Rory pulled her hood down, trying to hide her face as they walked through the slums.

  "You're drawing attention," Ivan muttered.

  "I am aware." Rory pulled the hood tighter. A strand of pink escaped near her ear. "I have... attempted to mitigate it."

  "You need a bigger hood."

  "I need my stone back… nothing else matters.”

  They passed what had once been a butcher's stall, now just a wooden counter with flies buzzing over stains and a hand-painted sign advertising prices Ivan couldn't make out. Ivan's ribs ached where the asshole had kicked him.

  A group of men sat around an overturned barrel, playing some kind of dice game. One of them looked up as Rory passed.

  "Oi." He elbowed his buddy. "Look at that."

  Ivan stepped between them and Rory, which was stupid because he weighed maybe a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet and the smallest of those men were twice his size.

  "Don't look back… Let’s not trigger the 'random encounter with thugs' event, I've already hit my daily quota for getting beaten up."

  Rory ignored the comment and fixed her hood.

  The tavern didn't have a name. Inside was dark, and hot. Ivan's eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, he saw that the barkeep was a woman that was built like a refrigerator, wide and square.

  Ivan found a table in the corner. Rory sat across from him, her back to the wall, and her hood still up. The Morningstar Orchid was tucked somewhere inside her cloak.

  "Okay," Ivan said, keeping his voice low. "Someone stole your spiritual stone, which means someone in this shit hole knows who did it, or is trying to sell it right now.”

  "I understand." Rory straightened in her chair. "I shall inquire with the—"

  "No. No no no. Hold on." Ivan held up a hand. "You can't be the one to ask around."

  Her gold eyes narrowed. Just a fraction. "And why not?"

  "Because you talk like a princess at a garden party, and these people will eat you alive."

  "I am capable of—"

  "You said 'I shall inquire.' Nobody in here has ever said 'I shall inquire' about anything in their entire life. The fanciest sentence anyone in this room has ever constructed is probably 'give me another drink or I'll break your face.'"

  Rory's jaw tightened.

  "Look," he said. Softer. "Let me try first. If I crash out, you can take a shot. Deal?"

  "...Deal."

  He pushed back from the table and walked to the bar, where the refrigerator woman had been spit shining a mug.

  "Two ales," Ivan said. Then, because he had no money: "Put it on the tab for Harwick's group. From the merchant guild."

  The name was made up. The guild was made up. The entire sentence was a fabrication built on nothing but the observation that merchant guilds existed in this city because he'd seen their signs in the market plaza, and that dropping a name—any name—with enough confidence was usually enough to buy you thirty seconds of credibility.

  The woman stared at him.

  Ivan stared back.

  "Harwick," the woman said. Flat.

  "Yeah. Harwick. Big son of a bitch, smells crap. You know him."

  "I don't."

  "Well, he knows you. Said this was the place to come for local information. Said you were the woman to talk to." Ivan leaned on the bar. His elbow landed in something sticky. "We're looking for something that may have gone missing… It's a small red stone, about the size of a walnut. Valuable. My employer wants it back, and he's willing to pay a finder's fee to anyone who can point us in the right direction."

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  The woman's expression didn't change. But her eyes flicked toward a man sitting alone at a table near the door. Then back to Ivan.

  "Don't know nothin' about stones," she said. "Two coppers for the ales."

  Ivan didn't have two coppers. He didn't have one copper.

  "I'll settle up when Harwick's runner comes through," he said, and walked away before she could call him on it.

  The man by the door was older, maybe fifty, with grey stubble and a nose that had been broken so many times it pointed in three different directions at once.

  Ivan sat down across from him without asking.

  "I'm looking for a red stone," Ivan said. "Small. Valuable. Stolen yesterday."

  The man took a drink. Set the cup down. And looked at Ivan the way you'd look at a stain on your shoe.

  "Who's askin?"

  "My employer. A merchant named Harwick. The stone belongs to one of his clients, and the client is... let's say isn’t the type of person that likes sticky fingers."

  The man's eyes drifted past Ivan to the corner table where Rory sat. Her hood up and pink hair escaping.

  "That her?"

  "That's the client's representative. She doesn't talk to people like us… above her pay grade and all." Ivan tapped the table with two fingers, casual, like he did this kind of thing all the time. "So. Red stone. Walnut-sized. Ring any bells?"

