The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

the edge of saying that they were dead. Alys and Merian, gone except in his nightmares. Only he didn’t.
    “Suddapal. They’re in Suddapal for the time being. If things grow too dangerous there, I expect I’ll meet them again in Porte Oliva.”
    “Cithrin, you mean?”
    “And Yardem. And the company,” Marcus said. “They’re what I have. I got to see them for a time on the way north, but I couldn’t stay. They had their job. I had mine. But when the jobs are over …”
    “When they’re over,” Charlit Soon agreed, and Sandr leaned out from behind the cart, his face painted red and white and his arms flowing with green ribbons.
    “Oh. It’s time,” Charlit Soon said, and trotted to the far side of the yard.
    Kit came out, stepping onto the stage, and the yellow silk of his costume seemed like cloth-of-gold in the firelight. He strode forward, the stage shifting a bit under his weight. At the edge, he paused. For a long breathless moment, Marcus saw not an actor, not King Lamas the Gold, but Kit. His friend Kit. And he saw the satisfaction in the old man’s face, the happiness and the belonging. The moment passed, and Kit began hectoring the crowd, declaiming, and bringing them close despite the darkness and the cold, with the promise of miracles and of joy.

Clara
    W hen the season’s end came, Clara was not invited to any of the great parties, but Jorey and Sabiha were. Vicarian had not reappeared since the initiation at the top of the Kingspire, and there was no indication of when he would come back down. And so when the feasts and revels that marked the year’s end came and the streets and courtyards of the great houses filled with slave-drawn carriages and ornate palanquins fighting for positions and rank, Clara found herself outside of all of it. Last year, when Dawson had been newly dead, she’d stumbled through her days like a woman half asleep. Now she walked the edge of the Division or looked out over the southern plains, visited the Prisoner’s Span and the taprooms and the fresh markets. The increase in her allowance meant that even as the others around her struggled, she was able to keep herself near to the daily life to which she’d become accustomed. Things did change around her. The market for day-old bread had become competitive, and she gave up the practice of handing it out as charity. The price of tobacco dropped, though, so she could afford something that was actually worth smoking.
    They were small examples of something larger. Years of war had changed Camnipol, and the changes weren’t yet done. Small pleasures went away and new ones appeared, and Clara found that so long as she paid attention to the new, mourning the old wasn’t so bad. If anything, it had become the way she lived her life.
    After the last of the great parties, there were a handful of small occasions. Winter teas held in drawing rooms while the servants of the house packed the summer’s things away. A knitting group where several fallen women of the court, herself included, were taught a novel way of making shawls by an ancient Jasuru man with half his teeth missing, one blind eye, and an exquisite talent for lacework. There were farewells and promises that the next year would come and it would be different. As if any were ever the same.
    She gathered what gossip and information she could for her letters, though the exercise had taken on an almost formal feeling. She wrote her letters, she sent them out, and nothing ever came back. Not that she’d given anyone a way to reach her. Sometimes she thought that she should. She could give them a false name to send to at the boarding house or direct them to Cold Hammer stables much as she had Ternigan. She never did, though. Part of that was concern for not being caught, but part was also that she liked the way things were now. Sending letters into nowhere and with no response was strangely calming. Like prayer, now that she thought of it.
    As for her plan to undercut Lord Ternigan, she’d all but given up hope. Weeks passed, and though Kiaria hadn’t fallen, Ternigan didn’t reply.
    Until, one day shortly after the last of Clara’s old friends had left the city, he did.
    The morning had begun late, dawn creeping in later and later until it seemed that before long darkness would take the world entirely. Clara had extracted herself from the bed without waking Vincen, washed and dressed herself, and escaped into the grey streets. Frost crept along the