“The south gate.” Dagan pointed the way we’d come.

“You didn’t use Gala’s gate?”

Dagan brightened. “Gala? The Merchant’s Son?”

“Yes,” Shep said. “Remember him? Weak-chinned, always kind of embarrassed about it?”

“I do. He’s a guardsman now?”

“Yep, and he’s at the west gate. Closest to Laraak. I assumed that’s how you entered.”

“Uh, no. We used…different means.” Dagan shook his head as we walked out into the starry night. “Much different.”

“Do I want to know that story?” Shep grinned, baring his sharp incisors.

“Not in this lifetime.” Dagan grabbed my hand and interlaced his fingers with mine, looking back at his brother with warmth in his eyes. “Stay safe, Brother. Take care of the others. I’m counting on you.”

“You know I will. Safe journeys.” Shep’s soft farewell echoed down the path.

Iltani blew him a bawdy kiss over her shoulder.

“Is that an offer?” he called, his wolfish smile lighting up the night.

“A standing one.” She held his eyes as we slinked away under the silent moon until the dark swallowed him up.

But as we ducked through the fields toward the west, her eyes dimmed and her hand strayed repeatedly to the flask at her waist, and despite draining it, she never lost the thirsty look hanging around her like a ghoul.

SHEP WAS CORRECT. After retrieving our cart from the grove, we went to the west gate and watched it from a safe distance. Gala, Dagan’s old childhood friend, stood there whittling a stick, his silver breastplate winking in the torchlight.

No other guardsmen were around.

His shocked expression and knife-slash of a smile when Dagan approached was all the confirmation we needed that he would let us pass through.

Nanaea, Iltani, and I scuttled out from our cover, our prophet’s veils over our heads so Gala wouldn’t know our identities. Dagan explained that we were his servants, and asked for Gala’s silence that he was in Alu. To trust him that he wasn’t there to do any harm, but to help the citizens. Gala looked warily at him for a second too long, but a handful of talents, enough coins to feed his parents and siblings for many hungry days and nights, was enough to secure his promise.

Then we went to Laraak.

Yashub, the head trader, turned out to be a man of my own height, nearly as wide as he was tall. His two front teeth were missing, so his words were softened by a significant lisp.

Despite our showing up in the middle of the night like thieves, he was still wide awake, sitting around a fire, laughing, drinking, and casting lots over six goats with a few of his associates.

Moonlight illuminated rainbow-colored tents that were flung across the encampment like toys scattered in the sand. The rest of the traders seemed to be asleep, their dreams likely punctuated by Yashub’s wheezing laugh.

“Protection?” He squinted weathered eyes under a pair of gray, bushy eyebrows as he scratched his belly. His head. “We don’t have guardsmen here. We deal in goods. Animals. Weapons. Nothing else.”