“The blackest on land,” said Alucard cheerfully.
“And what, pray tell, are we doing here?”
“Every good privateering ship,” he’d explained, “comes into possession of two kinds of things; the ones it can turn over to the crown, and the ones it cannot. Certain artifacts have no business being in the kingdom, for whatever reason, but they fetch a pretty sum in a place like this.”
Lila gasped in mock disapproval. “That hardly sounds legal.”
Alucard flashed the kind of smile that could probably charm snakes. “We act on the crown’s behalf, even when it does not know it.”
“And even when we profit?” Lila challenged wryly.
Alucard’s expression shifted to one of mock offense. “These services we render to keep the crown clean and the kingdom safe go unknown, and thus uncompensated. Now and then we must compensate ourselves.”
“I see….”
“It’s dangerous work, Bard,” he’d said, touching a ringed hand to his chest, “for our bodies and our souls.”
Now, as the two stood together on the dock, he flashed her that coy smile again, and she felt herself starting to smile, too, right before they were interrupted by a crash. It sounded like a bag of rocks being dumped out on the docks, but really it was just the rest of the Night Spire disembarking. No wonder they all thought of Lila as a wraith. Sailors made an ungodly amount of noise. Alucard’s hand fell from Lila’s shoulder as he turned to face his men.
“You know the rules,” he bellowed. “You’re free to do as you please, but don’t do anything dishonorable. You are, after all, men of Arnes, here in the service of your crown.”
A low chuckle went through the group.
“We’ll meet at the Inroads at dusk, and I’ve business to discuss, so don’t get too deep in your cups before then.”
Lila still only caught six words out of ten—Arnesian was a fluid tongue, the words running together in a serpentine way—but she was able to piece together the rest.
A skeleton crew stayed aboard the Spire and the rest were dismissed. Most of the men went one way, toward the shops and taverns nearest the docks, but Alucard went another, setting off alone toward the mouth of a narrow street, and quickly vanishing into the mist.
There was an unspoken rule that where Alucard went, Lila followed. Whether he invited her or not made little difference. She had become his shadow. “Do your eyes ever close?” he’d asked her back in Elon, seeing how intently she scanned the streets.
“I’ve found that watching is the quickest way to learn, and the safest way to stay alive.”
Alucard had shaken his head, exasperated. “The accent of a royal and the sensibilities of a thief.”
But Lila had only smiled. She’d said something very similar once, to Kell. Before she knew he was a royal. And a thief, for that matter.
Now, the crew dispersing, she trailed the captain as he made his winding way into Sasenroche. And as she did, Sasenroche began to change. What seemed from the sea to be a shallow town set against the rocky cliffs turned out to be much deeper, streets spooling away into the outcropping. The town had burrowed into the cliffs; the rock—a dark marble, veined with white—arched and wound and rose and fell everywhere, swallowing up buildings and forming others, revealing alleys and stairways only when you got near. Between the town’s coiled form and the shifting sea mists, it was hard to keep track of the captain. Lila misplaced him several times, but then she’d spot the tail of his coat or catch the clipped sound of his boot, and she’d find him again. She passed a handful of people, but their hoods were up against the cold, their faces lost in shadow.
And then she turned a corner, and the fog-strewn dusk gave way to something else entirely. Something that glittered and shone and smelled like magic.
The Black Market of Sasenroche.
IV
The market rose up around Lila, sudden and massive, as if she’d stepped inside the cliffs themselves and found them hollow. There were dozens upon dozens of stalls, all of them nested under the arched ceiling of rock, the surface of which seemed strangely … alive. She couldn’t tell if the veins in the stone were actually glowing with light, or only reflecting the lanterns that hung from every shop, but either way, the effect was striking.