“Don’t sound so excited,” shot Lila drily.
Kell came to a stop and turned her toward him. “I’m not,” he said. His blue eye looked troubled, his black unreadable. “I’m glad you’re unhurt, Lila, but the doors between worlds are meant to be locked to all but Antari, and the fact that the stone granted you passage only proves how dangerous it is. And every moment it’s here, in my world, I’m terrified.”
Lila found her eyes going to the ground. “Well, then,” she said. “Let’s get it out of here.”
A small grateful smile crossed Kell’s lips. And then Lila dug the stone out of her pocket and held it up, and Kell let out a dismayed sound and swallowed her hand with his, hiding the stone from sight. Something flickered through his eyes when he touched her, but she didn’t think it was her touch that moved him. The stone gave a strange little shudder in her hand, as if it felt Kell and wanted to be with him. Lila felt vaguely insulted.
“Sanct!” he swore at her. “Just hold it up for all to see, why don’t you.”
“I thought you wanted it back!” she shot back, exasperated. “There’s no winning with you.”
“Just keep it,” he hissed. “And for king’s sake, keep it out of sight.”
Lila shoved it back into her cloak and said a very many unkind things under her breath.
“And on the topic of language,” said Kell, “you cannot speak so freely here. English is not a common tongue.”
“I noticed that. Thanks for the warning.”
“I told you the worlds would be different. But you’re right, I should have warned you. Here English is a tongue used by the elite, and those who wish to mingle with them. Your very use of it will cause you to stand out.”
Lila’s eyes narrowed. “What would you have me do? Not speak?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Kell. Lila scowled. “But as I doubt that’s possible for you, I’d ask that you simply keep your voice down.” He smiled, and Lila smiled back, resisting the urge to break his nose.
“Now that that’s settled…” He turned to go.
“Pilse,” she grumbled, hoping it meant something foul indeed as she fell into step behind him.
II
Aldus Fletcher was not an honest man.
He ran a pawnshop in an alley by the docks, and each day, men came off the boats, some with things they wanted, others with things they wanted to be rid of. Fletcher provided for both. And for the locals, too. It was a truth widely known in the darker corners of Red London that Fletcher’s shop was the place for anything you shouldn’t have.
Now and again honest folk wandered in, of course, wanting to find or dispose of smoking pipes and instruments, scrying boards and rune stones and candlesticks, and Fletcher didn’t mind padding the shop with their wares as well, in case the royal guard came to inspect. But his true trade lay in risk and rarity.
A smooth stone panel hung on the wall beside the counter, big as a window but black as pitch. On its surface, white smoke shifted and shimmered and spread itself like chalk, announcing the full itinerary of the prince’s birthday celebrations. An echo of Rhy’s smiling face ghosted itself on the scrying board above the notice. He beamed and winked as beneath his throat the message hovered:
The king and queen invite
you to celebrate the prince’s
twentieth year on the palace steps
following the annual parade.
After a few seconds, the message and the prince’s face both dissolved and, for a moment, the scrying board went dark, then came back to life and began to cycle through a handful of other announcements.
“Erase es ferase?” rumbled Fletcher in his deep voice. Coming or going?
The question was lobbed at a boy—and he was a boy, the stumble of his first beard growing patchily in—who stood considering a table of trinkets by the door. Coming meant a buyer, going meant a seller.
“Neither,” murmured the boy. Fletcher kept an eye on the youth’s wandering hands, but he wasn’t too worried; the shop was warded against thieving. It was a slow day, and Fletcher almost wished the boy would try. He could use a little entertainment. “Just looking,” he added nervously.
Fletcher’s shop didn’t usually get lookers. People came with a purpose. And they had to make that purpose known. Whatever the boy was after, he didn’t want it badly enough to say.
“You let me know,” said Fletcher, “if you can’t find what it is you’re looking for.”
The boy nodded, but kept cheating glances at Fletcher. Or rather, at Fletcher’s arms, which were resting on the counter. The air outside was heavy for a morning so late in the harvest season (one might have thought that, given his clientele, the shop would run thieves’ hours, dusk till dawn, but Fletcher had found that the best crooks knew how to play off crime as casual), and Fletcher had his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing a variety of marks and scars on his sun-browned forearms. Fletcher’s skin was a map of his life. And a hard-lived life at that.
“S’true what they say?” the boy finally asked.