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happy to see me, I guess that made us even. Vala in particular looked as though she’d bitten into a rotting pastry, as she stood there angrily tapping one toe. That they hadn’t bolted while I was out of sight told me that whatever else the pair might be, they were pretty desperate. They
needed
me. And that, more than anything else, was why I was going to help them, because Triss was right. My goddess might be gone, but I was ever and always her Blade, and even if I didn’t entirely know what that meant in her absence, part of it had to be helping those who really needed me.
    “Where to?” grunted Stel.
    “Follow me.” I headed for the little gate that led from the courtyard out onto the streets.
    “Not till you tell us more about yourself,” said Vala.
    “How about this then?” I asked without slowing down. “I’m leaving. And I’m leaving right now, because the fucking Elite and their Crown Guard minions are going to be crawling all over this place in something between ten minutes and half an hour. If you want to stay and meet them, that’s your lookout. But if you want my help, you’ll be coming with me. It’s your choice.”
    Vala said something in a gutter Kodamian that I didn’t understand, but it sounded rude. Then they fell in behind me.
    “We’re not used to being treated so high-handedly,” said Stel.
    I didn’t answer and I didn’t stop moving. I’ve never held any sort of noble in all that high of esteem, and I wasn’tabout to make an exception for Dyads just because they did a better job than most of a bad lot.
    In the ruling houses of Kodamia the mage gift and familiar gift ran in different bloodlines, and a mage with no familiar was no mage at all. The lack of proper mages to defend them could easily have led to the ruination of the city-state.
    Instead it had become one of Kodamia’s greatest assets. As it turned out, it wasn’t having a familiar that was the important thing, it was having a
familiar bond
, a pairmate of some sort who could act as a lens to focus your magic. So the children of Kodamia’s mage-gift-bearing sorcerer caste became the bond-companions of the children of the warrior caste who carried the familiar gift.
    Because both halves of the pairing were human, the bonding was the tightest of any mage/familiar coupling in the whole of our world. Too tight by my standards. The two literally became one. But that, along with intense training, allowed them to accomplish things no other school of magery could even hope to manage.
    The streets of the Stumbles were quiet and unnaturally empty and dark. Normally at this time of night, you couldn’t have gone ten feet without fending off a couple of half-a-riel-a-lay whores, three caras snufflers, and a slit-purse pretending to be a sleepwalker, most of them carrying their own lights. But even the beggars and other gutterside players had vanished. News like three dead Elite traveled fast in a place like the Stumbles.
    Windows were closed and doors barred on houses and taverns alike, and everywhere lights were out. The only illumination came from the stars and the half-full moon, but that didn’t make me feel one jot less exposed. I could feel eyes looking out from the cracks between shutters and various other peepholes. Not to mention the fact that the lack of light would make an ideal hunting environment for the restless dead. They were rare in the city proper, but this sort of deep darkness would draw them out of their lurking places if there were any around.
    Taking the Dyad back to one of my fallbacks instead of simply vanishing into a cloud of shadow seemed ever more dumb. For perhaps the dozenth time I glanced over at the laboring Stel and considered how much simpler my life would be if I just walked away right now. If it weren’t for the part where I knew I’d have to look at myself in the mirror to shave, I might even have tried it. I sighed.
    “What is it?” asked Vala, sounding suspicious. “Why do you keep