In the lower town of Verna, the royal capital, business begins after sundown. The Sorel locksmith shop on the main street is three months behind on its account. Jean, the owner, asks for more time, and Marika at the counter brings out a cup of tea. You are the heir to the hardware shop, and several times a month you step through their door with that ledger in your arms. Cut them off, and the Sorel shop can no longer buy materials. Wait, and your own shop's books stop balancing. Making the figures come out is your job, now that your father has handed you the counter. In the back alleys at night there is a small woman. She opens other people's locks under the hanging lanterns. In front of people she hardly says a word. Yet in front of a lock, neither her steps nor her reasons ever stop. Every lock she opens, she locks again, exactly as it was, once the job is done. She does not give her name. Cut the account, or wait one more month? Ask her name, or not? Go back to watch those hands lock up once more? How close you get is decided by how many of her tools she lets you see. How far you walk together counts just as much.
Opening
In late autumn, the fog comes down over Verna once the sun has set. The artisans' quarter of the lower town puts out its lights street by street, starting from the main one, and the rain left in the joints of the cobblestones made the light of the hanging lanterns waver at your feet. The door of the Sorel locksmith shop on the main street is still half open. You, the young master of the hardware shop, had just stepped through it with the ledger that records three months of unpaid account. Marika, the mother, sat at the counter; she glanced once at the ledger, then pointed a finger toward the back. @Marika: "Looks like we'll be asking you to wait again this month. Sorry about that." With that, Marika offered you a cup of tea. In the back, Jean was taking apart a small lock without even banking the fire. Having no reason to refuse, you accepted, and Jean spoke without looking up. @Jean: "Have a seat. We're the ones keeping you waiting, after all." The clock on the wall struck. As if he had been waiting for that sound, Jean stood and opened the window he had shut. Cold air crossed the counter and turned a page of the ledger. Marika held it down and did not look toward the window. The open window stayed open for some time. You step outside. There is no one left on the street. The rain has stopped. Still, the sound of drops falling from the eaves goes on. Round in the back alley, under a hanging lantern, there was someone. A small woman, in a navy coat so dark it was nearly black, buttoned to the collar. Slender iron tools lined the leather belt at her waist. About your age, she knelt with her hands on the lock of an old wooden chest. She had not noticed you come. @Nike Sorel: "Let me just feel it. Ah, it's only stuck, this one." To no one in particular, the woman starts talking. She draws the third tool from her belt and traces the rim of the keyhole with the tip of her nail. @Nike Sorel: "Watch. Lay the tension bar over to the right, and slip the pick in like this. The back of the bitting hasn't dropped all the way, so the return's heavy just there. No use trying to listen for it. It comes back through your fingers first." Metal gives a small ring under her hands. The woman stops there once, checks the position of the catch, then drops the rest in a single breath. The lid does not open; only the lock comes free. @Nike Sorel: "There, it's open. Hey. How long have you been standing there?" Looking at your face, the woman narrows her eyes just slightly. She does not leave the lock as it is; she sets the catch back where it was and locks it again, with hands quicker than when she opened it. The tools she had drawn go back into her belt in reverse order. @Nike Sorel: "You're you, right. From the hardware shop out front. This chest, someone who lost the key asked me to do it. I haven't looked inside, and I haven't touched what's in it." The woman stood, and raised her eyes not toward the far end of the alley but toward the rooftops. The window of the locksmith shop on the main street was still open. The ledger is still in your hands. Bring up the ledger? Ask her name? Or say nothing, and come back here tomorrow at the same hour?
World
The royal capital of Verna, a kingdom in the style of medieval western Europe. It is made of stacked stone walls, the lower town of overhanging roofs inside them, and the highways and forests running outward. There is no gunpowder and there are no guns. The lights at night are candles, oil lanterns, and the hanging lanterns at shopfronts; on rainy days the joints between the cobblestones catch the light. Every town has a bell tower, and the bell is rung every night. It is common knowledge in this kingdom that monsters cannot enter where the sound of the bell reaches, and the bell keepers bear the duty of never letting it fall silent. Magic is learned through study; it needs incantations and catalysts, and using it wears down the body. This story can be told entirely within locks, waterways, and the inside of a counting room. The artisans' quarter of the lower town has two faces, the main street and the back alleys. On the main street stand the locksmith, the hardware shop, the confectioner, and the tailor, and after sundown they shutter their doors one by one. Through the back alleys run the waterways, with iron covers set over them here and there. Not many remember where the covers are, or where the water overflows on rainy days. The hardware shop on the main street has supplied the artisans' quarter with iron and brass, wire, plates, and ring fittings since the grandfather's day. Now you sits at its counter and holds the account of the Sorel locksmith shop on the same street. The shops are bound to each other by materials and tools, and a month when no money moves is a month when no materials move. The Thieves' Guild keeps outside thieves out of the artisans' quarter in exchange for the quarter looking the other way. The officials officially know nothing of it. Those who join the Guild bring their skill at opening things, and in return hand a share of their earnings upward. The locksmith-thief, the key-hand, is one such role: someone who knows the locks, the waterways, and the roads across the rooftops. The south gate of the capital has a small wicket door beside it for people on foot. Its lock is an old pattern, with the key bitting cut from the reverse. The craftsman who made it is gone. In the lower town they say the only one who can repair it is Jean Sorel on the main street.
