Thoroughly warm and content, Vidar stepped out from his room with a new, triggered sowilo rune in his breast pocket, giving off enough heat to keep the worst cold off him without burning through his clothes. Having waited for the paint to dry, he was now in possession of two more sowilo runes and three kenaz runes.

  His arms and legs tingled but had regained most of their essence following a hearty meal from the innkeeper after she properly introduced herself as Edna.

  Resigning his position with Embla was next on the agenda. Everyone else would be returning from their daily tasks and he would much rather have people around when he gave back the key and the map. Lacking paper, he’d scribbled a map depicting a rough approximation of his last excursion down into the sewers on the wall of his room. Just in case he forgot the way.

  During the short trek to Embla’s house, he thought of ways he might fit heat runes into his shoes. The heat radiating from the sowilo rune at his chest did little to stave off the wet and the cold seeping in through the seams of his shoes.

  “You’re leaving?” Embla’s eyes were wide with some emotion he couldn’t quite pinpoint. It wasn’t anger, like he’d feared, and it definitely wasn’t worry. Consternation, perhaps, like she couldn’t wrap her head around what he was saying. A sense of betrayal might be mixed in there too, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  “I am,” he confirmed, handing over the map and the key.

  The room was silent. Tired urchins squeezed together on wooden benches looked on with varying levels of boredom. Ida and Siv showed identical looks of intense interest, but he sensed their reasons differed.

  “Does this have something to do with your visit uptown?” Embla asked.

  “Yes, and no. They are not as keen of mind as I’d hoped, but it’s mostly a concern for my own safety. I’ve almost died every time I set foot down there. I’m not much, but I’m all I have. Would be a shame to die while smelling of shit.”

  Embla pursed her lips in thought but did not question his motives. “You’ll be difficult to replace. Do you wish to dig graves for the priests, then?”

  “No. I’ve decided to leave the group altogether.”

  “Thought as much. Good luck to you, then, Vidar. You may eat today, provided you completed your task, but then you must be off. We have neither space nor food for those who do not work.”

  Vidar glanced around the big, empty house, but said nothing. Instead, he nodded and turned to leave, encouraged by Embla’s lack of reaction. For some reason, he’d expected fury from the rigid young woman. For her to call down the brute and have him sit on Vidar, or worse.

  “Vidar.”

  He froze and slowly turned to look over his shoulder.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “I am?” he asked, his chest tightening.

  “The light rune.”

  The breath stuck in his throat flowed out in relief. “Oh. The light rune.”

  Vidar reached into a pocket and triggered the kenaz rune before withdrawing it. He stepped up and placed it on the large desk separating him from Embla, along with a few copper coins. “For the lantern,” he explained. “Lost it.”

  “A few days and you’re ready to leave with coins in your pocket,” she mused. “Did you find hidden treasure down there that you forgot to share with the rest of us, Vidar?”

  “No, nothing like that,” he said. “Found a scribe who is allowing me to work for him. That’s all.”

  She gave him a searching look, then a short nod that did not mean she believed him. Vidar could tell, but Embla didn’t question him further, so he turned to leave again.

  “Wait!” Ida then shouted, jumping out of her seat on the bench to point a stiff finger at Embla behind her desk. “We’re leaving too! Come on, Siv!”

  A murmur broke out among the other urchins. Clearly, they were not happy with this development.

  “Becoming a petty thief is not a grand future for someone as bright as you, Ida,” Embla said, raising her voice so it carried over the confused, hurt din of voices. “The thieves’ guild will have your hide before the week is out, if the guardsmen don’t catch you first.”

  Ida scoffed. “We’ll see.”

  She moved past Vidar, who didn’t know what to make of the scene, and Siv followed, looking back to both Embla and him, her eyes wide with fright.

  Vidar exited the building after the two girls, then shouted, “Ida, hold on!”

  “What?” she asked, turning.

  “Do you even have a place to stay?”

  Her hard face softened and that smile she’d been wearing the day they met, before she realized he wasn’t their long-lost friend, returned. “Nope, but we’ll think of something. That silver you paid us will go a long way and we’ve got some things hidden away. Anything is better than spending another day sewing socks.”

