The last real hurrah of spring was due to start in fourteen meagre hours, the biggest feast of the year, and the warren’s kitchen was about to catch fire.
Someone had enraged the oven again, and it hissed smoke and little sparkling claws of flame at anybody who dared to get near it. Krundle had already scalded his hand, and Limir’s potholder was lost to the fiery maw. That was what you got when you bought the discounted magic oven from the shady goblins in Turnwick’s side streets, and frankly it was a miracle that it hadn’t killed anyone yet. Oh, it had gotten close last fall, when it had slammed its door shut on Bugle’s tail, but Bugle had been asking for it.
So of course this had to happen fourteen hours before the feast, at a blistering five in the morning, because Sugardahlia didn’t have enough to deal with as head cook.
The roomy warren chamber that served as the kobolds’ primary kitchen now stood thick with the smell of burning meat and too-hot coals, singeing the inside of Sugar’s nostrils as she sized up the pending disaster. She wrinkled her snout, eyes crossing momentarily to see little flakes of gray ash settling on her nose. Then she stuck out a hand and commanded:
“I need the fire poker, the cold-iron apron, and as much salt as you can fit in a measuring cup.”
There was a scramble, and the sound of cupboards being flung open and drawers yanked. Carefully, fearfully, the poker was laid in her outstretched claws; the apron was settled around her neck and waist; the measuring cup of salt was set firmly in her empty hand. Sugar squared herself in the reflection of the oven’s viewport—three and a half feet of pinkish-yellowish bipedal lizard—and marched forward.
The encounter that followed involved sixteen minutes of aggressive posturing, lashes of flame from the stovetop squalling and quelling under whole handfuls of salt, and the horrible screech of metal scraping metal as Sugar jabbed the poker into the oven’s chamber. She came back out with the blackened carcass of a duck, and a cheer went up as she slammed it on the island in the middle of the kitchen. Behind her, the oven gurgled in annoyance.
“So much for the second course, huh?” someone said as they loped up to Sugar. She was pulling the apron off and wiping soot from her face, and looked at them blearily: it was another kobold with dark scales and horns that looked too big and spiky for something so small, and a sunny outfit, just to make the whole look more jarring. They looked entirely too cheerful for someone who woke up well before anyone with sense. “Have we got any more duck?”
“No,” Sugar said, exhaling. She glanced behind her to see the rest of the kitchen “staff” hurriedly throwing open flues and trying to usher the smoky remains of the incident out into the chimneys. “We can sub in the ham, I guess. Maybe deviled eggs. Could you manage that, Anyways?”
“Nope,” said Anyways, still looking so upbeat Sugar thought very seriously about feeding them to the oven instead. It was a fortunate thing for them that she still needed as many hands as possible to get this feast moving. “But I can delegate, get your horns out of the vines. Eggs aren’t too hard. Sound good?”
“Sounds good,” Sugar said, instinctively reaching out for Anyways’ hand. Just as automatically, they took it. A secret handshake became second nature once done long enough, and the one the two of them had developed was nearly as old as they were. A nod and a grin and Anyways was off, barking orders to anyone unfortunate enough to get in their path.
The Summer Welcome was not the most important holiday on the kobolds’ calendar, but it was a near thing, edged out only by Loons’ Day, wherein everyone who was anyone fashioned masks out of reeds or bark or stones and came aboveground to drive off winter for a few more weeks. Summer Welcome, on the other hand, was a dragon holiday, so whatever the kobolds might have felt about it mattered very little. (Privately among some in the warren, it was thought that most dragon holidays were not proper holidays, but if one is a dragon, and one wants a holiday, most of the people in the surrounding area are not going to object.) And the resident dragon, one Rhyxevion-zon’y-Clarxint—or merely Rhyxevion, for people with insufficient and boring tongues—the resident dragon thought very highly of the start of summer indeed. That was when all the ships with the things she wanted began to make port, and she would invite all the captains to her stronghold for feasting and buttering up. Natually, the event had to be perfect. The food had to be perfect.
And Sugar was all about perfect food.
As the sun began to melt over the hills that flanked the kobold warren like butter on a warm biscuit, the tunnels and dens became heavy with the smell of whiskey-apple tarts and flaky whitefish simmering in a sage and lemon sauce. Fresh barley scones topped with thin slices of cheese, tomato, and basil were carefully aligned on mismatched china and wrapped in patchy towels before being hustled out to one of the many pony-driven carts that would make the brief trip from warren to Dragon’s Table that day, followed by younglings instructed to spend the day finding flowers and pretty things for the place settings. In her kitchen, Sugardahlia marshalled two dozen layabouts into a fine-enough team of cooks: and kobolds might well not have been any good at cooking, generally, but they were very good at following orders. Despite the near-disaster with the oven, a mix-up involving someone putting rhubarb in the celery stew, and at least one hatchling getting stuck inside a barrel of nuts, the grotto that was Dragon’s Table was a beautiful den of excellent food. Anyways had reappeared with three-dozen deviled turkey eggs to replace the duck, and gave Sugar a much-needed ten minutes off her feet.
It was as Sugar lay down the final tray of toasted almond and pecorino sandwiches, standing on one of the human-sized chairs just to reach the center of the table that the first human walked in. He was a stiff-looking sort, with a comedic mustache and paper-white skin and a haughty attitude about him that she could practically smell. She had turned to slip off the chair when he caught sight of her in her dusty apron and rolled-up sleeves and still sweating from the effort of moving a roasted pig bigger than she was, and she had just enough time to see his lip curl.
“Oh! Ugh! Get down from there, dirty little thing!”
Here we go again, Sugar thought.
She stayed firmly put on the chair as she gave him a broad, fanged smile, delicately brushing her apron off. “Sorry, sir? I was just putting the last touches on the table. I’m the head cook.”
In another life, perhaps, saying those last four words while surrounded by a beautiful spread of a feast would have garnered understanding. Perhaps even a compliment. Unfortunately, Sugar would simply have to have been born as something else in that life. “I said get down,” the man sniffed, putting his hand on the pommel of the very fine rapier he carried in his belt in a manner Sugar supposed was meant to be threatening. “I’m sure you don’t know whose seat you’ve got your filthy little claws grubbing up but I assure you they won’t like it.”
“Oh, my feet are very clean, sir,” Sugar said through that rictus smile. “There’s a spell on the threshold that freshens up anyone who prefers to go barefoot.”
The man only looked peevishly at her as she carefully stepped back down to the floor. She strolled straight past him, out the broad stone hallway lined with exotic dried plants and row upon row of curios that Rhyxevion liked to display. Along the way she passed another handful of tallfolk, humans and human-likes, save for a single gnome that gave off an air of having seen too much of the world. None of them paid any attention to her on her way out.
Outside, now, it was nearly noon on a clear day. Sugar could see more tallfolk coming up the mesa on horses and on foot, and from her high perch she peered down at them. Would they like the food? Would she even hear about it, if they did? She certainly would if they didn’t: if not from them, then from Rhyxevion herself.
She stood there a while, watching the scraggly procession, until one of the carts from the warren ambled by in tow of a warrenmate, followed by another, and a third, until a small pack of kobolds had formed. It was time to go home.
Amidst the gaggle of people, all chattering about sore feet and hunger and which leftovers they wanted, Sugar plodded along in silence. Something about the whole affair felt bad, like it did every Summer Welcome, but this year it felt somehow worse. Not just the idiot tallfolk, there was no helping them. She fussed at the feeling, trying to figure out what it was, and made very little headway before someone dark and pointy sidled up next to her. “Hey, Shug,” said Anyways, gnawing on a chicken leg she recognized as having discarded for being overcooked. “How’s my favorite chef?”
