"Methinks it turned out very well, Comrade Mary. I can hardly tell you're wearing it."

She turned in a slow circle in front of the mirror Ilya had stolen for the purpose of that morning's meeting, frowning as she critiqued the flow and cut of her dress and tugged primly at her bodice. Then she shifted her narrowed gaze to Ilya looming behind the mirror, who was holding it steady as he smiled and nodded at her in encouragement.

Mary had been skeptical of Mirk's assurances that he could help her when she'd first visited a few weeks ago. She'd already been to the best artificers and healers in London, and none of the devices they'd cobbled together had helped ease the pain in her back and or decrease the size of the unappealing lump just above her shoulder blades. Some of the devices had a marginal effect, but they were too unsightly for a lady of her fine sensibilities to bear. There was no sense in trading in one deformity for another, she'd told Mirk. Better to accept that God had given her that burden for a good reason.

The comment had made Mirk's heart ache for her. As had his familiarity with her husband, a dour mage from the Eleventh who never had a kind word for anyone, his wife included. So he'd enlisted the help of Ilya and a stack of medical grimoires on the spine and had set to work. Mirk had far more confidence in Ilya's metalworking skills than he did in his own ability to ease Mary's suffering, but he'd done his best.

It was undeniable that Ilya had succeeded in his efforts. What was more difficult was telling whether or not her pain had lessened any, as Mirk couldn’t feel much of anything from her beyond her apprehension at having Ilya in the room with them.

"It's a good deal better than what the artificers came up with," she finally conceded, with a final sweep of her hands down the length of her bodice.

"And it'll be even less noticeable once winter comes again," Mirk reassured her. "But how is your pain? I don't want to pry, comrade..."

Mary let her hands fall to her sides, rolling her shoulders back. Then she paced the room a few times, concentrating hard on making her steps graceful and measured. She still lingered a little long on her right foot, but it was far better than the state she'd been in when she'd first visited, hunched low over a cane that was now lying forgotten on the room's bed.

"It's more bearable than before. But how long will the enchantments last?" Mary asked. "Will I have to come in to have them renewed every week?"

Ilya shook his head. He propped the mirror against the wall, pulling a spare bit of metal out of his pocket to demonstrate on. Mary had been expecting something much worse from him, judging by the way she'd flinched and clenched her fists at her sides. "It's special metal," the fighter explained, feeding a spark of his fire magic into it to prove his point. The orange-red glow lingered on it, circled from end to end rather than flaring up fast and then vanishing. "Iron and carbon and copper and one from off-realm. Stronger together, and they make a song circle. Around and around."

The fighter's voice had gone vague and dreamy, like it always did when he spoke of his creations, regardless of whether they were made to support a lady's back or reduce a city wall to rubble. That didn't improve his first impression with Mary any. But she accepted his explanation with a nod, though Mirk thought that it was Ilya’s demonstration of the metal's effects that convinced her more than his words.

"I'd still like you to come back next week so we can check to make sure you're feeling well," Mirk said. "And keep taking those pain blockers I made up for you and doing your stretches, please. But after that, methinks you won't have to visit unless you start to feel like it isn't helping like it should."

Mary fetched her cloak from the bed, along with her cane. Mirk wondered if she'd be casting aside the heavy wool garment for a lighter one now that spring was on its way and she had less to hide. "Thank you, Seigneur d'Avignon. You have...certainly done much more work to help than the guild mages did. And you, Comrade..."

Ilya pocketed the bit of metal and bowed in one fluid motion, still smiling to himself. "Ilya Solntskov, your servant, my lady," he said.

Mirk was absolutely certain Ilya had no interest in Mary beyond her health concerns being a good excuse for him to tinker with metal, but he still dutifully employed K'aekniv's rules for making a good impression on English ladies. Mirk stifled a laugh with his hand as Mary goggled at Ilya for a moment before turning her attention back toward him.

"I know of other ladies with conditions similar to mine among the mages," she said. "Would you be willing to see them as well? They aren't K'maneda, but I believe they'd be willing to pay if you're willing to do house calls."

