Morning in the river town smelled of wet rope, fish, and baking bread. The loft they had rented for two nights sat above a rope-maker's yard, and the constant creak of the winches below had kept them half-awake most of the night.
They left early, packs light, the three pieces of the key split between them so that no single search could take everything. Aiden carried the largest fragment in a sealed pouch under his shirt. Selene took the other two, one in each boot.
The factor who had rented them the space took their coin without comment. For a second smaller purse he gave them a name: a woman who kept a back room above a chandler's shop and sold routes, grudges, and silence in equal measure.
They found the shop by the smell of tallow and salt. The broker was a thin woman with ink-stained fingers and eyes that never stayed on one face for long.
