VI

The Night Spire docked at dusk.

Lila helped tie off the lines and settle the ramps, her attention straying to the dozens of elegant ships that filled the Isle’s banks. The Red London berths were a tangle of energy and people, chaos and magic, laughter and twilight. Despite the February chill, the city radiated warmth. In the distance, the royal palace rose like a second sun over the settling dark.

“Welcome back,” said Alucard, brushing his shoulder against hers as he hauled a chest onto the dock. She started when she saw Esa sitting on top, purple eyes wide, tail flicking.

“Shouldn’t she stay on the boat?” The cat’s ear twitched, and Lila felt that whatever pleasant inclinations the cat was forming toward her, she’d just lost them.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Alucard. “The ship’s no place for a cat.” Lila was about to point out that the cat had been aboard the ship as long as she had when he added, “I believe in keeping my valuables with me.”

Lila perked up. Were cats so precious here? Or rare? She hadn’t ever seen another one, but in the little time she was ashore, she hadn’t exactly been looking. “Oh yeah?”

“I don’t like that look,” Alucard said, twisting chest and cat away.

“What look?” asked Lila innocently.

“The look that says Esa might conveniently go missing if I tell you what she’s worth.” Lila snorted. “But if you must know, she’s only priceless because I keep my heart inside her, so no one can steal it.” He smiled when he said it, but Esa didn’t even blink.

“Is that so?”

“In truth,” he said, setting the chest onto a cart, “she was a gift.”

“From who?” asked Lila before she could catch herself.

Alucard smirked. “Oh, are you suddenly ready to share? Shall we begin trading questions and answers?”

Lila rolled her eyes and went to help the men haul more chests ashore. A couple of hands would stay with the Spire, while the rest took up at an inn. The cart loaded, Alucard presented his papers to a guard in gleaming armor, and Lila let her gaze wander over the other ships. Some were intricate, others simple, but all were, in their way, impressive.

And then, two boats down, she saw a figure descend from an Arnesian rig. A woman. And not the kind Lila knew to frequent ships. She was dressed in trousers and a collarless coat, a sword slung on a belt at her waist.

The woman began to make her way down the dock toward the Spire, and there was something animal about the way she moved. Prowled. She was taller than Lila, taller than Alucard for that matter, with features as pointed as a fox’s and a mane—there was no better word for it—of wild auburn hair, large chunks not braided exactly but twisted around themselves so she looked half lion and half snake. Perhaps Lila should have felt threatened, but she was too busy being awestruck.

“Now there’s a captain not to cross,” Alucard whispered in her ear.

“Alucard Emery,” said the woman when she reached them. Her voice had a slight sea rasp, and her Arnesian was full of edges. “Haven’t seen you on London land in quite a while. Here for the tournament, I assume.”

“You know me, Jasta. Can’t turn down the chance to make a fool of myself.”

She chuckled, a sound like rusted bells. “Some things never change.”

He flashed a mock frown. “Does that mean you won’t be betting on me?”

“I’ll see if I can spare a few coins,” she said. And with that, Jasta continued on, weapons chiming like coins.

Alucard leaned on Lila. “Word of advice, Bard. Never challenge that one to a drinking contest. Or a sword fight. Or anything you might lose. Because you will.”

But Lila was barely listening. She couldn’t tear her gaze from Jasta as the woman stalked away down the docks, a handful of wolfish men falling in step behind her.

“I’ve never seen a female captain.”

“Not many in Arnes proper, but it’s a big world,” said Alucard. “It’s more common where she’s from.”

“And where’s that?”

“Jasta? She’s from Sonal. Eastern side of the empire. Up against the Veskan edge, which is why she looks…”

“Larger than life.”

“Exactly. And don’t you go looking for a new rig. If you’d pulled the stunt you did to get onto her ship, she would have cut your throat and dumped you overboard.”

Lila smiled. “Sounds like my kind of captain.”

*   *   *

“Here we are,” said Alucard when they reached the inn.

The name of the place was Is Vesnara Shast, which translated to The Wandering Road. What Lila didn’t know, not until she saw Lenos’s unease, was that the Arnesian word for road—shast—was the same as the word for soul. She found the alternate name a bit unsettling, and the inn’s atmosphere did nothing to ease the feeling.

