Serena often wondered if it was the building, or those crates, that he was intent on guarding.

But in the days since she’d claimed that doorway, wandering from it for spells, none of them long, and always coming back, it was rare she’d seen him take a drink.

Was he conserving, as his master had not come to visit in many days?

Or were those spirits a ruse?

It was time to find out, she decided.

Listing up, dragging the heavy vessel with her, protecting it as she’d seen others in the Shanty do, she began to approach him as he lay there sleeping (perhaps) and pretend she was checking his bottles for dregs she could consume.

However, what she wanted was to see if her movements would make him alert.

He was across and just down the alley from her perch.

She was not even halfway there when her jug was knocked from her hand.

It went crashing to the cobbles, splitting at the bottom, the grog spilling out.

“What—?” she snapped, but stopped speaking when the small, empty coin purse at her belt was snatched away at the same time something thudded in her back.

She vaguely noted the troll was lifting his head.

She mostly noted two gnomes laughing and sprinting away from her, one carrying her coin purse.

“Oy, scoundrels!” she shouted, for not a soul in the Shanty would allow their purse to be taken.

Definitely not at the sacrifice of their drink.

“Give that back!” she yelled.

Remembering at the last moment to make it cumbersome, stumbling a bit, she gave chase.

Down one alley and around a corner to another one, the gnomes’ short legs moved fast, but not faster than her.

However, she started to feel uneasy for gnomes had other abilities to aid in escape, including the fact they could leap high and long. Further, they could swing with great coordination from vines, ropes or outcroppings, as long as they had something to catch or somewhere to land.

They could disappear over a rooftop in a trice.

And they were not doing this.

Had she been found out?

And if she had, were they leading her into a trap?

The charmed folk could (and had) argue for millennia, but one thing was certain. Whichever one was first in creation, the pixies, fairies and gnomes were more Dellish than the Dellish, for they’d been there far longer.

And they had their own gods they worshipped.

She could never imagine any of them being involved with The Rising.

She had a dagger in her worn boot and a strange star that had caught her eye in a shop in the Thicket. It was crafted of six short, sharp blades of steel attached seamlessly to an inner circle. She’d practiced throwing it, and she was not yet adept at it. However, she knew it would cause great harm if thrown correctly, for example, embedded in the back of a thigh.

A gnome was a small target she feared she did not have the skill to hit, and if she did, the harm that star would cause would be much more egregious than to a full-grown human.