“Well, this is going to be tricksy.”

Mia took a long drag of her cigarillo, looking down on the pleasurehouse from their room in the taverna opposite. Jessamine stood at the window beside her, eyes narrowed as she watched the brothel door.

“You were expecting the leader of a braavi gang to just wander down the street with the map in her hand and fall onto your sword, Corvere?”

“You know I love your sarcasm more than anyone, Jess,” Mia sighed. “But we’ve been cooped up in this room a week and I could use a change of tune.”

“I know we’ve been up here a week, I’m the one who has to put up with your incessant fucking smoking.”

“ . . . well, perhaps we could quarrel ’til the morrow and miss our opportunity entirely . . . ?”

Mia glanced to Mister Kindly, licking at his translucent paw on the bed.

“Your commentary is always appreciated.”

“ . . . and freely given . . .”

“You’re a little prick, you know that?”

“ . . . o, well and truly . . .”

Seven turns had passed since she’d arrived in the City of Bridges and Bones, and the only thing keeping Mia’s belly from dissolving in a puddle of nerves were the passengers riding her shadow. Asking around her old haunts in Little Liis, Mia and Jessamine had tracked down their mark after a turn—the Toffs’ headquarters was known to most of the lowlifes who peopled Little Liis. But finding their lair wasn’t the problem. It was getting inside that was going to be the riddle.

The Toffs’ stronghold was a well-appointed five-story palazzo named the Dog’s Dinner. The bottom levels seemed a regular taverna, full of bawdy song and a crush of people. The third floor looked to be an ink den, and the top two, a brothel. Thugs the size of small houses guarded the front doors, dressed up in expensive frock coats and powdered wigs that did little to hide the scars on their faces or the muscle beneath the fabric. Though no signage distinguished the building from its neighbors, this was braavi turf, and all the locals knew exactly what went on behind those doors.

Their reconnaissance had gone flawlessly—being able to send two wisps of living darkness into the building to listen to every conversation and study every nook meant they knew everything that was set to happen this eve. But that didn’t mean pulling this off was going to be easy.

Mia felt a tremble in her shadow, the kiss of a cool breeze. Eclipse coalesced from the darkness at her feet, shaking herself from head to tail.

“News?” Mia asked, cigarillo bobbing at her lips.

“ . . . SHE IS ON THE TOP FLOOR, CORNER OFFICE. SHE SPENT THE TURN ISSUING ORDERS, DRINKING, SMOKING, AND HAVING A GREAT DEAL OF SEX . . .”

“Fine work if you can get it,” Jess said.

“The map is still being delivered here?” Mia asked.

“ . . . THE SELLER IS DUE TO ARRIVE SOMETIME WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR. THE EXCHANGE WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE DONA’S OFFICE . . .”

“So we have two options,” Mia muttered. “We intercept the map before it arrives and end the dona later, or wait for the seller and do them both at once.”

“ . . . WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE SELLER LOOKS LIKE . . .”

“Presumably a dodgy bastard carrying a map case.”

“ . . . you would still need to get into that office to end the dona regardless . . .”

“And therein lies the problem.”

“You could steal inside?” Jessamine suggested. “Hidden in your shadows?”

Mia shook her head. “I can’t see a thing under them. Groping around blind inside a braavi den sounds a splendid way to get a sword in the tits. And the weaver did a particularly good job on these two. It’d be a shame to ruin them.”

Jessamine squinted across the way.

“You could throw a grapple from this roof to the neighboring building. Jump the alley, get in through the Dinner’s roof, work your way down.”

“It’s weeksend. Lots of people in the street. If one looks up . . .”

“Front door, then?”

Mia staring out across the street, muttering. “I’m terrible at the front door.”

“ . . . you are getting better . . .”

“Liar.”

“ . . . o, ye of little faith . . .”

“Faith never kept a drowning man from sinking.” Mia dragged long on her cigarillo. “But admittedly, we don’t have many options.”

“ . . . we could stay up all nevernight and plait each other’s hair and talk about boys . . . ?”

“ . . . MUST YOU ALWAYS PLAY THE FOOL, LITTLE MOGGY . . . ?”

“ . . . it is part of my charm . . .”

“ . . . THIS MUST BE SOME NEW DEFINITION OF CHARM WITH WHICH I AM UNACQUAINTED . . .”