“Tired,” said Sugar, because it was true. “I’m going to sleep until solstice, at least.”
Anyways cocked their head. “You know what I mean,” they said around a mouthful of poultry.
Sugar grimaced, her eyes sliding away to her feet and the dirt that was now inarguably visible on them. “Truly,” she said. “Tired. I don’t know. Running the feast is less fun every year.”
“Well, of course it is. You do a bunch of work and don’t get thanked for it.” Anyways paused to swallow and then immediately sank their teeth into another bite. “That’ll wear anyone down.”
This was difficult to argue with, and Sugar was well beyond having the mental capacity to argue about anything just now. The thought of her bed, another ten minutes’ walk away, seemed like the only thing really worth dwelling on. At least, until Anyways continued: “Are you still going to meet the caravan tomorrow?”
“The … ? Oh. Oh!” Sugar said, perking up at once. “Yes! Absolutely! They’re supposed to have my new bowls. The ones with lids!”
Just like that she was off again, listing off all the goods she hoped to scare up from the caravan that passed by the mesa every few months. Anyways listened patiently, chewing the whole time and asking questions whenever Sugar showed signs of losing steam, until finally they were back at the warren. Kobolds drifted off in twos and threes, back to dens or everyday duties. Sugar was scarcely into the burrow before she broken off mid-explanation about why she needed the sycamore bowls, not the hickory. “Someone … needs to clean up the kitchen.”
The thought loomed before her, exhausting and titanic, but it had to be done. She had already reached up to roll up her sleeves when Anyways tapped her sharply on the arm. “Someone is cleaning the kitchen,” they said, not unkindly. “Someone who hasn’t been on their feet since before birdsong. I took care of it. Say thank you and get to bed before you unspool entirely.”
“Thanks, Anyways,” Sugar said, grinning sheepishly, and disappeared down the tunnels.
A true thing about the warren was that after a feast, Sugar could be counted on to sleep for twelve and a half hours after all was said and done. This was an issue primarily because no one else in the warren was half as good at cooking as she was, not even Anyways. They had become, in a word, spoiled.
All this is to say that precisely twelve hours and forty-five minutes after Sugar had fallen into her small nest of a bed in the dormitories, there was a rapping at her bedpost. It was unassuming at first, then moved to becoming impatient, and ultimately transformed into an urgent banging.
When this did not achieve the desired result (it never did), the knocking underwent a remarkable transformation: it became a kick that shook the whole bed. Sugar jolted awake with a vast gasp, scrabbling at her pillow. “I’m up! It wasn’t me! Pass the garlic!”
“No garlic,” Anyways said, examining their foot for damage. Satisfied it was intact, they unceremoniously pulled Sugar’s blanket off. They were rewarded with an offended yowl and a weak scrabble to get it back. “And no more sleep! Caravan will be by in an hour and you’re less canny than a day-old foal when you’re hungry. Come on!”
Sugar whined. All of this was true, and on better terms she would have probably even admitted to it. Right now she was still trying to remember how words worked. Thusly she put up very little of a fight even when Anyways confiscated her pillow too. They had to repeat what they’d said twice more before she stopped asking what on earth could be so important that she needed to be woken up. A sleepy Sugar was not much better than a hungry Sugar.
But: Anyways accomplished their mission, coercing Sugar into clothes and the kitchen in less than twenty minutes. She was groggily sucking a quail egg when her brain finally caught up with the rest of her physical form, and she blinked as she found Anyways still in the kitchen with her. “Wait,” she said, “are you coming?”
“Mm? Yeah.”
“Really?” said Sugar, perking up. “You never come.”
Anyways shrugged, “Because I don’t like the smell of that much horse. But I want to get out of the warren, and you’ll buy more than you can carry in one trip.”
Sugar considered this, crunching down on the eggshell. “Shan’t.”
“Shall.”
“Bet on it?”
This was a trick. Anyways could not resist a bet. They chewed their lip for all of three seconds before taking the bait. “Five crown[^fn1] and a milk tea at the shop.”
“Deal,” Sugar said, and popped another quail egg into her mouth. The joke would be on Anyways, this year: she had her budget completely sorted out.
Another fifteen minutes and they were on their way.
Turnwick, of course, was a bustling port city. Not quite the capital, it nonetheless enjoyed its position of power at the join of a river and the sea. You could see it from the mesa, laying up at the edge of the waters like a sprawling animal. Now, the day after the Feast, most of the ships were still docked, and would be for another few days: the biannual trade meet would be taking place now, making the busy streets of Turnwick even busier. It was Sugar’s favorite time of year, and it was a good thing, too, because she and every other kobold in the warren would be spending a fair bit of time here once Rhyxevion finished her trade deals. For now, though, her time was her own, and across the hill the sound of dozens of hooves moving at a smart trot heralded what she had chosen to spend it on: the caravan.
With a holler and grabbing Anyways’ arm, she broke into a sprint, waving at the caravan as it emerged through the scrubby trees that flanked the city. One of the first of them, laden with bags, came to a halt as Sugar slid down the slope and scrambled not to fall. This proved impossible when Anyways slammed straight into her in a way most accurately described as absolutely ridiculous. Sugar fell face-first in the grass with Anyways tangled up in her legs, and when she opened her eyes she first saw four stately hooves, attached to four stately legs and the sleek body of a lean dapple-gray mare, and above that, the olive-skinned torso of a human woman. She was dressed in something that was like a mix of a dress and saddle blanket, fine reds and golds complimenting her natural complexion, and over that she bore a hefty series of packs and bags. She peered down as Sugar inelegantly kicked Anyways off and got to her feet, all fangy smile and excited fists.
The centaurs were back!
“Is that Sugardahlia?” said the centaur, who folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight. She quirked one eyebrow and nudged Sugar with a hoof. “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want to see you again unless you’d brought me those lemon bars?”
“And I told you that you’d have to bring me the lemons, Calliope,” Sugar replied, beaming even as the rest of the caravan—all of them centaurs, ranging from stout ponies to powerful draft horses—passed them by. “And I’ll make them for you if you did, if you can dally an hour. Did you bring my bowls?”
“I wouldn’t dare show my face around you if I hadn’t,” Calliope said. She reached into one of the heavy saddlebags slung across her withers and fished out precisely what Sugar had been hoping to see: three simple bowls, each carved out of an attractive light wood and set with a matching lid. “There you are. Even had my brother add a bit of an enchantment in them. Should keep food from sticking if it’s left too long. Satisfactory?”
“They’re perfect,” Sugar said, reverant. “I love them! Anyways, look, they’re perfect!”
Beside her, still brushing dirt from their clothes, Anyways gave the bowls a cursory look. “They’re very nice bowls,” they said, ever the diplomat. “Pretty color. How much were they?”
Calliope chuckled. “Interested? For a friend of Sugar’s, fifty crown.”
“For the set?”
“Each.”
It was at this point that Anyways gave Sugar a very particular sort of look, which Sugar made a point of ignoring. “They’re very nice bowls,” Anyways said again, and nothing more.
By now the rest of the caravan had passed them by, and Calliope glanced off after them. “They’ll leave me behind if I stay too long,” she said presently, tapping her hoof on the ground. “A shame. I really do have lemons somewhere in here. Have you been into town lately?”
