“Aye, and last I checked, I’m a barmaid, not a surgeon.”
“I’ve seen you truss a roast.”
“Ned Tuttle, if you don’t know the difference between a side of beef and a young woman, it’s no wonder you’re still single.”
The slosh of hands in water, the twisting of a rag, and then—the soft, bony click of a dead owl’s beak. Vares. Tes dragged her eyes open. She turned her head toward the man’s voice. He was thin, and younger than she would have guessed, with a narrow nose and floppy brown hair. He leaned back against the counter, and there, laid out on display, were her coat, a short stack of red lin, and her owl. In his hands was the repaired doormaker.
Tes lunged up—or meant to. She made it halfway onto one elbow when a white-hot pain shot through her side and she half tumbled, half fell back with a gasp, knocking her head against the table as she did.
“Oh great,” said the woman, “she’s awake.”
The man swept forward, leaving the doormaker behind as he gently pressed Tes’s shoulder back against the wood.
“Lie still,” he said. “We’re trying to help.” And then, to her surprise he held up a single red lin, between his face and hers, and whispered, “You’re safe here.”
And before she could wonder who he was, and how he knew about her world, he pressed a cloth over her nose and mouth. It smelled sweet, and cloying. But the pain began to dim, and the edges of the world went soft. Tes looked up into the man’s face, and then past it, at the faint tendril of magic coiling through the air around him. Her fingers twitched, and she reached out, as if to catch it—but then her hand fell, and the room faded, and everything went black.
Part Eight
THE GIRL, THE BIRD, AND THE GOOD LUCK SHIP
I
HANAS
NINE YEARS AGO
Tesali Ranek had a wind-blown heart.
That’s what her mother always said. That her youngest daughter had been born with a breeze inside her. It was why she couldn’t sit still, why she was always escaping out of open doors, why she was always in motion, churning through the halls of the house, playing in the shop below until her father couldn’t stand her restless limbs, how near they got to the precious things on his fragile shelves, and he inevitably swept her from the shop, and set her free until dark.
That day, six-year-old Tesali had blown even farther from home, climbed up the cliff path, which was not a path so much as a ribbon of grass worn bare, a slippery road of shifting rock.
But it was worth it, for the view.
A breeze was picking up, carrying the scent of a storm, but when she scanned the bay, she saw the clouds sitting like distant ships. Plenty of time, she thought, clambering up the last jagged slope.
Hanas was a sea city, built along a series of rocky outcrops, big as giant’s stairs, that led up from the coast. The port sat in the bowl of the bay below, and the cliffs rose above, peaks trimmed with mossy soil. No one built along those cliffs—they said the rock was too fickle, too loose, prone to flaking off like pastry crust—but if that was true, she didn’t see why they’d gone and put all the buildings right below. The cliffs would stay put, they insisted, as long as they were left alone. But little girls were lighter than houses, so Tesali climbed, careful to avoid any stones that looked even a little loose, and when she reached the top, she stood, hands on her hips, and beamed in triumph, as if she’d conquered the city as well as the cliff, as if everything below belonged to her.
“I am the queen of Hanas!” she shouted, but the wind stole the words, plucked them away like a ribbon from her hair, and she flopped down, breathless, in the weedy grass, and watched the ships come and go, their sails reduced to tiny white pennants.
Tesali settled back, and stared up at the vast and open day until the air just above her eyes began to shimmer, and move, like fingers rustling a curtain. It was happening again. She squinted, trying to refocus her vision, but the shimmer only sharpened, drawing lines until it looked less like a sky and more like a tapestry. She waited for it to disappear, and when it didn’t, she squeezed her eyes shut, letting the wind pick up in her ears, in her bones, in her heart, and carry her away.
* * *
Drip.
A drop of water landed right between her eyes.
Tesali blinked.
She didn’t remember dozing, but the day smelled different now, and when she sat up, she saw that the storm had swept in, no longer a shadow on the horizon but a roiling darkness overhead, threatening to—
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Like a pipe about to burst, and sure enough, seconds later, the drizzle became a downpour, and she was up, half running, half sliding down the slope, as dirt turned to mud and the pebbles skittered beneath her shoes and the rain crashed down, her vision blurring in the storm until it didn’t look like drops at all but a thousand tiny filaments of light. She shook her head, tried to make her eyes work right as she raced home.
By the time the path became a street again, and the ground turned from packed dirt back to cobblestone, she was soaked through, her curls slicked against her face and neck, her dress clinging to her legs. Tesali passed a shop window, caught her reflection in the glass. She looked wild, and wind-made, and mad, and the sight made her smile.
She ran on, slowing only when she saw the sign.
That sign, stamped in metal instead of wood, so it shone, even now in the middle of the storm. ON IR ALES, it announced in glinting gold. One of a Kind.
Their housemaid, Esna, was standing on the steps, her face blooming red with anger, and she caught Tesali’s arm and hauled her past the entrance to her father’s shop and through the second door, the one that led up into the house above.
“Of all the foolish things…” she muttered, and Tesali knew from experience that it was better to just let the woman fume like a kettle until she ran out of steam.
She was forced to strip right there, at the top of the stairs, leaving her soiled clothes beyond the entry to the house, and then Esna carried her through, past glass cases and dark wood cabinets and closed doors.
“Four daughters,” ranted Esna, “and each with less sense.”
And with that, she dumped her unceremoniously into the bath.
* * *
Her fork scraped softly against the dinner plate.
Tesali fought the urge to fidget. Esna had put her in a stiff dress, which felt like a punishment, and her curls had been wrestled back into a plait, the braid so tight she was getting a headache. She’d caught her reflection in the hall glass. She looked like a doll.
“Like your mother,” Esna sometimes said. Which was supposed to be a compliment, she knew. Her mother was pretty, in a fine-boned way. Refined. The picture of an ostra, a noblewoman of Arnes.
Her father, on the other hand, had a face like a crow. A pointed nose and small, sharp eyes, and a head that swiveled, neckless, on his shoulders. When her sisters were still at home, Mirin would do an uncanny impression, and Rosana would dissolve into laughter, and only Serival, who resembled him the most, would scowl and say it wasn’t funny.
Tesali missed her older sisters.
She hadn’t always gotten along with them, but the house felt hollow without them in it. Funny, how a place could feel empty when it was so full of things. Her father’s collection grew up out of the shop below, climbed like weeds into every corner of their house, which wouldn’t be so bad, except she wasn’t allowed to touch any of it.
Not because the things he owned were fragile—half were already broken in some way—but because they were valuable. And according to her father, valuable things had to be protected, kept behind glass, so their worth could grow.
Not that any of it was forbidden.
Everyone knew Forten Ranek didn’t deal in forbidden magic. He was too proud. He had no interest in the dangerous and the obscene.