“If you two are done,” Mia growled, “go keep a lookout, aye?”

Emptiness fill her as her passengers departed, butterflies replacing them. Mia tried to shush her nerves, staring across at the braavi den and wondering what awaited her there. Close-quarter fighting. An inn full of hardened criminals. And whoever was selling the map would presumably bring muscle of their own. Bad odds.

Pushing aside her questions, Adonai’s warning ringing in her head, she crushed her cigarillo underheel.

“Right,” she nodded. “I need a dress.”

* * *

Mia walked across the crowded street as if she owned it, over the broken cobbles right toward the door of the Dog’s Dinner.

Nevernight had fallen, wind howling down the thoroughfare. A summer storm had rolled in with it off the ocean, lukewarm rain coming down in thin curtains, the two suns hidden behind a mask of gray. But inclement weather was rarely a reason for folk in Godsgrave to stay inside on a weeksend, and the streets still bustled with folk on their way to their revels.

Little Liis was one of the more squalid sections of the ’Grave, but Liisian folk had flair, and growing up here as a girl, Mia had always found the colors and styles of their dress beautiful. They reminded her of her mother, truth told, and something in the music and aromas of this place called to the blood in her veins. Her outfit had been purloined from the chapel’s wardrobe to fit in with the locals; leather britches and knee-length boots, a corset over a velvet shirt, a glittering necklet, all various shades of bloodred. If she got murdered in there, at least she’d leave a fine-looking corpse.

Up close, the doormen looked even more intimidating. They were under cover of the Dinner’s front awning, but both still looked a little damp and more than a little surly. The gentle on the left was almost as wide as he was tall, and his comrade looked like he’d eaten his own parents for breakfast.

Wideboy held up a hand, stopping Mia short. “Hold there, Mi Dona.”

“Merry nevernight, my lovely gentles,” Mia smiled, dropped into a small curtsey.

“Can’t come in ’ere,” said Orphanboy, shaking his head.

“No riffraff,” Wideboy agreed.

Mia looked down at her outfit, sounding mildly wounded. “Riffraff?”

Four drunken sailors who’d sit comfortably next to the definition of “riffraff” in Don Fiorlini’s bestselling Itreyan Diction: the Definitive Guide stepped up to the door.

“Good eve, gentlefriends,” said Wideboy. “Welcome, welcome.”

The man opened the doors, a burst of flute and laughter rang within, and the mariners stepped inside without a backward glance.

Mia smiled sweetly at Wideboy. “I’ve friends waiting insid—”

“Can’t come in ’ere this eve,” the big man said.

“Not serving your kind,” Orphanboy nodded.

“ . . . My kind?”

The thugs grunted and nodded in unison.

“Let me understand this,” Mia said. “You’re a band of thieves, pimps, stand-over men and murderers. And you’re telling me I’m not good enough to drink here?”

“Aye,” said Wideboy.

“Fugoff,” said his partner.

Mia adjusted her corset as meaningfully as possible. The braavi thugs stared at her without blinking. Finally, she folded her arms and sighed. “How much do you want?”

Orphanboy’s eyes narrowed. “How much you got?”

“Two priests?”

The doorman looked up and down the street, then nodded. “Give it over, then.”

Mia fished around her purse, and flipped one coin apiece to the doormen. The iron disappeared into their pockets quicker than a smokehound into the pipe on payday.

Mia stared at the pair, eyebrows rising. “Well?”

“Can’t come in ’ere this eve,” said Orphanboy.

“Not serving your kind,” Wideboy agreed.

The pair stood aside for a second group of revelers (carrying a street sign and a somewhat troubled-looking sheep), bidding them good eve as they stepped inside. Every one of them was a man. Peering into the room beyond, Mia saw every single one of the clientele was also male. And somewhere in her head, Realization tipped its hat.

“Ohhhh,” she said. “Riiiiight.”

“Right,” said Wideboy.

Orphanboy stroked his chin and nodded sagely.

“Well,” she said.

“ . . . Well what?”

“Well, can I have my money back?” the girl asked.

“You’re terrible at this,” said Wideboy.

“Just awful,” agreed Orphanboy.

Mia pouted. “Mister Kindly said I’m getting better.”