“No,” said Sugar, barely visible over the stack of bowls in her arms now. “I’ve had my hands full with the summer feast. Why? News?”
“Of a sort. Something I thought you’d be interested in, at least. The last time I was by, I seem to recall you going off on a very detailed description of what you’d do with a restaurant if you ever opened one, which ended with a lamentation of how costly buildings are.” Calliope put her head to one side, pondering. “There’s a gutted old thing up for sale in the middle of town just now, in Bullens. I couldn’t tell you what happened to it, but I went by and the outside looks well enough. It’s going for a song. I’ve the realtor’s name, if you like.”
“Really?” Sugar said, eyes wide over the bowls. “Oh, well, I mean.” She looked to Anyways as if seeking guidance, but Anyways was just looking at her intently, waiting for a reaction. She collected herself, taking a grounding breath. “That’s cool. I’m pretty busy around here, really, but it wouldn’t hurt to get the name?”
“Sure,” Calliope said, fishing out charcoal and paper from another of her many pockets.
As she wrote down the information Sugar chanced another glance at Anyways. This time they cocked one brow. “You should go,” they murmured.
“I’m busy,” Sugar hissed back, fidgeting with the bowls. “I have to oversee the kitchen for clean-up and if I don’t watch the hatchlings on garden duty they’ll eat all the raspberries.”
“Hm,” said Anyways, and fell silent as Calliope handed Sugar the note.
Thank-yous and goodbyes were exchanged, and with some effort beneath the strain of her pack Calliope knelt down to give Sugar a farewell hug. Then she was gone, moving at a steady canter after the caravan while Sugar pondered the paper in her hands. “‘Wretched Sinduel,’” she read slowly. “Weird name. Heard of them?”
“Sounds like an orc to me,” said Anyways. “They all have names like that. Met one named Blasphemous once. ‘Sinduel’ is a bit on the nose, though.”
“Huh.”
Dinner in the warren was not usually an affair of any note. On the whole, the kobolds minded their own needs, eating as their stomachs warranted. There were simply too many of them (a fair fifty or so by the last attempt at a headcount) to gather on any regular basis. Just wrangling enough to clean up the communal kitchen was an adventure, as Sugar well knew by now, and the kitchen was always a disaster after the Welcome feast. Still, no one else was going to do it: by now everyone knew the kitchen was Sugar’s domain. This was fine. She preferred being in charge.
So it was that she snatched up three youngsters she caught sneaking more than their share of raspberries in the garden plot later that afternoon, hustling them into the kitchen with strict instructions about the intended function of spoons and no, Barrel, just because the salad tongs do happen to resemble Rhyxevion’s mouth doesn’t mean one should start calling her old tong-tongue. “Better rascals than you have died that way,” she said, rapping him on the horn with said tongs. “Rhyx doesn’t take kindly to rudeness.”
Barrel, a wiry little thing and very rude besides as a rule, stuck out his tongue at her, much to the delighted snickers of his two friends. When Sugar grabbed his tongue with the tongs the snickers became full blown laughter. “Go on,” she said when she released him, tucking the tongs into her apron. “Start by clearing out the dishes from the washbin and wipe down the oven, if it’ll let you. And wash your hands!”
A chorus of grumbling was sent up before the three young ones went about their business. Sugar took just enough time to make sure they were on the right track before turning to the tremendous stack of dishes that had swallowed up the main counter. She sighed, arms akimbo, before pulling the tongs out of her apron and tossing them on the stack.
Barrel and company had most of the kitchen wiped down and cleared off by the time Sugar got through the first stack of dishes, almost all of which had the spoiled remains of the wonderful meal stuck to them. Someone hadn’t even bothered touching their sugar-snap peas, which had been picked, destemmed, and lovingly prepared in the best olive oil the warren had (and it was very good olive oil). It made her downright grouchy having to toss it all into the compost bin, and if she was being honest, it made her even grouchier when she handed it off to Barrel and he made an exaggerated gagging noise when he took the bin of stale food. Yes, food that went uneaten got gross. He didn’t have to rub it in.
All this is to say when Anyways strolled in about a quarter of an hour later—after the younglings mysteriously never came back from emptying the compost—they were met with a sullen Sugar, hands wrinkly from the soapy water. “All alone already, huh?”
“I hate kids.”
“You were cooing and fawning over the new hatchlings just a month ago.”
Sugar’s tail-tip twitched. “Hatchlings are precious. Kids are monsters.”
She was met with a laugh as Anyways elbowed their way into her space. “Can’t argue with that. Pass me a rag. I’ll dry.”
Another hour would tick past before the dishes were clean and dry to Sugar’s satisfaction. They made idle conversation, comparing notes on the warren’s latest gossip. Word had it that Rhyx had found a ship willing to make the trek to a certain far-off jungle she was interested in. Turnwick’s mayor was stepping down, to much relief of the townsfolk. One of the stablehands that minded the warren’s sheep was said to be going moonblink from sleeping out under the stars one night too many. As Sugar put the last plate on the last stack in the last cupboard, though, Anyways just had to go and open their mouth. “So you’re going to go see that place Calliope was talking about, right?”
Sugar turned. They found Anyways leaning neatly against the kitchen island, their arms resting on the countertop and watching her patiently. She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You’ve always been so gung-ho about the idea of getting a restaurant going before.”
“I am!” Sugar said, stomping one foot. “I’ve always been.”
“So …?”
Grimacing, Sugar hesitated. She made her way around the island and sat at the little wooden table in one corner, stacked with old crates and salvaged boxes. She smoothed down her apron and rapped her claws on the planks. “Well. It’s never been … I didn’t think I’d actually get the chance.” She glanced up at Anyways, mouth twisting into a wry grin. “After all, I’m just a kobold.”
Unceremoniously, Anyways picked up a nearby dishrag, balled it up, and threw it square at Sugar’s head. It caught on her horns and snout, and as she scrabbled to pull it off Anyways said, “Don’t start up with that garbage again.”
“I know. I do! It’s just that it’s hard not to get discouraged.” She fussed with the dishrag, already old and worn; picking at it with her claws was soothing in its own way. “It’s funny, kind of, since that’s why I want the restaurant in the first place. It’s for me, but it’s for my grandsire, too.”
Anyways leaned onto their elbows and rested their chin in their palms. “He was a cook too, right?”
“Yeah. Best one my home warren had ever seen—best cook in the district. He always won the fair cookoffs.” She smiled. “You’d have liked him. He had this peanut brittle recipe that was to die for; he was as good at candymaking as you are.”
“Do you have the recipe?”
“Oh, I have all his recipes. I wanted to use them in the restaurant.” Sugar pulled a thread from the cloth, winding it around her finger. “He always talked about opening one, but he could never get any headway in starting it up. Nobody wanted to do business with a kobold.”
For a time Anyways seemed to consider this, watching Sugar unravel the tired rag. The kitchen was quiet, its high venting windows letting in the cool light of a summer evening and the clean, smokeless glow of magic fire lit up the sconces that lined the room. If you listened you could catch crickets and night birds trying to talk over one another, and the rustle of the scrubs on the mesa.
“I’ll go in on it with you,” said Anyways. At the wide-eyed stare Sugar fixed them with in response, they shrugged. “What, you’re surprised? You know I want to sell my candies. Two birds and all that.”
Sugar swallowed. “I … well—yeah. Yes, I mean. It’s just, that’s a lot of money, Ways…”
“Well, it’s not a charity,” Anyways said, smirking and slapping her arm. “I pay half, I own half, I get half the profits. Nothing to feel awkward over.”
