Before he could go to the docks and look for the Thief Lord’s man, Garon needed to change his clothes. The fine suit he had gotten from Mala was dirty and wrinkled. The only thing he could say for it was that it had gotten a little more comfortable with so many hours wear. Still, he wanted to be back in his own clothes, which would fit in better at the dock, anyway. Leaving Kiri shifting anxiously from foot to foot in the foyer under the curious stare of the landlady, he went up to his room and changed as quickly as he could. On the way out he rescued Kiri from the landlady’s stare by handing over his muddy suit for clearing. It certainly attracted her attention.

“What have you been doing, boy?” she tutted. “Getting in fights, no doubt?”

“Sorry, my mother raised me better.” Garon pulled Kiri out the door while still bowing and apologizing for his untidiness.

Useph’s boat was no longer at the dock. If it were, Garon would have gone there to try to make contact with the scarred man. It wasn’t the time to tiptoe around Lord Useph’s involvement. The situation was so urgent that Garon was prepared to accuse the man of ties to the Thief Lord to his face, if it might improve the chance of stopping these beasts. Useph might even have gone along, provided everything was behind closed doors. He would recognize how important this was to the Thief Lord. To everyone. But now that he had sailed Garon had to be more creative.

The wooden boardwalk running behind the smaller warehouses at the edge of the docks echoed dully with Garon and hurried steps. The path was made of wood to keep from being washed out by the minor flooding that sometimes followed heavy rains, or the spring melt after a particularly snowy winter. He passed other workers headed to their own tasks, and tried to keep his eyes away from the rooftops where he knew Kiri was following him. Pricking up his ears, he could hear that many of the men working the docks today were talking about the attack on the market. Some just marveled at the horror of it, but some were talking business: which merchants would still be buying, which would not, and how it would show up in their paychecks. It might seem cold, but Garon couldn’t blame them. A man who didn’t look after his money would starve and be just as dead as if a wild beast tore out his throat, only it would take longer. Given a choice, some would take the beast.

“Garon!”

Inwardly, Garon groaned. He stopped and turned to Tan, who was waving him down. While his boss trotted over to him, he risked a quick glance up, and saw that Kiri had seen that he had been stopped. Her eyes flashed at him from inside their black mask, but he couldn’t see the rest of her, she had tucked herself so tightly against the roof in her dark clothes. He forced his eyes back down. It wouldn’t do for Tan to follow his gaze and spot the Firebrand.

“Where have you been, boy?” Tan demanded. “You don’t look sick. I don’t see any pox!”

“Sorry,” Garon made as if to turn away, wanting to end the conversation as soon as possible. “I was at a party last night, and…”

“Ha!” Tan guffawed and clapped Garon on the shoulder. Garon’s knees buckled and he stumbled a step forward before regaining his balance under Tan’s heavy hand. “Boys will be boys!”

Garon’s eyebrows shot up. He had expected Tan to be angry. The boss wasn’t the type to shrug off partying and tardiness. “I’m very sorry, sir.”

“It’s a relief, though I hadn’t expected it of you,” Tan leaned in close and spoke with his breath hot on Garon’s face. “To tell you the truth, I thought you were dead. Thought you had taken an early delivery to the market.”

“Oh,” Garon’s felt all the hairs on his arms stand up, suddenly seized with relief and horror imagining the terrible fate he’d dodged. “No, I’m fine.” He tried to focus and think of how he could get out of this conversation without being given an assignment, but he was coming up blank. He couldn’t even get Tan’s hand off his shoulder.

“I’m glad you took the trouble to come in. Though it turns out you might as well not have bothered. I’m sending all the boys home early. A lot of orders have been canceled and we’ll all have to wait until it sorts itself out. I’m paying for today, though. Everyone that showed up.” At that point he gave Garon the glare he’d been expecting at the start. “After that, we’ll just have to see.”

“I see,” Garon said, and found with relief that Tan lifted his hand and let him step away. “Thank you.”

Tan nodded. “I’ll send you a note about the work. Take care of yourself, boy.”

~

It was too light to be sneaking around as the Firebrand, but Kiri hadn’t seen any other way to accompany Garon. A woman on the docks would stick out for certain, while no one might notice a strange shadow slinking from roof to roof. And she couldn’t let him go alone. Events were spinning out of control, and Kiri was desperate to pull them back in. She felt like she was in the middle of a swirling wind trying to catch escaping papers, stomping some of them beneath her feet while others flew beyond reach. The fact that she had had to leave Colin and Tagg and Colin’s mother behind in the tunnel was looming large in the back of her mind. That worry wasn’t going away until she saw them safe again. Kiri tried to calm herself by noting that no one had come near the tunnel for the hours she had been there, but it didn’t work.

