Everywhere merchants announced their wares in their strange tongue. Lila tried to pick up terms here and there, to pair the shouted words with the items held aloft—cas seemed to mean hot, and lin, she guessed, was a kind of coin—but everything was bright and colorful and humming with power, and she could hardly focus long enough to keep track of anything.
She pulled Kell’s coat tighter about her shoulders and wandered the booths and stalls with hungry eyes. She had no money, but she had quick fingers. She passed a stall marked ESSENIR, and saw within a table piled high with polished stones of every color—not simple reds or blues, but perfect imitations of nature: fire yellow, summer grass green, night blue. The merchant’s back was to her, and she couldn’t help herself.
Lila reached for the nearest charm, a lovely blue-green stone the color of the open sea—at least, the color she imagined it must be, the color she’d seen it painted—with small white marks, like breaking waves. But when her fingers curled around it, a hot pain seared across her skin.
She gasped, more from the shock of being burned than the heat itself, and pulled back sharply, hand singing. Before she could retreat, the merchant caught her by the wrist.
“Kers la?” he demanded. When she didn’t answer—couldn’t answer—he started shouting faster and louder, the words blurring together in her ears.
“Unhand me,” she demanded.
The merchant’s brow furrowed at the sound of her voice. “What you think?” he said, in guttural English. “You get free by speaking fancy?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” snapped Lila. “Now let go.”
“Speak Arnesian. Speak English. Doesn’t matter. Still gast. Still thief.”
“I am not a gast,” growled Lila.
“Viris gast. Fool thief. Tries to steal from enchanted tent.”
“I didn’t know it was enchanted,” countered Lila, reaching for the dagger at her waist.
“Pilse,” growled the merchant, and Lila had a feeling she’d just been insulted. And then the merchant raised his voice. “Strast!” he shouted, and Lila twisted in his grip to see armored guards at the edge of the market. “Strast!” he called again, and one of the men cocked his head and turned toward them.
Shit, thought Lila, wrenching free of the merchant’s grip, only to stumble back into another set of hands. They tightened on her shoulders and she was about to draw her knife when the merchant went pale.
“Mas aven,” he said, hunching forward into a bow.
The hands holding Lila vanished, and she spun to find Kell standing there, frowning his usual frown and staring past her at the merchant.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, and Lila didn’t know which surprised her more: his sudden appearance, the way he spoke to the merchant—his voice cool, dismissive—or the way the merchant looked at him, with a mixture of awe and fear.
Kell’s auburn hair was pushed back, his black eye on display in the red morning light.
“Aven vares. If I knew she was with y-you…” stammered the merchant before lapsing back into Arnesian, or whatever the language was called. Lila was surprised to hear the tongue pour out of Kell’s mouth in response as he tried to calm the merchant. And then she caught that word again, gast, on the merchant’s tongue and lunged for him. Kell hauled her back.
“Enough,” Kell snarled in her ear. “Solase,” he said to the merchant, apologetically. “She’s a foreigner. Uncivilized, but harmless.”
Lila shot him a dark look.
“Anesh, mas vares,” said the merchant, bowing even lower. “Harmful enough to steal…” With his head down, the merchant didn’t see Kell look back over his shoulder at the guard weaving through the market toward them. He didn’t see the way Kell stiffened. But Lila did.
“I will buy whatever she tried to take,” said Kell hastily, digging a hand in the pocket of his coat, unconcerned by the fact Lila was still wearing it.
The merchant straightened and started shaking his head. “An. An. I cannot be taking money from you.”
The guard was getting closer, and Kell clearly didn’t want to be there when he arrived, because he fetched a coin from the coat and set it on the table with a snap.
“For your trouble,” he said, turning Lila away. “Vas ir.”
He didn’t wait for the merchant’s answer, only shoved Lila through the crowd, away from the stall and the guard about to reach it.
“Uncivilized?” growled Lila as Kell clasped her shoulder and guided her out of the market.
“Five minutes!” said Kell, sliding his coat from her shoulders and back onto his own, flicking up the collar. “You can’t keep your hands to yourself for five minutes! Tell me you haven’t already gone and sold off the stone.”
Lila let out an exasperated noise. “Unbelievable,” she snapped as he led her out of the throngs and away from the river, toward one of the narrower streets. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Lila,” she parroted. “Thank God using the stone didn’t rip you into a thousand thieving pieces.”
Kell’s hand loosened on her shoulder. “I can’t believe it worked.”