With a self-conscious laugh Sugar rubbed at the spot they had smacked. “Yeah. You’re right, yeah. Okay. Tomorrow. Let’s go see it tomorrow.”
“Thattagirl.”
On the one hand, Calliope had been telling the truth. The outside looked well enough. Unfortunately the thing about outsides is except in the case of dogs and glassware, they do not necessarily reflect the inside.
The building was nestled in the Bullens district, just as Calliope had said, and that in itself was excuse enough to get Sugar to visit. Bullens contained Eat Street, three straight blocks of eateries and open-air market stalls and candy shops (which Anyways had to be physically removed from). This particular building was situated between a [place] and [place], hidden so out of the way that it took Anyways spotting a “for sale” sign stuck to the mailbox to even realize it was there, and stood a few steps above the street itself. It resembled an old house more than anything else, though the distinct marks of a removed sign over its doorway suggested otherwise. Sugar and Anyways were getting particularly familiar with this doorway, as they were currently breaking in.
A true thing about kobolds is their general lack of respect for authority. This can be traced back directly to their history with dragons, which makes a great deal of sense under a modern lens. At some point some particularly enterprising kobold came to the conclusion that if they were answering to a dragon directly, why on earth should they bother with anything with less authority than a dragon? It only made sense, and kobolds were thought to have a splash of dragon blood in them anyway. This line of thinking became very popular and spread very fast, leaping across warren borders with little regard for the fact that this philosophy ultimately resulted in its creator meeting an untimely death at the hands of a particularly choleric-tempered duke.
It also helped that the door was not even locked. “The handle’s even a decent height,” Sugar said, trying and failing to disguise her delight. “Tallfolk never put the handle anywhere except at a nice height for them.”
“It’s nice,” Anyways said, following her in as she carefully swung it open. “You’ve got—oh, watch out, rat.”
Sure enough, bolting straight for the doorway came a little brown rat, dashing between their feet and disappearing under the stair steps. Sugar paused, frowning. “That’s not a great sign, though.”
“One rat in an abandoned building isn’t anything, Sug. Come on, what’s that over there?”
Sugar looked. Before her sprawled a mess of a circumstance: the front door opened into a stretch of debris, all fallen plaster and what almost looked like the remains of bedframes, buried deep in among rubble that had fallen from the ceiling. The walls, lined with windows from front to back, were covered in dirt. The windows themselves, once stained glass, now resembled patchwork quilts made of different shades of brown. A set of stairs to the right led up into somewhere dark and foreboding. “What was this place?” Sugar said as she picked her way through the mess. “How did it get this bad?”
Further in, having gone ahead, Anyways was digging something out from the rubble. With a grunt and a swing of their tail for counterbalance they heaved a rusty metal pole out with a clatter of garbage, setting it upright. It stood on its own, or would have it it hadn’t been missing one of the four legs at its bottom, and on the top two short arms stretched out to loop around into hooks beneath. “I think it was a hospital,” Anyways said, tilting their head to one side. “I’ve seen one of these before, back when Korb took ill. You hook bags of humors to them and—”
“Oh, cats, I don’t want to hear it,” Sugar said, wrinkling her nose. “You and your medical stuff.”
“It’s just a hobby.”
“It’s a strange hobby for someone who wants to be a confectioner. Don’t cut yourself.”
Anyways shrugged, and began to use the pole to turn over plates of glass and filth-covered boards. Sugar followed in their wake, brow furrowed, trying to imagine the place as anything other than a dangerous pit. “It’s messy,” she said eventually, “but the structure seems fine enough—the location is great … it wouldn’t really be that hard to clean the place up. I don’t know why it would be going for a song.”
As she said this, Anyways wedged the pole beneath a fallen section of ceiling, and with considerable effort turned it over. A flash of motion as the section was lifted caught Sugar’s eye, and that was the only warning she got before an absolute tide of rats began to pour out from under it.
Anyways howled and leapt back, but lost their grip on the pole, leaving the section propped up enough that it only encouraged the flood. The rats rushed forward in their haste to escape, and with a yelp Sugar stumbled back as she began to feel the prick of tiny claws racing over her feet. She scrambled to get out of their path, and succeeded only in tripping on them. Down she went, straight to the floor, and still the rats stayed to their path, heedless of her yelling and flailing. In a vain effort to protect her face she flung her arms before her head and only managed to trap a squealing rat against her snout. It was a truly unfortunate thing that she had her mouth open as this happened, and more unfortunate that the rat twisted in just such a way as to plant its furry body against her tongue. Sugar got a first-hand taste of live rat. The fact that it didn’t seem to taste that bad was almost as much of a shock, but not something she felt like dwelling on.
With a wild motion she pawed at her mouth, sending the rat flying through the air. It landed with an offended squeak against the remnants of an ancient chair, bounced once, and then ran after its fellows as they disappeared up the stairs, down the stairs, and into every nook and cranny between the two.
It should be of little surprise to anyone that Sugar’s next words were some very choice and specific curses as she tried to pick stray fur and dirt from her tongue. Anyways stood rooted to the spot, hands on their knees as they stared after the miniature plague that had just passed through. “That,” they said eventually, “is probably why.”
Sugar whined, and with great effort Anyways was able to get her back on her feet. “I want to go home,” Sugar said, shaking herself. “I can still feel their little feet all over me! Ugh!”
“We can’t go home yet. We’re not done looking at the place.”
The look Sugar gave them was nothing short of disbelieving. “The place is infested with rats!”
“You can get rid of rats.” Anyways gestured to the rest of the room. “Right? You said it yourself, the location is great. It’s cheap. You’ve been going on about starting a restaurant since we were hatchlings, and I’m willing to put in the work. Are you really going to let some vermin scare you off?”
It was a terrible thing when Anyways was right, and Anyways frequently was. Sugar groaned, eyes settling on the ground where the rats had come from. “No,” she muttered eventually. “But I don’t like it.”
“I’ll help you,” Anyways said, picking up the pole again and gently poking Sugar with it. “Come on. You’re Sugardahlia. You can do anything.”
Sugar hesitated. She looked at the wretched state of the building, and at one of the last rats hustling into a hole in the floorboards. She looked at the filthy stained glass and the debris that littered the place. She looked at her feet.
“Well,” she said eventually, “I guess we should go talk to the realtor.”
This was what Anyways had wanted to hear. They were markedly cheerful on their way to the location Calliope had indicated, off to find and meet Wretched Sinduel. The office was but a short jaunt down the burrough and a dogleg into the connecting district, more than enough time for Anyways to get Sugar chattering eagerly about what they might do with the structure of the place. They could get driftwood tables made from the washed-up wood on the beaches, and do up the whole place in a nautical theme, or maybe play up the connection to dragons! Maybe Rhyx would even give them an endorsement. “And I want a painting of my grandsire up somewhere,” Sugar said as they rounded the bend toward the realtor’s office. “My granddam was a painter and she did a wonderful bust of him before he died, maybe that could be near the entrance? Or by the kitchen. That makes more sense!”
Appointments are another thing dragons, and by extension kobolds, tend to find themselves not particularly interested in; so it was that the pair breezed easily past the BY APPOINTMENT ONLY sign and made their way into the office. The door was unlocked, and there was no one standing guard and telling them to go away; why on earth wouldn’t they?
