money fixing up anything a tenant might do for us. The warehouse between that festhall and Roarke House has those long-term leases with Houses Ammakyl and Gralleth. At last autumn's inspection, half the warehouse was filled with older furniture and other decorations from the last three times Lady Ammakyl decided her mansion was not quite up to the leading edge of Waterdhavian fashions. The other half, the Gralleths have filled with materials from former noble villas when they absorbed the estates and interests of the Bladesemmers and the Markarls.'
'Well, Laraelra? Meloon? Feel up to walking to Roarke House?' Renaer said. 'We can inspect the property, and you can tell me more about whatever is 'not guild business.' '
Laraelra had rarely been in this neighborhood, even though it bordered on the Heroes' Garden where she met Meloon earlier. The buildings she noticed lining Skulls Street were better-kept row houses with stone foundations and wooden upper floors, none of which loomed less than three stories high. Once they turned into Rook Alley, the building quality and size plummeted, most of the structures of one or two stories and in ill repair. The roof slates became rough wooden shingles with moss-encrusted gaps, the foundations simple brick rising to knee height and continuing with dark stained wood. While the outer buildings surrounding Rook Alley celebrated the richness of Sea Ward, those hidden within reflected the ill fortunes visited on the city in times past and present.
Following Renaer's lead, Laraelra and Meloon came to a stop on the stoop of an imposing three-story building. The well-kept stone front was freshly scrubbed and cleaned, unlike most other buildings to the south and east. This was one of two stone buildings in the general vicinity, the other being the Halaerim Club directly across Kulzar's Alley. Roarke House's columned frontage seemed ostentatious, compared to the slightly rundown nature of the buildings attached to it. This neighborhood had fallen on bad times in the past decades, and now Roarke House was among a well-tended few. The cleaner buildings here and there along Skulls Street did suggest gentrification might be returning to this part of Sea Ward, but it would'be some time in coming.
Laraelra sniffed and said, 'Very clean for a vacant place, Renaer. Hiding a rich friend from the Watch?'
Renaer glared at her. 'Would I have brought the daughter of one of the loudest mouths in the city with me, if I were?'
Meloon rested hands on both their shoulders. 'Hey, I'm sure there's a simple explanation for all this. Can't we be friends here?'
'No,' came the simultaneous reply from both.
Renaer put the key in the lock of an ornately carved duskwood door, its surface a relief of stars and crescent moons. The door knocker, lock, and door pull were all silver crescents, as was the decorative end of Renaer's key. The lock clicked, and the door swung easily in silence. Renaer's eyebrows rose in surprise, which Laraelra followed with one arched eyebrow.
Renaer shrugged and said, 'Last time I opened this door, the hinges shrieked. Someone's oiled them. Shall we?'
'You're not worried about us fouling your floors here, milord?' she asked.
'Drop the tone, Laraelra,' Renaer said. 'The walk here cleaned your boots.'
The trio stepped into an echoing entry hall, its stone floors and high ceiling dominated by a sweeping grand staircase that hugged the walls of the room as it led upstairs. Overhead loomed a three-stories-high atrium, a glass skylight shining light down to the ground floor. Tiles covered that floor in a continuing pattern of stars, moons, and random pairs of eyes. Two doors bracketed an open archway opposite the front door and beneath the stairs. Additional doors flanked the front wall of the house. All doors were closed, and aside from their footsteps, no sound could be heard.
Meloon let out a low whistle then said, 'Why the eyes and moons and stars everywhere?'
Laraelra said, 'Roarke House was built by Volam Roarke, an exceedingly devout worshiper of Selune, right?' She smiled with Renaer's answering nod, and continued. 'He financed the restoration of the House of the Moon after the Spellplague collapsed it.'
