“We still have plenty of daylight left.”

A handful of ragged, hungry little children sidled up to them and Seregil threw the remains of his food to them. With a sigh, Alec did the same and after a brief squabble the children scampered away, the losers pursuing the ones with the spoils.

One little girl in a ragged grey shift lingered behind. After a moment, she cautiously approached them and looked Seregil boldly in the eye as she held up her short brown braid. The end of it looked newly trimmed. “Trade?”

“Hello, little bird. Did someone trade you for your hair?” asked Seregil.

“Ain’t you raven folk?” she asked, taking a step back.

“No, but we’re looking for them,” said Alec. “You’ve traded with them?”

The child stood on one bare foot with a finger in her mouth as she eyed them. “I’ll tell you for a penny.”

Grinning, Alec snatched a penny out of thin air and held it out to her.

“Toss it,” she said, unimpressed with his sleight of hand.

Cagey even at this age, he thought as he flipped it to her.

She snatched it and hid it away in a pocket of her dingy dress. “I seen the old lady yesterday. She traded me this.” Digging in her pocket, she showed them a tiny cat cunningly carved from bone.

“Did you give her some of your hair?” asked Alec.

She sucked her finger again and nodded.

“When, little bird?” asked Seregil.

The girl shrugged.

“Do you know where we could find her today?” Alec prompted.

“I’ll show you, for ’nother penny.”

Alec produced another one and tossed it to her. “You drive a hard bargain, miss.”

Satisfied, she motioned for them to follow her and led them farther into the makeshift village.

“We need that carving,” Alec whispered.

“I know,” Seregil murmured back. “We’ll buy it from her once she’s shown us where to find the old woman.”

Smoke curled low over the rooftops, defeated by the mist, and the smell of horse-dung fires and poverty hung heavy on the air. The paths had been trodden to mire, and they sank to their ankles in places.

They were nearly to the outer wall, passing between two rude shacks, when a pair of swordsmen stepped around a corner and blocked their way. Four more moved in behind them, trapping them. The girl scampered over to one of them in front of Seregil and hid behind his leg, lisping, “I brung some, Papa.”

“Good girl. Run home,” the man said, never taking his eyes off his supposed victims. “Now then, boys, you’re strangers here. We don’t much like strangers, ’less they have the money for our toll.”

“How much would that be?” Seregil asked.

That made the others laugh.

“Whatever you got, stranger,” one of them in back said, stepping toward Alec. Perhaps he took him for the weaker of the prey, because of his bandaged eye.