The alleyway was dark, dank, quiet and private—after they kicked out the brood of dogs that nested here. They left behind a stench of wet fur, strong enough to overcome the stench of garbage, but I ignored both with the ease of habit.

Gi carefully picked at the wax seal with a small knife, pulling it from the letter without breaking. I watched his movements with rapt attention, trying to learn all I could, but I felt like my movement would never be as steady as Gi’s.

The last time I tried this trick, I broke the seal in half. Good thing I trained on a letter I made myself just for that. Now, Gi—Rosha showed him how to break and fix seals on letters only once, and next day he could do that ten times out of ten.

Even after the two months of studying from Yvenna and Bishop and drinking their strengthening water, I was not even close to being as powerful as Gi was.

The boy unfurled the missive with the same careful movements and then, without a word, passed it to me. I grinned. At least, at reading I was better! Faster, at least. It was one thing to read your own character sheet, and another to read all these words.

“I again have nothing good to say, Leader. Templars can’t find what they are sent for and burning our tails instead. Any word of heresy can bring one straight to the pyre. We have to sit as low as we can or turn into firewood, so we couldn’t fulfil your order. Worse, the morale is low. I was afraid that one of our brothers will turn and spill, so I had to silence them, and at these times, every man counts… I pray for us all, sincerely, Mockingbird.”

I folded the letter again and looked at Gi with a frown. “And that came from the capital. The things really went bad now…”

“They went bad after Voren left.” Gi snatched the letter from my hands and began to fix it and the seal with the help of a matchstick.

“Yeah, but now they went the worst. I mean, now these, how did the old man call them, witch hunts? Now they are in the capital, too. Everything’s bound to grow worse here, too. The templars always come with something new and bad.”

Gi elbowed me. “Calm down, Hector. No matter how shitty things are, panic never helped anyone.”

I took a deep breath and forced down the rising anxiety. “Right. Let’s better bring the letter where it should go and let Bishop solve everything. He’s smart, he’ll come up with a way!”

“Smarts can only bring you so far,” Gi muttered, visibly unconvinced by my small speech.

⠀⠀

We didn’t read the missives out of malice, really. I and Gi both were just too curious to sit with what few drops of information we were given. I could tell that Bishop, too, pitied us a little. Held us in soft gloves.

Hell, everyone did—except Yvenna, who didn’t even know what that was, but she was a screaming, angry hag and didn’t have much good things to tell on the best day, not to mention the bad days that were running for weeks now.

Gods descended to the mortal realm to search for Voren—he was so right to hide from them back then!—and their servants seized the moment to search the land for any heretics, criminals or just people who didn’t pay as much as templars wanted in donations. Bishop and all of us had to lie low, because no matter how right Bishop’s teachings were, or how good for the world, for them we were just another bunch of heretics.

This was how I and Gi became special messengers. It’d be too suspicious and risky for normal runners come in and out of Bishop’s place, or for him to go often to other burrows of the Church, so I and Gi would find the messengers in the city, take the missives and bring him to him—or the other way around. Boys like us, even at these days, ran with jobs like these around all the time.

It was so great to be not just a sponger, but to do something useful. And as a bonus, we could read the letters and find out more about what was going on.

Just like I feared, in a week after the arrival that one missive, the situation in Tinaris, which was tense already, became worse. I knew it when I heard the herald read on the main square that now the templars will search the houses for illegal books in people’s hold, such as the books on witchcraft, demon-worshipping and ones that smeared the gods’ good names. And if someone told to templars that someone else had such books in their possession, and templars found them, this first someone would get a reward.

In short, they offered to pay to snitches! The worst sort of thing. Gi liked this about as much as I did, too.

We hurried to bring the news to Bishop. He had these books! He had to hide them, at least. We were sure someone would snitch on him, and soon.

He already looked aged five years in three months, but at our news, he looked like the ground opened under his feet. With a shaken sigh, the old man heavily sat down on a chair, and something in my chest clenched at the view.

He was so… strong—in spirit—when I just met him. So much brighter. He was still strong, and bright, but also so tired.

“Oh, children, I expected them to come up with something like that, but it’s still hard to hear such things… This can only mean that we will have to leave this house, take the books, and move in a safer place.” Bishop shook his head. “I wish I could say ‘safe’, but I doubt there are truly safe places for us these days.”

“Move?” I blinked. “Where?”