The hours passed and night came, the paper bag from Margo’s Baking Boutique long siy on the ter as Balthazar sat back against it with a satisfied expression.

  “Oh, if I could wear a belt, I’d be unbug it right now,” he said, tapping a his belly.

  Suze groaned as she emerged from behind the ter separating the living room and the kit.

  “Ow, my tummy hurts,” she said with a pained expression.

  “That’s because you ate too much sugar,” Olivia chided from her chair by the window.

  “No such thing!” the little girl leaning on the ter and the crab sprawled belly-up on the floor said in unison.

  The niece of the baroness rolled her eyes a back to cheg the outside as the other two grinned and pointed fingers and pincers at one another in approval.

  “Alright, the sun has gone down and the streets look quiet enough,” Olivia said as she stood up. “Time to get moving.”

  “You’re asking way too mue right now,” the mert said, trying to roll bato his feet.

  “e on, you old lobster. I’ll help you,” said Suze, walking around the ter and pushing Balthazar’s shell from the side.

  “Oof, watch the joints, kid!” the crusta said. “And I’ve told you, I’m not a lobster!”

  “I’ll leave first, discreetly,” said Olivia. “I’ll do my best to slip by unnoticed and reach Captain Leander. You guys wait for me to be gone and then leave too. If we don’t bump into each ain at some point, we will meet again here at the end of the night. Got it?”

  “Think so,” the stuffed crab said, struggling to stand up.

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Olivia!” the little girl o the crab said, standing very straight and giving her a mog salute. “I’ll get Balthazar to his destination and make sure we stay out of trouble.”

  After crag the door open just enough to peek outside, the young ulled it back with a quick gesture and slipped out, closing it behind her as she quietly left.

  Balthazar squinted his eyes at one of the slits of the window shutters, watg the girl cross the empty street and disappear into an alley.

  “Alright, she’s gone,” he said, turning around. “Druma, Blue! Wake up you sleepyheads. It’s time to leave.”

  The two panions, who had fallen asleep leaning against each other o the empty firepce, bolted awake with a start at the crab’s words.

  “Woo-hoo! Time to get into some trouble!” Suze excimed, stretg her arms up iement.

  With a frown, Balthazar asked, “Didn’t you just tell her we would stay out of trouble?”

  As usual, the Marquessian rascal simply shrugged without a care. “Yeah, but she’s gone now, so we have some fun.”

  The peculiar quartet exited through the backdoor, sneaking their way to a narrow passage heading south as the moon bathed the streets with its pale glow. The poorer parts of town seemed to have fewer mps and braziers to illumihem at night than the richer and busier ercial districts, which would work in their favor for staying out of sight.

  “You’re sure you know how to get us to this tavern?” Balthazar asked the girl as the group moved in single file behihrough the space between two buildings.

  “Of course I do,” Suze whispered back. “Everyone knows The Rat’s Tail in the south side of town. It’s the hangout spot of every thief in Marquessa.”

  Trying to set aside his s over why a little girl would be so familiar with such a pce, Balthazar focused on the more pressing matter.

  “Aren’t we at risk of running into some of Onion Jake’s men in a pce like that?”

  “Nah,” she replied as they crossed a wide cobblestone road into another alley. “Bandits and thieves don’t usually mix.”

  The crab frowned with fusion. “What?! Aren’t they all the same thing?”

  “Shhh!” she suddenly said, croug down behind a rge wooden barrel. “Guards ahead.”

  The crab ducked behind her and his two panions did the same behind him.

  Up ahead, two men in uniform patrolled down a sidewalk, nterns in hand, looking around at the quiet street as they went.

  “They’re still looking for me,” the eight-legged mert whispered.

  “Alright, they’ve turhe er,” said Suze. “Let’s bolt it!”

  After a few more twists, turns, and with some close calls due to patrolling guards, the group exited another alley onto a different neighborhood. The street was narrower and somewhat crooked in its build, the houses far less aligned with each other as the other parts of the city Balthazar had seen so far. Loose cobblestones dotted the path ahead, with potholes and trip hazards all over the pce.

  Looking up, the crab could see a chaotic web of clotheslines crossing from every dire between windows and buildings, old, washed-out sheets and other pieces of simple clothing hanging from them and blowing in the chilly wind of the night.

  The lights oreet were even fewer and further apart from each other than in the neighborhood they had e from. Mainly torches pced on the walls o the door of some tiablishment or another, uhe hanging signs that simply said things such as “inn,” “butcher,” or “smith” on them, without even a name given to the shop.

  Rexing her shoulders and standing up straight, Suze started walking more casually up the street, no longer worried about stig closer to the wall and the shadows.

  “What are you doing?!” the mert whispered from behind a cart full of hay. “Someone might see us!”

  “Don’t worry,” she responded in a normal tone of voice. “This is the south district. The slums of Marquessa. Guards barely ever e here and nobody who lives in this pce is going to rat on anyone.”

  “Oh…” Balthazar said, slowly standing up and stepping onto the middle of the street along with his panions.

  “e on,” the street ur said. “The tavern is this way.”

