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Sam knocked on my door before dawn broke, and I followed him out onto the landing. Waiting there was Theo and, by some perplexing design, Polly Prescott.

My school friend had hardly changed. She had the same tightly ringed black hair that floated just above her shoulders, dark skin, and warm eyes. Now there was a horizontal scar across the bridge of her nose, and her hands were incised with a thousand old abrasions—a Scribbler’s hands.

She smiled somewhat shyly when she saw me. “They’ll let anyone into the club nowadays, I suppose?”

A noise of exasperation left me. I looked to Theo for explanation, but he only shrugged.

“You’reKenton’s Scribbler?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And you—you’re—”

“A member of the cause?” she offered. “I am.”

“We could start a musical group,” Theo added grimly. “Polly was always a fair alto.”

I only remembered Polly to have been a kind friend. Quiet. “Squid,”they’d called her. Each winter and summer break she’d remained behind in her dorm, rather than travel home to any waiting family. “How on earth did you find yourselfhere?” I wondered aloud.

“I came to Kenton Hill three years ago,” she shrugged. “When I arrived, Patrick offered me a choice—work for him or work against him. Not much of a choice at all, really.” She said it without resentment. “Kenton Hill is about as safe as it gets.”

Sam was tapping his foot impatiently on the first step. “We’ll be late,” he said.

We walked down Main Street together, the sun just beginning to touch the backs of our necks. The first residents were stirring, the whole of Kenton rubbing sleep from their eyes. The streets were eerily quiet.

“What exactly will this meeting entail?” I asked no one in particular. Theo and Polly walked casually, not needing Sam to guide them down each alley.

“I imagine Pat will be putting you to work,” Theo answered, taking my arm and intertwining it with his as though the past seven years hadn’t elapsed and we were out for a walk together. I pretended to fix a pin in my hair and extricated myself. “Work?” I asked.

“I suspect he’s about to finally reveal his next big plan,” Polly mused, burying her hands into her coat pockets. “He’s had us in the dark for months.”

“His plans to get to the capital, you mean?” I said without thinking.

Polly, Theo, and Sam all slowed in their walk, their eyes pinned to me from three different directions.

“That’s the plan?” Theo asked. “He told you that?”

I went quiet. Swallowed. “Well, I don’t know the finer details, but—”

“I suppose we’ll all be in on it shortly,” Polly interjected. She gave a surreptitious glance in Sam’s direction; he was listening with grave interest, mouth agape. “Best not to say anything more out in the open.”

Sam walked us toward the middle of the town, following the curve of facades until we reached a brick arch opening.

On the other side was a large square, each side cordoned in blackened warehouses and shops. Street vendors and buskers were already beginning to set up their tables in each corner. The buildings themselves had a hint of abandonment to them.

The signage indicated a treasury, though half the lettering was missing. The police house waited beside it, but the windows were boarded. Its roof was in ruins and burned black with some previous fire. A large bulletin board bolted beside the archway sat empty, no decrees from the House of Belavere adorning the cork.

“What happened here?” I asked, turning in a slow circle.

Sam only shrugged. “No need for Belavere officials anymore, except for Polly. That over there was the food dispensary, and the trading post was in the corner. The police station was smoked out years ago.”

This left only one side to the square, which held an array of dilapidated storefronts, one of which hosted a bold, flaking sign:MARGARITE’S MODERN LADIES, SEAMSTRESS EXTRAORDINAIRE. Its windows were so clustered in misshapen mannequins that for a moment, I was outright alarmed.

I was further baffled when Sam led us directly to its skinny maroon door, the paint here woefully blistered and peeling.

Sam knocked once, and a cascade of red flakes flurried off the wood.

I looked sideways at Theo and Polly, who seemed oddly at ease. “Who is this woman we’re meeting?” Clearly, the shop was no longer open for business. If the windows were anything to go by, it was now a mausoleum of wooden corpses.