Olgard sprawled along the shores of its namesake bay, a city blessed by merchants' fortunes and nobles' ambitions. Its deep harbor and navigable river had made it a natural hub of commerce, with wealth flowing through its gates as steadily as the tides. Merchant ships from distant shores crowded the harbor, their holds laden with spices, silks, and exotic goods, while river barges brought grain, timber, and ore from the inland provinces. The city grew fat on tariffs, its coffers swelling with each vessel that dropped anchor in its waters.

  A line of hereditary counts ruled from their hilltop palace, their authority woven from centuries of marriage contracts and vassal oaths. Though blood had stained the city's stones during succession disputes in generations past—noble house turning against noble house in brief but bitter struggles—those days were long buried. Now, not even Olgard's eldest citizens could recall enemy armies beneath its walls or trampling its renowned orchards. This rare peace had allowed artisans, traders, and craftsmen to build their fortunes, each generation adding another layer to the city's prosperity.

  As Olgard flourished, it burst free of its old town walls like an overfed merchant from last year's doublet. The overflow created the bustling Outer City, a maze of wooden houses and crowded streets where ambition rubbed shoulders with necessity. Beyond these newer districts stretched endless farmlands and grand estates, their boundaries marked by ancient hedgerows and stone walls that faded into the horizon like a painted backdrop.

  On the city's outskirts stood The Last League, an inn where merchants gathered before entering Olgard proper. Its common room buzzed with traders hunched over tables, calculating tomorrow's tariffs and debating which city guards might be amenable to discretion. But in a private chamber above, lit by a single tallow candle, a different sort of calculation was taking place.

  Edmer sat alone, his rough appearance and weathered clothes at odds with the fine Dervenish wine he sipped. With scholarly reverence, he turned another page of the decaying manuscript before him, absorbing its knowledge like parched soil drinks rain. His icy blue eyes gleamed in the candlelight. This was the final piece of his puzzle. Setting aside his empty glass, he began updating a sprawling family tree diagram with a quill pen.

  His pen traced a line from himself—the last of a wealthy smith guild lineage—through his late father Aemin, and back through generations of craftsmen and occasional minor nobility. With each correction and annotation, a story emerged. The life of a guild member could provide comfort, even wealth to pass on to one's sons, but Edmer found it suffocating. It was a life bounded by invisible walls; no matter how wealthy a merchant became; aristocracy would always look down upon them. Edmer had drops of noble blood where impoverished aristocracy had met upstart merchantry, but not enough to break free of his social stratum.

  Unless, of course, he ceased to be a merchant at all.

  So Edmer did what he always did—he gambled. His late father would have been horrified to know that his son had sold all the inherited smithies, converting his birthright into a hefty sum of gold florins. He'd spent a year gathering every scrap of information about his heritage, collecting facts where he could and drawing conclusions where he couldn't. Now, finally, it was time to act.

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  Donning worn merchant garments, he joined the crowd hurrying to reach the city before the guards closed the gates for the night. The Trade Gates rose before them, twin whitewashed towers topped with the Ravenod dynasty's banner—a red ship on a white shield. Edmer kept his head low as he passed beneath them, but the guards were more interested in extracting "fees" from peasants with produce-laden carts than scrutinizing a lone merchant.

  Once inside the city proper, he wandered the cobbled streets in seemingly random patterns to shake any watching eyes. His first stop was a shop displaying silk gowns and fur-trimmed doublets that cost more than most burghers earned in a year. When the shop guard moved to throw him out, Edmer's response was a purse heavy with silver landing on the counter.

  "I have an order," he said quietly. "A discreet one."

  The shopkeeper and guard exchanged wary glances. For a moment, Edmer considered bolting. Then, with a subtle adjustment of the offered price, greed won out, and from there, everything proceeded smoothly.

  It was the first door of many that would open to the clink of coin that evening. He swept through the Upper City's finest shops making bulk purchases, placed bets in the Lower City's fighting pits, and loosened tongues in the Outer City's taverns. By nightfall, his inheritance was significantly lighter, but he was transformed. Fresh-shaved and elegantly attired in a hooded doublet of Flemish wool, he cut a different figure entirely. A dueling sword hung at his belt—as fashion demanded—and hired bodyguards flanked him. Even more was agreed upon and waited for the right moment.

  All that remained now was an opportunity and a presentation.

  Myrt couldn't make sense of what was happening on the streets lately. The regulars at The Bull and Baron had split into two camps: those in the loop and those out of it. She belonged to the latter, watching as the insiders grew increasingly tight-lipped while somehow having enough coin to drink through endless nights.

  Even Varin, who usually got along better with the "rob-you-on-the-street" crowd, couldn't get them to talk. Now here he was, joining their revelry, his rich voice carrying a profane song across the tavern. He loved to sing—had a gift for it. Everyone knew how his mother had warned him against joining the Bard College, claiming it beneath a god-fearing honest worker.

  When he finally returned to their table, Myrt nearly leapt on him.

  "What did you get from them?" she demanded, her voice edged with impatience.

  "Still nothing." He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Same old 'you'll see' nonsense. But whatever's happening, it's big. Biggest job of our lives, and we're not in on it."

  At least they had the coin from the University job to comfort them. Both thieves had indulged in the time-honored tradition of the newly wealthy—spending their gains before the heat of acquisition could cool. Varin now boasted a new long dagger, its blade kissing the boundary between weapon and short sword, nearly half a meter of gleaming Toledo steel. It was more showpiece than practical tool for their trade—murder created complications that mere theft did not, and even the most corrupt guard couldn't ignore a corpse as easily as a missing purse. Still, it was a beautiful thing, a slice of pride for a Lower City commoner to carry at his hip. And when faced with the more unsavory elements of their world, such displays of steel often prevented the need for its use.

  Myrt had chosen a different path for her windfall. Her new leather belt was a masterwork of utility, festooned with an array of satchels, purses, and pouches that would make a merchant envious. Each pocket was a possibility, a home for her various tools of the craft or their future spoils. The weight of it around her waist was comforting, like armor against uncertainty.