Siv's instructions on how to find Ida were dubious, to say the least. Leaving a message with a sketchy shopkeeper specializing in taxidermied pets, of all things, along with a code word, then just waiting nearby.

  A young girl in a warm enough-looking coat with short clipped but disheveled dark brown hair approached him soon after.

  "You him?"

  Vidar pointed to himself. "Me?"

  She nodded.

  "I think?" Vidar said. "Looking for Ida."

  The mention of her name made the urchin scowl, and she gave a quick shake of her head. "No names. You come."

  With that, she was off, heading to a narrow passage between two houses. Vidar hurried after, throwing glances all around him, trying to see if anyone was following. As far as he could tell, no one was.

  It was quite the trek before the two of them reached their destination. Not because they made it very far, but because the urchin kept walking in circles and turning down random streets, only to return later and take a different turn.

  "You go to her," the girl said, pointing at a young, albeit older than the urchin, girl looking at a wizened crate of apples outside a trader's shop. Vidar looked back, and the urchin was gone.

  Cursing to himself, he stomped off to the new girl. She was a little taller than him and her nose looked like it'd suffered a recent punch, the skin around it an angry red. When Vidar approached, she brushed black hair out of her face and nodded, raising a firm hand for him to clasp. She had strips of cloth wrapped around her palms and knuckles, like she was about to step into a brawl.

  "Irin."

  "Vidar."

  She nodded. "I know. Come with me."

  "Is all this secrecy necessary?" he asked. "Ida and I are old friends."

  "We know. And you can be sure the thieves' guild knows, too. They'll be watching you and I'm not gonna risk our mistress' health for some boy's sake."

  "I'm the boy?" Vidar asked.

  "Well, aren't you? Anyway, I'll take you to her now if you stop complaining."

  Vidar kept his mouth shut and followed. Several girls of varying ages, but none of them looked over ten years old, hung around in corners and alleyways as the two of them made their way to Ida's hidden location. Lookouts and protection, he figured.

  They entered an inn and then went out the back, only to cross a street and enter a second, similar inn. The barmaid, a heavy-set woman in her forties with her gray hair tied back with a piece of white cloth matching her apron, nodded to Vidar's guide, Irin, who nodded back. They went into the kitchen behind the bar and then down a set of stairs to a door to what looked like a food cellar. Irin eyed Vidar, then sounded out a long series of short and long knocks, pausing a few times as if not quite remembering the sequence.

  The door opened, and another girl peeked out. This one was blond with dark skin, an uncommon combination. Behind her was pure darkness until a lantern was lit. Uncomfortable with the poor light, Vidar triggered a kenaz rune and strapped it to his forehead. This awarded him some looks, but no one commented.

  Rather than food storage, the space was dug out into a larger room with hay strewn around the cold mud floor. Planks shored up the sides of the room and a tunnel in the rightmost wall led away from the first room and the many girls who eyed him passing through.

  Ida's voice echoed from the room beyond the tunnel. "There you are, dummy! What took you so long?"

  Vidar walked up to stand in front of the chair where Ida was lounging, scratching at the eye patch covering where her eye used to be. He rendered the kenaz rune on his forehead inactive after seeing Ida blocking the light with her hand, and instead triggered a different kenaz rune, which he placed on a small table in the corner.

  "I wasn't the one demanding all this secrecy," Vidar sighed.

  Ida grinned. "That's because you're not clever enough to know we need it, dummy."

  Irin stood by the tunnel exit, shifting from one foot to the other. Ida waved to her in greeting. "You met Irin, right? My second-in-command!"

  He looked back over his shoulder and saw the other girl blush. "We met."

  "Good, good. You can go, Irin. Thank you!"

  "Boys are stupid," Irin muttered, disappearing back into the gloom.

  Vidar frowned but didn't comment. "So, this is your headquarters?"

  "This is one of our places. We're expanding. What brings you here, anyway?"

  "What do you think? I want, no, I need, to deal with the thieves' guild. Like you said."

  "And you've come to their mightiest enemy for help. What's in it for us?"

