Tibs woke to sounds of the town fully active and the sun filling the room with light. Carina had suggested getting heavy fabrics to cover the windows so he could sleep better, but Tibs had stopped any talk of spending coins on his comfort. He'd learned to sleep under all sorts of conditions as he survived his street. These were no worse than those.

The room was empty, and a look out the window told him it was mid-afternoon; they would be about their business. Only Mez and Khumdar had been in their beds when Tibs stopped in the middle of the night to change out of his armor and into more appropriate clothing to move undetected into houses.

He knew where Jackal had been. Kroseph was the only person his friend spent his nights with now. Carina, he wasn't sure. This was the first time she hadn't been in her bed since she had joined the team. Maybe she hadn't wanted to risk having to talk with him after their argument. He'd have to find her and work this out.

He wanted to do as she'd told Jackal. Keep in mind they were from different worlds, but he didn't understand what about letters was so important that he should care about them.

She had to know them, and he supposed that was what made them important to her. As a sorcerer, and someone who came from more coins than he'd see in his life, it was expected she would. It was her insistence he should know them too that baffled him.

He relieved himself in the empty bucket, then dressed in light clothing. His clothes smelled of soap and flowers again. The first time it happened, he'd sternly told Carina not to do it again and found out Mez was the one who had them cleaned. He could get an armload done for a copper at the laundry house, so it should be done. He'd said it in such a way it was clear he wanted Tibs to do his, but since Tibs was fine with dunking his clothes in the rain barrel next to the rooming house and then calling that clean, Mez would handle it.

He stepped outside long enough to fill a tankard out of that same barrel Tibs no longer had to use, and returned to his room where he spent time, and most of his patience, trying to sense and manipulate essence.

In the middle of that, the door opened and closed so fast that by the time it broke his concentration; he wasn't certain it was more than his imagination. Except he could feel someone walking away, earth essence. Since they had a key to the room, Jackal. He scanned the room in case something had been moved and went back to his practice.

The frustrating thing about what he needed to do was the lack of noticeable progress. No matter how hard he tried, he lost 'touch' with one the moment he tried to add the other. Alistair had talked about it as if it was easy, but now Tibs realized there could be a reason this was taught when Runners had more experience, and not only because this was how it had always been done.

Once he had enough of failing, he moved on to imbuing, using one of his new throwing knives. Like the sensing and manipulating exercise, it wasn't as easy as his teacher made it seem. Moving essence into the knife was simple—essence was everywhere—but it making it stay there proved harder.

Alistair had done something that kept the essence from returning to its 'normal' state. There had been a change to the shape of the knife's essence too, he remembered, but that was where the problem occurred. How had Alistair done it? His teacher didn't sense metal essence, so he couldn't have manipulated that into accepting the water.

And Tibs couldn't work out how to do it either.

* * * * *

The door slammed shut and Tibs looked up as Mez threw himself on his bed. "I hate this place," the archer yelled into his sheets.

"I think everyone does at one time or another."

Mez's head snapped up. "I thought you'd be out."

Tibs raised his knife so the archer saw it. "Training with essence. Once it's dark, I'll walk the roofs for a while." The sun was much lower, but he didn't need a lamp yet.

Mez grumbled something else as he buried his face in sheets again.

"Did Jackal do something to piss you off?"

The no was barely audible. Then Mez raised his head. "Why would you think my problem's with Jackal?"

Tibs shrugged. "He's Jackal. He tends to piss people off."

"It's not him. It's this town. I thought that with nobles here, things would change. That they'd get better; that they would show the other Runners how to be better."

Tibs stared at the archer; tried to understand how he could hope nobles would solve anything. Where was he from that he had such a wrong opinion of them? Nobles only made their own lives better, and always at the expense of someone with fewer coins. He thought about pointing that out, but before he decided, Mez added.

"You're also part of why I'm angry. But with you, I don't have a right to be."

"What did I do?" Tibs put the knife away. If he'd angered a teammate, a friend, that was what he wanted to resolve.