The interior of the office was dimly lit, but nice enough, in its way; the wooden walls held paintings of what Sugar assumed were properties Sinduel owned, or something of that nature, each one quite respectable. Small tables with trinkets and tchotchkes that smelled strongly and unpleasantly of potpourri lined the entryway. A few old benches sat in the corners like brooding cats, and indeed, on one of them there was a brooding cat, an ancient-looking tabby that utterly failed to blend in with its surroundings. The moment Sugar pointed it out she lost Anyways to it, as they made an immediate beeline to pet the ragged thing. Sugar did not mind cats, but was not any particular fan of them, either, and so she continued her investigation of the waiting room.
The only other thing of note in the place was a tallfolk-sized desk, behind which no one was seated. It was positioned neatly in the beam of sunlight the large picture window on the eastern side of the room provided, lighting up a mess of papers and quills and a large basket of fruit, which Sugar found herself very tempted by. Instead, though, she rang the little handbell sitting neatly on a bronze platter, and waited.
A minute passed. She found herself fidgeting, anxious to get this over and done with: like as not Calliope, a merchant, had a much different idea of what “going for a song” meant than she did, and she would rather get the disappointment over with and go home. She didn’t even know how she would get started cleaning up a place that dilapidated, really. Perhaps she could have called in a few favors, but …
The sound of hurried, heavy footsteps coming down the hall the waiting room lead into caught her attention, and she looked up just in time to see a beanpole of a greenish-pinkish tallfolk staring at her from the entryway. “Um,” he said around chunky white tusks, and his bony hands tightened where they gripped the corner. “Do … do you have an appointment?” he asked in a reedy voice.
Smile up, Sugar told herself, turning to face him. Time to deal with tallfolk again. Anyways had been right about Sinduel being an orc, it seemed. “No,” she said brightly, “but I wanted to talk to someone about the property you have for sale in Bullens.”
“Oh,” said the orc, and Sugar caught the uncertain way he glanced from her skirt to the way her horns stretched straight back from her skull. That won’t work, Sugar thought to herself. Just because the horns aren’t right doesn’t mean I’m male. “Well … we’re actually not open to walk-ins right now, uh, sir—”
There it was. “It’s ‘miss,’” she said, as politely as possible.
The orc blanched, wringing his hands together. “Miss! I’m sorry. I’m afraid we’re not actually really open, um, you’re supposed to make an appointment—I mean, we ask that you make an appointment, because he’s so busy—that is—ack!”
Through all this the orc had been inching his way around the corner of the hallway, trying, by Sugar’s estimation, to herd her out of the waiting room without actually coming across as threatening. He was twiggy enough that the latter was not that much of a concern. As he did, though, his eyes trained on Sugar, he absolutely did not see the decorative table set to one side of the entryway, nor the elegant vase with its potpourri on top of it. One nervous gesture and a horrible smashing sound later, and glass and dried flowers littered the floor.
If possible, the orc went paler. At this rate he was going to resemble too-old celery. He froze and pulled at his hair, staring wide-eyed at the mess at their feet. “Godsbones,” he mumbled, and dropped to his knees to begin to pick up the pieces.
When Sugar followed suit, carefully using her claws to pluck the glass up and using the front of her dress as a makeshift place to gather it in[ Figure out where she puts this when she goes to talk to Wretched], this seemed to make matters worse. “Oh—you don’t have to do that!” the orc practically pleaded. “You’re a customer, please—”
“It’s not a problem,” Sugar said, glancing up at him quizzically. “I don’t mind. I can help.”
“Yes, but—”
And then he was interrupted by another voice, a booming voice, one much closer to what Sugar expected from an orc. “And what have you done this time?” it said. Behind the orc’s skinny silhouette something much bigger became apparent. “Knocking over my things again, are we?”
The orc winced and scuttled out of the way, making a path for the stout, round shape of the biggest orc Sugar had ever seen. He was finely dressed in smart business attire, with a neat black braid and tiny pince-nez resting on his porcine nose. His other hand dwarfed the head of a walking stick, one of those pieces that looked so much like someone had simply picked it up off the side of a trail without a care in the world that it had certainly been designed and carved to be that way. He came to a stop, peered around the room, and took longer to actually notice Sugar than she thought he necessarily needed. But when he did see her, he beamed. “Ahhh, a kobold! One of Rhyxevion’s, I presume?”
“Uh, yes,” Sugar started. “I’m actually—”
“Splendid! Splendid, yes, wonderful. Come now, no need to clean up after my nephew.” The orc stuck out his hand, and for a moment Sugar was not sure what to do with it. Tallfolk rituals always eluded her. Eventually she got to her feet, carefully letting what little glass she had gathered slide back down to the ground, and took two of his huge fingers in her grip. “I am the property manager and head agent, Wretched Cynddelw—this is my nephew,” he added, gesturing toward the other orc with his cane. Oh, Sugar thought. Not Sinduel. “He’s terrible!”
The younger orc grimaced, ducking his head as he continued picking up the mess. “My name is Terrible,” he muttered, but it was lost under Wretched’s booming laughter at his own joke. Sugar attempted to smile; it was difficult with how tightly Wretched was squeezing her hand.
“So!” Wretched said, finally letting go of her hand and making his way around to the desk with lumbering steps. Terrible was given a wide berth, and no further attention. He sat down at it and leaned forward to adjust an inkwell and a few papers around it before steepling his fingers and giving Sugar a hungry sort of look. “One of Rhyxevion’s, yes, yes,” he said again. “A wonderful client, I know her well. Always a pleasure to see one of hers. And how can I help her, little one?”
“It’s Sugardahlia,” Sugar said. “I’m actually here on my own. I’m interested in a property.”
It was like she’d told him she’d come to collect a debt, the way his interest in her visibly shriveled away. His mouth slanted and his shoulders dropped, and the eager gleam in his eyes turned dull. “Oh,” he said, and sat back in his chair. A patronizing kind of smile ebbed back onto his face. “Do you know, I’m most sorry, little dear, but I’m in a bit of a lean time, as it were. I’ve simply no listings to my name at present.”
Sugar hesitated. Maybe Calliope’s information had been out of date? Maybe the building had already been sold. She was still processing the information when Anyways strolled up to the desk, the big tabby cat lying blissfully in their arms. “Really?” they said, in a way that made it very clear it was not a question. “I saw a ‘for sale’ sign on the mailbox of that old hospital in Bullens. Had your name on it and everything.” They were smiling, and it was not a nice smile.
Sugar was trying to remember if the sign actually had a name on it or not when Wretched cleared his throat, giving Anyways a withering look for a fraction of a second before his smile returned. “Oh, that place, of course! How utterly forgetful of me. Getting on in years, you know. Yes, old St. Claudandus’s. Dreadful little hole, much too small for anything useful. Shocked they held out on selling it as long as they did, really. The amount of money it would take to tear the old place down is scarcely worth the land it’s on.”
“I’m not going to tear it down,” Sugar said, “I want it—”
“Really, dearie,” Wretched interjected, “you don’t.”
Next to her, Anyways snorted harshly. “Okay. Shug, hold this for me,” they said, unceremoniously dumping the cat into Sugar’s arms. She and the cat were both caught by surprise at this, and she barely managed to keep it from falling. It pinned its ears and hissed, but she was too busy watching Anyways to notice. They had trotted off to grab one of the lobby chairs and dragged it over to the reception desk with a screech, and once it was close enough they clambered on top of it. “There, thanks,” they said absently, leaning on the back of it with one hand. “I like people to be at eye-level with me when I talk to them. How much is the place?”
