The Dragon's Path

groggily. “Did something happen?”
    “Outside,” Yardem said, and Marcus heard it too. Retreating footsteps.
    “Stay here,” Marcus said, and bolted out the ruined window.
    The night-black streets blinded him, but he loped forward, committing to each stride and hoping that his foot didn’t come down on any icy puddle or unexpected step. Ahead of him, the footsteps slapped against cobbles. Something large and animal hissed as Marcus flew past. His lungs burned, and the blood on his shoulder and side chilled him. The fleeing footsteps skittered, lost balance, and pelted off toward the left. He was getting closer.
    The street opened onto a wider square, and there, by starlight, Marcus caught sight of the fleeing figure. It was small and wrapped in a dark cloak with a hood that covered head and hair. The disguise was pointless. By the time he’d seen the fleeing woman take two steps, he knew her as well as if he’d seen her face.
    “Opal!” he shouted. “You should stop.”
    The actress hesitated and then pressed on, pretending she hadn’t been recognized. Marcus cursed, gritted his teeth, and kept running. The dark city ignored them. Opal shifted through streets and alleys, trying desperately to confuse or exhaust him. Marcus ignored his wounds and kept after her, one foot in front of the other, until by a wide cistern, Opal stopped, knelt, and put her head in her hands. Her chest was working like a bellows. Marcus tottered up beside her and sat. They were both wheezing like old men. Her pale hair caught the starlight.
    “Not,” Opal said between gasps. “Not what it looks like. You have to believe me.”
    “No,” Marcus said. “I don’t.”
    I didn’t know,” Master Kit said. “I should have, but I didn’t.”
    Marcus’s former cunning man was still in a striped wool sleeping shift and a close-fit nightcap. That and the fact that he’d been dead asleep in the back of the troupe’s wagon when Marcus reached him argued for his innocence. Master Kitap rol Keshmet wasn’t the picture of a man preparing to escape with his stolen gold. It was what Marcus had bet on.
    The rooms they sat in now had been rented from a brewer. Most of the year, they warehoused the oats and malt of that trade, and the air was still thick with the smell of them. The table was three lengths of plank set across two piles of oldbrick, and the stools Marcus, Kit, and the disgraced Opal sat on were less than a milkmaid might use. In the flickering light of Master Kit’s single candle, Opal’s eyes had disappeared in pools of shadow. Her argument that it was all a misunderstanding, that she’d been there to protect Cithrin, vanished like the morning dew as soon as Master Kit had come into the room, and all that was left was her sullen silence.
    “You mean to say she came to this herself and no one else in the company had a suspicion,” Marcus said.
    Master Kit sighed.
    “I’ve traveled with Opal as long as I have with… well, anyone. I think she knows me, and I would guess well enough to know how to deceive me. Captain, if she had even lied about this, I’d have known.”
    “Leave him be, Wester,” Opal said. “This wasn’t his. It was mine.”
    It was the first confession she’d made. Marcus took no pleasure in it.
    “But I don’t understand why,” Master Kit said. He wasn’t talking to Marcus any longer. “I’d thought Cithrin was a favorite of yours.”
    “How many more years do I have?” Opal asked. Her voice was sharp as aged cheese. “You’re already thinking of Cary for Lady Kaunitar roles. Another five years, and I’ll be strictly witch-and-grandmother, and then the day will come when you and the others leave some shit-stinking village in Elassae and I don’t.”
    “Opal,” Master Kit began, but the woman raised a palm to stop him.
    “I know how this goes. I’ve been a player since I was younger than Sandr is now. I’ve seen it happen. Made a kind of peace with it, really. But then the banker’s girl appearedout of the air, and…” Opal shrugged, and it was an actor’s movement made of weariness and resignation.
    Weariness and resignation, Marcus thought, but not regret.
    “All right,” Marcus said. “Next problem.”
    Master Kit turned back toward him. There were tears in the man’s eyes, but otherwise his expression was calm.
    “I have five corpses,” Marcus said. “Maybe three hours to first light. If I go to the queensmen, I have to explain what happened, and what we’ve