A hint of shadow moved behind him as he rounded a tight corner. It made him cautious. It made him paranoid. He stopped a minute later. Pretended to tie his shoe. Managed a backward glance. Nothing.

Imagined it?

Wouldn’t put it past Heretic to have him followed. Or maybe it was just some ragged kid hoping to mug a passerby. As he rose, Finch made sure to pull his jacket back. To show his gun. Such as it was.

239 Manzikert Avenue was a dark vertical slab of stone and wood with blackened filigree balcony railings crawling up the front. Trees left black leaves and rotting yellow berries on the steps. If the berries had been edible, the steps would’ve been clean.

Ornate double doors stripped of the metal that had once served as inlay. Steps guarded by a three-legged cat that hissed. Then hopped away. Beyond the doors, a hallway studded with lights so dim it would’ve been hard to read by them. Finch stepped inside. The feeling of being followed shut off. Like it’d been attached to a timer inside of him.

The floor squeaked. Freshly waxed. It hadn’t been waxed in the morning. Finch smiled. Old Hoegbotton trick. Cheap security. Bell the cat. He went squeaking to the stairwell. Already knew the elevator didn’t work.

The outside light couldn’t seem to push through the tiny windows set into the walls. The stairwell got darker the farther up he went. But, gradually, more evidence of people. A dog howling. The flushing of a shared toilet. A screaming child. A mother’s raised voice. The smell of something spicy being cooked for dinner. Filtered through the exhausted, stale funk of a place in which too many had lived in close quarters for too many years.

Finch knew not to start on the first couple of floors. No one liked to live that low if they had a choice. Ambergris Rules. Better to live next to a corpse than one floor above the gray caps’ underground realm. His father had taught him that.

Stopped at the fourth floor. Just to be safe. Fourth or sixth. Anyone on the fifth was long gone. Either after the corpses arrived and before the Partial came to talk to them. Or after the Partial came to talk.

Finch had a simple formula. A polite knock. Short questions, in a friendly tone. Didn’t like to go in like Blakely, guns blazing. Or like Gustat, using threats to coerce. They got information, sure. But not always the right information.

He worked the long line of closed doors to either side of the discolored, torn carpet. At the fifth door, a mother answered, holding her son. Maybe five or six, born around the time of the Rising. The mother looked worn. Pale and thin. Probably starving herself to feed the child. Probably thought that holding the kid would make Finch play nice. The kid’s open, eager face confounded Finch. Almost like seeing another species. Parents kept their children hidden. Went out to forage for them. Finch’s father had done the same for him. During the wars.