12. The Note

Jinn woke to a certainty that something was wrong. Unmoving and without opening his eyes, he assessed his situation.

The dryness of his tongue, the faint aftertaste of copper, and the sharp tingling in his arms and legs told him he’d been drugged. The flicker of cool air against his face meant it was no longer high sun. Early evening or late afternoon, perhaps. The beat of steady foot traffic indicated that he was near a major thoroughfare. Not in a building then, and still in town.

The absence of Remora’s near-constant verbal dialogue bothered him more than he cared admit. The girl seemed unable to let even the passing of a single seabird go unnoticed and unremarked upon. Peace and stillness he’d once craved now felt flat and empty.

Only death or unconsciousness could still her tongue were she nearby. The one was past his assistance and the other not immediately remedied, so he set the matter aside.

Every situation could be reduced to base elements. Attempting to handle more than one element at a time led to lack of control. Lack of control led to death.

The tingling faded, concentrating in his hands and feet. The symptoms of his poison indicated that he’d been drugged with dried iocane. Deadly in larger doses, it was one of the few poisons that guaranteed an immediate state of unconsciousness in a Shinra’ere.

Iocane, he was familiar with. It had, as a matter of fact, been chosen for his Shinra’ere poison exams. No agoge student took the poison exam more than once—there was no need. The exam was simple: the student must survive the initial poisoning, self-diagnose, and self-medicate. The very real possibility of death was more than enough to encourage most students to study, and Jinn had been no exception.

Whoever had done this to him was either very stupid or very, very good. Iocane was no tool of a common thief. Either his attacker had wanted him dead and failed in that goal, or he’d known the precise amount of the poison to use in order to take him out of the equation for a while.

One problem was simple enough to solve. He was alive, and any attacker foolish enough to try and kill a Shinra’ere would be easy to find. The other . . . well, he hoped it wasn’t the other. He did not have time for a clever enemy.

He cast his memory back. Perhaps he could find a clue.

Remora had darted off to a side alley. Like a bird, the girl moved in rapid spurts, never telegraphing her intent until the movement was complete. Her erratic movements would have made her a formidable opponent in battle. As it was, they simply made guarding her all the more difficult.

He’d called after her and followed to the mouth of the alley before blackness claimed him.

No, there had been something else. The cat-dresl he’d brushed past, impatient to chase Remora. His eyes had met Jinn’s squarely, without the sideways glances and hooded glares the rest of the dresl in town had given him. Had the cat’s arm moved as he passed? He could have been scored by an iocane-laced dagger then. He burned the cat’s face (gold fur, dark rosettes, green eyes, left ear decoratively nocked in two places, two bent whiskers on his right side) into his memory. It wasn’t much, but it was a good start. A better start than he expected his foe wanted him to have.

The tingling finally left his feet. If he were required to defend himself, he could now do so with only moderate difficulty.

Jinn opened his eyes.

He sat in the mouth of an alley. Late afternoon shadows stretched over the white limestone wall across from him. Pinned to that wall by a blooded dagger—in a place he would be absolutely certain to see—a piece of paper struggled like a trapped butterfly.