“I’ll be ready in the morning.” Thane stroked the short plant with a long sigh. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, my good man,” said Poldo brightly. “Let’s save blame for those that deserve it. Speaking of which…”

He turned to Brother Atticus, who was just completing his greeting. “And so, with the aforementioned understood and with your implicit consent to a verbal agreement, I wish you a good morning as well, as defined in subsection forty-two, paragraph ‘r’ of Adchul’s Master Agreement.”

“Thank you, Brother Atticus. I have truly enjoyed this conversation,” said Poldo with both honesty and malice. “And now it is with equal pleasure that I must bid you good day.”

Oopa of Many Hues was having a very bad day.

Usually a bad day meant that the olive prices rose right after she unloaded a barrel at the market, or that a client skipped out in paying for the information, or—on one horrible occasion—that the family goat got loose in the silk market. When it comes to expensive tastes, nothing beats a goat in a silk market.

But today was worse. She longed for the days when her worst problems were an empty purse, a half-eaten bolt of fabric, and a nanny goat with a bad case of indigestion.

A crossbow bolt ricocheted off the sandstone wall next to her, reminding her that the current problem—the very insistent problem—was a quartet of armed men with crimson robes.

Another shot zinged overhead as Oopa sprinted around the corner and into Kesh’s Dawn Market, her many-colored cloak trailing behind her like a rainbow banner. Merchants and shoppers shouted in surprise and anger as she shoved them out of her way, then screamed as she toppled a table covered in brass vases. Her pursuers leapt over the fallen vessels, so Oopa overturned a cage of squawking imps, knocked down a stack of clay pots, and went out of her way to crash through a fruit cart. Then she tossed her rainbow cloak over a mannequin, kicked it over, and ran in the opposite direction.

It was all to no avail. A glance behind her revealed the red-robed men continuing their dogged pursuit, unfazed by the makeshift diversions and obstacles. Worse, now the noctomancer selling the imps was giving chase as well.

Oopa’s eyes darted to a stack of crates leaning against a white stone building. A burst of quick leaps took her to the top of the pile, and another took her onto the clay-tiled rooftops. She climbed up to the steeple of the roof to get her bearings, and quickly dropped onto her belly.

Below her, where the courtyard of most complexes would be, a pit of thick, black mud burbled and congealed like last night’s stew. She caught a glimpse of a crest on a banner hanging above the muck; an Imperial serif wearing a crown of gemstones.

An old proverb from before the birth of the Empire said, “the man who would hold court with dragons will wear a jeweled crown.” Most scholars believed that it originally was meant to say that power brings wealth, but most scholars don’t get to direct policy. Emperors and empresses throughout history had interpreted the wisdom to mean that taming and working with dragons or dragon-kin would surely lead to riches and authority.

The only problem with this theory was dragon-kin.

Dragons themselves were believed to be sleeping beneath mountains across the globe since ages past. They rarely surfaced—only a handful of times during entire ages—and those that did seemed more in the mood to burn cities and eat livestock than to hold court. That left the ambitions of Imperial dreamers to drakes and other dragon-kin, which were universally ill-tempered, stubborn, and deadly. Many of the Empire’s finest men and women had lost their lives in attempts to ride wyverns, or lead Stone Drakes to war, or even just to convince a Flame Drake to light a stove.

More recent emperors recognized that dragon taming was a waste of serifs and knights, and relegated the task of taming dragon-kin for the Empire to criminals and exiles. For the most part, these souls met the same fate as their nobler predecessors, but the criminal mind often has a certain ingenuity that’s incompatible with a proper education. Eventually, an innovative and desperate dragon-tamer discovered Mud Drakes.

Mud Drakes were dimmer than most dragon-kin. Their thick scales deterred most threats, and their dull minds couldn’t process any that remained, so they seldom got defensive. As ambush predators, they had no instinct to chase prey. They got disoriented when walking for any distance at all, and thus were as easy to lead around as beasts of burden. It was almost impossible to get hurt by a Mud Drake, provided you didn’t stand directly in front of a hungry one with its muzzle off.

And the only place the royal Mud Drakes had their muzzles off was in the Imperial dragon tamers’ stables.

Muck oozed around dark, bulging shapes in the mud below. Once happily concealed within a mud pit, Mud Drakes remained perfectly still until prey wandered into range.

Oopa took a deep breath. She glanced down to the street on the other side of her and saw red-robed figures awkwardly trying to scale the crates. Another was taking aim with a crossbow⁠—

One of the ceramic tiles next to her exploded with a plonk. It was the sound of a last chance quickly evaporating.

Oopa kicked at a couple of tiles to loosen them up as she scrambled to her feet. She half-crawled, half-sprinted along the gable of the roof as the first red-robed figure clambered up onto the tiles. The man’s pursuit was brief and ended with a scream over the chalky sound of sliding terracotta, followed by an undignified plop and a chorus of reptilian bellowing.

Oopa didn’t have time to glance backward. She launched herself into the air as she reached the edge of the roof, and a crossbow bolt slammed into the tiles where she had been a moment earlier. A split second later, she slammed into the top of the building across the street and scrambled over the edge.

