I followed a single cart as it squeaked its way down the Royal Highway, collecting the waste that had been raked into piles. Eventually, the whole lot would be dumped into the Erastes River to be washed out to sea, where a good chunk of it would be caught in the nets of irritated fishermen and returned to the city. It was the circle of life.
The stink of the cart joined with the rich salt smell of drying seaweed and the stench of tanneries, soap makers, and sewage to give that signature smell of the city of Agatos.
Luckily for my sore ankle, I didn’t have to walk all the way to the docks. Two thirds of the way down, I took a left turn onto Feldspar Plaza where my small office and apartment were located.
People called Agatos ‘the White City’ because of its whitewashed walls. Seen from the Erastes Bay as you approached Agatos harbour, the city glowed in the sunlight. In an excess of honesty, the local residents also called my part of Agatos ‘the Grey City’. The houses around here had been whitewashed, but it had been so long since the whitewash had been renewed that it was more like grey wash now.
The Grey City hadn’t been built for the likes of me, of course. Once, it had been a desirable location for the merchants, bankers, factory and mine owners, and the rest of the on-the-up classes. But as Agatos had flourished and wealth had concentrated itself ever more into ever fewer hands, the rich had moved up the valley, away from the worst of the stink and the summer heat, to where they could build grander and grander houses, leaving their former residences to decline and be divided into apartments. Whatever glamour the Grey City might have once possessed had decayed and peeled.
Which was where I came in. Now, the Grey City was occupied by the working poor, the artists, poets, and scribes, and, of course, one impoverished mage.
A rickety wooden dais stood in the middle of Feldspar Plaza, surrounded by a cluster of enterprising, if not strictly legal, stalls. Sometimes the dais housed a bar, sometimes it acted as a bandstand, and once or twice it had boasted an impromptu wrestling arena, before the City Watch had turned up and chased everyone off. This early, the plaza was mostly quiet. I raised a hand in tired greeting to the few stallholders who were setting up for the day then trudged up the short flight of steps to my office.
I pushed the door open, tossed my jacket onto my desk, and came to a dead stop. I wasn’t alone.
I had set wards on my apartment to keep out unwelcome visitors, but not on my office. It was hard enough finding clients without knocking them senseless when they called around. But I was certain I had left the door locked when I left last night.
I turned slowly, pulling in raw magic in readiness.
Benyon Field was sprawled out on my couch like a weasel that had lain dead in the sun for too long, thin, whiskery, and dried out. I released the magic harmlessly.
“Benny. What the Depths are you doing here?”
It must have taken something urgent to drag Benny away from his sleep. Benny was more of a night person; he preferred it when people couldn’t see what he was up to.
“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?” Benny said. “I come all this way…”
I wasn’t buying it. “You’re never up this early. What’s happened? Is everything all right?” Sudden tension constricted my chest. “Is Sereh all right?”
Sereh was Benny’s daughter. Pity, she and Benny were the closest thing I had to family these days. If something had happened to her…
“Yeah, Nik, mate. She’s great.”
I let out a puff of breath. Not Sereh, thank any god who was listening. What, then? I gave Benny a quizzical look. He returned it blandly.
Fine. Don’t tell me. He would get around to it eventually. He hadn’t dragged himself out of bed this early because he liked looking at my face.
“I thought I locked the door,” I said, turning away from him.
“You did.”
I sidled behind my desk and leaned over to check the safe. It was still closed.
“You don’t have anything in there,” Benny said.
Of course he had taken a look. He wouldn’t steal from me, but he wasn’t big on respecting my privacy, and an unpicked lock was an insult to him.
“I know.” It was humiliating. “They told me the safe was uncrackable.”
Benny ignored that. “Thought you must have been robbed or something.”
When I’d started this business, the safe had been the first thing I’d bought. I had thought I would need it, but in the five years I’d been working as a freelance mage, it had rarely seen much more than the odd lost moth.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over me, and I dropped into my chair.
“What do you want, Benny? I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m tired, I’m hungry, and my ankle aches.”
“You should do something about that.”
I gave him my most weary look. It slid right off his leathery face. Benny was only a year older than me, but I had seen corpses dragged out of buried temples that had aged better.
“This is a right nice couch you’ve got here.”
The couch was tatty, stained, and worn — much like Benny himself, in fact. It had one broken leg and a tendency to sag. I had bought it last month from Senator Breakwater’s major-domo. It wasn’t strictly legal, as Senator Breakwater had no idea he’d sold it to me. But he would never miss it, he would never have used it again, and there was no point in it going to waste.
“This is at least the third time you’ve seen it.” Whatever Benny was here for, he didn’t want to tell me, and that wasn’t like Benny at all.
“Yeah, well. Sometimes you don’t stop to appreciate things. Know what I mean?”
“You wouldn’t be seen dead with it in your house.”
He shrugged.
“Benny…”
Benny swung his legs over the side of the couch and sat up. He looked uncharacteristically nervous. “Fine. You owe me a favour.”
I grimaced. Benny was a lowlife thief most people wouldn’t trust with a dirty handkerchief, but we’d been friends since we were little kids. Oddly, for a man who spent so much of his life stealing, Benny had little time for money. Instead, he operated by a complicated system of obligations, favours, debts, and promises.
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. Things were swimming in and out of focus.
“Later.” I waved an exhausted hand. I needed a meal, I needed sleep, and I needed a clean shirt.
“Nah. It’s got to be now. You owe me.”
He was right, and Benny took his favours seriously. I knew, although I tried not to, that Benny could do nasty things to people he thought were trying to renege on a debt. He wouldn’t hurt me. We had been close friends for too long. It would be our friendship that would take the hit, and I didn’t have many friends. For some reason, I pissed people off.
“Fine,” I said, trying not to fall asleep where I sat. Galena Sunstone’s pantry had not been a good place for rest. “What is it?”
Benny straightened, running his fingers over his collar like he was adjusting his shirt for dinner. “I’ve got a job.”
That sounded … unlikely. I couldn’t remember Benny doing a single honest day’s work in all the years we’d known each other.
“What? A real job? With a salary and everything?”
“Don’t be daft. Why would I do that? Nah, I’m moving up in the world, see? Not nicking stuff for myself. I’m doing it freelance, like you.”