  Vidar wasn’t so sure he agreed with that sentiment, but he’d get nowhere trying to question her decision. Done was done.

  “I have a room. You can stay with me if you want. For a short time, anyway.”

  Ida frowned. “Staying with a boy is not a good idea.”

  “I’m old enough to be your father,” Vidar blurted, incredulity in his voice.

  Siv giggled and Ida laughed out loud.

  “Well, I am,” Vidar said. “Almost.”

  Ida put a hand on his shoulder. They were of the same height. “You’re one of the good ones, I think, but that changes nothing. We don’t stay with boys. That’s one mistake we will not repeat, right, Siv?”

  Siv nodded hesitantly, touching the scar wrapping around the right side of her throat.

  Vidar didn’t know what to say, so he gave them the name of the inn where he was staying, just in case they needed to find him, then said, “Goodbye.”

  On the way to the rune scribes’ guild, Vidar made quite a few stops, trying to sell his wares. Initially, there was some resistance. Even in the less fortunate part of town, the people knew about the guild’s writ and his inability to produce one was met with suspicion. The first few attempts at convincing potential customers they faced no more risk than having the runes taken from them failed. They would not even allow him to rejuvenate already present runes for reduced prices. Until one did. A young woman with a babe on her hip, one running around her skirts, and a husband off working somewhere eventually disappeared deep into the house she apparently shared with two other families, only to return with a spent kenaz rune.

  “This one?” Vidar asked, taking it from her outstretched hand.

  “We don’t have much money,” the young woman said. Her eyes were watery and her upper lip stiff, like she was barely holding it together for her children.

  Vidar scratched at his ear and looked away from her face. “Can you perhaps spare a meal?”

  That was how he found himself seated at a rickety table in a cramped kitchen with a bowl of soup in front of him and a generous helping of bread to go with it. It didn’t taste half-bad, but it looked suspiciously similar to what the urchins were offered after a day of working.

  “My husband gets paid by the week,” the young woman explained, seated opposite him by the table. More children were running around now and two other women chased after them, both a little older than the one speaking with Vidar.

  Vidar made a noise of acknowledgement, his mouth full of soup. A draft made it in through the poorly sealed window. The kitchen—really only a small room with a stove and a table—had been pitch black before he rejuvenated the rune.

  Just as he swallowed a mouthful of food, he saw how she pulled her many layers of clothes tighter around herself.

  “It’s cold in here,” Vidar said.

  “It’s a little better during the day, when the children run about, bouncing off the walls. We’re living together to help keep warm, my family and the others.”

  He was about to offer the woman a sowilo rune but pulled back before letting it slip past his lips. Despite understanding the plight of these people, he was in no position to go handing out runes without compensation. Even one warmth rune required more essence than he could spare, forcing him to walk around with a useless arm for quite some time.

  This highlighted a predicament he hadn’t, but should have, anticipated. People were poor. Even at highly discounted prices, many would not have the funds to purchase his wares and services. He’d give it a little longer, walking the streets of Andersburg, before heading uptown where the citizenry wasn’t quite so destitute. The probability of being caught by the guild or reported to the Crown for his activities both increased with every street he crossed northward, but it was a risk he would have to accept given the lack of alternatives. If nothing else, he needed enough coin to pay for his room.

  He said his goodbyes after finishing the meal, promising himself he would find some way to offer some measure of help to those who could not afford it, but only once he was comfortably wealthy.

  After visiting a few more family houses and making no progress, he happened upon a row of businesses, one of which was a bookshop of all things. How such a place could stay open in a part of town where people could not afford proper light and warmth, Vidar couldn’t fathom. Curious, he entered.

  The door was unlocked and a small bell jingled merrily when he opened the door. It smelled of stale air and a type of glue used in binding books that went out of style more than a decade before Vidar was even born. Books were set in piles on the floor and on top of an assortment of tables with little organization. The place was free of dust and kept that dryness he associated with places where books were meant to be stored for long periods of time, like libraries or private collections. Not an easy balance to strike, even with sowilo runes. He saw none in that space, but knew there would have to be some.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Vidar did see several kenaz runes. They brightened the room and were of fine quality, as far as he could tell, with symbols carefully scratched and painted onto a metal plate, like the ones his father kept in his house.

