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and I perched on a narrow horizontal lip of stone, high up on the bare broken slope that stood behind and above the palace. In terms of a straight military assault this approach represented the palace’s biggest weakness.
    The top of the slope, which separated the spur of rock that held the palace compound from the taller Palace Hill behind it, lay a good fifty feet higher than the walls of the palace below. If you could get siege equipment up there you could bombard the compound with relative impunity. Of course, you’d have to fight your way through miles of one of the densest cities in the world to get there, and the royal family would long since have retreated to the island citadel or moved upriver to the great fortress of Kao-li.
    The palace had been designed with the comfort and convenience of the Crown in mind rather than brute projection of power. The ruling family of Zhan had long preferred to keep their brass knuckles hidden inside elegant gloves. That didn’t mean that defense of the palace was neglected completely, just that it was geared much more toward keeping out thieves, assassins, and the occasional peasant uprising. In the case of the back slope, that meant constantly burning off any vegetation that tried to gain a foothold among the rocks, and doubling the height of the wall.
    Further protection was afforded by the fact that the slope was bounded on the upper edge by the extremely well-guarded estates of several of Zhan’s greatest nobles including the Duchess of Tien. That was half of why I had chosen to come in this way. The combination of the massive rear wall and powerful neighbors who firmly supported the Crown meant the guards tended to pay less attention to this side of the compound.
    Add in the fact that the royal cemetery stood tight against the wall—with many tombs actually burrowing down into the bedrock on which it stood—and you had one of the few places in the palace compound that a Blade could get inside with relative ease.
    Which is exactly what we proceeded to do once I’d resumed control of Triss and his senses. Down the slope. Then wait for a gap in the guard patrols. Collapse the shroud to about half the optimum size. That freed up enough of Triss’s substance to spin myself finger and toe claws out of hardened shadow. Up the wall using cracks and crevices no unaided human could ever have hoped to find. Fully reshroud, and down the stairs from the battlements. Then up and over the low stone wall of the cemetery to drop into the shadows behind a free standing mausoleum, with every step mirrored perfectly by Faran and Ssithra.
    “Told you it’d be easy,” Faran said as we briefly settled against the dark granite wall of the tomb—the meeting wasn’t supposed to happen for almost two hours yet, but I’d wanted to have plenty of time to scout and prepare the ground.
    Triss’s senses provided a full circle of view, so I didn’t have to turn my head to look at Faran. Not that I could see her. Even a Shade’s . . . call it unvision, couldn’t see through the lacuna of another Shade. Faran and Ssithra simply registered as a deeper patch of shadow in a darkly shadowed world. Though the royal cemetery wasn’t wholly devoid of illumination—each tomb had a small magical flame burning eternally on the altar on the right side of its door—it was one of the darker parts of the compound.
    Still, I could imagine the smug look she now wore on that slightly too-angular face. Faran was going to be beautiful once she grew into her bones and put an adult’s flesh on that lanky frame. Brown hair and eyes, skin a shade paler than my own, and nearing my own height. When people saw us together in the market they assumed she was my daughter.
    “I never said that I expected it to be hard, Faran. Triss was absolutely right back there. A smart Blade practices caution even in the simplest of assignments, because it’s the unexpected difficulties that will trip you up.”
    “With the