“Whoever he is, Mister Kindly’s a bloody liar.”

The doormen folded their arms like a pair of synchronized dancers.

Mia sighed. “Merry nevernight, my lovely gentles.”

And giving another bow, she marched back into the rain.

* * *

“Don’t you say a fucking word,” she warned Mister Kindly.

She was crouched on a rooftop opposite the Dinner, staring out at a fourth-floor balcony. The not-cat sat beside her, tail swishing side to side.

“ . . . considering your childhood, it’s little wonder you lack people skills . . .”

“Not. A. Fucking. Word.”

“ . . . meow . . .”

“ . . . STRICTLY SPEAKING, THAT IS STILL A WORD . . . ,” Eclipse growled.

“Aye.” Mia held up a warning finger. “One more, and I officially enter your name in the Book of Grudges.”

Mister Kindly lifted a translucent paw, placed it over the spot his mouth might’ve been. The rain was still spattering, warm and wet on her skin. Jessamine finished securing a length of silk line to an iron grapple, handed it dutifully to her Blade.

“Don’t forget the map,” the redhead warned. “And wait ’til I’m down on the street before you make your crossing. Nobody will look up if they’re looking at me.”

“I know. This was my idea, Jess.”

“Were those britches your idea too?” Jessamine looked Mia up and down. “Because they’re not doing that arse of yours any favors.”

“O, stop, I fear my sides shall split.”

“That’s j—”

“Just what the britches said?” Mia rolled her eyes “Aye, aye. Bravo, Mi Dona.”

“I’ll be waiting back here on the roof when you come out. And try not to get killed, neh?” Jess warned. “I’d be ever so disappointed I didn’t do it myself.”

Mia raised the knuckles. The redhead smirked, slipped down the stairwell without further insult. The crowd had thinned from the rain, but gentles were still spilling out of the Dinner, others staggering home after a merry nevernight. Mia watched Jessamine march across the street, straight for a young man just leaving the pleasurehouse.

“Youuuu bastard!” she cried, an accusing finger aimed at his face.

“Eh?” the young man blinked.

“You told me you were headed to your cousin’s!” Jessamine shouted. “And here I find you, drinking and whoring behind my back!”

The gentle in question frowned in confusion. “Mi Dona, I ha—”

“Don’t you ‘Mi Dona’ me!” Jessamine stepped closer, building up a head of steam. “Is this the example you wish to set for our son? O, Four blessed Daughters, why didn’t I listen to Mother? She warned me about you!”

The revelers and braavi doormen watched as Jess launched into a scathing tirade, the fellow she was howling at barely able to get a word in edgewise. And with all eyes on the wronged paramour and her drunken beau, Mia took her chance.

Hurling her grapple across the fifteen-foot gap, she snagged it in the wrought-iron railing and tied it off tight. It was a four-story plunge to a sticky end on the cobbles below, and the railing was slick with rain. Yet, quick as silver, she stepped out into the void between buildings and began stealing across.

Fearless.

Reaching the rooftop of the bordello beside the Dinner, she peering over a chimneystack, not entirely surprised to find two miserable-looking braavi under a single umbrella, guarding the rooftop door. Mia was certain she could take the pair with the white wyrdglass in her pouch—hurling the arkemical globes at the men’s feet would produce a cloud of Swoon big enough to knock both unconscious. But wyrdglass made a noteworthy bang when it popped, and the noise might raise an alarm.

“ . . . mpphgglmm . . . ,” said Mister Kindly.

“What?”

“ . . . HE SAID MPPHGGLMM . . .”

“Daughters, all right, all right, you can speak.”

The not-cat cleared its throat.

“ . . . which room is the dona’s . . . ?”

Eclipse nodded to the corner windows on the top floor. The curtains were drawn, no sign of what might be going on inside.

“ . . . SHE HAD FIVE MEN IN THERE WITH HER, WHEN LAST I LOOKED . . .”

“I don’t like the idea of bursting in blind,” Mia muttered. “And the map might not be here yet.”

“ . . . start in the ink den, work your way up, hide until it arrives . . . ?”

“That sounds suspiciously like a plan.”

