Every Ryhdian with a secret worth keeping knew the location of the den. It was located on the outskirts of Rhydia, a few neighborhoods south of Banker’s Row. Tucked behind fabric mills and poetry bars, it was well out of sight from the Citadel’s walls; only to be reached by navigating a maze of alleys that were filled to the brim with merchants and urchins both day and night. From the outside, the building looked unremarkable, save for a crudely carved sign that read: Piper’s Pottery 

In keeping with its façade, the front room displayed a dozen tall shelves, all fully stocked with misshapen pottery. However, just beyond the last row of shelves there hid a well-worn door. Behind the door was a dark hall, which slowly curved to herd its visitors around the outer edges of a dimly lit den.

Through the dense clouds of incense and opium, behind a velvet curtain of bronze and green, an unlikely duo lounged during the height of midday. In a blanket of smoke they discussed nonsense and politics, as they so often did.

Korbin shook his head at Wyck, who had just dropped his fourth goblet on the floor.

“I don’t get it, Korbin.” Wyck stretched out and propped up his long legs atop a stool. “You say you stand for freedom, yet you have nothing good to say about the King. Isn’t he the one who stopped the Slave War? Shouldn’t you be on his side?”

Korbin swirled his glass in before his nose and breathed in deeply. “First of all, I never said I wasn’t on his side. There are no sides. And second of all, freedom was not the reason the Shadow King ended that war. He ended it because it was the last thing that his brother had done. It wasn’t enough just to kill the man and marry his wife; King Vincent cancelled every plan the Moon King had put into action, and he did it out of spite, not for freedom.”

“Alright, alright.” Wyck held up his arms. “So it’s all about motives then, not the outcome?”

Korbin began tracing circles in his notebook, a habit that helped him to calm down. “No, it’s about both. All I’m saying is it’s important not to confuse the two.”

Wyck nodded in agreement, then lit his pipe and took a drag. “Can you blame him, though?” He coughed. “With a woman like that as part of the prize pot?”

Korbin crumpled up a piece of parchment and threw it at his best friend’s grinning face. “Yeah, you would kill your own brother just for the chance to bed a fine woman, wouldn’t you?”

“You know what?” Wyck smirked. “I probably would!”

They both erupted into laughter. Just as they did, a delicate cackle broke through their deeper guffaws.

As if a vision, Korbin’s sister emerged from the smoke, her brow still glistening from the hot day’s sun. She sauntered toward them and plopped down atop a stack of large pillows beside Wyck. With a glint in her eye, she reached into a hidden pocket to retrieve a tiny rosewood box.

“As I promised.” Odessa reveled with palpable delight.

Wyck’s bloodshot eyes grew wide. “Is that?”

“It is.”

Wyck dropped his pipe and eagerly crouched in front of the curious box. “How’d you get them?”

“I have my ways.” She gave him a wink.

Odessa always seemed to know who to talk to and where to go to find each and every type of trouble. Korbin had learned long ago never to ask her how she knew the things she did. It was safer not to know.

He glanced up from his parchment and let out a disinterested sigh.

Odessa looked at him as if noticing his presence for the first time. “Oh. Hi, Korbin.”

“Mother’s been asking for you, you know.” He kept his eyes focused on his notes. “Where exactly have you been?”

“Out.”

His eyes narrowed. “No shit.”

She had been gone for nearly six weeks.

Odessa shrugged, then locked eyes with Wyck as she lifted the lid of the rosewood box, revealing three blue mushrooms.

“One for you.” She grinned, brandishing one of the peculiar fungi to the thoroughly entranced Wyck.

“One for me.” She lifted two fingers to display a second in the palm of the very same hand. “And one for later.”

The box snapped shut.

“You know.” Korbin interrupted with a wry voice. “One of these days you might want to try not setting this place on fire.”

Wyck looked around until he caught his friend’s meaning.

“Damn it!” He cried out, leaping to his feet. Beside him smoke was billowing out from the bright embers his pipe had spilled onto the floor. He began to stomp, barefoot, on a small flame just as it began to catch.

“Ayihaaaaaaa!” Wyck frenziedly hopped on one foot, clutching the other in his hands. His screams were mistaken for song, and were soon echoed by voices from the other side of the curtains.

Korbin couldn’t help but laugh. Shaking his head once again, he watched as Odessa recollected the mushroom, which had fallen from Wyck’s mouth during his show of buffoonery.

Once sufficiently assured that his foot was not burnt, Wyck turned back to his previous activity. He searched every crevice of his robes, then pouted. “Aw, where’d that little blue guy go?”

“You mean you didn’t eat it yet?” Odessa cooed in a chant-like tenor.

Korbin shot his sister a sly smile, which quickly turned to a roll of his eyes as he realized that she was already too affected to acknowledge her own prank.

Bored and annoyed, Korbin got up and left the den, leaving Odessa to giggle, spin, and dream, while Wyck spent the remainder of the afternoon searching high and low for his missing blue mushroom.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Night of Unrest