The church shared an inner yard and well with a few buildings on the other side of the block. Though these facilities officially belonged to Selene’s temple, the three nuns, charitable souls that they were, had no issue with their neighbors using them. That said, no one dared to touch the cottage were the nuns kept the tools for maintaining the over engineer monstrosity the neogothic church was – though in this world this architecture was named otherwise.

  This meant the two boys had to be extra careful, not only of the mothers but also of any sleepless neighbor raising an alarm on them, as they returned the ladder to the cottage.

  “Go to the right! Not that right, your other right, you idiot! What are you, dyslexic?! How did you managed to take this thing out of there in the first place?!”

  “Shut up, Nutjob! It wasn’t easy, alright! Why do you think I took so long to go look for you…?”

  “Wait! There! That’s the angle, keep it like that and push…! And… there we go…! Well, that was a chore. Not exactly my pick for the middle of the foggy, cold night…”

  “Don’t give me that! I bet it would have gone far smoother if you hadn’t stopped twelve times to wrap that cloak around your hands. Would have come down faster from the rooftop too.”

  “I am not touching that with my bare hands! Did you saw how many splinters it has?!”

  “Whatever. Let’s just go…” Zoly started for an alley between the buildings on the other side of the yard.

  “So… are you gonna tell me what we are doing or…? Wait, is that a rope? You took that from the cottage?”

  “I am just borrowing it.”

  “No, seriously brat, what are we doing here? We are way passed making up for a perceived slight… Ugh! Again with these disgusting alleys! Don’t you people know what a sewer is? Heck, even Sumerians had those, and that was what? Four thousand years ago…?”

  “It wouldn’t smell that bad if you kept your mouth shut.” Zoly grown, squeezing through the slightly bent bars of an iron casted fence. “Besides, you go; brat what is this, brat what is that…? Didn’t you said you wouldn’t ask any questions? If you are going to play grownup, then you should know that grownups keep to their word.”

  “No, they don’t…” Nate mutter bitterly, “but I guess I’ll have to. Can’t let a brat like you wondering alone at night through a place like this.”

  Zoly snorted, and they walked on in silence.

  For a twelve-year-old brat, the other boy sure knew his way around dodgy dark alleys. Even in the dead of night and blanketed by the oppressive mists, Zoly guided them unerringly through the maze of small streets, while avoiding every roaming eye. Witch was saying something because, even with the late hour and foul weather, the streets were far from empty.

  They had to circle away from an alley were shabby looking people huddled around a burning barrel, drinking and yelling obscenities. Then they dashed away quickly through avoid a line of men forming over a red painted building with skimpy woman catcalling from the balconies. Finally, the boys cross over a canal through a little stone bridge and stopped before a better lit street; one with taller nicer buildings, where fancy coaches still came and went despite the hour.

  “Quick! Duck!” Zoly grabbed Nate’s arm and pushed him against the nearest building.

  “Wha…”

  “Shush!”

  Not a moment after, a distracted constable turned the nearby corner. He looked around, shrugged, and walked away, baton twirling in the air.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Nate squinted at the other boy. How had he known that guy was there? For that matter, why was he so good at evading people? Was that his skill at work…? A feathery touch near his arm halted all thought process.

  “He is gone. We can move on now… Nutjob?”

  Nate let out a strangled whimper, eyes wide as saucers locked to his side, lower lip trembling in a silent plea.

  Zoly sighed and flick away the little spider off Nate’s shoulder.

  “Oh, thank god!” he breathed, “It didn’t bite me, did it?!”

  “I don’t know what god you swear by, but do us a favor and ask him for a little spine.”

  “Again with that...!?”

  “Be quiet! We are here…”

  The canal flew parallel to the fancy street, and the buildings inhabitants had appropriated what once was the small street running beside it and turned it into a private garden of sorts. The older boy nimbly climbed over the fence, searched for a second and then produce a set of keys from behind a particular flower pot.

  “So… Quaint neighborhood… Have you been here before?” Nate asked coyly as his companion opened the barred fence door with the correct key in his first try.

