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KARL TOOK A deep breath, the fishy, salty smell of the ocean somehow feeling fresh and welcoming.

That was probably because he had just spent the last few hours sitting with the rest of the passengers in the hold of the ship he was on, a dank and dark space below deck with stationary hard benches and the stench of too many people in far-too-close quarters.

Escaping onto the deck the second the sailors let them know they had arrived was a relief Karl hadn’t wanted to pass up.

The gangway was still being hooked up, and the customs station beyond didn’t have anyone at the table there, so there was still time for Karl to stretch cramped legs from sitting the last five hours.

Beyond the docks appeared a city unlike any other port Karl had ever seen, even for the capital of a country like Yaroi.

Warehouses dominated the space around the docks, and narrow roads led to buildings that must be houses and shops.

Karl had a fairly good vantage from the height of the ship, but even he couldn’t see anything about the town that made it actually as special as the Yarokai liked to crow anytime they had a conversation about it.

The only exception was the palace. With delicate spires in glittering white stone and beautifully carved creatures and statues dotting the surface, the palace dominated the northern skyline.

This was definitely the jewel of Yaroi, although Karl was well aware of the blackened rot that beauty served to conceal.

“All right, everyone, line up!” one of the sailors called.

Karl joined the queue forming at the gangway, slowly moving forward as each person went through customs. At least an hour passed before Karl finally reached the desk.

The sun overhead was bright in a nearly cloudless spring sky; Karl shaded his eyes with his hand as he navigated down the gangplank, hoping not to fall into the ocean.

Thankfully, the dock itself was covered by the lengthening shadows as the sun dipped lower in the sky.

There were still a few hours before sunset, but it definitely was getting late in the day.

“Name?” the woman sitting at the table asked without bothering to look up, focused on the papers she was busy writing on.

She held her vowels longer than Karl was used to, even though she spoke the same language as Toval and Namin, but thankfully she was easy enough to understand.

Karl had met people from Yaroi whom he couldn’t understand at all.

“Karl Musen.”

The pen paused and she tilted her head up to glare at him. “You’re part of that Musen clan?” she snapped out. She took in a slow breath through her nose, no doubt gauging his scent.

“Adopted, but yes,” Karl replied with an easy shrug. He didn’t know if she could smell lies or whether she simply wanted his scent for tracking purposes, but he was telling mostly the truth so it didn’t matter.

“Where did you embark from?”

“Timmonsville.”

She wrote that down. “Purpose in Yaroi?”

“Just passing through.”

She kept writing. “Final destination?”

“Miche, in Toval.”

She paused in her writing to glare at him again. “Why didn’t you take a ship there directly?”

Karl let out a heavy, put-upon sigh. “Because my new employer in Miche didn’t provide any funds for me to actually get there, and it’s cheaper to hire on with a caravan from Yari than to charter passage through the Eiroi Strait and all the way down to Miche.”

Miche was one of the cities along Toval’s coast, and it required traversing through the Yaroi-controlled and taxed Eiroi Strait and down the Tovalian-controlled waters of the Bay of Whist. Karl had chosen Miche as his destination on paper because literally the only good thing about Miche was the abundance of fresh fish they pulled out of the bay; the city itself was generally an average place.

Miche was also quite a ways southeast of Etoval, the capital city of Toval; any caravan going to Miche wouldn’t stop in Etoval since it was so far out of the way.

Avoiding anyone thinking Karl was headed to Etoval was very important while he was in Yari.

“Who is your employer?” she asked.

“A bakery there. It doesn’t have a name. I was told it’s the only bakery on Tickerel Row.”

“A Musen going to a bakery?” she asked, and this time her glare was narrow-eyed with suspicion.

“I was adopted,” Karl repeated. “The Musen family only paid for me to go to the two-year baking program at Timmonsville, rather than the five-year one for chefs. I graduated last week.”

His attending the two-year program at Timmonsville, the premier cooking school, was true enough.

As was his being adopted into the Musen family.

But Karl had chosen to only go to the baking program rather than obtaining his full chef’s license.

