Anna looked both ways down a new corridor of the exasperating Derdrein house. Curtains billowed into shapes like people in one direction, and in the other all the dark stained glass windows seemed to have fires burning behind them.

            “You would think the engineers of this house could have picked just one scheme, and not made it a bloody showroom,” Varden said.  He had finally stopped complaining about the stolen Narmos antiquities in the ballroom downstairs—or was it upstairs?—and gone back to his former complaints about the house in general.  Anna wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or a bad one.  He looked very strained about the eyes.

            Kara squirmed in Tam’s arms.  “Out,” she whispered.  “Lord Tightbritches has a boiled egg for brains.  Put me down.”

            “You’re feeling better?” Tam asked her, also in a whisper.

            She replied with something quite rude and Tam smiled, setting her gently down.

            “Should we let the little foreign girl run about?” Varden asked.  “Is she likely to keep her head?  Does she speak any Germhacht?  Or trade common?”

            Kara responded in some language no one seemed to know, but the wicked look in her eyes made Anna think it was something else amazingly rude.  Evidently Kara was feeling better, though she still moved stiffly and slowly, wrapped in her cloth scarf.  It gave her a deceptively graceful and mysterious air.  She knocked a metal urn down from a pedestal and dragged it across the hall to one of the stained glass windows.   Her arms weren’t steady, but she hefted the urn in both hands and brought it crashing down through the glass, bending all the little bits of lead piping.

            Varden stood there looking stunned.  “I say, are you quite sure--?”  But Tam was already at Kara’s side, with the workman’s mallet that had been hanging on his belt out and ready.  He grinned sheepishly over his shoulder at Anna, then laid to work clearing away more of the glass.  In a few moments, Anna could see the outside world again, an alley between the Derdrein and the next house to the east.  They must be on the second story now, and the drop didn’t look pleasant.

Anna dashed down the hall and yanked a few sets of the billowing curtains from their rods.  She glanced about for something sturdy and, finding a radiator, tied the end of one curtain to it.  Tam saw at once what she was about and helped knot the curtains together into a rope.

            “I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Varden said.

            Anna smiled at him.  “You should read more adventure stories.” 

Kara, not waiting for the rope, wrapped herself more tightly in her cloth and took a flying leap out through the window.  Down in the street there came a thump and a curse.  Anna sighed.

            Tam tested the knots and handed the finished curtain-rope to Anna.  “Look out below!” she called, and tossed it out the window.  She tossed her shoes with their difficult heels out after the rope, and quickly shinned down in her stocking feet.

            “After you,” she heard Tam say to Varden.

            Soon they were all down in the alley, where Kara was sitting and rubbing her ankle.  Anna helped her up.  The small thief was not fully recovered, however much bravado she might display. 

“It’s been an exciting night, but it’s quite late and I think we should all be going home now,” she told Varden.  Tam scooped Kara back into his arms, where she settled with only a small grunt of complaint.

“Will you take the girl to the authorities?” Varden asked.  “I’m sure the police will have something to say about the evidence of wrongdoing in this house.”  He glanced up at the window they’d crashed through, and the domed glass roof beyond it.  His eyes were alight again with intent.  Probably seeing those stone slabs in his memory, Anna thought.  “I’ll make a full report to the Society first thing in the morning.  Pumphrey is going to feel the wrath of all true scholars for the travesty he’s made here.”

Anna smothered a smile.  He doesn’t sound like Djaren when he says that, not at all, really.  “Certainly.  You speak to the Society, and I’ll see about discovering what this girl has to do with things.”  Or rather, Lady Blackfeather will, once she gets her hands on Kara.

“Very well,” Varden said.  “I must say, Lady Anna, you have a remarkably level head for, ah, a companion.  In an irregular situation.  Um.”  He bowed over her hand.  “Good night.  I hope we can meet next under more calm and civilized circumstances.”

They were at the end of the alley now, and could each see their own carriages.

“Goodnight, Varden,” Anna said.  “Thank you for the lovely time at the Berdrach.”

She thought she heard Kara snickering. 

Tam tucked Kara into the hotel carriage, and settled a rug about her. “You’re safe as a bug here and no one can find you.  We’ll get you back to Lady Blackfeather and she’ll know what to do.” 

Kara made little protesting noises. 

“Now none of that,” Tam said.  “If you don’t want coddling you shouldn’t have ought to go thieving and getting yourself in a mess.”  She made a face at him, but there wasn’t any real spite in it.  Tam shut her in gently and got the door for Anna next.  “I’m worried for the others,” he said.  “I want to go back to the hotel.”

            “There’s not much traffic.  We can probably make good time.”

            Tam nodded and took his place in the driver’s seat.

            Anna looked over at Kara and Kara looked back at her. 

            “You’re making a boy collection,” Kara observed.  “The new one is pretty, but doesn’t have much sense.  Isn’t he one of the enemies of the Blackfeathers?”

            “I’m not bringing up your history of thieving or collection of demon artifacts,” Anna said, feeling unreasonably irritated at Kara’s choice of topics.  “So please do not presume to know anything about my business.”

            “You’re why I hate pretty girls.” Kara wrinkled her nose.

            “While I just adore foul mouthed little thieves who I thought might have been improving last year and instead are creating disasters for the world as we know it,” Anna replied.

            “If you bring up thickets,” Kara warned mysteriously.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “Fine.”

            “Fine.”

            There were a few minutes of quiet.

            Anna decided to try to make up for snapping.  “Djaren will be happy to see you.”

            “Even if I created a disaster for the world?” Kara snorted.

            “Djaren likes disasters, remember?  He was going on about comets and plagues when I left.  He may be a skinny bundle of ego with no sense of self preservation or restraint, but he seems to like you for whatever reason.  Don’t be cruel to him, will you?”

            “I’m not a nice person, remember?  Don’t try to get me to do any silly girl things, or play at making matches or pleasing boys or other ruffle-brained antics.  I don’t go telling you to try picking locks, do I?  Shove off.”

            “Don’t be tiresome,” Anna said, and then paused, feeling the carriage lurch to a stop.  Tam called out, but she didn’t catch the words, muffled through the carriage walls.

Anna yanked a blanket over Kara’s head.  “The carriage is stopped.  Best you’re not seen.  We aren’t supposed to be consorting with you.” 

Anna opened the door and saw that they were still a good distance from the hotel.  Tam had jumped down and was helping two small figures toward the carriage door.  In the light of the carriage lantern, the figures resolved themselves into Jon and Djaren. Both were scratched and muddied, and Djaren had a limp and a missing shoe.

“They took Ellea,” Jon was saying. “Possesed Pumphrites took Ellea, and we tried to chase them, but they had a carriage, and we didn’t.”

Anna wasn’t sure she had ever seen Jon look more desolate, even about the theft of the translation stone last summer.  Possessed Pumphrites.  She remembered the blank-eyed servants who had stared upward at them when Varden read the Narmos script, and it made her shiver.  Ellea might think herself capable of dealing with anything, but she was, after all, a very small girl.

No point showing her worries in front of Jon and Djaren, though.  “We’ll find Ellea,” she said firmly.  “But first we’ll get both of you looked after.  Djaren, you’re a mess.”