As the gang all headed in a fairly large, fairly loud group towards Azure Courts, Vanera tried to give the rest of them the slip so he could go on ahead and quietly arrange for himself and Talarja to slip away without confronting his in-laws. But Vanera moves surprisingly loudly for a librarian, and he found it difficult to shake off the rest of his friends, whose excitement was quickly escalating to a fever pitch.
Rounding a corner into a more derelict area of the city, the Company were confronted by a half-dozen tough-looking thugs led by Fish, the proprietor of the Rusty Anchor. It turns out that Tengelbur and the rest of the crew are wanted for the murder of the Governor of Ralakar (Governor Neratsoan, aka Governor Sausage Fingers), and that Tengelbur's mother had hired Mr. Fish to keep Tengelbur and his friends off the streets for a few days until the search for them died down, presumably preventing both the incarceration of her son and scandal for the family. After bandying a few words with Mr. Fish, the Company decided it would be disastrous to fight their way out of this, and were taken to the vault of the Rusty Anchor, where they were locked up in its strongroom. In this, Thoranrai accompanied them, although she had nothing to do with the Governor. She seemed wide-eyed and excited to be in the company of so many dangerous assassins, despite Tengelbur's best efforts to explain to her that they had not actually murdered the Governor.
Speaking further with Fish, it seems that whatever he had been promised by Tengelbur's mother was not in fact money, but rather influence--the influence which would come to her family once the marriage alliance with Neras Garini was secured. Locked up in the strongroom of the Rusty Anchor, the party gradually discovered that Thoranrai might not be as much a fool as they assumed her to be--that in fact her operations in the city over the course of the last few days have been to draw suspicion away from the real plot currently being executed by some "friends" of hers, which is apparently to hijack a revenue ship which will be docking at Koruximei the day of the festival.
Fortunately for the party, Reiana's pack had not been taken from her, and with some tools she was able to pry out a few of the bars of one of the outside windows to the strongroom while the rest of the party sang very loudly (insulting songs about Onwae, mostly, and later about Tengelbur, after he managed to imply that Thoranrai was a little on the skinny side compared to his own curvaceous sister--a comparison which was awkward for more than one reason). Thoranrai, the smallest person there, slipped out through the window, followed by Reiana several minutes later. Thoranrai had been given a letter to send to Talarja, after which she was supposed to go and get her "friends" who she promised would be able to get the Company out. Reiana, several minutes behind her, went to Azure Courts in an attempt to meet with Talarja, but was told that Talarja had fallen ill and was not receiving any visitors at that time. She then went on to the Royal Library in the hopes of meeting with Norkur the Scribe, which was the original errand which had brought them to Sencankarr in the first place.
Thoranrai, much to the rest of the party's surprise, came through, returning within an hour or so with one of her "friends" -- a Scarlet Sister -- who had arranged matters with Fish so that the Company could be released. Tanurendal then headed to the Royal Library to meet up with Reiana and bring her her gear while Tengelbur and Vanera (who was horrified to learn that Thoranrai had sent the letter on to Azure Courts, despite the fact that this was what he had instructed her to do) raced off to Azure Courts to get Talarja.
After a fairly botched attempt to sneak into the house (Vanera was extremely eager to avoid a confrontation with Talarja's mother), they slipped in the back way to find Arkjamu Sathneinor, the matriarch of the family, sitting and waiting for them, with Vanera's letter in her hands. "Well," she said, "it took you long enough to get here."
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