  A man cleared his throat behind Vidar, who jumped and spun to face the door. He hadn’t realized how far into the room he’d gone, and the way out was now blocked by a gruff-looking man with a long, dark brown mustache and eyebrows like thick caterpillars crawling across his brow.

  “W-who are you?” Vidar asked, taking another step back, farther into the room.

  Those enormous eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement, and he moved his hand in a gesture to encompass the entirety of the room. “What’s that supposed to mean? It’s my shop, isn’t it?”

  The man wore a worker’s outfit of thick, uncolored fabric and a leather vest, and a cap on his bald head. With arms thick enough to strain the sleeves of the shirt, and hands covered in thin, white scars, the man before him did not strike Vidar as the proprietor of a bookshop.

  “Are you sure?” Vidar asked, the question sounding dumb even to his own ears.

  “Look, boy, you coming in here stinking up the place. Do you want a book or not? Just take one and go.”

  “You’ll give me a book?” Vidar asked.

  The man, blocking his way out, grabbed one from a pile at random and held it out in front of him. “Just take it and go.”

  It was one Vidar had seen before. Even with his issue of letters jumping around, he recognized it from the shelf of books his mother kept. She read a very particular sort of book.

  “The Prince Who Loved a Maid?” Vidar asked. “I’m not one for romance stories. Can you even read?”

  The man returned the book to its pile with surprising care, then stepped forward, squaring up. The reddishness of his face was not from embarrassment. No, that was clearly an ill-restrained fury.

  “How about I pick you up and toss you face-first into the snow?”

  Vidar held up both hands. The room suddenly felt very small and cramped, with no escape to be had. “Apologies. I’m only teasing.”

  “Speak up, runt! What are you even doing in here?”

  The wide, now very menacing man moved even closer, near enough to reach out and crush him like an egg.

  Vidar stepped back again and bumped into a table, sending several books plummeting to the floor. He winced and pulled out a kenaz rune. “I’m here to sell runes, but it seems you already have plenty!”

  At that moment, one of the light runes by the left wall flickered and then fell dark. They both stared at it for a moment.

  “Show me the guild’s writ.”

  Vidar turned to look at the man who apparently was the bookstore owner, expecting a new wave of rage from the man at this next revelation. “I don’t have one.”

  But anger did not blossom. Instead, curiosity spread through the face of the man still blocking the only way out. Then, the man narrowed his eyes. “A guildless rune scribe? I don’t believe you.”

  Without thinking, Vidar pointed the kenaz rune to the ceiling and triggered it. Bright light shone against the wooden beams up above and the planks above those. He didn’t take his eyes off the large man and saw his expression change from expectant interest to some sort of gleeful excitement. The man even started rubbing his hands together, like he was looking at a particularly scrumptious meal.

  “We’ll work with you,” he said, pausing. “What is your name, boy?”

  Vidar rendered the kenaz rune inactive and put it back in his pocket. “We? Who’re ‘we’? I’m Vidar, and I’m no boy.”

  “A gal? You?”

  Vidar pulled back his shoulders and stood up straight. “I’m a man!”

  “Of course you are, boy. I’m Ren. Wait here a moment,” he replied, shuffling past the many stacks of books and tables, pushing past Vidar to a desk at the back. Vidar thought of escaping through the now unblocked door, but Ren didn’t have that menacing aura anymore, now that the anger in him was replaced by barely contained excitement.

  “Here you go.”

  Vidar jumped and turned back around to see Ren standing right in front of him. With wide eyes, he wondered how the huge shopkeeper had moved on such silent feet. Ren must’ve seen something in his eyes, because he pulled back his hand with the note when Vidar reached for it.

  “Why don’t we walk there together instead?”

  “Walk where?” Vidar asked, apprehensive.

  Ren put his arm around Vidar’s shoulders and steered him toward the door, shepherding him back out into the cold. “You’ll see,” he said. The man didn’t even bother locking the front door to his shop.

