That was the moment when Ronica turned around and returned to Bingtown. She could not explain it to Rache, and had even encouraged the woman to go on to Inglesby without her. Even now, Ronica could not rationalize the decision. Perhaps it was that nothing worse could happen to her than what had already happened. She returned to find her own home vandalized and ransacked. Even the discovery that someone had scratched TRAITORS across the wall of Ephron’s study could stir no greater depth of distress in her. Bingtown as she knew it was gone, never to return. If it was all going to perish, perhaps it was best to end with it.

Yet, she was not a woman who simply surrendered. In the days to come, she and Rache set up housekeeping in the gardener’s hut. Their life was oddly normal in a detached way. Fighting continued in the city below them. From the upper story of the main house, Ronica could just glimpse the harbor and the city. Twice the Chalcedeans tried to take it. Both times, they were repulsed. Night winds often carried the sounds of fighting and the smell of smoke. None of it seemed to involve her anymore.

The small hut was easy to keep warm and clean, and its humble appearance made it less of a target for roving looters. The last of the kitchen garden, the neglected orchard and the remaining chickens supplied their limited needs. They scavenged the beach for driftwood that burned with green and blue flames in their small hearth. When winter closed in, Ronica was not sure what she would do. Perish, she supposed. But not gracefully, or willingly. No. She would go down fighting.

That same stubbornness now made her tread carefully down the hallway in pursuit of the intruder. She grasped her cudgel in both hands. She had no clear plan for what she would do if or when she confronted the man. She simply wanted to know what motivated this lone opportunist who moved so secretively through her abandoned home.

Already the manor was acquiring the dusty smell of disuse. The Vestrit family’s finest possessions had been sold earlier in the summer, to finance a rescue effort for their pirated liveship. The treasures that remained had been those with more sentimental than monetary value: the trinkets and curiosities that were souvenirs of Ephron’s sailing days, an old vase that had been her mother’s, a wall hanging that she and Ephron had chosen together when they were newly wed…. Ronica turned her mind away from that inventory. They were all gone now, broken or taken by people who had no idea what such items represented. Let them go. She held the past in her heart, with no need of physical items to tie it down.

She tiptoed past doors that had been kicked off their hinges. She spared only a glance for the atrium where overturned pots and browning plants littered the floor as she hastened after the hooded man. Where was he going? She caught a glimpse of his cloak as he entered a room.

Malta’s room? Her granddaughter’s bedchamber?

Ronica crept closer. He was muttering to himself. She ventured a quick peek, then stepped boldly into the room to demand, “Cerwin Trell, what are you doing here?”

With a wild cry, the young man leapt to his feet. He had been kneeling by Malta’s bed. A single red rose rested on her pillow. He stared at Ronica white-faced, his hand clutching at his breast. His mouth worked, but no sounds came out. His eyes traveled to the club in her hand and widened even more.

“Oh, sit down,” Ronica exclaimed in exasperation. She tossed the club to the foot of the bed and took her own advice. “What are you doing here?” she asked wearily. She was sure she knew the answer.

“You’re alive,” Cerwin said softly. He lifted his hands to his face and rubbed at his eyes. Ronica knew he sought to hide his tears. “Why didn’t you… Is Malta safe, too? Everyone said…”

Cerwin sank down to sit beside his rose on Malta’s bed. He set his hand gently on her pillow. “I heard you had left the ball with Davad Restart. Everyone knows his coach was waylaid. They were only after the Satrap and Restart. That is what everyone says, that they would have left you alone if you had not been traveling with Restart. I know Restart’s dead. Some claim to know what became of the Satrap, but they are not telling. Every time I asked about Malta and the rest of you…” He faltered suddenly, and his face flushed, but he forced himself to go on. “They say you were traitors, that you were in on it with Restart. The rumor is that you planned to turn the Satrap over to New Traders who were going to kill him. Then the Bingtown Traders would be blamed for his death, and Jamaillia would send Chalcedean mercenaries in to take over our town and deliver it to the New Traders.”

He hesitated, then steeled himself to go on, “Some say that you got what you deserved. They say terrible things and I… I thought you were all dead. Grag Tenira spoke up for your family, saying that was nonsense. But since he left on the Ophelia to help guard the Rain Wild River mouth, no one has taken your part. I tried, once, but… I am young. No one listens. My father gets angry with me for even speaking of Malta. When Delo wept about her, he confined her to her room and said he would whip her if she even uttered her name again. And he’s never whipped Delo before.”