Vĩïn Shågo tapped a fresh cask of Lasher Ale and set it beside three barrels of Plum Beaver Brandy. The stage crew hammered the last banner above the great stone pipe out on the duel grounds. Four days until the 4th Annual Lycan Morass Grass and Grog Heathen Duels, and every judge in the valley would drink from his taps. If his brews took a ribbon, the Hammered Houndsman would stop being a swamp-road stop and start being a destination. That was the whole point. That had always been the point. He stepped out onto the porch of the inn to check the lantern rigging. Old Brek sat in his usual chair, two fingers of blackberry brandy at his elbow, bad knee stretched long. "Judges arrived at dawn," Brek said. "Saw them fussing over their table. Elf woman, dwarf, tiefling, dryad. Serious lot." Vĩïn grinned around his pipe. White Wizard smoke curled past the sign. He could already picture the panel tasting his Lasher Ale, pearl-green foam clinging to their cups. Down at the duel stage, workers hoisted the last flag up the stepped tower. The great stein-pipe on top caught the afternoon light. Vĩïn walked the grounds one more time, counting kegs against the ledger in his head. Forty-two casks. Enough. He was about to head back when a woman crossed the mud toward him with a rifle slung across her chest and a top hat drifting a slow ring of runes above her brow. He knew her by the hat before the face. Dalilah Van Helsing. She had bought a flask of his Plum Beaver Brandy last week and paid in old coin. Her cousin was rumored trouble; she carried herself like she was not. "Shågo," she said. Her voice was low. Her eyes flicked past him twice before they settled. "Walk with me. Not the porch. Somewhere your barkeep can't lean." The hat's ribbon of runes shivered, and its stitched mouth twitched like it had tasted something sour. She led him behind the smoke shed. From inside her coat she drew a curl of parchment pinned through by a bone-handled dagger. She set it flat on a barrelhead. Good Tidings, Young Traveler. The dagger had gone through the wood of his back door, she said. She had pulled it while his crew hung bunting out front. No one had seen the hand that placed it. Moldstein hissed and read the air above the note; the runes over the hat flared and dimmed. Vĩïn's pipe went cold in his teeth. Four days to the duels. Judges seated. Casks tapped. And someone had walked past every lock he owned to leave a dagger in his door. He folded the note into his vest. "Don't tell my staff yet," he said. "I need the festival to happen." Dalilah did not answer. She was already watching the tree line.