Kacey sat on her workbench, carefully drawing a sharp-bladed knife along the curve of a thin, flat circle of wood. A thin curl followed the line of the knife and finally fell away. Kacey set down the knife and ran the pad of her thumb over the corrected curve. The biscuit would slot into place between two planks of wood and help to hold them joined. She set it down on top of a short stack of similarly formed circles of wood.

Dark brown eyes were drowning in shadows as she looked without seeing at the next blank. Her expression was calm, even peaceful-seeming, if it weren?t for those eyes. Finally, mechanically, she moved and picked up the small, thin square of wood with an oval drawn in pencil on its surface. The small, sharp knife cut through the fine grain easily, taking off the excess with only a few motions.

Eventually the oval joined the stack of biscuit joins. Kacey looked at the remaining stack of blanks and then shook her head, swinging her leg over the workbench so she could stand. Slow steps took her over to the wall where the lumber was racked. Finally she turned away from the wood without so much as touching it and moved to the shave horse. A square billet was set, ready to be drawn to near-round. The pole-lathe nearby looked almost forlorn as it waited for the next step in the process.

About to settle down on the shave horse, Kacey paused at the knock on the small door that served as a front entrance. She opened the door cautiously, her left hand hidden and resting on the hilt of the long knife she now carried everywhere. When she saw the plump, red face looking at her with a cheerful grin, the caution seemed to vanish and her hand moved away from the dagger?s hilt.

Her smile was warmly welcoming, her voice said that the man was an old and trusted friend, and her eyes never lost their look of bleak shadows. Kacey opened the door to allow in the man. ?Mr. Daley, how good to see you. Are you here to see the progress of your desk and chair?? The well-dressed man entered, only an inch or two taller than Kacey, and beamed at her happily. He was heavy-set, but the well-tailored clothing he wore minimized his paunch.

Without waiting for his answer she led him towards a desk that was almost completed, and the pieces of a chair laid out for assembly. Quiet elegance spoke in the lines of the desk. Mr. Daley ran a hand over its surface before he turned to face Kacey with that ever-present smile. ?I wanted to see this, yes, see your progress and ensure it would be done soon. I was thinking of commissioning another piece, as well, another piece. A rocking chair, oak, with a set of initials inlaid into the back. Elegant, yes, you understand elegance. But would you be able to finish it before the first week in July??

Shadow-haunted eyes looked around the shop, the other pieces in progress, and Kacey answered slowly. ?The desk and chair should be done in five days. The second week of July would be better for a rocking chair. Is your need so urgent? Perhaps I can work something out if so.? She wore calmness as a mask and her question bore only polite interest and the concern of a craftsman for her work. Her eyes drifted back to Mr. Daley?s plump red face, which now bore a faint look of unease.

?Ah, well, the second week, that will not do at all, will not. It must be finished, and if you are not there to finish it? No, by the end of the first week it must be done, the first week.? His voice was not as calm as hers, but no change of expression showed on her face, only in her eyes as she took his meaning. The faint smile she was using remained in place as she took him over to her book of plans. Mr. Daley shifted his weight from foot to foot and then began to look over the drawings to find what he wanted.

Kacey stepped back as he examined the large plan book. A faint tremble of her hands was stilled. The faint smile crumbled and fell away, leaving emptiness in its wake, before she took a deep breath and re-donned her mask. When Mr. Daley turned back around to point out to her the design he wanted ? a simple slat-backed rocker ? she was able to speak to him pleasantly and bargain well on the cost of the piece. There was still a long way to go to replenish the funds which had been used to bribe Davarin?s way out of the Holding House.

When Kacey shut the door behind Mr. Daley on his way out, her pleasant smile remained in place. Her mask remained in place; a stranger would never know that Mr. Daley worked in the court system, and that he had just told her the date of her death. A stranger would have thought that nothing was wrong as Kacey crossed back to examine the wood already in stock. A stranger wouldn?t be able to see the deadness that had taken the place of shadows in her eyes.