When Garon’s boss called to him, Kiri dropped flat on her stomach and watched over the edge of the roof. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the man seemed to be relieved to see Garon. Maybe she could stop worrying about one thing at least; it didn’t look like Garon was about to lose his job.

His boss finally left, and Garon and Kiri went on, he was hurrying along the boardwalk, and she was slinking like a cat above him. He walked fast, everyone here did, but it was easy for Kiri to keep up. She felt good when she was running across rooftops. It was the part of being Firebrand that still felt fun.

She watched from a roof with ancient, loose tiles while Garon stopped at the Dockmaster’s and handed the harried man the sealed envelope. It contained the note he had written back in the tunnel with her input and Tagg’s. There had also been many suggestions, ignored, from Colin.. They had decided only to address the letter to “N” and Kiri wondered whether that could really be enough to get where it needed, but Tagg had insisted it would be enough. As for content, the letter gave as quick and clear an explanation as they could come up with of their proposal. Formality had given way to expediency. They needed most of all for the Thief Lord’s agent to understand what they were offering and asking, and why. The point of greatest contention was whether they should mention the Firebrand.

“If I just show up, it’ll be a lot more dangerous for me,” Kiri had insisted. “He needs some warning so he doesn’t attack the second I show up.”

That was the argument that clinched it, so the note explicitly offered the Firebrand’s assistance to the Thief Lord on the matter of the Enforcer’s beasts. To allow a response, they wrote that Garon would be waiting in the sailor’s cafe by the docks on her behalf. Kiri hated that he had to wait alone while she watched from outside, but it made the most sense. She could hardly be dressed as the Firebrand sitting in the cafe by herself. And she was determined that when she met Garon’s scar-faced friend it would not be as herself. If she still had some hope of keeping her identity secret, that was essential. But that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. The cafe was very close to the dockmaster, so Kiri didn’t have to move to watch Garon head inside. She ground her teeth and tried to find a more comfortable position. It wasn’t the best roof, but she wasn’t likely to find a more comfortable one down here.

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Hours later, Kiri was beginning to wonder if she was right that this was the best lookout post. The old and uneven tiles cut into her hips through her thin leggings. Her eyes watered from blinking too little as she stared at the doors. Since she hadn’t seen the man before, she wouldn’t even know when he went in. That meant she would have to wait for Garon to come back out before she knew they had made contact. He’d better be quick about it, the waiting tension was driving her crazy. Kiri bit off one of her nails and spat it onto the clay tiles. She would’ve tapped her foot, but she’d already learned the hard way that moving could easily send a tile crashing to the street below. She knew she’d been here a long time, because the shadow of the building she sat on now reached nearly all the way across the street. Only a thin band of sunlight remained, giving her a good well-lit view of each person that went into the cafe. It had been only a little after noon when she sat down here. She’d been here for hours. Her legs ached from being still so long.

A tall man came up to the door, and glanced over his shoulder just before he went in, offering Kiri a perfect view of his face. Automatically, she lunged forward, all stiffness from her legs forgotten; two tiles clattered to the street below. Kiri’s mind caught up with her body; she stilled herself and held her breath, finally letting it out when he disappeared into the cafe without turning again. He hadn’t seen her. But she had seen him. It was him, the Untouchable’s man, the one she had seen Outside. Why hadn’t she realized he might be Garon’s contact? He did have a scar. She knew it well, because she had given it to him at the Standing Stones, the first time her hand flared with fire. How had she put him so far out of her mind that it had not occurred to her he could be the one Garon meant? Of course it would be him.

Her fingers dug at the roof tiles; she was still leaning forward. Should she jump down and stop him, stop Garon from being “friends” of any kind with a murderer like that? She wanted to, but there were several very good reasons not to. They’d known they were making a deal with murderers and thieves when they decided to work with the Thief Lord. Just because it was no longer an abstract evil that happened to persons unknown, didn’t mean it was different than what they were expecting.

In the end Kiri convinced herself that fate had dealt her a fair hand. She chose to deal with murderers, and now she truly knew the evil she was bargaining with. Garon still needed to set this up, and she still needed to wait until she was needed. Dressed as she was, she couldn’t just slip in and keep quiet and listen in on the whole thing. So she waited. And waited. She chewed her lip. Why was it taking so long?