  They tinued on through the poorly lit street as the crab took iark differences between the front part of that city, with its well-maintained gardens, streets, and exuberaablishments, and the shadier ghetto of the lower districts.

  “I like your dragon,” Suze said as they walked. “She’s pretty.”

  “Hmm?” said Balthazar, pulling his eyes away from a small group of rats scurrying away into a sewer grate. “Oh, you mean Blue? She’s not a dragon, she’s a drake.”

  The young girl cocked an eyebrow at the winged creature walking a few steps behind them. “What’s the difference?”

  “Why does no one ever get they’re pletely different?” the crab said. “Dragons are much, much bigger, they usually talk, and have legs, arms, and wings. Drakes are smaller, smart but not usually enough to unicate through the on tongue, and have wings and legs, but no arms.”

  “ she breathe fire, though?”

  “Oh yes,” Balthazar responded.

  “Awesome…” the little girl said, looking at the drake with starry eyes and a smile. “You think I could ride on her baetime?”

  “Hah!” the crab guffawed. “I wouldn’t mind, but good luck ving her. That one is feistier than a honey badger. You’d have to earrust first so that you don’t risk getting—Suze?”

  The mert looked to his side, fused as to where the girl had disappeared to.

  “Woo-hoo!” Suze cheered a few paces behind. “This is fun!”

  Turning to her, Balthazar found the child sitting on Blue’s back, waving her arms up with great joy as the drake trotted forward and fpped her wings for the girl’s amusement.

  “Are you kiddihe miffed crab muttered as he gred at the two of them.

  After traversing a couple more streets with the annoyed crusta in silehe group finally arrived in front of what seemed to be the oablishment open around those parts.

  “Is this it?” Balthazar asked, having gottehe ease with which everyone who wasn’t him seemed to get along with his drake.

  “Yep!” Suze said, hopping off Blue’s back. “That’s The Rat’s Tail.”

  The dingy pce had two torches on sces outside—a luxury of lighting, given what Balthazar had seen of that neighborhood so far—and unlike every other pce of business around, its dangling sign had its name written on it.

  “Alright, probably best if we don’t all walk iogether,” said the crab, turning to his two panions. “This pce could be dangerous, so I also want to be ready if something goes wrong. Blue, take Druma up to that rooftop over there. You guys will keep a for any trouble ing from the outside and will be ready to intervene if we find any trouble inside.”

  After a vigorous nod from the goblin, he and the drake ran off to their lookout spot above, while the crab and the girl walked up to the front door of the tavern.

  The heavy wooden door was closed, despite the hum of chatter and the loud king of gsses ing from the inside. Looking up, Balthazar saeephole hat the solid wooden surface, and uhat, a framed piece of part with a warning written on it.

  “What does it say?” the curious girl o the crab asked.

  “Hmm,” said the crusta, stretg his eyestalks to read it. “It reads… Outsiders are not wele. Oh…”

  Suze pced her hands on her hips and scoffed. “Good thing I ’t read then!”

  Balthazar cocked aalk at her. “But I .”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re a crab. If you cim you ’t read, it’s not like anyone would question it!”

  Without further hesitation, the little rascal reached forward and knocked on the door.

  “Suze!” excimed the mert.

  The hat the door swung open with a thud, and a scowling pair of eyes peeked outside.

  “Who’s there?” a brutish voice asked.

  “We are!” the young girl said, stretg her hand up in front of the bouncer’s field of view and waving. “We wanna e in!”

  The man’s scowl deepened. “You must be lost, kid. This pce ain’t for you. Take your pet a outta here.”

  With a loud thud, he smmed the hatch shut before Suze could make a retort. Which she very clearly inteo make.

  The little girl gave the door a couple of kicks. “Hey! e back here!”

  Light appeared through the peephole again as the bouncer opehe hatch again, his angry gaze fixed on the girl.

  “I told you to get lost, kid,” he said. “You have no business ing in here.”

  “You—” the seething little girl started, but Balthazar stepped forward and signaled her to stand down with his pincer.

  “Let me try my way,” he told her, before turning to the bouncer. “Good evening. Don’t mind my aide here, she’s this.”

  “Your what?!” the kid murmured with a frown.

  “I don’t know what you are,” the man said, looking down at the crab. “But I don’t know you, so you get lost too.”

  “I believe you’re wrong,” Balthazar said, reag into his Bag of Holding Money. “I do have business with someohere.”

  The mert showed two golden s to the bouncer and rubbed them together between his pincer.

  “Plenty more where those came from,” he said. “If you let us in to spend them.”

  The doorkeeper’s eyebrows rose slightly at the sight of shiny gold. If there was ohing Balthazar knew most humans shared with him, it was the love for shiny gold. Even just the mere promise of its existence was enough to ehem. He didn’t even have to spend it, just show it off. It was his favorite way of using gold.

  “Alright,” said the bouncer. “If you’re so desperate to do away with your , e on in.”

  Several bolts smmed behind the thick wood as he unlocked the door, until finally it opehe light from the iting the crab and the girl along with the intense smell of ale and wine.

  “Wele to The Rat’s Tail.”