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I CRAWL ALONG THE WEST wall of Griffinhold

, sticking to the shadows godtrees cast in the brazier light The night guardsmen on the ice-slick cobbles below are easy to avoid withsuit More difficult were the enhanced radar drones and motion sensors Sefi had installed per h? They nearly ruined my drop from the Alltribe flier I hitched a ride on from the coastal city of Nike Luckily, I followed a murder of crows in

I reach the pulseShield that encloses et’sin one of the six western towers of Griffinhold, and disrupt the field with diah for h The room is dark, tall, and more choked with incense than a fifty-credit Lunese brothel Lovely It also looks as if a hurricane had coh it Priceless urns and bits of shattered wood are strewn about the carpet Oldboy had a tantru lads outside will be used to noise

I slip toward the large four-post bed where a giant shadow snores I nearly choke fro a bit sinister, I take the wine bottle fro and upend the bottle Dreadfully expensive wine pours down over the sha above him

He screams and falls off the bed

Laughing loves and land in his place on the bed Froard peers up at me “Grarnir?”

“Stop shouting, you idiot” I propbastards outside the door will hear if you talk particulars” I run a hand up“Would hate to think I’m the first whore who’s landed in your bed”

“Grarnir,” he whispers, and pulls hiht you were Ascoled hand in splints Looks like a giant baby, an effect enhanced by the dewy tears in his re eye “I knew you would return I knew—”

“Shut up” I sniff him “You drunken lout Knew you’d be soused”

His eyes narrow in suspicion “Why have you returned?”

“Well, oldboy I’m here to sort out a particularly sinister case of ht” I pop the datadrop into ot ourselves a parasite”

His eye widens in horror as the drop plays its little bit of incriot The two-faced malefactor—”

“He outplayed you, medicine man No need for bluster”

“We must tell the Queen”

“Naas thinking we sit on it Let Volsung eat her heart, or whatever else that albino golem has in store, then make off with a load of helium and become emperors of the asteroids” He stares at onna blood eagle that big puke But we gotta do it right and good, you hear?” I lean forward and tap his nose “Probleht as Publius cu Caraval’s sphincter I al to slip in there But you, dear charlatan, can get it to her”