  “Something like that…” he mumbled.

  He threw a skeptic glance at the older boy, but never the less followed him. They closed the fence behind them and approached one of the building’s backdoors.

  “There should be no one at home, but still, try to be quiet.”

  The door opened to a kitchen, quite nicer when compare to the orphanage’s.

  “Wait… Brat, we better not be trespassing! Cos’ I highly doubt that isn’t illegal here too!”

  “We are not trespassing!” he hissed, “the house owner let me know of these keys so that I could checked in once in a while!”

  “So, that’s what we are doing?! Checking in a friend’s house?! Was it necessary to go about it like freaking ninjas in the middle of the night?!”

  “What’s a ninja…? No, never mind! We aren’t doing that! And haven’t we said no questions allowed?!”

  “Kid! This better not be something illegal, because I am running back to tell off the nuns this instant if it is!”

  He raised a finger, spluttered for a moment, then grown;

  “Fine! I am telling you! But get inside already!”

  They enter the house to find only dark and silence but for the distant rumbles of a grandfather clock.

  “This might come as a surprise, but I used to be a noble.” He said in a markedly snobbish tone, “Zolydane Trisgord was my name, before I was disowned…”

  “Yeah. I figured something like that from my chat with Dana. That’s why I apologize for rubbing it in at the chapel, remember?”

  “D-don’t interrupt me…” he spluttered before continuing in his normal voice, “anyway, this is my neighbor’s house; she was an old lady that moved to the capital half a year ago. I used to live next door, and that’s where I need to go.”

  They walked through the vestibule and climbed up the stairs next to the main doors.

  “Old lady’s tastes must be universal… ” said Nate side eyeing the decadent furniture and cluttered wallpaper, “so? What do you want to go to your old place for?”

  “I need to take something back.” Zoly opened a door to a small attic.

  Nate hummed unconvinced.

  “It’s not something Illegal! I am just taking back a keepsake! I hide it before leaving so they shouldn’t even know is there! I’ll get in and get out! All I need you to do is watch out for anyone coming.”

  “And how you expect me to do that exactly? I’ll have you know; I am not getting in there with you.”

  “You don’t have to! Just, keep an eye on the window over there and whistle if someone is up an about. You can tell by the light of the lamps they’ll carry… You can whistle, right?”

  “Sure but, how are you even going to get there? Do you have another set of keys hidden around or…? Wait you can’t be possibly planning on jumping from here! I mean, is not a big jump to the other side of the alley, but I don’t see a stepping place to land on and, those are what… twenty feet? You can totally die for that fall…! I warn you, if you are doing something that stupid, I am telling the nuns!”

  “N-no! I am not doing that! I’ll climb from the bottom to the window over there! That’s why I have rope… and the Climb skill…” he added morosely.

  Nate squinted at him.

  “No, you don’t! You have some bullshit sixth sense skill! And on that note, why would you even need anyone to keep watch over you?”

  “How do you know about that?!”

  “I have eyes, that’s how! Now spill the beans.”

  “Is called Detection,” he sighed in resignation, “Is my Silver skill. Is only level one so it doesn’t work through walls... You know my entire skill set now, happy?”

  “Silver? Really? What are you doing at the orphanage then? Shouldn’t some rich merchant had taken you in even if your stuck-up family didn’t want you? And how do you get a silver skill anyways?”

  “You crass little… Don’t speak of my family like that! And I am eleven, and I have a trice damn silver skill! Be impressed! Gape at me! Do something! I am a freaking genius!” Zoly spluttered, glaring at him.

  “Are you now? Is good to know I guess, but I really don’t have any frame of reference.”

  “I… You…!” the boy took a deep breath, massaging his eyes sockets. This conversation clearly wasn’t going how he expected. “Look, Nutjob, are you going to help me or not?”

  Both kids look at each other for a silent long minute.

  “Fine.” Nate sighed, “but if we are caught, I am laying all the blame on you.”