Lived here. Past tense. That meant dead or fled. “No. But I can find a way into anything. It’s a skill I learned awhile back. If you want to get inside these buildings, I can help you.” He paused, tried out a smile. “Do you have a name?”

“Do you?” The Troll sounded newly belligerent. “Tell me yours first.”

The ragpicker smiled some more. “My name doesn’t matter. Call me ‘ragpicker.’ That will do.”

The Troll smirked. “Well, ragpicker, I am Grosha, son of Taureq, Maturen of the Drouj. Have you heard of me?”

The ragpicker hadn’t, but he said, “Of course. Everyone speaks of you. They are afraid of you.”

Grosha nodded. “They are right to be afraid. Now tell me how to get into that complex, and I will spare your life.” He drew out a long knife and gestured toward the other’s throat. “Do it now, old man, or we are finished here.”

The last of the sunlight had faded and night had closed down around them. Moonlight gleamed off the knife’s razor-sharp edge. Everything had gone still in the wake of Grosha’s threat; the other Trolls stood motionless, waiting.

“First, you must tell me of the man with the black staff,” the ragpicker insisted. “Then I will help you get inside the complex.”

“You will help us anyway, if you don’t want your throat cut,” the Troll replied softly. “Or should I feed you to my hounds?”

He whistled, and a pair of dark shapes materialized out of the night, their faces long and lean and bristling with dark hair that stuck out in clumps. Wolves, the ragpicker guessed, though not like any he had encountered before. When their jaws opened and their tongues lolled out, he saw rows of sharp teeth. They sidled up to Grosha and rubbed against him like pets. Or spoiled children anxious for attention.

“What’s it to be?” Grosha demanded, reaching down with his free hand to stroke one of the animals on its grizzled head.

The ragpicker thought about it for a few moments and then shrugged. “It seems you leave me no choice. But I am very disappointed. Tell me the truth. You don’t know anything of a man who carries a black staff, do you?”

Grosha laughed. “That’s a legend for superstitious fools, ragpicker. Do you take me for such? Those who carried the black staff are long since dead and gone. No one has seen one since the time of the Great Wars!”

“I have,” the ragpicker said softly.

There was a long moment when everything went silent and everyone motionless. A strange hush descended, and even time itself seemed to stop moving.

“In a dream,” the ragpicker finished.