Circle Bay was white. Nearly every building was painted with a pure whitewash, even those made of brick or stone. It felt like home, and Katrin found herself grinning as she waited for her friends to disembark. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the view until she saw it again from Osprey’s deck.

The city was built on the northwest shore of Circle Bay itself—a large, roughly circular gulf protected from the rough storms of the sea by the short peninsulas that formed the eastern half of the circle, leaving a narrow mouth between them that led to the open ocean. Circle Bay was large enough that over a third of the fishing vessels in the city plied their trade in the bay itself, with no need to venture farther out.

Bobo was last to leave the ship. “Captain Tevian says it’ll take at least six days before he’s back here from Valara,” he said. “If we want to leave before then, we’ll need to find another ship.”

“I don’t want to think about that right now,” Corec said. He was gripping a dock piling and had his eyes closed so he couldn’t see the water around them. While he and Treya had gotten better toward the end of the trip, it was obvious they were both happy to be back on the sturdy surface of the wooden pier.

“Does anyone know where I can find the Three Orders chapter house?” Treya asked.

“It’s due west from here,” Katrin said. “Go straight, then through the bazaar, and then there’ll be a group of large, stone buildings. Some temples and schools, a theater, and the Assembly Chamber. It’s just beyond those.”

Treya nodded. “Where will the rest of you be staying?”

Katrin waited, but when Corec didn’t reply, she said, “There are some good inns nearby there, where I used to play. Why don’t we go find rooms first, so you know where we are? Then I can show you to the chapter house before I go look for my uncle.”

#

Three hours later, she returned to the docks district with Corec. He’d seemed to have recovered from the voyage, but then he suddenly grimaced and stopped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as a group of raucous fishwives passed around them, joking with each other.

“I just caught a whiff of the sea air,” he said. “It brought back unpleasant memories of the ship. I’m fine now. Why would Felix move here?”

“This is where he was living when Barz and I first came to town. He had a tiny room and he played in the sailors’ taverns. With three of us, we needed more space, and neither he or Barz wanted me playing for sailors, so we moved to a better area. It was more expensive, and he complained a lot, but we were making more money than when he was playing alone, so we were able to get by.”

After Bobo had negotiated for rooms for the night and Treya had left for the chapter house, Katrin and Corec had gone to the apartment she’d been sharing with Felix and Barz, only to find someone else living there. Felix had paid the rent in advance before they’d left town, but before Katrin had a chance to track down the owner and complain, a neighbor had recognized her. He’d let her know that Felix had come back to the city a month earlier and moved out, taking their things with him.

“Which building is it?” Corec asked.

“The white one,” she said with a grin.

He laughed. “Any chance you can narrow that down a bit?”

“Tulio said it’s that one there, I think,” she said, pointing. “Above that tavern.”

“All right.”

Five minutes later, after stopping to ask the tavern’s owner which apartment Felix was in, she knocked on the door.

It opened, and her uncle stared at her from the other side. “Katrin!” Then he saw Corec and stumbled back. “You!” He fell on his ass.

“He didn’t come for the bounty, Felix.”

“What?” her uncle asked, looking up at them.

“You’re not worth enough to drag you back to Tyrsall,” Corec said. “I’m just here to escort her home.” He reached down to Felix, who hesitated before accepting his help to stand.

“But you had that poster!”

“It’s all been taken care of,” Katrin said. “He got the bounty and he paid off my penalty fine. Is Barz still in prison?”

“Of course he is. Where else would he be?”

“Then give me the money. We’re going to go get him out.”

“What money?”

“The money you stole when you abandoned me!” she exclaimed. “The money we were saving up to get Barz released!”

“There isn’t any left.”

“We had ten gold and some expensive jewelry! How can there not be any left? Corec paid seven gold just for my own penalty! I was going to pay him back what I could!”

“There wasn’t enough to pay for Barz, so I spent it. It wasn’t doing anyone any good just sitting there.”

“You spent it? On what?”

Felix shrugged, but Katrin could tell by the look in his eyes.

“Whores,” she said flatly. “How could you have possibly spent ten gold on whores just since you’ve been back?”

“It wasn’t only whores,” he said.

