her senses were telling her, which was that everyone was on edge and something was wrong.

"... what are you all staring at," she moved around the tallest of them, only to stop and stare herself. At a very bedraggled, very exhausted looking Leopold Tyrell sitting on Spider's front step.



---

The office was crowded with all of them in it. Amber and Tyrell had places in the middle where everyone could see them and keep an eye on them, for different reasons.

"You weren't supposed to actually get ahold of me," he told them all, bitter and shivering still. If she didn't know better she would have said he was a victim of the same ritual that she'd been through. Except there couldn't be two of them, could there?

She tried to imagine Tyrell on that altar, and stifled a giggle into the blanket over her knees.

"What did you think would happen?" Spider asked, incredulous. In the corner, one of the girls took notes in some kind of archaic shorthand.

"Did you think you could just wander around with pirates and criminals, play your little games with them and expect to walk around and conduct your life as though you weren't doing anything wrong or dangerous?"

Really, he only said what they were all thinking. And by the look on Tyrell's face he both had thought that and realized how idiotic it was now, after the fact. "I didn't think they'd..."

"You're an asset," Dodger said, in the same tone as one might comment that it was windy today. "The rival Captain, Bartiss, wants to deprive Tolliver of his assets. That includes you. When he couldn't get you captured by the Finders and taken away that way, he tried to have you killed."

That hadn't occurred to Tyrell, who was banging his handsome blond head on his closed and doubled fists. Amaranth again buried her face against her knees, this time to hide the smile. This was far too satisfying. "Oh, would you stop that?" she told him finally. "You're not dead, you're not even dying. I am, and because of you, so just... shut it."

Spider gave her a look, too, over his shoulder. "Thank you for that," he muttered. "Need I remind you that no one got you involved in this except yourself? You could have let someone else in your Guild ..."

Amaranth rose out of her seat quickly enough to startle everyone, including herself. "I did let someone else in my Guild help me. I dragged him along. And he's dead because of it."

Everyone went silent. If Tyrell had even seen, he'd forgotten. No one else had known because Amaranth was too busy trying to stay alive and unhindered to say anything or even remember, at some points. She sat back down while they recovered, while she pulled herself back together and tried to stuff those feelings back in their box.

"So," Malachy turned back to Tyrell, frowning. "Now you have some idea of what we're willing to do to see your masters get justice, what do you..."

"I'll testify. Bring a justice or adjuticator over, I'll give testimony and oath to everything I know. I just want to ... I want this over. I just want this over," he said to the insides of his palms.

No one sympathized aloud, although Amaranth understood the feeling. "Little Petal," Spider beckoned to his other girl, and Amaranth shivered. It was a little too close to the brides, all of a sudden. But it was the way Spider had always operated, and it hadn't been unnerving until now. Besides, they didn't have the time to argue with him about it. "Go down to the sixteenth district, down on Water Street, there's an adjuticator's house and they should have someone there even at this hour. Get them. Don't take no for an answer."

She frowned a little at the tiny woman, wondering what that meant. Given Spider, it could mean just about anything, she wouldn't put it past him to have assassins on his staff.

"Do you think this will even work?" Malachy folded his arms and started to pace a slow circle around the desk, frowning. "I mean, do you think his testimony will be enough?"

Spider shrugged. "He's a minor lord, and an unwanted son at that..." That made Tyrell flinch, which seemed to be the desired effect. "But he's still a titled lord, and that carries with it certain expectations and assumptions. One of them being that if he gives his sworn word to something, it's the truth."

"But it doesn't have to be," Amaranth frowned.

"No, it doesn't have to be, but it will, won't it?"

Tyrell didn't look intimidated. He didn't even look upset, or at least, not more upset than he had. He looked bedraggled and miserable, giving the appearance of a drowned rat even if he was dry and whole. "Yes, it will. I'll tell everything. They haven't done anything to protect me, why should I do anything to protect them?"

Because they would come after him if they knew he was alive, if they knew he was talking. At least, that's what she assumed. Tolliver and Bartiss both seemed very keen on protecting both their power bases and their persons, and that included tying off all loose ends that might snag on some city's justice system. It was, she had to admit now that she thought of it, a miracle that Tyrell had survived this long. How long had it even been?

No one said anything but short statements and inquiries about food and drink between then and when the adjuticator came back. Little Petal looked none the worse for the wear, whatever had happened. "Did you run into any trouble?" Spider asked, one hand clasping her shoulder and looking her over, which made Amaranth think a little better of him.

She shook her head. "No trouble." And then she slipped into the next room, stepping neatly around all of them without touching them. Strange woman.

It might have been her imagination, but everyone else in the room seemed to shrink back from the mild man in the brown robes with the book under his arm. The adjuticator either didn't notice or didn't care, looking around and then at Spider, who gave off the impression of being in charge. "You sent for me to take a testimony?"

"Yes, if you please." Spider pulled out a chair for the man, who looked older than the city. "This is Leopold Lyndsey Tyrell, he'd like to give testimony on his involvement with Captain Tolliver and the captain's illegal operations in this and a number of other cities."

"Do you, on your oath and by your word and your seal, swear that the testimony you give today before these witnesses is the full and complete truth, to the best of your knowledge and ability, with no relevant details omitted?"

"I so swear." Tyrell sounded defeated, but he made the gesture of honor and spoke the words, and no one seemed to challenge it. He started to speak, and no one made a sound.