“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY RIVER!” Beth blurted, staring out the window in shock.

It was gone. Beth’s beautiful river was gone. That mental image of a breezy backyard, staring at the crystal waters and watching the seagulls soar overhead while enjoying her coffee? All gone. And what had it been replaced with? A 5-metre-tall stone building a mere arm’s length from their backyard wall.

“Oh god, what is that stench?” her husband said, covering his nose.

“Tannery,” the kids said in unison.

Beth and Peter turned to look at them.

“How on earth would you know that?” Beth asked.

“Fantasy novels,” Mark answered.

“Fantasy novels?”

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s practically mandatory in a fantasy novel to mention at some point that tanneries smell hideous thanks to the horse urine they use in the tanning process. It’s hard not to know that fact if you read any fantasy at all.”

Beth shook her head in confusion. “Why would you ever want to know such a thing?”

“Oh, sometimes it comes in handy,” Angela said. “Like, for example, when your house gets magically transported next to a tannery and the place stinks to high heaven.”

“Or if a tannery gets transported into your backyard,” Mark added, getting a considering nod from his sister in return.

“Regardless of why it’s here, it’s awful,” Beth said emphatically. “We had a river view yesterday. Now we have the backside of a tannery? What is happening?”

“At least we know why the last owner put a wall in the backyard,” Peter said. “Sure, it blocked our river view, but who knows what might show up in our backyard tomorrow?”

“Backyard, shmackyard,” Angela said. “I want to see what’s in our front yard now!”

Beth’s eyes widened as her daughter darted out of the room. It hadn’t even occurred to her that the front yard would be different as well.

Quickly, Beth hurried after Angela. Peter and Mark weren’t far behind, and when they got to the front door, Beth discovered her daughter standing on the porch with a dumbstruck look on her face. As soon as Beth stepped outside, she understood why.

Beth was positive that there had been a row of apartments and shops across the street yesterday. That was no longer the case. Instead, she found herself staring at a row of drinking establishments and a brothel, for god’s sake.

The door to one of the bars swung open. She watched as a man stumbled outside, missed the bottom step, and fell heavily onto the paving stones of the street. He slowly got himself up, saw Beth watching, and gave her a sloppy grin before sauntering towards the house. Deducing what was on the drunk’s mind, Beth pointed over his shoulder at the brothel. The man paused, looked where she was pointing, and then gave a wave, slurring some kind of thank you in the process. Then he stumbled over to the brothel and fell inside.

“This can’t be happening,” Beth said quietly. She turned to her husband. “Peter, tell me this isn’t happening.”

“Are you asking me to lie to you?” he asked.

Beth grabbed the front of his shirt. “I just… I can’t… Peter, there is a brothel across the street! A brothel!” She spun to look at Mark. “Don’t even think of it!”

“Seriously, mom?” Mark said, his face screwing up. “If anyone in this family is going to a brothel, it would be Angela.”

“Ew!” Angela said, whacking her brother on the shoulder. “Uncalled for, dude. I don’t even know a cure disease spell!”

“And if you did?” he asked.

“Eh,” she said with a shrug.

Beth was just about to light into her daughter when she heard uncontrollable laughter coming from the sidewalk. Spinning around, she discovered Eliza doubled over, tears streaming down her face as she held onto their wrought-iron fence to keep from collapsing on the ground.

“Oh…” she said through the laughs. “Oh, thank you, Ádhmór. I am SO glad I got to see that. It was worth every second I spent bringing you here. Oh my, I haven’t laughed this hard in twenty years.”

“I’m glad we amused you,” Peter said tersely. “Mind telling us what the hell is going on?”

“Sure, sure,” Eliza said. “Just—oh, that was priceless—just go inside and I’ll explain.” She picked up a twine-wrapped bundle from the ground at her feet and shooed the family inside, still wiping tears from her eyes. Beth stormed into the kitchen and turned to face Eliza, tapping her foot impatiently.