Mirk nodded. "Bien sûr, Comrade Mary. I'd be more than happy to help anyone who needs it. Though methinks it'd be better to make sure the brace holds for you first. I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone. And they'd be welcome to have their gold back if it doesn't work for them like it has you, of course."

This gave Mary pause again, as she fastened the pin on her cloak. "That’s very considerate of you, seigneur."

"It's no trouble for me." Mirk paused at the feel of a sudden spark of pain glancing off his shields. It wasn't coming from inside the room, from Ilya or Mary. It'd snuck past the room's wards. Mirk went to the door to investigate. "A moment, please, comrade. And it might be better if you drew up your hood, for the time being."

Bracing himself, Mirk opened the door, just a crack. The pain beyond slapped him like an open palm across his face, making his eyes water. He blinked the wavering away as he ventured further out, just enough to peer around the corner of the doorframe. They had taken Mary up to the fifth floor; it was strange for someone who was in so much pain to be there. Usually anyone suffering that badly had either passed on or had pain blockers poured down their throat by then.

The reason became clear to Mirk once he'd spotted the source of the pain. It almost made him duck back into the room and lock the door. At the far end of the hall, fumbling with a whole squad's worth of spell papers, was the tall, spindly mage who was always trailing after Ravensdale. The one Lina had been tasked with seeing to, Richard, the commander of the Eleventh. As Mirk watched, the mage selected a spell-paper at random and ripped it in two. A bolt of lightning ricocheted down the hall before being absorbed by the floor barrier at its far end.

Richard dropped the ripped halves of the paper in disgust, reeling backward and spitting at them for good measure. There was blood flowing from both his ears, Mirk realized. And a worrying weakness in his legs. "Putain de merde...encule toi-meme..."

Mirk clapped his hand to his mouth. It was remarkably foul language, coming from a mild-mannered mage. And from a supposedly English one, at that. Worried, Mirk ducked back into the patient room and looked to Ilya.

"Euh...Ilya? Could you help me out in the hall? It should be just a second, Comrade Mary," Mirk said, doing his best to muster up a smile for her. She seemed as unconvinced by it as she'd been of Ilya's explanation of how her new brace worked.

Ilya shrugged, joining him in the doorway. Mirk hadn't needed to tell him about what was happening, hadn't needed to project a warning at him. Ilya had been a fighter long enough to have a feel for things. He followed the same process Mirk had of cracking open the door and taking a glance around, though he didn't feel alarmed by the state Richard was in. It mostly amused him, aside from a tinge of pity. "Big mages can't take hits," he said to Mirk in explanation, though he kept his voice low so as to not further upset Mary.

"What do we do with him?" Mirk whispered back. "If he's hurt his head already, we don't want to make it worse."

"Two choices," Ilya said, after studying the mage a minute or two more. The reason for the spell papers was becoming more obvious the longer Richard reeled in circles at the end of the hall. Whatever was wrong with his head was keeping him from reaching his own magical potential, and he'd turned to his stock of spell papers to cover the gap. Unfortunately, he was too addled to make good use of them either. He kept trying and cursing, casting a freezing spell on one wall with one, then putting a crack in another that would undoubtedly give Emir a headache for days before it got repaired. The curses, Mirk couldn't help but notice, were uniformly in French. "Chokeout, or break his legs."

Neither prospect sounded appealing. Mirk thought hard as he squinted down the length of the hall. The supply closet was near where Richard was pacing. The dosage on sedatives could be touchy with mages, but it seemed less violent to Mirk. Less uncertain. That and the memory of Genesis choking out the Watch men, one after the other, all without a moment's hesitation, still haunted him whenever he saw one of their patrols out on the street. It made him feel a little better to know it was common practice among the fighters to use such methods when dealing with a person who'd made themselves a problem, but not by much. "You have a belt, non?"

Ilya nodded. Mirk looked the fighter over, weighing his thick waist against Richard's scrawny frame. "If you could restrain him for a minute or two, I could put a potion down his throat instead."

The fighter frowned over Mirk’s alternative. But he gave up on his more direct solutions with a shrug, cracking his knuckles. "Don't need a belt. But if he hurts us, he's going to sleep."

