He scoops up the body of the fish, fake pendant still concealed within, and cradles it on the flat of his dagger’s blade. Daian turns and flings the tuna across the wharf. It disappears over the break line and hits the water somewhere unseen.

Chew curses violently under his breath.

Daian turns back to the forger. “Shall I inspect the rest of your stock for you? You can’t be too careful with seafood, you know.”

“Just show me whatever it is you have to show,” Chew demands.

“Thank you so much,” Daian says pleasantly. “That’s very kind of you.”

Daian removes the coins he discovered among the charnel house ash and offers them to Chew. He’s cleaned them up enough to make the shaggy, hollow-eyed face gracing one side of each of the coins more visible.

Chew picks one up and holds it between two calloused fingers, examining it.

Daian watches the old forger’s face closely as Chew reacts to the image on the coin. What he sees written in the fine wrinkles and sharp eyes of the man’s face are uncertainty and something that might be alarm.

“This is not a coin I would take in trade,” he informs Daian. “It is not one I have seen before, either.”

“I’m not hearing you say you don’t know anything about it, Chew.”

“I may have heard some stories.”

“Stories of what?”

Chew hesitates, and whether it’s the nature of the knowledge or being forced to share it with Daian, it’s obvious he wishes to say no more.

Rather than press him further, Daian decides to simply wait.

In the end, Chew takes a deep labored breath and places the coin back in Daian’s hand.

“Blood coins,” he relents.

“What does that mean?” Daian asks, turning the small burned pieces of metal over and over in his palm.

“I am not certain. I have heard stories about coins as markers. Against the return of runaways.”

“Runaways? Like escaped prisoners?”

Chew shakes his head. “Military conscripts.”

Daian’s eyes refocus on the forger with a new intensity. “Soldiers?”

Chew shrugs. “Recruits for the Skrain are never compelled. This would be something… different.”

“The Bottoms’ pleader, Brio Alania, do you know if he ever came down here asking about anything like these coins, or military conscripts?”

Again, Chew shakes his head. “I never had dealings with the pleader. Our interests were usually contrary.”

“Do you know of anyone in the Bottoms he did speak with about such things? A confidant or a source of information? Anyone he trusted among the people?”

“No. I would make it my business to know about such a person, and steer clear of them.”

Daian searches Chew’s face for any glimmer of insincerity. He finds none.

“Good luck washing away the smell,” Daian says to the forger as a form of parting.

“I have learned to live with it.”

Daian grins. “I was talking to myself.”