Mountain towns are all the same.

Geography drives architecture in a mountain town. In Delphi, the houses and other buildings were jammed together, like they’d slid down the slopes and jumbled into the available space along the river.

Houses built onto a hillside are deceiving: short one-stories at the back, and tall four-stories at the front. They reminded Han of brightly painted fancy girls that had seen better days. They backed into the mountainside and spread their long skirts down to the valley floor, their dirty petticoats in the gutters. The streets were narrow and tangled and cobbled with stone—a material plentiful and cheap in the mountains.

Forced into the rocky Kanwa canyon, the streets veered drunkenly around the smallest obstacles—sometimes losing their way entirely.

It was fully dark when they finally descended into the town. A choking pall of smoke thickened the air, requiring extra effort to breathe.

“It stinks worse than Southbridge,” Han said, wrinkling his nose. A different, unfamiliar stink, at least.

“They burn coal for heat and cooking here,” Dancer explained. “The smoke gets trapped in the valley. It’s worse in winter—the fires burn night and day.”

There was money in town. Intermingled with stores and businesses and more modest dwellings were street-front palaces and rich-looking row houses. Some of the houses occupied entire city blocks, faced with kilned brick and carved stone.

“Mine owners,” Dancer explained. “But even the miners make good money. The war in Arden has stoked the market for iron and coal, and prices are high. Lightfoot says the Delphians don’t mind the stinking air. They say they’re breathing money. It’s allowed them to keep their own army and stay independent of both Arden and the Fells.”

As they neared the center of town, the streets clogged up with people, reminding Han of Fellsmarch on market day.

It was a diverse crowd—black-skinned men and women from Bruinswallow, clad in the loose, striped clothing of the southerners. Southern Islanders with their dark skin, elaborate jewelry, and tangles of black hair. Leggy Northern Islanders with fair hair and blue eyes, some haloed with auras. Multiple languages collided in the streets, and exotic music poured from inns and taverns.

There was more evidence of wartime prosperity—elegant shops with all manner of trade goods; jewelry stores with glittering displays, take-away food stores with exotic offerings and intriguing, spicy smells. Han’s stomach rumbled and his mouth watered.

“Let’s find something to eat,” he said, resisting the temptation to nick a twist of salt bread from a street vendor. Hunger always seemed to bring out his old habits, but he knew better than to do slide-hand in unfamiliar territory, with no escape route laid out.

You don’t need to steal to eat, he reminded himself, touching the money pouch tucked inside his leggings as if it were a talisman.