It was a crooked old structure—she hadn’t noticed, in her short time in Red London last fall, that most of the buildings felt new—that looked like boxes stacked rather haphazardly on top of each other. It actually reminded her a bit of her haunts back in Grey London. Old stones beginning to settle, floors beginning to slouch.

The main room was crammed with tables, each of which in turn was crammed with Arnesian sailors, and most appeared well in their cups, despite the fact it was barely sundown. A single hearth burned on the far wall, a wolfhound stretched in front, but the room was stuffy from bodies.

“Living the life of luxury, aren’t we?” grumbled Stross.

“We’ve got beds,” said Tav, ever the optimist.

“Are we sure about that?” asked Vasry.

“Did someone replace my hardened crew with a bunch of whining children?” chided Alucard. “Shall I go find you a teat to gnaw on, Stross?”

The first mate grumbled but said nothing more as the captain handed out the keys. Four men to a room. But despite the cramped quarters, and the fact that the inn looked like it was far exceeding capacity, Alucard had managed to snare a room of his own.

“Captain’s privilege,” he said.

As for Lila, she was bunked with Vasry, Tav, and Lenos.

The group dispersed, hauling their chests up to their chambers. The Wandering Road was, as the name suggested, wandering, a tangled mess of halls and stairs that seemed to defy several laws of nature at once. Lila wondered if there was some kind of spell on the inn, or if it was simply peculiar. It was the kind of place where you could easily get lost, and she could only imagine it got more confusing as the night and drink wore on. Alucard called it eccentric.

Her room had four bodies, but only two beds.

“This’ll be cozy,” said Tav.

“No,” said Lila in decisive, if broken, Arnesian. “I don’t share beds—”

“Tac?” teased Vasry, dropping his chest on the floor. “Surely we can work something ou—”

“—because I have a habit of stabbing people in my sleep,” she finished coolly.

Vasry had the decency to pale a little.

“Bard can have a bed,” said Tav. “I’ll take the floor. And Vasry, what are the odds of you actually spending your nights here with us?”

Vasry batted his long, black lashes. “A point.”

So far, Lenos had said nothing. Not when they got their key, not when they climbed the stairs. He hugged the wall, obviously unnerved to be sharing quarters with the Sarows. Tav was the most resilient, but if she played her cards right, she could probably have the room to herself by tomorrow.

It wasn’t a bad room. It was roughly the same size as her cabin, which was roughly the same size as a closet, but when she looked out the narrow window, she could see the city, and the river, and the palace arcing over it.

And the truth was, it felt good to be back.

She pulled on her gloves, and a cap, and dug a parcel out of her chest before heading out. She closed the door just as Alucard stepped out of a room across the hall. Esa’s white tail curled around his boot.

“Where are you off to?” he asked.

“Night Market.”

He raised a sapphire-studded brow. “Barely back on London soil, and already off to spend your coins?”

“What can I say?” said Lila evenly. “I’m in need of a new dress.”

Alucard snorted but didn’t press the issue, and though he trailed her down to the stairs, he didn’t follow her out.

For the first time in months, Lila was truly alone. She drew a breath and felt her chest loosen as she cast off Bard, the best thief aboard the Night Spire, and became simply a stranger in the thickening dark.

She passed several scrying boards advertising the Essen Tasch, white chalk dancing across the black surface as it spelled out details about the various ceremonies and celebrations. A couple of children hovered around the edges of a puddle, freezing and unfreezing it. A Veskan man lit a pipe with a snap of his fingers. A Faroan woman somehow changed the color of her scarf simply by running it through her fingers.

Wherever Lila looked, she saw signs of magic.

Out on the water, it was a strange enough sight—not as strange as it would have been in Grey London, of course—but here, it was everywhere. Lila had forgotten the way Red London glittered with it, and the more time she spent here, the more she realized that Kell really didn’t belong. He didn’t fit in with the clashes of color, the laughter and jostle and sparkle of magic. He was too understated.

This was a place for performers. And that suited Lila just fine.

It wasn’t late, but winter darkness had settled over the city by the time she neared the Night Market. The stretch of stalls along the bank seemed to glow, lit not only by the usual lanterns and torches, but by pale spheres of light that followed the market-goers wherever they went. At first, it looked like they themselves were glowing, not head to toe, but from their core, as if their very life force had suddenly become visible. The effect was unsettling, hundreds of tiny lights burning against cloak fronts. But as she drew closer, she realized the light was coming from something in their hands.

