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Cerril didn't rise to the old argument that existed between them. Since she was four years older than he was, she'd always told him what to do and not to do, but she knew since he'd taken to making his way in the shadows that the balance between them had shifted. She just didn't want to act like it had.

"Give me some measure of respect in this," Imareen said.

"I do," Cerril said.

He sorely wished that cuffing his sister would work as well as it did with the members of his gang, but Imareen would never stand for it. There was a good likelihood that she'd get up in the middle of the night to stick a knife between his ribs and tell their mother that Malar the Stalker, god of marauding beasts and bloodlust, had taken him in the night.

"He's settling his business with Elkor now," Imareen said. "Hell be out shortly."

"Have you seen his purse?"

Avarice gleamed in Imareen's muddy brown eyes. "It looks small, but it's heavy."

"Small isn't good." Still, Cerril couldn't keep a faint smile from his hps.

"Heavy is good, and this man works to keep his purse well hidden."

"Has anyone else noticed him?" Cerril asked.

"No. No one's noticed him."

"You're sure?"

"Just the same," Cerril said, "keep an eye out. If it looks like someone's following him, wave one of the tavern lanterns in the window."

"I will."

Cerril nodded. "Let's have a look at him."

Imareen opened the tavern door and stepped aside. She followed Cerril inside then led him through the small larder behind the Brazen Trumpet's bar.

The tavern was small and ordinary. Besides the heavy, scarred bar that ran the breadth of the building, odd-sized tables and unmatched chairs took up the floor space. Nets hanging from the ceiling held colored bottles in bright greens, blues, and dulled browns and rubies. All the liquor had been drained from the bottles, and they'd been refilled with water. Hundreds of seashells and smooth stones joined the bottles. The nets made for a colorful display. An ensorcelled shark hung above the fireplace. It was nearly as long as a tall man, and the lipless mouth was open in a fearful pose.

Men lounged in the chairs around the tables. Most of them were professional seamen, sprinkled with a few mercenaries. The two groups sat apart from each other. Maybe they'd sailed the same ship across the Sea of Fallen Stars, but each looked down their noses at the other.

"There," Imareen whispered in Cerril's ear.

Cerril studied the man at the bar. Elkor was trying to chat the man up, offering to rent him one of the rooms above the tavern for the night. The man simply shook his head.

He wasn't a local. Cerril knew that from his clothing. While most Turmishan men wore square-cut beards and layered clothing against the humid heat that sweltered the Vilhon Reach, the victim Imareen had marked had a ragged appearance. His clothing was disreputable and he hadn't shaved in days. The man's emaciated form resembled a bag of bones shoved into a burlap bag. He was in his middle years, but his infirmity robbed him of any dregs of youth. Hollow-eyed and pale, he habitually raked his gaze over the tavern crowd.

"What has he been doing since he's been here?" Cerril whispered to Imareen.

"Drinking," his sister answered. "Drinking like a man possessed. And writing."

"Writing?" Cerril pondered that. Writing was usually a merchant's domain, keeping records of things sold and purchased, but writing was something mages also did. "Writing what?"

"I don't know," Imareen admitted. "I read about as well as you do."

Cerril couldn't read at all. Learning that skill had never proven important. He'd had a strong back, and now he had quick hands and an agile mind.

"He was writing in a book," Imareen added.

Elkor fussed over the price he was exacting from the man.

Cerril raked the man with his gaze. He saw no book. "Where's the book?"

"I don't know." Imareen glanced down at him. "Are you afraid?"

Cerril didn't answer.

"People are always claiming to have stolen things from mages," Imareen said. "Why, you could make a name for