Mia dropped onto a narrow ledge on the bordello’s third floor, and leapt across the rain-soaked gap to the balcony on the Dinner. Waiting a moment to listen for any commotion, she peered through the keyhole to the bedchamber beyond. Four figures in various stages of undress were passed out in a tangle of limbs on a four-poster bed, empty ink needles on the furs beside them. Dead to the world.

Quiet as shadows, Mia retrieved her lockpicks from her boot heel, sweet-talked the balcony door and slipped inside. The quartet didn’t stir from their inkdreams. She shook off the rain and was sneaking past the bed when a soft knock sounded. Mia was across the room in a flash, hiding behind the door as it opened gently.

“Service?” a young voice said. “Mi Dons? I have your sugarwater.”

A girl stepped inside, a golden courtesan’s masque on her face. She looked barely a teenager, but dressed as a woman—crushed black taffeta and cheap chiffon. She carried a silvered tray, four fine goblets and a decanter of sea-blue liquid. Lowering her voice as she saw the slumbering inkfiends on the bed, she turned to push the door closed and silence the celebrations downstairs.

Lightning flashed across the skies outside. A hand reached from behind her, holding her tray. Another about her mouth.

“Hush now,” Mia whispered.

The lass stood still as a statue in Tyrant’s Row.

“I mean no harm, love,” Mia said. “You’ve my word. I’ll take my hand away if you promise not to cry out?”

The girl nodded, chest heaving. Mia edged her hand from the girl’s lips, stepped back, hand on her gravebone sword. The girl turned slowly, looked her up and down—the blades, the black, the stare—her breath coming even quicker as she realized what Mia was about. Glancing toward the bed, looking for marks of murder.

“I’m not here for them,” Mia promised.

“Are you . . . here for me?”

Mia looked her over—the low neckline, the tightly cinched corsetry, the golden masque. A woman twice her age might find herself comfortable in such an outfit. Might revel in the power it gave. But this one was barely more than a child.

. . . Barely more than a child?

Daughters, what am I?

She should be away about her business, she knew it. The Dona was upstairs, the map was on its way, and Mia needed to end one and steal the other by the morrow. But there was something about this girl. Just one of dozens working inside these walls. Could she have ended in a place like this if Mercurio hadn’t found her? If her life had been just a little different?

This was softness, she knew it. She should be steel. But still . . .

“How old are you?” she found herself asking.

“Fourteen,” the girl replied.

Mia shook her head. “Is this what you want?”

A blink. “What?”

“Is this what you dreamed of being?” Mia asked. “When you were younger?”

“I . . .” The girl’s eyes were locked on the sword at Mia’s belt. Her voice turned cold with self-mockery. “I used to pray Aa would make me a princess.”

Mia smiled. “None of us get to be princesses, love.”

“No,” the girl said simply. “No, we don’t.”

Silence hung in the room like morning fog. Mia only stared, as she often did, letting the quiet ask her questions for her.

“Horses,” the girl finally said, tugging her dress higher. “I used to dream of working with horses. A little merchant’s wagon, perhaps. Something simple.”

“That sounds nice.”

“I’d have a black stallion named Onyx,” the girl said. “And a white mare named Pearl. And we’d ride wherever the wind blew, nobody to stop us.”

“So why don’t you do that?”

The lass looked around the room, the bordello beyond it. The light dying in her eyes as she shrugged helplessly. “No choice.”

“You could choose the purses at their waists.” Mia pointed at the trio of marrowborn on the four-poster. “The jewels at their throats. I know a man called Mercurio who lives in the necropolis. If you told him Mia sent you, he could help set you up. Someplace with horses, maybe. Someplace you want to be.”

A glance upstairs. Fear in shadowed eyes. “They’d catch me.”

“Not if you’re quick. Not if you’re clever.”

Thunder rolled beyond the window.

“I’m not,” the girl said.

“That’s Fear talking. Never listen to him. Fear is a coward.”

The girl looked Mia up and down, shaking her head. “I’m not like you.”

Mia could see her reflection in the serving girl’s stare as lightning arced across the skies outside. Death pale skin. Gravebone at her side. Shadows in her eyes.

“I’m not sure you want to be like me,” she said. “I just doubt this”—she reached out and untied the golden masque—“is anything like you.”

The face behind the gold was thin. An old bruise at her lip. Tired, pretty eyes.

“But it’s your choice. Always yours.”

The girl looked to the inkfiends. Back to Mia’s eyes.

