Never again, Kaldrosa swore to herself. Never again.

“Do you know the secret of effective blackmail, Durzo?” Roth asked. He was seated at a fine oak table incongruously placed in a typical Warrens hovel. Durzo stood before him like a chastened courtier standing before the king. Roth’s chair was even raised. The presumption.

“Yes,” Durzo said. He wasn’t in any mood for games.

“Refresh me,” Roth said, looking up from the reports he’d been reading. He was not amused.

Durzo cursed himself and cursed fate. He’d done everything to avert this, paid every price of misery, and yet it had come. “Use your hold to get a better hold.”

“You’ve made that difficult for me, Durzo. You’ve convinced everyone that you don’t give a damn about anything.”

“Thank you.” Durzo didn’t smile. It wasn’t in him to play the abased servant.

“The problem is, I’m more clever than you are.”

“Cleverer.”

Roth’s close-set eyes narrowed at Blint’s blithe monotone. Roth was a lean young man with an angular face obscured by an oiled black goatee and long hair. He disliked making words for their own sake. He disliked people. He stuck out an open hand. Waited.

Durzo tossed him the bit of pretty silver glass.

Roth looked at it briefly and threw it back, unamused. “Don’t toy with me, assassin. I know there was a real one there. We have two spies who saw someone bond it.”

“Then they should have told you someone got there first.”

“Really.”

Roth was mimicking Momma K’s tendency to state questions. He probably thought it made him seem authoritative. Roth was out of his league if he thought mimicking Momma K would be enough to hold power. Part of Durzo wanted to tell Roth that Momma K was the Shinga. Roth obviously didn’t know, and Momma K had betrayed Durzo, but Durzo had no taste for using rats to do a man’s work. If he killed Gwinvere, he’d do it with his own hands. If? I’m going soft. When. She betrayed me. She must die.

“Really,” Durzo answered, with no intonation.

“Then I think it’s time for you to meet another of my cards.” There was no signal that Durzo could see, but an old man stepped into the hovel instantly. The creature was short and bent still further by more years than a mortal frame should endure. He had piercing blue eyes and a fringe of silver hair combed over a bald dome of head.

The man gave a toothless grin. “I am Vürdmeister Neph Dada, counselor and seer to His Majesty.”

Not just any wytch. A Vürdmeister. Durzo Blint felt old. “How exalted. I thought you called your dog kings His Holiness,” Durzo said.

“His Majesty,” Neph Dada said, “Roth Ursuul, ninth aetheling of the Godking.” He bowed to Roth.

By the Night Angels. He wasn’t kidding.

Neph Dada grabbed Durzo’s chin with a frail hand and pulled it down toward himself until Durzo looked into his eyes. “He knows who took the Globe of Edges,” Neph said.

There was no denying it. Not with a Vürdmeister here. Vürdmeisters were supposed to be able to read minds. It wasn’t true, but it was close enough. Most of them couldn’t do it, Durzo knew. Even those who could didn’t actually read minds. The way Durzo had heard it explained, longer ago than he liked to remember, was that they could see hints of images that their subject had seen. The best Vürdmeisters could intuit a lot of truth from a few images, though. It was almost the same thing at this point. How can I take advantage of the differences between what I’ve seen and what I know?

“It was my apprentice,” Durzo said.

Roth Ursuul—by the Night Angels, Ursuul?—raised an eyebrow.

“He doesn’t know what it is,” Durzo said. “I don’t know who sent him. He never does jobs without telling me.”

“Perhaps you should not be so sure of this?” Neph said.

“I’ll get the ka’kari for you. I just need some time.”

“Ka’kari?” Roth asked.

Roth had never used the word. It was a stupid mistake. Totally uncharacteristic. Durzo was falling apart.

“The Globe of Edges,” Durzo said.

“I’ve given you a chance to be honest with me, Durzo. So what I’m going to do is your own fault.” Roth motioned to one of the guards at the entrance to the hovel. “The girl.”

Several moments later, a little girl was carried in. She was drugged, whether chemically or magically, and the guard had some trouble carrying her limp body. She was maybe eleven years old, skinny and dirty, but not the skinny and dirty of a street rat—healthy skinny, healthy dirty. Her black hair was long and curly, and her face had the same angelic-demonic cast that her mother’s had had. She would be even prettier than Vonda, some day. She took her height from Durzo, but thank the gods, everything else from her mother. Uly was a damn fine-looking kid. It was the first time Durzo had seen his daughter.

It made him ache somewhere that was already sore.

“You’ve already chosen not to cooperate enthusiastically, Durzo,” Roth said. “So usually, I’d make an example of you. We both know I can’t do that. I need you too much, at least for the next few days. So maybe I should, say, cut off her hand as a warning, and let the little girl know that it’s because you won’t stop it. That you are choosing to hurt her. Perhaps something like that would help gain your cooperation?”

Durzo was frozen, just looking at his daughter. His daughter! How had he put her in the hands of this man? She had been the king’s leverage, and Roth had taken her right out from under the man’s nose.

“How about this?” Roth said. “We’ll cut off a hand or you cut off a finger.”

There was a way out. Even now, there was a way. One of his knives was poisoned. He’d put the asp poison it. For Kylar. It would be painless, especially for such a small person. She’d be dead in seconds. Maybe Roth would be surprised enough that Durzo could get away. Maybe.

He could kill his daughter and probably be killed himself, and Kylar would live. Or this Roth Ursuul would demand he kill Kylar and get the ka’kari. That would have been easy enough to fake, if Roth didn’t have a Vürdmeister.

Could he kill his own daughter? He’d be letting them kill Kylar if he didn’t.

“She didn’t do anything,” Durzo said.

“Spare me,” Roth said. “You’ve got too much blood on your hands to cry about the suffering of innocents.”

“Hurting her isn’t necessary.”

Roth smiled. “You know, from anyone else, I’d laugh. Do you remember what happened the last time you called an Ursuul’s bluff?” Durzo couldn’t keep his expression blank; grief flashed through him. “Who’d have thought,” Roth said. “My father takes the mother and I take the daughter. Have you learned your lesson, Durzo Blint? I think you have. My father will be pleased that I’m closing the circle. He tried to blackmail you for a false ka’kari and failed. I’ll blackmail you for a true ka’kari and succeed.” Neph’s eyes flashed when Roth said that. It was clear he didn’t appreciate the prince’s presumption, but Durzo was still reeling. He couldn’t see any way to take advantage of that tiny split between the men.