The Dragon's Path

rouge just so she could leave the stall.
    Y ou could just let him have a bit,” Cam said. “He is the prince. It isn’t as if you won’t know where to find him.”
    Magister Imaniel looked up from his plate, his expression pleasant and unreadable. The candlelight reflected in his eyes. He was a small man with leathery skin and thin hair who could seem meek as a kitten when he wished, or become a demon of cold and rage. In all her years, Cithrin had neverdecided which was the mask. His voice now was mild as his eyes.
    “Cithrin?” he said. “Why won’t I lend money to the prince?”
    “Because if he doesn’t want to pay you back, you can’t make him.”
    Magister Imaniel shrugged at Cam. “You see? The girl knows. It’s bank policy never to lend to people who consider it beneath their dignity to repay. Besides which, who’s to say we have the coin to spare?”
    Cam shook her head in feigned despair and reached across the table for the salt cellar. Magister Imaniel took another bite of his lamb.
    “Why doesn’t he go to his barons and dukes, borrow from them?” Magister Imaniel asked.
    “He can’t,” Cithrin said.
    “Why not?
    “Oh, leave the poor girl alone for once,” Cam said. “Can’t we have a single conversation without it turning into a test?”
    “We have all their gold,” Cithrin said. “It’s all here.”
    “Oh dear,” Magister Imaniel said, his eyes widening in false shock. “Is that so?”
    “They’ve been coming for months. We’ve sold letters of exchange to half the high families in the city. For gold at first, but jewels or silk or tobacco… anything worth the trade.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    Cithrin rolled her eyes.
    “Everyone’s sure of that,” she said. “It’s all anyone talks about at the yard. The nobles are all swimming away like rats off a burning barge, and the banks are robbing them blind while they do it. When the letters of credit get to Carseor Kiaria or Stollbourne, they aren’t going to get back half of what they paid for them.”
    “It is a buyer’s market, that’s true,” Magister Imaniel said with an air of satisfaction. “But inventory becomes an issue.”
    After dinner, Cithrin went up to her room and opened her windows to watch the mist rise from the canals. The air stank of the autumn linseed oil painted onto the wood buildings and bridges against the coming snow and rain. And beneath that, the rich green bloom of algae in the canals. She imagined sometimes that all the great houses were ships floating down a great river, the canals all connected in a single vast flow too deep for her to see.
    At the end of the street, one of the iron gates had come loose from its stays, creaking back and forth in the breeze. Cithrin shivered, closed the shutters, changed for bed, and blew out her candle.
    Shouts woke her. And then a lead-tipped club banging on the door.
    She threw open the shutters and leaned out. The mist had cleared enough that the street was plain before her. A dozen men in the livery of the prince, five of them holding pitch-reeking torches, crowded the door. Their voices were loud and merry and cruel. One looked up, his dark eyes catching hers. The soldier broke into a grin. Cithrin, not knowing what was happening, smiled back uneasily and retreated. Her blood felt cold even before she heard the voices—Magister Imaniel sounding wary, the guard captain laughing, and then Cam’s heartbroken cry.
    Cithrin ran down the stairway, the dim light of a distant lantern making the corridors a paler shade of black. Part of her knew that running toward the front door was lunacy,that she should be running the other direction. But she’d heard Cam’s voice, and she had to know.
    The guards were already gone when she reached the door. Magister Imaniel stood perfectly still, a lantern of tin and glass glowing in his hand. His face was expressionless. Cam knelt beside him, her wide fist pressed against her mouth. And Besel—perfect Besel, beautiful Besel—lay on the stone floor, bloody but no longer bleeding. Cithrin felt a shriek growing in the back of her throat, but she couldn’t make a sound.
    “Get me a cunning man,” Magister Imaniel said.
    “It’s too late,” Cam said, her throat thick with tears.
    “I didn’t ask. Get me a cunning man. Cithrin, come here. Help me carry him in.”
    There was no hope, but they did as they were told. Cam pulled on a wool cloak and hurried off into the gloom. Cithrin took Besel’s