“Bloody hell, Felix. That money was for Barz. First you abandoned me, now you’ve abandoned him!”

“It’s his fault he’s in prison! I told you it wasn’t worth trying to get him out. I never wanted to leave Circle Bay in the first place!”

Katrin shook her head, trying to control her temper. Getting the money back from Felix had been a long shot—her uncle had always done the bare minimum for them, only taking them in out of obligation and only tolerating her as a student after he’d realized she improved his nightly take. Felix had never been the one she could depend on—it had always been Barz that tried to look out for her. At least she’d be able to return the favor one last time, though she wished it could have been through her actions rather than Corec’s money.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll take care of it ourselves. Is my stuff here or did you sell it?”

“It’s here. And what do you mean you’ll take care of it yourselves? You’ve really got forty gold to get him out?”

“Yes.”

Her uncle looked at Corec suspiciously. “Why are you helping? She couldn’t have made that much money on her own. Why did you pay her penalty?”

Corec shrugged. “We’re friends.”

Felix’s eyes grew wide when he made the connection. “You’re sleeping with him!” he said to Katrin. “You complain about me when you’re a whore yourself!”

She slapped his face hard enough to rock his head to the side. He stumbled, and Corec grabbed him by the shoulder to hold him steady.

“It’s not like that,” Corec said. “We’re together. She’s not a whore.”

“Just let me in, Felix,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll get the rest of my clothes and a few other things, and then we’ll leave you alone, like you always wanted. I’ll be sure to give Barz your regards.”

#

Treya moved out of the way and pressed herself up against the wall as another large group of messengers hurried past her through the corridor. She hoped she was in the right place. She’d stopped at the Three Orders chapter house first, to make sure, and they’d sent her on to the Assembly Chamber.

She knew that the Assembly ran the government in Circle Bay, but she hadn’t been expecting to find so many people in the building. There were no signs posted anywhere, so she finally gave up in frustration and stopped one of the messengers, a middle-aged woman with a harried look on her face and a sheaf of papers in her hands.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where to find the Princeps’ office?”

“That way,” the woman said, pointing to the end of the hall, then continued on her way without another word.

Treya had expected something like the small personal offices that Mother Yewen and Mother Ola used, but the double doors at the end of the hallway led to a large hall bustling with even more people, some sitting at rows of desks and others rushing around the room.

She rolled her eyes. This was taking forever. She stopped another person, this time a young man who’d been staring at her so hard he’d walked into a desk.

“C…c…can I help you?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“Where can I find Enna?”

He pointed. “The inner chambers. Th…that way.”

“Thank you.”

She went through another set of double doors at the opposite end of the hall and found herself in a much smaller chamber, this one with only three people—a guardsman, a young woman sitting at a desk, and Enna. There was one more door in the new room, but it was closed.

“Treya!” Enna hugged her. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m journeying, of course. And I brought you some letters so you wouldn’t have to wait for a trader. One from Nina and one from Kelis for you, and Kirla sent something from Duke Voss for your Princeps.”

“Oh! That was fast. Rufus just sent the pigeon to the duke two weeks ago. We should have you deliver all of our letters. Is Circle Bay your first stop, then?”

“No, I went to Four Roads mostly by foot, then back to Tyrsall by horse, and then here by ship.”

“I went south, myself,” Enna said. “It was warmer that way. But when my journeying time was done, I was headed back to Tyrsall when I stopped here and learned the Princeps was looking for bodyguards. I hadn’t really figured out what I wanted to do with myself yet, so I decided to give it a try.”

“And what’s this about you and this Princeps fellow, anyway?”

“Oh. Kelis told you?” Enna lowered her voice so no one could overhear. “Rufus hired me as his bodyguard, but, uh, he kind of liked the idea that I had some of the same training as a concubine, so, well, I’m sort of sleeping with him now.”

Treya stared at her. “Have you been talking to Renny?”

“No. Why?”

“After we heard about you and your Princeps, she had this absurd fantasy that I should do the same thing, but in reverse. Be a concubine, but be a bodyguard in secret. She thinks it would be romantic.”

