As Hasari.
Two words he had said a hundred times, to heal the sick, undo a mortal wound. What a simple thing it would have been, to mend a shoulder.
Lila would have done it, of course, if he had asked.
Instead, Kell drew two bottles from the cabinet beneath.
The first he brought to his lips, drinking long and deep. The second he used to douse a cloth. The sharp smell filled his head, and then the narrow room. As he pressed the cloth to his shoulder, the pain flared, bright enough to steal his breath, and he clenched his teeth against it, but in moments, the bleeding had stopped, and he said a silent apology to his brother as he threaded a needle, and adjusted the light, and leaned toward the mirror.
As the barb bit into his skin, he forced his mind back to the fight on the Crow. With every pierce, every tug, every tightened stitch, he counted his missteps, his mistakes, reliving every motion until the fight was burned into his memory, and he was certain that next time, he wouldn’t forget.
XI
Somehow, the second drink Lila ordered looked even worse than the first.
It was the color of oil and the texture of silt, and when she lifted the glass to the low tavern light, it was like staring at paint. She brought the glass absently to her lips, was even about to take a questing sip when a nearby voice interrupted.
“Wouldn’t do that.”
Lila glanced up to find a woman on the other side of her table, dark hair bundled up into a crown. Her eyes glittered in the tavern light, and when she smiled, only her lips moved, drawing taut over her teeth.
“Let me guess,” said Lila dryly. “It’s poisoned.”
“Might as well be,” said the woman, dropping down into a chair as if invited. Her gaze went, almost immediately, to the weapon Lila had left out on the wood.
“That,” said the stranger, “is a very nice knife.”
“I know,” said Lila. “Worth the ship I sank to get it.”
“Ah, a pirate, then.”
“A captain.”
The woman glanced around. “And your crew?”
Lila didn’t know if she was being threatened or wooed. “Minding their own business.”
The woman didn’t take the hint.
“Tanis,” she said, by way of introduction. She waited for Lila to give her name. Lila didn’t.
“What do you want, Tanis?”
The woman leaned back in her chair, studying Lila. “You’re not from here.” Lila said nothing, and Tanis went on. “Most people aren’t. They’re just passing through, they don’t know how the city works.” Tanis spread her hands. “Sometimes, they need a guide.”
“Let me guess,” said Lila. “You’re a guide.”
Tanis smiled again. All lips, no teeth. “That’s me. So, what brings you to Verose?”
Lila tipped her head as if considering. “I’m on holiday.”
Tanis let out a barking laugh. “And you came here?”
“I wanted to see where the Rebel Army made their stand.”
It had been forty years since the makeshift army, led by magicians from each of the three empires, had sailed up the Blood Coast, on their way toward London, determined to overthrow Arnes.
It was a gamble. A baited hook.
Tanis tipped her head. “Not a fan of the crown?”
The bait, taken. The line drew taut. Lila let her face slide from bland amusement into anger. She looked down at the blade on the table, deciding on her next words.
“Priests talk about balance. They say magic follows the laws of nature. But nature changes. So why doesn’t power?” She looked up when she said this last bit, met Tanis’s gaze. Fire bloomed in Lila’s hand, and she turned it, pressing her palm down against the table, burning the handprint into the wood. “Verose strikes me as the kind of place where sparks grow into flames.”
Lila did not say the word menas—hand—she didn’t have to. A look of recognition had already crossed Tanis’s face. Her eyes darkened, but her smile never fell. And then she leaned forward, and pressed her own hand over the mark.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” she said, drawing her palm in a smoothing gesture over the table, erasing the burn from the wood. “If you’re looking for a helping hand,” she said, “Verose really isn’t the place.” She stood. “But if you find yourself in London, I hear the gardens are lovely.” Her gaze flicked once more to the blade on the table. “And I’d put that away, if I were you,” she added. “I’d hate for you to lose it.” Tanis tipped her head toward the barkeep.
“Oli,” she called out, “get the captain a real drink.”
And then she was gone.
A pint of ale arrived, and this time the contents were not entirely sludge, though a far cry from amber. Still, Lila drank, and sank back in her seat, turning over the woman’s words. Lost in her thoughts, the ale fizzing through her head, Lila took a moment to realize the air in the tavern had changed.
As if Tanis had shined a light on her and left it there.
She was suddenly glad she’d worn the brown eye instead of the black. The last thing she needed was word of an Antari here. Knowing Verose, someone would try to cut the eye from her head—lot of good it would do them—or take her as a prize to ransom, sell her to the highest bidder, and if that happened, she’d have to make a scene, and Kell would never let her hear the end of it.
But Tanis was right about one thing: she should have put the knife away. She’d left it on the table, that pearl sheath shining strangely, and at some point, the Tide’s patrons had begun to notice.
At some point, she’d gone from being the thief to being the mark.
Lila felt studied as she drained her drink. As she dug in her pocket for a coin. As she turned up the collar of her coat. As her fingers closed around the Veskan dagger and she rose from her seat. So she wasn’t surprised when she looked up and found a man standing on the table’s other side. He was tall, and thin as a pole, his eyes dark knots in the hollow of his face. His eyes slouched toward the blade.
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t want to cut yourself.”
“Fuck off,” she said, which, it turned out, was not a welcome answer. She was about to round the table when he shoved it forward, into Lila’s stomach, pinning her back against the wall.
“Give it up,” he said, hands splayed on the wood as he leaned forward.
“Fine,” Lila growled. She drew the blade from its sheath.
And drove it down into his hand.
The man gaped at her, his face a mask of rage and pain, but before he could pull back, or howl, or draw a weapon of his own, a change rolled over him. He went rigid, mouth open, as his veins blackened, and his skin curled, and he burned, charring from the inside out in the time it took Lila to suck in a breath and blow it out.
And then he simply fell apart.
Nothing but an ashy streak on the table, the floor.
The blade stayed upright, unscathed.
And the patrons, who had carried on despite brawls and broken glass, and the sight of drawn steel, turned to see Lila standing there, her blade driven down into the table, surrounded only by a mound of dust.
Lila decided it was time to go. She retrieved the blade and dropped a coin onto the wood, sending up a tiny plume of ash as she slid the dagger back into its sheath and walked away. No one followed. She stepped out into the night, which had gone cold.
The top button of her shirt had come undone at some point, and her necklace swung free. A black ring hung at the end of the leather cord, its face printed with a ship. She closed her hand over the band and tucked it back beneath her shirt as she set off toward the docks.
She made it exactly ten feet before she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Fair warning,” she said, “I’m not in a sparing mood tonight.”
“I can see that,” said a voice, smooth and deep. She turned and saw a dark-skinned man, dressed head to toe in white, and her first thought was how strange it was, that choice of white, so out of place among sailors. She’d thought as much the first time she’d seen the outfit, on Maris’s ship.