Mez sat, leaning against the wall, and pointed to the now sheathed knife.

"I'm a rogue?" Tibs guessed.

"The stuff you're doing with it. Where you're at in your training. I can't sense the stuff around me like you do. Carina can, Khumdar… well, maybe he can. He can't stop being mysterious about what a cleric can and can't do, so who knows. You even got Jackal to do it, and I can't do anything." He knocked his head against the wall. "I should be able to make flame arrows by now. The three other fire archers can do that, so why can't I?"

"Maybe the flame arrow isn't your thing." Tibs turn the chair and rested his arms on the back. "Not everyone does the same thing with their essence, even when that's the same. Jackal coats himself with his. One of the other fighters makes weapons out of earth."

"But they make it look easy. You make it look easy. If you all can do it, I should be able to do something."

Tibs chuckled. "It isn't." He recalled his frustration. "You see what we've gotten good at, not how much work it took. Or that there still a lot that I can't do."

"You mean all that Rho-level stuff you can't do?" Mez said in frustration. "You're just Upsilon, you shouldn't even be able to try that stuff."

Tibs looked at Mez. "It bothers you that much?"

The archer shook his head, then nodded, then threw his hands up. "I don't know!" he breathed heavily. "I was raised to know there is a right way and a wrong way things are done. There are rules that tell us which is which. You act with honor, you follow those rules. That is what marks a man from a child. This place doesn't care about rules."

"Harry cares about them."

"Not enough to keep you from 'walking the roofs'."

"That doesn't break the rules," Tibs pointed out, and Mez's glare had him blushing in embarrassment.

"You know that's not the part that breaks the rules, Tibs."

"I'm a rogue. I have to train."

"Then they should be training you. For free!" Mez fell silent, trying to calm his breathing. "I try to ignore it. I know you don't do anything bad as part of your training. And I know two rogues who spent time in cells because they were caught. So yeah, there is some order, but it's flexible. And that's not really order."

Tibs rested his chin on his arms. "The place I'm from, the nobles change the rules whenever they want. My street suffered a lot if one of them wants something there and they don't pay for it if they're caught. I'd lose a hand if I was caught stealing there."

Mez rested his head against the wall. "In my kingdom, nobles are who maintain order. They're what I wanted to be, before this place. They aren't perfect. But if they do something wrong, they are punished the same as the rest of us. Not more, not less; exactly the same. We are all equals under the rules. I miss that."

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Tibs nodded. "I'd miss it too. Sounds like a nice place to live in. How did you end up in a cell, before being sent here?"

Mez silently stared into the distance. "I was not a man," he finally said. "In this place, I'm afraid I'll never become one."

Tibs chuckled. "The way you define it, I'll never be one. But being a kid has its advantages. People underestimate me a lot."

"You are still a child, Tibs," Mez said, tone serious. "You should have been left free to be one."

Tibs remembered his life before the dungeon and this town. "I haven't been a child in a long time. The Street doesn't let children live. I'm not the kind of man your kingdom would recognize, but I still had to become one to survive."

"I'll grant that's true," Mez said. "But it reflects badly on the nobles there, not you."

Tibs snorted. "They've done much worse than make me a man." He sobered, remembering some things he'd seen nobles do to boys and girls who hadn't grown up fast enough to know not to trust them.

"How hard was it?" Mez asked.

"My Street?"

The archer shook his head. "Learning to sense it."

Tibs closed his eyes and tried to remember. "It wasn't easy, but I didn't have a choice. My reserve's so small; I needed to find a way to recharge it faster. My teacher decided that actively pulling essence in was the way to do it, and for that, I needed to be able to sense it. You'll get it. Everyone does eventually. For me, it was just doing it now or not surviving. Now I have to figure out how to sense essence while I'm also manipulating it. It's the only way I'll be able to recharge while I'm using it. If I had an amulet, it wouldn't be as important but—"

"You have your element now, right?" Mez asked. "Doesn't that mean you have a normal reserve?"

