Jendara moved through the dense forest, following Irlu as the tracker floated through the bracken and brush. Jendara was an able tracker; the dark-haired Blackraven made her look like a novice. Despite the hill giant's size and ungainly burden—Lugh stood six and a half feet tall—the creature had left little spoor. It might be huge and ungainly, but the giant clearly knew the woods.

The hill giant stepped over the smashed remains of the trees. It wore a vest and skirt made of filthy hides, and a necklace of raccoon skulls dangled between its two drooping and half-covered breasts. Its hair hung in clumpy strands the color of dirt, damp and clinging to its jowled cheeks.

Jendara dropped onto a fallen log and eyed her companion. "Are you ready to give up?"

As Vencarlo Orisini led Orkatto's men on a noisy chase, I strolled out the front doors with my "bodyguard." In the darkened museum, and without his mask and cloak, which I carried folded under my arm, Master Raneiro did somewhat resemble the younger man who had accompanied me into the museum. I placed my hope in the bravo's topknot and the noisy diversion behind us.

Vencarlo retreated, turning to free his blade. I stepped behind him, pulling the scabbard and sword out of his grasp.

A Chelaxian by birth and breeding, Domina had come to Korvosa to rule. Her earliest proclamations had halved both the city's bureaucracy and its coffers. As part of her civic improvement efforts, she had reversed the ban on trees planted within the city walls—the result of a predecessor's shortsighted reaction to the destruction wrought by windstorms over a century earlier.