As the ground sloped down to the harbor, the chaos of the city ramped up. Ramshackle buildings, always under construction and repairs, were crammed together so tight that only children could navigate most alleys. Roads were made of mismatched clay bricks, cobblestone, and wooden planks, none of which were made for even ground.

Massive crowds of people made crossing the street a physical test. Merchants yelled out prices as they hocked their wares. Mothers yelled out their children's names as they tried to not lose them in the mob. Orphans yelled out because they liked yelling.

Even the smells competed, the subtle grassy smell of burning yak dung, the suffocating chemical smell of pitch and tar, the overwhelming and ever-present briney smell of the sea, the nose-turning smell of overcrowded people and primitive sewage.

There was no zoning or pattern to the buildings. Orphanages shared walls with brothels, a bathhouse reeked of a neighboring fish market, a massive open smelter hardened clay tiles across the street from a wooden church that could go up like a tinderbox at the slightest spark.

In all of that mess and crowd and chaos, a hand slipped into someone's pocket, but didn't escape unnoticed.

The would-be victim slammed the would-be thief against a stone wall, one arm pinning the thief's arm and another pinning his neck. The crowd bent around them, unconcerned with their scuffle.

"Give it back!"

"I ain't got nuffin!"

"You idiot. Do you know what this jacket means? You just tried to steal from a Chef."

"I'd raffer be hit over the head with a baguette than a baton."

Nori let go of the thief's arm. She raised her hand in front of his face and rubbed her fingertips together, acid dripping onto the road with a sizzle.

"I don't do bread," she threatened.

"Alright, alright! Here, take it. Not worf the trouble."

The thief fished out a couple of coins from his pocket and held them out for Nori. She snatched them and released the thief's neck.

"You don't want your face burned off? Don't steal from a Chef," she threatened.

He pulled away from her. Now that she wasn't close enough to crush his windpipe, Nori saw that the thief was just a boy, barely a teenager.

"Yeah, well, you don't wanna get fieved at the docks, keep your hands in your pockets."

The boy retreated into the crowd, disappearing into the layers of bodies.

Nori jammed her fists into her pockets and continued down toward the water.

Picea had walked her down to the start of the harbor, but Nori insisted on going the rest of the way alone. Nori claimed it was so that she could get an unfiltered impression of the harbor—which had just taken a turn for the worse—but really, she just wanted to be alone.

It was an unfortunately familiar feeling. One that manifested itself many times as she grew up around her father, her mother, her siblings, her cousins, her teachers, her tutors, her guests. Sometimes, even when they left, Nori still wasn't alone. Nori Harper—a persona formed from crippling expectations—was there with her, bringing the mood down with all the prim and proper customs of a noble girl.

In her happiest memories, she escaped from them all—Nori Harper included. Just Nori exploring the world of Uroko. Hiking up long-forgotten trails. Escaping to hidden beaches. Flipping over rocks and finding crabs.

And then, finally, she had found her way to escape. The Academy of Ambrosia. No more criticisms about which side of her plate her fork should go on. No more hand-picked outfits from the maids. No more switch to be beaten with when she misbehaved. No more Harpers, no more Nori Harper. Just Nori. Finally all alone.

Then she wasn't alone. But she liked that.

She had friends that felt closer than family ever had. Teachers that she wanted to be taught by. Ambitions of her choosing, not of her family's. A place that she called home.

If only that blissful time had lasted.

Every day, she felt herself grow more and more distant with Archie. It wasn't his fault. It was hers. Just like it had been her fault that he had been captured. Jailed. Tortured. In the weeks that followed, she found it harder and harder to face him. He claimed to be fine, but she knew he wasn't. It showed in the little, quiet moments. An extra peek over his shoulder. A twitch. A clenched jaw.

And it was her fault. He had wanted to stop selling to the Gluttons. He had never wanted to start. And it was only Archie that paid for their sins. Only Archie's body. Nori distanced herself from him, half as self-inflicted punishment, half from the belief that if she didn't attach herself to him, he might go a summer without something bad happening to him.

Still, she would have never let him go to Khala without her. When he needed her, she'd be there. She had to be there. But until then, she'd give him space.

Even surrounded by the people of the harbor, she felt alone. But it wasn't the blissful loneliness that she had always sought as a child. This alone was a feeling of without. She shook off the thought and focused on her surroundings before another opportunistic pickpocket marked her. She stepped over a couple of tailless rats that fought for some crumbs.

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Nori didn't have to try hard to find the customs house. Its red brick walls towered over the area, twice as high, twice as wide, and twice as long as any other building. On the sea-facing wall, the bricks curved into beautiful convex turret protrusions on either side of twenty-foot-tall wooden double doors.

On the city-facing wall, the largest inn in Khala was attached to the customs house like a wooden annex, serving as a waiting room for the administratively stalled traders and the merchants that were eager to negotiate for wares.

Nori entered the inn, the smell of alcohol and the too-well-traveled sailors that drank it hitting her like a wall. She got a feel for the dynamics of the inn—rowdy drunks on the ground floor, business deals on the balconies above—and headed up the stairs.

She found her target just as Picea had described him—a red-headed, middle-aged man a little too deep in the sauce. He ran his finger around the lip of his mug, tilting it this way and that way while humming a tune.

"Sauter?" Nori asked.