For the first time in what felt like ages, both of them had a stroke of luck. The next spell paper Richard ripped was one that generated a cloud of blue-black smoke. Without a word between them, Mirk and Ilya moved in to capitalize on the confusion. Mirk drew Jean-Luc's staff out of his sleeve and tapped it up to quarterstaff length, creeping along the wall the supply closet was set into as Ilya eased along the opposite side, listening and feeling for where Richard was within the haze of smoke rather than relying on his physical sight. As soon as Mirk heard Richard cry out a startled curse, he ran for the closet, fumbling with both its magical and physical locks until he was inside.

By the time Mirk had found a sedative potion, the smoke out in the hall had settled down to waist level. Only Ilya's head was visible above it, along with one of Richard's wrists, his fingers twitching as the mage cried plaintively for his aunt somewhere out of sight beneath the blanket of smoke. All Ilya could do was shrug. "Easy. Some big mages can't fight either."

Sighing, Mirk hurried down the hall to them, waving away as much of the smoke as he could with his arm and the staff to get a better sense for what he was dealing with. Richard was face-down on the floor, Ilya kneeling on his arm and back. Not hard enough to crush him, but enough to keep him from flailing around too much. The pain from whatever Ilya was doing to the mage's wrist was far greater than that of Ilya’s weight on his back.

Even if Richard's head was addled, apparently he hated discomfort enough not to try to force his way out of the hold. Mirk knelt down beside him, atop the staff so that Richard couldn't make a grab for it, and wrangled the mage's head to one side so that he could get at his mouth. It was hard to do with him still conscious and struggling, but an extra yank on his arm from Ilya did the trick.

"Methinks I won't have to get any of it down his throat," Mirk said, as he focused on the potion bottle just long enough to call the cork out of its neck and send it rolling off down the hall. "This is a strong one. And he's so thin..."

"Worse than Gen," Ilya confirmed with a nod. "No muscle."

At least Mirk had a little time to work with now. Mirk sensed that Ilya could hold Richard there all morning if he needed to, as long as the mage couldn't get at his magic. He was trying, but the best he could summon were a few cold white sparks of light that singed a sprinkling of holes down the front of Ilya's uniform shirt. If it wasn't enough to worry him, Mirk trusted that it was nothing to be concerned about. Ilya knew what he was doing.

And Mirk had learned from dealing with his own fair share of recalcitrant patients how to get one to open their mouth. Mirk flailed the open potion bottle at Ilya and the fighter took it without comment. It was trickier to find the right pressure points on a patient lying face-down, with their head turned to the side, but Ilya had truly meant it when he'd said Richard didn't have much in the way of strength. Before Mirk could tell Ilya to, he crammed the potion bottle into the mage's mouth and dumped the contents inside. It took a few anxious, whimpering seconds, but Richard's body finally went limp.

"Roll him back over," Mirk said, backing away with a tired sigh. He magicked the staff back down to a manageable length and tucked it away again. Mirk was glad he didn't have to resort to using it, considering what had happened with Percival. Danu still said she felt off sometimes, like bugs were creeping around her insides. Mirk didn't know what the staff would have done to someone like Ilya. Or Richard.

Richard. He wasn't taking well to the potion — his breathing had grown shallow, his body wracked with shivers. Mirk felt for the pulse at his neck and found that it had gone slow, too slow for a full-blooded human. He'd need to feed him a bit of his life-giving energy to even things out. Mirk focused down on his slack-jawed face as he drew a tendril of his healing potential from his core, watching for when he'd given him enough.

While he was staring, Mirk noticed that Richard had a tattoo on the side of his neck, usually covered by the high collar of the shirts he preferred to wear underneath his robes. Its lines were uncertain and faint, worn with time, but still black enough for Mirk to get the general idea of it. A cross, with the words "c'est la vie" above it. Only the last word was misspelled.

It was all adding up to something troubling. Once Richard had stabilized, Mirk drew his hand away, looking up at Ilya. The mage was distracted by something down the hall. Mary. She'd grown tired of waiting in the room, despite all the commotion beyond, and had donned her cloak and come out to join them. Though she'd pulled the hood of it up to hide her face. "I'm sorry for all the trouble, Comrade Mary," Mirk said as he scrambled back to his feet. "Methinks you should be fine to leave now. He's...euh..."

