Only there was a rumour going around that there was a man who knew how to get through the barricade, and for the right price he’d give you passage. He was rounding up anyone with the right money at the White Fish.

I’d heard that rumour, too. I’d ignored it since it was so obviously a scam. Only it seemed Sam was stupid enough to fall for it.

The heat of a long day of trawling the city streets clung to me as I pushed through the doors of the White Fish. A dozen pairs of men’s eyes joined it. I knew what they were seeing. It didn’t matter that I was dressed in sturdy desert clothes or that I was armed: I was a woman in a place where only men belonged. I half missed the days when I was a scrawny girl from Dustwalk and could still pass for a boy when I needed to. But it had been a year of decent meals, and there was too much of me to hide what I was now.

Most of the men turned back to their drinks and their gambling, shrugging me off as I pressed further into the bar, searching for a familiar face. But one man stepped square in my path, quickly enough that I had to pull up short to keep from running straight into him.

‘How much?’ he asked without preamble.

‘For you to get out of my way?’ My hand was already on the gun at my belt. ‘I’ll do you a favour, and until the count of three, I’ll let you move for free. After that, I might start charging you in toes.’ When he looked down, the pistol was pointed at his boot. It was an easy shot to pull off in close quarters.

I recognised Sam’s laugh a second before his arm draped itself over my shoulder. ‘Don’t mind my lady friend.’ His voice was too bright, like he was trying to cut through the tension, like sun through clouds. ‘She’s too much for you to handle anyway.’ He winked at the man across from me. In a low voice, in Albish, slow enough so I could understand, he said, ‘Put your gun away before he does something stupid and you and I have to do something heroic.’

I bit my tongue angrily, but he was right. I wasn’t here to draw attention to myself by starting a bar brawl. The man gave us a once-over before taking a step back. Sam pulled me around, turning me towards a table lined with men holding cards, watching us with interest. ‘Sorry about that interruption, boys,’ Sam declared too loudly. ‘Just had to go get my good luck charm.’ He sat back down abruptly, pulling me into his lap so fast I didn’t think about swatting him away until I was already sitting.

I moved the most painful means of death to the top of the list I’d spent this afternoon constructing.

Still, I had to admit, the too-interested eyes that had strayed towards us were moving away, a smug, knowing look crossing the faces of the other gamblers at his table. Now they thought they understood what I was and who owned me. Sam knew what he was doing.

‘You’re going to need a lot more than luck tonight, my foreign friend,’ a man with a dark green sheema draped loosely around his neck said with a laugh. ‘With cards like those.’

‘You looked at my cards?’ Sam slapped a hand dramatically to his chest in feigned shock, like he’d just been shot through the heart. ‘You curs, you cheaters, you—’ I didn’t have time for this.

‘Sam,’ I interrupted his mock tirade. ‘Buy me a drink.’ When he looked about to protest, I toyed pointedly with the sleeve of the arm slung around my shoulder. I could feel the cards tucked inside his shirt pressing against me. ‘Now, before I say something that might get you shot.’ He took my meaning as I got to my feet, freeing myself of the indignity of his lap.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said dramatically as he rose, kicking his chair back out of the way, ‘your infidelity leaves me no choice but to fold this hand. But I will return when I’ve had some luck rub off on me.’ He winked widely, pulling me tight against him by the waist. Thumbscrews. The way I murdered him was going to include thumbscrews.

‘So here’s what I’m thinking,’ Sam said. He drew me towards a table in a dark corner and gestured to the barman with two fingers. ‘Your timing is perfect to help me cheat my way to victory.’ The barman set down two glasses of amber liquid in front of us, sliding mine to me with a careful once-over. I met his gaze steadily in return. ‘All we need to do is work out some sort of code between us,’ Sam went on blithely, clearly not caring who overheard.

‘Selling Shazad’s jewellery wasn’t enough? Are you just getting greedy now?’ I ran a finger along the rim of the glass of liquor that had just been put down in front of me.

‘Oh, don’t be like that.’ He jostled me, like it was all some big joke. ‘My friend over there is charging an arm and a leg to get smuggled out of here.’ He nodded towards a man at the bar who was still looking at us. ‘And the only people who can get away with missing their limbs and still being as dashing as I am are pirates. I have no interest in spending the rest of my life eating fish with my hook hand.’

‘Why would anyone replace their hand with a hook?’ Sam didn’t used to give me this much of a headache.

He opened his mouth like he was going to explain to me some foreign concept that had gone far over my head, like he used to in our meetings at the palace, but then seemed to change his mind and took a sip of his drink instead. ‘The point is,’ Sam ploughed on, a nervous energy seeming to animate him, ‘that if I want to get out of this city and keep all my appendages, I’ve got to find something else to offer him.’