Enna laughed. “Well, you’ve had a lot more of the concubine training than I’ve had. Luckily, Rufus doesn’t mind.”

“Does he have a real concubine? What about his wife?”

“No, and no. He doesn’t have time for a wife, and he’d never thought about a concubine before he met me. Don’t give him any ideas, though, all right? I’d rather not share if I don’t have to. He’s too busy as it is.”

“Why is it so busy here? Why are there so many people?”

“It’s not that bad today because the Assembly’s not in session. When it is, the corridors are packed. It can take ten minutes to get from one side of the building to the other.”

“But what are they all doing?”

“The Assembly wants to be involved in everything that goes on in the city, and it’s the Princeps’ job to follow their demands. They’re always adding new things they want him to do, but they never stop doing any of the old things, so he has to hire more and more people to take care of it all. This week, they decided the fishing fleets should report their catches every time they return to port. The type of fish, how many they caught, and where they caught them. It’s crazy—it would take so much extra work, and the fishermen don’t want to tell anyone about their fishing grounds. And everyone blames Rufus for it rather than the Assembly.”

“Can’t he tell them no?”

“He has to do everything they vote for, but this time, he’s determined that it would require a tax increase, so he’s sending it back to the Assembly. They’ll have to decide whether to raise taxes or undo the vote.”

“It seems so inefficient to have this many people just to do whatever the Assembly wants.”

Enna laughed again. “Governments are big. This place isn’t any busier than the ducal palace back in Tyrsall. Kirla showed me around the last time I visited home.”

“I didn’t realize,” Treya said. The Duke of Tyrsall had thousands of workers, but she’d always thought of them as being the street cleaners, lamplighters, constables, and tax men. With that many people, though, it made sense that there’d have to be another layer between them and the duke.

“Are you staying at the chapter house? Are they expecting you back for supper?”

“We didn’t discuss it.”

“Then you should come with us! Rufus has a lovely home overlooking the harbor, and an excellent cook. I think we’re having roast lamb tonight, and you can tell me stories about your journeying.”

“I do have some stories.”

#

Circle Bay’s prison, in the south side of the city, was one of the few buildings that wasn’t whitewashed. The natural gray of the stone stood out starkly from the neighboring buildings. Katrin stared at it and shivered, though the late afternoon sun was warm.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to go to prison, rather than get my brother out?” she asked.

“You haven’t done anything in Circle Bay that you’d be wanted for, have you?” Corec asked.

“No. Well, not in years. When we first moved here, Barz fell in with a better crew than Dallo’s gang back in Tyrsall. There were a few girls my age, so I worked some pickpocketing jobs with them, but I wasn’t very good at it so I was usually the distraction. But then one of the girls got caught, and the guy she was trying to rob knifed her. Felix had taught me more about music by then, so when one of my friends almost died on the street, I decided to get out of that life. I’m still friends with some of them, but I haven’t worked a job in five years. I don’t think the city guard knows about me.”

“I could go in by myself, if you want.”

“No, I’ll be fine. I was nervous the last time we got him out, too.”

“Are you sure this is where we pay the fee?”

“Yes. During the day, there’s a magistrate on duty that handles releases and new prisoners. I think I remember where his office is.”

They had to wait for an hour, but the magistrate got to them before his workday ended.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

“I’d like to pay my brother’s penalty fee,” Katrin said.

“Name of the prisoner?”

“Barz.”

The magistrate nodded to his assistant, who left the room, then returned shortly with a handful of papers. The magistrate read them over, then looked up at Katrin.

“Age twenty-four, in for burglary?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“This was his fourth time. Do you really think he’s going to change?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You realize he’ll need to come see me every week and show me that he’s working a real job? If he misses a week, or if he doesn’t find work within the first month, he’ll go back in and you’ll forfeit the fee.”

Katrin hadn’t known that. Could she really justify spending so much of Corec’s money when it was likely to be wasted? She glanced his way, but he just nodded.

“I understand,” she told the magistrate.

“And, of course, if he returns to his old ways, he’ll end up in front of me again. For a fifth offense, I don’t have to allow a penalty fee.”

Katrin nodded. She couldn’t afford another one anyway.

“All right, then,” he said. “The fee is forty gold pieces.”