Sweeping her eyes across Beth’s body language, Eliza let out one last chuckle and waved at her dismissively. “Oh, calm down. You got a free house in a city where almost nobody owns their own property. Get worked up if you want, but you’d best appreciate that this home makes you wealthy even if it’s in a somewhat… peculiar location.” The woman’s words mollified Beth somewhat, but they did nothing to answer her numerous questions. Fortunately, Eliza came prepared with answers.

Walking over to the counter, Eliza withdrew a piece of parchment from her pocket and flattened it out on the surface.

“Care to know why your house moved?” Eliza asked, clearly milking the moment.

“Please,” Beth gritted out.

“Oh, alright,” she said. She pointed to the parchment. “This is a map of the city. It’s not great, but it will give you a general idea of the districts, which is how the city is divided. For the most part, it’s based on our two rivers—the Incus and the Casúron. The Incus is the main river, handling most of the industrial traffic. It enters from the lower east side of the city and continues all the way to the port. The Casúron is a tributary that enters from the northeast and joins the Incus here.” She pointed to a spot near the middle of the map where the two rivers merged.

“Now, the districts,” she continued. “Since the rivers meet in the city and flow west to the port, the geography creates four fairly well-defined districts. The first is the Port District. It’s by the port. If you can’t remember that I don’t know what to tell you. Next, we have the upper part of the city, what we call the Temple District. That’s where you’ll find the temples, blacksmiths, and the Mage’s College. It’s essentially everything north of the Casúron and the Cirque du Chânce, although the western part of that district is a bit fuzzier where it mixes in with the Port District.”

Beth’s eyebrows pursed at the unfamiliar phrase. “What’s the Cirque du Chânce?”

“This road right here,” Eliza answered, pointing to a road that formed a perfect circle near the centre of the map, crossing both the Incus and the Casúron, then crossing the Incus again west of the confluence. “But we’ll save that for later.”

The savage grin on Eliza’s face when she said those words gave Beth an ominous feeling. She was beginning to suspect she knew what street their house was on.

“Next, you have the Garden District,” Eliza continued. “That’s the area east of the Cirque du Chânce and bounded by the two rivers to the north and south. It’s the nicest part of the city, which isn’t surprising since it’s where all the Families have their estates. South of the Incus is all industrial. Sawmills and lumber processing mostly, but other factories as well. We call it the Industrial District since ‘Abysmal Craphole District’ never caught on. Any questions?” She left the words hanging, knowing darn well that there was a question they all wanted answered.

“Fine, I’ll bite,” Peter said. “What’s the deal with the circular road.”

With a big smile, Eliza plunked her finger in the dead centre of the circle. “That, my boy, is the Chance District.”

Beth’s sinking feeling only got worse.

“Why is the road a perfect circle?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer. “I’m no urban planner, but a gigantic, perfectly circular road in the middle of your city seems… unusual.”

“Oh… Oh no. The Cirque du Chânce wasn’t planned,” Eliza said, grinning at their expressions. “No, it was created when a very powerful wizard lost a very large bet at a gambling establishment a very long time ago. She was convinced that the house was cheating and cast a spell that was meant to cause the building to move to a different spot in the city every night so that their clients couldn’t find them. However, in addition to being very powerful, she was also very drunk. Instead of moving just one building, she accidentally created what we now call the Cirque du Chânce. A two-kilometre-wide circular road that spins around to a new location every night—just like the spinning of a roulette wheel. Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows!”

Her words were met with silence.

“Oh, and both sides of the street rotate independently and in opposite directions,” Eliza added, “so I hope you like your neighbors, because they’re spinning with you. The ones across the street, not so much.”

“Wait, so we could end up with a house that’s underwater?” Peter asked.

“No, you’re fine there,” she said. “Like I mentioned, this was a very long time ago. Hundreds of years, in fact. Since then, they’ve built bridges at each crossing so that no houses end up in the river. Oddly enough, the Cirque has become a reasonably effective way to move about the city. There are even businesses whose entire revenue stream hinges on the days when they’re lucky enough to end up on one of the bridges and consequently see a lot of traffic.”

