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Natrac sipped his tea. “We shouldn’t waste the day though. Shall we find out what House Tharashk can tell us about the Spires of the Forge?”
    Dandra and Singe nodded, but Geth growled and tore into a thick piece of bread. “Not for me,” he said. “You do what you need to do—I’m not going to be stuck inside talking all day.” He looked to Orshok and Ashi. “Do you still want to see the sights of Zarash’ak?”
    “Dagga!”
said Orshok eagerly.
    Ashi shrugged, but gave a little nod.
    Natrac set his tea down and spread his hands wide. “If you’re sure,” he said. “It probably would make things easier if there weren’t six of us looming over someone, but …”
    “I’m sure,” Geth said flatly.
    “If you insist.” The half-orc reached for bread. “We’ll be spending most of our time near the herb market. Why don’t you meet us there around mid-afternoon? The market is easy to find. There’s a shrine to Arawai and Kol Korran in the heart of it. Look for us there.”
    “Done.” Geth took another bite of his bread and gave Dandra and Singe the grin of someone who had just escaped from an onerous task.

    “That was easier than I thought it would be,” Singe muttered as he stepped out from Natrac’s house and onto the street a short while later.
    “Let someone think an idea is their own,” said Natrac with satisfaction, “and they’re more likely to follow it.”
    Dandra felt the slightest twinge of guilt as she followed the two men out into the morning sun. “I’m still not sure I like tricking Geth and Ashi,” she said—then held up a hand as Singe looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. “I know,” she added. “It’s for the best.”
    While the human and half-orc members of House Tharashk often spent much of their time in the wilderness, Tharashk was still one of the great dragonmarked houses. Its most talented members carried the Mark of Finding. Getting answers from them was going to take respect, diplomacy, and a certain amount of charm. Geth and Ashi, on the other hand, had a tendency to act before they thought. Even Dandra could see that their absence was likely to make their search smoother—and that simply telling them that they should find something else to do wasn’t likely to work. Instead they’d enlisted Orshok in their scheme of persuading the rough pair that the search would be tedious and time-consuming.
    The druid had taken to the lie eagerly. Dandra was fairly certain that he had no desire himself to be engaged in talk when he could be exploring Zarash’ak, but she still felt as though she was somehow corrupting the young orc.
    Natrac reached out and patted her shoulder as they walked. “Don’t worry, Dandra, they won’t get into trouble. Zarash’ak isn’t as dangerous as all that.”
    She gave him a level look. “You told us to carry our weapons.” She shifted her spear in its harness across her back.
    The half-orc smiled. “You’re less likely to get trouble if you look like you can give trouble back. That’s just common sense.” He drew her after him. “Come on—we’ve got a lot of the city to see ourselves.”
    Dandra had spent the first part of her existence in Sharn, but as Natrac led them deeper into Zarash’ak, she began to think that even the vertical neighborhoods of the City of Towers were nothing compared to the tangled streets of the City of Stilts.Built up from individual stilted platforms and raised walkways, Zarash’ak was a confusing sprawl of a city. The wooden streets turned and crossed seemingly at random. New sights appeared without warning around corners, between buildings, and across bridges.
    She smelled the great herb market, however, before she saw it. Zarash’ak was a city of pungent, marshy odors, but gradually Dandra became aware of a new scent on the air. The smell was complex: strong and wet, resinous and sharp. It teased at her nose with soft perfumes and bit at it with harsh, peppery notes. She breathed deep,