“Did you just … wander into the Uncharted Forest?”

Tavia was beginning to doubt the intelligence of Rishiya’s supposed best busker.

Nolan swallowed and it seemed to make him stagger a little. “I was in the Flower Hamlets having a drink and got tailed by some amityguards,” he said. “I needed somewhere I could lie low and they weren’t gonna check this place. It’s uncharted for a reason. It’s haunted.”

Tavia laughed, unable to help it. Getting chased by amityguards seemed like a lifetime ago and it was reassuring to know that Doyen Fenna Schulze still had control of the other cities in Uskhanya, even if Creije was falling.

“I hate to break it to you,” Tavia said, “but you haven’t exactly found safe haven. Now, how about you hand over that backpack without a fuss, for old times’ sake?”

Nolan grabbed the backpack from the ground and hugged it protectively to his chest.

“No way,” he said, blinking as though to sharpen his vision. “You get away.”

Tavia laughed and reached into her pocket, pulling out the small marble that she had stolen from this very bastard back in the city. It was a deep, unyielding blue, and when she tossed it up and down in her hand, she thought it looked a little like holding the ocean.

“So instead of coming with me willingly, you fancy putting up a fight?” she asked. “I could do with a little exercise tonight, I suppose.”

“No need to get violent,” Nolan said. “I’m unarmed. Lost my knife back in the Hamlets.”

He raised his hands high in the air in surrender, backpack included, and gave Tavia what she thought was supposed to be a charming smile. Nolan stepped forward, stumbling a little on the uneven ground, and then his hand shot to his pocket and he threw a trick bag at her before Tavia could even think to dive out of the way.

The pouch landed at her feet.

And blew her straight back onto her ass.

A jolt of what felt like lightning zapped through Tavia’s toes and propelled her to the forest floor. Nolan ran, sprinting through the forest without looking back.

Tavia groaned.

“Curse your mother and the train she rode in on!” she yelled.

She pulled herself to her feet and chased after him, winding through the trees she had spent the last few weeks hiding among.

“May the Many Gods spit in your father’s beard,” Tavia yelled as Nolan jumped over a small creak. “And chop his balls right—”

Nolan tripped.

His foot caught in a large tree root and he fell with a loud thud straight onto the forest floor, the wet dirt splashing up like water around him. He tried to get back up, but his drunken arms collapsed underneath him and so eventually he just lay there, rolled onto his back, and murmured a curse that made Tavia raise her eyebrows.