Revel fell into a hole of deep, dreamless sleep. He woke too soon, distantly aware someone was trying to kick down the door. The blows and oaths sounded as if they were under water. It was noon already, and the innkeep had come to eject them. El Sha La was already awake, donning her robe. When she saw Revel roused, her eyes glinted with mischief.

“Watch this,” she whispered.

She snapped her fingers, and the sounds of the slum roared back into Revel’s ears with a whoosh. The sorcerous seal peeled away in a whorl of emerald light. The innkeeper flew through the door and crashed flat on his face. He scrambled up, spitting mad and found himself face to face with El Sha La.

“Thank you for waking us. We’ll be on our way shortly. You may go,” the sorceress informed him.

Revel watched the innkeeper’s angry eyes dart from El to him, to the door that hung from one hinge. With great effort, he swallowed whatever he wanted to scream and stalked away muttering. Revel had to laugh. He glanced at the bed as he dressed. The night before was a blur.

“Did we?”

“Are you mad? No. I’m exhausted, and you stink. None of that until we find the thief.”

“One boy in a hundred thousand.” Revel let out a long sigh.

“Pray for luck,” El shrugged.

The new day was even worse. Instead of growing used to Tinkerton, exposure worsened Revel’s adverse reaction.

How could they live like this?

Every step through the slums was an assault on his senses. They were surrounded by a din of shouting, screaming, banging, clanging, cawing, gnawing—pandemonium from every angle. Every surface was coarse, every shape misshapen. The structures were all painted from the same vomited-upon palette.

Worst of all, the smell. Rot belched from the muck with every squelching step. Drifts of phosphorescent miasma glowed above the oily canals. Smog billowed from smelters, and ochre clouds of cane smoke drifted from doorways. He was half-starved and couldn’t imagine ever eating again. Across the street, a pack of rats fought over the remains of a disemboweled cat. Revel tinged green and looked away.

“What is this place?”

“Behold, Ramos. Tinkerton, the city’s bloody asshole. Where everyone fucks everyone else over, and the only relief from being buggered is buggering someone else.”

“Charming motto. You ought to embroider that on something.”

“Look at you. You stand to inherit all this; you can’t even look at it.”

“It’s a lot to take on,” Revel admitted.

There was little action. The wharf rats preferred the clammy nights to the brutal heat of day. At last, the grimoire cracked open. As they searched, El Sha La told him tales of her youth. They came onto an entire block that was uninhabited, a rarity in the teeming crush of structures. The walls had melted like wax, burned black and collapsed. Inside was a jungle of broken columns and fused glass.

“A dragon?” Revel asked. El Sha La shook her head.

“Arath. This was the fortress of the Josequin Coven. They sought to strike a deal and summon Hadriate. Arath came to their gate and forbade it. They hid within, thinking their wards would keep them safe until the ritual was complete. Arath called down the skyfire and incinerated them all. Nothing can live here now. Anyone who sets up camp on the ruin will soon rot from the inside out. Their fingers and toes fall off.”

Revel picked up a step.

“How old were you when he told you this?” he asked when the ruins were well behind them.

“He didn’t have to tell me. I watched it. I was eight.”

“Eight? He brought an eight-year-old here to watch an entire block burn alive?”

“They could have surrendered.” El shrugged.

Revel was silent for a time, trying to imagine it as they plodded on. They came to Gambler’s Row, a brassy strip of dice dens, cardhouses, and fighting pits close to the long dock. It was strange to see after their slog through the slums. On the row, private guards stood before every door. The façades were well kept, the street even paved. El Sha La explained that high-rollers sailed in from all over the lake. In lawless Tinkerton, they could engage in wagers and vices even Yarlsbeth forbade. Revel eyed a heavily fortified stone building with a line of four burly guards in half-plate.

“Don’t let the brutes fool you,” El said discreetly. “This row feeds more souls to the pigs than any other.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“There aren’t four to a door anywhere in Ruptor Keep. What’s in there that’s so valuable?”

“That’s the holding vault of Ralo the Book.”

Revel raised his chin. The guards had shifted, suspicious of their attention. They took the point and moved along.

“Ralo sees maybe half the action in Tinkerton. It’s all kept here, under lock and key until his treasure fleet comes to collect. Some say he’s richer than the king of Khemeria. Ralo you should know.”

“How so?”

“He’s one of the Grippe. The cabal keeps Tinkerton under its thumb. They are the guildmasters, the high priests, the gang lords, the moneylenders, the mongers, the landlords, and master merchants. Any semblance of order you see comes from them, with your father’s silent approval.”

“Why would he cede so much authority? He’s letting a fortune slip through his fingers.”

“The Grippe keeps the masses divided and desperate. Without them, the entire wharf would be in flame. Your father lets them play their little game, so long as it doesn’t spill out of Tinkerton. Don’t think the duke is toothless, either. Once every few years, he chooses one of their number who’s dared too much. The guards come in and destroy them completely. Never Ralo, though.”

“Why not him?”

“Because the relationship is mutually beneficial. Also, if the guard went to war with Ralo’s organization, they’d probably lose. How is it you know so little of this? You were second in line.”

