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common. But not like it had been here. These manses had been built on pit fighters and baby farms. It had been out of his way, but he’d walked through the Warrens to see what the silent half of his new home city was like. The squalor there made the wealth here obscene.
    He was tired. Though not tall, he was thick. Thick through the stomach and, mercifully, still thicker through the chest and shoulders. The nag was a good horse, but she was no warhorse, and he had to walk her as often as he rode.
    The large estates loomed ahead, differentiated from the others not so much by the size of the buildings as by the amount of land within the walls. Where the manses were packed side by side, the estates sprawled. Guards presided over gates of ironwood rather than intricate grillwork—gates built long ago for defense, not decoration.
    The gate of the first estate bore the Jadwin trout inlaid with gold leaf. Through the sally port, he saw a lavish garden filled with statues, some marble, some covered with beaten gold. No wonder they have a dozen guards. All the guards were professional and a few furlongs short of handsome, which gave credence to the rumors about the duchess, and he was more than happy to pass the Jadwin estate. He was a handsome man with olive skin, black eyes, and hair still black as a night untouched by the gray shadows of dawn. Sharing a house with a voracious duchess whose husband left on frequent and lengthy embassies was trouble he didn’t need.
    Not that I’ll find less where I’m going. Dorian, my friend, I hope this was genius. He didn’t want to consider the other possibility.
    “I am Solon Tofusin. I’m here to see Lord Gyre,” Solon said as he arrived in front of the Gyre estate’s gate.
    “The duke?” the guard asked. He pushed his helm back and scraped a hand across his forehead.
    The man’s a simpleton. “Yes, Duke Gyre.” He spoke slowly and with more emphasis than was necessary, but he was tired.
    “That’s a crying shame,” the guard said.
    Solon waited, but the man didn’t elaborate. Not a simpleton, an ass. “Is Lord Gyre gone?”
    “Nawp.”
    So that’s what this is about. The red hair should have tipped me off. Solon said, “I know that after millennia of being raided, the smarter Ceurans moved inland, leaving your ancestors on the coast, and I realize that when Sethi pirates raided your village they carried off all the presentable women—again leaving your ancestors—so through no fault of your own, you’re both stupid and ugly. But might you attempt to explain how Lord Gyre is both gone and not gone? You can use small words.”
    Perversely, the man looked pleased. “No marks on your skin, no rings through your face, you don’t even talk like a fish. And you’re fat for a fish, too. Let me guess, they offered you to the sea but the sea gods wouldn’t take you and when you washed up on the beach you were nursed by a troll who mistook you for one of her own.”
    “She was blind,” Solon said, and when the man laughed, he decided he liked him.
    “Duke Gyre left this morning. He won’t be back,” the guard said.
    “He won’t be back? You mean ever?”
    “Not my place to talk about it. But no, not ever, unless I miss my guess. He’s gone to command the garrison at Screaming Winds.”
    “But you said Lord Gyre isn’t gone,” Solon said.
    “The duke named his son the Gyre until he returns.”
    “Which will be never.”
    “You’re quick for a fish. His son Logan is the Gyre.”
    Not good. For the life of him, Solon couldn’t remember if Dorian had said Duke Gyre or Lord Gyre. Solon hadn’t even considered that there might be two heads of House Gyre. If the prophecy was about Duke Gyre, he needed to get riding, now. But if it were about his son, Solon would be leaving his charge at the time he needed him most.
    “May I speak with Lord Gyre?”
    “Can you use that steel?” the guard asked. “If you can’t, I’d suggest you hide it.”
    “Excuse