Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune

Good Neighbours Lynn Abbey

Chersey felt guilty.

When Dace had arrived at the changing house last winter, crippled and reeking of the Swamp of Night Secrets, she’d welcomed him out of charity. Charity was a godly virtue and Chersey, who’d come of age during the Dyareelan Troubles, had lived comfortably without gods until recently, when she’d warmed to the sensible words and good examples the Raivay SaVell espoused from the ruins along the Promise of Heaven. Charity, the Raivay said, was the path to Paradise.

Chersey didn’t worry about Paradise, but charity toward the Nighter had lightened her heart. She’d trimmed his dark brown hair and supplied him with new garments—

Well, not new garments. The changing house stored great quantities of secondhand garments. The boy, bless his soul, hadn’t cared that his new clothes weren’t. Chersey had given Dace a pair of boots, too. He’d appreciated the footgear, but his eyes had sparkled brightest for a carved-wood crutch her husband, Bezul, had dug out of the warrens.

Bezul admitted the crutch was one of the first items his family had traded after they’d descended to Wriggle Way from their former home among the city’s goldsmiths. Fools they’d been then: Folk didn’t come to a changing house when they needed crutches.

Except Dace.

The youth didn’t talk about the swamp; he didn’t need to. His life was written in his scars and, of course, in his withered right leg. He’d never used a crutch. What good was a crutch in a swamp?

Between the crutch and boots, Dace’s first days at the changing house had been a series of stumbling disasters. Chersey had come within a breath of banishing him from her kitchen. If she had, then neither she nor Dace. would have discovered that he was a kettle wizard. The boy need only taste a dish or smell it on the fire to deduce its ingredients. Chersey had been preparing food as long as she could remember, but Dace prepared meals.

Dear Bezul had been diplomatic, insisting that no one could make a better stew than his wife, but he’d come around when Dace began doing things that Chersey could never have imagined. Bezul’s redoubtable mother, Gedozia, had taken longer, in no small part because Dace wanted to take over the marketing and marketing was Gedozia’s domain.

A gimpy Nighter can’t bargain! They’ll take one look at him, raise their prices, and we’ll be on the street before we know it.

Then, overnight, Dace shed his Nighter twang as easily as he’d shed swamp dirt and rags. He spoke common Wrigglie now, and it was easy to forget he wasn’t cityborn.

That boy is shameless, Gedozia said when the two of them returned from the market; and, coming from Gedozia, that was a compliment.

When the first sultry spell of summer had settled over the city, Gedozia declared that her ankles had swollen and the thrice-weekly trek to market was more suffering than she intended to endure. Dace, whose every step had to be more painful than any Gedozia had taken, leaped at the opportunity to carry the household purse.

The household was eating better and spending less money—because Dace was not only a better bargainer than the old woman, he didn’t skim padpols for his own indulgence. Chersey had to tell him to keep a coin or two for himself. Youths his age needed a few padpols and she needed to assuage her guilt.

Like some high-born lady, Chersey consulted with her cook while the family ate breakfast.

“Any ideas for tonight’s supper?”

Dace looked up. He was chopping last night’s leftovers into the stockpot. Dace wasn’t a handsome youth. His grin was lopsided, as if whatever had crippled his right leg had touched his face as well, but his eyes were lively and his gaze was direct as he said, “Depends on what I smell along the Processional.”

Chersey laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were looking for a finer kitchen than this one.” When Dace shook his head, Chersey continued in a more serious tone: “Really, you need to be careful—”

“The Processional’s there for everyone, Governor’s Walk, too. The guards don’t hassle me and if the nabobs don’t want me sneaking their recipes, they should tell their cooks to close the doors.”

“The guards aren’t there to protect you, not on the Processional. You’d be wiser to take the Shambles bridge—the way is shorter and if you smell anything around here, we can afford the spices.”

“Ser Perrez says not to worry, we’ll be rich soon.”

Perrez was the only household name Dace hung a handle on. He’d learned that flattery was the way to deal with Bezul’s younger brother, Gedozia’s favorite son. Chersey had watched Perrez grow from a dreaming youth into a scheming manhood and was wise to his dreams. She wished she could bestow that wisdom on Dace, but there was no putting old heads on young shoulders. If the youth’s wits were as sharp as his nose, he’d uncover the truth about Perrez soon enough with no help from her.

The morning chill had vanished long before Dace made his last purchase. Chersey had given him an uncut shaboozh because it was Shiprisday and on Shiprisday, Dace bought extra bread and cheese. The mistress didn’t demand a precise accounting of expenses and wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if Dace had come home without a padpol. She was generous that way, and trusting—totally unlike the family Dace had left behind.

The changing-house folk didn’t pry into Dace’s past, and he was grateful. His kin weren’t worth remembering, though Dace hadn’t managed to forget them … yet. A year ago he’d seen a shaboozh clutched tightly in his uncle’s hand, but he’d never held one, much less spent it all in a single morning.

Dace took his responsibilities to heart. Gedozia had taught him to bargain, though, truth to tell, Gedozia was sharp and bitter and lacked the friendly patience that yielded the best prices. Dace had memorized each farmer’s name, his village and his welfare. He bantered as he bargained, shaving a padpol off the asking price or gaining an extra onion as his reward. Today hadn’t been a good day for bonus produce, but he’d wound up with three leftover padpols.

The broken black bits were knotted securely into a pouch he wore inside his trousers where it wouldn’t come loose or attract unwanted attention—not that three padpols bouncing on the Processional’s cobblestones would attract attention. Folk on the Processional didn’t stoop for padpols. They scarcely stepped aside for a cripple in secondhand homespun.

Dace sated his curiosity about Sanctuary’s richest and best-fed families with quick sniffs and glances. Someone had dropped a coin at the feet of a juggler who was putting on a show outside the whitewashed mansion of Lord Noordiseh. Dace stood on tiptoe—a stance both awkward and painful—at the crowd’s fringe. He caught glimpses of the bright-clad sailor swirling five knives between his rapidly moving hands.

He’d seen jugglers on the streets before, but none who’d added the element of danger to their routine. Each time the juggler caught a knife, there was the chance he’d grasp the flashing blade. Dace couldn’t tear away from the spectacle. His ears were deaf to the commotion at the mansion’s door until it was too late—

“Make way! Make way!” burly retainers shouted as they shoved through the crowd.

The juggler caught his knives without trouble; Dace was not so fortunate. Already unbalanced on his tiptoes, he crashed to the cobblestones when someone jostled into his crutch. More mindful of his purchases than his bones, the youth clutched his bulging sack to his chest as he fell. His crutch flew and he landed on his back, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough that he lay motionless, waiting for his body to become his again.

The crowd had vanished like smoke on a windy day.

“Damn insolence! Move him out of the way!”

Dace turned toward the sound and snagged eyes with Lord Noordiseh himself, resplendent in billowing silk and an equally billowed silk-and-feather hat. Three thoughts burst into Dace’s mind. The first two—Find your crutch and Get yourself away from here!—were wise choices, but the third—He’s wearing a fake beard—was more compelling, at least until one of the burly retainers reached for Dace’s sack.

“The little thief’s got enough food here to feed an army—”

Dace flailed and found his crutch. With a desperate heave and a measure of luck he lurched to his feet without surrendering the sack. “No army, ser, just my household.”

“What family?” the retainer demanded. “Where do you live?”

Dace saw the crack of doom looming before him. He should have listened to Chersey, should have stayed away from the Processional, but bad as things were, they’d be worse if he lied. “Wriggle Way, ser. The house of Bezulshash the Changer.”

The retainer wasn’t impressed, but Lord Noordiseh showed unexpected mercy: “Let him go.”

And Dace went, as fast as his gimpy leg allowed. His heart didn’t stop racing until his feet touched Wriggle Way. Familiar buildings had never looked so good. He paused to tidy his clothes; no sense walking into the changing house with his shirt hitched up.

A girl emerged from the Frog and Bucket tavern as Dace swiped his fingers through his hair. Geddie wasn’t the sort to draw much attention. She had a plain face with slightly bulging eyes. Her hair hung in braids against her back and her skirt was shorter than it should have been, as if she were in the midst of a girlish growth spurt, though she swore she was nineteen and a veteran of the Maze brothels.

Dace didn’t believe Geddie had worked the brothels and didn’t think she was pretty. In fact, he thought she was so homely that she might eventually succumb to a cripple’s charm. He called her name and hurry-hobbled to catch up.

“I didn’t expect to see you today!”

“It’s my day off.”

Geddie worked in the palace laundry where she’d risen from pounding and wringing to the skilled labor of mending.

“So, where’re you going?”

“Same place as you. Got me a gift to change.” Geddie patted the pouch slung at her waist. “Then I’m off to see One-Eye Reesch. He just got a chest of Aurvesh fortune oils. S’not like they’re Caronnese, but my girlfriend says they work real well.”