“He bet everything on Jaran, and I let him. I only ever wanted to be a soldier.” Revel shrugged. He grew quiet after. El Sha La questioned the doorman of each gambling house but got nothing. Like most, they left the row no richer. A block away, a weak voice in an alley begged for death. Revel and El pretended they hadn’t heard and pushed on.

“Keep an eye at our backs. If one of the housemasters was behind the theft, they’ll send assassins after us.”

Revel nodded. By habit, his hand went to the sheath of the empty dagger. He scowled. El saw and nodded.

“Just a caution. I don’t think it’s one of them. Ralo’s too close to father. Every year, Arath comes in, breaks all his wards, and tells him what his sorcerers did wrong. They get along. When I was nine, Ralo’s son Shamus was bedeviled by a red priestess. Arath drove the thread devil out of him. It was like a great tangle of writhing pinworms. I’ve never forgotten the smell. Arath banished it into the void. Shamus survived but died a year later; poison. Ralo wiped the reds out after. What you see now is a shadow of what they were.”

“Idyllic. You’re starting to make more sense to me,” Revel said.

“Don’t strain yourself. See that obelisk over there? I saw my first wizard’s duel there. Yoen Cingergrin sailed all the way from Urth’Wyrth to challenge the Unraveller. Months of sailing, Arath spent just two words on him. The first turned his flesh into glass. The next shattered him into a thousand shards. I cried after that,” El admitted, her eyes far-off in memory.

“From fear?”

“What? No. Because he wouldn’t teach me that spell.” El sighed, still irked. “He never gave me the fun ones. I was never good enough to trust.”

“I know the feeling.” Revel nodded.

Their eyes met in understanding, and they looked away. They’d shared too much; the foundation shifted. It was too easy to forget this could never work.

“Let’s go,” they said at the same time. They rolled their eyes in exasperation.

Another day slipped away. Hunger finally got the better of them. Revel was revulsed by the idea of eating pork fattened on men. El took them to a lopsided tavern for boules of sourdough and bowls of spiced chowder. They ate like castaways.

“We should have found something by now,” El confessed as they left. Revel sloshed with every step; he’d vanquished six bowls of chowder.

“He’s just a boy.” Revel shrugged, stuffed and slow.

“He survived Arath’s ward. Your dagger didn’t do him in. What if he’s one of Terhaljatan’s spies? What if we can’t find him? What do we tell Arath?”

“Will he really kill me?” Revel asked.

“Yes. He’ll kill anyone who threatens his agenda. You, me, anybody.”

“You could have warned me.”

“Why did I need to? Common sense, it’s dangerous to be around an archmage. You were brave enough when we fucked.”

“That was your idea!”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Revel took a deep breath, shook his head, and stood straight.

“We’ll find him. Let’s go.”

He led them into the night. A block later, it began to rain, again. Grim-faced, they plowed through the downpour, and they tried all the places they’d been afraid to before. Smokehouses, winesinks, cane parlors, the lowest of the low. Hours and hours of coercing and cajoling a never-ending string of lowlifes.

Revel had never seen so many scars, hollow cheeks, missing teeth, warts, carbuncles, and plague-marks. It all blurred until he couldn’t tell the faces and places apart any longer. Was this a brothel or a bar? A gambling den or a cane-house? They both badly needed sleep, but neither would relent.

At last, Revel lost his temper and backhanded a hooded man who refused to answer him. Immediately, Revel was set-upon by a pack of outraged priests armed with crooked staves. Revel brawled back, but more diamond-robed dervishes issued from the inner sanctum like wasps.

The wave of priests drove Revel from the temple, out into the flooded street. He laid out two, and then it was ten-to-one. Cudgels came at him from every direction. A hard knock caught him in the temple, his legs quavered. If Revel went down, the priests would thresh him like wheat.

“BACK!” a high voice cried, and then there was a blinding flare of silver light. The priests hissed and staggered back. El Sha La grabbed Revel by the arm and dragged him away.

“Why did you hit him for?”

Revel reeled.

“He wouldn’t answer me.”

“They’re Ibexians. The hooded ones are penitents, under a vow of silence.”

“Oh.”

“I told you that,” El shook her head.

“I thought they were Chyskatites, in those diamond motley robes.”

“Diamonds are the Morians. The Ibexian ones are meant to be snake scales.”

Who feeds all these bloody priests?”

“Levies and rackets. They’re just gangers in robes.”

“Once we get the orb and I sort this business with Gel Shimae, I’m going to clean up this rotten slum,” Revel vowed.

“They’ve dashed your brains out.” El Sha La shook her head. “There’s no fixing this.”

“There will be a reckoning,” Revel vowed.

Instead, there was a retching. After a few shaky steps, Revel gave six bowls back to the streets. He felt far better after, and a second wind bore them forward to the dawn. It was El Sha La who finally flagged.

“I can’t see straight,” she complained. “Let’s go back to the tower.”

“We should retrace our steps on the way back,” Revel insisted.

They tried, but neither could remember all the holes they’d scoured. Every dive looked the same. They blundered through a fog of stale beer and indistinguishable faces.

Finally, a caned-out wreck in a yellow hat piped up: “Hurt boy? Sure, I saw him. What’s it worth to you?”