Sprawled outside Terohas’s formidable wall, the community known as the Flats lay on either side of the cobbled road that approached the city’s main gate. On this particular morning, due to some manner of hold-up, the line of carriages and foot traffic waiting for entry was considerable, and consequently the mobile vendors were doing a brisk trade.

  Torrell had retrieved a book from an inside pocket and was perusing pages full of symbols, while Kaddie, carrying a sack full of herbs and nothing to read, was avoiding eye contact with the vendors and becoming more and more impatient.

  The sun was beating down, amplifying the usual mix of aromas that drifted from the congested alleys nearby. She had dressed for rain that had never materialized and was currently sweating beneath her coat. “What’s going on?”

  Torrell didn’t look up from his book. “There’s an argument at the gate.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She stepped out of line in order to get a better look, but failed to see much beyond the rear of a carriage that was almost as wide as the road. Some distance ahead she could just make out the narrow doorway she had used on arriving at Terohas for the very first time. Alas, now she was a registered citizen, she had to use the main gate along with everyone else.

  “Any longer and this netherwort will be wilting.”

  A tall man hurried by in the opposite direction. Accidentally, he caught her elbow and spun her around, and as her eyes followed him and her temper snapped like a flag in the wind, she caught sight of two cloaked figures standing patiently in the line a few paces behind them.

  Facing forward, she nudged Torrell’s elbow. “Behind us.”

  “Shale. Yes, I know.” He still wasn’t looking up from his book. “Don’t stare.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  He grinned. “Of course you weren’t.”

  Kaddie frowned. Nonetheless, she kept her eyes facing forward, despite wanting to risk another glance.

  The Shale. Extremely wealthy. High plains traders of metals, dyes, and the occasional poison. It was a young member of the Shale who had been found dead in a burned-out dye merchant’s store, not long before Kaddie and Poisoner Robles had smuggled the ailing Nianne Lassing out of the palace.

  Since then, Kaddie, Torrell, along with everyone else at the dispensary, had kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Nianne had since been smuggled out of the city and was living with Kaddie’s family in Shadow Valley. Robles had given strict instructions as soon as the girl was out of the door. Nothing was to be discussed on the subject. Ever.

  This, along with Robles’ subsequent confession that he was secretly her maternal grandfather, had made the following days barely tolerable. She suspected everyone in the dispensary knew she was Robles’ granddaughter, but no one was saying anything so neither did she.

  Kaddie hated secrets, and had been forced to stew while she and Torrell had gone about their errands—ducking out of sight whenever they saw someone who might present a threat—such as the new ruling family, the Theeds.

  As for the Shale, had they knowingly been part of a plot to murder an innocent girl? Were they aware that Robles had desecrated the corpse in order to identify the body? Everyone at the dispensary was suspecting the worst, hence the reason for Torrell’s warning just now.

  The sun had reached its zenith when they finally emerged on the city’s side of the main gate. Kaddie saw Captain Young at the door to the guardhouse and waved. The woman’s complement of guards had now recovered after the ruling families had stopped paying a premium for extra security during the coup. It seemed the entire city had breathed a collective sigh of relief and was determined to get back to business.

  Torrell replaced his book inside a coat pocket. He gestured to their left. “Where do you think they’re headed?”

  Kaddie looked across the square and saw the Shale heading down one of the city’s smaller streets. “We’d better tell Robles. They could be heading for Bryler Street.”

  “I’ve heard they think nothing of killing people who cross them.”

  “And yet, the guards let them in.”

  ##

  Lunch was already underway when they reached the dispensary. Robles was carving a loaf of bread into large chunks at one of the prep tables, while Marla and Elspeth were sitting at the other, part way through drinking thick broth from clay bowls.

  “Mother’s teeth, I was beginning to wonder if you’d both gotten into another skirmish.” Robles raised an eyebrow at Kaddie in particular. “But I see no bloody noses, so I assume your tardiness is a result of dawdling.”

  “Sorry.” Torrell pulled off his coat. “There was an altercation at the gate.”

  “Anything of interest?” Marla dunked a piece of bread into her broth.

  “No, but—” Torrell glanced at Kaddie.

  “Two members of the Shale were behind us at the gate. They’re now inside the city.” She pulled open the sack and began laying its contents on the other table. She spotted a few bruised leaves, but other than that, the netherwort appeared to have survived the journey. Looking up, she saw everyone was staring at her.

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  “Well, where were they headed?” Robles asked. Marla and Elspeth shared uneasy glances.

  “We thought they might be heading for Bryler Street.” Torrell said. He grabbed a bowl and began to fill it with broth, and dropped his spoon as a large chunk of bread collided with his head.

  “You thought, boy? You thought?”

  Kaddie stepped in between the two men and offered Robles a frown. “They took a left at the square. We didn’t follow.”

  Robles went back to carving the loaf. “Had you admitted to following them, I would have sent you both back to your parents with strict instructions never to return.”

  “You told us to keep to ourselves, so we did.” Kaddie removed her coat and joined the others at the table, and for a while, nothing more was said.

  However, directly after lunch, Robles’ prickly mood reemerged, and after barking instructions at the three women, he left the building accompanied by Torrell.

  “Well, he must be feeling better,” Marla remarked, pouring fresh water into one of the smaller cauldrons hanging over the hearth.

  “Personally, I’d prefer a little less fire and brimstone,” Elspeth said. “The dispensary ran remarkably smoothly while he was recuperating.”

  Kaddie said nothing and began bundling the netherwort, wrapping the stems with string, ready for hanging. Under normal circumstances she might have joined the conversation, but it felt awkward to be discussing her newly-discovered grandfather. She suspected he felt the same way, too.

