Elgotha:

I'll raise a host of shambling dead

to scourge hot hell and root cold dread,

but first I'll need a mageling's blood,

a sacrifice to seal the deed.

Oelius:

If mageling's blood is what you need,

I'll off to Floria with speed.

-Ricard Spurspar, from The Tragedy of Magister Oelius

"Did you hear?" Aldo asked me. We both sat cross-legged and facing one another in our bunks before lights out.

"Did I hear what?" He'd have to be a bit more specific than that.

"They lost a kid in Hall #4." He seemed almost elated at the prospect.

I shrugged - Scamps went missing on a practically-weekly basis. They almost always showed up again. Usually, a 'disappearance' meant they'd found an adult in the city who was willing to employ or train them on a full-time basis and they gradually stopped coming back to the Collegium. Unless that Scamp was a highly promising student taking all tier five classes (ahem) or close to that, Mr. Vernik or the other Mr. Vernik would follow up on the disappearance but wouldn't force the student to come back. That kid would be 'lost' as far as most of us Scamps were concerned, but physically they were just fine.

"Kids get lost all the time," I shrugged.

"No, I mean proper lost," Aldo said, the excitement audible in his voice. "They say he went into the Dead Canton and never came out…"

That piqued my interest a bit. "How do they know? Did he go in with anybody?"

"Dunno… don't know anybody in his bunkroom."

I might have asked which bunkroom, but it didn't really matter. I didn't know any of the kids from Scamp Hall #4. They were older than the kids in our hall by up to a year - the Scamp halls get filled on a rotating basis and now they were filling up Hall #2 as that hall's older denizens received their sandstone glyphs and matriculated to Sneaks. I didn't know anybody from Hall #4, so instead I observed: "You know we aren't supposed to go into the Old City."

"Don't mean nobody ever does."

"True," I allowed. After all, I'd done lots of things that were theoretically prohibited (such as masterminding and carrying out a sting against my fellow students) and I'd rarely got in any trouble from our school. The Collegium is often lax to the point of gross negligence. "Are they going to send anybody in after him?"

"Dunno. Maybe? What if the shamblers got him?"

"Sweet salvation, what is it with you and shamblers?" Mailyn said. Aldo had seen one maybe-a-shambler from afar, and now he was obsessed with them.

"Hey, shamblers are scary," Nate piped in.

"They're why you don't go into the Old City," I added.

Floria in its current form isn't an especially ancient city - not compared to the old capitals of Slartibarica… cities like Gionika or Avelard, whose founding predates the Turan diaspora. Compared to the mountain monasteries of Arkavy or the crumbling temples of Prosecay, time-worn relics still in use thousands of years after their heyday, Floria is a flash in the pan; our city's tricentennial overlapped my time in the Collegium.

In summary, Floria is a youngish city. It may be young, but it lies upon ancient bones. When Longshanks Alhred founded the 'Free-Towne of Florea' where the Canal Canton is today, it was in opposition to a native Perditan city upriver, along the eastern banks of the Largotto. Longshanks subsequently battled the natives and sacked and burned their city to the ground. The ruins of that ancient city can still be seen in the orchards and vineyards that pepper the Old City, pink-pale stones littering the land like the bones of fallen titans. Longshanks had the stones from the natives' great ziggurat hauled down the river and settled into the sea, where they form the infamous Green Stones district of the Canal Canton to this day.

There are also rumors of an even older city, a metropolis at the mouth of the Largotto predating both the modern city and the natives' monument-strewn ruin. Perhaps whatever long-forgotten civilization built the Garnet Citadel wedged in that cold valley between the Kerebels and the Rhims. Whatever yet remains of that primordial ur-Floria lies completely submerged in the hidden tunnels of the western bank and whatever subterranean structures remain secret or undiscovered. When the water of the harbor is unusually clear, you can even see what might be the remains of silt-scuttled temples and algal promenades beneath the waves.

But I digress. When somebody in Floria refers to the Old City, they are referring to the maze of orchards and ruins to the north and east of the Mercantile Quarter. At the center of the Old City lies a large graveyard sometimes referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as the Dead Canton, both for the tens of thousands of graves hewn from the monuments of the old city and from the occasional presence of shamblers, the corpses of dead Florians reanimated by the strange energies of those ancient, hallowed grounds.

Needless to say, this is one of the several environs of the city that Scamps are strongly encouraged not to visit.

"We're going to the Dead Canton," Aldo told me the next day on our way to Mini Gionika within the Foreign Canton.

I pointed back and forth between him and myself. "We?"

"Me, Po, and Sharp Lia," he clarified with a conspicuous eye roll. I nodded even though I had no idea who Po or Sharp Lia were. "You and the others can come too, though…"

"I have no idea who Po or Sharp Lia are," I clarified.