“Can I come with?”

Geddie shrugged and Dace stuck close.

“I can give you twelve padpols—three soldats—for them,” Chersey judged while eyeing the pair of merely serviceable boots.

“You gave a whole shaboozh last time.”

Chersey sighed inwardly. She preferred to give her customers what they wanted and had never hardened to this colder part of changing-house life. “Last time I didn’t have six other pairs of boots on the shelves.”

“I’ve got to have a shaboozh. Just one until Ilsday. I’ll buy ’em back then, same as always.”

“Thirteen.” Chersey made her final offer.

The woman was a regular customer who cycled her husband’s boots through the changing house the way fishermen cycled their nets.

“We’ll starve,” the woman insisted, which was merely her way of accepting the offer.

Chersey pulled a thin, baked-clay, double-eyed tablet from a bowl beneath the counter and began writing the details of the trade on it. When she finished, she handed the tablet to the woman who broke it in two, keeping one sherd and returning the other to Chersey who threaded a bit of twine through the eye. She tied the twine to the boots before counting out thirteen good-sized padpols—one of them almost large enough to be a two-padpol bit.

The woman wasn’t blind to generosity. She gave thanks and swept the tarnished bits into the hem of her sleeve. Chersey put the tagged boots on the shelf. The changing house always had boots, but eight pairs—she’d forgotten one—were an unusually high number. Something was amiss in the hand-to-mouth segment of Sanctuary society that relied on the changing house to tide them over.

She and Bezul should discuss the problem. The changing house didn’t have unlimited padpols. There’d been times in the past when they’d had to stop making exchanges for cash. But Bezul and Pel Garwood were no closer to an exchange for the old Ilsigi ewer someone had given the healer in exchange for his services. The healer was a good man—Chersey consulted him whenever one of the children took sick—and a better bargainer. He and Bezul might be at it all day.

The morning was hot. Chersey thought about getting herself a glass of night-cooled mint tea from the kitchen sump. She got as far as the inner door when the brass bell hanging from the open doorway jangled and Jopze—one of the two retired soldiers who kept a lid on things in exchange for clothes for their ever-increasing broods—hailed Dace by name.

Dace didn’t usually come through the front door. Chersey wondered why he’d changed his habits and, turning, saw that the youth wasn’t alone. She recognized the scrawny girl by sight, not name. The girl lived above the Frog and Bucket, which was tantamount to saying she sold herself to the tavern’s customers. She had some sort of dealings with the palace, too: a job in the laundry, or so she claimed. Chersey couldn’t imagine how any laundress could come by the trinkets the girl exchanged without shedding her own clothes.

Chersey wasn’t pleased to see the girl with Dace, though she immediately realized she shouldn’t have been surprised. Dace might have a crippled leg and a lopsided smile, but he was still a young man at an age when young men had only one thought on their minds. He was being practical, aiming low where his chances of success were high.

Dace began the conversation: “Geddie’s got something to change.”

So the girl’s name was Geddie. Somehow it fit that her name sounded like something stuck to a shoe, but business was business. Chersey returned to the counter.

“Let’s have a look.”

The girl brought out a cloth-wrapped parcel which proved to contain a small statue of Anen, the Ilsigi god of wine and good fortune. The statue was painted stone, chipped here and there, with hollow eyes where gems had once resided. Three bands confined the god’s unruly hair. Two were hollow but the third shone with gold. Chersey could pin a value to ordinary household objects, but when it came to relics, she turned to her husband.

“Bez? Could you take a look at this?”

Bezul seemed relieved by the interruption. He picked up the statue, paying particular attention to its base. “You realize this once stood in Anen’s chapel at the Temple of Ils?” he said with a trace of accusation in his voice.

Of course, the Dyareelan fanatics had destroyed the temple. Ils’s priests had hidden a few of their treasures before they died. A week didn’t go by without someone claiming to have found an abandoned hoard.

Chersey and Bezul heard all the treasure rumors, thanks to Bezul’s brother, Perrez. Sometimes the rumors were true—that ewer Pel Garwood was determined to exchange had survived the Troubles intact, but the changing house didn’t knowingly trade in looted goods. There were dens on the Hill that specialized in covert trade.

“How did you come by this?” Bezul challenged.

“A gift,” she replied, sullen and defiant.

“From whom?”

“I got a friend at the palace.”

Chersey scowled and flicked her moonstone ring close to her right eye. The ring was minor wizardry. It cast an aura through which Chersey could detect lies and deceit. The girl was full of deceit, but she wasn’t lying when she said, “I mended his britches. Them Irrunes, they don’t touch money, but they’ll give you gifts.”

Chersey doubted that mending had anything to do with Geddie’s good fortune, but it was true enough that Sanctuary’s current rulers refused to handle money. Had it been up to Chersey, they would have sent Geddie and her relic packing. Regardless of how the girl had come by her gift, they weren’t likely to resell a stripped relic in day-to-day trade. They’d have to turn it over to Perrez who brokered their one-of-a-kinds to east-side dealers, foreigners, and an occasional rich patron. Chersey would rather have made do without Perrez’s contributions. Bezul would have done the same, but his brother’s trades turned a tidy profit, when they didn’t fall through; and the house couldn’t overlook profit.

According to Perrez, Sanctuary relics were all the rage in the Ilsigi Kingdom and the right trade could yield a tidy profit—could being the operative word.

Bez set the statue on the counter. “You’d do better at a goldsmith’s. I recommend Thibalt in Copper Corner.”

Geddie worked her mouth into a sarcastic smile. “Sure. I’m going to walk into a froggin’ goldsmith’s. Me an’ all my ladies.”

“We don’t trade in relics. I can only offer intrinsic worm—”

The girl scowled at the unfamiliar word. “Shite for sure, so long as it’s four froggin’ shaboozh”

“three” Bezul replied without batting an eye, which told Chersey the statue must be worth ten.

“Three’n twelve.”

“Three and eight.”

Geddie thrust out her chin. “Done,” she declared and held out her hand.

Bezul counted the coins and the girl turned to leave the shop. Dace turned with her, then hesitated. The young man’s conflicting thoughts were so obvious that Chersey could read them on his face: The household’s supper was hanging in a sack from his shoulder, but he’d rather moon after the girl.

Chersey’s mother-wit counseled responsibility. The girl was trouble. On the other hand, Dace was nearly grown and she wasn’t his mother. She reached for the sack.

The boy brightened. “I’ll be back in good time to start the supper!”

Bezul caught Chersey’s eye as the pair left. Chersey shrugged. She liked having someone to do the kitchen chores, but she didn’t expect the respite to last forever.

“You should have gone to a goldsmith,” Dace said as he kept pace, barely, with the woman of his current fantasies.

Geddie gave a snort worthy of an overheated horse. “And get cheated even worse? When I can dress myself like a lady, then I’ll go where ladies go.”

“Where’s One-Eye Reesch?”

“In the bazaar. With what I got for that statue, I can buy myself some good-fortune oil. I’m telling you, I’m due for good fortune. I’m not spending my life on Wriggle Way.”

Dace had never heard of good-fortune oils. At the very least, he’d meet someone new and fill in another gap or two in his knowledge of life beyond the Swamp of Night Secrets. He would have been happier if Geddie looked at him when she spoke, but she wasn’t telling him to get lost.

Though Geddie insisted that the bazaar was quiet, almost deserted, Dace was left agog by the sights, sounds, and smells. He didn’t dare ask questions, though, lest Geddie get the wrong impression or abandon him among the stalls.

Geddie navigated and brought them to the large wooden stall where One-Eye Reesch both lived and worked. Mostly, the gray-haired, patch-eyed trader sold metal lamps and colorful glass goblets, but when Geddie mentioned fortune oils, he winked his good eye and led her to a wicker chest, maybe two feet on each side, stuffed with straw and waxstoppered vials.

“Can you read?” Geddie hissed.

Dace winced. Chersey was teaching him Ilsigi letters, same as she taught five-year-old Ayse. He could recognize a few words and enough letters to know that the writing on the bottles wasn’t Ilsigi.

Reesch had overheard. “No problem. The blue ones are for money, the red for true love, the green ones will get rid of sickness, and the blacks will break a hex.”

Geddie wanted vials in red and blue, but her money wouldn’t stretch that far. The smallest red vial was three shaboozh. The blue vials were cheaper. For two and ten Geddie could buy a fist-sized vial of fortune. Geddie bar- gained Reesch down to two and seven. She slipped the precious vial inside her bodice.

“Fortune comes first,” she told Dace as they headed out of the bazaar. “This oil’s going to pull me a froggin’ rich man. Once I have money, love will follow.”

“What if your true love happened to be poor?” Dace didn’t add crippled; there was no sense in tempting fate.