Katrin paid, then the assistant left the room again. While they waited, the magistrate took care of his next case, releasing a ship’s captain who’d been caught smuggling. The man had chosen two years in prison rather than having his ship seized.

Once that was done, a guard led Barz to the center of the room. Katrin’s brother had grown a wild, bushy beard since the last time she’d seen him. He looked at her in surprise.

The magistrate described the terms of his probation, but Barz just nodded along, not saying much in return.

Finally, it was over, and they had a chance to speak to him privately while the paperwork was being completed.

His first words to her were, “What are you doing here? Felix told me you were caught by a bounty hunter up near Tyrsall.”

“That’s all you can say? At least the last time I got you out, you thanked me.”

“You shouldn’t have wasted your money. Who’s your friend?”

Barz was trying to act indifferent, but Katrin could see his unease when he eyed the sword hilt poking up behind Corec’s shoulder.

Katrin said, “His name is Corec. I wanted you to meet him. He was the one that paid to get you out.”

“Then I guess she wasted your money,” he said, facing Corec.

Corec shrugged. “That’s not my problem anymore. It’s your problem now. Are you going to waste it?”

Barz glared at him, then turned back to Katrin. “What happened with the bounty hunter?”

It was Corec that replied. “It turns out, I wasn’t a very good bounty hunter. But everything’s taken care of. She’s no longer wanted in Tyrsall.”

“Do you even know what I was doing there?” Katrin asked her brother.

“Felix said you had some fool notion to pickpocket enough to pay my penalty. I thought you wanted to stay clean! I don’t want you ending up in prison, too!”

Even though he was mad at her, Katrin smiled. The old Barz was still in there, still trying to watch out for her.

“I’m done with it now,” she said. “I’m going to find a bard teacher, and Corec and I are moving to Tyrsall.”

“You’re going away with some stranger?” He looked at Corec suspiciously.

“He’s not a stranger, Barz. We’ve been traveling together for months. And I can’t keep doing this! I’m tired of putting up with Felix, and I’m tired of watching you get in trouble! I need to live my own life.”

“So you’re leaving Circle Bay? Just like that?”

“Tyrsall isn’t far away by ship. It only took us eight days to get here. I’ll be able to visit, and we can send letters, too. We’re going to do some traveling first, with a friend, but I’ll let you know when we find a place to live.”

Barz frowned, and tried another tack. “I thought the bards wouldn’t take you.”

“The northern schools won’t accept girls as students, but some of the southern schools will, and a lot of bards travel. I’m going to try to find one who’s willing to teach me.”

He looked down. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got a few other things to do here in Circle Bay, and then however long it takes to find a ship. I’ll see you again before I go. Do you know where Felix is living now?”

“He said he’d moved back to the docks.”

“Yes, he’s two buildings west of where he was when we first found him. The one with the tavern on the ground floor.”

Barz nodded but didn’t speak. He’d been quieter than usual ever since the guard had first brought him before the magistrate, and the news that she was leaving hadn’t helped. His earlier stints in prison hadn’t changed him, but this time, he seemed less full of life than she remembered. Maybe he just needed some time to recover. She decided not to tell him about Felix abandoning her or spending the money they’d been saving for him. With her leaving the city, the two of them might need each other, and she didn’t want to create a rift between them.

#

“We should have looked for that mapmaker today,” Ellerie said as she and Boktar walked back to the inn where they’d taken rooms.

“There’s plenty of time for that,” he replied. “We needed a few days of rest. We’ll buy supplies and look for some maps tomorrow.”

Ellerie sighed. They’d reached Circle Bay well behind her original schedule, after they’d heard rumors of some old ruins to the east of South Corner. The structures couldn’t have been the remains of she was looking for, unless there was a mountain range nearby she didn’t know about, but the age of the ruins and their proximity to the Terril Forest led her to think they might have been Ancient in origin. She’d decided they should take the trip to explore—eight days out of their way—in case they could find any further clues about the location of Tir Yadar.