Wretched had pursed his lips at Anyways’s flagrant disregard for the state of the lobby, as though Terrible needed help in messing it up. “It’s in utter disrepair. If you would give me, ah, a point of contact, I could send a pigeon when I’ve another space available—”
“I know it’s in disrepair, you’ve said that twice now. I asked how much it is. Are we allowed to know that?” Anyways cocked a brow. “Or should we have told you our dragon was interested if we wanted any chance of you taking us seriously?”
There was a beat of silence in the very fine office. In the corner of her eye, Sugar could see Terrible had stopped grabbing at crumbling flowers, instead chewing his lip and looking distinctly uncomfortable. The cat was fussing in her arms, unhappy, and Anyways’s tail was lashing in impatience. They were staring down Wretched, who gave as good as he got. And then Anyways said, “I asked a question,” and Wretched stood up very suddenly. The grin he was abruptly wearing was nothing short of rictus.
“It’s not available,” he said, in no uncertain terms. “And I’m only going to ask you to leave once.”
After the debacle with Wretched Cynndelw, Sugar and Anyways walked home in silence: Sugar did not feel much like conversation, and Anyways was fuming. A fuming Anyways was always dangerous, as they had the unfortunate tendency to take it out on whoever was nearest. So it was as soon as the two of them got back to the warren: the gang of youngsters led by Barrel made the mistake of being too loud near them, and in retaliation Anyways had immediately marched the whole lot of them off to muck the pony stables. This left Sugar to her own devices. She took to the garden.
The garden, much like the rest of the warren, was a sprawling, shared space. It was dutifully tended and harvested, and was a small wonder in its own right, for between the innate magical influence Rhyxevion exerted over the surrounding landscape and the vast array of plants she had acquired in her collection, the warren’s garden had a bit of everything. You had your carrots and potatoes and onions, yes, but there wasn’t another garden for miles in the hardscrabble Shelves Badlands that could boast it had a thriving kiwi tree, or a whole crop of fiddleheads.
The garden was not, however, supposed to have a goat.
Sugar stopped dead in her tracks. She was tired and her heart was broken and there was a goat in her garden, looking at her stupidly as it chewed the last of her [summer crop]. A trail of cropped greens and crushed fruit and muddy hoofprints betrayed the goat’s unchecked path through the garden.
What happened next is not fit to be written here. Suffice it to say it involved a chase, a rake, thirteen smashed plums, and an unfortunate encounter with the manure pile, and by the end of it Sugar had a nosebleed and the goat had bolted.
Sugar considered, very seriously, sitting down right there in the mud and crying. It seemed as good a move as any, especially given the goat had the nerve to trample her carefully-tended strawberries, which were an exotic strain Rhyxevion had acquired in a deal and deigned to let her have. Then Sugar thought about asking Rhyx to go and burn down Wretched’s awful little office, but that was just poor sportsmanship. And Rhyx wasn’t really one for personal favors.
Eventually, though, she just went to the kitchen.
Some four hours later she was still there. She was cleaning, furiously, despite the fact there was nothing at all left to be cleaned. The dishes were all washed and neatly stacked away, all the food in the larder had been arranged from most to least fresh, and the floors were spotless. Even the oven was behaving itself, quietly heating up a pot of oatmeal. It knew better than to cross Sugar when she was truly in a mood. Any kobold unfortunate enough to get hungry while she was there was met with wild eyes and a fresh selection of muffins, and sent away with one in hand before they could dirty the place up.
But eventually there was nothing left to be done. The sun melted down behind the mesa like clarified butter, and the sconces in the kitchen burned low. Exhausted, Sugar put out the fires, stowed the oatmeal in the icebox for breakfast in the morning, and trudged off to bed.
One learned to fall asleep fast and stay asleep in the warren, generally. There was always something going on, always someone up and talking and doing. Sleep had to be snatched where it could be. This was rarely a concern for Sugar, but of course that night she tossed and turned and stared irritably up at the bunk above her where her bunkmate (she could never remember his name) lay snoring up a storm. By the time she fell asleep, the first sounds of the twilight shift shuffling off to their duties were what she drifted off to—and she snapped awake again scarcely four hours later, as the dawn shift did the same.
She groaned and shoved her head into her pillows and wished Wretched’s disdainful face would get out of her mind. She lay and did that for another twenty minutes before giving up and slipping out of bed. Changing into a fresh dress made her feel a bit better, the one with decorative wings embroidered on the shoulders and fine little buttons made of cast-off dragonscale. It was an old and worn favorite, a gift from the chief kobold after Sugar had declared her crossing-over and picked her new and more feminine name. Then she made her way back out to the garden.
In a small mercy, the goat was not there. She saw only a few of the wirey rabbits that stubbornly thrived on the thin bushes native to the badlands, and by now all of them knew better than to try and sneak a bite of the warren crops. The aftermath of the goat remained, however, and in the early-morning fog that rolled off the ocean to hang over the mesa like a soaked rag, the damage was all Sugar could see.
She scrubbed at her eyes with both hands, smoothed out her dress, and went to fetch the garden tools.
Ten minutes among the plants was soothing. A half-hour brought her calm, and it was nearly useless measuring the garden’s effect on her after that because it all became a sweet and heavy quietness to her: a magic brought on by soil staining her fingertips and the wet, green smell of snapped-off weeds and trimmed foilage. This early no one else roamed near the garden, either, and so it became a kind of private sanctuary: just her and the earth.
It was, then, little surprise that she did not hear the voices calling her name until they were nearly on top of her. The sun had fully crested the ocean by the time a pair of warrenmates came running up to her. They were breathless and urgent-looking; Sugar recognized one of them as a guard named Wint, who was stern and businesslike at the best of times. “Sugardahlia,” he said as he pulled up short and his companion, a shorter girl with mismatched horns who might have been an apprentice, nearly knocked into him. “You’re needed.”
Sugar, on her knees in the dirt, blinked up at him. It was scarcely past sunup, and she’d left the kitchen in perfect order. “Why?” she asked, glancing from him to the apprentice, who looked like she was bursting to speak. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” said Wint, “it’s—”
“There’s a tallfolk at the front gate,” the apprentice blurted out, the picture of excitement, “asking for you.”
Wint gave her a scolding glare, but Sugar was already on her feet.
The pair led her back along the winding garden paths, and the further along they got the more companions they picked up, each a new warrenmate pressing and prying to know why a tallfolk was asking for her. Tallfolk simply did not ask after kobolds, not by name. Kobolds were a means to an end—a necessary barrier between dragons and the many people who craved a dragon’s favor. By the time Wint and his apprentice—Teg was her name, Sugar thought—had taken her through the maze of tunnels to where her visitor awaited, they had gathered a crowd, all of them eager and curious.
Sugar had never had so many eyes on her before. She was wishing she had worn something a little less tattered than her beloved green dress, now, comforting as it was.
And then the morning light peeled through the last tunnel and they were out the front gate, out in the winding dirt path that led to the mouth of the warren. It was to Sugar’s relative surprise to find that not every kobold in the warren had glommed on to following her, for a sizable collection had gathered to mob the tallfolk with questions and suspicious prodding. This was less interesting to her, though, than the tallfolk himself: none other than Terrible Cynndelw.
It took doing to wade through the crowd, even with Wint and Teg’s help, and the fact that questions and soaring hopes were rising unbidden in Sugar’s chest made things that much worse. She shouldered through best she could, stepping on tails and toes, until the mess of creatures surrounding her suddenly parted and she found herself face to face with a very nervous-looking orc.