“He won’t be. I’ve had my palm read: My love line joins my money line. You want to share?”

“Share what?”

“My fortune oil! Soon as I get home, I’m going to burn some. You want to sit beside me? You need all the help you can »

Dace agreed. His hopes soared, until Geddie asked—

“Is Perrez rich?”

In self-defense, Dace answered, “No.”

“But he looks so fine in his white shirts, and he knows everyone. I’ve watched him in the Frog.”

“Most of the time Perrez works for Bezul. He’ll be working for Bezul when he brokers your statue. That means what he gets goes to Bezul—most of it, anyway. He only keeps it all when he brokers something he found—” Dace caught himself on the verge of a secret and clammed up.

Geddie wasn’t fooled. “What has he found?”

“Well, he didn’t find it, exactly. He made a trade—with a fisherman. You’ve heard the rumors—there’s some mystery wreck out on the reef. No one knows anything about it, but the fishermen are picking it clean. Guess the fisherman thought the thing was cursed and wanted to be rid of it. Perrez says it’s going to make him rich.”

“What kind of thing is it?”

Dace shook his head.

“C’mon—you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

“It’s a black rod, half as long as my arm from elbow to wrist. There’s a gold dragon wrapped around the tip and honey amber wired to the base.”

Geddie’s eyes and mouth widened into circles. “Froggin’ sure that’s sorcery.”

“That’s what Perrez thinks. He hasn’t told anyone but me. Not even Bezul. He’s keeping it—” Dace caught himself again. “Keeping it safe until he can sell it. Not here. He’s going to consign it up to Ilsig. Lord Noordiseh’s his vouchsafe—’cause he knows Kingdom lords who’re richer than all Sanctuary put together. I took the message straight to Lord Noordiseh—”

“You’ve met Lord Noordiseh?” There was new respect in Geddie’s voice.

“I saw him this morning.”

Geddie stopped short and gave Dace a once-over. He bore her appraisal without flinching. He had delivered Perrez’s message to Lord Noordiseh’s mansion—and waited at the back door all afternoon for an answer that never came. And he had seen the nabob on his way back from the market. His heart leaped when Geddie slipped her hand beneath his left arm. Walking close to anyone was a challenge with the crutch but he managed all the way to the Frog and Bucket.

Geddie’s room was beneath the tavern’s roof and accessible only by a rickety outside stairway. Dace didn’t like using stairways, especially when he could see between the risers. He planted his crutch, held his breath, hopped, and hoped. His teeth hurt from clenching by the time he got to the landing and he stayed close to the wall until Geddie undid her latch knot. She ushered him into a stiflingly hot room scarcely large enough for a narrow cot, a couple of baskets, and a tied-together table. For sitting, there was a three-legged stool.

Dace disliked stools almost as much as he disliked stairs, but he wasn’t forward enough to sit on the cot, so he stood while Geddie lit the lamp with a sparker, set it on the stool, set the stool by the cot, sat down, and patted the mattress beside her.

Dace didn’t need a second invitation. The warmth of Geddie’s thigh was palpable against his and she hadn’t bothered to tidy her bodice after retrieving the vial. He sucked in a lungful of smoke after Geddie shook a few drops of fortune oil into the lamp, but he already had his good fortune. Her small, pale breast was visible within the cloth. Dace tried not to stare. It was a lost cause, but Geddie didn’t seem to mind.

“Take another breath,” she urged, leaning toward the lamp.

He could see everything then, from root to nipple. The forbidden sight took his breath away and he choked on the vapors.

Geddie pounded between his shoulder blades. “Shite for guts, haven’t you done this before?”

Between gasps, Dace shook his head.

“Want something easier? Something better?”

Good fortune indeed! Dace nodded vigorously. He wasn’t sure what came next, then Geddie shoved a pitcher into his hands.

“Go downstairs and buy some wine.”

Downstairs was worse than upstairs, but he’d do it for the reward he thought she’d promised. Except—Except—

“I don’t drink much. I have enough trouble staying upright as is.” He laughed, but the joke fell flat.

“You don’t have to drink. All’s you’ve got to do is dip.”

Dace wouldn’t admit it, but he didn’t understand that remark. He had another painful confession: “I’ve only got three padpols.”

“That’s enough.”

Three padpols of the Frog’s cheapest wine filled the pitcher halfway. Four padpols and he’d have spilled some struggling up the stairs a second time. Geddie had her head in the lamp fumes when he opened the door. She called him to the cot with a question:

“Ever done opah?”

Dace felt like a wet-eared puppy, shaking his head for the umpteenth time.

She patted the cot. “I’ll show you.”

Obediently, Dace sat beside her. Geddie produced a palm-sized square of dirt-crusted cloth.

“Here. Just dip the corner into the wine”—she demonstrated the proper motion—“and hold it against the tip of your tongue.”

The first sensation was an alarming bitterness, but the second, a heartbeat later, was a tingling that raced down Dace’s throat and down his arms as well. He pulled away from the strangeness. Geddie laughed, re-dipped the cloth, and challenged him to stick out his tongue again. Unwilling to be shown up by a woman, Dace obliged. The tingling shot down his spine like ice and fire together.

“Now, suck the wine out,” Geddie commanded. “Suck hard.”

A part of Dace knew that was a bad idea, that nothing that made him feel so odd could possibly be a good thing. But that wasn’t the part he listened to. He closed his lips over the cloth and sucked for all he was worth.

The bitterness damn near took his breath away and the tingling—“tingling” wasn’t the right word. Dace’s flesh quivered and his body seemed to expand. His eyes watered. When they cleared there new colors everywhere, colors Dace could taste and hear.

He watched in rapt fascination as Geddie repeated the process for herself. Her eyes closed as she released the cloth and lolled back on the cot. Dace’s arm moved toward her breast, which was also the location of the damp cloth. He barely stopped his arm in time and wasn’t completely certain which he’d been reaching for.

“So, now you’ve done opah,” Geddie told him in a dreamy, distant voice. “Ready to do it again?”

Dace didn’t need to think. The unpleasant quivery sensation had passed and he felt … he felt better than he’d ever felt Even the pain in his leg that had been a part of him forever was gone. He reached again … for the cloth. Geddie met his hand halfway. Their hands touched. Dace felt the tiny ridges on her fingertips and much, much more. He did the opah a second time, and a third, and there was nothing he couldn’t have done after that third dosing.

Geddie poured more fortune oil. They knocked foreheads over the fumes and collapsed, laughing, against each other. Dace endeavored to untangle himself, but, as good as the opah made him feel, his hands weren’t moving quite the way he expected them to. He was still solving that problem when Geddie’s hand closed over his shirt and pulled him close.

The brutal heel of midsummer settled firmly on Sanctuary’s collective neck. Life slowed especially during the midday hours. Bezul retreated to the warrens where there was always something that needed straightening—and where the shadows were still cool. Chersey retreated to the kitchen. She poured tea from the jug in the sump and sipped liquid, marginally cooler than the air.

The children played in the courtyard under Gedozia’s watchful eye. Neither the old woman nor the youngsters seemed to feel the heat as heavily as working folk. Little Ayse laughted as she chased one of Sanctuary’s gem-colored bugs and distracted Chersey from other concerns.

Dace hadn’t returned from the market. He’d left at sunrise, as usual—or as close to usual as he’d been since taking up with that girl from the Frog and Bucket. Geddie was no sorceress, but she’d cast a spell over the naive Nighter all the same. The boy’s habits now included evening visits to her room above the tavern. He’d roll in late, reeking of wine and a bitter perfume Chersey couldn’t place. Even Perrez had noticed the deterioration.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Perrez had been skulking lately. Something to do with the shipwreck fishermen had discovered on the reefs where they caught their summer fish. Chersey didn’t know—didn’t want to know—what Perrez had gotten himself into this time. So long as he didn’t involve the rest of the household, she preferred to ignore her brother-in-law’s affairs.

Chersey took another sip of tea and succumbed to the thoughtless drowse of a too-hot morning. The next thing she knew there was noise at the kitchen door. Dace with the sack slung carelessly over his shoulder and sweat beading on his face.

“The market’s frogged for fair.” He’d never used language like that before Geddie.

She replied, “The heat’s hard on everything.”

“The heat and some sheep-shite nabobs. There wasn’t a melon to be had and the beans weren’t fit for pigs.”

Dace emptied the sack on the sideboard. The fish were stiff and glistening with salt, the cheese glowed waxy from the heat, and the greens were wilted. Not an appetizing array, but unless you lived rich, you didn’t expect appetizing meals day-in and day-out. The palace wasn’t the problem—the Irrune ate like animals: meat, grains, and wine or ale. It was the city’s own aristocrats that bled the markets dry. Chersey couldn’t count the number of times Gedozia had returned from the market with a half-empty sack and curses galore for the nabobs.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured Dace. “The weather and the market will cool soon enough.”