Mark shook his head at the map on the counter. “I can’t decide if this is terrible or awesome.”

“It’s definitely awesome,” Angela said.

Eliza grinned at her. “And you must be Angela! Congratulations on your successful journey. I am very glad you were able to make it.” She gave her a close look. “And you’re a druid? Much respect to you, mistress of the forest.”

“Ehhh… not sure I would—”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah,” Peter said. “Introductions can wait. I’m very much not ready to move on from the revelation that our house will move every night. Are you saying that today we live next to a tannery, but tomorrow we could be neighbours with one of the most prominent Families in the city?”

“Indeed. Which means you’ll need to acquire a healthy understanding of Palmyre’s layout because you won’t be waking up in the same place you went to sleep—I recommend not getting too attached to any nearby bakeries. Oh! Speaking of which.” Eliza put the parcel she’d been carrying onto the counter and opened it up, revealing a variety of pastries. Some were of the sweet variety, while others had some kind of meat and cheese combination. “Here, I thought you might be hungry.”

Beth’s eyes went wide. She grabbed one of the savoury ones from under Peter’s reaching hand, winking in response to the scowl he threw in her direction. He chuckled and grabbed a different one.

To Beth’s delight, the pastry was delicious. She was still annoyed at Eliza for not telling them about the house earlier, but she had to admit that the pastry went a long way towards earning forgiveness. After all, it wasn’t Eliza’s fault that Verna had given them this particular house.

“So hang on,” Mark said around a mouthful of something that looked like a chocolate croissant. “Why didn’t the wizard just undo everything when she sobered up?”

“I’m sure she would have tried, but that was a bit more magic than her body was made to handle,” Eliza answered.

“So she…”

“Blew herself up, yes.”

“Wow,” Mark said. “That must have been a surprise to the people who woke up with their house in a different location.”

“If that’s all that happened, you were one of the lucky ones,” Eliza noted. “Remember: There was no Cirque du Chânce back then. Nowadays, the houses are built to match the pattern of movement. That wasn’t the case back then, so hundreds of buildings were torn to pieces that first night. I suspect that if the wizard hadn’t blown herself up, she would have suffered the same fate as the buildings before too long.”

“This is so cool,” Angela said, grinning widely.

Beth wasn’t inclined to agree. It would definitely take some time to get used to.

“Alright then!” Eliza said, dusting icing sugar off her hands as she turned to Beth’s daughter. “Angela. I’m curious to know how you got into the city? I can see that your Renown isn’t high enough to enter independently.”

Angela got a sour look on her face. “Yeah. Wish I had a good story for you, but the truth is that I got killed and respawned in the house.”

Eliza froze, a pastry halfway to her mouth. “You… got killed.”

“Yup. It wasn’t pleasant.”

For the first time since they met her, Eliza looked flustered. She put down the pastry and wiped her hands off before taking a deep breath.

“That is a fair bit to handle,” she said. “It’s one thing to hear the stories of the Legends, but to hear you speak of it so casually? That is something very different.”

“Nothing casual about it,” Angela said with a grimace. “Not only did it suck, but I’m pretty sure I picked up a lifetime phobia of rabbits.”

“Rabbits?” Eliza asked. She looked at Angela curiously. “I met a druid once who was able to learn things about forest creatures merely by looking at them. Do you have that Ability?”

“I do! Came in handy a couple times.”

“Did you use it on whatever killed you?”

“Yeah, not that it did me much good. It was some big-ass rabbit called a feaster bunny.”

Eliza’s eyes narrowed. “Did that Ability allow you to see its level?”

“Uh, let me check,” Angela said, summoning her Tome. The stack of slabs went crashing into the floor, startling Eliza and causing Angela to look at her sheepishly. “Oops. Sorry about that.”

Eliza looked at the tablets in confusion as Angela sifted through them. Finally, she grabbed one and studied it closely. “Is Level 142 high? It seems high.”

