The sea had been calm, and a steady wind had propelled the four remaining members of the party to the Lost Coast. Renau, Briarstone, Spirit, and Konrad left Elena tied up at a private port. The dock manager had stared at them wide-eyed, and when Briarstone barked orders to him, he had tripped over himself to respond. Once Briarstone was satisfied, Renau led them through the town to his family home.

The city was much smaller than Tajar, and the design of the buildings was unusual. The weather here was fair for most of the year, and so each house had a flat roof that was shaded and used by the families as their main living area. It wasn’t unusual to see wooden boards connecting the roofs, and the foot traffic above almost matched that on the streets below.

"The Prior Cleanses." Konrad read the words that had been daubed onto a wall in red paint. He had seen similar slogans painted all over the city of Portia.

"Resist the lies of the Mother," Konrad continued.

Looking more closely, he saw that the walls had been subjected to hundreds and hundreds of layers of painted and scrawled words.

"The Lost Coast has always been a hotbed for oppositional views—anti-magic, anti-temples," Renau explained, studying the wall.

"But why do they have to write it on the walls?"

"There are plenty of sharp and pointy reasons why you can’t just stand on a fish crate and start shouting all of the things you’re unhappy about. The people of Portia developed a system, you write on the wall to let people know that you’re unhappy about something, and then someone else might write the same thing, and then you have a bit of safety in numbers."

"What happens when everyone realizes they are mad about the same thing?"

"See for yourself, I present the Delaney family home," Renau replied with a sweeping gesture.

The mansion squatted close to the center of the city of Portia. It was a two-story building made of strong stone and surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high wall topped with steel spikes. Vines and creepers had grown up in the untended garden, and most of the windows had been smashed. Despite the sun in the sky, the mansion seemed to sit in a shadow of its own.

"What happened to it?" Konrad asked.

"The writing was on the wall," Renau said, pushing open a small wooden door that was built into the larger gate.

"Looks like we have a couple of artists in residence," Briarstone called, drawing his cutlass.

A short woman was using a screwdriver to pry off the lid of a paint can while her accomplice was putting the finishing touches on his slogan.

"The Father is a Basterd?" Renau read with a sigh.

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The painters both wore brown robes tied in the middle with rope, and the tops of their heads had been shaved, leaving a crown of hair around the edge.

"I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but the spelling is enough to have Briarstone here put you to the sword," Renau said.

The man looked at the paintbrush as if he had just realized he was holding it. "Oh no, sir, we’re here to cover up the paint you see." The man proceeding to make hurried brushstrokes over the letters.

"We’re painter-decorators," the woman added.

"Even worse," Briarstone grumbled.

Renau took the brush from the man's unresisting grip, corrected the spelling, and stood back with his hands on his hips, giving a satisfied nod.

Briarstone escorted the vandals out of the gate while Renau led Konrad inside.

"So what really happened here?" Konrad asked.

"My father was the head of the Lost Coast council, and he died," Renau explained, kicking through some of the debris that had been left scattered around the house. He tried to set down a chair to sit on, but the legs had been snapped off, and it fell sadly back on its side.

"I’m sorry to hear that," Konrad replied.

"I wasn’t; he was not a nice man. His passing left a hole in the council, and they couldn’t agree on a replacement. The infighting was a strain on the city, and the people took their anger out here."

Konrad walked over to a grand fireplace. A large portrait had been slashed, and the pieces hung down. Konrad reached up and pushed them together, revealing a sombre-looking man on a chair flanked by two younger men. One of them was Renau, and the other was his spitting image, except where Renau was dressed in an immaculate waistcoat with frilly lace at the neck and sleeve, the other wore a nondescript grey and white outfit.

"My brother," Renau answered the question that was on Konrad's tongue. "Dead as well. He was supposed to take over from my father, but he ran away to become an arcanist."

"He didn’t want the job?"

"The council is a nest of vipers, each trying to get an advantage, but none of them would let an arcanist sit at the table; it would go against everything that the Lost Coast stood for. Some of them even asked me to step up, but being a trouper was even less of a desired quality in a leader. They are mostly just old fools."

"You’re calling me a fool as well as old now?" Briarstone said, stepping into the room.

"If the shoes fits, councilman," Renau replied with a small bow.

Konrad's head was swimming; not only was Renau the heir to a seat on the Lost Coast Council, but Briarstone was a member.

"Is that what you have come back here for—to take your rightful place?" Konrad asked, failing to keep the excitement from his voice.

"You have a habit of making everything sound much more noble than it is," Renau replied, but he wasn’t looking quite as gloomy as he had been a moment ago.

"There’s nothing noble about the Lost Coast Council, but there could be," Briarstone said, giving Renau a meaningful look.

"I have some ideas brewing, Konrad; don’t you worry, and I won’t drag you into them." Renau held his hands up before Konrad could speak. "I know that you like to help, but you have your own work to do in the city."

Renau was right, Konrad had been given a last-minute quest from Lyran to look into the disappearance of one of her priests here in the city. Doing this would delay his journey to the east, but he liked nothing more than exploring a new place, and if he ran into any trouble, he was looking forward to testing out the new powers granted to him by Avram.

Briarstone pulled off a medallion that he had tucked under his shirt and tossed it to Konrad. "Use this if you get into any trouble in the city. Even with the mess this place is in, that will still make people more cautious."

The engraving on the medallion was of two walruses with huge tusks clashing together. "Is this the Delaney family crest?" Konrad breathed, touching the engraving.

Briarstone gave a great bark of laughter. "The Delaney crest would likely get you gutted like a fish; that one will protect you."

"What’s so special about this one?"

"That one's mine."