there was no more need to think about that. His partner was not trying to kill
him. Tempus was not. Unless Tempus had sent Kama, but somehow other things rang
more true. Like the PFLS. The Front. Like the agencies that wanted chaos in
Sanctuary. He felt himself carrying the whole town on his back, felt his life as
charmed as if the gods that watched over this town watched over him, who was
trying to save it. And they both were corrupt, and they both were wreckage, he
and the town. He perceived compromises that he had made, by degrees. He knew
where he was now, and it was on the other side of a wall from Crit and all his
old ties.
He had not seen Ischade since that day outside Moria’s. Since he had blinked and
lost her round a comer. Or somewhere. Somewhere. The wards drove him from the
river house. He hunted Haught and failed to find him. He was altogether alone,
and altogether losing everything he had thought he had his hands on.
“I don’t know,” he said to Crit. “I don’t know where I’m going. To find a few
contacts. See what I can turn up. If you haven’t figured it out, it’s my peace
that’s holding so far. The bodies that’ve turned up-aren’t significant. Or they
are. It means that certain people are keeping their word. Keeping the peace in
their districts. You could walk the Maze blind drunk right now and come out
unrobbed. That’s progress. Isn’t it?”
“That’s something,” Crit admitted. And stopped him with a hand on his arm when
he tried to walk past him. Not a hard hand. Just a pressure. “Ace. I’m listening