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Angel Tower.” 
    “A strange name,” said Caina. “Why?” 
    Ark seemed uncomfortable. “Do you want to tell it, or should I?”   
    “You should, I think,” said Halfdan. “You heard it from a better storyteller than I did.”
    “As you wish,” said Ark. He kept his eyes on the street, but began to speak. “According to the legend, there was a war in the heavens, and the angels rebelled against the gods. In the end, the gods prevailed, and the fallen angels were cast out of the heavens. Some were chained for all time in the hells. Some escaped, and wander the earth to torment mankind. And one in particular was thrown out of the heavens with such force that it fell to earth like a falling star and buried itself in the ground. The gods raised the tower to seal the demon in its prison for all time.”
    Ark fell silent, his face distant. Caina watched him for a moment. She realized that Tanya must have told him that story. 
    “A grim tale,” she said at last. 
    Ark nodded. “The Szalds have countless legends like that. Ghosts that drink blood, and men that become wolves, female demons that carry away newborns, and sorcerers that lay curses upon innocents. Grim tales for a grim people.” He shrugged. “They live in peace and tell grim tales. In the Legion we’d tell bawdy tales and do grim things.” 
    “Is that what the horseshoes are about?” said Caina, hoping to turn his mind from the subject of his wife.
    Ark blinked. “The what?”
    “The horseshoes,” said Caina, pointing. A nearby house had a horseshoe hammered into the lintel, a spring of dried flowers tucked between the iron and the wood. 
    “Oh, those,” said Ark. “Another Szaldic superstition. They’re supposed to ward away the Solmonari and the Moroaica.” 
    “What are those?” said Caina.
    “The Solmonari are…different things, depending upon who you ask,” said Ark. “Supposedly they were the wise men of the ancient Szaldic tribes, and went extinct when the Arthags and the Malrags drove them into the Empire. Others say they were an order of wicked sorcerers.”
    “There’s another kind?” said Caina.
    Ark almost smiled. “Whatever the Solmonari were, whether or not they even existed, most of the Szalds think they were evil. So they put up those horseshoes to ward the Solmonari away.”
    “What about the Moroaica?”
    Ark shrugged. “Some kind of demon, I think. It would appear in the form of a woman, and carry off newborn children.” He pointed. “See there, the house with that second horseshoe nailed to the door?”
    Caina nodded. 
    “You can always tell a Szaldic house with a new baby,” he said. “They nail up a second horseshoe then, to ward away the Moroaica.” 
    “A strange belief,” said Caina. 
    “And who is to say that they are not right?” said Halfdan. “There are many strange things in the world.”
    “Most of them conjured up by the brothers of the Magisterium,” said Caina. 
    “There are other sorcerers in the world than the Magisterium,” said Halfdan. “But we should not discuss them on the streets. Bad for business, dear daughter.”
    “True, Father,” said Caina. She gazed at the Black Angel Tower, thinking about fallen angels and blood-drinking demons. It made for grim thoughts, as Ark had said. Yet within the city’s walls were men who would rip children from their mothers and sell them to strangers. 
    No need to dig through dusty Szaldic legends to find monsters. There were plenty here and now. 
    She rode in silence for the rest of the trip, thinking.
    “Here we are,” said Halfdan, pulling the mules to a stop.
    Caina looked up. They had gone into the heart of Marsis, not far from the ring of palatial mansions surrounding the Citadel. The wagon sat before an inn built of timber and white stone, surrounded by small gardens and trees. It did not look nearly as luxurious as the White Road Inn, but it had an understated charm that the White Road had lacked.
    Well. At least