"Lucan's mates…"

"And I have no idea who Lucan is, either… Aldo…"

"That kid who disappeared." Aldo sighed and stopped in his tracks, hands on his hips like he was a parent scolding a child. "Vix. We talked about this yesterday…"

"This is literally the first time I've heard any of these names," Mailyn butted in. "Just because you thought something in your head and then talked to some older Scamps doesn't mean we're all privy to it."

"Exactly," I said.

Aldo rolled his eyes. "Girls…" he grumbled… as if us being girls had anything to do with his habit of introducing people we didn't even know into the conversation. "Look… all I'm saying is that we're going to the Old City. Me, Po, and Sharp Lia are. You don't got to make a big deal out of it. Are you coming or not?"

"Yes, obviously," Mailyn stated. I nodded in vociferous agreement - though I would have shaken my head five seconds earlier. If Mailyn was intent on coming, I wasn't about to be the odd Scamp out. Besides, somebody had to be the mature one in our little group…

Though, hopefully, Po or 'Sharp' Lia would be mature, too, since I wasn't about to chase after Aldo if he spotted a shambler. Being from Hall #4, the two other Scamps would probably be a few months older than us. That is, older than eight years and sixty-four days, which is how old I was. To the day, this was my one-year anniversary as a Scamp. Scampiversaries weren't something that people really celebrated, but I made a mental note to buy myself a sweet when we passed through River's Run on the way to the Sun's End bridge.

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"I'll see you guys after work!" I said, peeling away from our little group and scampering past a group of laborers on siesta as I made for The Learned Gentleman.

Some kind of renovation project was underway at the Bannered Temple, and street vendors congregated around the place in the afternoons like flies to a corpse. They mostly sold to the itinerant workers doing most of the temple's labor, workers who came in from Waterside or Mini Gionika or even further afield. Mostly, the vendors sold meat pies, sausage wraps, and groja, but there was bound to be something sweet. I considered what to get as I breezed through my translation work. Who in the world couldn't translate Wext into Gionian? I would get a sweet roll or one of those flaky Frissonic tarts, at the very least…

My stomach grumbled. "Mr. Hianchi, I'm done ten pages! Is it okay if I stop now?"

The bookseller glanced over my work and then checked the time on the wall clock I'd repaired for him. "You can stop, Vix, but don't think I'll have you loitering about the bookshelves all afternoon and bothering my customers with your questions."

"I won't! I have a, um…" I tried to recall the very mature way I'd overheard a Greycloak phrase it. "A prior commitment!"

Mr. Hianchi chuckled and slid my tollos for the day across the table. "Off you go, then!"

I met up with the others outside of Grounds of Gionika, the Gionian kofimanza (coffee house) near the edge of the neighborhood. Mini Gionika was, by a wide margin, the largest of Floria's foreign enclaves. From the corner of the block, if you turned your back to the Largotto, faced the general direction of the Nation's Pool, and squinted, it was almost like being in an actual Gionian city, though not one on the scope of Gionika or even Portogarra. You could spend a day in the neighborhood and not hear more than a sentence or two of (heavily-accented) Perditalog. An entire microcosm of home in under a square kilometer of city.

"I think this is our one year anniversary. I kind of want to celebrate," Mailyn observed. She skipped over into the coffee house, jingling a pair of tollos in her little fist.

"I was thinking the same thing!" I enthused, hot on her heels. I'd forgotten that Grounds sold sweets, too.

"We're gonna be late," Aldo huffed.

"Then go already and tell them we're coming!" I said with a roll of my eyes.

Over the past year, Mailyn and I had basically become best friends. No… not 'basically'… we were best friends. While Aldo occupied an important spot in my heart as one third of our original Scamp triumvirate, he'd never become a close friend. Aldo was a mate, no doubt about it, and a good one. But Aldo had lots of friends, and none of them were particularly close. They were the kind of friend you could call in a favor with, but never a big favor. Conversely, if Mailyn told me she needed me to accompany her to the Green Stones (and, yes, she had to go), my first question would be whether I needed to bring fare for the river barge.

Mailyn ordered two kokatortas, handing me one of the koka-flavored sweet cakes and keeping one for herself. I'd pay her a tollo later, or else I'd buy her street food if the chance arose. We didn't keep close track of who bought what for whom, but things more or less balanced out.

"Grounds sells their kokatortas with powdered koka instead of shaved, which is supposed to be better," Mailyn said sagely. "But I like them just fine."

"Sumph," I agreed. I swallowed, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and repeated: "Same!" Mother would have been aghast.

