By the time the sun touched the limestone of the Barracks on the day of the attack on the Jawhar estate, Felix, Janus, Madina, Bruno, and Joshua were already gone. They all sat in the back of a covered wagon with Bruno driving the horses in the front. They would take the wagon and team across the strait in a ferry on the south end of the city. When he questioned the need a wagon, Madina explained that it was to get anyone injured back quickly and he cringed at himself for having asked at all.

  Felix remembered how Madina had refused to answer any of his questions when he was coming in and was inwardly pleased at being taken more seriously. But on the other hand, even if she was giving him answers now, they were awfully morbid answers.

  The man named Renyard would meet them at the estate, which was fine with Felix. He thought Bruno would have enough trouble getting them through the Golden Gate without the presence of someone who could only described as an aristocrat dressing up as what he thought a bandit looked like tagging along.

  As it turned out, though, Bruno only had to wave a bit of stamped parchment at the guards and gesture to his pipes, and they were immediately let in. There was some grumbling in Greek and none of them would so much as look Bruno in the eye, but it was clear none of them wanted to mess with the Song-Catchers.

  Felix had anticipated this moment for months if not years. His first view of the inside the city would be one of the highlights of his life, and…

  “Stay in the wagon,” said Madina. Her voice said she was not going to listen to any arguments. “Now.”

  Felix had to literally bite his tongue to hold back his fury. How could she deny him even this?

  “If you must, look through the flap in the back. But do not let yourself be seen. This is not a sightseeing trip, this is a robbery.”

  Without another word, Felix crawled to the back, Joshua silently scooting out of the way. He lifted the flap and gazed at the shear immensity of it all: everywhere one looked there were buildings and buildings and buildings, brick and concrete and adobe, all painted lavish shades of yellow or red, the roofs all trimmed with latticework or ringed with domes of gold and purple. Most of the cities in Hispania had been conquered by the Saracens long ago, or so his mother told him, so he had never been in such a place, and he hadn’t left the Barracks since he came from the ante-City.

  But there wasn’t much time to enjoy the sights, as by noon they were out of the Asian side of the city and traveling down a dirt road in a horse-drawn, covered cart an ally had prepared for them. The road was lined with beech and spruce trees with wild grasses poking out everywhere green and tall. Janus complained about not taking the paved road, but Madina said they needed to keep a low profile and this wooded path would have to do. Felix had a vague concern about highwaymen when they were this far from civilization, but when he thought about it, the highwaymen would be in more danger in such a scenario. Even without her song, Madina could probably take out two or three armed men without much trouble, and Bruno was built like a bear without needing to become a bear, which he could probably do as well.

  Janus was sitting in the front with Bruno who was driving the horses with the skill one would expect of a man who could control beasts through song. Joshua, who had been staring into space while absent-mindedly fingering the pegs of his lute, was now leaning his head against the side of the wagon with his eyes closed. Madina was sitting half outside the canvas cover in the back of the cart, leaning against the case with their supplies and watching for trouble from the rear. It should, Janus thought, be okay to pry a bit now. Felix’s constant shoulder punches and table-kicks were beginning to teach him the concept of discretion.

  Pulling on Bruno’s sleeve to get his attention, Janus asked, “Say, does that Joshua fellow ever talk?”

  “When he needs to, yes. Otherwise, not much. Don’t take it the wrong way, he likes most people, he just doesn’t feel like expressing it.”

  “I’ve been learning about the whole Bard system from Martin, and he said both he and Joshua use the Star, what was it…Arcana—“

  Bruno spat into the dirt. “I don’t know where you got that ‘Arcana’ word from, but don’t be using it again, lad. I know Martin wouldn’t use it.”

  “Yes, well, I read that part in a book,” Janus said meekly.

  Bruno’s tone wasn’t angry exactly—it was more like the word itself had done him some kind of personal wrong.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it…”

  “There isn’t, really, but that way of talking about the different singing schools was used by some rather nasty Bards who had strange ideas about Crafting. You’ll understand more about it in time, but for now, just lay off that word.”

  “Right. Well, anyway—the Star, is supposed to be about hope and inspiration—“

  “Most of that is superstitious nonsense, written by those same nasty singers. The old Homeridae—the ancient Bards who founded the guild—figured out there were 21 themes that different Bards were able to invent songs about. We all have an affinity with those themes, but the themes are, you know, open to interpretation. This is poetry after all. So, can think of a star as being hopeful and inspiring, but a star on its own don’t make a sound. It only leads folks what are willing to look to it. And that is why you mustn't judge a singer by his School. Do you follow me, lad?”

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  “I suppose,” Janus said. “What about the song I’m going after? What school is it?

  “The Sun.”

  “Do you know anything about the song it's supposed to counter? This Song of Waking-Death?”

  He didn’t see it, but Felix could imagine Bruno’s look of confusion at this question.

  “Lad, weren’t ye the one who told Yew about it?”

  “Ah, well, yes, but…it’s complicated. I have issues with my memory, but I know the name of that song and that it had something to do with Basso. As for what it does, I may have some idea about that, but I’m not really sure about what I heard. So I’m asking you.”

