“Yeth! Yeth. A bargain. I’ll bargain with ya, boy.” Edith scooped up some crackers and dropped them into Stain’s leather pouch. In exchange, Stain offered the mirror. She walked backward on her departure, smiling while Edith whispered to her reflection as if it were an old friend she hadn’t seen for years. When the shopkeeper turned and batted her eyes at Luce, Stain had to suppress a laugh.
After the first trade, it took Stain close to an hour, going from booth to booth, following the strategy she’d laid out. Her second stop was Alyse’s Dairies and Brews, where she bartered with the cow cud crackers for a wheel of cheddar; Alyse’s doe-eyed advisors could hardly tell their owner not to make the trade, for what ruminant beast doesn’t love chewing cud? Next, Stain stopped at Winkle’s. The dwarf had a falling out with Alyse weeks earlier when he’d accused her of smelling like a dairy farm; both she and her heifers were so offended, he could no longer buy cheese there. This posed a unique problem, as his rabbit costume was old and fraying and he’d been patching it up with rat and rodent hides. Having nothing to arm his traps of late, Winkle was eager to take the wheel of cheese in exchange for a handful of anise, which Stain then carried across to Jeremiah, owner of Potions, Elixirs, and Magical Necessities. Amidst shelves stacked with wands, chalices, and cauldrons were bottles of magical liquids. Jeremiah used anise for a special fragrance one could wear to ward off evil eyes and ill thoughts. In a metropolis filled with stinky, angry degenerates, this was a product high in demand. Being a businessman, Winkle had raised the price of anise to an outrageous amount, and Jeremiah had been unable to afford it. He’d run low on supplies and could no longer make the fragrance, which in turn made everyone angry with him. Now, with Stain’s help, he had a supply again, practically for free. He would’ve been a fool not to trade for the plume agate Stain requested. She took the gemstone to Percival’s Frills and Footgear where the bare shelves gathered dust. Having lost his wife to another man months earlier, the artisan had also lost the ability to design new magical accessories. It was rumored he might sell his booth and retire. When Stain presented him with the agate—a stone whose mystical properties were known to boost creativity—Percival instantly had an epiphany for a new line of bronze-spiked necklaces that could double as nooses for unfaithful wives. Thrilled to have his muse back, he handed over the requested pair of shoes without question. Stain basked in her victory. Had Percival known who they were for, he’d probably not have been so agreeable, considering Dregs was the one to introduce Percival’s wife to her new lover in the first place.
Stain flaunted the shoes, dyed the yellow-green of fresh figs, by waving them in Luce’s direction. He was busy with a customer, wrapping up a memory that had been activated by Crony days earlier to form a stained-glass portrait of a child and father on a fishing trip. Still, Luce managed to cast her a sidelong glance and shake his head, reminding her the ultimate prize had yet to be won.
Stain wedged herself in a small space between two stalls, ducking out of the now crowded fairway to slip off her boots. The chartreuse shoes magically conformed to whomever wore them, which meant they’d be as perfect for Dregs’s little feet as they were for hers. She left her own boots hidden in the nook, then tromped three booths down, where a sign, black with silver lettering, welcomed customers: DEEP IN THE NIGHT—DARK CURIOSITIES FOR DAY DWELLERS.
Dregs’s booth was the most morbidly fascinating by far. He sold items smuggled in from Nerezeth: salamanders that once affixed themselves to a wearer’s feet and ankles, forming the most beautiful rainbow-scaled slippers; crickets that once sang chirping symphonies; and shadows that in the night realm followed one’s every move like a second skin. The morbid part was that these things were now dead. People of the day realm didn’t trust the night’s creatures, and wanted them only as empty trophies to place upon a wall or lock within a box for when a visitor needed to be entertained or an enemy to be threatened. Thus, Stain’s challenge: to bargain for a living supply of one of Dregs’s most popular items: moths. He kept them hidden under the counter, waiting to be smothered for fresh displays.
Dregs cocked his head upon seeing her, and the icicle growths upon his chin caught a sparkle of light from the lanterns. “If it isn’t the Stain, here to pull at the reins.”
