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fresh. The floor was covered in stacks of boxes, the walls were covered in wine racks. She could read chalk markings on the boxes. One said “plates.”
    It was everything you needed to run an inn. An inn with no customers. An inn Heden never opened. Why did he buy it? Did he inherit it?
    Where did the mousemen come from? Where did his armor, his pack come from? Where was….
    There was someone behind her. As she stood in the cellar, frozen in place, she suddenly and with great urgency realized she needed to go to the bathroom very badly. Very very badly.
    She turned around, and faced a dozen wounded mousemen gathered at the bottom of the stair. Two of them carried wounded or dead comrades. She smelled blood and sweat-matted fur.
    As they stared at her with their small, beady eyes, their priest pushed through them, chattering short prayers to their mouse god and healing them. The diminutive mousepriest seemed annoyed that his congregation weren’t moving, then he saw Vanora.
    “Kettik,” he said. Vanora’s eyes were wide.
    He barked at the warriors, and they darted forward. Filing past her, toward one of the wine racks which, with a discreet pull at a bottle from a tiny mousehand, swung open, leading to another chamber, this one lit.
    The rat-warriors darted in. As the mouse cleric moved past, it stopped and sized Vanora up. It sniffed her with a twitching nose, its whiskers projecting forward and tickling her arm. Then it pulled back and regarded her for a moment before shrugging and moving on.
    At the last was a dashing mouse warrior with a conical hat, eyepatch, and rapier. It came up short before Vanora, bowed deeply, doffing its cap, and reached out gingerly to take her hand, planting a miniscule kiss on it, before darting away swiftly.
    The hidden door remained open behind the mouseman. For some reason, closing the secret door didn’t seem important to them.
    Vanora walked to the hidden door and looked in at the chamber beyond, expecting to see a mouse warren. Instead there was another chamber, obviously part of Heden’s inn, not the mousemen’s home.
    There were no mice creatures in here, they had disappeared through some other, secret door they had closed. Vanora saw no sign of it. But even had it been perfectly obvious, she’d probably not have seen it.
    She was distracted by the huge piles of gold and gems. Weapons, suits of armor, chests. It was a dragon’s horde, from a fable. It glowed with its own light and projected its own warmth.
    Vanora’s mouth hung open slack. There was a tall statue of a man made of bronze with tubes running through and in and out of him. Though disused and leaning against the far wall, Vanora’s sight was attracted to it. It reminded her of the harlequin.
    The sounds of battle continued to rage above. Rose in ferocity. Then suddenly stopped. Silence. The battle was over. Who was fighting, if the ratmen had come down here?
    Possessed by the feeling that this horde was something to be protected, kept hidden, she quickly shut the door, lest whoever was in the common room above make it down here.
    Leaving the harlequin behind, she took the lantern and climbed the stairs out of the cellar, grabbed the latch that opened the door to the common room. As she was about to open it she heard a noise coming from the room beyond.
    There was someone in the common room. Bann, surely. Or the watchman? Teagan? The mousemen wouldn’t have come back down here and left her if it wasn’t safe. Would they? She thought of Heden. Would she trust him? She would. Does he trust the mice? He does. She took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Chapter Nine
    The door opened, the man fell, the rope pulled taught. There was a snap, then some kicking.
    The count laughed. No one noticed amidst the cheering.
    “You pick the most amusing places for our meetings,” he said.
    “When I ask to meet you,” the Truncheon growled, “you can pick whatever the fuck place you want.”
    The count nodded.