Someone has carved “Edgerrin pooped here” into the stone of the jail wall, and that about sums up my feelings on my current situation. Each confined cell has stone walls to prevent prisoners from touching each other's hands to cast spells. The wall’s thick enough that if I tried to stick my arm out around the bars, I couldn’t even graze a fingertip with another across the hallway to the left or right. There isn’t a window. It smells wet, not like a fresh sea breeze, but a concoction of sweat-soaked undergarments and feet. The silence provides no comfort as if no prisoner can survive. Not even Edgerrin.

  The footsteps of my Tidewatch jailers echo down the stone hallway. It’s the same two I met earlier that day, Mr. Beard and the giant woman. It’s time for me to use the old family charm and get out of this mess. “Let me out of here right now.” So much for diplomacy.

  “Apologies, Sir Steelborne, but the library takes its fee collections for latency quite seriously.” It’s the long-bearded one, but this time, trapped breadcrumbs dance in the whiskers as he speaks. I'd better learn his name.

  “Sorry, what should I call you?” I ask.

  “Tidewatcher Cornwall.”

  “Cornwall? Like, a wall of corn?” The image the name conjures amuses me. Like a giant stack of preshucked corn husks, piled as high as a fortress barricade, waiting to topple.

  “Something funny? Surnames don’t usually make sense. Steelborne, for example. Were you birthed from an ingot?”

  “Hey,” I say, releasing my hands from the bars and holding them up in surrender, “let’s not drag our mothers into this.” There’s a nod of approval from the giant Tidewatcher.

  “Fine.” Cornwall pulls out his notebook. “It is a fine of 10 silver marks plus the cost of replacing the book.” He turns a page. “Titled, ‘Dragons, Dragons, Dragons’. Ring any bells?”

  I have no idea where that book is. I checked it out over ten years ago, as a child obsessed with dragons, and I never went back to the library after losing it. “Sure, it’s back at the Blood Coin headquarters. I’ll return it.” Telling a lie has never caused me any problems.

  “Get to the real business,” the tall one speaks. Her voice is not as gruff or as low as I expected. There’s a kindness there.

  “The truth is, Sir Steelborne,” Cornwall closes his notebook. “May I call you Zane?”

  “Yes, I prefer that.”

  “We brought you here for your protection. The bounty on your head is quite well advertised.”

  “Let me clear some waters on this. You ripped me from a room full of mercenaries that would die to protect me, confiscated my weapons, and left me here unmonitored for my protection from would-be bounty hunters? Is this an improvement to my security than before?”

  Cornwall’s eyes dart back to the giantess and then back to me. “When you put it that way, it does sound foolish. But there’s still a chance one of them is involved. Your uncle, perhaps?”

  “Uncle Thorne? Why?”

  “To remove any conflict over who should take over the company after your father.”

  “Uncle already knows I don’t want to do it. He doesn’t need to kill me for it.” I’m not even sure Thorne would like it himself. Too much time running around and not enough time drinking. “Out of curiosity, how much is the bounty on my head for?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Ten marks.”

  “The same as the bounty? I didn’t know librarians were so vengeful?” This earned a smile from the giantess.

  “Just a coincidence.”

  Never underestimate the wrath of a book lover scorned. But beneath the jokes, the reality of the situation gnawed at me. Ten marks. It wasn’t much, but enough to make my life a commodity. “Nobody could take that bounty seriously. It’s a prank at best,” I say.

  “Midway may have some riches, but it’s also full of the desperate. Even worse, those who might kill just to make a name for themselves. We need to be cautious,” Cornwall says.

  “I will. Consider me warned. Just let me out of here. I’ll pay the librarian’s fine.”

  They open the cell door with a clank, and I say one last bye to Edgerrin’s ghost. At the front of the building, I hand over ten marks and receive my weapons back. Two long swords, a bow, and a quiver with eight arrows, with their shafts stained red. It had ten. I stare at the orderly. A dozen tiny beads of sweat gather on his forehead.

  “Please, I have two kids at home. They would love to have an arrow from the Blood Coins.”

  “Tell them I shot them at you as I escaped,” I say with a wink.

  He pays me with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Here, a free token to the Tidewatcher Museum.”

  I remember when my father brought me to the Tidewatcher Museum as a kid. Well, ‘museum’ makes it sound rather grand. It’s a shack next to their headquarters, full of junk, and they charge five marks to see it. I’d said I wanted to be a Tidewatcher over and over.

  Back then, my father was a giant compared to me. He had a topknot and a full beard, both bright red. Or wait, did he have a silly mustache at the time? It doesn’t matter; he was big. I was on his shoulders, and he leaned over so I could see down into the displays.

  It still hasn’t hit me that he’s gone.

  I take the free ticket. “Thanks,” I say and barge out of the door.

  Walking back to the HQ, the sun sets over the rooftops, and a heavenly pink sunset parts the white clouds. It’s more beautiful juxtaposed with my recent stay in the Halls of Defecation.

  Then I hear the all-too-familiar sound of a bowstring drawn back, taut. Instinctively, I lurch backward as an arrow blurs by my face. I spin to its origin: a boy, maybe twelve, drawing a second arrow, his hands shaking, a look of terror spreading on his face. I free a sword and slash at the bow above his hand, cutting into the shaft with a satisfying crunch as the tautness of its string pulls it in half from the compromised cut I’ve made. The boy stumbles backward and falls to the ground. There’s dirt smudged on his face. He’s a wreckling, one of the island's many poor or orphaned children.

  “Ten marks isn't worth dying for, kid. Who sent you?”

  The wreckling points a quivering hand toward the sky, up at the Great Lighthouse. It towers above Midway. Its walls of white marble glow in the sun and moonlight, and the top is lit by a source of fuel deep below the isle itself. It’s a marvel. Today, though, dark graffiti stains its walls with terrible penmanship. The words cover it from bottom to top with a repeated message: “Zane Steelborne. Dead. Ten Marks.” When Cornwall said it was well-advertised, I had imagined a well-spread rumor, not a towering beacon.

  “Get lost,” I tell the kid, sprinting back to the headquarters. I can see heads turn to whisper as I pass, but I need to hurry before one more tries their luck. Though I’m unafraid and well-trained, killing anyone takes only one lucky crossbow bolt.

  I pass by the front door, and the space in the front wall is still waiting for my father’s bronze disc. The dining hall is empty now, with many gone to their bunks, homes, or missions. Up in Uncle Thorne’s room, three candles flicker on the desk. A blanket made of striped fur from some exotic creature covers his bed, and hundreds of books lie haphazardly on the floor and across his bookshelves.

  I give my Uncle a quick summary of the prison, lighthouse, and most recent attempt on my life. “We have to do something. Otherwise, I’ll have to kill every wreckling on the island.”

  “No, that won’t do. Last I checked, we Blood Coins kill for money, not to prevent it from being paid. There’s only one solution.” Then Uncle has that look when he’s about to say something I’m not going to like with a grin of a thief that’s come upon an unattended purse. It’s even more ominous when it's shadowed by candlelight, and his scarred eye becomes more prominent. “We need to kill you.”