THEY left Kari and the girls asleep as soon as the first rays of dawn appeared between the curtains and entered the twisting streets of the tenement district with the early street vendors. Alec and Seregil were dressed again as women, with Micum as their protector. Alec and the others each hunted alone for the morning, so as to cover the most ground, and met up at noon at the ward’s large central well.

Anything? Alec signed and felt a sick sinking in his belly when the other two gave him a slight lowering of the chin. No.

A line of people were waiting to fill their pots and jugs at the well. Alec and the others chatted with them about the war and the price of bread, posing as fellow refugees.

When he’d ingratiated himself, Alec asked, “I heard a townsman talking of the raven folk. Does anyone know where they might be found?”

“Raven folk?” A pretty blond woman in front of him in line shook her head. “What are those?”

“Beggars making odd trades.”

He was interrupted by the sound of shattering crockery and looked over to see a middle-aged woman staring at them in horror, a broken water jug at her feet. The gnarled old man who’d been standing with her hobbled over to them, leaning heavily on his stick.

“Beggars making trades, you say, girl?” he rasped out, fixing Alec with rheumy blue eyes. The old man’s voice was thin and labored, the result of some complaint of the chest.

“Yes. Have you seen them, old father?”

The old man nodded slightly and took Alec’s arm. “Come with me, girl, and we’ll talk.”

Broken pot forgotten, the woman came with them as they set off through the narrow streets. Both the strangers were dressed in Mycenian clothing that had been good quality once but seen better days; they had the weary air and accent of refugees.

The woman, introduced as Nala, daughter of the old man, Elren, still looked stricken. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Someone who was wronged by them, Mistress,” Seregil told her, speaking in a light country lilt like hers.

“Are you a country woman, too?”

“I’m Arlina, of Ivywell,” Seregil told her as they climbed the stairs of a tenement with a peeling green door. “This is my husband, Garen, and my sister Sana.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. Have you been in this wretched city long?”

“We came by ship in the spring, first to Haverton port, and then down here,” Alec replied.