  Thus far, his recent return to irascible banter had been aimed solely at Torrell who was managing to weather it. Nonetheless, she was keeping an eye on things. That her grandfather was a bully, she had already discovered on her very first day.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, Torrell returned.

  “We were right,” he said, joining her at the prep table farthest from the hearth.

  Kaddie placed her pen carefully in its cradle. They were presently alone, with the exception of Bodworth curled up by the fire, but she kept her voice low. “What happened?”

  “We stopped by the guardhouse. I’m guessing Robles is still there. Captain Young let slip that she’d just gotten back from the Bryler Street ruin, and the Shale were there, asking questions.”

  “Is that why he sent you home, so you couldn’t listen in?”

  “I think so. That, and him and the captain, well, you know.”

  Kaddie let out a sigh. “But what does it mean? Are we in trouble?”

  He shrugged and his expression became disconsolate.

  “How can we find out?”

  “Kaddie—”

  “Oh, come on. There has to be a way.”

  “Sure, but it’ll mean talking to people we can trust, and I don’t know anyone. Do you?”

  “I have an idea. Those young men we met in the second city. They might help.”

  “The ones who broke your nose?”

  “They didn’t break it, and after what they did, they owe me to keep my mouth shut.”

  He began to laugh. “You’re serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “They’ll just punch you again.”

  “Not if I have something to trade.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have a sack full of spent bark that Elspeth gave to me. I was going to send it home.”

  “We’ll get into trouble.”

  “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “What, and leave you to get beaten up all over again? Or worse?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Yes, and that’s another thing. You can’t just go down there and start waving a knife around. It’s not just them, it’s their parents you have to watch for.”

  “They’re just people.”

  “You really don’t know anything about the second city, do you?”

  “According to you it’s simply a dark, horrible place full of creaky old stones.”

  “Stones don’t creak.” The corner of Torrell’s mouth lifted. Moments later, both he and Kaddie were laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Marla burst through the rear door, both hands struggling with a bulging straw bag. “Come on, you two, help me with this, and clear that table. I’ve dinner to prepare.”

  ##

  Dusk was fast approaching as Kaddie sat at the table in her attic room and made the final touches to her illustration of Shadow Valley brain weed. She’d already copied the annotations from her journal onto the parchment, and was more than satisfied with the result. The illustration in her journal was four years old, she’d been quite proud of it at the time, but she had become more accomplished since then.

  There were also other notes to add, now that her knowledge had expanded. There were, after all, seven varieties of brain weed, named for the shape of its flowers that grew in the Valley and its environs, and not five, as originally noted.

  Her grandmother had been particularly delighted in discovering a blue-tinged variety, and had followed it up with a stern lecture about how one should always consider oneself a student and never a master. “There’ll always be something, especially out here, to catch you out,” she’d added with a wink.

  Kaddie had added the supplementary notes in purple ink, in order to differentiate, and the larger format of parchment gave her plenty of room to do so.

  Almost done for the evening, she was in the midst of adding the small tendrils that sprang from the outer section of the flower, when she heard voices outside. Distracted, she looked out of the window and saw one of the neighbors, an older man with stringy gray hair, addressing a gathering of people on his rooftop.

  She had seen him before, outside at dusk, but on this occasion, rather than tending his rooftop garden, he had pushed aside his pots of flowers and was now using the space to talk to a number of young men and women, on a subject she had yet to discern.

  Moments later, he paired everyone off and began a demonstration of pushing and shoving. Kaddie watched, fascinated. The sky began to darken and the man instructed a young man to light the nearby lanterns. He then collected a bundle of sticks and handed one to each of his students. At that point, Kaddie left the window and dashed downstairs.

  She found Torrell sitting at one of the tables in the kitchen, his beloved book open in front of him. “Quickly.” She took his arm, pulled him from his stool and led him grumbling all the way up three flights of stairs.

  “What’s so important? Oh…” He settled alongside her to watch. “You know Robles can do that? I saw him once.”

  “When? Where?”

  “Not long after I came here. It was getting dark and we were taking a shortcut across town. Someone stepped out and threatened us.”

  “Like in the tunnels?”

  “Pretty much. I’ve never seen the old man react so fast. He broke his stick, too. Had to get it fixed.”

  Kaddie’s attention was back on the view outside the window. “I want to learn.”

  Torrell let out a breath, and was about to say something when they both heard a shout from below. Kaddie ran to the bedroom door, and on seeing Elspeth, she beckoned. “Come take a look.”

  “It’s time for dinner.”

  “Please?”

  Moments later, all three were at the window, watching as the man on the rooftop demonstrated a high guard, followed by his students as they did their best to replicate his example.

  Torrell grinned. “That one on the far left, his guard is too low. I could brain him, easy.”

  “All right, that’s enough.” Elspeth drew them both from the window. “Dinner. And we’ll have no more talk of braining.”

  ##

  Downstairs, part way through a dinner of broth and dumplings, Poisoner Robles returned and immediately climbed the stairs to his room without saying a word. Kaddie regarded the others around the table. Elspeth had her eyebrows raised, but no one said anything, and dinner was finished in silence.

  The servant’s bell rang as they were cleaning the dishes. Marla disappeared up the stairs and returned moments later with a frown on her face. “He has something to say to us.”

  The fire hadn’t been lit in Robles’ study. Consequently, it felt damp and smelled faintly of lunghorn. Kaddie’s imagination conjured all manner of subjects as she studied her grandfather’s face. He appeared calm enough, but that was the problem. He was never calm.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  “We have a dilemma,” he began.