The Way Of Shadows by Brent Weeks

your father left two copies of the letter appointing you lord in his absence. He gave one to your mother, and the other to me. As soon as I heard where Lady Catrinna went, I checked my copy, which I kept under lock and key. It’s gone. Forgive me, Lord Gyre,” The steward flushed. “I swear I had no part in this. I thought I had the only key.”
    “What did the queen say?” Solon asked.
    Wendel blinked. As Solon had guessed, Wendel knew, but he hadn’t wanted to let Solon know how extensive his network of eyes-and-ears was. After a moment, the steward said, “The matter might have been handled fairly easily, but the king doesn’t let the queen make any decisions without him. He interrupted them while they were speaking. He said that he would take the matter under advisement. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.”
    “I’m afraid I do,” Solon said.
    “What?” Logan asked.
    “Who’s your family’s solicitor?”
    “I asked you first,” Logan said.
    “Boy!”
    “Count Rimbold Drake,” Logan said, sulking a little.
    “It means we need to speak with Count Drake. Now.”
    “Do I have to wear the shoes?” Azoth asked. He didn’t like shoes. You couldn’t feel the ground to know how slick it was, and they pinched.
    “Nah, we’ll go see Count Drake with you wearing a nobleman’s tunic and barefoot,” Durzo said.
    “Really?”
    “No.”
    For all the times Azoth had envied the merchants’ and lords’ sons at the markets, he’d never thought of how uncomfortable their clothes were. But Durzo was his master now, and he was already impatient with how long it was taking Azoth to get ready, so Azoth kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t been Durzo’s apprentice for long, and he still worried the wetboy would throw him out.
    They walked across Vanden Bridge to the east side. To Azoth, it was a revelation. He’d never even tried to cross Vanden Bridge and hadn’t believed the guild rats who claimed to have made it past the guards. On the east side of the river, there were no ruins, no empty buildings at all. There were no beggars on the streets. It smelled different, foreign, alien. Azoth couldn’t smell the manure of the cattle yards at all. Even the gutters were different. There was only one every third street, and none in the major streets. People didn’t just throw their slops and sewage out the windows and let them accumulate until they gradually flowed away. Here, they carried them to the third street and dumped them there to flow down stone channels in the cobblestone streets so that even those streets were safe to walk in. Most alarming, though, was that the people smelled wrong. Men didn’t smell of sweat and their labors. When a woman passed, she smelled only lightly of perfume rather than overpoweringly of it with the stale odors of sweat and sex laced underneath. When Azoth asked Blint about it, the wetboy just said, “You’re going to be a lot of work, aren’t you?”
    They passed a wide building that was billowing steam. Glistening, perfectly coifed men and women were emerging. Azoth didn’t even ask. “It’s a bath house,” Blint said. “Another Ceuran import. The only difference is that here the men and women bathe separately, except in Momma K’s, of course.”
    The owner of the Tipsy Tart greeted Blint as Master Tulii. He answered her with an accent and an effete attitude and ordered his carriage brought around.
    Once they were under way, Azoth asked, “Where are we going? Who’s Count Drake?”
    “He’s an old friend, a noble who has to work for a living. He’s a solicitor.” When Azoth looked puzzled, Master Blint said, “A solicitor is a man who does worse things within the law than most crooks do outside it. But he’s a good man. He’s going to help me make you useful.”
    “Master?” Azoth asked. “How’s Doll Girl?”
    “She’s not your problem anymore. You’re not to ask about her again.” A minute passed as the streets rolled by. Durzo finally said,