“Target Chime!” Faith shot out of her chair and struck a dramatic pose in the middle of the room. Clasping both hands to her breast like one of those actresses in A Requiem for Aldric, she raised her eyes heavenward and declaimed, “I am aghast by the implication! I would never do such a thing to my dear friend.”

Bazso could almost certainly hear her in his study. In fact, half of Crow’s Foot could probably hear her.

“Keep your voice down!” I hissed.

“Why?” she pouted, flopping back down and crossing her arms across her ruffled bosom. “I just said that we’re not targeting anyone. Honestly, Isha, I don’t know how you do things in Iruvia, but in Doskvol, not targeting someone isn’t a crime.”

In U’Duasha, sometimes not targeting someone was a crime – against yourself, at any rate. Scores of the Patriarch’s relatives had spent their last moments wishing they’d strangled him in the cradle.

Perhaps my expression convinced Faith that I meant business, because she twirled one end of her shimmery satin sash, lowered her voice a notch, and explained, “I merely think that Chime would have a better time in jail accused of some of the crimes we’ve committed! Like playing dress-up outside that brothel, or inaugurating the festivities at Spiregarden Theater. If we invite him back to our railcar and host him for a couple days, I’m sure we can convince him to confess to something.”

Ash spoke up at last. “Well, I’m not sure how we’ll get paid for this one, but it’s always good to get onto the safer side of the law,” he pronounced. “And since we already set up this delightful treasure hunt for the Bluecoats – ”

“ – Might as well have it lead somewhere?” I finished drily.

“Exactly!” he beamed.

Apparently Ash’s preoccupation with crew finances was rubbing off on Faith, because she sank into a brief reverie, then bounced up and down with excitement. “Oh! I have an idea! I have a friend at the Docks!”

Her level of enthusiasm was wearing me out. Leaning back against my pillow and closing my eyes, I let Ash deal with her idea.

He didn’t disappoint. “Another ‘dear friend’ like Chime?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, no, not at all! This friend can be our client, or at least connect us to one. Her name is Nyryx – ”

That wasn’t a very common name at all. In fact, I only knew one Nyryx. Incredulously, I began, “You think that Tycherosi prosti– ”

“Don’t use that term, Isha!” Faith gasped, scandalized. “It sounds so vulgar, so unbecoming for a lady such as myself to hear. What I think you meant to say was ‘that Tycherosi lady of marketable affections.’ And the answer is yes.”

I hadn’t actually asked anything yet.

“I know Nyryx,” Ash put in. “But I fail to see what a, um, lady such as herself has to do with the operations of people such as ourselves. Unless she harbors personal enmity for Chime? I find it hard to believe that she can afford our fee, though.”

Like a child just bursting to share a particularly exciting pebble with her parents, Faith gleefully looked from one of us to the other. “Oh, Ash, Isha, didn’t you know? Nyryx is one of the Reconciled.”

Simultaneously, Ash and I exclaimed, “What?”

The Reconciled were a select group of spirits who had found – or at least claimed to have found – a way to retain their sanity after death. Naturally, they preferred to have a physical embodiment and often possessed living humans, including (it was rumored, although by whom I had no idea because the Reconciled themselves certainly weren’t talking, and neither were the allegedly possessed humans) members of the City Council itself.

Our shock satisfied Faith enough for her to continue. “Yes. So you see, while we have no need of Chime, I’m sure Nyryx can make good use of him. We should ask her.”

I must have made a gulping noise – the Tycherosi were bad enough, but a part-demon possessed by an ancient ghost that might or might not be deranged?

Faith winked at me. “You don’t need come, Isha. I understand. It’s too embarrassing for someone as noble as yourself to be seen in the company of a lady of negotiable affections.”

Of course I shadowed them to their meeting anyway.

North to the Docks they went, straight to the back of the Menagerie, where Captain Rye was haggling loudly with a group of sailors over the latest monstrosity they’d picked – or, more likely, fished – up during their travels. A splotchy dark creature resembling a cross between a hog and an octopus pressed its gelatinous snout against the bars of its rusty cage and snorted loudly at passersby, some of whom pointed and laughed, others of whom brushed by as if they hadn’t even noticed.

