10
Sage led us across the encampment to the towering hotels. The candlelights in many of the rooms were still aflame, and laughter and the clink of bottles floated out of the open windows.
“I don’t think we’ll get much sleep tonight in these places,” I mused as we walked up the steps of one of the fine establishments.
“You won’t find thicker walls than in my hotel!” a voiced boomed.
We found ourselves in a small lobby with a desk at the back beside the stairs that led up to the other floors. A man in a dirty shirt and brown pants leaned on the desk with a smile on his face and a sharp glint in his eyes. The proprietor may have been dirty, but the floors were nearly spotless and the walls had been scrubbed and whitewashed.
Sage walked up to the man and grinned at him. “It’s been a