"Worthless," Mary sniffed, pausing beside Richard's limp body in the middle of the hall. "I have no interest in seeing Charles made commander, but nearly any other officer would be better suited."

"Euh...is he cruel?" Mirk asked. He didn't want to come off as if he was pressing her for information, but if Mary was in a complaining mood, he'd take all the gossip he could get.

"Worse. A coward," Mary said, tugging once more on her bodice before moving off. "Don't rush yourself sending him back to the division."

Mirk turned to look back at Ilya, kneeling across from him beside Richard's body. The fighter shrugged and nodded. "Always runs when he can't use magic from far away. Gives up right away when you say no. Cries to Ravensdale."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Then how did he get made commander?" Even if the commanders were, on the whole, disliked by the fighting men, most of them had needed to earn their position. Either with cunning, or with strength. Neither of which Richard seemed to have a tendency toward.

"Ravensdale," Ilya repeated, with a tired sigh.

All of it was very curious. Fortunately, Mirk had a good idea about who he could go to for more information.

- - -

The bordello wasn't doing very brisk business that night, unlike every other time Mirk had visited. The spring contracts were in full swing; most of the fighters were off-realm or too exhausted to go out carousing. With the exception of Easterners, who never seemed to be too tired to enjoy themselves. However, Mirk didn't see or feel any of them hanging around the bordello that night. That or they'd already gone inside to the back rooms.

The lady at the front told him to stay outside and circle around to the back of the building when he went to the door and asked to speak with Fatima. A curious request — the buildings just beyond the South Gate were stacked one on top of the other, with very little space left between or behind them for any sort of garden or courtyard. But as Mirk shuffled along the side of the building, the bottom of his robes gathered in one hand and held up to the level of his knees to avoid trailing it in muck, he felt a familiar, staticky presence ahead of him. Faint. Which meant it probably wasn't Genesis himself, but rather a spell that he'd personally crafted and set.

It proved to be one of his usual space-altering spells, like the one he used on the common room of their quarters when Mirk gave in to his idle comments about practice being essential and agreed to spar with him. Mirk had always thought that those only worked on the buildings within the walls of the City, on stones that had been suffused with chaotic energy for countless centuries. Apparently, he'd been mistaken.

At the end of the close between the bordello and the building beside it, Mirk passed through something that felt like the floor barriers in the infirmary. Only the chaotic magic there was thicker, more defensive. Mirk got the distinct impression that he wouldn't have been able to pass through, had Genesis's magic not recognized him, somehow. Beyond it was a yard too big for the real gap between the bordello and the building behind it. It was as large as the training hall back in the City, sheltered by a swath of canvas strung up overhead through some intricate system of winches and pullies. Fatima's contribution to the space, no doubt. And much like the City's training hall, the yard was full from end to end with laughing and smacking and groans.

That was where the Easterners had gone. It wasn't all of them. Mostly the older men, the ones who knew their business well and had survived years worth of contracts. Presently, they were teaching said business to the more enterprising of Fatima's ladies.

K'aekniv was leading a whole group of them through a lesson on taking an opponent to the ground, waxing on at them about how it didn't matter how big or strong a person was, as long as they used what they had to their best advantage. Slava was right there beside him, to caution them against lingering too long after they'd gotten the better of their opponent. Take a shot at stamping on a hand or a neck or the fork of the legs if there was an opportunity, but better to run.

The ladies were trying the techniques out on each other while they waited their turn at trying to tackle Ilya. None of them seemed particularly intimidated by him. Most were trying to goad K'aekniv into joining the fray. Mirk got the impression that flipping K'aekniv was considered the true test of one's mettle.

On the other side of the yard, Pavel was leading a lesson on knifework. He was the same size as most of the fascinated women around him, had the same reach and strength. The Seer wasn't taking any chances with his students, even if his gift meant that he had a better sense for impending danger than most. He'd donned a set of padded armor that covered all his limbs and chest and had thick gloves on his hands.

