The Exile and the Sorcerer by Jane Fletcher

wharf did not steal from one another, but Tevi placed no trust in this honesty. She suspected it was only because the boat people owned nothing worth stealing. Since she could not guard her boat by day, she avoided displaying the few valuables she possessed. Tevi returned the sword to its hiding place and took instead a long knife, which she slipped inside her jerkin, out of sight.
    She rejoined the boy, and the pair of them walked back along the quay, leaving tightly packed houseboats behind. To their left, the black ocean stretched out into the night. The cold wind carried the sound of unseen waves crashing against the crumbling harbour wall. They passed two figures arguing in a doorway and another staring bleakly out to sea.
    On the western wharf, there was a scrum of activity beside the berth of a seagoing merchant vessel. Relays of dockers were manhandling bales and crates into the ship’s hold. Another group stood nearby, awaiting fresh instructions while warming themselves around a fire and shouting humorous but impractical advice to their fellows. The flames snapped, sending a stream of sparks into the night sky. Hunched at one side, an old woman was stirring a large pot of stew. She was filthy, wrapped in layers of rags, but the smell of the food was tempting. Before going any farther, Tevi thought it might be wise to soak up the beer she had drunk.
    Tevi stopped at the woman’s side. “Is the stew for sale?”
    “It’s for the loaders...counts as part of their pay.” The old woman glanced at Tevi. Her voice dropped. “Why? Did you want to buy some?”
    “That would be nice.”
    “Well, as a favour, I can let you have a couple of portions for a tin half.”
    “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
    “I made the stew. I can sell it, but don’t let everyone see. I don’t want the whole dockside bothering me.”
    Tevi passed over the coin without comment. With the two bowls in her hands, she nonchalantly strolled to a spot behind a mound of cargo, obscured from the view of anyone aboard ship. Of course, the woman was planning on pocketing the money, and the term ‘whole dockside’ referred specifically to the work overseers, who would be angry if they knew—not because the woman was selling what was, technically, their employer’s property, but because they did not get their cut of the profit. It was the way things worked in Torhafn.
    Tevi and the boy sat on an empty crate and sipped the hot stew, using crusts of stale bread as scoops. The stew was highly spiced—probably to disguise its contents. Despite this, the food was welcome, and its warmth offset the night’s chill. The boy’s spirits had improved, bolstered by the upturn in his fortune. His eyes fixed on Tevi.
    “I know you. You’re the strong porter from the market who unloaded our wagons. My name’s Derrion, but everyone calls me Derry,” he said happily.
    “And everyone calls me Tevi.”
    “Is that your full name?”
    “More or less.” Her birth name was something Tevi was happy to have left behind on Storenseg.
    In the light of the fire, Tevi also recognised the boy, despite the dirt and the streaked lines of tears that now adorned his face. His parents had been wealthy foreign traders and, to judge from the extra payment, more generous than the local townsfolk. They might even be grateful for the return of their son.
    “Do you have any idea where your mother and father might be?” Tevi asked.
    “Probably at the inn.”
    “Which inn? Can you remember its name?”
    The boy considered the question gravely. “No.” After a moment’s thought, he added brightly, “There was a sign hanging outside, though.”
    “What was on the sign?”
    “It was a barrel.”
    “I think you’ll find every inn in Torhafn has a barrel outside as its symbol,” Tevi said dryly.
    “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    Derry took a mouthful of stew and grinned. “I’m not being much help, am I?”
    Tevi tried a different approach. “After leaving the