Chapter 5
Waiting was always the worst part.
Isyllt sat in Vasilios’s kitchen, sipping bitter green tea and resisting the urge to pace while stripes of sunlight moved slowly across the blue and orange tiles. She and Adam had left the inn this morning and settled into the mage’s home. For all her flippancy about spending money, she still needed to fill out expense reports when she returned, and the Crown’s accountants didn’t believe in luxurious or glamorous spying.
Nothing to do now but wait for Zhirin to arrange a meeting, or for Xinai to uncover something else of use, some other faction in case Jabbor’s people couldn’t help them. Isyllt didn’t remember the mercenary being so tense on the ship, spine stiff and brow creased. It hadn’t, she guessed, been a happy homecoming.
Her parents had fled civil war in Vallorn when she was seven, but she had only vague memories of her parents’ worry, her mother’s tears in the night and their hasty descent from the mountains. Memories of their home were vaguer still. And after her parents died in the plague sixteen years ago, she’d moved from one shelter to another until Kiril found her. Until Kiril and the Arcanost, home was any tenement she could afford or anywhere she could hide, anything better than an alley. Nothing worth fighting for, or dying for.
She tried to picture it, foreign soldiers in the streets of Erisin, the house of Alexios cast out of the palace. Even though she’d spied and schemed and killed for Selafai-for Kiril-she couldn’t imagine how Xinai felt, how the ghost of Deilin Xian felt.
She drew a breath sweet with spices and flowers in the garden. Across the kitchen, the housekeeper kneaded bread dough, gnarled brown hands slapping and shaping with practiced ease. Flour dusted her apron, smudged the scarf that held back her iron-gray braids. She was the only servant Isyllt had seen; the peace in the house was nearly soporific.
But still her nerves sang, like a child first sent to bazaar alone. Ridiculous.
Or not, perhaps. Her other assignments had been paltry things compared to this-an ear in the shadows, a knife in the dark. Nothing so grand as revolution.
Footsteps distracted her, light and uneven. She glanced up as Vasilios came in, his limp not quite hidden beneath his robes.
“I always did hate the waiting most of all,” he said with a wry smile, pulling out a chair. “Kiril was the patient one. I always wanted to be
Isyllt smiled; Kiril had told her a few of those stories. “When did you leave the service?”
“After the old king died. I married, and my wife wanted me to keep my skin intact. I still took an occasional job. It gets in your blood after a time.”
She nodded.
His eyes narrowed. “My wife died ten years ago and I hadn’t the heart to stay in Selafai. Memories are worse than ghosts. I told myself I’d retired, but when I learned of the rebellion here…”
Isyllt lifted a hand, palm up, baring the blue veins in her wrist. “In your blood.”
More footsteps approached and Zhirin paused diffidently in the doorway. “Am I disturbing?” The cook slid a pan of dough over glowing coals before retreating to give them privacy. Zhirin waited till the slap of her sandals faded, then moved closer.
“I’ve sent word to Jabbor. We’re to meet tomorrow, near the Kurun Tam. I’m sorry it can’t be sooner-”
“I understand,” Isyllt said, lips quirking. “Some things shouldn’t be rushed.”
The girl shifted her weight, slippers rasping on tile. “I’m going into the city today, meliket, to look for a costume for the festival. I thought perhaps you’d like to come.”
“Yes.”
Market Street was wider than most in Symir, more of a plaza, and packed nearly wall to wall with people. Assari and Sivahri voices tangled together as vendors haggled and hawked their wares. Silks and spices, brass and silver and steel, screeching birds and lazing lizards-Isyllt saw barely half the offered merchandise as she kept up with Zhirin, trying to find the rhythm of the crowd. Her height gave her an advantage but made her conspicuous as well. At least Adam had gone elsewhere to look around; an armed shadow would have drawn even more attention in a place like this.
She struggled not to flinch away from the careless brush of shoulders and arms. Erisin had its share of crowded places, but even the worst recognized the need for personal space. This was a thief’s playground. Or an assassin’s.
Zhirin led them out of the press eventually, into a narrow second-story shop. The crowds opened enough to move without touching anyone and Isyllt drew a grateful breath. Bolts of cloth piled on tables and shimmering swaths draped the walls.
“What sort of costumes do you wear to the Dance?” Isyllt asked, taking in the riot of colors and textures.
“Traditionally, people dress as spirits, to honor those that bring the rain. We give the masks to the river afterward. Though it’s not as traditional as it once was.”
“Selafai celebrates the winter solstice with a masque. It’s meant to keep the hungry ghosts from finding you when they crawl through the mirrors that night.” She smiled as Zhirin’s eyes widened.
“Do you have so many ghosts in the north?”
“In Erisin, at least. The city is built on bones. I don’t know your spirits-what do you think I should wear?”
Zhirin glanced around, turned toward a bolt of rough white silk. Rainbow luster danced along the edges as she lifted a fold. “You would make a good
“What are they?”
“Spirits of moonlight and fog. They take the shape of foxes or women in white and lead men into the forests at night.”
Isyllt cocked an eyebrow. “And eat them?”
“Sometimes. They’re not very kind.”
Isyllt stroked the silk; it ran cool and slick as water between her fingers. “What does that say of your opinion of me?” The girl flushed and Isyllt chuckled. “I’m only joking-”
She broke off as someone bumped into her. Immediately a steadying hand closed on her elbow.
“Excuse me.”
She turned to face an Assari man, his hazel eyes crinkling in consternation. Automatically, her hand twitched toward her purse; his lips quirked as he caught the motion.
She gave him a crooked apologetic smile. “No harm-”
Thunder crashed outside the shop, rattling the floor. A scream followed, then another, till Isyllt’s ears rang with panicked cries. Someone jostled Zhirin on their way to the window and the girl fell into Isyllt. The Assari man caught her shoulder, holding them both steady. Another crash followed and dust and plaster drifted from the ceiling.
Isyllt twisted, pushing Zhirin into the man’s arms as she moved toward the window. With a whispered word she chilled the air around her, until the spectators retreated from winter’s bite and gave her room. She pushed aside the mesh curtain and leaned out.
Smoke billowed from a building across the street and flames licked its doorway. The cacophony of the crowd nearly deafened her as shoppers fled, tripping over one another in their haste. Already people in the room were rushing for the stairs, shoving down the narrow hall.
“Is there another way out?” she asked the shopkeeper. Wide-eyed, he pointed toward a curtained doorway in the back wall. Isyllt ducked through it, heard footsteps following her as she darted past a storeroom and through the back door. It opened onto a narrow stair above a canal; the steps creaked and the railing left splinters in her palm as she rushed down.
She ducked down a narrow alley and emerged into the street across from the burning shop. People lay crumpled on the ground, knocked down by the blast or by their neighbors. The wounded were mostly Assari, but not