She nodded in greeting and pointed to the counter, making a downward motion to signify the living items underneath.
Dregs puffed through the long, crooked tip of his nose. “White gold only is currency enough, should you wish to see my breathing stuffs.” He was playing games, knowing that though Luce and Crony had a bevy of stolen wealth hidden away, they rarely spent it.
Narrowing her eyes, Stain stomped the soles of her shoes upon the ground seven times each. In an instant, the soles thickened. Stain’s stomach rocked as she grew taller and taller, until she loomed over the booth, level with the sign at the top. She pointed to a picture of a flying moth painted in silver ink next to the lettering.
Dregs gaped, then clambered atop his step stool to view her feet over the counter.
“Pedestal shoes in the shade of chartreuse . . . how did a boy such as you come by such a coup?”
Stain shrugged, then tapped her toes seven times, deactivating the soles so they shrank and returned her to the proper height. She gestured again beneath his counter.
Dregs salivated, his glossy marble gaze stuck on her feet. “Were I to step within and stand, I could walk as grand as any man.” His sharp-toothed smile split wide open.
The greed in his eyes inspired Stain to raise her price. Luce would be impressed if she could bargain even more from the goblin than originally planned.
She held out two fingers.
Dregs snarled, but she knew she’d won. She took off the shoes and stood barefoot, the onyx walkway slick and warm beneath her bare soles. Dregs grabbed the heels and placed them on his own feet, giddy. After growing tall enough to look Stain in the eye, he withdrew three jars from their hidden spot under the counter. “Three from which to choose. Two is the price of the shoes.”
In one, crickets climbed their glass walls—a black wave clambering atop one another to reach the holes punched in the lid. Crony was always commiserating over missing the sound of cricket songs. Stain couldn’t resist the chance to make her smile, so she pointed to the insects, fully intending to choose the moths as her second option. Dregs waved twiglike fingers over the two remaining jars. Inside one, moths fluttered in a frenzy of activity. Stain started to point to them, but hesitated, intrigued that the final jar was wrapped in black fabric. She peered within a peephole cut in the side, seeing shadows clinging to the opposing edge under the lid.
“Midnight shadows, they are. On hold for the castle afar. The princess requires special attire. I’ll send to Nerezeth for mores, should you claim these as yours.”
Stain had never seen a real shadow—that she could remember. Once, while gardening together, Crony had mentioned their history. After the world split beneath its magical curse, shadows became indentured to moonlight and candlelight, a completely different creature than the patches of darkness here in the ravine. Shade was cast by sunlight, and was the warden of Stain’s prison, for to venture outside of it would burn her alive. Crony had told Stain that one day, she would see shadows for herself and understand the magnitude of their differences, for shadows offered freedom where shade offered only respite.
Stain had always wondered what that meant.
She shot a glance to Luce, who was busy with a line of customers. Taking a deep breath that filled her nose with myriad odors from the milling crowd, she weighed her options. She wanted to pick the moths, not just because Luce specified them, but to save them from being smothered. Yet she had only one choice left.
Luce would be angry, unless she could convince him that midnight shadows, so rare in the day realm, must have more value. With that, her decision became clear. She tapped the cloth-wrapped jar.
Dregs’ frosty eyebrows raised and his shoes lifted him taller so he was looking down on her. “Ah, be you careful with these, if you please. A touch of the sun and they’ll come undone. Tuck them into a dark room where they can loom; light a flame, and they’ll join you in a game.”
Stain nodded a thank-you as he handed over the two jars. Before she could even take a step toward Crony’s booth, a familiar voice shouted inside her mind: Danger. Kill. Fly.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Scorch was in trouble.
Gloved hands trembling, she stuffed the two jars into the pouch slung over her shoulder. In too much a hurry to grab her boots, she sprinted out of the market and scrambled into the trees—her arms and legs straining as she leapt from one branch to another, the fastest mode of travel in the denser parts of the forest—not daring to look back when Luce shouted her name.
14