  Thankfully, the walk wasn’t far. Their destination was still in Rat Town, in one of the more upscale buildings near the town wall. It loomed far up above their heads, casting a long shadow in the now setting sun. Vidar didn’t mind the wall. The thick, solid stone structure kept them all safe from what lurked beyond. Wild animals and bandits, even monsters skulked around out there, some said. He himself never set foot outside Halmstadt. With his father’s customers being located in the city proper, there’d never been a reason. It wasn’t that Vidar was afraid of going through the gate and out onto the open road. It just wasn’t in his nature, that was all.

  Once, as a child, he’d been permitted to enter one of the stairways up to the parapet and see for himself. To see the open fields and the forest beyond. When he turned from that position, he glimpsed the vastness of the sea. Neither sea nor land awoke any sort of wanderlust in him. Vidar was happy in the city. He’d seen the faces of those walking in through the gate. They looked tired, even ragged. Some were fearful, others full of grief. He wasn’t sure about what was out there, but he wanted no part of it.

  “This is it,” Ren said, snapping Vidar out of his reverie, gazing up at the stone wall.

  Vidar blinked. “Where are we?”

  Ren made a sweeping gesture with his arm encompassing the entire building. “This is our chapter house in Andersburg.”

  “Chapter house?” Vidar asked. “For what?”

  He saw no signage or any other hints of what might transpire within the unadorned wooden walls and beneath the sagging roof in desperate need of repair.

  “The thieves’ guild, of course.”

  That made Vidar stop dead in his tracks. “The what?”

  “There’s a bounty out for someone like you, you see. You’re about to get me a nice little purse of silver.”

  “The thieves’ guild is looking for me?”

  Vidar looked up the street and down the nearby alleyways. If he made a run for it, perhaps he could outpace the much larger man. Even able to move as silently as he’d done in the shop, someone that big couldn’t be all that fast. All he needed was one of those narrow gaps between houses that’d saved him last time.

  Ren put his hand on Vidar’s shoulder again, as if sensing the instinct to flee. “Not you specifically, no.”

  A light of curiosity went off in Vidar’s mind.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A guildless rune scribe is what we’re after. You fit that description from what you’ve told me. It’s my good fortune you stumbled into my little shop.”

  “But I just started a few days ago,” Vidar protested.

  Ren shrugged. “I’m not privy to the inner workings of the guild, but the note said nothing of skill level or years of practice. If they stiff me, there’ll be hell to pay. You’ll see.”

  They entered the house together, and Vidar didn’t know what to make of it. All he’d heard of the thieves’ guild was that you should stay clear of them.

  “Here he is!” Ren boomed as soon as they’d closed the door behind them. The room was small, dark, and without furnishings other than a cramped desk with a chair behind it. In that chair, an older man sat scribbling in a large ledger. The only thing on that table other than the ledger was a lantern. A warm, flickering glow danced behind the glass, throwing dark shadows on the wall behind them.

  “Ren,” the man behind the desk said, looking up from his writings to show a wrinkled face. It looked like it was in the process of melting off him, with loose skin hanging everywhere. Dark spots dotted his face and the whites of his eyes were tinted yellow and looked sickly. The dark brown robe this old man wore was lumpy and conformed strangely to his body, like he’d recently lost a lot of weight.

  The man before Vidar was not long for this world, if he had to guess.

  “I’ve brought the rune scribe, Bera,” Ren said. “Now hand over the silver!”

  The deathly sick man who apparently bore the name of Bera laboriously moved his gaze to Vidar, then back to Ren. He then blinked, his gaze unfocusing.

  “Bera!” Ren boomed.

  Bera sat up with a gasp and looked around in confusion, like he’d been asleep.

  “Don’t go dying on me just yet, you old bastard. Not before you get me the silver!”

  “What silver?”

  “For the scribe! The rune scribe!” Ren’s shouts grew increasingly frustrated. He gestured to an inactive kenaz rune painted onto a wooden plate on the wall and turned to Vidar. “Would you?”

