Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XV
I woke just past dawn, the clatter of early carts and a confused messenger pigeon at the wrong window dragging me out of a dream I couldn’t quite remember.
The cobbles were still damp with the night’s chill as I wandered down to Baking My Way, the only place in Dawnsheart that knew how to treat a croissant with the reverence it deserved. The bell over the door jingled, and the scent of cardamom and browned butter wrapped itself around me like an old friend.
“Mornin’, Reader. The usual?” she asked, already reaching for the tray.
I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
She handed it over, still warm to the touch. I thanked her and turned for the door.
But something tugged at me. I stopped, halfway out the door, and turned.
“You know, actually…” I said, surprised at myself.
A short while later, I pushed open the door to The Goblin’s Grin with a brown paper bundle tucked under one arm.
I tried to tread softly across the floorboards, but my boots found every creak they had to offer. I was just placing the first pastry on the bar when a voice cut through the stillness.
“Morning chronicler.”
I yelped. And I’m not proud of it.
I forgot that Elves don’t really sleep. Day sat calmly at one of the tables near the stage area, inspecting a small stack of lanterns. His expression was unreadable, and his hair, gods damn him, was impossibly perfect. I don’t know how he does it.
My startled yelp was apparently enough to wake Yak, who untangled himself from behind an empty crate and snatched a pastry with the reflexes of a starving raccoon.
He paused. Chewed. Grabbed another and walked across the room to where Wikis lay curled up in the corner like a sleeping cat.
He nudged her shoulder.
She opened her eyes, looked up at him, hissed, sprang up, and – midair – drew an arrow and let it fly in one frightfully fluid motion. It missed his head by inches, thudding deep into a panel behind the bar.
Yak dropped his croissant in shock.
Without looking up, Day said dryly,
“A face, Yak. You need to have a face.”
“Oh, right, sorry,” Yak muttered, bending down to pick up the pastry before returning upright wearing something that could loosely be described as a generic tavern-goer face, if such a thing existed. Slightly bland. Forgettable. Marginally better than blank.
Wikis hissed again, but this time it sounded more like an apology. She snatched the pastry from Yak’s grasp, scrambled onto a nearby chair, crouched and began nibbling slowly, eyes wide, scanning the surroundings.
I was halfway to the door, brushing flakes of pastry from my coat and trying not to dwell on the arrow still quivering in the wall, when Day spoke.
“Know where I can get lantern oil?”
“I’m a church Reader and archivist, I live by lantern light. Of course I do. I can take you there. Market’s on the way to the church anyway. That is, if you don’t mind coming along”
As we moved toward the door, Wikis’s voice floated after us, clear and strangely casual.
“Can you bring back some salt?”
I turned. “Salt?”
“Yes. Salt,” she nodded “For sprinkling on food.” Then, in a lower tone, eyes narrowing as they scanned the ceiling corners: “And drawing circles on the ground.”
Day didn’t miss a beat. “Salt, got it.”
I glanced at Yak.
He just shrugged and kept chewing his croissant.
The door hadn’t even had a chance to shut behind us when a boy approached, barefoot on the cobbles, carrying a tray of steaming mugs with the kind of balance born not from training, but necessity. He looked about twelve. Thin, quick, and sharper than he let on. The same boy, I realized, Tufulla had been speaking to in the alley the night before.
“From the High Reader,” he announced, chin tilted with quiet pride. “Or should I say, the Mayor. He said you’d probably need these after last night.”
Seven squat mugs. He held the tray out with practiced ease.
“There’s one for you, too,” he added, locking eyes with me. His gaze was steady—too steady for someone his age. There was something behind it. Wisdom, maybe. Or just survival dressed up as insight.
Yak appeared as if summoned by scent alone. “Mystery mugs!”
He took the tray with reverence, dropped a few coppers in the boy’s hand, and vanished back inside.
The boy turned and disappeared around the corner, light-footed as fog.
Day raised an eyebrow as we turned down the alley. “Friend of yours?”
“Friend of Tufulla’s it seems,” I said.
Day looked down at the mug. “So… what exactly is this?”
“Morning ale. Dawnsheart staple. Scribes drink it. Guards grimace through it. Most folks pretend they like it until they don’t.”
I took a sip and nearly regretted it. I swallowed with visible effort.
Day took a cautious sip. Then another. And stopped walking. “That’s…”
I braced for it.
“…actually not bad.”
I turned. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head, savoring another mouthful. “The bite’s clean. There’s clarity in it.”
“Clarity,” I echoed, watching him as if he’d just tried to befriend a wasp.
He nodded. “Tastes like something that tells the truth.”
We walked through the morning haze, the city coming alive around us — soft shouts from the market square, the squeal of stubborn wagon wheels, the scent of warm bread fighting the ever-present damp.
Day, quiet for a while, finally said, “So. The Dan’del’ion Court. Remind me.”
“They ruled the Humbledoewn Valley. Central Elandaru. Tyrants. Vampires. Ieyoch was their lord. Vampire. Centuries old. No one knows how he came to power — most records were destroyed when they fell. Probably for good reason. Under the Court, people weren’t citizens. They were an unpaid workforce and food source. The valley bled for them while they lived like gods.”