They looked at one another for a moment, bafflement written across both faces, until Terrible cracked a weak grin that showed his very large teeth. “Um,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “you know, I had really thought coming to find you wouldn’t be such a production.”
“Kobolds make everything a production,” Sugar said matter-of-factly. “We don’t really get visitors, unless they want to talk to the dragon.” She tilted her head to one side, trying to calm her racing mind. “Why did you want to see me?”
Terrible opened his mouth, then shut it again, and looked once more at the many yellow eyes watching his every move. He made a sound not unlike a squeak, which was hardly befitting an orc. “I’ll tell you, but could we go somewhere less … crowded?”
In a warren it is nearly impossible to find somewhere private, unless you actively bully anyone nearby into leaving. Even then, sound travels through the tunnels much further than one might expect. It was to this end that Sugar wound up leading Terrible through five or six winding passages (in all of which he had to duck to get through) before she found one suitable. By then, of course, Anyways had materialized out of somewhere. They watched Terrible with hungry, analytic eyes the whole way, and Sugar was becoming quite sure that it was the last thing Terrible and his wringing hands needed.
“All right,” Anyways started up the moment Sugar decided that the storehouse deep in the back of the warren would have to do. “Whatever it is you came for I hope it was worth all this fuss.”
“Um,” said Terrible.
“It had better be an apology from that rat of an uncle you’ve got. Or a—”
“Please, Anyways,” Sugar said, shutting the round door behind herself and squeezing her way between them and the cowering Terrible. “There’s no need to bully him, is there?”
Anyways sniffed. “Bullying works.”
“It does not. Come now. Mr. Cynndelw, you can sit anywhere if you like. You don’t look comfortable hunched up like that.”
The fact he had been addressed at all truly made Terrible look as though he had been instructed to eat a live fish. But he shuffled around the remains of a broken sleigh to perch on an overturned wheelbarrow bed, and that made him just about eye-level with the kobolds. There was an uncomfortablen staring in silence at one anothe before Anyways rolled their eyes and made a show of clearing their throat. “Well?”
Terrible jumped. “Oh. Oh, um,” he began, and rifled through his pocket for something. “It’s about … well … yesterday, I suppose. Uh. The, that building you were asking after. St. Claudandus’s, on Bullens.”
“The one that isn’t for sale,” Anyways said.
“It’s very much for sale,” said Terrible, and pulled from his pockets a small ledger. “It’s been for sale for months. Last week Wretched marked it down thirty percent. You’ve been the first to even ask.”
He flipped the ledger open, skimming through the pages with surprising aplomb. Sugar wanted nothing more than to peer over his shoulder and find out what was in it, but he was moving through it too fast to even try. “Here it is,” he said, and turned the book around to show them. “All our records on Claudandus’s.”
Sugar took the ledger and Anyways shoved their snout into her space to get a look too. It was a lot to take in at once, with a great deal of numbers and important-sounding words all written down in neat, tight text. On the second page there were what looked to be blueprints, along with a sketch of the structure itself, and a diagram that Sugar took to be the actual dimensions of the plot. She could scarcely focus on any of it—she was practically vibrating with hope—and Terrible was talking again. “—hundred square meters, and it’s cleared for magic utility and the like. Very solid foundation for that, err, but the building itself is a wreck to say the least. I think some kind of plague or curse or something got the place shut down, before.”
Anyways looked up at him. “Plague?”
“Nothing to worry about now. We run a hex check on all our properties before putting them on the market, and that place is clean.” At seeing Anyways’s skeptical face, he stuck one large green hand over top of the ledger Sugar held. With a surprisingly careful hand he turned the page to a second spread, this one full of small, tight writing and several boxes full of several inked stamps. “The notice of approval is right there, with the Arcaneous Bureau. You’re absolutely welcome to visit the Bureau yourself and ask…”
He carried on like this, while Anyways shot back question after probing question. Sugar barely heard them. She flipped back a page, to where the sketch and blueprints dominated the paper, and it was so much easier to imagine what would go where. That little nook by the door would be where the waiter would guide patrons to their seats, and the common room could have that wall knocked out to make way for a dozen tables. The ceiling was high enough for the magic fire lighting she’d dreamed about for so long, and that narrow space in the back of the building would be perfect for the kitchen. The kitchen! She’d build it all from scratch, of course, all to her exacting specifications, and she could even design it so that if she hired any tallfolk they could work alongside one another…
Something knocked her on the horn, and Sugar shook herself from her fantasy to see Anyways with a lifted brow. “Well?” they said.
“Um,” said Sugar, and Terrible laughed. He seemed much more at ease now, talking about building codes and standards and whatever the Arcaneous Bureau was, Sugar thought. “I’m sorry!” she said. “My head was in the clouds.”
Terrible said, “That’s quite alright,” and got to his feet. Tried, rather, for the ceiling was low enough that he banged his head against it on the first attempt and had to go for a second. He winced and tried again, much more slowly and carefully this time. “I just wanted to give you a fair shake at the property. My uncle, ah …”
“Your uncle’s a git,” supplied Anyways.
Terrible grinned sheepishly, “You’re not wrong. But think it over. I need to keep the ledger, but I can give you a copy of—”
“We’ll take it,” Sugar said immediately, and with a burst of clarity looked to Anyways. “If you’re still—?”
“We’ll take it,” Anyways repeated, flashing her a grin.
A thing that no one had told Sugar about buying a property was how much paperwork was involved. Over the following two days, Terrible smuggled sheaf after sheaf of documentation to the warren, patiently explaining what words like escrow and lien and mortgage meant. Sugar signed her name so many times that it stopped looking like a real word, just a jumble of letters. And she became more and more grateful that Anyways had volunteered to go in on this venture with her, because they were a great deal more suspicious and inquisitive than she was—or at the very least, they knew all the right questions to ask.
It was not until halfway through the third day of this that Anyways hit upon a question that, probably, both them and Sugar should have asked immediately upon Terrible’s arrival. “Are you allowed to be doing this?” Anyways said, the pen in their hand hovering over yet another sheet of paper that needed to be signed. “I got the impression that your uncle was the big orc in charge.”
They were in the kitchen, if only because it had a high enough ceiling to allow Terrible to stand comfortably. He looked comically large in it, dwarfing all the equipment and the table they sat at, and giving Sugar a fairly good idea of what sorts of allowances and changes she would need to make in her restaurant kitchen to accomodate tallfolk. Anyways’s question had not even crossed her mind. She looked up at Terrible with wide eyes, and tried to gulp down the new burst of trepidation that threatened to scald her.
Terrible sat up straight, rolling his shoulders back. Sugar supposed it was meant to be a motion of confidence, but it didn’t quite look right on him. “I’m a fully licensed real estate agent. I have just as much validity as my uncle.”
“Yeah,” Anyways drawled, “but are you allowed to?”
Terrible slumped. “Well…”
“Oh, please say yes,” Sugar said urgently. “Mr. Cynndelw, please don’t be doing this under the table for us.”
“I’m not!” Terrible said, putting his hands up as if in self-defense. “Everything you’re signing is legally binding. Wretched won’t be able to do a thing about it.”
At the kobolds’ expressions (Anyways, skeptical, and Sugar, desperate), he sighed. “You lot will be fine. I might get my ears torn off.”
It occurred to Sugar that she was uncertain whether he meant this literally or not, given the fact he was an orc. This did little to soothe her sudden fear. “You’ll be alright, though, won’t you?”
