The street remained quiet. Not even rats were out, and Sheldon felt stupid. He was being too cautious now, and maybe a tad full of himself. No one cared about a poor carpenter. With one last look around, he ducked behind the rugmaker’s shop. The back door to Wegans Weaving had been left open, and the shop was dark. Moonlight entered the pair of windows and spoke of stuff in his path: looms, crates, piles of wool, and wood. The air whispered of sheep, lye, and smoke. Wegans wasn’t a big or fancy shop. The family didn’t make draperies or tapestries for the rich. They made simple rugs for common folk—the hardworking sort whose labor let them jump out of bed onto warm wool instead of cold wood or stone.

The Wegans didn’t always charge money. They knew about hard times and accepted work or stuff in trade. Sometimes, they sold rugs on credit, and around the holiday of Wintertide, they gave mats to the poorest families. Desmond Wegan avoided embarrassing those folks, saying with a wink that he’d fleeced the poor saps, and that was why them folks didn’t say how much they had paid.

The Wegans were one of the first families in Percepliquis to open their doors to Proust. He blessed their wisdom by setting up his own weaving shop there, but instead of wool, Proust wove a “brighter future from the hopes and dreams of mankind.”

Reaching the center of the shop, Sheldon struck the floor with the heel of his boot three times, paused, then pounded twice more. A latch scraped, and a door in the floor opened.

Holding a lamp above her head, Rhapsody waved him down the ladder. Sheldon was pretty sure her real name was Mayda Brixton, but Rhapsody was the name Proust had given her, the same way he had dubbed Sheldon The Ragman. All of it was part of a little ceremony that marked their “official entrance into the congregation: the Worshippers of Novron.” Or as the ignorant referred to them: the Church of Nyphron.

“What’d you find out?” Rhapsody whispered as she re-latched the trapdoor with just one hand.

She was good at that. Her fingers could have played a harp. She might have been a musician—if not for the elves. A lot of things could have been, if not for them. All that’s gonna change. We’re gonna make it better so kids born today don’t need to suffer like we have. Thems with clever fingers will get a chance to play music.

“Plenty.”

“What?”

“You’ll hear when I tell him.”

Rhapsody scowled.