I may have let my prim manners go somewhat during my year in Floria - not that I couldn't affect a little Lady's aristocratic mien if I wanted to, but acting like a common person was much more unobtrusive here in the 'Jewel of the Perditos'. Or at least the parts of Floria that us Scamps frequented. Conversely, Mailyn had all but lost her hayseed brogue, even when speaking Gionian, and could sound cultured when she wanted or needed to. It turns out that appearing urbane is surprisingly easy: simply listen in on the conversations of a few people who are dressed well and repeat everything they say on the topics of politics, cuisine, and general aesthetics whenever it seems appropriate. Phrases like (ahem), 'I have a prior commitment'. Fewer than one person in twenty will discern that you have no idea what you're talking about, and that twentieth person usually won't have the gall to call you out on it.

"Did you get me a cake?" Aldo said, envious eyes upon our treats.

"No." Mailyn stuck her tongue out at him. "You don't even like koka, Aldo." If you haven't had koka before, it's the terribly-bitter brown-black confection they sell at Gionian shops in the port shops and Mini Gionika. The secret is that, while disgusting if you eat it straight, koka's strong flavor makes it an excellent garnish for many pastries and other sweets. The waxy blocks of bittersweet stuff you buy in the marketplace are only about thirty percent koka while the powder is upwards of ninety percent.

"That crap's disgusting," Aldo stated with a grimace. "But I like other stuff they have there. Those cinnamon things…" He licked his lips. "The flaky crust… I'm getting one…"

"I thought we were going to be late," I said.

"But I'll be so fast!"

We ended up being fifteen minutes late for Aldo's scheduled meeting with Po and Sharp Lia. As befitting their status as Hall #4 residents, the duo was a bit older than us… maybe half a year older than Aldo, who was a few months older than either Mailyn or myself. In another year or so, the pair would graduate to become Sneaks, but for now they were Scamps with nothing to do with their afternoons but play and earn pocket money.

Well… until very recently. Now they had to look for their lost friend, who'd disappeared somewhere in the Old City. The Old City which, if not technically off-limits to us, was a place that our proctors had strongly encouraged not to go. But, as with most proctor's advice, it fell to the wayside the moment we were out of sight. As we approached the Sun's End bridge on foot, I asked the duo the obvious question:

"Are you sure he disappeared in the Old City? He couldn't have gone somewhere else?"

"Pretty sure," Po said. "One minute, Lucan was there, poking around a mausoleum, and the next minute…" he blew on his palm as if scattering dust to the wind.

Po and Sharp Lia were just about opposites appearance-wise. Po was tall and lanky boy with Arkavian features, skin as dark as ebon and curly dark hair tinged with red. He delivered his Perditalog with a Turan twang, suggesting his parents, like mine, were probably slaves or indentures across the Pelagic in the so-called 'free state'. Lia was a short and stocky girl, pale with the coloration and drawn features common to South Wex, down to the freckles and frizzy red hair, as well as the flat accent. Why she was called 'Sharp' Lia I soon found out - not for her wit, but because she always carried a pair of knives on her. She frequently practiced tossing them in the air, knives flipping end-over-end like fan blades flashing in the sun, before Lia caught the blade between her thumb and forefinger and slung it back up again. It was an impressive skill which, I assume, was the point.

"If you don't mind my asking, why were you in the Dead Canton?" I asked.

"A kid's got to eat," Sharp Lia said with a shrug. We followed after her and Po - to my surprise, we didn't cross the bridge to Caravan Island. Instead, we headed south toward the little dilapidated stretch of River's Run sandwiched between the Foreign Canton and the Largotto. At a brisk walk, you could make it to the Old City in perhaps an hour from the Sun's End Bridge, but we were headed in the opposite direction.

"Wait… why aren't we crossing the bridge?" I asked.

"Like I said… a kid's gotta eat."

"There's money to be made in the Dead Canton," Po clarified with a wave of his lanky hand. "There's some herbs that only grow out there, unless you want to go well into the wetlands, and I'm not about to be food for the gavials and bloodbugs. We know an herbalist that'll buy what we find… but first we got to find out what to look for."

"And sometimes she'll give us a ride. Plus, folks'll also give coin for us to pay respects to graves," Lia added. "They're a bit skittish going out there on account of…"

"The shamblers?" Aldo asked, his voice rising in excitement.

Po snapped his fingers. "Got it in one!"

We proceeded to the southern tip of River's Run… about a six minute walk from Little Gionika. We'd have saved a lot of time if we'd just met there instead of straying northward first, but Aldo was known for his sticky fingers, not his brilliant stratagems. There, among the run-down shops and soot-stained, century-old rowhouses was a ramshackle wooden building that would have been more at home in the Mouldevican oldwoods than central Floria. Above the sun-bleached pinewood door were two hanging signs creaking in the breeze:

Poultices, Preparations, & Pro-fill Axis and:

VERY AFFORDIBLE [sic]

Before we could even ascend the steps, the door burst open and an old woman in a broad-brimmed straw hat glowered down at us.

"Yer late!"