“Maybe.” Dace picked up a fish by its tail. “Three padpols and look at the size of it! I had to buy two. You can’t tell me that the froggin’ nabobs are feasting on salt-fish! Gets any worse and I’m going to have to go back to baitin’ crabs”

“We’ll get by. We’ve always got eggs—”

The changing house’s security, when not provided by Ammen and Jopze, came from the flock of geese Bezul turned loose every night. The birds were nasty creatures but the changing house had never been robbed and, come morning, there was always a clutch of eggs for Ayse to gather.

“Oh, I’ll find something,” Dace assured her. “But a shaboozh isn’t going as far as it did a month ago. No change again today.”

“We’ll get by.”

Chersey thought of the folk who wouldn’t, the folk who dribbled into the changing house with their precious possessions. This summer was turning into a bad season. Bezul couldn’t pinpoint the reason. They’d had a mild winter and moist spring. The farmers were content, notwithstanding the current heat wave. Content farmers were the surest measure of a content Sanctuary. Yet something lurked below the surface, siphoning off the small change.

“We’ve got sacks of dried lentils out back,” she reminded Dace, “and a barrel of pickled congers for emergencies—” Not anyone’s idea of an appetizing meal, but better than starvation … or overheated prices. “We can live off that for a few weeks.”

“No way! I’ll find the bargains.” Dace put the two fish in a bowl and emptied a ewer of water over them. “That’ll hold ’em until I get back.”

“You’re going out again?”

Dace shrank and didn’t reply.

“That girl again.”

“Geddie,” he corrected and started toward the door. “I’ll be back in time to fix the froggin’ supper.”

Chersey raised her hand to her face and sighted across the moonstone ring. A dark shadow fell across Dace’s back. He was hiding something, lying—maybe worse. She waited until he’d left then found Ammen and Jopze dozing over a dice game.

“Will one of you keep an eye on Dace?”

“What needs knowing?” Ammen, the taller, brawnier, and balder of the two inquired. “The bint’s gotten her claws into him … for now. She’ll get bored and cast him off. Her kind’s not interested in a boy like our Dace, not for long.”

“I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Too late for that,” Jopze added. “He’s shite-faced. Best to let it die natural-like.”

Chersey couldn’t argue with the soldiers’ wisdom, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that sex was only part of the boy’s problem.

Dace had adapted to the stairs leading to Geddie’s room. He bounded up them, knocked once, and lifted the latch before he heard her voice. He embraced her without preamble. To Dace’s surprise, Geddie wriggled free.

“You got it?”

Dace let his breath out in a hot sigh. “Yeah, I’ve froggin’ got it. Twelve padpols. More than enough for an opah rag and the wine to soak it in.”

Geddie frowned. “Not today. Today, I gotta square my debts downstairs. I needed twelve just to cover what we did since Ilsday. I need a whole shaboozh—sixteen padpols—if we’re gonna dip today.”

“What!?”

“I told you: I don’t get opah for nothing! I can’t afford to share anymore. You gotta pay for your share.”

Dace dug the jagged black coins out of his purse and threw them on the cot. “There, I’ve paid. It’s not worth a shaboozh.” He headed for the door.

“Wait!” Geddie seized Dace’s arm. “You can get opah the way I get it. You can do things … things for Makker. Downstairs. I told him you’d be coming. He wants to meet you. If he likes you, you can buy direct from him. It’s half the price.”

“What kind of things?”

“Nothing much. Run messages—like you already do for Perrez. Maybe sell a book of rags somewhere. Nothing hard. Opah’s easy to sell.”

Dace tucked the crutch under his right armpit. If he heeded half the wits that got him out of the swamp, he should walk away now. He liked the bitter powder altogether too much. By the time he got over here every day, his skin had started to crawl with want and need.

He’d asked Perrez about opah—because Perrez knew the answers to questions Dace could never ask Chersey or Bezul. Frog all, Dace had lied and sworn he’d never touch opah himself, only overheard conversations about it in the marketplace.

Opah? That’s nothing but krrf, boy, diluted down then made pure again. Don’t ask me how it’s done, or who, or where, but when it’s done, it’s cheap as sin and the deadliest poison you can swallow A sure path to hell, but the hit, now that’s Paradise. How’s a man supposed to see past Paradise?

From which statement, Dace had concluded that Perrez sucked a little opah himself. And, building on that conclusion, Dace asked himself—why not meet with this Makker fellow? Shite for sure, if Perrez was using opah, he would appreciate a cheaper source and—maybe … hopefully—consider Dace for tasks more demanding than simply running a message to some under-house door.

By all the gods, Dace wanted to be a man who wore fine clothes, who turned heads when he walked into a crowded room—and not because of a gimpy leg or noisy crutch.

“All right, I’ll meet Makker.”

Dace had never seen Maksandrus, called Makker, before, but he recognized the type. Was there a gods’ law that said all bullies had necks wider than their skulls, squinty eyes, and forearms that could double as pork hams? Dace had a cousin who could have been Makker’s twin, save Balor was swamp bred and Makker was a foreigner from Mrsevada—wherever in the seven hells that was.

Geddie approached Makker alone. When she whispered in his ear, Makker scowled so deep that Dace expected to be sent packing. Then, Makker said something and Geddie motioned Dace over.

Fear gripped Dace’s gut the moment his rump hit the chair. Makker had serpent’s eyes: cold and hard as jet It was all Dace could do to meet them and, once he had, impossible to look away. He vowed that he’d do the bully’s business once and once only—and not for any promise or threat of opah.

But Makker didn’t ask about opah; he asked about the changing house. Early on, Bezul had warned Dace not to answer questions about the business. Dace tried to heed Bezul’s warnings and did well, he thought, until Makker started asking about fishermen, shipwrecks, and whatever salvage the fishermen had brought for changing. Dace knew that no fishermen had brought wreck salvage into the shop and said so, but every word had to get past the memory of Perrez’s dragon rod.

No way Dace was going to mention that rod to the likes of Maksandrus and he didn’t—not directly. Makker’s questions were friendly, and lulled by them, Dace let slip that Perrez, not Bezul, handled the exotic trades and that he was running messages to the Processional about an artifact that had, indeed, come from the fishermen’s wreck.

“What manner of artifact?”

Dace’s blood froze. He realized how much he’d given away. “I don’t know,” he lied. “Perrez keeps it locked tight. I just run his messages.”

“To who?”

Oh, would that the ground would swallow him up! A messenger had to know where to deliver the message, Dace couldn’t lie his way around that. “I can’t tell,” he mumbled. “I’m sworn.”

“You hear that, Kiff? An honest messenger!” Makker crowed and Kiff—an enormous man with skin the color of midnight—laughed, revealing a yellow gem winking in a front tooth. “I like doing business with honest men.” He slapped the table; everything bounced. “Geddie says you want to work for me.”

“Want” was the last word Dace would have chosen, but he didn’t have the fortitude to argue. In short order, he found himself agreeing to sell a book of opah rags.

“Kiff—” Makker called.

Kiff opened a fist and an opah book fell onto the table.

“Seeing as you’re an honest man,” Makker said with a grin, “here’s how it’s going down. I give you ten rags, you owe me eight padpols for each—that’s five shaboozh, total. Say you sell a rag for more, you keep the difference. Understand?”

Dace nodded but made no move toward the dusty, tied-together book.

“I give you until next Shiprisday, but if you need more before men—more opah, not time—you know where to find me.”

Dace did calculations in his head. If he could sell the rags for one shaboozh each, he’d have five shaboozh for Makker and five for himself … . He’d be rich. How hard could selling be? He was already a good bargainer.

“And—” Makker lowered his voice to a whisper, “you don’t have to ask what happens if you don’t bring me my shaboozh.”

“Shaboozh, or the rags. You’d take back the rags?”

Makker laughed and pounded the table a second time. “I like you, Dace. I’m going to like doing business. with you.”

Pleased by his cleverness, Dace tucked the opah book carefully in his waist pouch. Makker had nothing else to say, and neither did Dace. He and Geddie left the table. They purchased a pitcher of cheap wine and retreated to her room.

“You were right,” Dace said.

Geddie nodded glumly. She sat on the cot, twining her hands together, ignoring the wine. Dace asked about her opah and was surprised when she said—

“Can’t I’m empty and Makker said, ‘not tonight’ when I asked. There’s no arguing with Makker. Said we gotta use yours.”

“Mine?” Dace muttered as the essence of the situation became clear to him: If he wanted to dip opah with Geddie he was going to have to dip into his profits. The allure of five whole shaboozh was almost enough to swear off both dipping and sharing.

