Alok stepped toward the massive wooden door, his fingers already dancing toward the silver pin tucked into his collar.
"Now where those brats have gone?" Alok muttered, his eyes darting toward the empty street behind them.
"They were supposed to be here on time. If Priya got caught up with Steve's lot again, I'm going to lose my mind. But first..."
He leaned his ear against the grain of the wood. "I need to see what the fish this old man has done now. He's been too quiet lately."
He slid the hairpin into the keyhole. Inside, the tumblers groaned—a series of brass discs etched with ancient grooves began to rotate. One click. Then a sliding hiss of a horizontal bar retreating. Snap. The lock gave way with a heavy, satisfying thud.
The smell hit them first.
"Ugh, by the stars," Alok hissed, covering his nose. "Does he ever clean this place, or is he trying to summon a plague?"
The room was a graveyard of nightmares. Carcasses of strange, scaled beasts hung from the rafters like drying meat, their shadows dancing in the dim light. In the center of the room sat a massive table, dominated by the skeleton of a lizard-like creature the size of a mountain lion. The rot was fresh; the stench of decay clung to the damp walls.
Alok stared at the skull. I think there's a miniature version of this species in our secret house at the Tosk Forest, he thought, his mind already calculating the space in his pack. If I can harvest the hide from this one, I'm hauling something special back. Time to upgrade the hideout. It's looking too much like a shack and not enough like a fortress.
His stomach let out a low, traitorous growl.
"First priority is food," Alok said, turning to Arya, who was pale and staring at a jagged spear on the wall. "I'm starving. And you... you look like you're about to faint. You just woke up, and Priya's probably been running on nothing but spite since dawn. We need a win today."
"I just want to leave," Arya whispered, his eyes wide. "This place feels like it's watching us."
They moved deeper into the shadows until they found him. The "Old Man" wasn't actually that old—perhaps in his late forties—but the white burn scars that climbed up the side of his face and into his short, iron-grey beard gave him a weary, ancient authority. He sat behind a desk of dark, polished wood, staring at them with the patience of a stone statue.
"Today's task, Old Man," Alok stated, stepping forward with his arms crossed.
"And don't tell us the ledger is full. We've come too far through the heat for a 'maybe'."
Beside him, Arya's hand drifted toward a metallic gauntlet sitting on a pedestal—a piece of armor that shimmered with a strange, oily light.
"Arya! Don't take that gauntlet!" Alok snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut the heavy air. "We can't afford that! You silly piece of—"
"Whoa, whoa!" Arya jumped back, raising his palms. "Okay, no problem! I was just looking."
Arya began to move again, but this time his footsteps were different. He slipped into a "silent-step" crouch, his weight shifting invisibly across the creaking floorboards as he circled the room, his eyes scanning for anything smaller—and easier to pocket—than a heavy gauntlet.
The man with the scarred face didn't move a muscle. "You're late, Alok," he said, his voice like gravel grinding together. "The soldiers were asking about a boy who climbs ropes better than a monkey. They seem to think you have something of theirs."