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.He blinked, watching as lattices of arcane symbols vanished, little by little.Kalen didn't know what to do, but he couldn't leave her.Her arms tightened around his neck and her face pressed into his chest."Gisz vaz.""Very well," he replied, not having the faintest idea what she'd said.He took off his cloak and wrapped her in it.Then he held her tightly, looked around for misr figures—the fog had begun to disperse—and started off at a trot.Cellica's stew—left to simmer until morningfeast—was bubbling when he returned to the tallhouse."You're back early," the halfling said when he came through the open window.She had risen from her cot, a towel wrapped around her little body, but she didn't look sleepy."Did I wake you?" Kalen took care not to hit the strange woman's head against the sill."I never sleep when you're—" Cellica's eyes widened."Who's that?""No idea."Kalen strode into Cellica's room and laid his burden on rhe halfling's cot."She's." The halfling trailed off, touching the sleeping woman's cheek."She's bone cold! Out! Out! I'll take care of this."Kalen felt Cellica's will take hold of him and wandered out while she laid blanket after blanket over the sleeping woman.The stranger's uncertain frown became a blissful smile.Gods, Kalen felt tired.His limbs ached and his armor stank of sweat.The girl was light, but he'd carried her all the way across the city.In that time, her azure tattoos had all but disappeared.Her breathing seemed normal, and she slept peacefully."Why lasses run around the night streets naked in this day and age, I'll never understand," Cellica said."Younglings! Hmpf.""Mmm," Kalen returned.He was rubbing his eyes.Gods, he was tired."Who is she ?" the halfling asked.Rather than being upset, she was inspecting the woman critically, fascinated; "Your hunting extends to naked ladies in addition to villains and dastards?"Kalen murmured a reply that did not befit a paladin.He traipsed off to his cot, shedding his leathers as he went, and slumped into bed.He was asleep two breaths later.It only briefly occurred ro him ro wonder where he'd left his watchsword.THIRTEENFayne slammed her fist on the table in the little chamber in Downshadow."I should have known." She spat in most unladylike fashion on the array of cards."Useless.Utterly useless.I should have known you were a perverse little fraud, after you fed me all the drivel about the doppelganger conspiracy."B'Zeer the Seer—the tiefling who ran this small, illicit "diviner's council" in a hidden chamber in Downshadow, of which only those of questionable honor knew—spread his many-ringed hands."Divination is an imprecise art, my sweet Satin, and requires much patience.""Oh, ore shit," Fayne said."Divination hasn't worked right in Waterdeep for a hundred years." She shoved her scroll of notes in her scrip satchel."I don't know what I was thinking, coming to a pimply faced voyeur like you."B'Zeer ran his fingers over the cards and furrowed his brow.His milky white eyes, devoid of pupils, scanned the tabletop, and he scratched at one of his horns."Now wait, I think I see aught, now.Something to do with your father.your need to please him.perhaps in—""I don't need, some peeping, pus-faced pervert to tell me aboutmy father, thanks," Fayne said."I was asking about my dreams—youknow, the girl in blue fire?""Ah yes, B'Zeer sees and understands.I believe—""Wirh all due respect—and that's none—piss off and die.I havebusiness to attend to this night, and a tale for rhe Minstrel to deliverto print."Fayne exploded from her chair, but a hand clamped around her wrist.She looked down, eyes narrow."Let go of me, or I will end you.""This may be a touch indelicate, what I ask now," the seer said."But what of my coin?"Fayne glared."No hrasting service, no hrasting coin." "Call it an entertainment fee," he said."We all have to eat." "Piss," Fayne said, "off."He moved faster than a shriveled little devil man should be able to, darting forward and seizing her throat to thrust her against the chamber wall.She saw steel in his other hand."You give me my coin," he said, "or I'll take it out of you elsewise."She should have expected this.Most women in Downshadow were of negotiable virtue.It was simply part of living coin-shy.Particularly amusing were those monsters that took the form of women and revealed themselves only in a passionate embrace.Justice, Fayne thought.She smiled at B'Zeer dangerously."Hark, Seer—it isn't bound to happen," she said."I think, if you read your destiny, you'll see only you.alone but for your hand.""So you say, birch," rhe tiefling said."But let us see what—uuk!"The seer choked and coughed, grasping at himself where she had driven a knife through his bowels.Blackness poured down his legs.He mumbled broken words in his fiendish language—harsh, guttural sounds—but he could summon no magic with his life spilling down his groin."If it gives you any comfort," she said as he sank to the floor, "I did warn you."Then she left him in his small nook in Downshadow, which to him had become a shrinking, blurry world of heaving breaths, pain, and—quite later—wet darkness.FOURTEENAs dawn rose, Araezra sat alone in her private room at the barracks.She slapped the broadsheet down on the table and leaned back in her chair, fuming."Watch fails to apprehend vigilante in Castle Ward," noted the Mocking Minstrel, this particular tale written by the bard Satin Rutshear."Clumsy fool Talanna Taenfeather injured in pursuit while narcissistic superior, Araezra Hondyl, parades half-naked through streets."Araezra groaned.The emphasized words were underlined in a girlish hand."Open Lord Neverember calls Araezra's actions 'justified,' saying 'I'm sure she acted for the best'.in protecting his bedmate interests in the Watch," she read."Neverember was later seen furtively arriving at Taenfeather's bedside in the temple of Torm, protected by cloaked men."Then: "For misuse of city taxes to support nonregulated religious bodies, see over''Araezra rubbed her eyes.The quotations were accurate if slanted, and the additions infuriated her.Lord Neverember and Talanna's energetic flirtations were well known, but had never been put quite this way.The casual cruelty left a foul taste in Araezra's mouth.She stabbed her nails into her palms hard.And of course, Satin quoted Lord Bladderblat, the broadsheet's ubiquitous parody noble."On young Hondyl's competency as a valabrar, Lord Bladderblat calls Hondyl 'too pretty for a thinking woman, but she's got assets; better she find a blade for 'twixt her rhighs than one for her belt— though she can wear the belt to my bed, if she likes.' "That Araezra was presented as the bedmate of a fiction rankled.And being described as "young"—true, she was just over twenty, but her rank came from her success, not her beauty
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