There are holes all over the place, too. Not small holes dug by spades—these holes are big enough to drive a wagon through, and I think of the small spade in my bag and the staff I carry with the pointed end. Neither of these tools seem big enough to do the level of digging I’m looking at. As I watch, someone pushes a mine cart forward, and a guild member runs a wand through the air. A shimmering portal opens, and the cart is pushed through. Another one comes through the portal, this one empty.

I gasp and tap Gwenna on the shoulder. “Did you see that?”

“Seems like a shitty use for an artifact,” she says, and sounds spectacularly unimpressed.

“Where do you think it goes?”

“Does it matter? Nowhere important if they’re just using it to dump dirt instead of selling it to some holder for top coin.”

Hmm, she has a point. I’m still entranced, though, and I watch as the portal wavers and then flickers out again. The exasperated guild man waves the wand in the air again, reopening it, and another man pops through with an empty mine cart.

I eye the men crawling all over the anthill of the ruins. Everyone’s wearing guild uniforms, but only the one with the wand has the patch of someone who’s passed the guild tests. Everyone else is wearing apprentice colors. I move forward and tap Lark on the shoulder. “Ask Magpie why there are so many apprentices here.”

“Magpie has ears,” our guild master calls back. “And those aren’t apprentices. At least, not right now. Those are repeaters.”

Oh. Repeaters—the fledglings who didn’t pass guild testing and were dropped by their masters. They’re doing manual labor to assist the guild in the hopes another master will be impressed by their work ethic and give them another chance. I stare at the men hard at work, at the resentful looks they shoot in our direction as we walk through. This doesn’t seem good at all. It’s a setup that’s positively asking for abuse. I need to say something to Hawk about it, but then I spot a broken cornice at the edge of a crumbling brick wall at knee height. The blurry form is obvious to me, and all the thoughts fall from my head at the sight.

It’s an Old Prellian carving, late period.

I rush forward and collapse next to the cornice, touching it with hesitant reverence. By all the gods. Even though it’s been worn down by time and weather, I can still see the stylized eagle that was so very popular with Late Prellian architecture. It’s an amazing example and looks to be made out of the marble they favored in the late period. My fingers trace along the outstretched wings, and I’m in awe. To think that I can see this up close. To think that people just walk past this, every day, as if it’s nothing.

Someone clears her throat nearby.

I turn and see Magpie, her hands on her hips. “If you’re done fondling the rocks, can we get going?”

“Oh, but—the cornice—the eagle—” I stammer, covering it with my arms as if to protect it. “Late Prellian architecture. It’s just sitting here in the courtyard. Someone could hit it with a shovel—”

She gives me an exasperated look. “Where are we going, Aspeth?”

Is…is this a trick question? “Drop Thirteen?”

“We are going into the ruins of Old Prell. It’s full of rocks just like that one. So get up and let’s go look at those other rocks, yes?”

Reluctantly, I get to my feet. I don’t want to leave it behind—it’s so damned beautiful, I don’t understand how they aren’t scooping it up to put into a museum or a treasury—but I want to see Old Prell, too. And I want to dig in the ruins.

And I need artifacts.

It hurts me physically to leave the carved cornice behind. I feel it in my heart, but I can’t stay behind in the mud and with all these glaring men with shovels. I get to my feet, dusting off my trousers and adjusting my ill-fitting clothes. Satisfied that I’m following again, Magpie turns and marches once more. Gwenna gives me a sympathetic look. More than anyone, she understands my obsession with Old Prell.

We follow behind Magpie as she makes her way through the enormous field littered with rocks and gigantic holes surrounded by scaffolding. As we walk past, a flag with the number eight—in bold yellow—is hung on a pole. Behind the pole, a cluster of guild men are being lowered into a hole in what looks like an enormous basket.

I have to admit, I didn’t picture this. When I imagined guild life, I thought of adventures in the tunnels, but not of how anyone got to the actual tunnels. It’s not very…glamorous. Again, I’m reminded of an anthill with all the holes dug out.

Magpie turns, holding our blue flag out to a pit monitor. “Drop Thirteen,” she announces. “Magpie and her fledglings.”

He laughs. “Drop Thirteen, eh? Good luck with that.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Lark asks.

The man waves us forward, taking us to the last of the four holes open in his quarry area. We walk past the other three and I lean over one, but it’s too dark to see anything inside except the rope and pulley leading down. “Thirteen is just a bold choice is all,” he says. “Unlucky number thirteen.”

“Why is it unlucky?” she prompts.

“Because no one finds fuck all at Drop Thirteen,” the man says helpfully.

We all turn to stare at Magpie. “Why did we pick it if it’s notoriously bereft of artifacts?” I ask.

“Because you’re fledglings and it’s most important that you get practice? Calm down.” She lifts her chin at the attendant. “Show us to our basket. We’re late already.”

He pulls it from its anchored tether at the side of the hole that must be Drop Thirteen. There’s a bit of rock skittering in as he drags the basket forward. Magpie steps forward and helps him steer it over the large, gaping hole the size of a well. I watch them work, a little fascinated and a lot alarmed.

Gwenna leans toward me. “She might have a good feeling about things, but I don’t. You think she picked this one because she doesn’t expect us to find anything? That it’s just an excuse to look busy?”

I glance over at our leader. She’s climbing into the basket and adjusting the ropes with a skill that speaks of years of practice. “Why would she go to all that trouble?”

“Just to get away from Hawk judging her for a few days? You know he’s not happy with her.”

“I think Hawk isn’t happy with anyone.” I can’t help but think of that night in the alley. How he’d grabbed my jaw and made me watch. How he’d flung me away from him afterward like I was garbage and then immediately abandoned me when we got home. It made me feel small and dirty and unwanted.

“Mmm, I don’t know about that. I’ve seen the way he watches you. If he’s not into you, he’s fooling us all.”

Her words make me flush. “Let’s focus on Magpie.” Because talking about her doesn’t make my belly flutter. “You think she’s setting us up? That she doesn’t want us to find anything?”

Gwenna shrugs, her gaze locked on Mereden and Kipp as they climb into the basket. The slitherskin is agile as he trots in, his shell bouncing merrily, but Mereden looks terrified as she peeks over the edge. “All I’m saying is that the simple answer to weird behavior is the likely answer.”

“And what’s the simple answer?”

“That she’s drinking again.”

“She swore she’d stop,” I protest. “She wouldn’t.”

“Promises are easy,” Gwenna says with a shrug. “Come on. I think it’s our turn to get into the basket.”

I want to continue arguing, but then Lark steps into the basket and the entire thing sways, banging against the lip of the hole and sending a scatter of pebbles down into the darkness. Mereden squeals in distress, clinging to Kipp’s house…and knocking poor Kipp flat onto his belly. Lark topples on top of him, and Magpie nearly falls over as well.

“Hold on to the basket,” Magpie barks, and the next few moments are chaos as everyone rights themselves. The basket sways above the hole dangerously, the basket handler clinging to the rope on the other side of the pulley and frowning mightily at us. “You two, quit whispering and get on. The sooner we descend, the sooner we can make some coin.”