Finally, Garon came back out, accompanied by the Untouchable’s companion. The two set out toward a small wooded area nearby, a swath of green cutting through the crowded buildings, following the course of a small stream until it joined the river. Kiri moved along behind them, finally dropping down from the last roof and dashing into the trees to meet them. She debated whether to summon fire to her hand, but decided it was unnecessary. This one wouldn’t need reminding; he knew what she could do.

Garon was standing far enough away from the other man that Kiri wondered if he was trying to make sure to give space for her to zap him if necessary. The scarred man was leaning against a tree, and looked Kiri up and down as she approached.

“I never thought you would come to me, Firebrand,” he smiled. “Oh, that’s not a threat,” he added as she raised her hand. “I’m simply surprised. I’m Neal, by the way, Firebrand. I don’t believe we were introduced before.”

“Before?” she said. “When you killed my mother, you mean?”

“What?” Garon nearly shouted it surprise.

Kiri and Neal ignored him. All Kiri cared about was the answer.

Neal shrugged. “I wasn’t the one who killed her. It was just business, but if I had it do over again, I would not. It did not work so well for me or my friends. But it’s not the time to rehash old differences. Your friend here is right. The Thief Lord does want the dogs taken care of. Matters are out of hand, and it is our understanding that much of the blame for this mess lies at your feet.”

“I’m not the one who sent him after the Outsiders,” Kiri said.

“Neither did we,” Neal said. “Oh, we would’ve, but you were right about that, too. The Enforcer acted out of turn. And in any case we would not have wanted the massacre that happened. It’s a mess.”

Kiri didn’t think the word was enough. Mess. She thought of the bodies of the boys in that warehouse and her jaw clenched hard. “So we will work together. You tell me anything you know to help stop these beasts and I will do it.”

“This is a hard choice, Firebrand,” Neal said. “If I have some way of helping you fight, how do I know you won’t turn it on me when the beasts are done?”

Kiri thought about it. “Unless you give me a new reason to, I won’t. Not that I will forget or forgive what you’ve already done. But I won’t kill you for it when I finish with the beasts, and I won’t use anything you give me against you. Even so, I can’t say I will let you do whatever you want from here on out.”

“You sound as though you fancy yourself my master, Firebrand,” Neal said. “Only the Thief Lord says what I must and must not do.”

Kiri shrugged. “I can’t turn a blind eye.”

“That much is obvious. Your efforts so far have resulted in this disaster and you still haven’t learned to keep out of the Thief Lord’s business.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, it is what it is. As it happens, I do have something for you, for the duration of this task only, and then you will return it, the same way Garon left a message for me today.”

Kiri stopped herself from looking at Garon. She didn’t want Neal to know how much his involvement bothered her.

Neal reached into his pocket and brought out a single smooth stone. It was blacker than black, like a shadow made solid, sitting in Neal’s hand.

“This is a traveling stone. With it, you can move anywhere you will in the city, but you have to know what it looks like. Simply close it in within your hand, envision where you want to go, and say faiga.” The words sounded foreign on Neal’s lips. Kiri thought it was an Eldan word. She repeated it silently in her mind. “In an instant anyone you and anyone touching you, will be transported to the place you envision.”

“This is how the men in the market appeared.” Neal made no move toward her, still maintaining his casual posture. Kiri stepped forward for a moment and took the stone. It was cold and glassy smooth against her fingers.

“It is,” Neal said. “With this you can move faster than the beasts. If you show Garon’s coin, the men of the Thief Lord’s network will tell you of where they might be. No one knows exactly where the Enforcer went with his dogs to rest during the day, not even me. But it was near the theater district. Start by asking around there. Tevin at the White Stage: show him your coin.”

“What will you be doing?” Kiri asked.

“Looking for the beasts, like you. Though I won’t be the one fighting them. I’ll let you know if I find them. Best of luck, Firebrand. Garon.” He nodded to both of them and pushed away from the tree he was still leaning against. Kiri slipped the black stone into her pocket as she watched him out of sight.

“Have you ever been to the theater district?” she asked Garon.

“No,” he said. “You?”

She shook her head.

“Then we can’t use the stone. Guess we’re walking, then.” Garon offered her his arm.

Kiri raised an eyebrow at him, but decided to humor him and hooked her hand into his elbow to let the dockhand lead the Firebrand out of the woods.