True to his word, Gray slipped out of his room well before dawn, nursing a bad hand and a load of regret.

What had seemed tile-punch-worthy last night now seemed stupid. Maybe one day he’d have time to bitch about life and his damn hair.

Today was not that day.

Gray sidestepped a pool of yellow lamplight.

For so early in the morning, the streets were concerningly busy. Gray hunched his shoulders, the cool breeze ruffling through his cropped hair, and he tightened his grip on his rucksack.

He could see the silhouetted rooftop of his destination peeking above the skyline. The Sirentown Hall.

Not somewhere he’d choose to go if he could help it, seeing as it would likely be crawling with guards and officials, but Sirentown Hall would have a directory of everyone living there - every resident, every business.

Anyone with the name Wong.

Gray had cut his hair short and taken care to shave a pattern of swirling northern knots along the sides. He’d applied layers of smudged kohl around his eyes. He’d pilfered a change of clothes from the inn’s laundry room in the basement.

Most importantly, he’d bathed again, and there must’ve been something in the inn’s lotions or washes because the burns, cuts, and bruises on his face and body had faded and healed.

They were there.

If anyone looked too closely.

But, at a glance, he was a world away from the boy who’d been chased through the streets yesterday.

Pain flared in his ankle and hunger gnawed at his stomach as he walked towards the Hall.

His limp was a real problem. Gray did his best to disguise it, but concern built inside him as he continued onwards, because his gait could immediately mark him out to Killian and his men.

He hurried past street lamps flickering in the early morning darkness, past vendors carrying barrels up steep and crooked streets made of steps.

The workers in the streets were hanging colourful strings of flags overhead and pinning up large banners that flapped in the breeze.

Gray tilted his head to read one.

Summer Festival.

Of course, Gray thought, ducking his head and picking up his pace as he reached the main thoroughfare, and steering well clear of the side street where he’d set off the lion fireworks and fierilion weeds. It was close to the time for Summer Festival and if Sirentown was anything like Krydon, it’d pull out all the stops to celebrate.

Workers were setting up small stages along the main road, making it a tight squeeze to get past. They were setting up market stalls and small tents and stands of fresh cut flowers. One shopkeeper from a place called The Salty Dog’s Spices was in a roaring fight with a young sailor delivering casks of cinnamon and saltpeter.

Gray ducked his head and picked up the pace.

As Gray drew closer to the Hall, he saw two main problems.

One - the Hall doors were locked up tight.

Perhaps it was closed because of the Summer Festival. Perhaps it was just too early. To be fair, it was basically still night. The sun was still hours from rising.

Two? Several Auguste soldiers lounged on the Hall steps.

Gray was so distracted by the workers setting up for the summer festival that he’d allowed himself to get way too close to the soldiers. He could see them in the light of the lamps around the Hall. He could see the dark smudges under their eyes, the sweat stains on their soldier caps, and the dirt caked into their nails. They were leaning on the steps like they’d been painted onto the stone, all hunched shoulders and crumpled uniforms and heads drooping from exhaustion.

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Letting out a startled breath, Gray flattened himself against a wagon piled with barrels of squid.

He had to move-

‘The further away I get from Krydon,’ said a soldier in drawling Lismerian, ‘the happier I am.’

Gray froze.

He strained to listen over the thud of his pulse in his ears and the racket made by the early morning workers.

‘The place is cursed,’ said another solider, his voice deep, slow, and heavy.

Gray pressed himself hard against the rough timber of the wagon. He couldn’t stay here, but he desperately wanted to hear about Krydon and the people there. They flitted in and out of his dreams as night, as much as he dreamt about Alistair.

‘Major is cursed,’ said yet another solider. ‘Did you see him …’ his voice faded out, drowned underneath a nearby hammering as a worker strung up colourful streamers over the main road.

‘Throw ‘im a steak,’ a soldier was saying, when the hammering stopped. ‘It’s near the full moon. Might improve ‘is mood.’

‘Maybe,’ said a solider, his voice setting Gray’s heart into a painful and erratic tattoo, because he knew the voice, it was Brown, the soldier with the hairy fists and the eye for Sorena, and when in front of Killian, a stutter. ‘Maybe,’ said Brown, ‘if you stopped stumbling around like a drunk donkey, you’d get less of his ire.’

‘His ire?’

Gray didn’t know this voice that was replying to Brown, but he’d heard his voice before and he was sure, if he peered over the wagon of squid, that he’d recognise his face from the scads of men under Killian’s command.

‘Yeah,’ said Brown. ‘His ire.’

‘Look at you with your fancy words,’ said the soldier. ‘He’s sadistic. If he expects me to be running up five hundred of these fucking stairs after he made us ride for three days straight, and he made me bloody crawl through that swamp …’

His voice faded out as the laughter of the soldiers took over.

Their laughter had a sharp quality to it, like they were out of practice. Like they hadn’t laughed in some good while.

Gray sidled down the wagon, carefully drawing away from the soldiers.

So intent was he to get away from the soldiers that he missed the vendor unloading his barrels of squid.

He missed the vendor turning sharply, as he hoisted a barrel off the wagon.

The barrel whacked him hard in the side of the face.

Gray fell backwards, and all he could see was flashing lights.

-

A tumult of voices assaulted Gray’s ears. The vendor was hauling him to his feet, apologising profusely. Someone was insisting he allow her to take him to the healer up the road. Someone was dusting him off and their hands were creeping into his pockets. Someone else was pulling at his rucksack. And someone was calling for the soldiers, because they had medics, and they’ll check that hit to the head, lad-

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Gray mumbled. 'Thanks.'

He wrenched himself free, clutching the strap of his rucksack, and shook his head to clear his vision. He stumbled down a tight gap between two tall buildings, pushing himself off against the walls until he came out into a small courtyard. There were steps, leading up …

There were footsteps behind him, and there was a quality to the stomping that was much too familiar.

Soldier’s boots.

Gray staggered up the steps and came out on a narrow alley.

The alley was so dimly lit that Gray could see the moon and the stars int he sky. It was lined with homes and a few shingles. One of the shingles bore the looping healer's symbol and hung above a door painted red. Gray stumbled towards it, away from the shouts in Lismerian.

He rapped on the red door.

He didn’t wait for an answer, he twisted the doorknob in his slick grip, and stumbled inside.

-

Gray understood, as he leant his forehead against the door and waited - hoped - with his breath caught in his throat for the soldiers to pass by, that he’d violated some kind of unknown social boundary.

He could feel it emanating off the woman behind him. He’d glimpsed her as he’d come in, before he’d hastily turned and slammed the door shut, his hand holding the door knob in a white-knuckled grip to try and stop anyone following him inside.

She was dressed as the woman with the red door from yesterday had been dressed. Long skirts and a crisp apron and a lot of very expensive looking jewellery.

She cleared her throat.

Gray swallowed and pushed himself upright as he turned around to face her. She was young, with a heavyset brow and a large overbite.

She looked like she could deck Gray, no problems.

In fact, she looked like she wanted to.