  “Well, I reckon there's no harm in telling you since you're so wrapped up in the matter as it is. To hear Yew tell it, it’s a song that puts Numen to sleep, so Craft won’t hold anywhere it’s been played. Our man Jonathan found that out the hard way.”

  “Huh.” Janus sounded disappointed. “Is that it? It doesn’t, like, paralyze you? Or make it so you can’t sleep?”

  Bruno chuckled. “Not that I know, lad.”

  “Oh, it's just…for one, the name doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

  “That’s the nature of song. They used to think we were mad, us singers. Touched by the gods.”

  “The other thing is…is it really such a big deal that he can make Craft not work? I don't see how he coulda killed that fellow with just that.”

  “Years ago, the Archpoet sent a group of three Bards to the Black Forest to collect songs from the singing-ways that were dying out there. We have our people send word back to us regularly, but their group stopped soon after they crossed into the Forest and never returned. We assumed they had been killed—that is a dangerous region in the first place. We wouldn’t have sent a full team if weren’t. So sad as it was, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Some wanted to send another team out to confirm things, but we just don’t have the manpower. Then, a few months ago, we got a report that one of the men from the group, a fellow named Basso, is living quite comfortably right in the Venetian Quarter. And not just living there, I should say—more like, he had taken over the place by bribing the guards and merchants to follow his lead.”

  Bruno chuckled. “We don’t really ‘know’ how he got the money, but we have a good guess. For the other two—it seems Basso killed them himself.

  “Eeeh? Really? Was he a violent fellow, then, this Basso?”

  “Not so much violent, but certainly dark, in his way. I may seem to be backsliding on my earlier point of not judging a Bard by his school, but that man’s school and theme was Death. There are rules concerning those attuned to such themes, but Basso seemed by all means trustworthy. I can only suppose that what they found in that Forest lived up to the name, and it changed him. I can’t say whether it was the song or something else, but—“

  “That…will have to wait for another day. The song stops Craft, that’s the main thing. But before we knew what was what, we sent Gil and Jonathan to watch Basso. After watching him for a few hours, they were spotted, and Jonathan, thinking he was protected by a song, didn’t take it seriously when Basso ordered his men to attack. They managed to get away, but Jonathan bled to death before they could contact anyone, and you saw how Gil ended up.”

  “Didn’t they know something was wrong when he played the song? Wouldn’t they feel it?”

  “The thing is, they never heard him play the song at all. That’s one of the things that makes that song in particular so insidious, from what we’ve been able to find out about it. Not only does everything in hearing distance of the song get effected, it also spreads from those things to new things like a sickness. The spreading effect is weaker the further you get from the source, but he’s rigged up a system of tubes like organ pipes to send the sound out so the effect reaches the whole Venetian Quarter, and it lasts a full day.”

  “Wooooow,” Janus said, impressed. “That’s pretty elaborate. And they just let him pipe his song out, day after day?”

  “Like I said, the officials are all in his pockets. Now, as for how those got so deep—do you know what the supposed goal of Alchemy is?”

  “What? What does that have to do—“

  “Just answer the question, if you know.”

  “Isn’t it something like turning lead into gold?”

  “That it is. Real Alchemists really can do that sort of trick but aren’t particularly interested in it. I have heard it from the lips of Robin Blue, one of the head men at the Alchemists’ College, that if they freely changed lead to gold, gold would quickly lose its value and entire nations would be thrown into chaos. So the College bans that transmutation altogether. But there are plenty of Alchemists who have run afoul of the College—who are, in fact, hunted by it. And if you’re already being hunted by the College, you have no reason not to break their rule, do you? So, how do you suppose Basso is funding his takeover of the Venetian Quarter?”

  Janus bit the nail of his index finger. “Okay, I think I get it. The rogue Alchemists teamed up with Basso to give them protection from other Alchemists by making it so the ones from…the College, I think you called it, the College Alchemists can’t attack them because their Alchemy won’t work. And they make gold for Basso to bribe the guards and anyone else who might give them trouble.”

  “There you have it.”

  “But there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense. Why come back to Constantinople in the first place, if he’s worried about running afoul of the Guild for killing his comrades? You already thought they were dead, and yet he came to the very place where he was most likely to be found out. Wait, but then, maybe that means he didn’t kill the others after all?

  “Our folks heard him say he had done it as plain as day. But you have a point there that we all realized from the get-go. It particularly doesn’t make sense considering how clever a bastard he is. The only explanation any of us can come up with is that there’s something he needs in the city so desperately that he has to find it.”

  The look on Bruno’s face was of a man in personal distress, even Janus could tell. This was not simply a professional issue for him.

  “Was that fellow, Jonathan, I think—was he your friend or something?” Janus asked.

  “Not really, no. I trusted him of course, like I do everyone in the Guild, but we weren’t especially close. Basso, if you really want to know, is the one who is, or maybe was, my friend.”

  “Really?” Janus said, trying to pull as many secrets out of the big man as he could. “So you think maybe he didn’t kill those other Bards after all?”

  Bruno looked distant. He did not sigh, but his words were like a sigh. “Does it matter?”