Sonder did not go to court. She had no place there.
Thiliel's instructions had been blunt and precise. The houses Nesh and Hoar both being in court would draw every important member inward, and that inward gaze was the very thing Sonder must avoid.
She was not to present herself in Nesh colors, not to attach any token of their favor to her person.
For the sake of discretion, the lady had removed the robes the tailors had fitted and sent them back up the spiral, telling Sonder that to be useful she must look like any other outlander in the crowd: plain, forgettable, and unremarkable.
She would receive those robes with the highest ceremony if she returned successfully.
So she sat in the shade of the walls in the west of the city, the clothes she'd worn before looked more travelworn than ever.
Lacuna had gone with the others to the court, bound by duty and curiosity both.
House Hoar rose from the street like House Nesh did, though it was smaller.
It was the same spiraling shape as Nesh at a glance, the shell-curve of its outer wall coiling up and away into a dozen terraces and jutting ledges with narrow windows set at strange angles.
But where Nesh's spirals were neat and deliberate, Hoar's felt older, as if growth had been hurried and sloppy; stone overlapped with iron, iron with clay, and in places the facade had been patched with plates of dull metal that reflected the sun back.
Above the main gate, an unfamiliar glyph was painted between two banners.
Guards clustered along the curve of the wall in small knots. They walked short rounds and shorter tempers, sending sidelong glances to anyone who lingered near the wall.
Every now and then a messenger or errand-boy passed through a low service door near the side of the house, hunching as the door was small and thin.
Sonder watched for a pattern in the comings and goings that might give her an opening.
She took her time. There was no point in rushing into a place where every soldier's and guard's eye was trained to notice movement.
The guards walked in pairs, barely speaking, their boots thudded hollow against the stone.
Two of them loitered by the main gate.
There were watchers, too, in small niches above in balconies - men with crossbows.
The service door opened and shut with a dull thunk. A cart came and went two times in an hour, loaded with linen and empty casks, each time escorted by a single, bored-looking guard.
That guard, she noticed, did not seem as alert as the rest.
An idea edged into her mind - not wholly formed, but it became more solid as time went on:
It fitted the little web she had spun in her mind.
The timing of the carts, the brief turn of a guard's back, perhaps a broken ring on the axle, a tripping servant.
It began to form a plan in her mind: not brute force, not storming gates, but something small. Something that would look like an accident.