He knew how to cook well enough—even up to his adoptive father’s standards—but Karl’s heart would always be with yeast and pies and all things baking related.

Not that this customs officer or the rest of Yaroi needed to know any of that.

“How long are you planning to stay in Yari?” she finally asked, her gaze still narrow, but her lips a touch less pinched.

Karl glanced up at where the sun was well past the apex of the horizon.

“I suppose it’s too late to find a caravan leaving today, so I’ll rent a room for the night and see about finding a caravan leaving first thing in the morning.

” Karl shrugged again. “I can’t really afford to stay more than one night. ”

She snorted and wrote some more on her papers. “Let me see your identity documents, then.”

Karl had them ready at the top of his bag, so he passed them over and waited while she read through and compared what was on his documents to what she had written down.

Technically, Karl’s documentation wasn’t a forgery, since the office in Etoval that issued honest paperwork had created his too, but the documents were as truthful as his story.

Still, everything matched up. She returned his documents and then signed a slip of paper, which she also handed to him.

“I suggest the Dancing Bell for tonight. Clean, but cheap, and one meal included in the cost.” She gave him directions perfunctorily, already looking past him. “Next!”

Karl trotted off, heading deeper into the city.

A glance at the slip of paper said she had given him a three-day pass.

If he ended up staying in Yaroi longer than three days, he needed to present himself at a custom’s headquarters to renew his pass.

He needed to show the pass at the city gates when he left as well.

Karl carefully tucked it away with the rest of his documents, then followed her directions toward his inn for the night.

The city was full of twists and turns, not one road straight, but the directions were accurate.

Before long, the spires of the palace towers blocked out the setting sun, so Karl had to start squinting through growing gloom for street signs.

Not one lamp was lit outside—Karl didn’t even see a lamppost to light in the first place—so it was slow going, but he did eventually find a building bustling with a crowd inside, the picture of a bell hanging from the sign over the front door.

Inside was a narrow entryway just large enough for the small desk and staircase behind it.

To the left was a wide opening leading into a tavern completely full with patrons apparently enjoying an early evening drink, although some were also eating.

Karl approached an older woman sitting behind the desk.

“The custom’s officer said I might be able to rent a room here for the night?” Karl asked.

She nodded. “We have a vacancy, but you have to pay up front if you want dinner tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Karl replied, already reaching into his tunic for his coin purse. He passed over some coins, and she gave him his change and a key.

“Room six. Dinner is served until nine tonight; if you don’t come down, you don’t eat, and you forfeit that cost. City curfew is at nine thirty, so be in your room by then, or you’ll be bailing yourself out of jail in the morning.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Karl replied, nodding to her as he walked around the desk and headed up the stairs.

He found eight rooms along a hallway at the top, four doors on each side, and each door had a number burned into the wood.

Inside of room six was a perfectly serviceable twin bed and a small table with a washbasin and pitcher on it.

Running water hadn’t yet made it to Yaroi, at least not to the city of Yari.

Timmonsville was in the process of retrofitting the academy, but Karl’s home in Etoval had running water.

Karl sometimes thought that was what he had missed most over the last two years.

For one night, a washbasin would suffice, and hopefully Karl would be home again very soon.

Karl dropped his bag on the bed, slung his coat over the footrail, and headed back downstairs to go find dinner.

This was Yaroi, and no one was more suspicious than the Yarokai, so his things would likely be searched while he was eating.

Everything in his bags supported his story, though, so Karl wasn’t worried.

He had clothes, his chef’s knives in their travel sachet, sealed closed with a Timmonsville crest, and all his paperwork and correspondence.

Literally the only thing in there that could get him in trouble was a rambling letter from his cousin in Miche, expressing at length how excited he was to learn Karl would be traveling to his hometown, and all about how he had gotten Karl the job at the bakery.

That one letter was actually in code, one used exclusively by the royal family of Toval for their personal correspondence so it shouldn’t be recognized by Yaroi.

Karl settled into an open seat and waved over a barmaid. “I paid for a meal with my room,” he told her.