This rooftop was flatter and didn’t have any precipitous drops into drake-infested pits. The building was on the edge of one of Kesh’s famed waterways, just a few streams down from Ogdin’s Canals. She used the gleaming, white pillars of Ogdin’s Cairn to orient herself, then plotted an escape route back to the sewers. The route would take her across the canal to the Sandmills and through the bustling slums of the Dockman’s Quarters.

That meant that right now was as quiet a moment and as high an altitude as she would enjoy for quite some time.

After a moment’s thought, Oopa ducked behind a set of abandoned falcon cages and pulled a small, round stone from a pouch on her bandolier. She tapped on it impatiently, growling to herself as the magic took a moment to fire up. Then a tiny, rose-colored light bloomed within the glassy surface.

“I went to the Crimson Grove. It was a risk, but I saw the trees and they’re full,” Oopa whispered to the stone. “I mean, they’re laden with fruit. That’s because they grow year-round. They’re always in season! And the growers aren’t happy I found⁠—”

A sudden shout rang out from a nearby roof. She looked up to see a pair of red-robed men emerging from a stairwell, brandishing their long, curved blades.

“Have to run!” she said and tapped the stone once more. It flared pink in her hands as she sprinted toward the north side of the rooftop. Her muscles tensed and stretched as she launched herself off the edge of the roof, out over the canal. She glanced down as she leapt. The water was an azure slash through the sand- and bone-colored streets of the city. At its edge, she saw a flash of red.

The final pursuer. The one with the crossbow.

The bolt hit home before the thought did, punching into Oopa’s back with enough force to flip her over in midair. Something pink and bright flitted past her face as the messenger sprite flew above her, speeding off toward its destination.

Then she rolled in the air again and lost sight of her final message. Trailing blood, she plummeted toward the dark water below.

The crimson olive dropped into the amber liquid with a faint plop.

It began to spark and fizz on contact with the fluid, dancing above the flashes of light like a mad imp dancing over flames. Its wild jig sent streams of tiny bubbles to the top of a fluted glass, which the waiter placed in front of an ancient Scribkin wearing horned spectacles and enough foundation to whitewash a fence. Cracks and fissures spread over Merrin Fumple’s face as she smiled and lifted the glass in a toast. “Imperial flame olive,” she said. “Adds some punch to any drink, and it’s doubly good on a chilly day.”

The Gnome took a sip. Light flared and a cloud of steam erupted around her.

“Whoo. Ha ha!” Smoke curled from the corners of Merrin’s grin. “A bit pricey, but you only live once.”

Heraldin Strummons wore a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. He suspected that Merrin had lived at least three Human lifetimes, and spent them draining the coin pouches of countless hopeful musicians. Still, a dozen of those aspirants had become famous, and if Heraldin wanted to be the one to round out a baker’s dozen, he needed to make a good impression. “Worth every penny,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, then added, “You know, they use Imperial flame olives to make explosives.”

“Do they?” Merrin asked with a smile. “Is that why they’re so hard to get?”

“I would guess so.” Heraldin had no idea about the state of the olive market, but his penchant for fighting with glass chem-bombs kept him in contact with the alchemical industry. “Their oil costs more than liquid gold, but to the right buyer it’s worth the exorbitant price.”

“All I know is you can definitely use them to make amazing snacks and cocktails. You should try one while they’re still in stock.” She took a sip that set her silver eyebrows alight.

“I’m good with my moonwater,” Heraldin said. Moonwater was much like river water, as far as Heraldin could tell, except that it was served with a slice of grundant on the rim and cost two giltin for a glass.

Everything was like that at Salvatore’s, an upscale restaurant tucked between even more upscale buildings in the center of the Sixth Tier. All of the dishes boasted exotic names, elegant garnishes, and extravagant prices. Heraldin suspected the dim candlelight wasn’t so much to set the ambiance as it was to obscure the numbers on the menu.

“Moonwater does sound good,” Merrin said. “I think I’ll try one of them as well.”

“Be my guest.” Heraldin managed to force the words through a brittle grin.

Merrin was always the guest at lunch. That was, Heraldin understood, a key part of the arrangement. If some aspiring bard wanted Merrin’s time, they bought her a meal. If the hopeful minstrel was worth talking to again, Merrin would buy the meal next time and call it square. Of course, if a hopeful bard wasn’t worth Merrin’s time, she’d call it even anyway; the musician got a shot pitching to a top industry agent, and Merrin got the most expensive thing on the menu.

She liked to have a few drinks. She liked to make small talk about her grandchildren. She liked flirting with the waiters—especially Halflings, it was said—and speculating about whether or not she was too old to have a little fun. She had a loud laugh that she employed often and took quick notice if nobody joined in. It was all a game to Merrin, the sort that cats play with doomed mice. As the bard playing the part of “rodent” for the afternoon, all Heraldin could do was try to keep the game from ending prematurely or in tragedy. Eventually, he knew, the conversation would turn to his work.

Their turn to the matter at hand coincided with the arrival of Merrin’s third cocktail. “You must have brought me out to pitch the ballad of the liche-slaying heroes of Andarun,” Merrin said as she inspected her glass. An illusionary ship sailed across the surface of her deep blue drink.

The comment caught Heraldin off guard. “Well, I mean someday I hope to do it⁠—”