I smiled as I reached the bottom, and he pushed by me, using his shoulder to give me a parting shove. I braced my legs wider than necessary, and he caught a foot on one of my ankles and did a stumbling dance down the cobblestones until he couldn’t hold his balance any longer and fell flat on his ass, skidding across the stones.

“Hurrying is bad around here. Take your time, breathe it in.” I waved a hand over my shoulder as he cussed me out.

Such language. I grinned and put a few of the more creative curses aside for later usage.

But now that meant I had to focus on where I was.

The sloped cobblestone path wrapped down and around the back of the big riverfront buildings. Despite the number of people on the river road, there were very few down here.

Pretty much none. I had a feeling that “The Smiths” would not be on the usual tour guide route. If what I remembered was right, there was magic around some places to keep the unseeing away. Unseeing. The words floated to me on a cloud of memories.

Humans who couldn’t see those in the shadows were called the unseeing. Which constituted most of the population. Those who had magic in their bloodlines could have the veil lifted and the shadows would show themselves. Like me. And of course, the other recruits.

My thoughts distracted me for a moment until I let myself see Factors Row, really see it.

The bright spring day didn’t look so bright as I stared down the shadowy, wet alley that led away from the main thoroughfare. I’d been here before with my gran, but it had been a long time ago.

What had it been for? Hadn’t she needed a repair of some sort to one of her cast iron spelling pots? I vaguely remembered it as though the memory was just out of reach.

I started down the cobblestone opening that was just wide enough for a single vehicle to drive—if you were very careful—checking the numbers on the buildings when I could. Not every door was numbered, not every building had doors.

“62,” I muttered, my fingers brushing against the nearly rusted-over digits hanging crooked on the brick building. The next door was boarded up and had been for a long time. But the address after that was 67. I backed up to the boarded door. No sign, no number.

I closed my eyes, thinking back to that memory with Gran. I’d been younger than ten, and I could just see the edge of a proper door, of which this was not. Of course, a lot of things could happen in thirty years.

“Damn.”

No harm in knocking. Right?

I lifted a hand and rapped my knuckles on the door. Nothing.

Not even the whisper of feet on the other side.