It wasn’t just a sense of honor that had stopped Ani from snitching on Harald. He had left them without saying a word and then released their horses. No, she wanted to deal with him herself.

Three days had passed since she left the Barym residence, and she sometimes thought of the false promise she made with Fidelia to return. She had lived in a heavenly cloud for the past week. Now she was back in her small squalid hut in the 3rd ward. The walls were made of rough-hewn wood and the thatched roof leaked when it rained.

The one-room hut had been clearly searched; there were footprints on the dusty floors. She could imagine their disappointed faces. Nothing but a hay mattress, a cold hearth, and a few bowls. She would’ve considered it the work of thieves, but they would’ve known better than to try her place. It was a place to sleep and that was it. She had several hiding places for everything else.

Harald would be at the 7th ward, she was certain of it. The ward was a sprawling warren of hills and burrows, and it was known for two things: its nightlife and the Hounds that frequented it. There were pubs and inns built under, into, and atop steep inclines.

Instead of horse-drawn carriages, people relied on night murmurs, domesticated goat-like beasts that were good at climbing hills and small enough to fit in the burrows. The nocturnal creatures were named after the quiet braying noises they made.

She didn’t have the budget for that. She wore dark robes with thick wool lining and a hood, a coil of rope tied around her waist. Underneath the rope was a belt, the pouches holding twelve daggers and a couple of quarter-pittens. Gallinger flails were too expensive to replace, so she had a gallinger torch in her hand to light the way. It would be enough.

It took two nights of uphill walks and coquettish questioning before she found Harald. He had abandoned his old favorite pubs and the ones that Hounds frequented for work. Instead, she discovered him at a seedy bar in the deep bowels of the underground.

He looked as she remembered – thinning brown hair, beady eyes, and a bulky figure. He was sitting on the second floor with a throng of ten men. She had to take him alone and by surprise; he could easily overpower her.

She immediately sat down at a table on the first floor, a spot that would give her a good vantage point. It was a strange group. Some of the men dressed gaudily in robes of colored silk, and others wore formal coats and no vests, exposing their chests. To describe them broadly, they seemed like adult delinquents. Too flashy to be Hounds, but she didn’t discount the possibility.

Harald was talking animatedly to a bald man. The man wore an orange-red frock, the outfit of a temple priest, that was much too big on him. There were several large stains on it, presumably spilled alcohol.

The group lingered for a while before getting up and leaving the pub. She waited a few moments and then ran after them. They hadn’t gone far, and even if they had, she could track them by their hooting and laughter. They were like a group of Foretoken youths who had just discovered a barrel of mead.

They meandered in and out of burrows, one or two of them splitting off at every stop. Finally, there were only two left: Harald and the priest. Raising her hood, she closed the distance until she was a few feet away from them.

“...and that’s not a difference in thinking,” the priest was saying. “It’s an elevation of it! They say the Ai’zaar is the smartest race there is, smarter than Worldrenders. How can we possibly compete unless we marry into their society?”

“You could be onto something,” Harald mused.

They continued like this for a while, and Ani gritted her teeth in frustration. She didn’t want to involve anyone else unless necessary. A mist was settling into the night and she silently thanked the fogfritters. The crowds thinned and soon there were only drunk stragglers loudly singing.

She looked at the sloping ground and realized where they were heading. The dirt pathways were becoming thinner and thinner; soon, they’d be replaced with the cobblestone streets of the 4th ward. She couldn’t act there – there were too many Inquell patrols around. She had to move now.

Harald and the priest were singing. They had started off singing the same song, one they had heard from a passing group, but at some point they had diverged, resulting in a discordant warbling.

She twisted the handle of her torch, and the fire sputtered before disappearing. The metal rod that had been burning was still hot. She smiled. That was fine. When the pair had reached the foot of the hill, she made her move.

She launched herself at Harald, swinging the rod at the back of his head. He yelped, crumbling to the ground, and she leaped on top of him, her knees pushed against his back. She pulled a dagger out of her pouch with her left hand and pointed it at the priest.

“My business is with him!” she yelled. “Don’t get involved.” The priest shuffled back a few steps, looking uncertainly between her and Harald.

“O’Forebearer, that hurts,” the Hound groaned. “What the…”

He tried to raise his right arm, and she swung the torch at the elbow. He screamed in pain.

She leaned over to his ear. “How much money did you make off those sheep, Harald?”

“Ah, ah, Ani, sweet Ani, you–”

“Answer me!” She slammed the dagger into the dirt beside his head. She pulled it back out and kept it pointed at the priest who hadn’t left yet. “I warned you, priest!”

“Emil, get her off me,” Harald said, his voice cracking.

“U-unhand my friend, wench,” the priest named Emil stuttered, not moving an inch.

“Left us to die to the Worldrender, did you?” She slammed the torch against Harald’s left hand, and he let out a satisfying groan of pain. “Remember Miriam? She said she’d string you up for leaving us. And now she’s dead.”

Miriam’s name elicited the reaction she wanted. “I’m sorry, really sorry,” he blubbered. “I’m a coward, always have been. But I’ve given it all up now! I’m trying to change, do better.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said through gritted teeth. “How much money did you make from those sheep? Must be a fortune for you to be able to start anew.”