Tibs felt his reserve. As much as he'd called it a void before, now it felt vast. It made his other elements reserves seem so much smaller, even if he knew they hadn't changed.

"I do, but it's for my element, whatever it is, not water. Since everyone thinks that's my element, I have to keep working on that to keep them from asking me questions."

"So you have five elements?" Mez asked. As if he was only now finding out.

"I have one element," Tibs said, "and a tiny portion of four others."

"That is so unfair," the archer grumbled. "And I can't be angry at you for that, either. It isn't like you set out to break the rules with that."

"I don't think there are rules with the elements." Tibs did what he could not to chuckle at the look of dismay Mez gave him. "I think it's more that people got used to doing things a certain way, then agreed it was the only way it could be done. Other than the sorcerers, no one tries to change how things are done. My teacher says that at some point we're going to be taught beyond what they're teaching us right now, but I'm not seeing a lot of that here, even among the people working at the guild. It's like it's enough for them that they know how to do what they need to do."

"Maybe it is," Mez replied, studying his hands.

"But they were Runners too once, weren't they? Is what you can do enough for you?"

"I didn't know I could do more until I met you."

"And now?"

"I still can't do anything more than what I've been shown," he replied, his frustration mounting, "and not even that."

"But once you figure that out, will knowing just that be enough?"

Mez rubbed his face. "No, it won't be."

"Then how is it for those who've been doing this longer than we have?"

Mez gave a slow shrug.

Tibs went to the chest where he kept his armor and took it out. "I'm going to walk around the town before I walk the roofs. See what buildings are new."

Mez nodded and sighed. "I'm going to work on the exercises my trainer gave me. If I can 'get in touch with my essence' maybe I'll be able to move on to your stuff."

"Just remember," he said, putting his armor on, "essence isn't what you think it is." He felt the archer's glare.

"That isn't helpful without more information."

Tibs tried to find an explanation as he continued dressing for his outing, but there was nothing to explain. It was exactly what he'd said, except that the realization needed to come from within. He turned to face Mez as he tightened the last of the straps. "If there was an explanation, I'd give it to you regardless of the rules. It's something we need to work out on our own. Telling you that for me, I understood when I was able to breathe under the lake I envisioned my reserve as isn't going to help you. Because you don't see yours the way I saw mine. And even if you did. It wouldn't mean the same thing to you as it did me."

"We all hold the answers in ourselves," Mez quoted. "At least you explained why. My trainer just spouts that line anytime I ask and takes pleasure in my confusion."

"He isn't your friend," Tibs said before leaving the room.

* * * * *

What Tibs liked about walking the roofs was the freedom it gave him. Unfortunately, all that freedom was no help when trying to find one specific person, Carina. His talk with Mez had made him want to find the sorceress and talk. Explain why he didn't think letters were important, instead of waiting for her to come to him with an explanation. Maybe if she knew his side, they could resolve this puzzle that was their differing views on them.

He asked Kroseph. Even when they didn't eat together, the inn was where they went, and the server would talk with them. All Kroseph knew was she'd mentioned doing some reading, which Tibs already knew. Reading was Carina's way of training, it seemed.

He then went to the book merchants, all of whom knew her, as they did every sorcerer in town. A few had seen her, but she'd moved on, so now he needed to find the places where books sorcerers weren't allowed to read yet could be found. The merchants he spoke with had those, but they knew better than to allow Runners access, at least officially. But they wouldn't tell him where those secret gathering places were.

He found one in the storage room of the Deep Tankard tavern. There, five people were reading forbidden books. Two Runners, a merchant's daughter, who he'd met before, and two nobles. They looked terrified of him as he slipped in through the small window and down the large barrels. They calmed as he reassured them he wouldn't tell on them. He'd happily tell on the nobles, but that would also expose the others, so they got to continue flaunting the rules. He asked about Carina, who they hadn't seen, and no one volunteered where else she might have gone to read. He didn't press.