Almost—but not quite. If he set aside one rag for personal use, he’d still wind up with four shaboozh: a tidy sum. And one rag, prudently parceled out, ought to be enough until Shiprisday. Except it wasn’t When Dace left Geddie’s room a few hours before sunset, he left a wasted rag behind, too. The lack didn’t bother him … half that rag was singing in his head, reminding him that he didn’t have to wait until next Shiprisday to claim his four shaboozh. He could sell all nine remaining rags tomorrovv …

Something had happened. Chersey knew it without her ring. For the last week Dace had been changing, but now the change was complete. He threw supper together. The meal was delicious, but it didn’t have the touch of pride. And when the plates were scraped, Dace begged off from playing with the children, preferring to hole up with Perrez.

“We’re losing him,” she told Bezul as they sat outside the shop, catching the breeze off the harbor.

Bezul looked up from the lantern he was repairing. “He’s in love. Whatever we think of that girl, he’s in love and love has to run its course.”

“Not love—not just love. I watched him prepare the supper. His mind was across the ocean—not dreamy. He’s been dreamy since she took him in. Now he’s determined … ambitious. That’s not love.”

“Not to a woman!” Bezul laughed, “but it’s a good sign in a man. I didn’t take an interest in the changing house until I’d fallen in love with you. A man accepts certain responsibilities, he rises to them, and makes something of himself.”

“What can poor Dace make of himself?”

“A fine cook—like as not, that’s why he’s gone off with Perrez … to press for introductions. We don’t know anyone who can pay a cook, but Perrez does. Gods love him, but my brother does get around the better parts of this city.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m sure I am. He wasn’t ours forever, he’s just passing through, like everything else: one hand to the next. We’ll wish him well when he leaves.”

“Eyes of Ils! Are you possessed?” Perrez stopped short. The look on his face was not the one Dace had been expecting.

“Ser! I thought you’d be interested.”

The private door to Perrez’s room was outfitted with an impressive iron lock someone had long-ago brought to the changing house. Presumably it had once been paired with an equally impressive key, but the key had bypassed the changing house. Perrez worked the lock with a bump here, a rap there, and a just-so twist on the movable latch. Dace had watched the sequence so many times he could have performed it himself—though he didn’t, out of respect.

Perrez bumped, rapped, twisted, and led the way into his bachelor quarters. He locked the door from the inside—a far easier process—and struck a light for the oil lamp before destroying Dace’s hopes.

“I couldn’t be less interested. May I remind you that Arizak has stirred his stump and outlawed opah? Buyer or seller, it doesn’t matter, you’ll dance on a rope.”

“I’ve got rags that cost me eight padpols. I could sell them anywhere for a shaboozh .. but I’m offering them to you for twelve.”

“You’ve used the froggin’ stuff, haven’t you?”

“No,” Dace lied. “It’s business.”

“How much are you selling?”

“Nine rags.”

Perrez surged so quickly Dace backed himself into a corner. “Nine? Nine! Don’t lie to me, Dace; don’t even try. Opah’s handed off in books of ten rags. Nobody’s got nine, unless he’s used one.” He grasped Dace’s chin to make sure their eyes met.

“I’ve stopped.” At that exact moment, Dace was telling the truth.

“Eyes of Us, boy—where did you get it?”

“Makker .. , at the Frog and Bucket.”

“Maksandrus!” Perrez spat the syllables out and released Dace’s chin. “You don’t want to do business with Makker. He’ll gut you soon as look at you. Got himself thrown off a Mrsevadan ship for killing two mates—two in one voyage! And if Makker doesn’t gut you, his boss will. You’ve heard of Lord Night?”

Dace shook his head.

“If you turn over the frackin’ froggin’ rock that’s Sanctuary, Lord Night’s the biggest bug you find, the one with the biggest bite, the vilest poison. He moves the city’s krrf, Dace, and opah’s just krrf.”

“You’ve told me.”

“And you’ve bogged down anyway?”

“I’m not ‘bogged down.’”

“Look at me. Let me see your tongue.” For a moment, Dace resisted the command, then he obliged. “You’re dippin’, aren’t you?” Dace didn’t move, except to withdraw his tongue. “Dippin’s bad, but it’s not the worst. Far be it from me to tell someone how to live, but get clear of it, Dace, and stay clear of me until you do. While you’re doing business with Maksandrus and Lord Night, I don’t want to be anywhere close. Go to my brother, beg the froggin’ money you need to buy yourself out and stay out. Understand?”

Dace nodded. He understood—understood that he’d made a mistake coming to Perrez and that there was no way that he was going to make a similar mistake with Perrez’s brother.

Perrez unbolted the inner door, giving Dace the inner passage to the house warrens. The bolt slammed home behind him: Perrez was taking no chances. Dace hunkered down between a cauldron and a tangle of firedogs. He shivered, despite the heat, and shed a few tears before skulking up to the room Chersey and Bezul had made for him under the eaves.

A cool, harbor breeze stirred the air. Any other night, Dace could have fallen straightaway to sleep; tonight the memories of Makker’s grin and Perrez’s grasp kept him awake long after Bezul set the geese loose.

Dace’s tongue thickened as the opah tingle faded to nothing. He wanted wine, ale, tea, even water, but all the liquids were on the far side of a flock of geese. He’d send the flock into a frenzy and, truth to tell, Dace wasn’t thirsty, what he wanted was opah.

The more Dace thought about opah, the more he craved it. Finally, he crawled off his bed, found the nine-rag book, and touched stiff cloth directly to his tongue. For a heartbeat, the experiment was a failure, then his tongue began to burn, and the burning shot through his nerves. Before the fire ebbed, Dace pressed the cloth against his tongue again … and again.

His body reeled with sensation just short of agony. True sleep was impossible, but the waking dreams he had instead rose from Paradise.

A dreary sunrise found Dace exhausted. His head throbbed explosively when he sat up and his tongue was raw where he’d abused it. Water helped, but only a little. He’d opened the door and was standing in the courtyard, letting rain spill over his head, when Chersey spotted him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep.”

He turned toward her and, by her expression, he must have looked a fright.

“What happened? Your mouth is all swollen.”

“Nightmare,” he improvised. “I bit my tongue.”

“I’ll make tea.”

Tea brewed with one of Pel Garwood’s powders was Chersey’s solution for every ailment. Obediently, Dace drank from the steaming mug and barely kept from fainting. By then the children, Bezul, and Gedozia (but not Perrez, who always slept late) were in the kitchen and clucking over him. He thought the situation couldn’t get much worse until Chersey said he should spend the day indoors.

“You’re pale and this rain is sure to give you a fever. We’ll make supper with what we’ve got on hand—”

“No!” Dace countered with an urgency that surprised him. “No—a rainy day like this, there’ll be bargains.”

Gedozia, a veteran of many rainy market days, gave a mighty snort, but Dace held his ground. As soon as breakfast was over, he headed out.

The market was quiet. Half the farmers hadn’t braved the weather, but the fishermen were accustomed to a little wet. Dace bargained for a sizable grouper and, as they neared agreement, mentioned that he had something of his own to sell.

“Like what?”

“Rags of opah, one shaboozh apiece.”

The grizzled man made the ward-sign against evil. “Go away!” he snarled and refused to part with his catch.

Dace was more cautious at the next monger’s. He didn’t mention his wares until after he’d slid a fish into his food sack; otherwise, the outcome was the same: fishermen, apparently, weren’t interested in opah. Neither was a woman selling eggs. The cobbler just laughed, while the old man hawking baskets said he was interested but didn’t have the cash. Dace struck gold—in the form of four soldats—when he made his pitch to a hard-eyed milkmaid.

Then the wind changed and the clouds let loose with vengeance. Mongers scrambled and Dace retreated to the old bazaar wall where an overhang tempered the worst of the rain. He hadn’t been there long when mum youths crowded beside him. In his life Dace had learned to be wary of loud, idle groups. He spotted an opening and tried to escape.

Tried. Failed.

A blue-shirted youth with Imperial hair flashed a knife. Another wearing a leather cap shoved a fist against Dace’s shoulder.

“Time to take a walk, Gimp.”

It was hardly the first time Dace had been ambushed.

The bravos herded him toward the city gate. A pair of guards stood duty there. Their swords could make short work of the bravos—

“Don’t even think about it,” Blue-shirt growled with another flash of his knife.

Let it be quick, Dace prayed to Thufir. Another thought crossed his mind. Let them not find my opah rags.

The club-footed god of pilgrims, travelers, and cripples of all kinds heard the first part of Dace’s prayer—they were scarcely out of sight of the guard post when Leathercap gave Dace a sideways shove into an alley. But the great god missed the second part. The bravos hadn’t singled Dace out because he was a gimp; they’d targeted him because he was a gimp selling—trying to sell—opah. Between the punches and kicks, they stripped him of his possessions until they found his purse. After they’d liberated his money and his rags, they battered Dace some more and left him in the mud.

