It was a good thing that Sophia still had some room left in her bag. It wasn't enough to carry the entire skyeagle, but it was enough for the feathers and other delicate parts. The rest of the bird was split up, carefully wrapped, and tied to packs. The additional weight was substantial, but it was the bulk that made things difficult.

Almost an hour after the fight, they finally reached the city wall of Mazehold, outside the western gate. Sophia expected something like Izel, with a carefully guarded, closed gate that was only opened when people arrived, but Mazehold's wall was completely unlike Izel's.

It stood open and abandoned, though a few people did move in the open area on the far side of the gate. Beyond them, Sophia could see the city, open and above ground. There were even hills visible in the far distance, tall but far too rounded to be called mountains.

Sophia frowned and took a closer look at the wall itself, rather than the open gate. Glowing sigils protruded from the walls every few feet, lighting their surroundings even in daytime, but they were only distractions from what was really there. The walls were covered with carved glyphs and sigils. Some were embellished with golden paint, but most were simply carved into the stone walls. The gates themselves were metal, intricately formed to create similar patterns to the ones in the stonework in three dimensions instead of two.

There was no doubt about it once she thought to look. The magic was stagnant and hidden, but the glyphs carved into the wall were all energized, like a giant runescript or perhaps an enchantment. Sophia shook her head. "Are the wall carvings the reason there are no guards?"

"The gate closes when monsters approach," Jax half-agreed. "It's a warning as much as a defense; a simple gate won't stop a third upgrade monster that can just jump over it, or even a first upgrade monster that can fly. The walls and gate are only there for hordes; individual monsters get into Mazehold all the time. There are some people who hunt Mazehold, especially at second upgrade; it's a good way to gather Wisps and far safer than entering the Maze. As for guards, well, who would pay them to stay there and watch all day?"

"The city's ruler?" Ci'an suggested.

Now that Sophia thought about it, Jax hadn't mentioned anything about the city's structure when he talked about Mazehold. He'd mentioned the Vocational Registry, the Arena, the Professional League, and the Smiths' Cooperative, but he hadn't mentioned a city lord.

"There isn't one," Jax answered bluntly. "Mazehold has a Council, but it exists to resolve disputes between the different powerful organizations, not to run the city. If you have a problem, you take care of it yourself. If you can't, you go to one of the organizations you belong to and get help that way."

It sounded like a recipe for anarchy to Sophia, so surely there was more to it than that. People could be kind, but that was no way to run a city.

Ci'an snorted. "That's not so different from a city with a ruler, you know. Mother has to balance all of the other Clans and the Registry and the Temple, she says that often means she can do less than other Clan heads, not more."

"Mother?" Jax looked startled. "I knew your brother led the expedition from Izel, but I didn't know you were the city leader's daughter."

Ci'an shrugged. "There was no reason to mention it. Lan likes to keep it quiet, so I'm used to not talking about it; he even had me register under a different name, he said that's common."

Jax seemed to tense a little. "What name?"

"Amy Hunter," Ci'an answered easily. "You can call me that, if you want. I'm used to it."

The name made Jax relax visibly. "We should. Your name will explain a lot, at least to people who don't look too deeply and that will be useful."

Sophia had to ask. "What are you talking about? Why does her pseudonym make you more comfortable and how does it explain anything?"

"She's a Hunter," Jax said as if that explained everything. He seemed to see Sophia's confusion, because he continued. "Hunters are people who have either important family or something else that would make them targets. The Guide tends to punish people who never leave their family's shadow, so that's how we handle it. We know who she is and that we need to keep an eye on her, but it helps keep people from getting ideas. The name's a bit of an open secret in Mazehold; about a quarter of teams that arrive early in their second upgrade have a Hunter, because they've trained together since childhood and expect to be able to take on things they shouldn't be able to. We try to beat that out of them before they get killed, but it still happens."

Sophia didn't have to ask what Jax meant when he said that Hunters could be people with something else that would make them targets. She was pretty sure that stealing the Broken Hilt from the Broken Temple in Izel and then performing a ritual that stripped it of the Wisps it held to send them to Patrons other than the Broken Lord (while also using a bunch of them herself) would qualify.

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Well, it would qualify if the Vocational Registry didn't just hand her over to someone associated with the Broken Lord, anyway. She was pretty sure that wouldn't happen with Izel's Registry, but she wasn't sure if all Registries were safe. She kind of doubted it; there were too many people who worshipped at the Broken Lord's Temple and also belonged to the Registry in Izel to make her comfortable.

