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prologue

Old Marral the fisherman lived in one of the oddest parts of Belisaere, the ancient capital of the Old Kingdo foes, and rushing aqueducts to keep out the Dead, one tiny corner of the great metropolis lay outside the protection of both wall and water

Known to all simply as the Islet, it was a rocky island just beyond the city’s southeast sea tower Joined to the hest tides, the island was inhabited by the poorest of the poor, the fisher-folk who had lost their boats, or drank too much, or had suffered some cala harbour further to the north

No one knehat had caused Old Marral to co as anyone could re in a shack uished from the dozen or so other hovels on the Islet only by its doorway, in which a heavy curtain made of hundreds of shark teeth knotted onto a discarded fishing net served as a door

Old Marral , such as it was, as a beachco and, if the tide was out, also went out along the rocks that faced the eastern seawall of the city proper This could be very dangerous, for the tides in the Sea of Saere cah In the old days, when the city walls were kept in constant repair, Marral would have drowned many times Noith much of the smooth outer face of the wall eroded, there were hand- and footholds enough to cli a small sack of whatever flotsareen back

One particular , the sack held a real treasure

Marral had thought it was a fisher sun flashed off solint But when a wave brought it close enough to snatch, he found it was a squarish bottle of thick green glass, not a float It was eht have held were of interest to Marral What caught his eye was the stopper Though tarnished with age and immersion, he knew it for silver, and even better, the stopper was secured to the neck with bright wires still yellow and war all tarnish

Marral al was an act for the city folk, the feho thought he was soic sorcerer who could offer them an easier, and less equitable, path to whatever they wanted than the rigours of Charter Magic or non-ical hard work The shark-tooth curtain was part of this act, but it was only an act, which delivered a few silver deniers every now and then, froic sorcerer could set up so close to Belisaere, even if outside the city’s walls and wards

Hugging his find close, Marral retraced his steps along the wet rocks below the seawall, cli up and around the deeper pools where the sea swirled dangerously, quick to whisk away and suck under anyone who fell in

Back in his hut, he thought about what to do with his find, as he cleaned the silver with spirits of hartshorn and turpentine There were a number of junk ularly, but the silver stopper was too good for theive hi so finely worked There were delicate engravings in the metal, tiny symbols like the ones he’d seen in a book once, the one froood price for the book, despite it being so heavily water-stained and encrusted with salt

After a few seconds peering at the symbols on the silver, Marral looked away They unnerved hi about It was the cleaning fluid, no doubt Fumes

Marral did not have a baptismal Charter mark, and thus had no connection to the Charter He could not see the actual Charter s He could not feel the binding spell that kept the bottle closed, and had done so for almost nine hundred years Nor could he sense the entity trapped inside the bottle, though he did wonder a little why the glass continued to feel so cold, long after it had come out of the sea

After he had been cleaning it for soht perhaps it would be better to sioldsmith in the city There was no need to take the whole bottle After all, he’d seen dozens of solid square bottles like this one, and none had been worth more than a copper squid

It felt like his own idea

Very carefully, he prised off the first gold wire His hands hurt as he unwound the gold, burning pains shooting through his fingers It was the ague of age, he knew, though he’d rarely had it so bad Marral thought of the goose grease which sometimes helped, but he had none of it, and anyway the pains lessened as the wire came

off

A stabbing pain struck his chest as he pulled the stopper out of the bottle But he had had such pains before, and si it would pass in a moment And it did, just as the stopper came out with a loud pop, as if the bottle was not e wines from Orestery

Marral held the heavy stopper in his hand,its worth as a lurease, a keg of the dark ale he favoured and at least several chickens, a welcoathered crustaceans

He was thinking of the chickens when he noticed there was soh he hadn’t heard the shark-tooth curtain rattle, or even a single footstep on the rocky floor

Marral’s hand instinctively darted for the gutting knife at his belt, but faltered even as his fingers gripped the worn bone hilt

The stranger who had appeared so silently, and now sat opposite on a wooden crate, looked strangely familiar, but it was a fao

‘Greten? But you … you drowned … nigh on thirty year ago …’

The young woht even in the shadowed interior of the hovel Marral couldn’t help but s-lost favourite sister, even as some part of his mind protested that even if she had somehow escaped the sea, Greten couldn’t possibly look exactly the saone

Tears flowed down Marral’s cheeks as they eh the salt caked on his skin, trickling down to the corners of his oodness in the world, which had brought him not only a valuable silver stopper but also his little sister back from the sea

The laughter ceased as Marral’s heart skipped a beat and then just … stopped

But he had only a moment of fear and puzzlement, as Greten so into his flesh

The old man’s eyes closed, and he slu ht Then his heart stuttered into action again, and began to beat ly Colour flooded into Marral’s skin, and his eyes cleared The white flecks in his hair and the stubble on his chin retreated, giving way to a deep brown not seen for many a year

‘I feel …’odd to his own ears It was stronger, and he could hear more clearly

‘I feel young!’

‘Somewhat,’ muttered a voice inside his head Greten’s voice ‘I cannot do too ’