“Palm fire?” asked a man at the mouth of the market, holding up a glass sphere filled with pale light. It was just warm enough to fog the air around its edges.

“How much?”

“Four lin.”

It wasn’t cheap, but her fingers were chilled, even with the gloves, and she was fascinated by the sphere, so she paid the man and took the orb, marveling at the soft, diffuse heat that spread through her hands and up her arms.

She cradled the palm fire, smiling despite herself. The market air still smelled of flowers, but also of burning wood, and cinnamon, and fruit. She’d been such an outsider last fall—she was still an outsider, of course, but now she knew enough to cover it. Jumbled letters that had meant nothing to her months before now began to form words. When the merchants called out their wares, she could glean their meaning, and when the music seemed to take shape on the air, as if by magic, she knew that was exactly what it was, and the thought didn’t set her off balance. If anything, she’d felt off balance all her life, and now her feet were firmly planted.

Most people wandered from stall to stall, sampling mulled wine and skewered meat, fondling velvet-lined hoods and magical tokens, but Lila walked with her head up, humming to herself as she wove between the tents and stalls toward the other end of the market. There would be time to wander later, but right now, she had an errand.

Down the bank, the palace loomed like a low red moon. And there, sandwiched between two other tents at the far edge of the market, near the palace steps, she found the stall she was looking for.

The last time she’d been here, she hadn’t been able to read the sign mounted above the entrance. Now she knew enough Arnesian to decipher it.

IS POSTRAN.

The Wardrobe.

Simple, but clever—just as in English, the word postran referred both to clothing and the place where it was kept.

Tiny bells had been threaded through the curtain of fabric that served as a door, and they rang softly as Lila pushed the cloth aside. Stepping into the stall was like crossing the threshold into a well-warmed house. Lanterns burned in the corners, emitting not only rosy light, but a glorious amount of heat. Lila scanned the tent. Once the back wall had been covered with faces, but now it was lined with winter things—hats, scarves, hoods, and a few accessories that seemed to merge all three.

A round woman, her brown hair wrestled into a braided bun, knelt before one of the tables, reaching for something beneath.

“An esto,” she called at the sound of the bells, then muttered quiet curses at whatever had escaped. “Aha!” she said at last, shoving a bauble back into her pocket before pushing to her feet. “Solase,” she said, brushing herself off as she turned. “Kers…” But then she trailed off, and burst into a smile.

It had been four months since Lila had stepped into Calla’s tent to admire the masks along the wall. Four months since the merchant woman had given her a devil’s face, and a coat, and a pair of boots, the beginnings of a new identity. A new life.

Four months, but Calla’s eyes lit up instantly with recognition. “Lila,” she said, stretching out the i into several es.

“Calla,” said Lila. “As esher tan ves.”

I hope you are well.

The woman smiled. “Your Arnesian,” she said in English, “it is improving.”

“Not fast enough,” said Lila. “Your High Royal is impeccable as always.”

“Tac,” she chided, smoothing the front of her dark apron.

Lila felt a peculiar warmth toward the woman, a fondness that should have made her nervous, but she couldn’t bring herself to smother the feeling.

“You have been gone.”

“At sea,” answered Lila.

“You have docked along with half the world, it seems,” said Calla, crossing to the front of her stall and fastening the curtain shut. “And just in time for the Essen Tasch.”

“It’s not a coincidence.”

“You come to watch, then,” she said.

“My captain is competing,” answered Lila.

Calla’s eyes widened. “You sail with Alucard Emery?”

“You know of him?”

Calla shrugged. “Reputations, they are loud things.” She waved her hand in the air, as if dismissing smoke. “What brings you to my stall? Time for a new coat? Green perhaps, or blue. Black is out of fashion this winter.”

“I hardly care,” said Lila. “You’ll never part me from my coat.”

Calla chuckled and ran a questing finger along Lila’s sleeve. “It’s held up well enough.” And then she tutted. “Saints only know what you’ve been doing in it. Is that a knife tear?”

“I snagged it on a nail,” she lied.

“Tac, Lila, my work is not so fragile.”

“Well,” she conceded, “it might have been a small knife.”

