Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

He glanced around the shop. It wasn’t that it was small or cramped or dirty. It was roughly the same size as any other shop in the Close with a tiny back room for small repair jobs and a front room laid out neatly with a long sandalwood table in the center and sturdy iron shelving on three of four walls, with the larger goods on the bottom and the smaller on the upper. The more valuable were locked in an actual glass and iron-barred case behind a wide, golden oak counter that Edzel polished every morning with ferris oil until it shone.

And it wasn’t that their goods were particularly expensive; their prices were comparable to any other shop in Haven. No, Tay told himself for the hundredth time as he watched a customer step just inside the door, listen for a few moments to his father’s language, then carefully back out again. It was the shop owner himself. They had to do something about Edzel before the business failed entirely, and a few misplaced thimbles were the least of their worries. But he had no idea what the something should be.

Tay turned as Trisha came in from the tiny back kitchen alcove, her expression exasperated.

“I tried to get him to go in for some tea,” she said in a strained voice. “But he won’t have it.”

Tay nodded. “We need to fetch Zo-zo,” he said, trying to hide the strain in his own voice. “She’s the only one that can calm him down now.”

She frowned. “Meegan brought her by first thing this mornin’,” she said doubtfully. “She’ll be at Judee’s for the rest of the day now.”

“I know, but he’ll rant himself into a fever if he keeps on like this. Ask Judee, will you, just for a few minutes, for me, please? Ask her?”

“I’ve sent for the Watch!” his father continued to no one in particular. “An’ don’t you think I won’t call the Guard too if that shiftless lot up at the Iron Street Station House don’t get here soon. I told that Dann boy to fetch Sergeant Thomar, he’ll get her sorted out in a hurry!”

Tay turned. “Thomar Dann’s retired, Da,” he said gently.

“Then he’ll fetch Egan instead.”

“Egan’s dead. He died in the Iron Market fire last month, remember? He’ll probably get Egan’s son, Hektor. He just made sergeant. You remember Hektor, Da?”

Edzel glared at his son with a malevolent expression. “Course I remember him,” he shouted. “I chased him away from Ismy when he were thirteen, an’ gave him a damn good thrashin’ to boot. I don’t care if that boy fetches Hektor Dann or the Monarch’s Own Herald. I want someone here, and I want ’em here now!”

“Mornin’, Edzel.”

As one, both smiths whirled about to see Hektor and Aiden standing in the shop doorway. Edzel’s expression never changed. “Bout time you two showed up,” he snarled as Trisha made her way past them with a sympathetic expression. “Get in here an’ do your job! I could be missin’ half my shop for all the protection I get! I’ll call the actual Guard an’ have them do your job for you if you don’t give me satisfaction right this very minute!” He fixed Hektor with a rheumy-eyed glare. “See if I don’t!”

Hektor nodded, struggling to remember that he was twenty-one and not thirteen and trying to keep as neutral an expression on his face as possible. “So, what exactly are you missing . . . sir,” he said, using the noncommittal but respectful tone he’d learned from generations of Danns in the Iron Street Watch.

It did not mollify Edzel. “I told that brother of yourn when I sent him!” he snarled back. “I had twelve silver spoons in that there locked cabinet,” he said, thrusting a gnarled thumb behind him. “I was giving ’em a good cleanin’ last night. Now there’s naught but eleven! You just go look and see!”

Hektor squeezed behind the counter to peer into the cabinet in question. Three shelves contained a collection of delicate metalwork, including eleven silver spoons. About to ask if Edzel was sure he’d put all twelve away last night—a question that would certainly have caused another round of shouting—he was interrupted by Aiden.

“Didn’t know you worked in silver, Edzel,” his older brother said absently, studying a long- handled toasting fork with a discerning eye.

“I don’t,” Edzel snapped, snatching it away from him. “Tay’s makin’ ’em a locked case to protect ’em against fire. But there’s more what’s gone walkin’ too: thimbles, nails, one stylus, two boat hooks,” he said, counting each one off on his fingers, “a diagonal, a rounded bill, an anvil swage, two hot punches, a driver, an adze blade, an awl, an edge shave, three whole palm irons, a seat wheel, a cleave, an’ nine pair of arms and legs!”

The long list of unfamiliar words, ending in arms and legs, caused both Hektor and Aiden to stare at him, and Edzel spat at the floor in disgust. “For lead soldiers, you idiots, what else would they be for? An’ don’t you go lookin’ at me like I lost my wits neither, I done a full inventory just last week, an’ I know my stock! All them things is missin’!”