  Vidar didn’t dare refuse. He walked over, touched the symbol, and willed some of his essence into the rune. Only enough to make his hand a little tingly. It would not last long. That done, he triggered it. Yellow light filled the room. It was similar to the light from the flame, only not as warm and with much greater effect. The dark shadows dancing on the walls in tune with the candle’s flickering disappeared.

  Vidar blinked, thinking he just saw one of those shadows moving oddly and disappearing a moment after the others. He ignored the moment’s confusion. Must’ve been a trick of the light.

  The light from the kenaz rune also brought some semblance of realization to Bera’s dim eyes. He pointed a long, bony finger at Vidar, wet his lips with a disgusting smack, then began flipping pages in the ledger until he found what he was looking for.

  “Here,” he finally said.

  Both Vidar and Ren leaned over the table to get a look, but Vidar couldn’t make anything out. The pages were filled with tiny text written with a terrible, trembling hand.

  “Twelve years,” Bera murmured. “Old.”

  Vidar turned to Ren. “You’ve been searching for a rune scribe for twelve years?”

  “It’s been in there forever,” Ren confirmed.

  “But, I don’t understand. It isn’t that difficult. Anyone could do it. You’re the thieves’ guild. You must have someone who isn’t afraid of the rune scribes’ guild.”

  “Like I said, I’m not privy to that sort of information, but I know there have been attempts.”

  “Attempts at what?” Vidar asked, dumbfounded.

  “Learning, of course.”

  “And?”

  Ren shrugged. “I heard they all died. This was years ago.”

  A pair of young men entered through a side door, glanced at Ren and Vidar, then continued to the exit in silence. They shut the door outside behind them without another word.

  “Take your issue to the disappointment of a whelp in the auxiliary,” Bera croaked, indicating a door to his right, Vidar’s left.

  Ren herded Vidar deeper into the building. This room, too, was lit with nothing more than candles. At least there were several here.

  This room was more spacious, holding several desks and three lines of simple chairs, all facing one way. A room for meetings, perhaps. Only one desk was occupied.

  “Yallander, you bastard!” Ren shouted at the figure who wore the same sort of brown robe as Bera. He needn’t have shouted, since they’d been spotted the moment they entered the room.

  Yallander gestured for them to sit. He himself sat with a straight back and an imperious look on his face, his face tilted slightly upward. It gave Vidar the impression of this fellow looking down at him. The fact his desk was on a raised platform in front of all those empty chairs only added to the effect. He found himself immediately disliking this Yallander person.

  Yallander stood and went around his desk to stand before them. He held out his hand to Vidar, who took it. “Who is this you have with you, Ren? I’m Yallander. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Vidar.”

  “Welcome, Vidar,” Yallander said. “Since that old bastard sent you in here, I’m guessing you have some sort of proposition for me. I’m all ears.”

  “Rune scribe,” Ren said while nodding with gravitas.

  Yallander’s eyes widened a little, and a genuine-seeming smile spread over his face. It made the man look ten years younger and Vidar would have placed his age perhaps a decade past his own, if it wasn’t for the multitude of gray hairs on his head.

  “Since you’re in here and not dead and dumped somewhere unsightly, I suppose you are not affiliated with the guild in Halmstadt. An outsider, then. Have you traveled from our grand capital, perhaps?”

  Vidar cleared his throat. “No, I’m from right here. I’m not sure what is happening, but Ren dragged me here. I am not part of the rune scribes’ guild, but I am capable of rune craft.”

  Yallander’s eyes shone in the light from the candle flame. “Well, well, well. How fortuitous for us all. Ren, you’ve done well. Perhaps you’ve outgrown the musty bookshop and atoned for your missteps. Why don’t you head back and I’ll send coin over first thing tomorrow, along with word of your new posting? We’re looking for a guardsman, if you’re up to it.”

  “A guardsman? Really?” Ren asked, a grim smile on his face. He cracked his knuckles and stood. “You know I’m up for it, Yallander.”

  He then nodded to Vidar and turned to walk out of the room without another word. Vidar didn’t fully understand what just transpired between the two members of the thieves’ guild, but he did not like the mention of a thief working as a guardsman. Since it was none of his business, he kept his mouth shut about the matter.

  Instead, he asked, “Why am I here? What is going on?”