“And then they fell.”
“As tyrants do,” I said. “Infighting, betrayal, and a peasant uprising with more anger than fear. Castle Ieyoch was abandoned. The name became a curse. Now even owning a Dan’del’ion artifact can land you in a prison cell.”
Day raised a brow. “So… the medallions we found”
“Are extremely illegal. And extremely dangerous. And probably cursed. And we should not be casually talking about them in public. Tufulla keeps the one I showed you in that vault under the church.”
He gave a small nod, thoughtful.
“Some think the Court made a pact,” I added. “Something dark. Not death exactly. Something worse.”
Day was quiet for a beat. Then: “You think they’re back?”
“I don’t know. But Tufulla seems to at least be considering the possibility”
We turned the corner into the square. The marketplace unfolded before us, cloth canopies, hawkers, the scent of spiced meat and wet hay. I pointed off to one side.
“Lantern oil’s there, haggle lightly, he likes the game. Salt is by the barrel under the green tarp.”
Day nodded, already scanning the stalls.
“And you?”
I pointed across the square toward the church, its broken window half-boarded and sun catching on the mismatched glass that remained “Church. Tufulla’s waiting.”
The church door creaked open, the familiar scent of old stone and older incense settling around me like memory. Morning light filtered through the half-repaired stained glass, casting fractured light across the pews.
I stepped inside, half-expecting Tufulla in his usual place by the lectern, hands folded like a man waiting for the world to catch up.
Instead, I got Reader Fenna, mid-sweep.
She didn’t even glance up. “He’s not here.”
I blinked. “High ReaderTufulla?”
“Mayor Tufulla” she smirked, “is in the mayor’s office,” nodding toward the office next door. “Trying to find the bottom of Roddrick’s incompetence.”
I sighed. Of course.
The former mayor’s office still smelled like stale tea and failed promises. I found Tufulla hunched over a desk buried in parchment.
“You look happy,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Roddrick siphoned thousands from the city’s reserve fund — over years. Falsified contracts, fake repairs, ghost employees. All of it routed into personal accounts buried under layers of false names.”
I said nothing for a moment.
Then: “Want help?”
“Yes. Go and help your new friends.”
“I helped Day find the market,” I offered. “I’m sure they’ll be fine for a few hours without me. Besides, I wouldn’t call them friends. Umberto just growls in my direction.”
“Which one is he?”
“The angry gnome. Loincloth. Big axe.”
Tufulla glanced up, finally. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were sharp.
“I’m sure he’ll grow to like you in time.” He returned to the parchments in front of him.
“The point is, we aren’t really friends. I mean, technically, they barely know each other. You assigned me to accompany them to investigate Nelb. I did that. I’d be better served at the church,” I said quietly. “Doing what I was trained to do.”
He stood slowly. “I need you to walk with them. Learn them. You need to find out what’s coming and figure out what part they’re going to play.”
I shifted my weight. “Surely I should be doing church duties instead? Particularly with you occupied with all this.” I gestured at the mountain of parchment in front of him.
“What you are doing is far more important than looking after the church. Reader Fenna has that part under control and gave a stirring sermon this morning,” he said, stepping around the desk. “She spoke about what it means to endure hard times. About how we each have to play our part if we want to come through it together.”
He raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“The church is fine for the moment.” Then, gently, “Klept, walking with them may be the greatest service to the church you’ll ever give.”
The weight of Tufulla’s hand still lingered on my shoulder as I left the mayor’s office, not heavy, not warm, just… certain.
Outside, Dawnsheart had fully shaken off the morning mist. I threaded my way back toward the stalls, boots scuffing old cobble. I paused at a stall selling beeswax candles, letting the warm, waxy scent settle around me. Lavender. Mint. Plain tallow. The seller had lined them up like tools of war, each with a handwritten tag and a small dish of sample wicks flickering in the breeze.
I was reaching for a set of long-burning church tapers when someone to my right said, lightly,
“No no – these won’t do. They’re too thin, burn too fast. There’s no mood. I need a wide-base, preferably honey blend with a slow melt, thick scent.”
I turned.
The woman beside me was dressed in layered green silk, a velvet cloak half-thrown over one shoulder. She wore perfume that clung like memory and held a small bundle of what looked like rose-scented votives. A notebook peeked out from her satchel, spine well-worn, a quill tucked neatly into the strap.
I recognized her — vaguely.
Barbara Dongswallower.
I said nothing for a moment, just raised an eyebrow and reached for a beeswax taper.
“These are for reading,” I said. “Not… ambience.”
“Everything’s ambience if you do it right,” she replied, inspecting a lavender candle with theatrical scrutiny. “But to each their flicker.”
She smiled, the kind of smile you practice when hundreds of strangers want to be charmed by you for five seconds at a time.
I glanced at the notebook again. “If you’re staying in town long, Write of Passage carries the best ink. Stronger pigment. Holds its line better.”
That made her pause.