Masks and masks, layered over each other until she could barely remember what lay beneath. Kacey had withdrawn almost entirely within herself, hiding from the world outside, hiding in the smooth grain of wood and creation. She was hiding from herself, too. Nightmares once again haunted her sleep, and so she avoided it. Davarin?s absences had been more and more frequent; his explanations fewer and farther between. Convinced he was distancing himself from her in preparation for her death, she had let the matter be. But now the first week of June had passed, and the second.

Mr. Daley?s rocking chair had been delivered at the end of May and he had paid a substantial bonus. When the date he mentioned had passed with no summons to court, a flicker of hope had been lit in Kacey?s heart. In the change of governors, in the long time since the murders, perhaps the courts had forgotten her. She had not forgotten the Bevers ? would never forget them ? but perhaps the wheels of justice had rolled on and left her behind.

Still, there was too much unanswered. Paladin?s disappearance was only one of many questions. Davarin had mentioned gangs ? the Makos, the Ratz ? and the guard who had assaulted her when she came to free him from the holding house. Finally, after nearly three weeks in which she had left the shop only briefly, Kacey ventured out on a cloudy day that matched the cloud of her emotions.

Too warm out for her sweaters, she wore a simple short-sleeved shirt and the carpenter jeans that had become so comfortable and familiar. Work-boots were laced high up her calves, and she had used her red linen bandanna to pull back her hair from her face. Long habit had her buckling on her tool belt ? new habit added a long dagger to the belt as well. She locked the workshop behind her, leaving without a note for Davarin. He had a key; he would be able to get in if he returned before she did.

She had to venture out, before she drowned under the weight of her masks.

Escaping to the Inn had been a release; signing the contract with Vinny so that he would throw his considerable resources into the search for the true killers of the Bevers and the other families Dockside seemed a godsend. It wasn?t enough to let her sleep, not without dreams and nightmares that etched into her soul. Davarin?s absences meant he hadn?t been there as the solid, reassuring presence to keep those nightmares away. His voice still echoed in her head. ?Just give me a few more days, my Kacilla. I?ll find the proof you need.?

She didn?t want a few more days. She wanted him to stay; to ward off the dreams, to be strong when her strength ran out. But her masks were too solid, beaten and battered into place. She had smiled and sent him back out to find what he could. Now the warm summer air, thick with nameless stench from the West End sewers, wrapped around Kacey as she unlocked the door to the shop. Her hands were shaking as she thought of the nightmares that would come. It distracted her; she didn?t see the shadows that lurked in the alleys near the converted warehouse.

Inside she turned and locked the front door again, called out quietly. ?Dav? Are you home?? Only wood caught the words, echoing into the darkness and she sighed and scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of both palms. Varnish and oil and wood shavings scented the air, but there was no sound, no motion, no scent of the one person she had hoped would be there. A sliver of moonlight through a high window caught the glint of white gold on her left wrist, the bracelet that she had worn for a decade and abandoned ? now, in the dark, beneath the layers of brittleness hidden, it seemed an empty promise.

Through the echoing workshop portion to the small dwelling space she had built in the rear of the warehouse. She didn?t need light to know her way past benches and racked wood, tools and cans of varnish. The living space was tiny ? bed in one corner, table and two chairs opposite, and a hulking iron stove in the back that kept the area warm. No lights. She fumbled at matches until a lantern was lit and then, moving mechanically, set the tea kettle on the center of the stove to heat.

She couldn?t take the nightmares tonight, not without losing all of her masks. Not without breaking back to shattered glass and bone. Kacey stared blindly at the wood walls; they cracked and darkness threatened to rush in on a wave of hot blood. Gasping, she shut her eyes and whirled, leaning against the table, both hands braced flat on its surface. ?Dav?? It was just a whisper into the room. When she opened her eyes, the lamplight gleamed and shimmered off the bracelet.

Abruptly angry, furious, she yanked it from her wrist and hurled it against the wall ? it struck and rebounded with a jangle, whirling and finally settling on the floor. The tea kettle whistled and she reached for the small jar labeled neatly, ?E1?. A double-dose was bitter, a triple-dose she could barely gag down ? but with that triple-dose she would sleep and so heavily that no dreams could come at all. Three spoons of the tea blend went into the mug, with no care for cheesecloth filter, and then she added the hot water.