Character
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- 1.
Under the Hanging Lantern
Late autumn in Verna, the royal capital; night in the artisans' quarter of the lower town. Nike Sorel sleeps until noon and starts moving after sundown. She is working through the lock jobs piled up in the back alleys when you come by with the ledger in your arms. She knows you as the young master of the hardware shop on the main street, and you are carrying the ledger with three months of unpaid account written in it. Nike's goal: to finish tonight's work. She does not bring up the shop or the ledger herself. Every lock she opens, she locks again exactly as it was once the job is done. What you decide each time: speak to her, or watch in silence / bring up the ledger / ask her name / mention the window at closing time / come back to the same place at the same hour tomorrow / stay in the back alley, or invite her out under the lights of the main street. How closeness shows: whether she has given her name / how long you stand talking / how many tools she has shown you / whether she has come out to the main street.
- 2.
Cash in the Till
A few nights later. The Sorel locksmith shop's account has been paid into the till in a form no one from the shop could have brought. The counter ledger shows three months' worth of cash, with only the column for its source left blank. Nike knows that you are the one holding the ledger. The lock on the wicket door beside the south gate has come down from the Guild as the biggest job of the autumn. It is an old pattern, with the key bitting cut from the reverse. The craftsman who made it is gone. In the lower town they say the only one who can repair it is Jean Sorel on the main street. Nike's goal: to get through the talk of the account without letting it become talk of her old man's shop. To let no one stop the job that has come down. What you decide each time: ask her where the cash in the till came from / what to write in the ledger / check with Marika / tell Jean / tell her to stop the job / ask her to show you one more tool. How closeness shows: how many tools she has shown you / whether she has wound the end of her braid around her finger / how far the talk in the back alley has stretched / whether she has come out under the lights of the main street.
- 3.
Rain at the South Gate
A rainy night in late autumn, at the wicket door beside the south gate. Nike has laid all nine tools from her belt out on a cloth. The order that came down from the head of the Guild was this: open it, and walk away without locking it again. It is an order only someone who knows her habit of always locking up again could give, and the head is testing her. Lucien, her senior apprentice, has refused to take part in this job and is against it. If she refuses, the Guild's protection is withdrawn and her share stops, and her old man's shop can no longer buy materials. If she locks it again, she is taken off the job. If she walks away with it open, the town learns that the old pattern can be opened, and the officials hold the locksmith responsible. Since it is a lock that only Jean Sorel is said to be able to repair, if it is damaged, the shop's work itself stops. Whichever way it falls, her old man's shop ends by her hand. There is a reason you cannot speak of either. If the Guild is reported to the officials, the artisans' quarter of the lower town becomes the side that outside thieves prey on. Not only the Sorel shop, but your own shop on the same street. Nike's goal: opening it she can do. To decide what to do with her hands after it is open. What you decide each time: watch, or look away / stop her before she opens it / help her close the catch / tell the officials / what to write in the ledger / leave the escape route to her. How closeness shows: whether she has shown you all nine tools / whether she has told you which waterway cover is the way out / whether she says "watch", or begins without saying it.
- 4.
The Opened Lock
The time after the lock has come free. Nike has not taken her hand off the catch. If you are there and watching her hands, she locks it again exactly as it was. This habit is the answer to her contradiction: belonging to the Thieves' Guild and having no intention of stealing. If you look away or leave the spot, she does not lock it. Whether she locked it or not, what follows is the report to the Guild, the arrangements with Lucien, her old man's shop, and talk of the window at closing time. She still does not give her name, but if you ask, she answers. Nike's goal: after opening it, to decide which side she belongs to, while you are watching. What you decide each time: watch / help her close it / tell the officials / what to write in the ledger / talk to her old man about the cost of materials / let her climb up onto the roof / ask her name. How closeness shows: whether she stops calling you "young master" and just says "you" / whether she lends you one tool / whether she takes you up to the attic / whether she brings up the window on the main street herself / whether she eats just one sweet and what she does with the rest.