Poised artistically beside an empty pen, dressed in a gaudy, tasteless approximation of an Iruvian kaftan, Nyryx spotted Ash and Faith and beckoned to them with a lewd gesture. The trio vanished around the corner into a dark alley as if they were about to get down to business.

Which they were, after a fashion.

Creeping as close as I dared and hiding behind a stack of water tanks, I strained to catch their conversation.

Faith was saying animatedly, “We’re about to come into possession of a person who will unfortunately have been recently – ”

To my frustration, a gang of sailors swaggered by, bellowing out sea shanties.

When they finally passed, Nyryx’s husky, suggestive voice was finally audible. “For as many bodies as you can procure, I can find buyers.”

Faith teased, “We’ll start with the most deserving – I mean, the most unfortunate.”

Intriguingly, Nyryx replied, “I’ve known you for a long time, Faith….” In a more business-like tone, she asked, “What can you tell me about the body?”

“For starters, it’s a Billhook,” Ash specified.

“That’s good to know,” the Reconciled agreed. “Are there any scars? What does it look like?”

“Well,” drawled Faith, “he’s cute in a rugged sort of way…. Oh, by the way, in addition to the upfront cost of the body, we’ll need it to spend a month in jail. The new and reformed Chime will suffer an attack of conscience and turn himself in for the terrible, terrible crimes he’s committed.”

There was a silence, probably as Nyryx ran through a mental roster of potential buyers. “Yes,” she said at last. “I will arrange something.”

While she and Ash turned to bargaining, I limped back to Crow’s Foot. If we were going to target Chime, we needed to learn everything we could about the man.

Recruiting informants to spy on Faith’s “dear friend” proved surprisingly difficult.

I tried first, with the orphans from Strathmill House. A flock of them always hung around the back of the Red Sash Sword Academy, hoping for the chance to run an errand and make a few coppers. “You know that Billhook, Chime?” I asked, waggling my purse at them. All of them nodded, and a couple of the bolder (and dumber) ones inched closer, eyes glued to the purse as if gauging whether they could snatch it. Turning casually so they could see Grandfather’s hilt, I told them, “I need someone quick and daring to follow him and report all his actions.”

“Chime?” cried one orphan, aghast.

Eyes huge as saucers, already edging away from me, another whispered, “Oh no, miss, we like our fingers!”

Like pigeons before a street dog, the orphans all fled.

Ash tried next, with a Crow who was lounging outside one of Bazso’s drug dens.

“I have a job for you,” he announced. “Three coppers a day, but the price is negotiable.”

“Talk,” rumbled the scoundrel, a bear of a man whose arms and neck were encrusted with tattoos. “I’m listenin’.”

“You will follow Chime and – ”

“Chime, as in Billhook Chime?” the man interrupted.

“Yes, as in Tarvul’s-right-hand-man Chime,” Ash specified. “Now, I’m interested in – ”

“Naw, thanks, man. I like my ears.”

And the big man wandered off, vanishing into the warren of alleys near the Crow’s Nest.

In the end, I wound up doing my own spying. It even saved the crew a slug or two, a point Ash noted with great satisfaction.

Decked out in foul-smelling rags (and shadowed by Lampblacks who stayed upwind), I hobbled to the Billhooks’ cover operation in the northeastern part of Crow’s Foot, a butcher shop just three streets away from the Leaky Bucket. Although I’d sometimes wondered why Bazso didn’t just run the psychopaths out of the district, now I had to admit that their proximity was convenient.

Also surprisingly handy for my operation was that mangy, three-legged stray from the Old Rail Yard, which had followed Faith and Ash all the way from Coalridge and started hanging around Bazso’s townhouse. It had ingratiated itself with the Lampblack runners – even Bug – and wagged its tail hopefully every time it saw me. Now it hopped along after me, cocked its head, and eyed me curiously when I huddled down in a shivering lump across from the butcher shop. When I set out a cracked bowl, the mutt promptly sat down in a begging position, and almost immediately, a passerby tossed me a copper “to buy a bone for the nice doggie.”

