Cellica pulled her hood lower to attract less attention. Few small folk appeared in this part of the city-gnomes and halflings usually kept their distance. Cellica happened to know, however, that her people were less a minority than the eye suggested. She slipped among the taller people, trying not to touch anyone. No one batted an eye or stayed her.
'Doppelgangers infiltrate houses of ill repute!' cried a small figure who appeared to be a human boy. 'Welcomed by festhall madams for their general skills and adaptability!'
Cellica made her way toward the crier, who was not a boy but a round-faced halfling. Anyone who knew Waterdeep might see through his disguise, based on his wares. He was selling Pleased Toes, a set of tales written, printed, and sold exclusively by his kind.
'Good to see you, Harravin,' she murmured to him. 'Mum well?'
'Aye, Cele,' he said. 'When you coming back to do some more o' that cooking?'
'Soon.' Cellica leaned against the wall next to him and took a broadsheet from his stack. She unfolded and began to read. While she did, coin changed hands.
'You can pay me back this month, aye,' said Cellica.
'Cheers.' Harravin grinned, then called, 'Doppelganger whores! Some reported missing-test your husband to make sure he's your own!
Cellica hurried down the alley. As she went, she heard a sound and looked up at the edges of the roofs above her. Water dripped off split, moss-covered roofs-old rainwater fell on her forehead and she wiped it off. She thought she'd heard… but no, of course not.
She gave a little smile and turned to look down the alley. A trapdoor, covered by a heap of dirty cloths and broken crockery, was set into the cobbles. She bent down. A soft thumping sounded from below, like a machine working in the distance.
She pulled open the trapdoor and a dozen bright eyes blinked up at her from smoky candlelight. Farther in, she saw a frame press working, turning out Pleased Toes and lurid chapbooks. A halfling turned roward the sudden light and wiped his forehead, removing a thick coating of black soot.
'Philbin,' she said, nodding to him.
'Well,' he said. 'S'bout time th'tyrant of a paladin lets you out. Ready for second print!'
'Celly!' came a cry. The small ones within started cheering and hopping up and down.
'Well met,' Cellica said. She climbed down a stout ladder, closed the trapdoor behind her, and joined her adoptive family.
The little halflings crowded around her, cooing and yipping like puppies. She saw their mother, Philbin's wife Lin, cooking a meal over the steaming frame press engine: eggs and sausage and toasted thin loaves. Her stomach growled.
'You've come for more coin, I take it,' Philbin said. 'And our free food too, eh?'
Though the gruff halfling patriarch didn't look it, he was one of the wealthiest merchants in Waterdeep-partly because he was such a skinflint.
Cellica drew a bottle from her satchel. 'I brought wine.'
Philbin rolled his eyes.
'Just in time for morningfeast!' said one of the little brothers, Dem.
'Silly!' said a halfling girl-Mira. 'Secondmorningfeast!'
Cellica found peace among the halflings of the Warrens, one of the cities beneath Waterdeep. It wasn't home-that was the ruined city of Luskan, far to the north-but for a time, she could pretend.
At least until her tasks called her back.
FIVE
Perched on the corner of the desk, Araezra said, very clearly, 'Ellis Kolatch.'
'Ellis Kolatch.' Kalen's monotone gave no indication of recognition.
Araezra sighed. Of course Kalen would be indifferent. The damned man was a stone.
They'd been taking their evening leisure hour-waiting for the Gateclose bells to sound, signaling the shutting of the gates for the night-before going out on another inspection. They were alone in the room, pointedly not speaking.
Though Kalen seemed calm, Araezra had been boiling with anxiety, wanting to talk but not to be the first to speak. Her nerves manifested in anger that went undirected at either Kalen or herself. Instead, she turned it against their commander.
Damned Commander Jarthay, who'd declined her request for day work. Twice-damned Jarthay, who'd argued so logically that more villainy would be afoot by night than day!
What she wouldn't give for a good invasion or riot to thwartpreferably incited by Shadovar spies or Sharran cultists or any of a thousand enemies of goodness in Faerun. But no, it was a time of relative peace, and peace meant schemers and conspirators.
She'd take Kalen, of course-and Talanna, if she was at libertybut she couldn't speak freely with Kalen then. She could now, though, if only he would pay attention to her.
Araezra set aside the locket with the half-done miniature she'd been painting in it: a gilded chamber, with light filtering through a flower-laced window. It was an amusing hobby-one perfectly suited for boring hours at the barracks between patrols.
She fixed her eyes on Kalen-on his hard, grizzled face with the uiun uuui i iiu uiu constant layer of stubble, framed in the brown-black hair that fell in spikes. His oddly colorless eyes, like slits of glass, avoided hers, but she was not about to let go now that she'd got a reply out of him.
'Ellis Kolatch,' she said again. 'The crooked merchant we met yestereve.'
'Ah.' Kalen pushed the spectacles up his nose.
He'd been looking through 'Watch ledgers all day, much to Araezra's chagrin. He hadn't told Araezra why, and she hadn't asked.
'I'm told…' Araezra shifted her position so Kalen had to look at her. 'Kolatch presented himself at the palace today in a frightful state-clothes a mess, eyes puffy-and demanded we lock him up for trade violations and dirty dealing.'
Araezra's mouth turned up at the corners in a way she knew her admirers adored.
'You wouldn't happen to know aught of this?'
Kalen shrugged. He moved the ledger away from her and kept working.
Araezra frowned, then draped herself across his ledger, setting her face level with his. 'Seems his hair and beard had turned the most frightful shade of purple as well. No?'
Kalen's eyes met hers, and she saw a little flicker in his face-a tiny tic in his lips. Was that anger, or a smile?
'Araezra,' he said chidingly, 'I'm working.'
No one called her by her full name-no one but him, always so damned polite and cold.
She hated his formality when they were supposed to be at leisure. To set an example, she wore her uniform breeches and boots but not her breastplate or weapons. With her hair unbound and cascading in liquid black tresses around her linen chemise, she knew damn well how good she looked, and yet-confound the man-Kalen hadn't even noticed.
She'd never had this sort of trouble with a man. Usually, it was the opposite, and required a stout stick to fend away unwanted hands.
'Who are you looking for so intently?' she asked.
He looked at her over the rim of his spectacles. 'Arrath Vir-a dwarf. No beard-turned his back on his blood, I suppose.
Suspected of crimes against the city and citizens.' 'Why the interest?' she asked.
Kalen kept reading. Perhaps she was irritating him, or perhaps he was simply ignoring her-she had no way of knowing. Kalen kept his own counsel.
She tried again. 'That scar, on your arm.' She pointed to a long red-and-white mark, as though from a burn,