"Oho!" Sauter grinned and leaned back to look at her, then kept leaning back, then leaned back a little further, then grabbed the table to keep from falling, his head rolling around. "You musht be my Chef!"

His putrid, drunk breath unrolled from his mouth like a carpet, smacking Nori in the face. She recoiled and took a step to the side, retreating into the much more tolerable stink of the inn.

"That's right. I'm Nori."

"Noreeeeee!" Sauter held on to the table with one hand and smacked the tabletop with the other. "Name like that musht make you Urokan! I had a suspicion, but lots of Khalyans look like you, too. Ya know, it's the eyes."

His drunken slurring took a second to decode, the word "suspicion" coming out as a nearly indecipherable "shshpshn."

Nori glared at him. While she could understand someone of his complexion not seeing the many differences between south Khalyans and Urokans, she didn't want to encourage his drunken commentary on racial features.

He reeled back from her glare, clenching his teeth in a frown and pulling his chin back into his neck.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he rambled. "I have a Urokan Chef working for me right now. Another one. Not you. You two can talk! Lots to talk about. Us too—lots to talk about. Sit doooown! Grab a dreeeenk!"

Nori squeezed her lips tight together, pulling her chin up flat across her jawline. She let her heavy nose-breathing do the talking.

Saunter lacked the mental clarity to get the message. He smiled an ugly, incomplete, almost pained smile, the alcohol having robbed him of some facial control.

"I'd like to just go ahead and get to work," Nori stated.

Sauter sighed. "Ooohhughh. I thought since Picea sent you, you might be fun. She's fun." He opened his mouth wide to suck in air. "Alright, work, work, work."

He nearly fell three times as he untangled his legs from the bench and pulled himself away from the table. He took a series of rapid breaths to force himself into some semblance of sobriety.

"This way," he said as he lumbered over to the stairs. He held the rail as he descended, pulling himself in and bouncing off the wall with every other step. By some miracle, he made it out into the street, the salty sea air helping to peel back a layer of his drunken stupor.

"You're gonna be sealing the fish," he yelled into the open air, assuming Nori was trailing him. She sighed, wishing she wasn't. "I know you're just a Yellow Jacket—no offense. Do you know how to seal fish?"

Nori sighed. She had hoped she would be cooking fish. She had years of experience with that—not by choice. But at the Academy, she hadn't learned any advanced techniques about seafood out of a sense of defiance.

"Well…"

"Ah, don't sweat it, I don't know how neither!" Sauter laughed and turned to see if she laughed too, which of course she didn't. He frowned and turned back around. "I'll have Shiso help you out."

They passed through a gate guarded by men with batons and leather helmets. The guards paid Nori no mind, only moving from their posts to regulate the comings and goings of the trade carts.

Sauter walked up to the wooden planks of the docks, held out his arms, and sighed with the expectation that Nori would join him in enjoying the view. She had grown up around the ocean and harbors and ships, but did her best to find the beauty anyway.

The mountains that ringed around Khaldeer disappeared into the water, creating long stretches of rocks that broke up the waves and farther jutting rock formations that threatened to break up the ships. Children ran barefoot across the rocky shores, braving sharp coral and dangerous breaking waves in search for something to eat.

But the dangers of the docks weren't exclusive to the children. Six treadwheel cranes threatened to drop deadly loads of cargo as they swung around haphazardly and unloaded the ships. Each crane was operated by a double wheel setup with two men inside walking to spin the treadwheel and lift the crane—if either man stopped unexpectedly, the crane's contents would be dropped on anyone daring enough to walk beneath the cargo.

Fortunately, some dangers had been dulled. A line of rocks extended into the sea and formed a cove, dulling the incoming waves. Thanks to the relative gentleness of the waves, even some of the larger boats could pull right up to the docks, joining the chorus of rhythmic tapping as wooden boats rocked and tapped against wooden docks. The docks serviced up to twenty boats at a time, the deeper waters of the cove holding a fleet of traders and fishermen that waited for their turn to unload.

Beyond those waiting boats, there were two passages through the rocks into the cove. The first was barred by a great iron chain that stretched from rock to shore, threatening to cut down any ship that tried to sneak through. In the other passage, a small fleet of ships monitored entry and boasted flags that were all too familiar to Nori.

Three small, single-mast rowboats flew a dark blue banner with silver fish scales.

The Urokan banner.

They patrolled the passage, moving deftly through dangerous waters and boarding other ships to search their goods. They were the inspectors. The verifiers. The blockade. Any ship that gained passage to Khaldeer did so with Uroko's blessing. But they were not the muscle.

Just inside the cove, a flagship boat, quadruple-masted with a deck that rose four stories out of the water, making it bigger than all but the largest trade ships, flew the Urokan banner along with another that made Nori's heart pound with dread.

A gold background. A black sword plunging into a sinking sea dragon, its falling body curled around so its tail and head made the points of a "U." A symbol of past triumphs and a warning to any future dissident.

The Harper emblem.

Somewhere on that ship, a Harper waited for a call, probably lounging around below deck with a drink and a deck of cards. And if those smaller minnow boats found something that Uroko didn't approve of, that Harper would be out of the boat and into the water, transforming into something far, far more dangerous than any sea creature that knew the shine of the sun.

Whoever that Harper was, the harbor belonged to them.

Nori felt like a small fish in the presence of a shark.

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