“LEVEL 142!” Eliza shouted. “Please tell me you aren’t serious?”

Angela turned the slab around to show Eliza, and Beth leaned over to take a look as well. It turned out to be a surprisingly comprehensive description of the creature—Beth was rather impressed with her daughter’s Ability.

“Okay, change of plans,” Eliza said. Her tone was level, but Beth could see her hands trembling a little. “I intended to spend the day showing you the city, but people must know about this. I have no idea how a feaster bunny managed to get so big without us knowing, but it could sack the city if it caught us by surprise.”

“Sack the city?” Peter said incredulously. “A rabbit?”

“Yes,” Eliza said. There was no joking in her tone whatsoever.

“We understand,” Beth said, even though she didn’t really understand at all. “What should we do while you’re gone?”

Eliza took a moment to respond, her attention clearly absorbed by the news of the feaster bunny. With a slight shake of the head, she returned her focus to Beth.

“The most important thing is for you to raise your Renown before you leave this house,” she said. “We already know your Skills will jump based on your previous knowledge, so I recommend trying as many things as possible to boost your Renown that way. You’ll also want to raise your Base Attribute scores if you can, but that’s harder to do. No matter what, I don’t want anyone leaving this house without hitting Level 11 at an absolute minimum.

“Oh, and this is for you,” she said, taking out a bag and dropping it on the counter with a loud clink. “That’s the bounty money from the goblin ears. It will let you buy some basic supplies, but that’s about it.”

Peter nodded. “Thank you. Unfortunately, I have no idea what money is worth. Any advice on not getting fleeced by the shopkeepers? I’m not much of a barterer.”

Eliza shook her head vociferously. “Never try to barter. All financial transactions in Palmyre are heavily regulated by the Families. The only exceptions are the temples, mages, and blacksmiths. Even the beggars have set rates and need to buy a license for their begging location. If anyone tries to barter with you, it’s almost certainly a setup. Fall for it, and you’ll end up with a fine you can’t pay and a free ride on the slippery slope to indentured servitude.”

As horrifying as that sounded, Beth felt relieved that bartering wasn’t a part of life in Palmyre. Paying sticker price at stores would make shopping much simpler.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Eliza said. “I’ll see you when I can, but Machina and Equus may argue for me to be part of the party they send after the feaster bunny.” She shook her head and looked at Beth. “I haven’t even had a chance to wash your blood out of my cloak.”

“Who are Machina and Equus?” Peter asked.

“Two of the Families. I am… associated with the Laws Family. While they are a younger Family than Machina and Equus, they are currently the most powerful in the city. Machina and Equus are second and third, respectively, and they know that if I’m killed, it will hurt Laws. It won’t affect their power, but it will cause pain, which is enough reason for them.” The vitriol in that last sentence was palpable.

“That’s horrible,” Beth said. “If they do send you, how long would you be gone?”

“Most likely, the Mage’s College will be called upon to open a gateway eastward. Under normal circumstances those selfish bastards wouldn’t dream of assisting, but that feaster bunny is just as much of a risk to them as it is to us.”

“So you’d only be gone for a day or two?”

Eliza laughed. “I said they’d open a gateway eastward—not that they’d open one back. By the time we hike back it would be at least a week, and that’s assuming all goes well.”

She headed to the front door and pulled it open. “Good luck, Sullivan family. I hope to see you in good health when I return. If you decide to do something stupid before then, discuss it with the blacksmith family Mark met on the road. Darius and Rosalind are good people who won’t steer you wrong.”

As Eliza closed the door behind her, Beth couldn’t help but shake her head. Eliza was the only person native to Arenia that she trusted, and it was a real loss to the family not to have her guidance. They could only hope that it wouldn’t be too long before they saw her again.

Turning back to the kitchen, Beth faced her family and their uncertain future. “Well, folks. What do we do now?”

“I’ll tell you what we do,” Angela said. With an enormous smile, she punched a fist over her head and shouted, “TRAINING MONTAGE!”