Demis pushed the tavern door open and stepped in first. The Matron followed close behind him, her hand resting light on his shoulder. Noise hit them at once—voices piled over the clatter of clay mugs and the scrape of benches across stone. Smoke hung beneath the low timber beams. A few heads turned toward the door, then turned away again.
Demis scanned the room from left to right. Most of the tables were full. Laborers bent over their bowls. A merchant sat alone near the hearth, counting coin. Behind a scarred wooden counter, the barkeep wiped his hands on a rag. Demis led the Matron toward an empty table near the back wall, away from both the fire and the door.
The innkeeper eyed the Matron from the corner of his eye.
"You lot ain't welcome here," he hissed, leaning over the counter. "If the guards see your kind in my house, that gives me bad business. I told you lot three times already. She can't work here, clean here, or shovel shit here. Ya hear me?"
"She isn't here for work," Demis said, drawing himself up a little.
"I don't care." The innkeeper flicked the rag over his shoulder. "If she wants to eat here, sleep here, or so much as piss here, no one wants to deal with a marked woman."
From the corner of his eye, Demis saw Gerren step out from a side room, adjusting one of his cuffs.
"What is this?" Gerren's deep voice carried across the hall.
Demis turned at once. "Master Merchant, I brought the hired hands you were looking for."
Gerren raised an eyebrow. His hand paused at the cuff for half a beat. Then he let it drop.
"Yes," he said. "I do need someone to tend my clothes and wares."
"This is my Ma', Mared."
The woman dipped into a curtsey, one hand gathering the edge of her worn skirt.
The innkeeper cut in at once. "Oi, you Pharean merchant. I suggest you don't tangle with that lot. She's a marked woman. You already have a tail on you. Best not gather more heat than you're due."
Gerren turned his head toward him, slow and deliberate.
"Our business is our business, Silas."
Silas gave one shoulder a shrug. "Don't say I didn't warn ya."
Gerren shook his head once, then looked back at Demis. "I suppose this rabble is what passes for innkeepers in Bren now. I do hope they finish the new inns in the northern district. One can scarcely find a decent room anymore, even with coin."
Then he shifted his gaze back to Silas.
"They need rooms. See to it that they are fed, and have warm beds prepared for them."
"Aye," Silas said, rubbing at the side of his jaw.
"And I need a private room with the boy. Again."
Silas looked at Demis, then back at Gerren. His eyes narrowed. He looked once more at Demis, snorted under his breath, and muttered something about foreign fetishes before jerking his chin at a barwench.
Gerren paid no mind. He didn't really care what Silas thought, as long as it hid the fact of what Demis was really doing.
"Aye, you. Get these two a room."
The Matron said nothing, but when she looked at Demis, her fingers tightened once on the fold of her blanket.
"We'll talk later, Ma'," Demis said.
Mared leaned closer, her voice low. "I hope he isn't making you do something unreasonable."
"Don't worry, Ma'." Demis rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand. "I'm just getting things for him so he can understand more and pay more coin."
She searched his face for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright."
She gave Gerren another small curtsey, then followed the barwench toward the room she had been given.
Gerren gestured for Demis to follow and led him away from the main room. They passed through a narrow side corridor where the tavern noise dulled behind timber walls and shut doors. The barwench stopped at the last room on the left, lifted the latch, and let them in.
It was a small bedchamber for travelers with coin—tight, but private. A narrow bed stood against the far wall beneath a shuttered window. A washbasin sat on a low stool beside it, next to a chipped pitcher half full of water. There was a small table, two stools, and a single brass lamp hanging from a peg near the door. The air smelled faintly of straw, lamp oil, and the soap used on the sheets.
Gerren waited until the door shut behind them. Then he crossed to the table, set two fingers on the back of one stool, and took the other for himself.
"What happened to you?"
"I fell."
Gerren leaned back and looked at him for a beat. "Don't lie. It was those thugs again."
Demis sniffed and kept his eyes on the floorboards.
"I know you can't really escape them," Gerren said. He rested one forearm across the table. "By writ, they are your guardians."
Demis said nothing. He only shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Gerren watched him, then exhaled once through his nose.
"I didn't expect you to bring your Ma here."
"You promised I could if I helped." Demis looked up then, just for a moment.
Gerren's mouth tightened. "I did."
He tapped one finger against the table, then stopped.
"So, you saw fifty men hauling in the furnace, correct?"
"Yes, Master Gerren." Demis sniffed again. "Just one furnace. They were hauling all kinds of stone, too."
"What kind of stone?"
Demis rubbed at his sleeve with his thumb. "Some were white. Some were black."
Gerren studied him again.
"You should wash first."
"No." Demis shook his head. "It's fine."