"That's a good reminder, though. The same way she is Amy Hunter, I'm Jaycen Deepmist. Try to call me Jaycen. If you slip and call me Jax, it's okay; that's why I picked Jaycen." Jax looked around the group, then grinned. "Does anyone else have a name they're hiding?"

"Only if you count Sophia's titles," Dav said with a grin.

Sophia rolled her eyes and thumped Dav lightly on the chest. "Titles? Really? I say where I'm from once and you start claiming I have titles?"

She might have thwacked him a little harder than she should have, but he didn't seem to mind. Good; it was great to see that he wasn't in so much pain that he couldn't pick at the things he always found funny.

Even if they were old. Really, really old.

"Most people don't have four planets in their name," Dav countered.

"Three planets and a moon," Sophia countered weakly. Suratiz wasn't quite big enough to be a dual planet; it really was a moon, even if it was also the settled one of the pair. "The effort to restore Suras to habitability has barely started…"

She probably shouldn't have added that, at least not if she wanted to win the argument. She sort of did and sort of didn't; mostly, she wanted to distract Dav from the pain he was in.

It seemed to work, at least until they were well inside the city. The argument probably made no sense to any of the locals, since they didn't have the ability to travel in space, but that was kind of the point. It was a completely pointless debate about whether or not an inhabited moon counted as a planet or not.

There was no shortage of people in Mazehold, so between that and the distraction of arguing with Dav, it took Sophia a little while to realize what was different about the place. It was hard to see because everyone moved in groups anyway, but once Sophia noticed it, it was obvious.

There were very, very few children. The few children they did see were usually exceptionally heavily guarded, in larger groups than others.

Sophia realized she'd fallen silent when Dav asked her if everything was okay. She wasn't sure what she'd missed, but there had to be something. She shook her head once, then looked at Jax. "Where are the kids?"

Jax shook his head. "Inside. There are tunnels under most of the streets and passageways between buildings; as long as you don't have to go too far, you can generally get wherever you need to without going outside. That's how everyone travels unless they're willing to fight. Thing is, it's a lot slower than going aboveground, because nothing's direct. You also have to know where you're going, so it's not great for outsiders. You'll find that most Called who want to attempt the Maze are on the surface while everyone else stays below ground."

"Then who are the kids we do see?" Dav waved towards a group of seven adults, one toddler, and a babe in arms.

"The children of Called, usually." Jax grinned, but it looked a little strained. "This time of day, they were probably with caretakers while their parents were out. Now they're on their way home. It's not an easy life for anyone, and a child often means the end to a team's chance at the Maze. People still try, of course, because the only other option is to give up and take a Profession. A lot of people don't want to do that."

Those words hung in the air as they made their way through the surprisingly wide streets.

Sophia wasn't certain if she should be happy about the space or not; sure, it gave plenty of room for the surprising number of people who were out and about as they approached the Registry building, but it still seemed odd for a city that was mostly traversed underground. It meant the city had to date back to a time when people traveled aboveground, which meant that monsters had to stay outside. She wondered what had changed. It didn't look like it dated back to the Kestii Empire days, but maybe some of it did?

The Registry building itself was square, stone-built, and outwardly featureless other than periodic steel-reinforced doors on the lower level. There weren't any windows, even with bars over them; it was simply stone. The main entrance was two doors, unlike the other three entrances Sophia could see on that side of the building.

"This place is huge," Sophia said as she stared at the brutally simple structure. "It has to be two or three times the size of the Registry building in Izel."

"All of the Registry staff live in the building," Jax explained. "Other than that, it's probably not very different from any other Vocational Registry, except that there's even less space for Called to reserve. We'll have to find lodgings after we check in here. I'd want to do that anyway."

Jax opened the door and waved everyone inside.

Sophia glanced around the room. It was similar to the Casterville and Izel Vocation Registries' entrances in that it was a large open area, but there were several desks instead of only one. The floor seemed to be made of wood rather than tile or carpet, though there was an odd patch of brown carpet near one of the doorways that led deeper into the building.

There were a couple of teams at the desks; Sophia couldn't tell what they were asking, but one of the groups was directed deeper into the building as she watched. They had to maneuver around the brown carpet as they left the room.

Now that Sophia took a closer look, the brown carpet was surprisingly tall, almost waist-high on one of them, and that seemed to be breathing. It also looked oddly familiar, like a particular draft sloth who loved to sleep that Sophia hadn't seen in months. "Peaches?"

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