Kerrigan tugged the hood of her cloak tighter around her face as they moved through the streets of Kinkadia. The city was bustling with the summer energy and late daylight hours. It wouldn’t be dark for hours yet, and street festivals would be set up throughout the city. It had long been Kerrigan’s favorite time of year. The city truly came alive despite the suffocating humidity, coupled with an oppressive heat and the stink. The city couldn’t help but stink in this weather.

They skirted the Square and came up on an inn a few blocks away. Kerrigan was surprised. She’d been expecting something in the Dregs, surrounded by pubs. Something disreputable.

Clover must have seen that on her face because she scoffed. “People in all neighborhoods want this. Not just the people at the bottom. We have to be able to fund it after all.”

“Of course,” Kerrigan said. “I thought it would be somewhere more private.”

“The dining space will be open as normal. There’s a garden out back that opens onto a private courtyard. The meeting will be held there. No one else has access, except the innkeeper.”

Kerrigan nodded. That made more sense to her.

“This way,” Clover said.

She navigated to the back of the property with ease, as if she’d been doing this for a while. They stepped under an archway and into a garden paradise. Vines covered the walls that enclosed the garden and courtyard. Plants of every type filled the area, large enough to hold a couple hundred people. Not that Kerrigan suspected that many people would attend this meeting on a Friday night. This almost reminded her of the greenhouses on the east side of the mountain. Just the sheer expanse of plants. No matter how long Kerrigan had lived in the city, it always managed to surprise her.

Clover walked them through the empty courtyard and to a back entrance to the inn. She knocked three times, and the door pulled inward.

A pale woman with a shaved head and kind eyes answered. “Clover, you made it.” Her gaze shifted to Kerrigan. “And you brought a friend. Come in.”

“Kerrigan, this is Thea.”

Kerrigan stepped inside the darkened interior. “Pleased to meet you.”

“No, dear girl, the pleasure is all mine. We could not be happier to have you with us. What you did in that tournament …” She raised her hands to the ceiling. “A blessing for our cause.”

“Oh,” Kerrigan said awkwardly. “Well, good?”

“It is good. Praise Lament.” Thea touched the Lament symbol at her breast—an X encased in a box.

The Lament was a human religion that had mostly fizzled out in the last decade since the Red Masks persecuted those who believed and burned their churches. A few churches still existed on the fringes of the city, but she hadn’t expected them here in this meeting.