For a moment, Gerren said nothing. He only looked at the swelling on Demis's face, then at the dried mud on his clothes.
"You know," he said at last, "I was a street rat in Holdorn once, too."
Demis tilted his head.
"I have dealt with thugs before." Gerren leaned back slightly on the stool and folded his hands over his middle. "Not the same faces, but the same kind. Boys with bigger shoulders than sense. Men who think fear is the same thing as strength."
He watched Demis to see if the words landed.
"I was smaller than the others, too. Meaner at first, perhaps. Hungrier certainly. I learned quickly that I could not win by fighting fair, and I could not outrun everyone forever."
Demis stayed quiet, though his shoulders eased a fraction.
"So I learned other things," Gerren continued. "How to listen without looking like I was listening. How to remember what men said when they thought a child did not matter. How to stand in the right place when merchants argued over coins and routes. How to carry words from one street to another without opening my mouth where I should not."
He paused and looked down at his own hands for a moment.
"At first, it was small things. Messages. Watching wagons. Counting guards. Remembering which men entered a warehouse and which men left it lighter in the purse." One corner of his mouth twitched. "Then one day a man noticed I remembered too much to be ordinary."
Demis rubbed at his nose. "What man?"
"A factor," Gerren said after a beat. He lifted one hand and made a small turn of the wrist, as if that explained the sort of man well enough. "A merchant sort. One of the kind who smiles while other men do the lying for him. He fed me, put boots on my feet, and taught me there were ways to work for a city besides carrying stones or bleeding for it."
Then he looked back at Demis and let the silence sit.
Demis did not know what Gerren wanted from him with that, so he changed the subject.
"Alright. I saw the scribes arguing again."
Gerren straightened at once. "Continue."
"They said they were humiliated by the little lord."
Gerren's brows drew together.
"They think the outer ring children should stay outside the castle."
Gerren gave a small nod.
"Also, the smiths and guildsmen are grumbling. The Guildmaster of the Surveyors wouldn't yield the rights to the plans for the new kiln."
Gerren pointed to the stool with two fingers. That meant he was serious.
"Sit."
Demis lowered himself onto it.
"Hold on," Gerren said.
He reached into his satchel, drew out his writing tools, and set them on the table one by one. Inkwell. Folded sheets. Quill. He pulled the cork free with his teeth, set it aside, then dipped the nib.
"Go on."
"Remember to always write down what you know," Gerren said as he steadied the page with one hand. "That way, you do not lose the details. Have you been reading the book I bought you?"
Demis nodded. "I read The Fundamentals of Arithmetic."
"Good." Gerren lowered his head and wrote for a few moments. "It's a good book. Can you answer the questions at the back?"
"Mhm."
Gerren looked up at him over the page. "You should take the literacy aptitude test."
Demis tilted his head. "Why?"
"It will get you into the castle," Gerren said, setting the quill down for a moment. "And it will put you out of reach of the thugs who keep beating you."
Demis shook his head at once. "That's not part of our deal. I was only supposed to go around the outer ring. That's where I'm supposed to be."
Gerren sat back and rubbed once at his jaw.
"Do you know the name of the Master Surveyor and the guildsmen?"
"The Master Surveyor's name is Albrecht."
"And the Master Smith?"
"Algard."
Gerren bent back to the page. The quill scratched steadily.
"What about the scribes you mentioned? Did you hear their names?"
"I only know one of them." Demis sniffed. "He's the head steward under the Master of the Rolls. Cassian von der Sigel."
Gerren nodded and wrote it down.
"And the contraption they are using to make writing faster?"
"They called it the Ink Press, Master Gerren."
"Yes. That." Gerren blotted the line with the side of his hand. "Do you know anything else about it?"
"They keep it hidden well enough in the inner ring. I also talked to the running boys. Some of them I've even played with."
"Oh?" Gerren glanced up from the page.
"Yes. Some are from the outer ring." Demis rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand. "They said they work for the new Press Office."
Gerren clicked his tongue once.
"If you pass the aptitude test, I will pay you double what you are making now."
Demis shook his head at once.
"No. I don't want to."
Gerren set the quill down. "Why?"
Demis looked away. "I just don't like them."
"You are not there to like them, Demis."
Demis's mouth tightened. He kept his eyes on the floorboards.
"I just don't want to," he said, and this time, there was no give in it.
Gerren had the tired eyes of a man who had looked like he had been in a conversation like this with Demis time and again.
The room went still for a moment. Gerren looked at him, then at the page, then back again.
At last, he set the quill down.
"If I promise to take your Ma' to Loria with me, would you reconsider?"
Demis stopped moving altogether. He thought about it seriously.
Then he lifted his head and stared intensely at Gerren's eyes.
"If you do that," he said, "then we have a deal."