The other was the cellar of an uninhabited house. There, seven of them, all Runners, except for one who Tibs hadn't seen before, but had the feel of a merchant to him, with how quick he was to offer Tibs coins for his silence, which he didn't take. They also didn't know where she was, but the man, who turned out to be the son of one of the booksellers, had seen her on his way, and she'd mentioned training. He suggested some of the open spaces he knew of to her, and told Tibs.

She hadn't been at any of them, and it was now dark. The best place would be their room or the inn, but that would mean other people, and this was something he wanted to do without Jackal's flippant remarks about the two of them. Tibs couldn't deal with the man's lack of seriousness right now.

So he walked the town, and once the roofs were also in darkness, he'd walk them until his friends were asleep. Then he'd go change and practice his hands-on rogue skills,

* * * * *

Tibs had to change his plans on the way back to the room when he became aware of a man following him. The lack of crowds had given him away, the noise of crunching pebbles on dirt not covered up by other people's sounds.

His first thought was Bardik, but he wouldn't hear the rogue adventurer.

He extended his sense and the 'color' of the person's essence was the dull gray of metal. Metal was popular among Runners, but mainly about the fighters. Tibs knew of one archer with that element.

The person was reasonably good at masking their presence if they were a fighter, or they were the worst rogue Tibs could imagine. Just like how training with essence didn't really follow a set path, the way the guild claimed, being of one class didn't stop someone from picking up skills from a different one.

Tibs did his best to stay close to the populated streets. Even at this late hour, the main street with all the taverns had people coming and going. He didn't want his follower to stop because he became worried this would be too difficult.

Tibs was curious as to what they wanted and tried to come up with a way to have the encounter so he could find out. Maybe this was just practice for them; the way roof walking was for Tibs. Or maybe this was something else, something more serious. Someone looking to break one of Harry's rules.

This might not be a Runner he realized. Some nobles who weren't Runners had essence. He shuddered at the thought of a noble following him. The memory of what he'd seen some do still fresh from his conversation with Mez. If this was who followed him, Tibs would make them regret it. He would make it so they could never consider doing that to another boy again.

The essence around him shifted. He had no way to tell if his follower was causing it, but they were in a deserted portion of the street, having wandered off the main street in his musing, and it was only the two of them. He extended his sense and wasn't surprised to feel the essence concentrate around the porch of the house Tibs walked toward. Focusing further, he could tell it concentrated even more around smaller points on the porch, as well as the top and bottom of the two columns supporting the balcony.

Whoever his follower was, he was more advanced in his training than Tibs was. He needed to touch something to affect it.

Tibs couldn't tell what effect this would cause, and he considered changing direction because whatever it might be, he didn't think it would do him any good to be close when it happened, but to do that would give away that he knew something was about to happen.

He kept walking, looking for any cover that would protect him if the porch suddenly flew at him. No, that would be a wood element. Whatever the metal on the porch was. There was little: a crate here, a stack of plank there next to an incomplete house.

He considered turning around; this was starting to feel too risky. When he felt the concentration of essence around the porch increase; he fought the urge to run, instead only changing direction slightly. Aiming for a spot where light from a window shone on the ground, and a long crate had been left.

There was a wrenching of the essence in his direction and Tibs bent down to examine something on the ground. Things hit around him, the crate, the wall above him, the ground, but not him. Without knowing metal essence was involved, Tibs's guess would be that someone threw small stones in his direction. Hard enough, he realized as he looked around at the sound, to embed into the wood. Instead of pebbles, they were nails.

Ahead of him, the porch creaked and groaned, and he stood in time to watch it lean forward and fall. On the balcony had been crates and bundles of glassware that shattered as they crashed on the street.

He looked behind him in time to see a form disappear around a corner. Slim was all Tibs got from the shadow. Not a fighter, then. It narrowed the pool of who this could be, but it didn't explain why someone in this town wanted him dead.

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