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for an angry mob to form, coming to the boy’s aid. As Seregil and Alec watched, the baker and his boys were knocked down and beaten, and the stall set on fire.
    Seregil shook his head sadly as they made their way into the relative safety of the twisting streets of the slum beyond. “It’s a wonder the city hasn’t burned down already.”
    Here the tall tenements leaned against one another like drunken friends, with washing drying over the windowsills and women shouting to their children playing in the filthy street below to come home as it grew dark. The Scavenger crews didn’t patrol this sort of neighborhood very often. Garbage lay stinking in the gutters.
    Children ran up to them, begging coins, and Alec tossed them a handful of pennies. They left the children scrambling for the coins and rounded a corner into a narrower lane where big black rats were making a meal of a dead dog. It was growing dark, but Alec caught sight of what looked like a child’s body slumped against a rickety fence across the street. A few rats were crawling over it, as well.
    “Hold on.” He went to the boy and bent over him for a closer look. The child was an emaciated little thing. His eyes were open and Alec thought he was dead until he saw the boy’s chest rise and fall. Alec patted his cheek lightly. “Hey boy, what’s wrong?”
    But apart from breathing, the child showed no more lifethan a doll. His eyes were dry and dull, and there were specks of dirt caught in the corners of his lids.
    Alec looked around at the blank walls and empty windows. “Someone left him here to die.” Life was cheap in this part of the city, especially the lives of children.
    Seregil nodded. “There’s a Dalnan temple a few streets over. They’ll care for him there.”
    Alec passed his pack to Seregil and gathered the boy in his arms, then almost wished he hadn’t.
    There was no resemblance, of course, but the slight weight of that spindly little body reminded Alec far too much of Sebrahn, his alchemically begotten “child of no mother” he’d lost so recently. But he swallowed the sudden swell of pain and said nothing.
    The temple was little more than a shrine cramped between two taller buildings, and its sacred grove consisted of nothing but a pair of apple trees. A few sleepy brown doves cooed softly from the shelter of their branches when Seregil pulled the string of the small iron bell beside the gate.
    Two brown-robed young women wearing the drysian’s bronze lemniscate came out to greet them. Their welcoming smiles turned to concern when they saw the boy.
    “Maker’s Mercy, another one!” the taller of the two exclaimed softly.
    “We just found him lying in an alley,” Alec explained. “I didn’t feel any broken bones, and there’s no blood.”
    The other woman held out her arms, and Alec passed the child to her. “We’ll see that he doesn’t suffer,” she promised.
    “You’ve seen this before?” asked Seregil.
    “A few. Some new summer fever, I think.”
    “Thank you, Sister.” Alec, raised a Dalnan, gave her a silver sester.
    “Maker’s Mercy on you both, for helping a child of poverty.”
    Alec knew a thing or two about poverty, himself.
    Emerging from the slum, they hired horses—which took a bit of fast talking, given their attire—and rode up the HarborWay to the great Sea Market. This square was three times the size of the harbor market. In better days one could find fish, cloth, sugar, spices, and silverwork from Aurënen, the wines of Zengat. In short, a bit of everything that came up from the port below. But here, too, the privations of war were all too evident. Cloth, metals, and horses were hard to come by, and prices were high.
    Thankfully there was a night breeze up here and this part of the city smelled considerably better, thanks to a proper sewer system. Crossing the city, they skirted the Harvest Market and entered the warren of twisting streets beside it, making their way to their real home, a