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CHAPTER ONE

There was a crumbled spot in the wall around Elpisia. Kyros sent slaves to fix it every year or two, but for some reason—unstable ground, a vulnerability to wind—it was always crumbling there again within a few months. When I was a child and wanted to get in or out of town without being hassled by the guards at the gate, I scrambled over at that spot. Half a year earlier, I had examined that point in the wall while tracking an escaped slave.

Now, I was back, on the other side. I was climbing into Elpisia under cover of night to free one of the slaves that I had once taken back to slavery.

I found handholds easily enough, and scrambled over. Some gravel had made its way into my boot, so I pulled it off and shook it out. Then I wound a scarf around my face and pulled up the hood of my coat. It wasn’t cold enough for snow yet, but there was a damp wind tonight. I put my mittens back on.

Nika’s owner lived quite close to Kyros, not far from the city gate. I took a roundabout route, trying to stay as far from Kyros’s house as I could. The streets were dark and quiet, but a few people were still out. I walked briskly rather than keeping to the shadows; acting like I was trying to hide would only attract attention. The wind gave me a good excuse to keep my head down and my eyes on the hard dirt under my feet. Being a fugitive in my home city was the strangest, most foreign experience I’d had in my life—even more foreign than my first days with the Alashi. If someone had blindfolded me and spun me around, I still could have found my way to anywhere in the city. It’s so strange to be back. To be back like this.

I turned a corner; there, a stone’s throw ahead of me, was the household where Nika had been sold.

The first step was to get inside. The front door, obviously, was out of the question. There were a few low windows that opened onto the street, but they were tightly shuttered and barred from within; besides, the rooms on the other side of those windows might have people in them at odd hours. I circled the house once, keeping to the shadows now, though I couldn’t see anyone watching. The street was quiet.

Right. The first step is to get inside. You were Kyros’s most resourceful servant—can’t you figure out a way to do that? Tamar had wanted to come along tonight and I refused. If I couldn’t even think of a way to get into the house, Tamar would doubtless offer a dozen different suggestions of ways I could have done it if I’d had her with me. I’d insisted that Tamar wait with the horses because I thought that I would have at least a faint chance of talking my way out of trouble if I were caught by myself. If I had Tamar with me . . . When I looked at Tamar, I still saw a hint of the beaten-down slave girl that she’d been when we met. I didn’t think I could talk both of us out of custody.