Chapter 1

Sancia Grado infiltrates the Michiel foundry with forged identifications but emerges from a sewage tunnel reeking, drawing guard attention. Cornered beneath a decaying deck with no exit, she rejects fighting or darting the armored, scrived-rapier guard and decides to use her limited-strength tactile talent.

Touching the wall, Sancia senses its structure and finds a bricked hatch leading into an old fireplace. She slips inside amid rats, kills a large one quietly, and climbs the narrow chimney as two guards investigate the smell below. They fail to look up, and Sancia forces through the boarded top to the roof.

From the roof, she descends to the carriage fairway by mapping handholds with her talent. She reaches the busy loading dock where scrived carriages operate, their wheels whispering to her. Testing wheels by touch, she discerns each carriage’s origins until one speaks of salt and sea—evidence of the waterfront.

Sancia adheres a sigiled guiding plate beneath that carriage, recalling warnings that a loose plate could kill her. She then withdraws carefully to the drainage tunnel, intending to intersect the carriage at the docks. Her goal is a specific item in a waterfront safe, promised for an enormous fee—twenty thousand duvots.