“Probably,” Terrible said, and gave her an uneasy smile. “I’m really the only family my uncle has. He’s driven most of them off, but I’m pretty sure he’d be up a creek without me.”
“As long as you’re not giving us the short stick,” Anyways cut in. They had leaned far onto the table, and their tail stood out stiff and straight behind them. “We’ve had quite enough of that. If you think you can just make a quick buck off us—”
Their mouth snapped shut as Sugar touched their shoulder. “What Anyways means,” she started carefully, “is, well. You did see how your uncle treated us. It’s not uncommon.”
Terrible nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I’ll be very honest with you—it’s not all altruism. I need more real closings if I’m to get anywhere further in this business, and Wretched is a bit of a bull—he takes everything he can get. He’s very traditionally orcish, you know. Unless I go for sales on my own, I’d never get enough.”
Anyways still squinted at him, prickly and suspicious, and Sugar felt the sudden need to go over everything she’d just read and signed with a fine sifter. She had just been trying to figure out the best way to word this when Terrible went on sheepishly, “But, Miss Sugardahlia, I do want to help you. You seem like a kind person. And frankly I’ve never seen anyone so small give Wretched that much trouble,” he added, looking at Anyways.
“Hmph,” Anyways said, sliding back into their seat. Their face was carefully marshalled, but Sugar could tell by the way they started swinging their legs that they were pleased. “Someone has to. May as well be me. Go on, then, what’s the next piece of our livelihoods we’re signing away?”
At once, Terrible shuffled through another stack of paper and began carefully going through it line-by-line, pointing at blank sections that needed signing and footnotes and clauses and exceptions that had to be taken into consideration. Sugar settled into her seat, listening as best she could, though it was quite hard when her heart was soaring. All she wanted to do was race down to Eat Street and begin work immediately.
It was a dreary, cold day when Terrible finally handed Sugar the keys to St. Claudandus’s, and it had been threatening to rain since dawn. It could have been blizzarding and thundering for all she cared. The moment she closed her fingers around the little bronze keyring, she sprung forward and caught Terrible by the arm, pulling him down for a hug. “You don’t know how much this means to me,” she said, reaching as far around him as her short arms would allow. “Truly. I’ll never forget your help.”
To her side she heard Anyways laugh. Terrible seemed frozen for a moment before trying to return it, and found he had the opposite problem of having arms entirely too long. “It’s no trouble at all,” he said, politely disentangling himself from her and giving her a tusk-filled smile. “I’m happy to help. Do you know what you’ll call the place, yet?”
“Yes, but it’s a secret,” she said, and let him go. “But you’re invited to the opening night!”
“In probably six months,” Anyways said dryly, still smirking. “We’ve got our work more than cut out for us.”
Terrible pondered this. “Will your dragon,” he began, and then stopped short. “Will Rhexyvion be helping you?”
Every day Sugar liked this orc a little more. “No, no,” she said, and unlocked the sagging front door. “Rhexy doesn’t know about any of this. She—oh!”
In hindsight, Sugar would wince to recall she had already forgotten about the hospital’s current occupants. It would perhaps have been less embarrassing if she had been a tallfolk, but as it was, she was scarcely three feet high, and the absolute swarm of rats that came barreling out of the hospital as she opened the door was little short of terrifying. It was a small wave of them, black and brown and gray, scurrying over her toes and tail-tip. She gave a shriek and tried to leap out of the way, but there were enough of them and she was fat enough that she simply staggered. She put her foot down, and under it felt the squirming, hot body of a rat.
She thought she felt something crack under her weight, and a moment of terror shot through her. She looked down, but it was impossible to see anything under the horde of rats that were weaving their way between Terrible and Anyways before vanishing into the overgrown grass.
Then, just like that, they were gone. Sugar stared down at her toes stupidly, waiting to see if she would find a twitching little leg or a warm, sticky pool ebbing out between them. But it never came. Eventually, she lifted her foot.
Nothing was there.
Baffled, she turned to look at her companions. Anyways was squawking, jumping around to avoid the things just as she had, albeit with greater success. Terrible, for his part, simply stood and watched the creatures rush past. “I did mention the rat problem, didn’t I?” he said after a moment. “I must have?”
“We already knew,” Sugar said breathlessly, looking down at her foot again. She would have sworn on her good spoons that she’d stepped on something, but—well. There was no squashed rat on her foot, so that was good, no matter what. “We, ah, met them the first time we visited the property.”
“First time?” Terrible said, puzzled, but Anyways shoved past him to peer into the building, and Sugar did the same.
If anything, it might have looked a bit worse than it had at first glance. The washed-out stained glass did little to help, filtering the gray light over the ruins of the forgotten hospital. The stairwell yawned black and vast to her right, and the rubble looked as tall as she was.
“It’s perfect,” she squeaked out, grabbing Anyways by the hand. Her friend squeezed it back, grinning, and pulled her inside.
Renovating a building, as it turns out, is not a task to be approached lightly.
For the next month and a half, Sugardahlia’s life was a grueling sort of routine: she would wake well before sunrise, pack a breakfast prepared the night before, and hustle off to the restaurant for a few hours before she would be needed at the warren to oversee meals. Then, after dinner was seen to and the young ones had been set to washing dishes, she would make her way back to town to keep cleaning. Often Anyways was in tow on these later ventures, which was good, as Sugar was fast feeling the consequences of her lackluster height. St. Claudandus’s was a hospital for tallfolk, and every piece of abandoned equipment inside it was made with tallfolk in mind. Sugar and Anyways between them had still only managed to dig out and remove a handful of the many rusted-out bedframes. This was to say nothing of the more extreme work, the stuff that would take either a contractor or a good magic-user.
The [mesa summer flower] had come into bloom, and with their arrival came more merchants for Rhyxevion to woo. This too meant more feasts for Sugar to oversee, on top of her regular schedule. It would be hard work, Sugar knew before it began. She had not quite counted on exactly how hard it would be.
Before anything else, the kitchen caught on fire, one searing morning. It was the oven’s fault, of course, and not even because of the oven; the younglings had been baiting it, playing chicken with its door, and of course someone got the very tip of their tail snapped off. The [dibbun] had been tended to and no real harm had been done, other than hopefully ensuring Esk would never antagonize a kitchen appliance again, but the tail-tip had been left in the oven. And it had smoldered, until the oven grew tired of chewing on it and spat it and its remaining cinders out, white-hot, onto a basket of dried [edible reeds]. Naturally, this happened two days before another of Rhexyvion’s feasts. The fire was put out with no harm done to any but a few of the souls who had fought it suffering from smoke inhalation, but the kitchen itself was gutted, to say nothing of the food that was waiting to be prepared. (The oven, of course, had barely suffered a scratch, and the common understanding around the warren was that it was too stubborn to break.) The feast would simply have to be called off.
Rhexyvion had to be told, of course, and Sugar had no envy for the poor fools who were stuck with that job. As dragons went, Rhexyvion was benevolent enough, and fair to the kobolds that allied with her why do kobolds stick with dragons in this universe?, but she was still a dragon. “I do hope no one gets eaten,” Sugar said to Anyways the next day. “I remember the last time something like this happened—-during Rain Week, you know, when the mages in town personally promised her a thunderstorm and gave her a heat wave instead?—-she all but swallowed them on the spot.”
“Yeah,” Anyways said, and no more. The two of them were out in the tiny, muddy stream that wound its way down to the sea, hunting crayfish