the man’s memory) and led them off the main thoroughfare, which took them away from that crushing crowd. Siobhan breathed a sigh of relief to leave that noisy, somewhat smelly, mass of people behind her.
Tran led them confidently up another two narrow streets and onto a wider, more appealing road that emptied into a pretty courtyard. There lay the North Bay Inn, its doors facing the courtyard, looking different than the last time she’d laid eyes on it. Strange, her memory said that the three-story building was brown with dark green trimming. But it now looked creamy white with blue trimming. Had someone painted the place? It didn’t look different in any other way. She took a peek inside the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the front of the building as she rode toward the door. The inside seemed to be different too, as if the floors had been replaced with a lighter wood and the walls inside had been given a fresh coat of paint. Well now. Business must be good to afford a renovation like this.
“Sylvie,” Siobhan called back.
“On it,” the other woman assured her, already leaping lightly from the wagon. Straightening her hair, she walked confidently through the main door and out of sight. A few moments passed in silence before she came back out again, a smug smile on her face. “Five rooms left, most of them with larger beds, which includes breakfast, dinner, and baths. I got him to cut the price down by saying we only have the cart and two dogs.”
Then they’d need to return the horses tonight. Well, likely best to do that anyway. They’d served their purpose here and the group didn’t need them anymore. “How much?”
“Twenty-seven kors.”
“Oooh, not bad.” Siobhan gave her an approving nod. She turned her eyes up to the sky and made some quick calculations. “I think we’ve got about two, perhaps three, hours of daylight left here. Everyone, throw your bags into your rooms. Hammon, if you and Fei will return the horses? Good, thank you. The rest of us will split off in pairs and see if we can’t find confirmation that our missing party went through here. Who knows? We might get lucky and find something out today.”
“It’ll take some luck, Shi,” Beirly warned her.
She grimaced a smile at him. “Don’t I know it. Wolf and I will take the streets. Conli, Denney, Grae, take the inns. Beirly and Tran, take to the gate guards on both sides, see if they have any record of who came through. Move, people.”
ӜӜӜ
Siobhan had no idea what the world had been like when governments still ruled this land, but now every level of people existed from the most wealthy and powerful to the completely destitute. Every class of people had their own groups, their own places of gathering, even if they didn’t officially belong to a guild. She had learned early on that if someone really wanted to know something, then finding the area of the city controlled by the street gangs was one of the best ways to go about it. Street rats thrived on information. More accurately, they survived by knowing the comings, goings, and dealings of every person in their city. The trick would be finding the right person with the right information and somehow bribing them into talking to her.
She had some experience in this, having done it before, so she stopped by several food stalls and stocked up, asking about the ‘dangerous’ places in the city of the people in the marketplace. Once she had a good idea of its location, she and Wolf headed straight there with two heavily laden bags in hand. (Siobhan would actually do better if Wolf didn’t go with her, as he would scare any child at first sight, but he categorically refused to let her go into the rougher sections of the city alone.)
The difference between this shadier area and the more affluent section they’d just left was like night and day. Siobhan felt a shiver go straight up her spine as she looked at her surroundings, not sure if she felt it because of cold or unease. The buildings here looked gutted, with no windows or doors aside from the odd tattered cloth pinned up. They looked lifeless, and it took no imagination to believe that spirits haunted this area. The streets were littered with odd refuse. No lamps lit the streets, of course, and the narrow alleyways didn’t let in much natural light. It smelled