  Vidar made a tired-looking face to show what he thought of her antics. "You want the same thing as me. They're not just threatening me and my family, but Siv as well. They're a scourge and they must go. If I'm not mistaken, you're out here risking their wrath. Are they perhaps the reason you hide out in a dank cellar?"

  She looked around, then shook her head with enough force to ruffle her short hair. "This is our lair, not some dank cellar! But yes, I see what you're saying. Getting rid of the thieves' guild is easier said than done, though."

  "Never said it would be easy," Vidar said.

  Ida leaned back, narrowing her eyes and putting a finger under her lower lip. "How to beat the thieves' guild," she mused, pausing a breath before continuing the theatrics. Raising the finger into the air, she exclaimed, "Got it!"

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Please share your genius idea."

  She moved the finger down and across her own throat. "We cut off the head!"

  Vidar looked around and spotted another chair. Plopping down into it with a thud, and a dangerous sounding creaking from the chair's joints, he considered her brilliant plan. "Cut off their heads, you say? Doesn't sound too complicated..."

  "Not cut off their heads, we cut off the guild's head, dummy. Dispose of their leaders. You can't kill every single thief in a city, that's just not possible. They're like cockroaches. You can't stomp them all before they scurry away. Trust me, I'd know."

  "Is there a way of doing it without killing?" Vidar asked. Adding to the already far too numerous bodies he'd left behind was not something he wanted.

  Ida, the young girl turned thief turned guild mistress, gave him a long, hard look. "What do you think it is we're talking about here? You want to ask them to please leave the city? You're more of a boy than I thought if you think we can do anything against these people if we half-ass it. My girls are good and they're only getting better, but most of us are small and not threatening, physically I mean. Feeling sorry for them won't end well for us, neither will giving them a chance to react."

  "I get it," Vidar said, "I Just don't like it."

  "You don't have to like it, but you will have to do it. With my help, of course."

  Vidar nodded, considering the momentous task in front of them. The steward, with all the soldiers and city guards behind him, hadn't been able to eradicate the thieves' guild. Not that he'd tried very hard, Vidar figured. Hearing Jarl talk, and from what he'd seen, there was a symbiosis between the thieves and the crown. They would make no friends in high places even if they unseated the current thieves' guild, especially not since they would replace it with another.

  "Let's do it," Vidar said.

  He stood around waiting for a moment, then added. "How do we do it?"

  "You wait," Ida said, pointing to him before turning her finger back on herself. "While we put in the time and effort to find these bastards."

  Vidar leaned forward in the creaky chair. "What do you need from me?"

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Not yet, at least," she said. "Once we find targets, you'll help."

  He swallowed hard and nodded, then thought of something. "How about I give you some algiz runes?"

  "Which one is that again?"

  "Protection, like a shield if someone attacks you."

  She'd rejected his runes before, but to his surprise, this time, she agreed. "How many can you get us?" Ida must've caught his surprised expression because she added an explanation. "They're for the girls. I'll sleep easier if I know they're at least a little protected."

  "A lot," he said, happy she'd wisened up to the runes' utility. "How many do you need?"

  She shook her head.

  "You won't tell me?" he asked.

  "The number of members is secret."

  Sighing, he stood. "I'll just bring a bunch. Do I bring them here?"

  "Irina will come with you when you leave."

  He looked out into the gloom beyond and thought he spotted Irina's silhouette before turning around to face Ida again. "Anything else?"

  "How is Siv doing after, you know, what happened?"

  "She seems fine," Vidar said, shrugging. "Siv and Sven are both at the rune scribes' guild, learning the craft."

  "But you're here?"

  "I'm here," he confirmed.

  Ida gave him a long look, then shrugged, deciding it was none of her business. Instead, she raised another concern. "Coin."

  "Coin?"

  "That's right," she said. "We need coin. If my girls are going to be working on the thieves' guild, they won't be out borrowing from other people's coats and pockets."

  "And you want me to sponsor you?" Vidar asked.

  "We still need to eat."

  "What about that gold coin I already paid you for stealing those arrows?"

  "Long gone."

  "How?" he asked. A gold coin should've lasted them a good long while.

  A mysterious smile played over her lips. "Secret investments."

  Digging through his pocket, Vidar came up with a single gold coin. He gave it a look, then sighed and put it down on the desk in front of Ida. "This should be enough, right?"