Calla shook her head. “First storming castles, and now fighting on the seas. You are a very peculiar girl. Anesh, Master Kell is a peculiar boy, so what do I know.”

Lila colored at the implication. “I have not forgotten my debt,” she said. “I’ve come to pay it.” With that, she produced a small wooden box. It was an elegant thing, inlaid with glass. Inside, the box was lined with black silk, and divided into basins. One held fire pearls, another a spool of silver wire, violet stone clasps and tiny gold feathers, delicate as down. Calla drew in a small, sharp breath at the treasure.

“Mas aven,” she whispered. And then she looked up. “Forgive me for asking, but I trust no one will come looking for these?” There was surprisingly little judgment in the question. Lila smiled.

“If you know of Alucard Emery, then you know he sails a royal ship. These were confiscated from a vessel on our waters. They were mine, and now they are yours.”

Calla’s short fingers trailed over the trinkets. And then she closed the lid, and tucked the box away. “They are too much,” she said. “You will have a credit.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Lila. “Because I’ve come to ask a favor.”

“It’s not a favor if you’ve purchased and paid. What can I do?”

Lila reached into her coat and pulled out the black mask Calla had given her months before, the one that had solidified her nickname of Sarows. It was worn by salt air and months of use; cracks traced across the black leather, the horns had lost some of their upward thrust, and the cords that fastened it were in danger of breaking.

“What on earth have you been doing with this?” chided Calla, her lips pursing with something like motherly disapproval.

“Will you mend it?”

Calla shook her head. “Better to start fresh,” she said, setting the mask aside.

“No,” insisted Lila, reaching for it. “I’m fond of this one. Surely you can reinforce it.”

“For what?” asked Calla archly. “Battle?”

Lila chewed her lip, and the merchant seemed to read the answer. “Tac, Lila, there is eccentricity, and there is madness. You cannot mean to compete in the Essen Tasch.”

“What?” teased Lila. “Is it unladylike?”

Calla sighed. “Lila, when we first met, I gave you your pick of all my wares, and you chose a devil’s mask and a man’s coat. This has nothing to do with what is proper, it’s only that it’s dangerous. Anesh, so are you.” She said it as though it were a compliment, albeit a grudging one. “But you are not on the roster.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Lila with a smirk.

Calla started to protest, and then stopped herself and shook her head. “No, I do not want to know.” She stared down at the devil’s mask. “I should not help you with this.”

“You don’t have to,” said Lila. “I could find someone else.”

“You could,” said Calla, “but they wouldn’t be as good.”

“Nowhere near as good,” insisted Lila.

Calla sighed. “Stas reskon,” she murmured. It was a phrase Lila had heard before. Chasing danger.

Lila smiled, thinking of Barron. “A friend once told me that if there was trouble to be found, I’d find it.”

“We would be friends, then, your friend and I.”

“I think you would,” said Lila, her smile faltering. “But he is gone.”

Calla set the mask aside. “Come back in two days. I will see what I can do.”

“Rensa tav, Calla.”

“Do not thank me yet, strange girl.”

Lila turned to go, but hesitated when she reached the curtain. “I have only just returned,” she said carefully, “so I’ve not had time to ask after the princes.” She glanced back. “How are they?”

“Surely you can go and see for yourself.”

“I can’t,” said Lila. “That is, I shouldn’t. Kell and I, what we had … it was a temporary arrangement.”

The woman gave her a look that said she didn’t believe that, not as far as she could throw it. Lila assumed that was the end of things, so she turned again, but Calla said, “He came to me, after you were gone. Master Kell.”

Lila’s eyes widened. “What for?”

“To pay the debt for your clothes.”

Her mood darkened. “I can pay my own debts,” she snapped, “and Kell knows it.”

Calla smiled. “That is what I told him. And he went away. But a week later, he came back, and made the same offer. He comes every week.”

“Bastard,” mumbled Lila, but the merchant shook her head.

“Don’t you see?” said Calla. “He wasn’t coming to pay your debt. He was coming to see if you’d returned to pay it yourself.” Lila felt her face go hot. “I do not know why you two are circling each other like stars. It is not my cosmic dance. But I do know that you come asking after one another, when only a few strides and a handful of stairs divide you.”

“It’s complicated,” said Lila.

“As esta narash,” she murmured to herself, and Lila now knew enough to know what she said. All things are.