‘Huh.’ The woman lifted her chin, attempting defiance. ‘That’s all very well, missus, but my business is those bloody herbs your giant bloody bat is stamping all over.’
Agent Lin looked back. Gull was busily nosing around in the far corner of the garden, huffing to itself. Ignoring the woman and her look of outrage, Agent Lin approached the bat and pushed his big head away from the earth. Splattered across the top of the thin layer of mud was a dried streak of bat guano, white and chalky in the dim light. Just next to it was a tomato plant, which was missing most of its fruit, and looked like it had been enthusiastically chewed on. She kicked at the guano with her boot, watching as it broke up into crumbling pieces. It was a few days old at least.
‘The girl was here, then.’ Agent Lin straightened up and turned back to the woman, who was watching her with her arms crossed over her chest. ‘You own a tavern?’
‘You’re standing on it. The Frog and Bluebell. The ale’s not bad but we do decent pies, which is what them herbs are for.’
‘Any unusual visitors lately? A young woman, travelling alone, nervous?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’ The woman’s face suggested that she could have an entire tavern full of nervous young women travelling alone and she wouldn’t breathe a word of it to her.
Agent Lin turned away and looked across the city. Without another word, she walked back to Gull and climbed into the saddle, twitching the reins so that the bat tramped around in a circle twice before reaching the edge of the roof. She looked back, seeing with satisfaction that the plants were squashed into the mud, and then they took off.
Dawn had turned the sea to the south a beaten silver grey by the time they had found what they were looking for. Fresh guano, no more than half a day old, streaked across the balcony on the top floor of an expansive inn. The owner was already up, baking bread for his guests’ breakfast, but his face was a closed book, and he would tell her nothing but generalities. Frustrating, perhaps, but his silence told her more than he could know: he had been paid to be quiet, and that was significant enough in itself. She had excused herself and hung around the alley behind the inn until the midday sun was high in the cloudless sky, and listened to the staff arriving for the day. As well as learning that Rufio had been out all night and had lost his shirt playing cards, and that Sara had a new bag of akaris ready for her week off, she also heard that one of their most eccentric guests had packed up her things and left, taking with her the Eboran bodyguard – the women took pains to describe his extreme beauty and to speculate on his prowess in bed – and a young woman who wore an unfashionable hat and didn’t speak much. She was new, apparently.
Lin took the silver whistle from inside her tunic and summoned Gull. Within moments they were back in the air, northern Mushenska falling below them. The eccentric woman, one Lady de Grazon, was considered eccentric for her interest in the worm people, and because she had invested an outrageous amount of money in the winnowline, which the maids of the inn distrusted, partly because one of the engines had exploded not more than a moon’s cycle ago, killing fifteen people. De Grazon had her own carriage on the contraption.
Gull circled around, and the lands north of Mushenska came into view, hazing into purple hills in the far distance. The land was dark with the Wild, and dividing it like a long silver spike was the winnowline. The bright midday sun caught it and danced along its edge, almost like a message from Tomas himself. Agent Lin smiled to herself. As if she believed in that old fraud.
Touching her hand to her side, where her pack sloshed with water and supplies, Agent Lin considered her options. Fell-Noon wasn’t in Mushenska any more, she was fairly sure of that. It was the first place you might go on escaping the Winnowry – the nearest city, the closest place to get a hot meal – but if you were on the run, Agent Lin thought it unlikely that you would stay. You could attempt to lose yourself in the streets, perhaps, hope that your ‘talent’ was never noticed, and lead a quiet life. Or would you try to get as far away as possible? How far would you have to go before the Winnowry stopped chasing you? Sarn was very big, after all. Perhaps there was such a place.
But then, Agent Lin was a patient woman. She guided Gull up into the clear sky, the corpse moon hanging ghoulish to their right, and she began to follow the winnowline north.
20
My dearest Marin,
I have had several angry letters from your mother. She seems to think this latest idea of yours is my fault. Don’t worry, I assured her that you are quite capable of coming up with your own dangerous nonsense and don’t have to borrow any from me at all.
Even so, she is insisting that I write to you and tell you not to go. Obviously, my darling, I’m not going to tell you to do that. But I will tell you, quite firmly, with that look in my eye (you know the look) that you must research the expedition company thoroughly, preferably talking to customers who have made the journey previously. If you are unsure of them at all, go elsewhere. However well armed they are, take your own weapons, and keep your own supply of rations with you at all times. I know full well these ominous instructions will only add to your excitement, which is why you are my favourite nephew, but do keep this in mind, Marin: the Wild is more dangerous, and far stranger, than you could ever know. Our small patch of it in the vine forest is tame in comparison to what I’ve seen in my travels – don’t be swayed into complacency. And if you should see anything freakishly worm-touched write to me about it immediately.
Extract from the private letters of Master Marin de Grazon, from Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon
Beyond the carriage window the tall grasses were a ghostly grey, like sea foam at night. Until he’d left Ebora, Tormalin had never seen the sea – it had been one of the first things he’d done, and he’d never tired of it. Even this, the grasses seen at night from a speeding carriage with the dark presence of the Wild beyond them, was something he could never have experienced at home. All that was waiting for him at home were bad memories and a slow death. It was important to remember that. He turned away from the window.
‘Do we have any food here?’
Vintage was sitting at the long table, her legs stretched across an adjacent chair and a book on her lap. She waved a hand vaguely at the corner.
‘There’s dried meat and bread in one of the packs. Some fruit too.’
‘I mean real food. Hot food. Food with sauce and gravy and cream.’
The witch was sitting in the corner at the back of the carriage, her knees drawn up to her chest and her new black coat wrapped around her, the hat pulled down low over her forehead. She met his eyes and raised a single eyebrow.