Elsa

"I know a scribe who can draw up the papers," said Suzana, "if you'll split the cost of his fee. It shouldn't be high."

She looked back down at her books. "A hundred and ten crowns... that would be enough to continue our current arrangement through to... the end of next Pflugzeit, I think. Yes... the twenty-seventh." She closed the ledger. "How often would you be wanting to collect?"


Sieghard

Sieghard found the buildings by the river almost as crowded as he had left them. The Greenapple house was looking more run-down and dirty, while makeshift structures had been erected inside the warehouses, trying to give the inhabitants some measure of privacy and shelter from each other. The overall effect was to make their interiors into a dark warren of scavenged timber and stretched canvas. Thinking back to that choking night that Elsa had nearly burned down the Old Town, he looked around at the candles and lanterns that lit the dingy space. It would not take much for this whole place to go up in flames.

Outside the close air of the warehouses, he found Burhan - something of a changed man since his brush with death. No longer quite so full of ebullient energy, he seemed surprised and a little frightened to see Sieghard again.

"Oh! Ah, nice to see you too, old, um, friend," he said, shuffling some papers to try to look busy. "Well, I mean, we're making ends meet. Still got the boats, you know, still got the boats. Still... moving cargo." He cleared his throat, which seemed to have gone dry. "Did... you... have some thoughts?"