Despite the crowded warrens, the changing house’s primary purpose was converting the coins of other realms into the padpols, soldats, and shaboozh that other Sanctuary merchants would accept. The man standing on the other side of the counter—a sailor by his dress and salty tang—had a small collection of foreign copper and silver that needed changing before he could buy a drink.

Chersey recognized the silver bits as soun, the common coin of Aurvesh. She didn’t know the proper name of the copper coins. They were probably Aurvestan, too—not that it mattered. There hadn’t been official exchange rates since Sanctuary ceased paying Imperial taxes some forty-five years ago. The changing house converted foreign coins by their weight in precious metals. For copper, the least-precious metal—though still rare enough in Sanctuary that its padpols no longer contained even a smattering of it—the process was a simple evaluation by balance pan. Silver coins were dipped in a jar of magically charged acid that reduced the coins to sinking silver and floating impurities.

Chersey had finished evaluating the sailor’s copper coins and was fishing the reduced soun out of their acid bath when Ammen approached the counter.

“The boy’s coming home, m’sera.” Ammen always gave her more honor than she deserved or needed.

Dace was late, and she had been wondering where he’d gotten to, but his habits had become so erratic they scarcely warranted an interruption while she was changing silver.

“Fine. Tell him to start the supper.”

“He’s limping, m’sera.”

“He always limps.”

“Your pardon, m’ser, but by the look of him, he’s lost a fight.”

“Sweet Shipri!”

Every instinct called Chersey away from the counter, but instinct didn’t keep the changing house in business. She told Ammen to see the boy into the kitchen before hunting down Bezul, then she went back to weighing the sailor’s silver.

Bezul emerged from the warrens cradling a large, dusty box in his arms. “What’s the matter?”

Trust Ammen to do what he was told and not a jot more. The man wasn’t dim-witted, but decades in the Imperial army had dulled his initiative.

“Dace is hurt … bleeding … in the kitchen. I need to see to him.”

“Of course.”

Bezul took the raw silver and the strongbox key. Chersey dashed through the kitchen door.

Dace wasn’t as badly damaged as she’d feared. The boy’s face was scarcely recognizable and his poor hand was swollen to sausages. She’d been prepared for gaping wounds and protruding bones. He was daubing at his face with a dishrag.

“I’m sorry, Chersey,” he said as soon as he heard her.

“It’s gone—it’s all gone. They took the money, even the fish I’d just bought … everything!”

“Nonsense!” She took the rag and began a more thorough examination of the wounds. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Were you coming down the Processional?”

“No,” Dace insisted until she got squarely in front of him and gave him a silent scolding with her eyes. Then he confessed, “Yes, I stopped to watch a juggler. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you: The shortest way home’s the best way, isn’t it?”

“Yes, m’sera.”

Any mother could see that Dace’s conscience hurt worse than his bruises. Chersey washed him off with astringent tea. There was one gouge over his eye that would bear watching, but the tea should keep it clean. She didn’t like the way he winced when she ran her fingers over his left ankle—the one that kept him upright. If the swelling wasn’t down by morning, they’d be needing Pel Garwood. If Pel didn’t have the answers, they’d brave a visit to the Spellmaster, Strick at the Bottomless Well.

She bound a length of cloth tightly around the ankle and sent Dace to sit in Bezul’s hearth-side chair, then she dragged Lesimar’s high-seated feeding chair over to support his ankle.

“But, Chersey—the supper—I can stand.”

“Nonsense! You’ll sit and you’ll keep that ankle higher than your heart until that swelling goes down.”

“But—”

“No arguments. We’re your family, and we take care of our own.”

If some artist had wanted to paint a portrait of misery, he couldn’t have found a better model than Dace just then.

Supper was a poor meal, with no fresh food and not enough time to soften the lentils that formed the bulk of it. Dace slept in Bezul’s chair—or tried to. The boy was haggard when Chersey came down to check on him the next morning. The swelling hadn’t worsened, but it hadn’t subsided, either. Dace insisted he was well enough to return to the market, but Chersey wouldn’t hear of it. Gedozia went instead and, prompted by Chersey, brought back fresh honey cakes to brighten the boy’s mood.

The cakes didn’t help and Chersey feared that the damage done to the boy’s confidence was beyond healing.

One day fed mercilessly into the next. Ilsday, Anenday, every day brought Shiprisday closer and, come Shiprisday, Dace would have to gimp to the Frog and Bucket where Makker would peel his head like a ripe grape. He’d prayed that his wounds would fester, but his prayers were no match for Chersey’s kindness; and what god would heed the prayers of the liar he’d become?

Several times, Dace had come within a breath of confession. The opah wasn’t part of him anymore. The fever he’d run those first few days in the kitchen had owed little to bruises and everything to opah. Dace knew how foolish he’d been; he’d sworn he’d never touch a rag again. That was an easy oath in Chersey’s kitchen.

Shiprisday dawned clear and hot as fire. By afternoon, everybody needed space and Chersey didn’t argue when Dace said he was well enough to walk as far as the harbor where there was sometimes a breeze even on a scorching day.

Dace wasn’t going to the harbor. He did consider, as he set out on Wriggle Way, that the moment might have come to retreat to the Swamp of Night Secrets. His family wouldn’t welcome him, but they wouldn’t slaughter him, either.

Inside the Frog, Makker was nowhere in sight. Dace thought he’d been reprieved until the bartender recognized him and sent him into a back room where the Mrsevadan was having his lank hair dressed by two attractive girls. Kiff, the black-as-midnight bodyguard, looked on, as did another man, almost as big, whom Dace hadn’t seen before. “Dace! I wasn’t expecting you until after sundown. You’ve got my shaboozh!”

It wasn’t a question. Dace prayed to Thufir: O, Mighty Lord, open the earth and swallow me whole! But Thufir was elsewhere and Dace spat out the words that would surely get him killed.

“I was robbed, ser. I lost everything, especially the opah. I’ve brought my savings, ser—everything I’ve. got. It’s only two shaboozh—”

Dace held out the knotted cloth that contained all the padpols he’d saved from marketing. He intended to deliver the inadequate offering directly into Makker’s hand, but Kiff surged and Dace froze.

“Only two?” Makker purred. “And no rags to return?” He sucked on his teeth. “That won’t do, Dace.”

“I know it won’t, ser. I know. I’ll get the rest, I swear it. I can squeeze maybe eight padpols a week out of the household. That would be six weeks, if you agree, ser.” From the glint in Makker’s eyes, Dace didn’t think agreement was likely. “Or, I could work for you. Geddie says she works for you.”

Makker scowled. “Sorry, boy, you’re not cut out for the work Geddie does. And six weeks!? Where would I be if I let six weeks pass between when money was due and when it was paid?”

Dace quivered on his crutch. Fear, shame, terror—they were all coming together. He didn’t think he could stay on his feet much longer.

“Ser,” he whispered, “ser, I’ll do anything.”

“Hear that, Kiff? This one knows how to make good. No froggin’ questions, no froggin’ buts, just plain anything.” The Mrsevadan returned his attention to Dace. “There is something you can do for me. Something only you can do. I want that wand you told me about—the black one with the dragon—and I want it tonight.”

Tonight? Dace’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. He forced a swallow and tried again: “Tonight? I can’t—”

“Can’t, Dace? Can’t? You said anything. You wouldn’t want to go back on your word, would you?”

Kiff eased forward. He made a fist and stroked it like a lover.

Look at me! Dace wanted to shout. Do I look like a thief? Instead he collected his nerves and said: “That dragon’s gold. It’s worth a lot more than five shaboozh … three.”

“Shite for sure it is, and if you can find three froggin’ shaboozh between now and midnight, bring them here. If not, bring me the froggin’ wand.” Makker leaned forward in his chair. “Unless you were lying about the wand.”

Suddenly Dace understood why muskrats thrashed themselves bloody when they were trapped.

“I don’t know—”

“Yes, you do. Bring me the froggin’ wand, Dace. I’ll throw in a book of rags, no charge. Or, we can call it quits.”

Kiff unmade his fist. He smiled; the yellow gem glinted.

Dace felt his head bob and somehow he made it back to the hot, bright street. The smart thing to do was hie himself across the White Foal River. Makker’d never find him in the swamp; he’d send Kiff to the changing house, instead. Dace would sooner die than imagine Kiff threatening Chersey or the children.

Muskrats in a trap—

“Dace!”

Geddie was coming out of the tavern, not down the stairs. Dace wondered where she’d been, why he hadn’t noticed her.

“Oh, your poor face! You should’ve come to me. I could’ve told you other things to offer Makker.”

“Too late now.”

“Yeah. You want to come upstairs?”

Dace thought of the cot, of sex … of the opah they’d shared, and needs got the better of him.

