Back at the alleyways of the Kingdom's capital, Alex, Tull and Redd were all silent waiting for the first to speak. The city's noise came in layers, far bells and the buried thrum of market talk, the clatter of a handcart on stone, somewhere a camel coughing like a furnace but here, between damp walls and hanging cords of laundry that brushed one's shoulders, the sound thinned to drip and foot-scuff and the slow breathing of men measuring one another. The alley smelled of old cumin and ash, of lamp oil soaked into wood, and the faint medicinal sting of a tanner's vat that hid a street away. Wind could not find purchase here. Smoke went up a little and then decided to sit.
The prince was not one to shy away from being a socialist was the first to start, "Redd, back at the den, you seem to have recognized us…"
