I looked at myself in the mirror and, for once, didn't recognise the person looking back.
Short black hair. Silver eyes carefully constructed to hide the vertical slits beneath — close enough to human to pass, unusual enough to be interesting. A short, sturdy build; compact rather than slight, with the particular solidity of someone who works with their hands and has the body to show for it. The man in the mirror was, objectively, a handsome one. He wore a plain black tunic, a lightweight cotton outer coat, high boots with his trousers tucked neatly into them.
Henry Delgon. That was the name I would give Reichert — or Zaren — whichever name he preferred to answer to. It was the same name I had used in the carriage, the name of a real man from the western Kingdom of Helga who had visited Selon a month ago and already departed. A name with a paper trail, if anyone thought to look for one, belonging to someone who could not be found to contradict me.
I examined every detail of the disguise with the thoroughness of someone who understands that the part most likely to fail is the part you didn't check.
It held up.
The remaining question was whether he would hire me. He had seemed suspicious of me during our carriage ride — or perhaps merely observant, which in someone like him amounted to the same thing. And what did I call him? Reichert, the name he had given publicly, or Zaren, the name he had given me in the dark of a late-night carriage? I decided on Zaren. It was the name he had offered of his own accord, without the performance attached, and using it felt less like a deception than using the other one.
"Let's see how this goes," I said aloud, in the deep male voice I had constructed for this form. It came out naturally enough.
Rora was stationed outside my chamber with instructions that I was resting — exhausted from yesterday's inspection of the fair grounds, not to be disturbed. It was plausible. It was also, like most of my better excuses lately, partly true. The one variable I had not fully resolved was Arvid, who had a habit of appearing when least convenient and a sensitivity to closed doors that I found periodically inconvenient.
I set the thought aside. I could manage Arvid later.
For now: the mirror, the disguise, and the particular sharp excitement of something that felt, for the first time in recent memory, like genuine adventure. I had missed this feeling — the quickening that comes with risk, with motion, with doing something that cannot be entirely predicted. It lit something in me that the past weeks of careful, managed stillness had left very quiet.
I took one last look at the stranger in the mirror, then set my anchor and stepped out of reality.
---
I materialised in a narrow alleyway close to the Silver Coin Inn — a service corridor between storage buildings for the nearby establishments, deserted at this hour, the kind of space that exists in every city and belongs, functionally, to no one. I straightened my coat, checked the line of the disguise one final time through pure habit, and walked toward the inn.
There was a noticeboard mounted to the wall beside the main entrance. I scanned it.
Gayathri had told me, in passing the day before, that the Silver Coin Inn was not simply a place the Silver Eagle guild happened to stay — it was theirs. They owned it. When the guild was in Arpa, they occupied it at no cost; when they weren't, it generated steady income from paying guests. A practical arrangement, the kind that characterised people who understood that capital should never sit still.
The hiring notice was not difficult to find.
*Help wanted. Heavy labour or bookkeeping — both welcome. Temporary position, excellent pay. To apply: enter the bar, speak to the beer man.*
I read it twice.
*The beer man.* I had encountered a great many unusual hiring procedures in my time, but this particular instruction had a quality all its own. I had no idea who the beer man was or what a test administered by him might involve, but I had come this far and there was nothing to do but proceed.
I pushed open the door. A small chime announced my entrance.
The interior of the inn was in its morning state — chairs turned upside-down on the tables, surfaces recently wiped, the particular quiet of a space that serves food and drink and is temporarily between purposes. One person occupied the room: a woman behind the main counter, fully absorbed in what appeared to be a detailed accounting exercise. Coins arranged in careful rows. A large ledger opened beside them. A feather pen moving between the two with the focused efficiency of someone who does this every day and does it well.
She was a foreigner — unmistakably so. Fiery red hair braided and coiled into a neat bun. Green eyes. A plain green dress that matched them, whether intentionally or coincidentally. Freckles scattered across her cheeks in the particular pattern that comes with fair skin and sun. Somewhere in her thirties or forties, I estimated — though she had the kind of face that made precise guessing difficult.
She looked up at the sound of my boots on the polished floor.
"We don't open until ten, young man." Her voice was deep and unhurried, with the slight roughness of someone who has spent decades speaking her second language rather than her first.
"I'm here about the notice," I said, with a brief gesture toward the front door.
She exhaled — not rudely, but with the particular quality of a woman who has already handled eleven things this morning and has been hoping to finish the twelfth without interruption.
"Corner of the room," she said, returning her attention to the coins. "Bar section — the counter on the far left. There's a man behind it. Fat, bearded, gruff. If you can wake him up, he'll give you a test. He has the final say on hiring." A brief pause. "Good luck."
I looked across the room to where she had indicated.
The bar occupied one wall of the inn — a long, high counter with stools lined along the front, an impressive array of bottles arranged on the shelves behind it, mugs hanging from hooks above. A small door to one side presumably led to the wine cellar. The space had the comfortable, slightly battered look of something that had been well-used for a long time.
I could not immediately see anyone behind the counter.
I crossed the room, approached, and applied some effort to peering over the high counter surface.
There he was.
Sprawled on the floor behind the bar with the profound commitment of someone who had arrived at this position gradually and with considerable assistance from the contents of the surrounding bottles. Short. Stout. A thick black beard and long black hair that had partially escaped whatever had been holding it. Empty bottles arranged around him with the haphazard geometry of a long evening's work.
This was the person with final say over my employment.
I straightened up and considered the situation for a moment.
"Mister?" I tried, pitching my voice to carry without being aggressive about it. "Excuse me — mister, could you wake up?"
Nothing. Not a stir, not a change in the quality of the breathing.
I tried again, slightly louder. The same result.
I looked back across the room at the red-haired woman, who had not looked up from her ledger, and who had the contained expression of someone who knew exactly what I was encountering and had already decided it was not her problem.
I turned back to the man on the floor and let out a slow, resigned breath.
Getting hired was apparently its own ordeal, entirely separate from whatever came afterward. If this was the entry point, I could only imagine what working here actually involved.
Then again — I had come this far.
I leaned further over the counter.
"Mister. *Please* wake up."