Renaer nodded and said, 'The Roarkes had even reached the nobility about seventy-five years ago, but their family fortunes dried up over the years since. By the time they lost their noble status and other riches forty years ago, my grandfather bought their holdings in the city. Last I'd heard, the Roarke clan owned only two inns along the High Road between Leilon and Neverwinter. This place has had about half a dozen long-term tenants over the years. It's only been the past four years that it's been a summer rental. Most of the folk who rented it out never even knew about the sub-cellars.'
Renaer walked to the door on the left. 'This door leads to the cellars. Now, tell me more about what you saw-no, heard down below. It seems like we'll need to update the maps for the sub-cellars. Wonder if the Rook's Hold was part of what you saw down there?'
'The Rook?' Meloon asked.
'A thief of some repute more than a century ago,' Renaer explained. 'His hideout was in the subterranean crypts after which Skulls Street outside was named. It sounds like the tunnels and crypts may have collapsed and merged a while back. I never knew they extended beneath this house. They've always been blocked off, or so I was told.'
Laraelra chuckled. 'Renaer, the amount of things beneath the streets that the city chooses to ignore or not know about would stagger your imagination.'
The three of them entered a small stairwell that spiraled down into darkness. Renaer grabbed a torch out of a wall sconce and lit it.
'And I thought I heard you complaining at the last Wands feast that you wanted nothing to do with your father's guild,' Renaer said. He took the lead on the stairs, the smoke from his torch rising and stinging Laraelra's eyes. 'Why were you poking around beneath the streets this morning?'
Laraelra cleared her throat and lowered her voice. 'Someone has to stand up to the bigots in the guild. The dwarves deserve equal pay and equal treatment, and some of my father's foremen will hardly bother with that. Parkleth, one of the worst of them, would have left a friend of mine to drown this morning as a lesson for the dwarves to stay out of sewer work. We only uncovered your house's secrets by accident.'
'My-' Renaer stopped dead and glared up at Laraelra. 'That's it. We're done here. That's the last insult you get at my expense, when I've been naught but accommodating.'
Laraelra's face felt hot as she realized what she'd said, and she slumped her shoulders. 'I'm sorry. Truly, Renaer, before the gods, I apologize. I'm tired, angry, and I spend too much time around my father, who's all too eager to blame everything on nobles or the ruling class.'
Renaer resumed their descent to the cellars, and Laraelra knew she had to watch her tongue around the young Lord Neverember. His clipped tone told her he was still angry as Renaer said, 'I'm neither of those things, really.'
'Yes you are, whether you admit it to yourself or not,' Laraelra said. 'Even without noble title, you're one of the richest land-holders in this city. When you add your father's holdings to yours, only House Nandar and a handful of others own more properties. Even if you don't acknowledge or use it, that gives you power over a lot of people, Renaer. Now, can we finish what we started here?'
'Not even my father would put up with an accusation of being party to torture,' Renaer said. 'The only reason I'll continue is to prove this has nothing to do with me and mine.' Renaer continued down into the main cellars.
Meloon put his hand on Laraelra's shoulder and whispered, 'Maybe it's not my place to say, milady, but I don't think he knows what's going on any more than we do.'
'Then we're all in for an education, aren't we?' she whispered in return as both of them joined Renaer in the vast cellar. To the right of the stairwell lay cords of firewood carefully stacked from floor nearly to ceiling. Open and empty earthenware jars rested on shelves to the left, while hooks dangling from the ceiling were empty of the usual smoked meats that might hang there. Across the room was an archway leading farther into the cellar. The trio moved into the next room, where stacked furniture and chests completely filled the right-hand side of the chamber. The long left-hand wall was covered with wine racks, though only a few bottles remained on the shelves.
'Now,' Renaer said, 'if someone were living here right now, those shelves back there and the wine cellar would be far better stocked, wouldn't they?'
Laraelra waved her hands and said, 'Fine. We believe you. Now will you show us where these secret sub- cellars are so we can prove that we weren't lying?'
Renaer approached the wine racks and counted the rows. He reached out, grasped one section of the racks, and pulled. The rack slid out easily and then turned on a hidden hinge to expose a section of the wall behind it. He
