He lands on his butt, loudly, on top of the wooden dump­ster. Kiddu grabs him, pulls him down, and puts her hand over his mouth.

Once he’s calmed down, Kiddu releases him. He rubs his back.

They walk qui­etly down the alley and emerge on Nabuk Street. They keep their dis­tance from the Temple’s entrance, a broad, pil­lared stair­case lead­ing up to a big stone gravitic por­tal, now closed tight. There’s a small sac­ri­fi­cial altar by the por­tal, embers glow­ing faintly, but nobody has left any­thing.

The sun has com­pletely set. Yanu’s river is a bright white spray in the dark sky. It gives the orange sand­stone build­ings and streets a gray­ish glow, wher­ever the light from torches or lit­lamps doesn’t hit.
All the banks and tex­tile stores and food stands on Nabuk Street are closed now, but a few peo­ple are still walk­ing around—mostly on their way to the beer halls on other blocks.

Gil moves to put his hood up over his head, but Kiddu stops him.

Gil isn’t so sure about that. Tonight will be the first time he’s bro­ken the law.

Nabuk Street nar­rows into a pedes­trian bridge arch­ing over Libri’s main canal. They walk up the steep cob­ble­stone, pass­ing a young cou­ple hold­ing hands.

At the top of the bridge, Gil glances over to the Divid­ing Wall—a triangle-shaped enclo­sure, three sto­ries high, that sur­rounds Libri’s native dis­trict. The bridge is only two blocks away from the Wall’s west­ern­most face. The walltop’s tri­an­gu­lar crenela­tions form a zigzag­ging sil­hou­ette against the night sky, inter­sected here and there by blocks of bat­tle­ment tow­ers.

The wall is dot­ted with lit­lamps, glow­ing like pale green stars. These illu­mi­nate fig­ures prowl­ing the tops of the towers—Gil can see at least three hoplites, along with the unmis­tak­able horned hel­met and glowing-tipped staff of an impe­r­ial sor­cerer. He shud­ders.