Fatima was at the far end of the yard, beyond a wall of fine netting had been strung up from the canopy. She was overseeing Alice's training herself, one-on-one. Though an older, buxom woman was sitting nearby, bouncing baby Ella on her lap, cooing at her as she kept her distracted with a careworn stuffed bear that she wiggled just beyond her grasp. Mirk sorted out the purpose of the netting soon enough. She was training Alice on a crossbow, urging her to reload, aim, and fire at a target a good twenty yards away at a blistering pace.

But Lina was nowhere to be seen.

Mirk made his way over to Fatima and Alice, giving all the brawling ladies and fighters a wide berth, lest he get drawn into the fray. He called out a greeting, though the only person to nod to him was the older lady looking after Alice's child. Fatima and Alice were wrapped up in an argument, continually interrupted by Alice pausing to aim and fire.

"It's not...supposed to be fast," Alice protested, as she cranked the lever on the top of the crossbow down to pull back its string. There had to be incredible tension on it. It took all of the strength in Alice's heavily-muscled arms to manage it. "'s why...it's a crossbow. Gives you time. Read the book and all."

Alice was a decent shot, though Mirk was glad for the netting. The dummy at the end of the practice area, roughly the height and build of the average djinn, only got caught by the first of any of Alice’s barrages of bolts, the ones she had longer to concentrate on. At least most of the ones that hit ended up near the dummy’s red ring.

"You have to be prepared for anything," Fatima snapped back. From the looks of things, she wasn't satisfied at all by Alice's hard work. She was flipping her cane around her wrist as she leaned her weight against the wall at the rear end of the garden, frowning as Alice levered, loaded, and fired yet again. "We have no idea how much time you'll actually get. Could be five minutes, could be five seconds."

The latest bolt came close to the red ring, landing just a hair too low. In a spot that would have shattered the djinn's collarbone rather than freeing him. Alice let her arms fall limp at her sides, panting as she turned her head toward the rippling canvas above and tried to compose herself. It was still chilly outside at night in London, even within the confines of Genesis's space-altering spell. Alice's body was steaming. And not from magic.

It was as good of a time as any to cut in, Mirk thought. Best to give Alice a reprieve, even if it meant bearing the brunt of Fatima's ire himself. "Miss...euh, Comrade Fatima?" Mirk called out to her, restraining himself to a half-bow as she shifted her glare over toward him. "May I have a word, please?"

Grudgingly, Fatima shoved off against the wall and limped over toward him. Though not before jabbing a finger at Alice and telling her not to start slacking off. "What do you want? No one called for a healer. Did someone turn up at the infirmary?"

"Euh...not exactly," Mirk replied. "I was looking for Lina."

"Lina?"

"Comrade Commander Richard came to the infirmary today. She's the one, euh, working with him now, non?"

Fatima frowned at his use of the mage's rank, but nodded nevertheless. "What did that idiot get himself into? Did someone finally get fed up and knife him?"

"No. I didn't get the whole story before the healers from the Tenth crowded me out, but methinks he got caught in an ambush. A head injury. He'll be fine in a few days, methinks, but he had all the sense knocked out of him."

"Too bad," Fatima said with a snort. "We'd all be better off if that bastard died, Lina too. Girl keeps getting her heart set on idiots," she added, casting a sideways look at K'aekniv, who'd finally given in and let the ladies start practicing on him. A plump girl had come close to putting him on his back, but he just barely managed to save himself with an awkward flap of his wings.

"Methinks maybe it might be important for a little while that she stays on his good side," Mirk said. "I might have an idea. Did Genesis tell you about the mage who made the djinn's collars? The one called Erv?"

"What of it?"

"My godmother thought that Erv might be short for Hervé, not Irving. Since she thinks that Seigneur d'Aumont, the head of the light mages' guild in Paris, is the one who's been...euh, buying and selling the djinn." Mirk felt odd speaking of people in that way, as things to be bought and sold, at the best of times. But it was even worse speaking about it to a woman like Fatima, considering her history and line of work.

"I remember," Fatima said, her frown deepening. "You think Richard might be the one? But he's English. From Coventry, Lina said. Knows all the local lowlifes there like cousins, Lina went and checked."

"Like I said, Comrade Fatima, Richard had a head injury when he was brought in. I caught him talking to himself, and it was all in French." Mirk paused, sighing. He couldn't help feeling like he was stepping on Lina's toes somehow, like he was tattling on her. But the djinn’s freedom was at stake. "Hasn't Lina mentioned the tattoo on his neck? The one of the cross, with the writing?"