Over the course of a week, the two of us kept a sharp eye on Chime’s comings and goings and even made the equivalent of a slug – which I promptly spent on fancy bath salts. Not too shabby.

“So, what do you have for us?” Ash asked. “Does Chime keep any kind of schedule?”

Thoroughly scrubbed and clean, I reported, “Chime oversees the Billhooks’ business of extorting shopkeepers in Coalridge, mostly under the pretext of supervising meat deliveries. He also inspects the animal fighting pits that they own in the Docks, while pretending to gamble on matches.” Before Ash could inquire, I added, “You can imagine that no one would dream of claiming any winnings from him.”

Ash, perhaps dreaming of the Silver Stag Casino, nodded knowingly.

“Ugh. That’s so boring,” complained Faith. “Chime’s practically a model citizen!”

“Does he have any vices we can prey on?” asked Ash hopefully.

“Well, I’m not sure this counts as a vice, but every other day, he goes to Strathmill Park – you know, that little park between the Sword Academy and Strathmill House – and he feeds pigeons.”

“Chime feeds pigeons?” Ash looked aghast. “Does he mix them into the meat they sell?”

“Ash!” reproved Faith. “Don’t be so cynical! Maybe Chime just likes feeding the little birdies.”

And maybe Faith ripped out our targets’ souls and stored them in ghost bottles while she searched for better bodies for them, but I doubted it.

“No,” I replied flatly. “No, he really doesn’t. Every other day, he intercepts one of a rotating group of pigeons and removes a message from its leg. I’m pretty sure they’re instructions from Tarvul, but I haven’t found a way to confirm this yet. We could attack him while he’s feeding the pigeons. That may be when he’s most distracted.”

“Oh! Oh! Yes!” Faith agreed enthusiastically. “And then we can drag him to the Sword Academy and wage spectacular single combat through the halls while the students look on in open-mouthed wonderment! Imagine how dramatic that would be!”

Almost as dramatic as Mylera’s apoplectic fit. “The headmistress would be upset if we broke anything,” I reminded her primly, in the understatement of the millennium.

Faith sighed and pouted. “You’re no fun. And neither is Mylera.”

Ash suggested, “Well, how about this? We have someone steal something from Chime and then run into the Sword Academy. We can ambush him on the grounds and stay out of the building.” Almost immediately, he dismissed his own idea. “The problem is that he knows it belongs to the Red Sashes. No matter how hotheaded he is, he’s too smart to run into another gang’s headquarters.”

“You might have something there,” I said, getting excited. “We can hire one of the orphans to pickpocket him and run back into the orphanage. Then we ambush him there, off the street and out of sight of the Bluecoats! I’ll bet we can even get Mylera to lend us a few Red Sashes.” After all, what self-respecting gang leader would want another gang’s leader loitering outside her own headquarters?

Mylera, as it turned out, was torn. On the one hand, she really didn’t like the Billhooks and their grisly habit of strewing expertly butchered corpses all over their turf. But on the other hand, she really didn’t want to set a precedent by interfering too blatantly with one of their leaders in what was, after all, a public park.

“It’s not like they’re using it for a meeting place, Glass,” she pointed out, tracing the handle of her coffee cup. “It’s only one of them – and he’s feeding pigeons, of all things. That’s the most innocuous thing I’ve heard of a Billhook doing! I’m honestly not sure I should discourage it.”

Waving my own (empty) coffee cup, I reminded her forcefully, “It’s not innocuous, though. It’s a cover operation for Chime to receive instructions from Tarvul. Do you really want people to accuse the Red Sashes of condoning Billhook activity right outside our headquarters? It seems…disrespectful, to say the least.”

Absently, Mylera refilled my cup and gazed at her statue of She Who Slays in Darkness while she thought. At last, she decided, “No, you’re right, Glass. I don’t want them passing secret correspondence on my own doorstep. What resources do you need for this street-sweeping operation?”

“Just a few extra pairs of hands and eyes. Er.” Bad phrasing, given who was under discussion. “Not literally, of course. Three reliable scoundrels would be enough.”

Apparently I could have requested more aid, because Mylera agreed without even blinking.

The wary little orphans were harder to convince, but eventually we managed to hire two for a handful of slugs.