The Element of Fire, page 109 by Martha Wells
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ieved it was a possibility, though he wouldn't say it outright.
Thomas was struck by an unpleasant image. Braun, unable to find Thomas in the crowded gallery, stopping a faceless Queen's guard on a deserted stair. Asking him to take a message to his captain, stepping into a quiet parlor to use the writing desk... But Thomas had always seen Braun as a pitiable figure, and the young sorcerer had been coldly eliminated in a way that didn't agree with the theory of a guard murdering him in sudden anger. Then again, Braun was a sorcerer and would surely have had some means of defending himself; he would almost have to be taken from behind...
The door creaked as a servant opened it to usher in Ephraim, the ragged ballad-seller and professional spy.
"Good news?" Thomas asked as the old man grinned and bowed to both of them.
Ephraim pulled off his cloth cap and began to knead it conversationally. "In a manner of speaking, Sir. It's quite a tale. The Gambin lad's dead, you see."
If he had his throat slit around the same time as Braun did, I'm going to retire, Thomas thought, and kept the surprise off his face. "What happened?"
"From the beginning it was that a couple of my own boys followed Gambin to see if he would lead us to the fellow who hired him, and he led them a merry way, Sir, but he ended up back at the palace quarter and entered Lord Lestrac's house." Ephraim hesitated. Not from trepidation, but more as if he were still trying to sort things out in his own mind. "After a bit he came out, and the boys followed Gambin on a wandering way back to his home ground, and waited outside his house, as they hadn't any instructions to do otherwise. Before dawn this morning a young woman arrives, and she goes in and starts to scream. The boys figured they should go in and see what the matter was, and as Gambin didn't know either of them they could say they were passersby. Well, they didn't have to say much at all, because Gambin was dead, you see, without a mark on him.