There were six guards at the gate, wearing crisp green uniforms. One stood by while another poked through the load on a cart with the butt of her spear. Two others hung back inside the gate. Another pair stood at the head of the long queue of pedestrians—one of these, tall woman, beckoned Hina forward. "Good morning Miss. Welcome to Blandmanch. Do you have anything to declare?"

Hina's legs ached from an hour of stop-start waiting, and her chest fluttered with tension. She wore her best and cleanest dress—the one she'd brought for her interview at the academy, just in case it helped with not being recognised.

"Good morning," she said. "What do I need to declare?"

Olivia groaned and stepped forward. "Morning Ma'am. We're all travelling together. We're not carrying any trade goods or anything that's restricted."

The guard smiled. "Okay then, saves me a couple of speeches. Entry fee is one copper boot per person. And the little one's free," she said with a nod and a smile towards Hina's shoulder.

Bean croaked agreeably in the guard's direction.

"Say Miss, what kind of bird is that?"

"He's ah, a northern crow," Hina said.

Bean squawked in irritation.

Hina fished a shiny silver quarter-crown out of her purse, along with a much-bigger copper boot. It was an alarmingly large percentage of her coin. Hopefully not an indication of prices inside the city. "For the three of us."

The guard took the coins. "Close enough," she said, smiling. "Welcome to Blandmanch." She waved them through the gate behind her. "Next!"

That was it, apparently. Hina walked forward, though the gate and into the city.

The square beyond the gate stretched broad and wide, walls and the buildings constructed from smooth orange stone that reminded Hina of the stone in the caverns where they'd run into the huld. In the outside world, that same stone seemed bright and cheerful.

The whole city was oversized—every building Hina could see rose over three stories. And people filled the square. Buying and selling in little booths. Standing in groups and chatting. And others, rushing back and forth, a constant stream of them heading in all directions.

It was like market day in Grambe. But this was just another day, and just one of many gates. The sound and the presence of so many people rose up like a pressure in Hina's chest. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Bean nipped Hina's ear.

"Ow."

He did it again.

"Ouch. Stop that!" she said. "I know you're not a crow."

He squawked.

"I had to say something."

He croaked.

"If you're not a crow, what are you?"

"Good bird." He croaked. "Break-fast?"

"Okay, I'll say that next time anyone asks."

Bean cackled.

A troop of jangling guards marched past, and Hina jumped. Twenty or thirty soldiers in green uniforms, marching in step with long complicated-looking spears over their shoulders. They pushed through the crowd, heading towards the gate. "Fucking beasts," one of them muttered.

Not one of them even glanced in Hina's direction.

She took a deep breath. They'd made it inside, and they needed to discuss their next move, only Hina couldn't see—there. An empty space at the edge of the square, behind a booth.

Hina pushed through the crowd to reach the empty space. And revelled in the relative stillness. "So, next steps?" she said.

"What do we need to do again?" asked Kai.

"One more time. We need to go to market, both to buy supplies and replace the things we lost, and also maybe to sell a few things, and then we need to find a caravan. Depending on when the caravan is leaving, we might also need to find a place to spend a night or two. Have I missed anything?"

"Could camp outside again if we need to," Kai said.

"I don't know about you two, but I would love to sleep in a bed tonight," Olivia said. "And yes, that's everything."

"Do we want to split up, or all stick together?"

"I don't think we're in that much of a hurry," Olivia said. "And I want to look at trinkets, if we can find a reputable seller. I don't know if that's likely this far from the city, but I'd like to try."

"I'd like to see what's available too," Hina said. "And maybe we can find some food on the way to the market."

There were four streets leading out of the square by the west gate. The sign overhead announced it as Three Rocks Gate, with a helpful pictogram showing three black balls. Small alleys lead between the rows of buildings. The paths that led along the walls on either side were blocked off with heavy iron gates. The broadest of the four roads had a sign on the wall of a building near the entrace which read Market Street.

Market street was broader than any of the streets in Grambe, and for all of the crowds of people wandering past—and the occasional cart pulled by pack-beasts—Hina could feel herself adjusting to the bustle.

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Blandmanch was just an oversized town on market day, and Hina knew how to deal with that.

They pressed through the crowds.

"Is this normal?" said Kai, half-yelling to be heard over the noise of the crowd. "Is it always like this?"

"I have no idea!"

A group of three people to the left were holding skewers of meat—and Hina's mouth watered at the sight. She looked around for a vendor. It was about time for breakfast, now that they were somewhere that had shops and people and food.

Ah, there, behind the group of old men in robes.

Hina pulled Kai and Olivia by the hands, out of the street and into the courtyard behind the old men. There was a cloth booth with a short queue of people lined up in front. She joined the queue, which was moving quickly.

It was quieter off the street.

"Good morning. Three please," she said, holding up her fingers.

She paid a copper penny for three skewers of unidentified meat.

After passing skewers to Kai and Olivia, Hina took a bite of her own. Delicious. The last time she'd had meat was—the first night the huld had attacked.

There was a young man in nice clothes leaning against the wall nearby.

"Is it always like this?" she asked, looking at the young man. She gestured towards the street.

He smiled at her. "Every year. You in town for the festival?"

"Visiting family. Haven't been here in years."

"Ah, feast of The Stranger. It'll get worse later," he said. "Uh, visitors should stay off the streets after dark. But I'm sure your kin will keep you out of trouble."

"Thank you, much appreciated," she said.

"Hmm." Olivia was frowning. "We should hurry then, run our errands and then find a place to stay as soon as we can. And if there's a caravan leaving today, let's depart with it."