“Are there many of them upstairs?” Mia asked.

The girl nodded. Licked the bruise at her mouth. “The worst of them.”

“There’s a package being delivered here this eve. Do you know anything of it?”

The girl shook her head. “They don’t tell me much.”

Mia looked down at the crystalware goblets, the decanter and the silver tray. Up at the girl and her tired eyes. The girl was staring at a purse among the inkfiend’s scattered clothes. A golden ring on another’s finger.

“What’s your name?” Mia asked.

The girl blinked. Looked back at Mia. “Belle.”

“Could you do me a favor, Belle?”

Sudden wariness dawned in the girl’s eyes. “What kind of favor?”

Mia walked a slow circle around her. Nodded once.

“Can I borrow that dress?”

* * *

Mia and Matteo were escorted from their sparring session by two guards wearing tabards of the Familia Remus. Staring at that falcon sigil on their chests, Mia felt that sinking feeling in her belly growing worse. Sidonius limped out from an infirmary at the keep’s rear. The big man’s nose had been set with a wooden splint after Mia’s beating, fresh stitches at his brow. The girl called Maggot followed him, wandering over to the big mastiff and letting him lick the man’s blood from her fingers. She looked at Mia, again gifting her that small, shy smile.

Not knowing quite what to make of the girl, and despite the bitter sting of her defeat at the hands of the executus, Mia smiled back.

The guards collected Sidonius, and the new recruits were marched up to the great double doors at the keep’s rear. There, they were met by a slender woman with long gray hair and three circles branded into her cheek. She was in her late forties, and carried herself with an almost regal air. A flowing dress of fine red silk hugged her body, and her neck was encircled with a silver torc, similar to Furian’s.

“I am Anthea, majordomo of this house,” she said. “I manage the domina’s affairs in these walls. You will refer to me as Magistrae. You are to be bathed and fed before being locked down for the nevernight. If you have questions, you may speak.”

Sidonius rubbed a hand across his bloody chin, looked the woman up and down.

“Will you wash my back for me, Dona?”

The magistrae glanced at the guards. The men drew wooden truncheons and proceeded to beat the bleeding shit out of Sidonius right there in the foyer. Mia rolled her eyes, wondering how the Itreyan could be so dense. After a hard drubbing—his second of the turn—Sidonius lay on the tiled floor in a spatter of his own blood.

“That’s a n-no . . . I take it . . . ?”

“Mistake me not for some simple servant, cur,” Magistrae said, her dark eyes roaming the COWARD burned into his chest. “I have known our domina since she was a child, and when she is absent, I am her voice in this house. Now cease your bleeding upon my tiles and follow.”

Sidonius wobbled to his feet, brow and lips dripping red. Mia watched the magistrae from the corner of her eye. The woman reminded her of her father’s majordomo—a Liisian named Andriano—who was head of this household back when the Corvere colors still flew upon the walls. He too lived in bondage, but carried himself like a freeman. Anthea seemed cut from the same cloth.

The more things change . . .

“May I ask a question, Magistrae?” Mia asked.

Anthea looked her over with a careful eye before replying. “Speak.”

“I see falcons hanging on the courtyard walls.” Mia winced, massaging her bruised ribs. “But is our domina not of the Familia Leonides?”

“The falcon is the sigil of Marcus Remus,” the woman nodded. “Aa bless and keep him. This was his house, awarded for his service to the Republic after the Kingmaker Rebellion. Now he is gone to his eternal rest by the Hearth, the estate passes to his widow, your new domina.”

The sinking feeling in Mia’s belly reached all the way down to her toes.

I fucking knew it . . .

Mia had no idea where he might be, but she could almost hear Mister Kindly’s rebuke in her ears. She hadn’t just failed to win a place with the collegium she’d intended, she’d also fallen into servitude to the wife of the justicus she’d murdered? Her scheme was drifting further down the sewer with every passing turn . . .

Be still. Be patient. Leona will never know.

Mia bowed her head, followed the magistrae obediently. They were escorted through a broad hall at the keep’s rear, the trio all limping after their beatings. Mia was reeling from the news about Leona, about the presence of another darkin, but somewhere in back of her mind, the child who’d walked these halls was struck by how much Crow’s Nest had changed. The layout was untouched, but the decor . . .