"She said he has a cross tattoo. Some Latin inscription, like God wills it, or something. Richard told her all the kids he hung around with who were working outside the guilds had it. Some half-assed gang."

"It's not Latin," Mirk said. "It's French. Euh, if I translated it...something like that's life? The sort of thing you say when something bad happens that you can't do anything about. Which is a little like God wills it, methinks," Mirk added, as Fatima's eyes narrowed, her frown deepening from one of annoyance into something that looked like genuine anger. Anger so strong that Mirk thought he could feel the barest edge of it, despite the madam's lack of magic.

"I told her not to take his word for anything!" Fatima hissed to herself as she dug in the side pocket of her trousers for something. A button, much like the ones she'd given all the healers. She flicked a lever on its side and it started rattling. "If she thinks she's going to double-cross me, she's got another thing coming. Bitch can't even read, apparently..."

"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding," Mirk reassured her, bowing reflexively in an attempt to appease her. But it only made her more angry. "Please, don't be upset with her."

"You don't get to tell me what to do," Fatima growled, hauling her weight all to one side so that she could jab at him with her cane. Luckily, Mirk was just out of range. "Maybe that works on everyone else in your life, but not us."

"I didn't mean to be rude, Mi, euh, Comrade Fatima," Mirk said, catching himself before he could bow again. "Methinks that being angry won't make it any easier for us to find out what's going on. Miss Lina is the one who Richard trusts. He wouldn't tell a thing to you or me."

"There's ways around that," Fatima said, as she shifted her weight back to her cane.

Just then, Lina arrived in the yard from the alleyway, wrapped up in the bright red cloak that K'aekniv had given her while they'd been together. Apparently she wasn't the sort of woman to throw away a gift just because she wasn't fond of the person who'd given it to her anymore. She skirted around the sparring the same as Mirk had.

But when she saw the look on Fatima's face, she abruptly let go of the edges of her cloak, letting her hands fall open at her sides. To show she didn't have any weapons. The whole front of her fraying gray dress was soaked through. She must have come right from the laundry where she worked when she wasn't doing business on the side for Fatima. "Is something wrong?" Lina called out to the madam, her expression guarded. Though she was doing her best to shield off her emotions with her weak magic, she wasn't practiced enough at it to keep an empath from catching the drift of them. Worry. Panic.

"Your new squeeze has been selling you a line of shit," Fatima said. She took hold of Lina by the arm, pulling her over to a secluded corner of the yard. After waffling for a moment, Mirk pursued them, just fast enough to hear Fatima continue. "Mister High and Mighty over there says Richard is French. What do you know about that?"

Lina turned on Fatima with narrowed eyes, clutching her cloak around herself once more. "Nothing. I wouldn't hold out on you, Fatima, you know that."

"Is that so? Then why'd you sell me that line of shit about the tattoo? It's not Latin, it's French. Mirk saw it. And I'm sure he knows how to read better than someone like you."

Her face going as red as her cloak, Lina glared at Mirk over Fatima's shoulder. "Richard said it was Latin! I didn't think he'd lie about something that stupid."

"He would if he's trying to hide where he's from! I swear, if you're letting yourself get played because you can't stop yourself from being a climber just like your mother, I'll—"

Mirk knew it was likely to make both women mad. And that it didn't stand much of a chance of working on Fatima. Mirk banished his shields and projected as much calmness and reassurance as he could muster while wedging himself in between the two women, before they could come to blows. It didn't make either of them any calmer. But at least it redirected their anger at him.

"Methinks that being angry at each other is only going to make things worse," Mirk said, easing off on the projection and dragging his shields back up. "Maybe starting at the beginning would be better? And let's not accuse each other of anything. That doesn't help anyone either."

"I want the commanders gone as much as you do," Lina said, once it was clear Mirk wasn't going to budge from in between them. "Do you think I want to slave away in some laundry instead of getting to learn magic? I just didn't think that little weasel was capable of lying so much. He's the one who's a climber. He's just too spineless to get anywhere on his own."

