Eventually they made their way downstairs into a room that contained several flat surfaces that weren't quite a table-which was beyond the former thief to name. "What are these?"

"You're going to make me name everything, aren't you?" He waited for a response, but she just stared at him until he sighed and gave in. "Generally they're called desks. This one, though, is called a letter-station. I want you to sit here and write about your childhood with your mother-not every detail under the sun but the important things that make her who she was and makes you who you are."

Esme hesitated before sitting. "I'm not good at writing. There's a lot of words I don't know how to spell."

"I'll be seated in the chair beyond you. Just ask and I'll spell anything you wish me to." Apparently her betrothed didn't care much for excuses.

While she settled in, Althalos caught a servant's attention and ordered a tray of food be brought in for them. He left quite a bit on the desk beside her then settled himself down where he gave his word on being. The man spent the next two hours spelling words that left him curious about just what it was that this woman chose to write about. And it was a painstaking processes as she slowly scratched her way across the paper. The urge to get up and touch her was bearable-meaning that it was just his natural inclination and not the bond. He didn't know what to do with the suggestion of wanting her even without it-was it to be trusted? At least it made watching her write somewhat entertaining.

Eventually Esme handed half a dozen papers to him. Each was as ink-stained as her hands. She had a spidery scrawl that was hardly legible in and of itself, but was made worse by switching back and forth between the high and low spelling of their nation. It showed that beyond his help, she had few early years of training that befit their station but quickly went to the education afforded the common rabble. He gestured for her to sit where he had been, and quickly began a copy of her writing in his far more meticulous hand-all in the high spelling, of course. Once he had this much he reread what she wrote-it matched the way she spoke: highly observant, meticulous even, but blunt.

Esme was maybe four when her mother left some sort of perfumery to run a bar, where she drank most the profits away. The descriptions of the woman left no question that she was a bondmaid, who clearly sold herself to the paler commoners-for them, the novelty of plowing a highborn-from dark skin to an even darker attitude unfitting a lowborn woman. Many mornings she woke his woman with a fresh bruise on her face, when these men sought vengeance more than sex. But if she had not done this-with her increasing need for spirits-there would have been no food for the child she raised.

The night she first sought to sell her daughter was to a man named Praulx, who was a bit more than merely besotted with the woman, but instead of buying the child for the night, he had bought her outright and refused to bring her near her mother again.

The last page held a terse description of the meager information given to her about her mother's last years. Without Praulx's regular patronage she lost her position at the bar and ended up the vagrant her daughter played this past month-but without the guild's presence. About four years ago she was found face-first in a ditch: drunk, throat slashed, eyes gouged out. The one copy of the report Esme was allowed to glance at when she was brought in for questioning made it clear that the violence used on her mother was far more than a knife to a throat-things no one would do to an animal.

And there was no speculation on how anyone managed to kill the woman. They were very dangerous creatures.

Honestly, it was more information than Althalos could bear to read save for the fact that his job did force this on him on occasion. "You didn't put anything about your name, Esme."

"I'm not sure where it comes from. Thieves change their names to keep themselves safe. Given how awful I was at my job, I was lucky to keep Esme for so long."

He paused for a moment, thinking. "If we find the name your mother gave you-or perhaps your father-would you rather be called that or Esme?"

"It depends on obligation. If it's inheritance, I'll take any name out there, but I'm comfortable with Esme."

"Is there any way to contact this Praulx, to gain answers from him?"

She shrugged. "Yes, if he will come. I'd rather wait until you have all your questions figured out because I will not be able to gain his attention more than once."

"Can your hand take more writing?"

"I guess. Never had to write so much before, but it's not that different from learning to not yell so loud if you want a voice at the end of the day." She obligingly switched seats with him. "What am I writing about, now?"

"The same as you did for your mother, but for your life under Praulx, then another about what exactly you did out on the streets."

That took another three hours of their lives: her writing, his correcting, and the beginning of a list of questions to which they might never find the answers.