“You figured out how you’re gonna steal that wand?” Geddie asked when they were naked and sated.

“I can’t.”

“You’ve gotta. Makker’ll kill you … or he’ll have Kiff do it.”

Dace could handle the idea of being dead, it was the idea of dying—of being killed—that terrified him. “I can’t. They took me in, made me part of their family. I can’t steal from them.”

“It’s not stealing; it’s saving your froggin’ life.” Geddie extracted herself from the cot. She prowled through her belongings and produced an opah rag. “Want some? I’ve got wine left” She brought it and the rag back to the cot.

He hadn’t forgotten his silent oaths, but what did oaths matter to a man who’d be dead by midnight? His tongue had healed from the last time he’d used the drug. He didn’t get the mule-kick exhilaration when he sucked the wine-soaked rag and eyed an undampened corner. But Geddie had made her feelings known about folks who took their opah without wine and, anyway, after a few moments, it no longer mattered. Opah was singing through his veins. It took the edge off his despair and told him that if the wand was worth more than five shaboozh, well, then, his life was worth more than any wand—

There was daylight left when Dace made his way down the stairway. He had a plan, a bright, opah-fueled plan that took him to Perrez’s iron-locked door.

“You in there?”

No answer—just as Dace had hoped. He imitated Perrez’s bumps and raps. It took three tries, but the bolt slid free and, opening the door no wider than necessary, Dace eased into the room. The windows were shuttered. There wasn’t enough light to see his hand in front of his face, but Dace didn’t need to see anything. He lowered himself to his knees and felt across the floor for a distinctive knothole against which he pressed with all his weight. A pressure clasp sprang free and Dace pried up a nearby floorboard. A cloth-wrapped bundle greeted his fingertips. He unwound the cloth and fit the wand easily into the pocket formed where he tucked his shirt beneath his belt. To make sure it stayed there, Dace tightened his belt until it hurt, then he searched for something wand-shaped that he could wrap the cloth around before returning it to the cache.

A spare candle came to hand. Wrapped in the cloth and laid carefully in the cache, Dace told himself it would pass casual muster. He patted the wand for luck and, with his heart pounding in his throat, slipped out of the room. Bump, rap, twist, and the lock was set.

No one had seen him come or go, he hoped. No one suspected that he was carrying ancient treasure above his belt, he hoped. No suspicion would fall on him when—as would inevitably happen—Perrez realized his fortune had gone missing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the lock.

Jopze and Ammen were deep in a game of draughts. They didn’t notice Dace until he was in the shop and, as neither Bezul nor Chersey were behind the counter at that particular moment, neither of them suspected he had come from Perrez’s room. He thought about taking the wand up to his room, but that would only add complications when it came time to take it to Makker—for that matter, Dace had considered taking the wand straight to Makker, but it was time to put the kettle on for supper.

Chersey surprised him in the kitchen while he chopped second-rate greens. She said he looked peaked and wanted to send him upstairs to rest. Dace could scarcely meet her eyes; she was so concerned and so wrong about what was on his mind. She would likely have given him three shaboozh, if he could have borne the shame of telling her why he needed them.

But he couldn’t bear it and he insisted on fixing supper—his last supper. Careful as he’d been in Perrez’s room, Dace didn’t believe he was going to get away with robbery. The dragon’s claws and teeth scratched against his belly. The tight belt kept his secret, but not for long.

Dace burned the soup and nearly spilled it all when his shirt hem caught on the kettle’s handles. The wand was a few threads from catastrophe, but somehow it didn’t fall out and Dace got himself put back together. He excused himself as soon as the dishes were scraped.

“I’m going to the Frog,” he told them all, Chersey, Bezul, Gedozia, and Perrez together.

“That girl again.” Chersey rolled her eyes.

It wasn’t right for Chersey to blame Geddie for every wrong thing, but she didn’t know about opah or Perrez’s black wand, so tonight, Dace let the insults slide. He escaped into the amber light of a summer sunset.

So froggin’ far, so froggin’ good. Perrez didn’t yet know his precious wand was missing. There’d be hell to pay when he discovered the robbery, but maybe—just maybe—he’d blame someone else. I’d be a fool to run off to the swamp. Run off, and they’ll know it was me. Stick around, swear I did nothing, and—who knows—maybe I’ll get through this … .

Chersey emptied a basin of dirty water into the sump. Bezul was in the back figuring the day’s accounts, Gedozia had taken the children for a walk, and Perrez was skulking in the kitchen. She ignored her brother-in-law. It was usually the best way to avoid his pleas for money and, usually, he got the hint.

Tonight was different. He hadn’t asked for money; that was a big difference. He hadn’t said much of anything at all until she’d wrestled the basin into its home beneath the sideboard.

“Chersey,” he said now that her chores were finished. “I need to talk to you.”

She dried her hands and sat on a stool. “About what?”

“Dace. I’m worried about him. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s changed in the last few weeks—”

“He’s fallen in love with that girl above the Frog and Bucket—or he thinks he has.”

Perrez shook his head. Suddenly he looked older, soberer than she remembered seeing him. “It’s not women. I think it’s opah.”

“Opah? That’s what—? Some new plague come down from Caronne?”

“In a way. They make it from krrf and the best krrf—the strongest—comes from Caronne. But I’ve heard they make it right here, in the villages outside the city. Last week, Dace offered to sell me some. He’d gotten it from Makker … at the Frog:’

Everyone who lived on Wriggle Way knew Maksandrus, and stayed out of his way. Every few months he or one of his cronies showed up at the changing house, hoping to trade the fruits of his labors. Those were the days when Ammen and Jopze earned their keep. Chersey hadn’t made the connection between Dace, the girl, and Makker. Guilt rose within her.

“Let me get Bezul.”

“I didn’t want to bother him.”

“It’s no bother. Bez needs to hear this.”

She fetched her husband and together they listened to Perrez’s account of a conversation he’d had with Dace the day before he’d gotten battered on his way home from the market.

“If you ask me, he got caught selling the stuff—and not by the guard. He’s in over his head.”

“Why tell us now?’ Bezul demanded. “We needed to know last week.”

“I thought he’d come to me and we could work it out together without involving you!”

“And now you don’t. What’s come up?”

Perrez writhed his shoulders. “He’s hiding something. He’s done something—it was all over his face at supper. I know that look, Bez—you know I know it. You’ve got to talk the truth out of him.”

“I can’t very well now, can I?” Bezul’s voice rose. The only time he ever yelled was when Perrez got under his skin. “He’s gone off for the evening. Gone to the Frog … or do you expect me to walk over there and haul him out by the shirtsleeves?”

In the moments before Perrez framed an answer, they all heard the sounds of footsteps and laughter: Gedozia bringing the children back. Chersey caught Perrez’s eye, enjoining him to silence.

Perrez obeyed by flinging himself out of his chair and marching out the kitchen door a half step before the children rushed in.

Makker’s thick fingers stroked the shaft of the dragon wand. Dace himself hadn’t held the wand long enough to know if the shaft was wood or stone. He’d laid it on the table as though it were a thing on fire.

“You did well, Dace. I admit, I wasn’t sure you’d come back—froggin’ bad cess for you, if you hadn’t. I wouldn’t have wanted to break your good leg.”

Dace wasn’t sure how to respond. A nod seemed the best course: a nod, a smile, and a fervent hope that he could leave soon.

“I’ve got an idea,” Makker said, smiling in a way that dashed all Dace’s hopes. “There’s a man who wanted this thing—a man I think you should meet Walk with me to the Maze. You can make it that far?”

He should have said no, but a lifetime of denying his deformity set his head bobbing.

Makker’s bodyguards flanked them: Kiff and the other one whose name was Benbir and wore five knives on a baldric across his barrel chest. Dace had never felt so safe—or terrified—as he felt with these three men matching his gimpy stride.

Though Dace had never ventured into the Maze, he knew the names of its more infamous taverns and brothels. There was no mistaking the Vulgar Unicorn, not with its signboard hanging brazen in the twilight.

The tavern stank of stale wine, spilled beer, and charred sausage. The long tables in the middle of the commons—the “cheap seats” Kiff called them—were dotted with men and a few women, all of whom went back to looking at their drinks as soon as they’d taken Makker’s measure. There were fewer folk at the smaller tables along the shadowy sides of the room. One of them was a lopsided man—Dace assumed it was a man—with hair on one side of his head, but not the other, and a tongue that lolled out the corner of his mouth. He had a huge hump where his right shoulder should have been and lurched violently as he walked. His arms looked long enough to drag on the floor.

Dace had never seen anyone more crippled than himself and, despite all the cruel stares he’d endured, couldn’t take his eyes off the scuttling fellow.

“That one’s got a friend,” Makker said softly. “We leave him alone, and he does the same for us. Come along now.”