Dona Corvere had favored an opulent look, but now the halls were plain—the beautiful tapestries and carpets replaced by suits of armor and weapons of war. Mia wanted to see her old room, the view of the ocean from the balconies, but she and her fellows were led down a winding stair to an antechamber outside the cellar. An iron portcullis blocked them from going any further, a complex mekwerk device on the wall beside it. A guard inserted an odd key, worked a series of levers. The portcullis rose, and Magistrae ushered Mia and the others inside.

Darius Corvere had used the vast sublevel as a living area for the brutal summer months, but Mia could see it had been refitted as a barracks. The space had been partitioned into six-by six-cells, lined with long rows of heavy iron bars.

Very generous of the dona to let her pets live underground . . .

Walking past the cages, Mia noted the fresh straw, the thick chains. Arkemical globes glowed on the wall. The barracks smelled of sweat and shit, but at least they were cool. The guards kept them moving, marching to the end of a long corridor, where they found a large bathhouse, hung thick with steam. Mia and her fellows were ushered in by Magistrae, the guards left outside. The older woman looked at them expectantly.

“Off with your clothes,” she ordered.

Another girl her age might have blushed. Trembled or simply refused. But Mia saw her body as just another weapon, as dangerous as any blade. Weaver Marielle had gifted her curves sharp enough to almost kill a man if she wished it, and Mia had murdered more men than she could rightly count.

What matter now, to show a little skin?

And so, she stripped off her rags and boots without hesitation, stood naked in the steam. Sidonius was still too shaky from his beating to take much notice, but she saw Matteo drinking in her body from the corner of his eyes. Magistrae pointed to a stone bench near the pool. Mia saw razors, combs, a bevy of soaps.

“Gladiatii bathe together, eat together, fight together,” the woman explained. “But until you survive the Winnowing, you will tend to your own ablutions. Mark me well; I’ll not tolerate filth beneath this roof. And have a care with that hair of yours, girl.” Magistrae looked at Mia’s long, dirty locks. “If I find a single flea in it, I’ll have the lot chopped off.”

The woman raised one gray, sculpted eyebrow, inviting questions. After a moment’s silence, she nodded curtly.

“I will return in twenty minutes. Keep me waiting, taste the lash as your reward.”

Magistrae stalked away, the guards remaining stationed outside the door. Mia waded into the bath, sinking down with a long sigh. The temperature was glorious, and she luxuriated in the sensation, running her hands over her skin. Pushing back her hair, she finally surfaced, blinking the water from her lashes. She fixed Matteo in her stare, let herself rise in the water just enough that her breasts showed above the surface. The boy had his hands at his crotch, unsuccessfully trying to cover his growing erection as he stepped into the bath.

“Four Daughters, you’ll have someone’s eye out with that,” Sidonious growled. “Anyone’d think you’d never seen a pair of baps before.”

Matteo raised the knuckles and Mia found herself laughing. She reached for a cake of honeysoap, wondering how a peace offering might fare. Thugs often stood down once you stood up to their bullshit . . .

“If you weren’t such a pig, I’d find you more amusing, Sidonius.”

“Aye, well, if you weren’t such a cunt, I’d find you more attractive, little Crow.”

“I think I’ll learn to live with the heartache.”

The Itreyan smirked, gingerly touched his broken nose. Though she’d given him a drubbing, he seemed not to take it personally, and Mia decided Sidonius was one of those fellows who worked out his feelings through the application of violence. The kind who’ll walk into a taverna and beat the wailing shit out of the first man to look at him crossways, but the moment the fight is done, will be calling his foe “brother” and buying him drinks. Now that she’d given him a walloping, he seemed more kindly disposed. Though watching Sidonius prod his new sutures, she still wouldn’t be willing to bet whether he’d rather fuck or murder her.

“Who stitched you?” she asked, blinking suds from her eyes. “That young girl?”

“Aye,” Sidonius nodded. “Maggot they call her.”

“What kind of name is that?”

The big man sank up to his chin in the water. “No clue. But she’s swift with a needle. Good thing, too. She’ll have more stitching to do after the Winnowing.”

Matteo finally dragged his eyes away from Mia’s breasts, frowning.

“What is this Winnowing they speak of?”

Sidonius scoffed. “Where you from, boy?”

