"That's him," Corren said.Rendell was shorter than I had pictured. I don't know why I'd pictured anything. He camearound the corner of the south street with two other men and a cart that had seen better decades,one wheel slightly off true so it pulled left and he kept correcting it without looking down, theautomatic correction of someone who has made this route enough times that his body does itbefore his head notices the lean.We were in the shadow of the building opposite. Corren had found the position two hoursbefore Rendell arrived and we had stood in it and not spoken much. The night was cold in thespecific way that Voldimore gets cold in this season, not sharp, just a damp that finds the gapsin whatever you are wearing and settles there."When they open the south door," I said."I know," Corren said.We had done this before. Not this exact thing but the shape of it. Wait, watch, move whenthe door opens and the attention is on the delivery and the men doing the carrying

Her GroundShe wrote four words. The archive reading room. That was the whole message, no time, noinstruction, just a location that told me three things before I had taken a step toward it: sheworked there, she had keys, and she had chosen a place where if anything went wrong theofficial explanation for her presence was already built in.Corren did not like it."She picked the location," he said. "You're walking into a room she controls with one exitthat we know of and you don't know who else she's told.""I know.""I'll be outside but outside is not inside, Draven. If something goes wrong inside thatbuilding—""I know, Corren."He made the sound he makes when he has said the thing and I have heard the thing and Iam going anyway. Then he pulled his coat and said he would take the east approach and watchthe servant entrance and I said fine and we left the tanner's yard for the last time because whenwe came back from this, whatever this was, we were not coming back to a room tha