Kiff led the way up a flight of stairs to a corridor of shut doors. He paused on the hinge side of a door no different than the rest. Benbir took a similar position on the latch side. Makker knocked once and a man’s voice called Makker by name. Makker gave Dace a shove and, leaving Kiff and Benbir behind, they entered.

A ceiling lamp provided the room’s only light. Its flame cast long shadows over a seated man’s face, making it difficult to fix his features. He was a small man—small, at least, compared to Makker, Kiff, and Benbir—but there was no doubt in Dace’s mind that he was in the presence of a powerful man. The stranger’s head was bald and shiny, his fingers, long and menacing Even Makker drew a deep breath before saying—

“He got it.”

“You wouldn’t be here otherwise,” the seated man said with what was both a Wrigglie accent and something more refined. “I’ll take it now.”

He extended that elegant hand and Makker gave away the wand as fast as Dace had given it to Makker.

“A beautiful thing. Yenizedi. A thousand years old; and still charged. You’ve done well, Makker, you and your friend. Introduce me to our thief.”

Makker motioned Dace forward. “Dace, from the Swamp of Night Secrets. Lord Night.”

Dace stepped into the cone of lamplight. He extended his hand; the gesture was not returned. He couldn’t see Lord Night’s—that had to be a made-up name—eyes but knew he was under close scrutiny and was determined not to blink or quiver.

“You’re an insolent lad, for one with but a single leg to stand on.”

Dace’s breath caught in his throat—not for the insult. He could bear any words, but the word itself was an unusual one. Truth to tell, he didn’t know what “insolent” meant, except he’d heard a similar word, in a very similar accent, in a very different place: the Processional when a nabob wearing a false beard had ordered him aside. Lord Night was clean-shaven; that only strengthened the connection.

“Lord Noordiseh,” Dace muttered, unaware that his tongue had shaped the words aloud. “Perrez turned to you.” Dace’s eyes fastened on the object in the nabob’s hands. “He told you about the wand. He trusted you—”

A gasp echoed through the room. Dace couldn’t say from whose throat it had emerged. Lord Night, who was also Lord Noordiseh, had raised his head and Dace couldn’t break the stare of the man whose eyes he could not see.

Oh, Thufir, save me! Dace prayed, but his silence and his prayer came too late. The amber drop at one end of the wand was glowing and a thin wisp of smoke rose from the golden dragon’s head.

The smoke first thickened, then divided itself, becoming two airborne serpents with shimmering amber eyes. Makker made a break for the door, but Dace couldn’t move to save himself or try. His serpent flew closer, coiled, and raised itself in easy striking distance. Its maw opened: amber, like its eyes.

Oh, Thufir—Dace prayed.

He could not even shut his eyes as the fangs fell. There was no pain, so perhaps Thufir had intervened at the last. The room dimmed and Dace felt as though he were falling from a very great height as he heard a woman’s voice say, in Wrigglie—

“Well done, my lord. Your secret is safe with these two—”

Perrez, paced the kitchen, full of anger and self-pity, as only he could mix them. “It was worth a fortune. A frackin’ froggin’ fortune. It was going to set me up. I had a deal with Lord Shuman Noordiseh. He was going to sell it to one of King Sepheris’s court magicians. I’d sworn him a quarter share, but I swear, the gold alone was worth a hundred royals.”

“Maybe Lord Noordiseh wasn’t satisfied with a quarter share. Maybe Lord Noordiseh stole it,” Bezul suggested with the bitterness he reserved for his younger brother.

Chersey wanted to give them both a hearty shake, but until Dace came home to settle the matter the only thing shaking was her nerves. He’d been gone all night. Dace had never stayed out all night, and for him to disappear at the same time as Perrez’s Yenizedi rod. If such a rod had truly been in Perrez’s possession … Well, it was suspicious.

Ammen and Jopze were out on the streets, working their connections, hoping someone had seen Dace. Sweet Shipri, with that limp and crutch, he was easy to notice, hard to forget

“I never trusted him,” Perrez insisted. “He’d stare right at you like he was staring through you, like he was planning something. Planning to rob me blind!”

“You encouraged him,” Bezul sneered. “Showing him the rod, using him as your message boy. He idolized you—the gods only know why—”

Chersey retreated to the shop. The door was barred because none of them was in the mood for business. She was counting padpols for no good reason when she heard a knock.

“Chersey, Bezul—let me in!”

Chersey recognized the voice: Geddie—the scrawny girl from the Frog and Bucket, the very last person she wanted to see.

“We’re closed.”

“I got to talk to you—it’s about Dace.”

Chersey hurried to the door. As she opened it she saw the crutch—Dace’s crutch—in Geddie’s hand.

“Sweet Shipri—”

“Can I come in?”

Chersey retreated. “Bezul! Perrez!” She’d meant to shout their names, but there were tight bands across her breasts. “Where did you get that?” she asked Geddie. “What happened?”

Footsteps signaled that Bezul and Perrez had heard her. Chersey was transfixed by the crutch; she couldn’t turn to see her husband.

“Don’t know,” Geddie answered.

The girl’s discomfort was palpable and, to Chersey’s eye, not from grief. “How did you get his crutch? Dace wouldn’t go anywhere without his crutch!”

“He—he—I don’t know. He was where he shouldn’t’ve been and—and—he’s gone! That’s all.”

The world spun, taking Chersey’s balance with it. She would have fallen if Bezul hadn’t caught her. Somehow he supported her and took the crutch from the girl’s hand.

“Gone? Gone where?” Bez demanded. “Back to the swamp? Were you with him? Do you know who did it?”

Geddie shook her head and ran from the shop. Perrez started after her. Bezul barred his path with the crutch.

“Leave it. Whatever’s happened, it’s out of our hands. You were right; Dace was over his head.”

“My rod!”

“Wasn’t your rod.”

“He stole it from me and that girl knows—”

“Stop it!” Chersey screamed. “Stop it, both of you! He’s gone. Gone! Dead.”

The last word tore her throat and stole her strength. They couldn’t be sure, of course. They’d never be sure, but they’d all survived the Troubles. They all knew what gone meant.

Chersey clung to Bezul for support. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair like a little girl’s.

“There, there. It’s not your fault. We did everything we could.”

Guilt muted Chersey’s voice, she could do no more than shake her head while she sobbed.

A week passed. The sea went glassy and there wasn’t a breeze to be had in the whole city. Old-timers squinted at the clouds lined up on the horizon and checked the latches on their storm shutters. At the changing house, Bezul asked for help battening down the stock. Perrez heard the call and made himself scarce. He wasn’t one for hard labor or sympathy.

The way Chersey mourned, anyone would think Dace was flesh and blood instead of a thief. There wasn’t a doubt in Perrez’s mind that the Nighter had stolen the shipwreck rod. Perrez hadn’t imagined the boy had enough cunning for thievery. Frog all, if he had imagined it, he’d never have shown Dace the wand, much less the cache where he kept it.

Frog all.

The day after the theft—the day after the frogging boy vanished—Perrez had made a personal visit to Lord Noordiseh’s Processional mansion to confess the bad news. Lord Noordiseh had taken it well, and why not? His future and fortune wasn’t riding on the sale of a Yenizedi rod.

Damn the Nighter and damn the world … Every frogging time Perrez got something put together to get himself lifted off Wriggle Way, something else came along to ruin his dreams. Something named Dace.

And something called opah.

It wasn’t Perrez’s way to blame himself when there were more worthy targets to hand, but he wished he’d handled that conversation with Dace differently. He’d guessed the boy was tangled in the opah trade. Perrez even had a fair idea what had happened: The Nighter had gotten himself in debt—probably to Maksandrus over at the Frog and Bucket—and Makker had put Dace up to the theft.

Perrez could have told Dace that Makker never settled for less than blood. Even money, Makker had killed the Nighter soon as he had the Yenizedi rod in hand.

“What a fracking, frogging waste,” Perrez muttered as he strode along Fishermen’s Row.

He could have bought the damn rags. The rod would have made him rich, but Perrez was not poor without it, not so poor he couldn’t have bought nine opah rags. He could have thrown stronger warnings across Dace’s bows, but he’d been the recipient of strong warnings all his life and knew exactly how the boy would have received them. He’d thought that disdain would be enough: Respectable folk knew better than to rot their tongues with opah …

Perrez came to the dock where he’d first met Dace, almost a year ago, when the boy had ventured across the White Foal to sell some cheap jewelry he’d dug out of the swamp ruins. A few gulls bobbed in the water, otherwise the dock was quiet, unoccupied, unobserved.

Perrez stared at the birds until they took flight, then he dug into his trousers and pulled out a wad of cloth. It was another waste, another fracking, frogging waste, but Perrez reckoned that he owed the boy something and slowly, scrap by scrap, he cast his opah rags into the water.