Worlds to play, cards to import

A flue-dwelling smoke-thing of the Ferruhm forges that feeds on heat and creeps out of cold chimneys — lately blamed, wrongly, for the Iron rot itself.

A low-tide mimic of the Saltmarches that stands out on the flats wearing the half-remembered shape of somebody's drowned kin, waiting for the kind-hearted to walk out to it.

A cold light that paces the towpaths of the Riverspine by night, drawing tired eyes toward the water — the rivers' patient, luminous liar.

A coin-eating mite that blooms green across stored bronze and copper in the Brine Banks' vaults — the one thief in the Saltmere that cannot be bribed.

The great rooks that have nested in the Concord Tree since the swearing — counted, named and read like weather by half the city.

A vast, ancient-looking catfish-thing that holds the pool below a weir and eats whatever the river delivers — every weir on the Riverspine insists theirs is the original.

A barbed lamprey-thing that roosts under the Nine Stairs and strikes upward through gaps in the planking — the wharves' oldest tax on careless feet.