“Tokens,” he said, holding out a hand.
The first man toed their trunk. “We’re selling, not buying.”
But the steward of the ship only shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
The third man understood. This wasn’t just a doorway. The entrance to the Ferase Stras was a threshold, and all good thresholds demanded a price. A cost to board the market, a payment for simply setting foot among its wares. And according to the tales, nothing so common as coin would do. You had to part with something special, to add to Maris’s collection.
They’d docked earlier at Sasenroche for just that purpose.
The first man held out a piece of paper, bound with ribbon. It was a page from a book that once belonged in Black London.
The second man produced a pencil, its core filled with powdered blood instead of charcoal, and spelled to write only truths.
When it was his turn, the third man reached into his pocket, fingers tracing the cool rim of the glass before drawing it out. It was a disc, roughly the size of his palm. He’d spent the last hours of the trip, from the black market to this one, staring into its surface.
It was spelled to answer only one question: Am I going to die today?
When the glass turned black, the answer was yes.
He didn’t want to part with the token—felt deeply that it was meant to be his—but told himself if that was true, it would find its way back.
Powerful objects had a way of doing that.
As he held it up one last time, he asked the question in his mind, and sighed in relief when the glass stayed clear.
Of course he wouldn’t die, he thought.
This was his story, after all.
He watched as the three tokens vanished in Katros Patrol’s white linen sleeve. And then the door to the floating market was swinging wide, ushering them into their fate.
* * *
The room was dim, and cluttered with cabinets. Items gleamed from every shelf, the only clean surface a broad wooden desk, beside which stood a large black sphere, though whether it was made of glass or stone he couldn’t tell. It sat in its stand like a globe, but its surface was as smooth and blank as the maps that led to the Ferase Stras.
The third man glimpsed a mask, a lovely piece of molten silver, on a mantle, and his fingers twitched with longing.
“Where is the captain?” asked the first man, eyeing the empty desk.
“She will come when she is needed,” said Katros, leading them through the office door, and out onto the decks. There they found Maris’s other nephew, Valick, leaning against the mast, dressed in the same unblemished white—so out of place amid the salt and grime of the sea—and either he did not drink or he had a stronger constitution, because he seemed hale and steady, untouched by the savarin.
The other two men carried the trunk, its contents rattling, but the third gazed around, in awe, at the maze of corridors and rooms, stairs and tents, that rose like a miniature city around the deck. He drifted to an alcove, where a cane lay within a glass case, its polished bronze head in the shape of a crow. There was no spellwork written on its surface, but its beauty was hypnotic.
“What does it do?”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud, not until the faces turned.
“If you don’t know,” said Valick, “then it isn’t meant for you.” He turned back to the other two men. “Have you come to trade, or sell?”
“That depends,” said the first man, “whether you have what we’re looking for.”
“And what would that be?” asked Katros, stepping forward.
The second man produced a folded slip of paper, on which the object was drawn. It was roughly the size of a child’s element set, and did not look like much, but then, neither did a fruit knife, and it could still cut deep enough to kill.
Katros studied the drawing a moment, then shook his head. “We do not have this here.”
He was lying.
The young man who had been the merchant’s son cracked his knuckles, the agreed-upon signal, and the other two heard.
“Then I suppose,” said the first, who had styled himself the leader, “we’re only here to sell.”
“That assumes we want to buy,” said Katros, nodding at the trunk. “Show us what you have.”
“Of course.” He knelt before the trunk and freed the lock.
The second man slid aside the clasps, and lifted the lid.
The third watched as the trunk fell open to reveal a pile of fabric. Not silk or velvet but heavy cloth, the color of a forest canopy at dusk. A cloak. It did not look like much, but then, of course, all stories were full of powerful artifacts and objects that had been disguised as common fare.
“It’s designed to shield the wearer against magic,” said the first, drawing the cloth from the trunk, and settling it around his own shoulders. “Let me show you how it works.”
Valick frowned. “The ship is spelled.”
“Ah,” countered the man, “but there’s one kind of spell that still works, even here.” A cool smile. “The wards.”
The words landed like a fuse. It burned across Valick’s face, lit in Katros’s still-drugged eyes as the two stewards of the Ferase Stras realized what they meant to do next.
The second man had already reached down into the trunk, fingers curling around the blade he’d hidden beneath the cloak. He sent the weapon flying. It sliced through the air, burying itself in Valick Patrol’s chest. Katros roared and flung himself at the attacker, and the two went down on the deck, while the first of the thieves took off, vanishing into the maze of rooms.
The third one scrambled over to the open trunk, but a hand caught his foot and he fell to the deck.
Valick lay gasping, blood spilling between his fingers and his teeth, the white of his tunic stained red around the blade buried in his ribs, but his free hand was a vise around the young man’s ankle.
“You will die,” snarled the steward.
“Not today,” he said, channeling the voice of a pirate, and kicking free. But Katros had gained the upper hand in his own fight, and slammed the second thief back into the mast. The whole ship shook with the force of it, and as his attacker slumped to the deck, Katros turned on him.
The third man threw out his hand, intending to call a gust of wind—forgetting the ship would not allow it. No wall of air rose up to stop the advancing storm of Katros Patrol. If the steward had been well, if there had been no gash to his temple, no savarin coursing through his veins, the glass disk would surely have turned black when he had asked if he would die that day. But Katros was unsteady on his feet, and he was sober and quick, and desperate to be a hero.
He danced backward, drawing a sword from the trunk’s depths and slashing out, too wide. He swung again, and this time Katros’s arm came up to block the blow. The blade slashed down, and he expected to feel the meaty give of flesh, but steel rang against steel as the white linen parted to reveal a metal bracer.
The third man turned the blade and slashed again, up toward Katros’s face, and to his horror, the steward of the Ferase Stras caught the sword. A thick palm clapped against the flat side of the blade, and a second later it was torn from the third man’s grip, and turned against him.
He twisted out of its path, or tried, but he felt the edge bite through his shirt, carving a shallow line across his ribs, and he had just enough time to register the searing heat, the fact Olik never seemed to feel pain in the throes of battle—
And then Katros hit him. Hard.
His vision went white, then red, blood pouring from his nose as he fell back to the deck. Pain rang through his head and blurred his sight, and despite the chaos breaking out aboard the floating market, the former merchant’s son found himself insulted.
There were rules, he wanted to say. It was an affront to use one’s hands, to strike someone with bare flesh instead of fire or water or earth.