The street is too busy for me to get away with overpowering the guard without attracting attention. I could do a distraction ruse. Give a street rat a copper to steal some bread from the bakery and lead the guard on a chase, so I could slip in. Street rats have been scarce lately, though, and now I know why. I could get one of Jet's other enforcers to create the distraction. Jet might not like that too much, though. Kinda runs counter to his directive to lay low. I almost find myself wishing Enturi was around to help with his creepy way of persuading people to do what he wants. Almost. In the end, I decide to bluff my way in.

The guard looks at me suspiciously as I approach, sizing me up.

"Who owns this dump?" I ask.

"What's it to you?" he spits contemptuously. My battered cuirass and weapons tell him all he needs to know. I am hired muscle. In his mind, that means I could never afford to live in the Hawk. He's right.

"My boss heard there was a vacancy upstairs and might want to rent it."

"There is no vacancy here. Tell your boss he's outta luck."

I smile.

"I guess you haven't heard, then. Calmorien is dead, along with all his guards. Someone found his head on a pole outside his warehouse this morning."

The guard's eyes widen momentarily, then return to suspicious slits.

"Right," he sneers. "You're lying. Get lost, loser. Calmorien had three guards, and one of them was a nameless. He's as dead as I am, I'll wager. Calmorien will have my head, though, if I let anyone up there when he's not here. Maybe if you come back with his head and this mysterious boss of yours, I won't call the humans and have you arrested for trying to slither your way into the homes of decent folk."

I take a moment to think. This isn't going well. I could try to slip past him and then take him out when he follows me, but like as not he would just call for help. I don't actually want to kill him. Just get past him.

"Well, Arq?" The voice comes from behind me, smooth as the soft silk of a patrician's cloak. "Have you arranged our inspection?"

The hell? I glance behind me. There stands Lynae, sparkling in a flowing dress like the sun-sprinkled harbor on a hot afternoon. It is all I can do to not gape.

"Your inspection?" stutters the guard. He is gaping. Heh.

"Why, yes," she says sweetly. Her face shifts sightly to an expression of concern. 

"Didn't my man here tell you? We would like to look at Calmorien's chambers, with a view toward possibly renting them." She looks at me accusingly. She must have overheard my conversation with the guard and decided to give me a hand. Fine, I'll play along.

"But I did tell him, boss," I say, letting a touch of the disgusting obsequiousness I usually reserve for the humans slip into my voice. "He called me a liar."

Lynae turns back to the guard. She might be a human patrician herself, for all of her self-assurance.

"Is this so?" she asks the guard imperiously.

"Yes," he says, a touch defensively. "I've had no news of Calmorien's death."

"I have," she says. "In fact, I have seen his severed head, sitting on a spike outside his warehouse. Do you call me a liar?"

"No, but-"

"There are no buts, my good guard. Calmorien is dead, and you will show me his rooms."

"I cannot, Lady." The guard spreads his hands wide in diffident powerlessness. "I have no key."

"That is hardly an impediment." Lynae reaches into what must be a hidden pocket in her dress and pulls out a key. "As you can see, I have one."

Did she pick Calmorien's pockets after he was dead? On the other hand, she did not need a key to unlock the door to Jeamo's studio. Maybe this is a decoy key, kept for just such occasions.

The guard stares at the key as though it were an object outside the realm of his experience. Finally, he licks his lips and speaks.

"Where did you get the key, Lady?"