"Sounds good to me," Kai said.

"And me. Give give me a minute."

Hina gave the last piece of meat on her skewer to Bean, who chirped happily before tearing into it with beak and claw.

The market was in grassy field near the center of the city. Towers rose over the buildings to the north—the city keep? The square bustled with people and stalls and carts, all of them buying and selling and moving about.

It was like the Grambe market if you took ten times the people and animals and things, and put them into a space that was about thirty percent larger. Hina felt like that was about right.

"Food first."

"Over there," Kai pointed.

Hina purchased dried beans, dry-roasted beans, a jar of fermented cabbage, some potatoes, a small bag of flour, a tiny cake of yeast and loaf of fresh bread for two copper boots and five pennies.

She also looked for a cookpot to replace the one that they'd lost, and winced at the prices. She couldn't find anything of comparable quality for less than a crown, and she couldn't spare that. They only had seven silver quarter-crowns, and a few copper coins.

Eventually she managed to find a battered iron pot at a second-hand seller that had been repaired too many times for copper boot, and picked up three chipped earthen bowls and a set of two spoons for another three pennies.

She spent some time looking for a lantern, but what was available was too expensive. With any luck they would be able to avoid exploring dark places for a while. And anyway, she had a working for light, even if she could only maintain it for a little while. Instead, she bought two cheap wax candles and a fresh box of matches, just in case, for the cost of two more pennies.

Hina paid with one of the silver quarter-crowns, and got one boot, three pennies and two ha'pennies back. The change went into her purse.

At a stall selling cutlery, she got her knife sharpened for a ha'penny. And at a nearby paperseller's stall, she bought a small notebook, two pencils and a little metal sharpener for a copper boot. And she picked up two woolen blankets for another two boots.

The goods were split between Hina's and Kai's bags.

All in all, the shopping left her with five quarter-crowns, one copper boot and four and a half pennies.

Hina would have been pleased with that, if their money hadn't been so tight. She figured two quarter-crowns each was the minimum that travelling with a caravan could cost, and that would be leaving one and change for the whole of the rest of the trip?

It didn't work. They were going to need to sell something.

"See anywhere for the bell?" she asked Kai.

"Is it special?" asked Olivia, who had been watching with a small smile on her face the whole time. "You know, like the others?"

Hina nodded.

"You'll get a better price for it in the next city. I haven't seen any proper dealers in trinkets here so far. This market may be the wrong place—I have a recommendation for a merchant in Modmin, if you can wait."

"I'm not sure that we can. But I guess we can see about the caravan and then come back if we need to."

Hina spent another fifteen minutes looking through the stalls, but the closest she could find to a suitable seller was a silversmith. The stall had a few finely worked pieces on display, a formal goblet with flowers etched into the side, a decorative engraved spoon, a beautifully intricate tea-set. It was one of the few stalls with guards: two hard-eyed men and a woman who stood close by, watching the crowd for trouble.

Walking up to the man in the stall, Hina said, "I ... inherited this little silver bell—I was wondering if you could tell me if it's worth anything?"

The man behind the counter, a thin older man with short grey hair, spectacles, and shaven chin, gave her a tight smile. "Certainly," he said. "So long as you allow me to make an offer. We buy, sell and appraise."

Hina glanced around, but no-one was watching them too closely. Kai and Olivia were standing nearby, for support. Olivia frowned, but didn't say anything.

She slipped her bag off of her shoulder.

The nearest guard shifted, a stern-faced woman with a hand on a weapon in her belt—some kind of club. She watched Hina closely.

The bell was near the top of Hina's bag. She held it out to the man behind the counter.

The guard let her hand drop, posture relaxing.

"May I?" the man behind the counter said, he reached out a hand.

When Hina nodded, he took the bell and examined it. He held it up to the light close to his glasses, then put it down on the table in front of him while he held a lens up to his eye. Finally, he pulled out a set of scales from behind the bench, and set it on the counter.

He set the bell onto the platform, hunching down to read the dial, which was facing away from Hina.

"Interesting," he said. "An inheritance, you said?"

"That's right," she said. "My great-aunt left it to me in her will." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Olivia was staring at the bell, eyebrows raised.

"Hmm. Even the raw weight of metal, and those carvings. Hmm," he said, hesitating for a moment. "One scepter, four crowns."

"Huh." That was a lot of money. "Thank you." She reached to take the bell back.

"Two scepters," he said, holding on to the bell. "I really can't go higher."

Hina hesitated. A scepter was worth somewhere around twelve crowns. You could buy a small house in Grambe for two or three scepters. That much could cover their expenses for the rest of the trip, and then some.

Olivia poked her in the side, hard.

Right. If they could get more in the next city, it would be foolish to sell it now. More might mean three or even four scepters, and that would put them in a good position at the academy when they arrived. Better to wait.

"Thank you for the information. I'll come back if we decide to sell." She leaned forward and took the bell, pulled it firmly from the man's grasp.

"Two and six." The man sounded faintly annoyed. "It's a good price. Better than you'll get anywhere else for your... inheritance." He sniffed.

"No." Hina shook her head. "I'm going to need to think about it."

"Very well," he said, with a tight smile. "I'm only in the market for the festival. If you change your mind and come back later, I won't be here. So, take this." He held out a paper card.

Hina took it. It read M. Schuster, Merchant in Silver and showed an address in the financial quarter, which Hina had seen a sign for on their way to the market. "Thank you," she said. "I'll stop by if I decide to sell."

The man nodded sharply.

Hina put the bell back into her bag and shouldered it. Time to find a caravan.