I found a thumbtack!
It’s actually always been with me. I’ve just been too dense to appreciate it for what it was. Believe it or not, it was driven through the metal band of my waste bucket. There are four of them, two on each band, to hold them in place. One was loose. After a bit of finagling and a broken fingernail, I worked it out of the wood (my bucket was empty at this point). Now I hold it in my hand, a prize, barely the length of my thumbnail.
Hello, little friend!
Poia came back a while ago, and she was extra surly, barking at Beskin about the smoke in the rafters and the scorpion in the rice jar and the pointless reorganization of the coffee cupboard. From the snippets I could hear, I gather she had some kind of run-in with bandits on the trip, though she clearly came out on top—just after she returned, she had unlocked my door and kicked it open, brandishing an inkwell and sheet of parchment.
“Time for you to sign your name,” she’d said.
“Is this blood on these sheets?” came Beskin’s voice from around the corner.
“Not my blood,” Poia shot back, shoving the materials into my hands. “Anyway, it may work in our favor—who’s to say it’s not hers?”
As I juggled the writing materials she had thrust at me, my gaze had fallen to her feet, planted impatiently before me. One of her trouser legs was rolled up to show a dusty bandage wrapped around her ankle. But it wasn’t the injury that had drawn my attention—it was the edge of a tattoo peeking above the cloth. Two small curved lines, arcing toward each other like parentheses.
My eyes narrowed.
She’d snapped impatiently. “Come on, your name, and make it legible this time.”
I did what she demanded, puckering my lips as I focused on forming the letters. Afterward she whisked the parchment away, grumbling about having to head right back out into the cursed wilderness to deliver the thing on schedule. Her slam of the door toppled my empty bucket, which led me to set it upright and discover the loose edge of the thumbtack poking out of the metal band.
Sitting in my palm, it feels like a weapon.
I think back to the tattoo peeking above the bandage on Poia’s ankle. It’s a mark I haven’t seen since arriving at court—not something a high-ranking noble would flaunt to their colleagues. But I’m not surprised to find it on Poia’s skin, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some of the people on my list of enemies may bear the same ink. I close my fingers on the thumbtack.
What to do with this new information? I wonder.
What to do with my friend, as well?
The bats are flying outside, making the air thick with their chatter and distinct odor. They billow against the deep turquoise sky, a true mokonnsi. Between this and my new prize, my spirits are lighter than they’ve been in weeks. The pain in my body is distant and familiar. Best of all, I have the capability to do something.
To leave a trace.
Carefully, I pinch the thumbtack and press it into the adobe wall. But as I attempt to drag it in a line, the adobe only crumbles. Hm. No good.
I scoot to the cell door. It’s made of wood. I press the point into the grain and drag it. It makes a minuscule scratch. Carefully, I smile. It hurts less now.
The bats wheel outside. I drag the point over the line again.