THE ROAD COILING AROUND ?elasdur’s spire gave Esor ample view of the sin?os on the way down. From above, the village looked like a dark smear alongside dark waters. As he descended, individual shacks became distinct. Overhanging roofs linked to shadow the spaces between buildings, which formed a singular blanket impenetrable by Light. Esor could discern no individual streets under the rolling sheets of stick-and-mud.

  It was unlike the Light-drenched streets on the spire road. The manors shined above Esor, encouraging him to turn back.

  In the shelter of the xilcadis wall, Esor gathered his courage. He muttered encouraging words under his breath, slapped his cheeks, and shook himself out. The guards who opened the gates to let him pass wouldn’t make eye contact after watching him do that.

  Esor hurried through the village. What looked like only a blanket of roofs from above was, below, a maze of saplings, vine barriers, and burning refuse outside pit-shacks. The air tasted like tainted soot. A Dokàlvar could live her entire life in such streets without ever once being seen by Nam?’s eye.

  A flooded trench ran alongside the road, guiding brown water from the shacks’ gutters toward the bay. Only that trench looked like it was part of the village’s plan. Other mid-road trenches were unplanned and unavoidable when industry sent so many heavy carts riding to and fro at all hours. Esor walked along the edges in others’ footprints, but his boots still grew heavy with mud in the slog.

  Industry was quiet for the time being. Holiday restrictions on work extended to Low. Instead, Dokàlvar strung listlessly throughout the alleys between shacks, staring at anyone who passed with luminous eyes.

  Esor took a turn down a narrow road, away from the crowds, and stumbled into another busy marketplace. He was not the only well-dressed àlvar passing through. The few unbonded Low in the sin?os worked here. It was watched by guards wearing the yellow and blue of House írsa. Esor’s breathing slowed at the sight.

  Two pillories stood at either side of the market square. One of them held a Low àlvar by the neck and wrists. His knees were sagging, eyes closed, lips pale. Multiple wounds had blinded his right eye. The scabs were filthy with rot. Flies picked him over, and Esor was transfixed, waiting to see if the prisoner would breathe.

  “You look hungry, child.”

  At the voice, Esor stopped staring and turned. An old Dokàlvar named Yliriem sat on the ground outside a shop, her knees folded to her chest. “Would you like a taste?” She offered a skewer. She was eating from another blackened with charcoal.

  Esor bowed to her. “My thanks, Grandmother, but I must move on.” Far from the pillory’s cross-shaped shadow on wood-plank roads. Away from flies. Away from liveried guards.

  “Do not disappoint your mother by refusing hospitality from a withered old doe,” she said.

  “My mother is too far from here to know.”

  “Mothers always know,” Yliriem said sternly. She made pleased sounds when Esor crouched beside her, watching to ensure he ate. She introduced herself by name. Esor offered his in return. “You are lost, no? Never been loose in sin?os ?elasdur before, little Master Esor?”

  “You have my measure. My friend told me not to come this way, yet come I did. It overwhelms me.”

  “It is a lovely place, the sin?os, however it may look. But you must look for loveliness. It’s those who look for trouble who find trouble, understood?”

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  “What do those seeking a locksmith on the docks find?” countered Esor.

  “His shop is yonder.” Yliriem pointed to a road. “Down and left.”

  He thanked her for the directions. Esor ate the skewer with his back turned to the pillories. The meat was sticky-sweet, with a skin seared to crisp. He could not help but make happy smacking noises as he ate. “I will know where to look for loveliness in the future, Grandmother.”

  She stroked his hair. She kissed his cheek. “Nam? bless you,” she whispered. A wrinkled old finger slid underneath the chain of his Eternal Cross, tugging it tight against the back of his neck. “Nam? protect you as her own.”

  Nourished, Yliriem went back to work inside the shop. Its sign was marked with pestle and twig—a healer’s office. Esor dropped a talon into the bowl outside the door before leaving.

  The locksmith’s shop was little more than a few haphazardly sung saplings leaning together. Rain dribbled through the cracks in the walls. Shriveled gray leaves trembled when the slatted door creaked open to permit Esor. Círdiras’s work was as fine as promised: a hundred thumb-sized wooden locks hanging on the insides of the walls, sheltered from moisture by greatfish skin. The latches radiated suspicion at the approach of a stranger.

  Círdiras himself was not in attendance. Instead, Esor met the apprentice, Luidor.

  “It’s quite a journey to get here,” said Esor, attempting to scrape his muddy shoes off on the doorway. It was equally muddy inside. “The sin?os has no proper roads or signs to travel. Has it always been like that, or is something wrong?”

  Luidor said, “Something’s wrong, all right. A great many things are wrong in this Republic.”

  Esor chuckled. “Ah, blessed by the All-Mother, we are, the Republic is, and—it’s definitely not like that anywhere else I’ve been, certainly.”

  “That’s how folks live,” said Luidor. “Most everywhere, just like this, or worse.”

  “I don’t think it’s like that at home.” Esor could not be certain. He had avoided sin?os Sibíko for any purpose except to leave the xilcadis. “Where is your master? When will he return?”

  “His talents were needed on the war front. You can have the work he left behind if you’ve the crown, glass ear.” Luidor’s hostile gaze took survey of Esor’s new leather boots, the purse poorly concealed under his tunic, the jonquil silk lining of his hood.

  “I seek help. I have a lock made by hands rather than artisan-sung.”

  “Let me see it, then,” said Luidor. Esor showed him, and the apprentice locksmith whistled between the cracks in his teeth. “Metal tells me Man, Ork, or Dwarrow. That design is something else entirely. The lock... What’s inside of it?”

  “I think a ring, given the size,” said Esor. “Can you help me?”

  “I’d be curious to see it open. To see the ring a lock like that protects.” Luidor’s itchy fingers wiggled across the counter. “Leave it here and I’ll see what can be done.”

  “I shall remain as you work.”

  “No need. Could be many Lights before I’ve any results.” Luidor held the shack’s door shut when Esor attempted to exit. “Give me the box. I’d hate to see you leave disappointed.” His breath smelled of fish roasted in charcoal.

  Esor forced a too-loud laugh. “Good sir, I must leave. If your concern is loss of business... Well, I can hardly judge for that! Please, friend, take this brass talon and my thanks for your time.”

  Luidor hung onto Esor’s wrist to paw at talon and lock alike. “Don’t go to another locksmith. Only Círdiras can open it. Only we will not punish you for owning it!” The apprentice was so strong. His grip ached.

  Esor could not retreat into his robes like a turtle into his shell, but he made a marvelous effort. All the while he laughed breathlessly as though it were a harmless tussle. “I have no quarrel with you, friend!” Esor shoved free.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Luidor’s last words were shouted out his door as Esor stumbled onto the muddy road. Esor fell, splashed in the mud, got back to his boots. “Get back here, lad!”

  Esor cut across the docks, where the wood was so rotten his heels sank. The hem of his overrobe tracked filth. Now the eyes of the Low seemed far more sinister, and Esor raced back to the more civilized market.

  He halted when he spied àstin an Galefar crossing the village square. The other teacher was carrying a fat white hare slung over his back, its ears clenched in a fist, blood staining the fur between its rear legs. The professor did not see Esor, and Esor did not call out to him. àstin stepped into Yliriem’s hut and dropped the rabbit on the counter. Esor watched from the opposite end of the road, rolling the lock box in his fingers, until Yliriem took the hare and àstin into the back room.