“Four half-pittens,” he said. “Nothing more, I swear. No, wait, and three quarter-pittens. But that’s it!”

“Liar.” She pressed the edge of the dagger to his throat, drawing blood. “There were at least twenty sheep in that wagon. A full-pitten minimum.”

“No, no, no,” he wailed. “By the time I got back, the demand had gone down. That’s all I got, I swear!”

She wanted to doubt his words but couldn’t. Harald had never gone with them to negotiate prices or contracts before. She had been one of the team’s two main negotiators, playing the wheedling young woman to complement Hammond’s brusque, condescending persona.

Harald was foolish and timid enough to try to sell the whole wagon of sheep altogether instead of slowly and to several different merchants. “Where is it then?” she demanded.

“In my room! The manor! There’s a gap in the floorboards behind the bust of Marcius Tarien!”

“What?” He spoke so quickly that she hadn’t understood it all.

“Emil!” he called out to the priest. “Run back to the manor and get it for her! Please, please, please.”

“R-right!” Before she could say anything, the priest ran off into the mist.

She grimaced. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The plan had been to frighten him, have him confess where he hid the money, and tie him up with the rope around her robe. She despised him, but it wasn’t worth a potential murder charge. She didn’t want to give the High Herald another reason to visit.

“This better not be a trick,” she said, pushing her left knee harder against his back.

“It’s not!” he said. “So can you please let me up? I won’t try anything, promise. You know I’ve always kept my promises.”

She thought for a moment and then eased her knee off him.

“Good, that’s –” Before he could say anything else, she wrenched both of his hands together behind his back, followed by a yelp of pain from the big man. She pulled the rope loose from her robe to tie his hands.

“Satisfied?” he huffed when she finished.

She sat atop his shoulder blades, frowning in contemplation. He hadn’t even tried to throw her off him like she thought he would. She voiced her suspicion. “You were expecting me?”

“Course I was,” was his gruff reply. “I’ve been a Hound long enough. I knew what was coming. Cowardice is paid in blood.”

“I see.” It didn’t right his wrongs and she certainly didn’t forgive him, but at least he had some self-awareness. Maybe it was worth questioning him. “Harald, you saw him too, right? The Worldrender?”

There was a brief silence before he answered. “I’ve been hearing about that on the streets. But...well, I saw a man and I knew he was dangerous. So I ran. Simple as that.”

Another non-committal answer. She sighed. “And what about that whole thing you were saying about starting a new life? Was that just bullshit or were you serious?”

“Serious,” he grunted. “Didn’t I ever tell you? If I wasn’t a Hound, I’d be a woodcarver.”

“A woodcarver?” She hadn’t expected it and let out a snort of laughter. But she recalled the little wooden statues that he would chip away at during hunts.

“Yes, a woodcarver,” he said in a hurt voice.

“Sorry, go on.”

“Emil, that priest you saw, told me about a patron. Rich, troves and troves of full-pittens. Emil said he used to be a famous Vivineer back in the day. Like, really famous, even among the Foretoken families. Now he spends all his money on sponsoring artists. Strange man. Honestly, I was thinking of robbing him at first,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well, Emil convinced me to talk to him. I showed him my wood carvings and he, well, he loved them.” Harald sounded embarrassed. “Raved about them, said I really had a good knack for faces and I could stay at his manor. I realized, y’know, I could maybe just give up being a Hound. Work on wood all day, like I always wanted to.”

“You have a sense of loyalty?” she said incredulously.

“’Course I do,” he said, offended.

It was strange, making small talk with a man she had just threatened to kill several times. But they had worked together for months and the conversation flowed naturally even though his hands were tied and she was sitting on top of him.

“Looks like your friend’s not coming back,” she said after a while. “Probably left you for dead like you did to us.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” he said, but his voice shook with uncertainty.

But then she heard the voices coming their way. It was hard to see how many through the fog. She held the dagger back to Harald’s throat and he let out a soft whimper. If there were too many, she’d have to run.

“...should hire guards for occasions like these,” said a thin male voice. “You’d think the sculptors would be more reliable. They spend all day hammering at stone, flexing those muscles.”

“Sir, with all due respect, we have to hurry.” The priest’s voice.

“Yes, I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” said the other man leisurely.

“My lord, was it really a good idea to bring me along?” There came a feminine voice. One that sounded familiar. “Shouldn’t we have taken the other men along instead?”

“Nonsense, it’s been a while since our last walk. Besides, this is the perfect night to try this–”

The group appeared out of the fog and her eyes widened. Beside the priest was a man that was best described as unkempt. With flaxen hair that almost reached his shoulders and a wispy beard, he wore an ill-fitting robe and an even more ill-fitting black coat.

Alarmingly, he held a thin sheath in his right hand. A rapier. Upon seeing her, he immediately drew it with a troubled expression. It had a strange cup-like cross-guard that for some reason reminded her of the underside of a blooming flower. His stance was awful, his legs spread too wide.

To his side was a young woman dressed in a navy blue servant’s gown. It had been a few years since they’d last seen each other, but she recognized her instantly.

“Mairwen?”

Mairwen’s lips parted in surprise. “Ani, what are you…”

The flaxen-haired man looked between the two and sheathed the rapier with a sigh. “I brought this thing out for nothing, huh.”