Ammas found Carala roaming the kitchen, looking for a functioning hearth where they might brew seretto tea. If he feared her voicing regret over their dalliance, he need not have worried: she greeted him with a warm smile, gliding her hands over his shoulders and stretching up to kiss his mouth tenderly.

Already she had dressed more completely than he had. "It's a necessary skill," she had said to Casimir the morning after they reached Gallowsport, arriving at their breakfast table looking far less disheveled than any of the men. "One can't pass as a commoner if one still relies on handmaidens." And she had winked at the boy, who laughed, though he hadn't really understood what a handmaiden was. This morning she looked to be in even better spirits, dark as the work ahead of them might be.

"Did you bring leaves? I suppose Barthim might have some when he gets here."

"He might," Ammas agreed, smiling softly. "But we can't brew them here. I think it'd be unwise to have smoke rising from the chimneys."

Carala clucked irritably. "Of course, how foolish of me. Perhaps we might stop at a tavern on the way to the harbor."

"I'm not sure you'll find a Gallowsport tavern that serves seretto tea," Ammas said, laughing now. Carala beamed at him, but her expression soon turned grave.

"Ammas," she said, stepping a little away from him. "Is it -- do you wish we had not -- "

He touched her hair, tilted her face to his, and bent to kiss her. With a sigh she relaxed against him, her fingers going to his neck. The woodland scent was weaker this morning, but she carried other aromas that spoke of what they had done.

"I'm glad," she whispered against his lips. "Whatever happens next -- I am glad."

"I am too," he murmured.

They stood together for a long moment, and if not for the imminent arrival of their companions that simple embrace might have become much more. So with regret on both their parts they stepped back from each other, Ammas returning to the cellar to retrieve his robes and the airy spirit. Carala remained in the kitchen, where there was at least a countertop built against the walls where she could lay out a simple breakfast for them.

Idly plucking at a hunk of waybread, Ammas stepped out into the courtyard, the front doors opening with a protesting squeal. Rowancroft Street was mostly empty. By the time Carala joined him, the now-familiar shape of Barthim's cart was trundling up to the front gate, with the man himself in the bucket, the wood-and-canvas cover raised above the passenger wagon. With no small amount of pique, Ammas had to admit that Barthim had been right to purchase the blasted thing. It had made their trip from Vilais to Gallowsport entirely free of incident.

Ammas crossed the overgrown courtyard, motioning for Barthim to join him at the main gate. "I would have thought you would have been dealing with this already, Ammas," the bouncer said pleasantly as the two of them went about undoing the heavy chain that bound the gates shut.

"I had other business to attend to yesterday, as I think you know," Ammas said, plying the lock with his twinhooks.

"Did you," Barthim said drily, raising his eyes to Carala and offering her a friendly wave.

Ammas ignored this. He wondered if guilt was written all over his face.

As they wrenched the gates open, Casimir appeared from the back of the wagon, going to Ammas with a grin and offering him some cinnamon cakes he had procured at the Steadfast Shield, the barmaids having taken quite a liking to him. "Never knew Munazyri boys could be so polite!" they had cackled. Ammas despaired of their instant knowledge of where one of their party had come from, but he supposed there was nothing to be done about their accents, and no one knew accents like a Gallowsport tradesman. Fortunately no one had recognized Carala, or himself.

Once they had the wagon on the manor house grounds and safely tucked into the shadows of the greenhouse, the horses cropping at the long grass, Ammas led the three of them into the house itself. "I'm afraid it's not very hospitable," he said apologetically, "but it seems to be safe enough. No one bothered us yesterday or last night." Briefly he considered mentioning the figure he had seen in the courtyard, but he was not at all sure it hadn't been a dream.

"That is being quite all right," Barthim said cheerfully, taking great delight in exploring the entry hall and adjoining rooms. "It is worth it to be seeing where you came from, Ammas. I was half-thinking you were a liar when you said your father was a judge. Someone as ugly as you could not possibly come from money."