Then she smiled again, warmer this time, slightly more real. “That’s very good to know, thank you.”
She slipped a coin to the vendor, gathered her candles in a linen wrap, and gave me a slight nod.
“Have a good morning, Reader.”
I blinked. “How did you—”
She was already walking away, cloak trailing behind her like a whispered rumor.
I turned back to the tapers, picked three, and said nothing.
A moment later, Day slid in beside me, bottles of oil, a bag of salt, and a small stack of folded parchment tucked under one arm.
“The church robes probably give it away. Was that—?”
“Barbara Dongswallower, I believe.”
He blinked. “Huh.”
A pause.
“He’ll be upset if he finds out.”
“Then we don’t say anything,” I said, placing the tapers into a cloth wrap. “He doesn’t seem to like me much as it is.”
Day nodded. “Fair enough.”
By the time we pushed open the door to the Goblin’s Grin, the rest of the group had woken, and the croissants and morning ale were gone, though I wasn’t entirely convinced Yak hadn’t consumed them single-handedly.
Someone had attempted to scrub the floor and given up halfway through.
They were gathered around a table near the bar. Yak was gesturing wildly with a bent spoon. Wikis crouched on a stool with a coil of rope in her lap. Trunch stood with arms folded, foot propped on an upturned bucket like it was a ship’s helm.
“We could put a couple of small tables out in the alley if we can convince that old woman across the way,” he was saying.
“Or kill her,” Yak offered brightly.
“No killing the neighbors,” Din said, without missing a beat.
“I could make it look like an accident?”
“Zero. Killing. Particularly the neighbors.”
I stepped closer, setting my ink and candles down on the bar. “What’s all this about?”
“Renovations,” Carrie said. “Din’s vetoing everything.”
“I am not vetoing everything,” Din snapped. “I’m exercising discretion.”
“I’ll repaint the sign,” Wikis offered.
Din spun to face her like a schoolteacher catching a cheat sheet mid-test.
“Do what you like, paint the walls, clear out the back, replace the stools, knock a hole in the ceiling if you must but…” He turned, gaze sweeping the group. “Nobody touches the sign.”
Umberto grunted and gave a slow, solemn nod in agreement.
We all glanced toward the window.
The Goblin’s Grin sign hung from two rusting hooks, one corner drooping low. The wood was warped, the paint long lost to wind and time. It looked like it had been dragged from a river, left in the sun, and then partially set on fire for good measure.
“The sign stays as is.” Din repeated.
Silence.
Then Carrie raised a cautious hand. “Can we… clean it?”
“No.”
“What if it falls off?”
“Then we nail it back on.”
A beat passed. And then, slowly, Umberto turned toward me. His expression narrowed. He took a step. Then another. Then marched with quiet, growing suspicion until he was standing far, far too close — face tilted upward, eyes squinted. And sniffed. Once. Twice. A sharp inhale, followed by a narrowed stare.
“You smell like cardamom…” he said, voice low, accusatory. “And… roses.”
“I bought candles,” I offered, not helpfully.
He inhaled again. Eyes narrowed in slow accusation . “You spoke to her.”
“I was at the market. I spoke to several people,” I glanced at Day.
Umberto glared up at me and jabbed a stubby finger into my chest “You spoke to Barbara.”
“I…”
Day, unwinding his bundles beside the bar, didn’t even look up. “Yeah. She’s in the marketplace. Shopping”
Umberto vanished in a flurry of motion, flipping his pack open, rummaging with wild-eyed precision until he emerged triumphantly holding a small, creased paperback.
And then, without a word, he bolted for the door.
Din let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m going to find a supplier. We need beer. Don’t touch the sign.” He followed Umberto out — not chasing, just escaping the madness.
One by one, the others drifted into motion.
Yak disappeared behind the bar, sifting through shelves and drawers muttering to himself. “Gonna need citrus… maybe dried hibiscus…berries should be easy to get here”
Trunch finished measuring a table and headed for the door. “I’m going to find a carpenter, we need better tables. And chairs that don’t threaten to shatter when you sit down.”
Carrie stood near the door tapping her lip with one finger. “Klept? Reader? Chronicler? Whoever you are, where would a girl find a florist in this city? And maybe someone who sells bunting?”
“Basket of Blooms, in the square. You can’t miss it”
She curtsied and fluttered out the door.
Day settled by the hearth with his bundle of lanterns, quietly cleaning each glass, refitting the oil pans, trimming wicks with the focus of a man performing minor surgery.
Wikis disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a muffled hiss, a thud, the clattering of pans, and something that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
The Goblin’s Grin wasn’t ready yet. Far from it. But the page was dry, and the ink was waiting. Maybe this place, cracked floorboards, cursed sign and all, was what would bring them together.
Not the adventure, or the fame, or the reward.
This.
I made my way to the corner table, opened my notebook to a fresh page of parchment, and let the ink find its way.
A bang echoed from the kitchen.
Wikis emerged, holding a dented pan in one hand and a very large rat by the tail in the other.She looked pleased. “I think I found dinner.”
The Chronicles of Klept 