That, and a hundred empty buildings. Turns out, skinny fish and scrawny, salted crops couldn’t support very many people.
Now, at the fringes of the Maze, there was nothing to steal, nothing to cultivate, and the buildings crouched empty, as if waiting for inhabitants. “Happy to oblige,” Ninian told them.
He spent a while poking his head into various tenements, trying to find one that didn’t smell like death or house a colony of vermin. He wasn’t picky, really, but if he could avoid rat bites, he would.
Eventually, in a tenement so far from the Inner Maze—and everything else—that Ninian was sure it had been abandoned for at least half a century, he dropped to a seat against the wall. A crooked staircase meandered upward, and the first-floor walls were covered in soot-painted pictographic graffiti, surely the markings of a long-dead gang. Dust hung all around, catching the dim light. But the air was as dry as he could hope, and there was glass in the windows, so after admiring his prize for a few moments, Ninian pushed himself up and braved the stairs. They creaked loudly under his weight but seemed solid enough.
He stopped at the second floor and tried the door. It stuck halfway, so he leaned his thin weight against it and shoved. It came unstuck with so much force that the handle flew out of his hands, and the door hit the wall. Ninian cringed. Inside, two rooms met at an empty doorway, and grayish wooden cabinets hung sadly from the wall in the corner. Ninian gave a low whistle. “This is nice.” He wondered how long he’d be able to stay before someone else decided they liked this spot. Probably a while. It wasn’t like there weren’t other places to choose from.
It was common knowledge that higher floors were safer from various breakers-in, but Ninian didn’t feel like checking if he’d fall through the stairs on the next flight. He crossed to the window to see the wind picking up, the fog skirting over the ground as sleet began to fall. It was going to be a stormy night, and the building creaked as if to underscore the thought.
Despite the feast of duck the night before, he was starting to feel the day without food. He’d have to get more tomorrow before things got too desperate. For now, though… “I’m not going outside tonight,” he said to himself with a sigh, dropping to a seat under the window. “Fucking done with being cold.” The duck had been worth the soak, but he’d shivered for so long afterward that he was actually sore.
The building groaned, the wind pressed on the old slats and crept through the windows, and Ninian flopped onto his back on the floor and crossed his arms behind his head. Lonely, yes, but safe, and sheltered, and he could stay here.
He could do that.
CHAPTER THREE
It took Ninian longer than he would have liked to find his way back from his new den, and he struggled to orient himself among the winding backstreets. The sun had begun to rise before he recognized familiar landmarks. He thought his sense of direction was all right, but… well, he supposed the city was called The Maze for a reason.
He walked quickly through the streets, which were still shining with ice from the night before. Not many vendors were outside. The sky still looked threatening, and Ninian was sure that nobody wanted to risk damaging their wares. That left a few options: the Fisher’s Shore, which would be nearly empty—storms kept the boats from leaving, and if the boats didn’t leave, there could be no fish—or one of the few trading shops. The trading shops weren’t Ninian’s favorite places. Anyone could bring anything to a shop, and if the shopkeeper thought people would want it, the trader would give the seller a few coins and vend their ware at a higher price. Plenty of people—cobblers, blacksmiths, farmers—didn’t bother selling their own goods; they just sold to a trading shop where they’d have a better chance of finding a buyer. It was the way the world worked, Ninian knew, but it also meant that he didn’t stand a chance of affording much of anything.
He wasn’t sure how much food a trading shop would carry, but his options were limited, and he needed to try. He was definitely ready to settle for unperishable, salt-hard meat, or even a shriveled parsnip or two.
To his knowledge, three trading shops existed in the city. One was in the deepest part of the Inner Maze, a place even Ninian hesitated to go. The Inner Maze was a warzone of feuding gangs, and the poor fool who set foot on the wrong turf was sure to meet a grisly end.
Another was so tiny that Ninian wondered how the owner fed herself. He didn’t think she could afford to buy enough goods to resell because he’d seen her sitting outside her shop, begging for customers on her knees.
The third, though… the third seemed promising. It was run by a giant of a shopkeeper, a man by the name of Máel Máedóc. His shop was always full—a little bit of everything moving in, a little bit of everything moving out. His reputation was terrifying, and Ninian would have liked to avoid the place, but… surely, he could slip in and out unseen. Máel Máedóc might have a giant’s stature and no tolerance for thieves, but surely even the most unyielding and brutally upright of men could do nothing about what they did not notice.
His mind made up, Ninian danced around a puddle and headed in the direction of Máel Máedóc’s.
✽ ✽ ✽
Máel Máedóc’s shop was crooked. The lintel sagged unevenly over a door that had been gradually shaved lopsided by wearing against the tilted doorframe. The shutters hung at odd angles, and the shingles of the roof skewed toward the ground, as if they were about to slide off.
Ninian took a deep breath.
He’d heard a story once, about a man who’d been caught pilfering a single spool of twine from Máel Máedóc. The shopkeeper, disgusted by the man’s slippery ways, had not rested until he’d found the thief—and when he did, he’d killed the man with one blow, saying that the man’s morals had been as dirty as his soul.
Ninian really hoped that story wasn’t true.
Fueled by his empty stomach, Ninian turned the bent knob and slipped inside. Beyond the door, candles burned on the walls, not quite high enough to set the ceiling on fire, but too low to be safe around anybody’s hair. The place was dim despite the tallow tapers’ flickering illumination, and it smelled of smoke and sweat and stale bread.
Bread! That was a good sign.
Maybe because it was still early, or maybe because of the overnight storm, the shop wasn’t as busy as Ninian would have liked. Haggling customers made the most reliable cover—they occupied a merchant’s attention in addition to providing physical chaos. Fortunately, the inside of the shop was just as crooked as the outside. Lopsided shelves blocked the line of sight in every direction, and in a moment, Ninian had hurried into twisting aisles.
Fishnets in bundles. Sacks of oats that were far too big to steal. Scraps of tin, scavenged off of some or another roof. Ninian cracked his knuckles with a touch of anxiety, peeking all around for something he could eat. He pushed aside a couple of sheepskins hanging from the ceiling and peered into the cool darkness behind them. “Not bad cover,” he whispered. There might be something hidden there that was worth taking. In a moment, he’d vanished into the shadowed hollow.
In the dimness of his woolly screen, Ninian had to stop and absorb the sight.