I’d cased it up and down. Spookily empty. Not like picked over, but as if its formers had the sense to get out early, when evacs were voluntary, maybe back in the 50s after Olav. Took everything with them but a scattering of crumbling paper and some unwanted tables and chairs. You could do that then. Lock your doors and pretend you’d be back.

I described it to Rubio so I could learn about it—no problem with his memory, and he knew about buildings from his life before, in an architect’s office. It was a stack of three rooms, one per floor, with high ceilings and fireplaces, a curving staircase and all this carved wood. Rube called it a mews house, said I was lucky to find one still standing. He quizzed me about the condition of the woodwork, asked would I take him there? I’m sure he caught my wince. Though it was share and share alike in the dens, especially with friends, there were limits. Sure, someday, I said, but in case the old place still had treasures to reveal, I always had a ready excuse why I couldn’t.

Dreaming of concealed hatches, hidden dry attics, and unbuckling the girl’s fine pack, I splashed across the dark courtyard and was halfway up the worn stone steps before my headlamp picked out the fancy front door askew on its hinges, its paneling splintered by vicious, repeated blows. Slime water cascaded noisily from a broken gutter and across the polished floor of the entry. Muddy footprints sprawled across the perfect tiles.

I stood in the rain and stared, for way too long. A crash of glass brought me to. I doused my lamp and backed into darkness to peer up at the weathered façade. Sure enough, light flickered at a second-floor window. A torch, or an old chair set ablaze. The light flared, more glass breaking, and a ricochet of male laughter rose like heat from the shattered windows.

I shuddered and got ready to run.

Pickers tend to move fast and quiet. Our deal is to collect the merchandise, not destroy it. This had to be gang members, or even rogues, not joined up at all. Burnouts who lucked into a booze cache and were wasted enough to drink it up instead of holding it for sale or barter. Worse, it could be a posse from BlackAdder, ranging out of their territory. I wouldn’t be sheltering there tonight, or anywhere near.

I brushed water from my cheeks—tears, rain, maybe both. The assholes might not burn the place down, but probably they would, like so many others, each with a history, and all that good picking gone to waste. I loved this little building, for the story it told of a vanished age of peace and plenty. Or so I imagined, despite Rubio’s irked denials.