  "Adequate."

  Her eyes glittered as she snatched it up.

  He was about to turn and leave again, then thought of something. "Your guild, does it have a name?"

  "A name?" she asked, her eyebrows rising.

  "Well, the thieves' guild is the thieves' guild, so that's taken. Shouldn't you have a name to set you apart?"

  In that moment, Ida looked like the young girl she was, and she kept nodding to herself, her eyes going wide. "A name. A name for the guild." Ida looked up at him and grinned. "You're right. I'm going to think of a name!"

  She called out for Irina and gave her instructions to follow Vidar, and together they were off. The girl insisted on returning through dark alleyways and narrow side streets, just in case they were being watched. Vidar couldn't fault her logic, either. He and Ida had just more or less declared war on the other guild, they just didn't know it yet. Any information the enemy gleaned from Vidar's movement was a risk they could exploit to get to Ida's members.

  When they made it back to the inn, Vidar was jumping at shadows. Every man standing at a corner looked suspect and he couldn't help but feel like they were being followed. Locking the door to the room he shared with the others, he rummaged through the different bags, finding plenty of what he was looking for.

  Irina sat down on a chair and patiently waited while he rejuvenated algiz runes, pulling tiny amounts of essence from the area around his heart. A little dragon's essence would make the algiz runes far stronger than if he'd poured in enough essence from himself to make both arms and legs numb and useless. As far as he could tell, the amount of essence he'd taken from the dead dragon hadn't diminished at all.

  Just as Irina left, carrying a large cloth bag full of algiz runes, Erik stormed up the stairs to the inn. He barged into the room with a wide smile on his honest-looking, boyish face.

  "I've found a place!"

  "Already?"

  He nodded, feet moving up and down, tapping on the floor. "But we have to go quick. Houses are changing hands a lot after so much burned down, but the prices are going up!"

  Vidar stood. "Let's go!"

  The workshop wasn't much to look at from the outside, but it didn't need to be. With discolored, grayish brick walls and a slanted roof atop the second floor, the place was almost perfect. Only a few windows were cracked. Located near the edge of Fyllinge, in the northeastern part of Halmstadt, the house was squeezed in between a butcher's shop that saw quite a lot of upscale customers and a store for women's clothing. The dragon's flames had touched few streets in the area, leaving most of it intact.

  The building was small but large enough for the purposes, Vidar thought as he entered through the door at the front. A large window on the wall next to the door dispelled any doubts the lower floor was meant for anything other than a shop, and the inside showed a counter near the back wall with shelving right behind it. It was a bit cramped inside and if more than two or three patrons entered at the same time, it would be a tight squeeze around the shelving built into the walls to the right and left of the entrance.

  "Used to be some sort of jeweler's shop," Erik said as Vidar strode to the back of the room and peered through an open door. The other side held space for a workshop and a set of stairs leading up into what he assumed was a living area.

  Vidar looked back at the boy who'd found the house. "It's perfect."

  Erik beamed.

  "How much?"

  "Almost all of it," Erik said, squirming a little. "The old woman barely talked to me. Didn't trust we had the money to pay."

  "I'll settle that," Vidar said, heading up the stairs. "Where is she?"

  "Three houses down," Erik shouted after him. "In the seamstress shop!"

  "I'll talk to her!" Vidar said. "You can go back to the inn and prepare to move things over to our new place."

  The living area wasn't luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it would do. Two small furnished bedrooms, even smaller than at the inn, a common room with some chairs and a table, and a kitchen nook with a wood-burning stove. Vidar nodded to himself. This could work. Obviously, it wasn't enough to house everyone, but with Siv and Sven both living at the rune scribe's guild headquarters, it would only be himself, Erik, and Alvarn. Erik would sleep on the floor in the common room. It worked out for everyone.

  The woman holding the deed to the house was just as condescending as Erik said, but her tune changed when Vidar flashed gold before her eyes. A full hour of haggling later, the deed changed hands, while a notary recorded the transaction, making everything legal. Vidar owned a house. He'd become a homeowner. Having parted with so much gold, he was a destitute homeowner, but that did not subtract from the immense feeling of warmth welling up in his chest.