"I don't think you know enough people who come from money," Ammas replied. "But my family wasn't that wealthy. The house was inherited. My uncle was the one with the lands and title."

"Yes, I am sure you went to bed hungry every night," Barthim said with a wink.

Casimir, meanwhile, seemed awestruck by the place. "Why did you come to Munazyr if you had a house like this, Ammas?"

"It's not really mine, Casimir. I have no right to be here anymore," Ammas replied sadly. He cast an eye at Carala, who looked at her feet with a wistful smile, knowing whose fault that was, yet hearing no blame in Ammas's tone. He turned back to Barthim. "How are Denisius and Vos?"

"Good. They were setting out for the harbor about an hour ago. They already were knowing where Swiftfoot's warehouse was, but did not inspect it last time they were here. I am not blaming them; they did not know what we do now. They are taking a quick look, then coming here."

"What about the office?"

"We passed by it on the way here. It is empty. Burnt out, in fact."

That surprised him. They had agreed not to go near Swiftfoot until after Carala had changed and so was as far from the wolf inside as was possible. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake. "Was it a recent fire, do you know?"

"Some guard said it happened last week," Casimir shrugged. "He didn't seem surprised. I guess it happens a lot."

Ammas, who remembered from his youth how criminally compromised businesses in this city usually closed shop, understood at once. Still it troubled him. Something had set the Swiftfoot off. Carala's senses told them they were all over the city, so why abandon the company they must have gone to such effort to make as their own? "If the warehouse is in the same shape, we'll have to change tack. What do you think -- go to the Prefect?"

"I am not sure that would be very helpful," Carala frowned. "Everyone we've spoken to says the man barely seems to know where he is these days."

"Well, someone must be running the city," Ammas snapped. The moment the words left his mouth a shock of realization seemed to strike him. The idea was absurd, so he didn't give voice to it. But he found himself fingering the ring in his pocket, the ring he had taken from the dead man in the Vilais office. Not for the first time he wondered what Swiftfoot Carting's true purpose might have been.

"Come, Ammas," Barthim said, throwing an arm around the cursewright's shoulders. "You should be giving me a tour of this decrepit old barn. Cass can teach the Princess Whistling Jack, if she is of a mind to learn."

"You said ladies didn't play card games, Barthim," Casimir said with an admirable lack of tact.

Carala burst out laughing. "No, but perhaps werewolves do."

"Just so," Barthim smiled.

Seeing the bouncer was not in a mood to argue, Ammas relented and showed him up the stairs, walking side by side into his father's old study, into the brightly lit conservatory where his mother could be found crocheting upon a time, and finally into his old bedroom. Barthim's good humor seemed to have fled as they roamed the upper story, and the look on his face now was almost as grim as it had been the night they fled Munazyr.

"Ammas," he said, his voice uncharacteristically low and urgent, "I hope you are knowing what you are doing."

"What do you mean?" Ammas said, although he knew damned well what Barthim meant, and felt more than a little foolish at being seen through so easily.

The look on Barthim's face didn't make him feel much better. That expression seemed the sort reserved for a mental defective. "Ammas," he said patiently, "I am working at the Lioness for a decade. I am seeing men and women in every state of infatuation and obsession. Do you think I am not able to tell when a man and woman who have been pining for each other finally come together?"

Even if Ammas had been inclined to lie to Barthim, the blotchy flush climbing up his face would have completely undone him. "I take it you disapprove."

Barthim shrugged. "It is not being my business to approve or disapprove. If it were, I would be cheering. I am thinking Carala is good for you, and you for her. And it is proving something I knew about you for a long time: you need a woman as obvious as a wolf in heat before you are believing she is intrigued with you."

Ammas shot him a very black look. "You've moved from amusing to insulting."

"And here I am thinking your sense of humor is so fine."

"Well? If it's not your business -- "

"Ammas, you are my friend. My best friend, I am thinking. I do not want to see you hurt. And you know, as much as I know, that this cannot go anywhere."