Fatima snorted, her eyes narrowing at Lina's final judgment of Richard's character. There was more going on there, Mirk felt, some shared history that Mirk couldn't begin to understand. But there was no time, no point to prying.

"Well, he played you good," Fatima said with a sigh, taking a step backwards as a counterpoint to her own harsh judgment, propping both hands on the head of her cane and leaning forward against it. "So maybe he's more capable than you think. Either way, we need to figure out what his angle is. We know Ravensdale's got him in his pocket, but all he's ever told you is some rubbish about them being old friends."

"That's what I've been trying to do!" Lina protested. "But all he ever wants to do is complain about how mean all the other commanders are to him. Got us plenty of dirt on the rest of them, but nothing about him."

"I don't trust some nob to do my work for me either," Fatima said, waving a dismissive hand at Mirk, "but he's got better information than we do on this. We've got ins with the English and the Holy Roman guilds, but we've got nothing good on the French except for what he's told us. Long and short of it is, it's time to put the screws to your precious Dicky. Find out for ourselves."

Lina both looked and felt crestfallen at the prospect of it, her disappointment pressing against Mirk's shields as she rubbed the edge of her cloak between her fingers and mulled over her options. "He really is spineless, even if he's managed to hide his background from us,” she finally said. “It shouldn't take much pressure to get him to crack. He doesn't have any friends other than Ravensdale. And me. I think he'd give Ravensdale up before he turns on me. Ravensdale's a beast to him, same as the others, even if Richard's loyal to him. I'm the only one who's not."

"Got to wonder why that is. You've got a week. Otherwise I'm cracking him," Fatima said in conclusion, limping back off toward Alice, who'd paused her training to coo at her child through the netting strung between them.

Mirk went to Lina instead of following after Fatima, offering her a smile of encouragement and an apologetic bow, though he didn't couple it with any empathic projections. "I didn't mean to put you in an uncomfortable position, Miss Lina. I didn't know she'd be so upset. I just thought someone should know. About Richard."

"Not going after me on behalf of your friends?" she asked, her eyes darting toward K'aekniv, who'd only just withstood another onslaught by a particularly determined lady.

Adamantly, Mirk shook his head. "That wasn't a good match. I...well. Methinks I couldn't ever understand, but I do know how many ladies struggle when their husband's desires are at odds with their own. And I've seen how hard the alternative is, striking out on your own."

Lina stared at him long and hard. Then she sighed, tossing her hair back over her shoulders as she shook her head. She had to be terribly cold. Her thick curls were as soaked as the front of her dress, though Mirk wasn't certain if it was with sweat or laundry water. "Richard's a decent man. He just doubts himself. Takes everyone’s insults to heart. And he's a baby when it comes to pain, unlike some other meatheads," she added, with another pointed look at K'aekniv, who was now enduring a lady's attempt at twisting his wrist much like Ilya had Richard's with gales of laughter. And encouragement to press him harder, assurances that he wouldn't break.

"Methinks we might be able to use that to our advantage," Mirk said. "I wasn't able to stay with him long once the healers from the Tenth got there, but he'll need to be in the infirmary for at least three days. Maybe now is the best time to press him a little, while he's not able to use his magic. If you come by at night, methinks I can make sure no one bothers you. And I can see if I can get him moved to one of the shielded rooms. They're the most comfortable ones, after all."

At the mention of the shielded room, Lina's brow furrowed. "You don't want to crack him, do you?"

Again, Mirk shook his head. "I much favor convincing people when I can. And I'd be happy to tell you all I know about Seigneur d'Aumont and his dealings."

Though she still seemed wary, Lina nodded. "I'll wait to see if he tries to send someone round to get me to visit. Otherwise, we'll have a go two nights from now. I have off then. Too many girls, not enough work. Since everyone's off-realm."

Mirk's eyes lingered on Lina's red cloak, on her shivering and the defeated misery she couldn't keep hidden behind her magic. "Have you had supper yet, Miss Lina? I'd be more than happy to join you at an inn on the way back to the dormitory. Methinks it'd be much nicer to talk this all over somewhere warm."

She let out a bitter laugh, drawing up the hood of her cloak. "If the nob's buying, I'll take what I can get."