Lila looked the mask in the eyes. “No,” she said. “I think it’s perfect.”
And then Lila turned the mask over and saw a string of numbers that must have been the price. It wasn’t written in shillings or pounds, but Lila was sure that, regardless of the kind of coin, she couldn’t afford it. Reluctantly, she returned the mask to its hook.
“Why set it back, if it is perfect?” pressed the woman.
Lila sighed. She would have stolen it had the merchant not been standing there. “I don’t have any money,” she said, thrusting a hand into her pocket. She felt the silver of the watch and swallowed. “But I do have this.…” She pulled the timepiece from her pocket and held it out, hoping the woman wouldn’t notice the blood (she’d tried to wipe most of it off).
But the woman only shook her head. “An, an,” she said, folding Lila’s fingers back over the watch. “I cannot take your payment. No matter its shape.”
Lila’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand—”
“I saw you this morning. In the market.” Lila’s thoughts turned back to the scene, to her almost being arrested for stealing. But the woman wasn’t speaking of the theft. “You and Master Kell, you are … friends, yes?”
“Of a sort,” said Lila, blushing when that drew a secretive smile from the woman. “No,” she amended, “No, I don’t mean…” But the woman simply patted her hand.
“Ise av eran,” she said lightly. “It’s not my place to”—she paused, searching for a word—“pry. But Master Kell is aven—blessed—a jewel in our city’s crown. And if you are his, or he is yours, my shop is yours as well.”
Lila cringed. She hated charity. Even when people thought they were giving something freely, it always came with a chain, a weight that set everything off-balance. Lila would rather steal a thing outright than be indebted to kindness. But she needed the clothes.
The woman seemed to read the hesitation in her eyes. “You are not from here, so you do not know. Arnesians pay their debts in many ways. Not all of them with coin. I need nothing from you now, so you will pay me back another time, and in your own way. Yes?”
Lila hesitated. And then bells began to ring in the palace, loud enough to echo through her, and she nodded. “Very well,” she said.
The merchant smiled. “Ir chas,” she said. “Now, let us find you something fitting.”
*
“Hmm.” The merchant woman—who called herself Calla—chewed her lip. “Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer something with a corset? Or a train?”
Calla had tried to lead Lila to a rack of dresses, but her eyes had gone straight to the men’s coats. Glorious things, with strong shoulders and high collars and gleaming buttons.
“No,” said Lila, lifting one from the rack. “This is exactly what I want.”
The merchant looked at her with strange fascination, but little—or, at the very least, well-concealed—judgment, and said, “Anesh. If you’re set on that direction, I will find you some boots.”
A few minutes later, Lila found herself in a curtained corner of the tent, holding the nicest clothes she’d ever touched, let alone owned. Borrowed, she corrected herself. Borrowed until paid for.
Lila pulled the artifacts from her various pockets—the black stone, the white rook, the bloodstained silver watch, the invitation—and set them on the floor before tugging off her boots and shrugging out of her old worn cloak. Calla had given her a new black tunic—it fit so well that she wondered if there was some kind of tailoring spell on it—and a pair of close-fitting pants that still hung a little loosely on her bony frame. She’d insisted on keeping her belt, and Calla had the decency not to gawk at the number of weapons threaded through it as she handed her the boots.
Every pirate needed a good pair of boots, and these were gorgeous things, sculpted out of black leather and lined with something softer than loose cotton, and Lila let out a rare gleeful sound as she pulled them on. And then there was the coat. It was an absolute dream, high-collared and lovely and black—true black, velvety and rich—with a fitted waist and a built-in half-cloak that gathered at glassy red clasps on either side of her throat and spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Lila ran her fingers admiringly over the glossy jet-black buttons that cascaded down its front. She’d never been one for baubles and fineries, never wanted anything more than salt air and a solid boat and an empty map, but now that she was standing in a foreign stall in a faraway land, clothed in rich fabrics, she was beginning to see the appeal.