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trees. I would have to cross the gardens outside the south wall, or considerably widen my arc of travel, but otherwise I could flush out whatever wards the visitor had set. It was the work of twenty minutes or so to creep full circle. I found nothing except a fox and a few angry jays bickering amid the fall corn.
    Now was time to face whatever hunted for me. While I was skulking in the woods, the intruder had gained access to the interior of the cottage. Not gone, certainly, for I would have marked his departure, but Ilona had admitted him within. Or she had been forced.
    Abandoning caution, I sprinted for the door and burst through, short knife held low in my right hand. Ilona jumped up from the kitchen table, dropping her second-best crockery bowl to shatter in a shower of beans on the flagstone floor, while Chowdry stood to meet my attack.
    I turned my blade in to the wood, unable to stop from slamming bodily into my old friend and sending him flying across the table. Grabbing the edge to right myself, I gasped several short, sharp breaths to regain my usual calm.
    â€œWhat in the name of the Wheel are you doing here?” I shouted in Seliu.
    Chowdry picked himself up and wiped beans from his hand and arms. He bled from several cuts. Ilona rose to stand beside him, her skin flushed. My heart missed several beats at the fear and panic in her face, though she smoothed her expression swiftly enough. “He was looking for you, Green,” she said slowly, picking up my meaning without understanding the language.
    â€œEndurance asks for you,” Chowdry said by explanation, answering in Petraean for the sake of politeness.
    Onetime sailor, cook, and reluctant pirate—or at least coastal raider—I had left this man in charge of the cult I had accidentally founded in the process of bringing down the bandit god Choybalsan. Many prices were paid that day. One of them was that I had made this man who he was. How dare he come to fetch me?
    â€œI do not answer to you,” I snapped.
    â€œAnd you are not answering to the god either,” Chowdry replied mildly. “But he asks for you anyway. Your work in Copper Downs is in danger.”
    â€œThat is the second time I have been told this thing today,” I muttered. “It is not my city, and there are tens of thousands living there. Surely someone among them can step forward.”
    â€œYou sulk, Green,” Ilona said mildly in her most maternal voice, as if chastising Corinthia Anastasia. “It is unbecoming.”
    I whirled away from both of them to regain my composure. “S-sorry about the bowl,” I told the fireplace.
    Chowdry touched my shoulder, a brief gesture of comfort or camaraderie. “I know how you are,” he said in Seliu. “I was wrong not to wait outside where you could see and hear me.”
    â€œYou don’t assassinate someone for the sake of a bowl of beans and a conversation,” Ilona added, though I knew she had not taken the meaning of Chowdry’s words.
    â€œI have killed for less,” I said in my smallest voice, and screwed my eyes shut against the tears. My breath shuddered in my chest, and I was shamed that the two of them could hear it. When I turned back, the compassion in their faces stung me even more. “Why did you come up for me, Chowdry? Your man at Briarpool was already looking.”
    He glanced sidelong at Ilona before answering. “I am not knowing of Briarpool. I am sending only me. I knew you would listen to no one. You never do. Especially not me. But I can be arguing with you. Anyone else is too frightened.”
    Ashamed all over again, I leaned forward and snatched my short knife from the tabletop. I was not a difficult woman! “If you were not frightened, you weren’t paying attention. And who was looking for me at Briarpool?”
    â€œMore Selistani have arrived in Copper Downs from across the sea. Kalimpuri high-noses with their city ways, wearing