Excerpt:

The houses were packed together tight as tight. Else let her through the little crooked ways between the separate buildings, each seeming to smell worse that the one before. When they came alongside one dingy wall Else stopped and knocked at a patch of wall a little dingier the rest. Maevyn didn’t realize it was a door until it swung away, describing a shallow arch. Else put her arm out, making Maevyn step back.

She had told Maevyn that X was ugly. Maevyn was not prepared, though, for what she saw when the door opened outward, and a tall figure leaned out of the darkness beyond the dingy entrance. For a moment even bold Maevyn found herself speechless.

“What,” said the ugly man.

“She’s new,” said Else. “Got no place to go.”

“Shit.” Broad lips peeling back over yellow teeth in a mirthless grin. “Just what I need, another mouth to feed.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Else. “He never feeds us nothing.”

“And that won’t change,” said X. “You scrounge your own pickings out, little rat. Hard enough I have to work to feed myself, without giving it away to every snot nosed brat in Minas Tirith.” He scowled at Maevyn, who was staring at him. “So what is it then? Hiding from the Guard? Folks dead? Or is it your folks you’re running from? Daddy diddling you, maybe?”

Under the dirt, Maevyn could see the back of Else’s neck turn red. “Stop,” the other girl said.

X snorted, but his eyes flickered away from them as if he were suddenly uncomfortable. “Well, come if you’re coming. Just close the bloody door behind you, eh?” He walked away, starting to swing it shut as he did.

Else had to leap forward to catch it. “Well, come!” she said to Maevyn.

Maevyn was staring past her at the shadowy figure disappearing into the recesses beyond. “He looks—”

“Ugly, isn’t he. But he’s letting you stay. He’ll let anyone stay, so long as we keep quiet and don’t get in his way or cause trouble or nothing. ‘Course if you cause trouble it’s out on your ear, and that’s that, no second chance after that. He doesn’t let anybody come back. In!” She reached around Maevyn, pulling the door to behind them, and then they were standing it utter darkness.

Maevyn felt powerfully aware of that darkness, and of the closeness of the walls behind them, pressing in on them. The claustrophobia of the little alley ways that Else had led her through were no preparation at all for this immolation. Maevyn folded her arms across her chest. She was suddenly furious with herself to find that she was trembling. “What are we waiting for?” she asked brusquely, trying to cover her nervousness.

“Waiting for my eyes to see better. It still takes me a moment,” said Else. “Not that old Uggers, though. I think he’s part rat, way he can move around in the dark. Brr, I don’t like to think of it. Let’s go.” She caught Maevyn’s arm suddenly and Maevyn felt the immediate urge to wrench away, to strike out. But the other girl wasn’t trying to hurt her, she was pulling Maevyn. “Come on, come. I want to show you the room.” And then she was pulling Maevyn this way and that, hurrying her through the dark passage way, then round a sudden bend and through a side-door. Maevyn followed along blindly, helplessly, holding out her free hand to bump and scrape along the wall as they went. It was dirty and irregular, and no help at all in determining her bearings. Else only said that she would know the way by heart soon enough.