Dahl shut the silk-covered tome. “Does he have a name?”
“Adolican Rhand.”
Dahl studied her face for some sign of what in the world she could possibly be thinking. “Adolican Rhand,” he repeated. “Are you mad?”
“No,” she said sharply. “I told you, he’s the one sending me books. I haven’t had much choice in all this. Who is he?”
Dahl pushed the book back across the table, shaking his head. “You got it off a Netherese informer, and you ask for my help, not Master Zawad. Gods. What are you trying to hide from him?”
“Nothing.” Farideh leaned back away from the table. “Are you really going to tell me it’s better to be lectured by Tam?”
Dahl bit his tongue. What did she know, anyhow? “Maybe he needs to lecture you if you’re flirting with shady merchants and collecting their love tokens.”
She turned absolutely scarlet. “What would you have had me do?” she asked. “Take it back to his manor to say ‘no thank you,’ and be caught there? I might not know his business, but I’m not a rabbit tumbling into a snare.” She snatched the book off the table. “If you’re going to say no, just say it and stop dragging me through the mud behind you. I’ll manage fine on my own.”
Dahl scowled. “Of course. You don’t need a master or years of study or dedication or any of that.” He had, and what good had it done him? “You probably think you’ll just smile sweetly at the first person you see with a ritual book in hand, and he’ll be a bloody warlock ready to train you to be his heir. Is that how it happened with Master Rhand?”
Farideh whirled on him, still flushing like a maid, but with fire in her eyes and shadows-yes, shadows, he was sure-seething from her skin. “Karshoj ardahlominak,” she hissed, and suddenly the shadows surged around her as she stepped toward the door. There was a burst of light, a gust of air hot enough make Dahl turn aside, and a crack as a vent tore in the skin of the plane, and Farideh vanished.
Dahl sat, blinking back tears for a moment as the scorching air cooled. Ah, Hells and farther realms, he realized. He ought to have seen it. He ought to have known. She didn’t need a warlock to swoop in with ritual lessons. She was a warlock herself.
Her hair combed and her armor wiped clean, Havilar did sort of look like she might be Brin’s bodyguard. Particularly, he thought, since she’d insisted on bringing along her glaive.
“If you are robbed,” she’d said, “this will put a stop to it much quicker than if I have to fight hand to hand.”
“You do know I can defend myself?”
She regarded him as if he’d made a half-hearted joke. “Of course. But if you’re robbed, you’ll have to get the coin and run off somewhere safe. One of us has to.”
“You could.”
Havilar had wrinkled her nose. “Well, yes. But I think you’d be better. You’re clever.”
As they made their way through the streets of Waterdeep, he still wasn’t sure what she’d said was a compliment. He felt fairly sure that girls preferred the kind of fellows that didn’t need rescuing.
And he was fairly sure that he’d prefer a girl who didn’t always have the upper hand.
It hadn’t ever mattered what he preferred. Helindra would choose a bride for him, and he was meant to be grateful for the opportunity to further the family’s influence. But if he didn’t go home …
He gave Havilar a sideways glance. When he’d first met her, he thought she might be a little simple, or maybe a little cruel. The sort of person who could tear into a battle and come out with a slew of kills to her credit, and only worry if she’d looked good doing so.
But it hadn’t taken long to realize Havilar wasn’t angry and she wasn’t cruel. Competitive, to be certain; vain, a little. But never cruel. And not as simple as she seemed on first flush, just … light.
A good person to be friends with, he thought. I’m making everything too complicated.
Tannannath and Frynch was exactly as stern and fussy an edifice as Brin had been expecting. It only took a moment for him and Havilar-and Havilar’s glaive-standing at the enormous doors and looking up at the elaborate stonework before a guard appeared.
“May I help you?” he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear he did not expect to do any such thing. Brin narrowed his eyes.
“I’m here to see about the Broken Marble safehold,” he said. “Do be quick about it.” The guard’s brows went up, but he opened the doors, took Havilar’s weapon, and escorted the two of them down a long, dimly lit corridor, ringing with the phantom sounds of a flute and a lyre. The guard held one of the half-dozen doors lining the hall, and waved them in.
Within, a half-elf woman wearing an emerald lens over one eye waited. “Sit, please,” she said, and she pulled out a tray of sand. “In or out?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Do you wish to put coin in,” she asked, “or take it out?”
“Oh. Out, I suppose.”
“Your mark, then.”
Brin took up the stylus and traced the runes as Constancia had ordered. The coinlender pulled out an enormous codex and started flipping through the pages. “Broken Marble?” she said. “Rhiiman.”
Brin frowned. “I’m sorry?”
The woman looked at him through the emerald lens. “Rhiiman,” she said, enunciating.
It was the name of the man who had founded the Crownsilver family, a younger brother of the first king of Cormyr, if he was remembering right, who married a daughter of the Silver line-whose name was escaping him … Constancia would box your ears, he thought.
“Oh,” he said. “Made the right choice.”
The woman dipped her head to consider the codex once more. “Welcome, goodsir. The account is equivalent to two hundred eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-four Waterdhavian dragons.” She looked up. “If you’d like to withdraw the full amount, I’m afraid you’ll have to accept trade bars and give us a day to collect them.”
Brin very deliberately closed his mouth. “No, no, that’s all right.” He was glad for the chair she’d offered him. “May I ask if anyone else is accessing the coin? I’d … I’d hate to take funds some cousin was relying on.” Or to find out Helindra was keeping a close eye on the account’s activities.
The coinlender’s eyes flicked over his head to where Havilar stood, before returning to consider him carefully. He passed whatever threshold she’d decided on for frauds and thieves, but by her tight expression, only just.
“The last business with the account was … three tendays ago. A withdrawal of one hundred dragons. Before that it’s only been maintenance, so far as my records stand.”
“You have that much coin just sitting?” Havilar hissed at him after he’d withdrawn a small sum, enough to cover a room of his own, board, and a little extra. “What does your family do?”
“Meddle,” Brin said, frowning at the bag of coins. “And it’s not my coin. It’s theirs. I’ve certainly never seen that kind of coin.”
It would be enough, he thought. Enough to buy passage to any city in Faerun. Enough to buy a new name, a new life. Enough to get far, far ahead of the Crownsilvers before they did something rash.
The temptation of the coin on the ledger was bad enough. But there, too, was the reminder that the Crownsilvers commanded vast resources. The coin in the bank was a pittance-a forgettable amount, likely, comparable to funds in cities like Athkatla and Baldur’s Gate and Westgate, where a family member might need easy access to coin. It was nothing compared to what Helindra commanded in Cormyr.
And no vault could contain all the Crownsilvers’ connections.
“Is that why you didn’t say?” Havilar said as they crossed the market. It was late and the stallkeepers were closing up. “About being His Grace and … what are you, anyway? A prince? A king? A … nentyarch?”