“Jackpot,” Echo whispered.
Inside the alcove were the treasures Perrin didn’t want found, some more obviously valuable than others. A triptych frame housed three tintypes of Avicen whom Echo had never seen before; the Avicen in the pictures were all short, like Perrin, and one of the younger ones had his deep-set eyes. Family, most likely. If the photos had been tucked away in this secret alcove, they had probably meant a great deal to Perrin. He would never be coming back for them, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to leave them there, forgotten. Echo slung her backpack off her shoulders and unzipped it. She carefully folded up the triptych and wrapped it in a scarf she found wadded up at the bottom of her backpack. Perhaps the Ala would know if Perrin had any surviving relatives who would appreciate the pictures. If not, then Echo would keep them, and even if she did not know the names of the Avicen in them, she would remember their faces. For Perrin.
On the alcove’s uppermost shelf, she found what she was looking for: a silver bowl, decorated with ornate etchings scrolling around its exterior. It was a scrying bowl. The same one Perrin must have used to track the bracelet he had given her. Inside the bowl’s basin was a ball made up of multicolored rubber bands. Echo put it aside, extremely doubtful that it was related to the bowl and its use. Perrin’s hoarding habits had always skirted toward the peculiar.
The bowl was heavy in her hands, far heavier than it looked. It must have been made out of solid silver, and not merely plated in it. The designs carved into the sides depicted roses tangled up with vines, and long, willowy branches of blossoming mugwort, with its distinctive thin, sharp leaves. Both flowers were common in divination rituals, and Echo suspected that carving them into the silver had amplified the magic of the bowl. She held it in both hands and breathed deeply. The Ala had been trying to teach her meditation techniques, but so far, Echo had proven to be an atrocious pupil. It was so rare for the wheels in her mind to stop spinning long enough for her to find that calm place the Ala insisted was there. Echo tried it now, pulling in slow, languid breaths, focusing on nothing but the silver bowl. The weight of it. How it felt in her hands.
Her eyes closed. In the silence, she listened for the sound of the blood rushing through her veins, the beating of her heart, the flow of air in her lungs. And then she found it. That calm place. Once she was there, she knew exactly what the Ala had meant during those interminable lectures. She was hyperaware of the nerve endings in her skin. All her senses were heightened. She heard a mouse scuttle across the floor in the main room of the shop, the faint murmur of voices out in the Agora as the warlocks went about their business. The silver bowl was cool against her palms, and the more Echo focused her attention on it, the more she noticed about it. There was magic in it, worked into the metal itself, perhaps by whoever had done the carvings.
No ordinary bowl would hum with that kind of energy.
Echo opened her eyes. The sensation of magic left her in a dizzying wave, like air rushing from her lungs after a punch to the gut. The Ala had mentioned something about disengaging from a meditative state, but Echo hadn’t really been listening. Now she wished she had. She took a moment to steady herself. Her skin felt like it was stretched a little too tight over her skeleton, and the sounds that she had noticed had retreated back into silence, too slight or far away for her to hear them. She made a vow to herself to actually listen when the Ala was imparting wisdom the next time they sat down for a chat. There was so much for Echo to learn, so much that she did not understand. Arming herself with knowledge had always been her way of making herself not feel quite so helpless. Even when she had been a tiny runaway, living off stolen scraps, she’d had the books in her library to ground her. Listening wasn’t as easy as reading, at least not for Echo, but she made a silent promise to do better in the future. The Ala needed Echo at her best. All of her friends—her family—did.
Caius did.
And that was what she would give them.
Echo put the bowl in her backpack and zipped it up. She gave the room a final, cursory glance. Maybe the Ala could send someone down here—if there was anyone to spare—to gather Perrin’s things. Or maybe even take over the shop. The world would return to normal. Echo would make sure of that. Or die trying. Either way.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and exited Perrin’s Enchanting Essentials, possibly for the last time.
Rowan quirked a questioning eyebrow at her as she joined him. “Did you find it?”
She nodded. “Right where I thought it would be.”
“Good,” said Rowan. “Let’s get out of here before those warlocks find the courage to try to catch themselves a firebird.”
“You know, I think I liked it better when no one paid me the slightest bit of attention.” But those days, Echo mused, were long gone. She was someone now, whether she liked it or not.
Armed with the newfound scrying bowl, Echo made her way out of the Agora, ignoring the curious stares of the warlocks and Rowan’s answering glares. She felt lighter as she left, soothed by the fact that she was being productive, that she had purpose. With a skip in her step, she exited the market’s secret entrance, in the hot dog restaurant on St. Marks Place, and breathed in some not-so-fresh city air.
Onward and upward, Echo thought. There was work to be done. She had a locator spell to learn and a lost prince to find.
CHAPTER TWO
“We need more power.”
Disembodied voices broke through Caius’s half-conscious haze. For hours, he had drifted in and out of wakefulness, only vaguely aware of the hands that propped him up and moved him from place to place as if he were nothing more than an inconvenient sack of potatoes. He was not blindfolded, but he might as well have been. His eyes stubbornly refused to open to let him survey his surroundings; they were still bruised and swollen from the two punches that had knocked him out. The force of a gauntleted fist crashing into his head had been more than enough to put him to sleep for an indeterminate amount of time. Hours, maybe. Gods, perhaps even days.
A different voice responded to the first. This one he recognized, and the familiarity of it made Caius’s stomach turn.
“Bring him to me.”
Hands seized him once more and hefted him upright so that he was almost standing, even though his legs did not seem inclined to support him. He sagged between his captors, and a small part of him wished that they would let him fall, that they would allow him to slip into the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness. An armored fist to the face seemed preferable to facing the person who had just spoken.