  The man picked at something between his teeth. "Might be I heard somethin'. Might be I didn't. Memory's a funny thing. Gets clearer with a bit o' coin in front of it."

  "Coin comes after the information. That's how Harwick works."

  "That ain't how work."

  Ivan held the man's stare. Three seconds. Five. The man's eyes were bloodshot and yellow around the edges and absolutely, completely unimpressed.

  "Fine." Ivan leaned back. "I'll find someone else. Plenty of people in this district who'd love to earn a merchant guild's goodwill. Future contracts, supply routes, that kind of thing. Long-term investment. But hey, if you'd rather hold out for two coppers right now—"

  "Girl with purple hair."

  Ivan blinked. "What?"

  "Lavender. Young thing, maybe fourteen, fifteen. Runs with the gutter crowd down by the canal." The man took another drink. "Been movin' high-value goods through old Brom's shop for weeks now. Gems, jewelry, stuff that don't belong in this part o' the city. If your stone got pinched, that's where I'd look."

  Ivan's mouth was dry. "Brom. Where's his shop?"

  "Two streets south of the tannery." The man set his cup down and looked at Ivan with amusement. "And tell your 'employer' he owes me."

  "Absolutely," Ivan said. "Harwick always pays his debts."

  He stood up and walked back to Rory's table. His hands were shaking. Not a lot, just a small tremor from the adrenaline. He sat down and put his hands flat on the table so she wouldn't see them shake.

  "Got a lead," he said.

  Rory leaned forward. The hood slipped. She didn't fix it this time. "What did you learn?"

  "A girl with lavender hair has been fencing stolen goods through a pawn shop run by a guy named Brom. Two streets south of the tannery. If your stone's been sold, that's probably where it went."

  "Lavender hair..." Rory's brow creased. "You are certain?"

  "That's what the guy said… have you seen anyone like that?"

  "No." Rory pulled the hood back into place with both hands this time, tucking every strand of pink underneath. "But I know where the tannery is."

  "Great. Then we—"

  A crash from across the room. Someone had knocked over a chair, and two men were standing chest to chest, shouting in each other's faces about something that involved money and a woman and a goat, and the refrigerator barkmaid was coming around the counter with a wooden club in her hand and murder in her eyes.

  "—we should go," Ivan finished. "Right now. Before someone remembers I don't actually have a tab here."

  They went.

  "Whoever invented tanning, should be charged with a god damn war crime... that has to be a Geneva Convention violation." He said, pressing his sleeve over his nose.

  Rory walked beside him, unbothered. Or at least hiding it better than he was. They were two streets south of the tannery. Brom's shop had to be close by. Ivan was looking for some kind of pawn shop, like the man had said.

  He saw a flash of lavender, one second it was there and the next it was gone. A small figure ducked around a corner.

  "Stay here," he said to Rory, and then he was running.

  Ivan rounded the corner where the lavender-haired figure had disappeared. He could see the far end where it opened onto another street, and the girl, small and quick, cutting through a gap between the buildings.

  Ivan followed her into the gap, catching his shoulder on the rough stone walls that scraped through his coat, he popped out the other side into another alley.

  He stood there, panting, with his hands on his knees, ribs burning, the tannery stench thick in his throat.

  He straightened up, winced at the pain in his side, and retraced his steps through the gap—scraping his other arm this time, great, matching set—back through the alley, around the corner, to where Rory was standing exactly where he'd left her.

  She looked at him. At the new scrapes on his arms. At the sweat on his face and the way he was holding his side.

  "What was that about, did you see the thief?" she said.

  "Yes…" Ivan spat on the ground. " I saw her… and her lavender hair, he was right… She is young and fast as hell. She's real, and she's in these damned slums."

  Rory's hands were clasped in front of her. "Then we must find Brom's shop."

  "Yeah." Ivan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His breathing was coming down, the burn in his lungs fading to a dull ache that matched every other dull ache in his body. "We find this Brom guy. We find out if she sold him your Ifrit. And if not… then we find her."

  He turned back toward the stench of the tannery, and started walking. Rory fell into step beside him, hood up, hair hidden.

  A fly landed on his face and he swatted it away.

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