Steam drifted up and traced patterns in the air; Kacey watched them without seeing until the tea was cool enough to drink. She didn?t hear the faint sounds of scraping at the front of the shop, at the doors and the windows. Finally the drink was ready and she choked it down. Numb fingers unlaced her boots, and she kicked them off before peeling out of her jeans and shirt. Shorts, soft and worn, and a too-large shirt of Davarin?s that she held for a moment before pulling on replaced her clothing, and she crawled into bed. His scent was on the pillow, and she curled up around it, clinging to that scent as the medicine swept her into welcome, dreamless sleep.

Her nightmares were things of blood and death, rape and pain ? not smoke, not soot and fire. With the sopofiric tea heavy in her system, she didn?t even have those. The scent of burning wood and oil and something sharper, stranger, wound into her sleep, but was not enough to wake her. She didn?t hear Davarin?s shouts, didn?t feel the rising heat of the flames. When Davarin picked her up, she dangled limply over his shoulder like a broken doll; it wasn?t until one of the rafters tumbled down, almost catching them and sending up a shower of sparks that Kacey began to wake.

Groggy, disoriented by the drug that still tried to keep her in the depths of sleep, Kacey was only half-aware of murmured conversations around. Her hair had caught fire with the sparks and been hastily patted out by one of few neighbors who had ventured into the street. The scent of burnt hair was foul. Soot and ashes caught and clung in the back of her throat, and she started to cough, struggled to sit. Only then did she realize that she was being held half in the lap of a stranger, a motherly-appearing older woman. Kacey vaguely remembered her as a neighbor.

At that Kacey?s eyes went wide, and once the coughing fit passed, she struggled to form coherent words. ?Who- what happened? Dav? Where?s Davvy?? Hands calloused and toughened by hard work clung to the woman?s full skirts. She felt bone dry, wrung out and dehydrated by the combination of tea and fire, and her voice was more a croak than anything. Dark brown eyes were lit by the flames as she turned her head, looking at the blazing ruins of her shop. There were dark outlines of men forming a bucket chain to the nearest fountain against the light; Kacey was tense as she searched for one outline, one man.

?Ah, yer good man?s there, helping to put out that mess and keep it from spreading. Don?t ye worry about him; he?s fine and a hero at that. Now that yer awake, let?s see about getting ye cleaned up and into something decent.? The woman was brisk, no-nonsense as she helped Kacey to stand uncertainly. Bare feet stumbled over the dirty cobbles as Kacey looked back over her shoulder toward Davarin outlined against the fire, and the ruin of her burning shop.

The water in the hip bath was almost black when Kacey was finished getting clean, and she could feel the uneven, ragged patches in her thick hair. The sound of the fire and those fighting it had gradually died away as she had bathed and dressed in the clothes the woman had provided her. Pants that were worn and faded and too long, a shirt that hung to mid-thigh, and a pair of leather shoes that were only a little too large ? Kacey took the clothes and smiled gratefully.

She didn?t sleep any more that night. Dawn saw her crossing the cobbled street to walk through the smoldering rubble that only the night before had been a moderately successful carpentry shop and home. Ashes puffed grey into the cool air where water hadn?t soaked them completely through. She stared for several moments at the locks left on the ground where doors and windows had been. The fire had been too complete ? there was no other evidence of what Davarin had seen. But there were the locks. She left them untouched.

His voice had been hoarse and thick with smoke as he told her what he had seen. The same neighbor who had taken care of Kacey had bustled around her kitchen and kept Davarin drinking water and tea to replace the fluids lost in the firefighting. He was back there now, half-asleep on the neighbor?s kitchen table. Their own kitchen was hardly more than ashes, except for the iron stove that still hulked in one corner of the ruined building. Kacey kicked aside a scorched piece of wood that had been the corner of one of the kitchen chairs. There was a glimmer of metal, unexpected, on the ground. It took Kacey several minutes of staring dumbly at the gleam of silver-white before her masks slipped and her expression crumbled into tears.

The white-gold bracelet had melted into the ground.