His wife’s jaw dropped open. I thought she would faint from mortification. I let the silence gather, then floated my words upon it. ‘And with those words, you admit a guilt and a shame greater than anything I could wish to prove. Keep the wealth, Howarth. Choke on it. You have dirtied it, and I have no need of anything you have touched.’

I turned on my heel then and walked away. A stunned silence hung behind me like a curtain, one that was suddenly rent by the wind of a thousand tongues flapping. Like a stirred beehive, all of the great Market circle hummed and buzzed. The scandal that Howarth thought he had left behind him would now mark his declining years.

‘Nor will his daughters wed Traders’ sons. His wife would do best to sweep them back to Jamaillia and marry them off where she can, for after this, they will never mount into Bingtown society,’ my pendant Whispered to me in savage joy. ‘You have done it, my dear. You have done us all proud with your success.’

I made no reply, but cut my way through the crowds, ignoring the comments and stares that followed me. My steady walk slowly cooled the angry flush from my cheeks and calmed the thundering of my heart. I had found my way down to the Bingtown docks where the cool wind off the water swept the heat from my face. I pondered the words I had said and what I had done. At the time it had seemed so perfectly fulfilling. Now I wondered at it.

‘But what did I accomplish?’ I lifted the pendant from my neck and looked at the tiny face. ‘I thought I was doing all this to regain my inheritance. I thought I would force him to give up the wealth he had stolen from my grandmother. Instead, I walked away with nothing. Not even an empty ring remains to me. Only you.’

‘Only me,’ the pendant agreed. ‘And your name. Taken back out of the dust and raised to pride once more. It is what your grandmother abandoned, and what I wished you to reclaim.