“Ashkah. Down near Dust Falls.”

“They got no arenas down there?”

Matteo shook his head. “I’d never seen the ocean until a month ago. Never even left my village. And now I’m here. Locked up with Itreyan pigs and Dweymeri brutes.”

“Watch your mouth.” Sidonius raised an eyebrow. “I’m Itreyan.”

“Aye,” Mia said. “And the most brilliant boy I ever met was Dweymeri.”

Sidonius nodded. “I’d leave that shit in the sewer if I was you, countryboy.”

Matteo mumbled apology, fell silent. Minutes past, the boy fumbling with the soap, finally dropping the cake and fishing about for it in the water.

“How’d you end up here?” Mia finally asked.

The boy shrugged, steam sticking those dark curls to his skin. “My da sold me. Gambling debts. Foisted me off for want of coin.”

“Aa’s cock,” Sidonius growled. “And I thought I was cold-blooded.”

“You’re half-decent with a blade,” Mia said. “Where’d you learn to fight?”

“My uncle.” Matteo ran a hand through his hair, Mia idly watching the muscles at play in his arm as she combed her knots. “I was going to join the legion. I hoped I might get posted to a big city one turn. I always wanted to see the City of Bridges and Bones.”

“Perhaps you will,” Mia said. “They hold the Venatus Magni in Godsgrave.”

“What’s that?”

“The greatest games in the calendar,” Sidonius replied. “Held at truelight, when all of Aa’s eyes are open in the sky. The purses are fortunes to the sanguila who win them. And to the gladiatii who wins the magni? He knows greatest prize of all.”

Hope gleaming in Matteo’s deep brown eyes. “Freedom?”

The big Itreyan nodded. “A gladiatii can buy his way free if he wins enough coin. But the gladiatii who wins the magni has freedom handed to him by god himself.”

The boy frowned in confusion, obviously oblivious. Sidonius rolled his eyes.

“You heard the tale of the beggar and the slave?”

“Aye.”

“Well, to honor the God of Light during truelight, every beggar in the ’Grave is fed from the Republic’s coffers. And the winner of the magni is given his freedom by the grand cardinal himself. Clad in naught but rags, just like Aa was in the gospel.”

Sidonius leaned forward, eyes glittering.

“And then, if that weren’t enough, the bloody consul hands you your victor’s laurel. Imagine it. Crowd going berserk. That god-bothering bastard Duomo dressed like a beggar, and that marrowborn wanker Scaeva kissing your arse in front of the entire arena.” Sidonius grinned like a madman. “Every woman in the ’Grave would know your name. You’d be swimming in cunny for the rest of your life, countryboy.”

Mia looked to the ripples on the water before her. Imagining it, just as she’d imagined it for months now. Grand Cardinal Duomo, standing within arm’s reach, dressed in nothing but his beggar’s robes.

No cathedral around him.

No holy vestments around his shoulders.

And no trinity hanging around his neck . . .

And beside him, Consul Scaeva, victor’s laurel waiting in his hand . . .

“And all I need do is win the magni?” Matteo asked.

Sidonius guffawed. “All? Aye, that’s all you have to do. Just win the greatest games in the Republic. Against the finest gladiatii under the suns. This collegium hasn’t even won a berth in the great games yet.”

“Well, how do we do that?”

“With difficulty,” Mia sighed. “A collegium that earns enough laurels leading up to truelight can send gladiatii. But apparently this is our domina’s first competitive season, and it seems she’s but one victor’s laurel to her name.” Mia scowled. “Furian’s.”

“And we three are a long way from the sands just yet,” Sidonius growled. “Before we’re even counted among the gladiatii, we must survive the Winnowing.”

“So come to explanation, then,” Matteo demanded. “What is this Winnowing?”

“A cull,” Sidonius said. “They hold them before every major games in the lead-up to the magni. Separate the wheat from the chaff.”

“Nobody knows what shape the Winnowings take,” Mia explained. “The editorii change the format each time. But the next one is in two weeks. At Blackbridge.”

Matteo swallowed thickly, muscle in his jaw twitching.

“But if we don’t know what the format will be, how do we prepare for it?”

“Do you pray?” Mia asked.

“ . . . Aye.”

Mia shrugged.

“I’d start there if I were you.”