The stench here wasn’t a sewage smell because, not so oddly, that component wasn’t any stronger than it was in the rest of the city. No, it was another sort of smell, compounded of unwashed bodies, sickness, rot, mildew, with the stench of a tannery somewhere nearby, urine baked into the street, and a harsh, acrid stench she couldn’t identify. As she’d told that Bardic Trainee back at the Collegium, urine and dung were valuable, and she’d bet her last copper that while the latrines in this part of town were probably filthy, they were also emptied religiously. And the rare bit of dung from donkeys or cart horses probably had three or four urchins competing to sweep it up before it hit the ground.

Conditions improved a bit as they got nearer to the city wall, but it was still quite clear that this was the poorest part of the city—just that the nearer you got to the walls and the guards on top of them, the more “poor but honest” it became. It was also the lowest part of the city, which probably meant that in a heavy rainstorm, every nasty thing in the streets and gutters washed down here. And if there was enough rain that part of the city flooded, it would be here. And the muddy streets here would be the last to dry.

Their goal was another shop, this one with the sign of a black bird over it. They found it in the last street before the wall.

Stev opened the door without knocking.

There was no bell to jangle at their entrance, but there was a skinny lad standing behind a counter filled with little bags made of a scrap of cloth tied with a bit of thread, carefully sorted by fabric color. “We’re looking for Korlak,” Stev said, loudly.

The boy stared at them, or rather, their weapons, and stood frozen as a frightened rabbit.

“I said, we’re looking for Korlak,” Stev repeated.

“He’s not here,” said a voice that was probably supposed to be a child’s piping soprano, but was clearly an adult’s strained falsetto. “He’s gone to visit his sister. He probably won’t be back, ever.”

“We can pay,” said Stev.

“Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?” said the Mage Korlak, opening the door the whole way and gently pushing the boy to one side.

Korlak looked a little like a shabbier, more desperate version of Steen.

He could have been younger, but Abi placed him between twenty and thirty, though what was left of his hair was a grimy white. His robe had either once been black and faded to patchy gray, or pale and accumulated so much grime that wouldn’t wash out that it had achieved the same effect. It had definitely been turned several times and mended carefully.