Unfortunately, the ruins had been well explored already, and they hadn’t found anything useful. The stone buildings that still stood were blank and unadorned, unlike what she’d read about Ancient ruins. Boktar thought the area might once have been a human military structure, built either to threaten the dorvasta or to defend against a feared dorvasta incursion south. The cousins had never shown any sign of wishing to expand beyond the forest’s borders, but there’d still been a few small wars with the surrounding lands over the centuries. No outside force had ever managed to hold part of Terril for long, though—humans didn’t understand the truths hidden within the forest.

The trip had been pointless, but on the morning they’d planned to leave, Ellerie couldn’t resist looking through an underground storage area, just in case. Unlike the structures above the ground, the storage area wasn’t completely barren, though on closer examination, she’d realized that the only things left were empty barrels and bare weapon racks. She’d been looking behind a row of half-rotted oak wine casks when she came face to face with a giant spider that apparently decided she was food. Boktar killed it before it could bite her a second time, but it had taken her nearly five days to recover well enough that they could travel. She’d still been weak, and they’d had to keep to a slow pace until they found a village with a priestess who was able to heal her and eliminate the last of the poison from her body.

“I just hate losing time,” she said. “At this rate, it’ll be winter before we reach the Storm Heights, if we still plan to look at the Coastal Range first.”

“Well, going north for the winter isn’t the stupidest thing we’ve ever done. Remember when we were hired to guard that seaborn dignitary, but he had that elven advisor who figured out who you were and that you hadn’t turned a hundred and eleven yet? She wanted to send you back to your mother as a present.”

Ellerie blushed at the memory. She was almost a hundred and twelve now, but she’d left Terevas several years before she reached adulthood, as her people counted it. She’d been young and foolish, and had had a few close scrapes for those first years.

She said, “Why, when you’re talking about stupid things we’ve done, do you always pick the ones that make me look bad?”

“I’m just playing the odds, Elle. If we do something stupid, chances are…” He trailed off with a grin.

She gave him a dirty look, but decided to let that pass without comment. Instead, she said, “If we’re going south to the Coastal Range, should we just keep heading south afterward, then come back to the Storm Heights in the summer?”

“I suppose we can see what the mapmaker says about the mountain ranges down south. The north will have snow, the south will have lizardfolk. I’ve traveled in snow, but I’ve never had any dealings with the lizards.”

“Is there fighting going on?”

“Last I heard, the war ended twenty-some years ago, and hasn’t started back up again yet. My cousin’s in Sanvar, and he says market day is a mix of stoneborn, humans, and lizardfolk all trading together, and only occasionally stabbing each other.”

“I’m not sure whether that was supposed to be a yes or a no.”

Boktar laughed. “Neither am I.”

The sun had just dipped below the horizon, but there was still plenty of light to see the two men who suddenly stepped out in front of them, loaded crossbows in their hands. Without warning, both men loosed their shots. Ellerie’s arrow shield spell flared to life, then died, but not before removing all the momentum from the bolt that had been aimed at her. It fell to the ground.

Boktar wasn’t so lucky. After having been on the road for so long, he’d decided to spend the day without his heavy armor. His only protection was a gambeson, which hadn’t been strong enough to block the bolt that now protruded from his stomach. He tried to reach for his hammer but his arms weren’t working right, and while Ellerie watched, he fell to his knees.

The attackers cursed. They’d seen the light from her shield spell, and they hurriedly tried to cock their crossbows once again, as people around them realized what had happened. The crowd began shouting and running away.

Ellerie needed to move fast if she was going to get Boktar to a healer on time. She thought she could kill both crossbowmen before they reloaded. She drew her rapier and began muttering the words to a spell, but as she spoke, three more men came from out of nowhere and advanced on her. One of the men was nilvasta, dressed in nicer clothing than the others and carrying a rapier like her own. As she finished casting the spell, she changed its target.

A white beam of light shot from her hand and hit the elf’s chest, burning a hole. He collapsed lifelessly.

Boktar would yell at her for not taking the man prisoner to question him, but she couldn’t handle five men by herself, and if there was any chance the elf had hired the others, then perhaps the rest of them would stop with him dead.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The two crossbowmen were still reloading, but the other two rushed her. The beam spell had taken most of her magic, but it didn’t matter because she was too busy dodging and blocking to try to cast anything else.